This Sunday’s preacher, Richard Ward, is the Fred B. Craddock Professor Emeritus of Preaching and Practical Theology at Phillips Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ward begins today’s sermon from Luke 8:26-39, “The Healing Power of Incarnate Love,” with a story of two men who believed in “devils” and “demons.” These men often visited the ministry house, Fisherfolk, where Ward, a Campus Minister, lived with a group of students. Ward says, “I’d like to think that Tom and Howard were in our orbit of concern because somehow they were experiencing Incarnate Love in that community. Or perhaps God’s Incarnate Love was shining through to us through their traumatized psyches?” Their stories reminded him of today’s passage, a complex story, “where Incarnate Love in the person of Jesus meets Trauma Incarnate” in the form of a man possessed by demons. What is the outcome? Listen as Ward uses his passion for storytelling and interpretation to explore this difficult passage.
Manuscript available: click HERE