850 years before the time of Jesus,
there lived in Israel high point
This morning’s Lesson takes place
before that deadly mountaintop confrontation between Elijah and the priests of
Baal we talked about last Sunday..
There’s a drought on the land and a
famine to boot. Yet there, on the edge of the desert a gentile widow and her
only son give God’s prophet food—literally the last of their food--. The woman does this at the command of the God
of Moses and Elijah—a God she doesn’t even worship. In return, Elijah works a
miracle. Throughout the run of the famine, her tiny jar of oil and her meager
hoard of flour are not exhausted. A
miracle! But not the one I want to talk about this morning.
After has been sheltered by the
widow and her son for quite a while, the child falls ill and dies. Angered and grieving, this good woman
confronts the so-called holy man—expressing her deep resentment. Then, as the
story goes, Elijah picks up the boy,
carries him up to the roof where the prophet stretches the boy out,
presses on the child’s body three times,
prays—boldly commanding God to "let this child's life come into him again", and “breathes
deeply into the boy” and the child is wondrously revived.
Okay it sounds like CPR to me too. But the point is, in answer to prayer, this
dead child lives again "God listened to the voice of Elijah" This is surprising because on the stories of
the Hebrew prophets were always at bottom,
about getting people to listen to God's voice. Yet, at this
pivotal moment in the narrative, the tide turns because God listened to Elijah's voice. God recognizes
the truth in Elijah's protest. In turn, God does something God has never done
before in the Hebrew Bible. God undoes death.
In this moment of
crisis, in response to the truth in Elijah's words, God mobilizes the power of
life and does something unheard of and unprecedented. God attends to this
tragic, but unfortunately everyday thing – the death of a poor child – with an
enormous act of reversal. God moves powerfully beyond all of our
human categories or expectations to offer new life. In these moments, the
Creator enacts the new creation.
This is a wondrous
miracle story, told and retold among the Jewish people even up to the time of
Jesus. There’s no doubt that Luke remembered this story—and a similar one
attributed to Elijah’s disciple, the prophet Elisha—while he was compiling and
editing his Gospel. The similarities are obvious—but the differences are
striking.
In Luke’s narrative, Jesus has
encountered a funeral procession on the outskirts of a town called “Nain”. The departed is the only son of a woman who
has been widowed. Luke tells us that
Jesus’ heart was touched by the grieving woman’s cries, and proceeded to
stopped the funeral procession—presumably by sheer force of will. Jesus had the pallbearers set down the
stretcher on which the body lay. Then Jesus “touched
the bier”, ritually contaminating himself by coming into contact with a
corpse.
Amazingly—although maybe not
surprisingly to us—this son of a widow was immediately resurrected. And the
onlookers, seeing this, were struck with awe, and remembered the Elijah story
and began to proclaim that a new prophet had arisen in Israel
Yet another miracle! But, the miracles I want to point to this
morning are much more fundamental to our faith. They underlie and are implied
by all of these stories. In point of fact, these two miracles underlie and are
implied by the entire New Testament faith—by the whole scope of our religion.
Yet they are as trustworthy, as straightforward and simple as the law of
Gravity. They are available to anyone—you need not be a prophet or a mystic or
holy person. All you have to do is hear and believe.
What am I talking about? What are these two mysterious miracles? Would
you really like to know? Thanks for
asking. The first is the miracle of God’s love and compassion for the entire
world—shown in the coming of Christ Jesus into the world. The second is the
miracle of new life Christ offers to anyone who encounters him.
Karl Barth was a German theologian
who wrote in the first half of the last century. Barth authored a complex,
multi-volume work of systematic Theology. There’s no doubt that Barth was one
of the two or three most influential Christian thinkers of our time. One day in
class a young seminarian asked the old man,
“Professor, what would you say is
the most profound statement you have ever heard?” Barth hesitated, thought for
a moment, and then in his heavily accented, slow, thoughtful, deep voice
answered,
“Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible
tells me so.”
Friends, isn’t that really what our
faith ultimately boils down to? That simple children’s song is the Christian
faith in a nutshell. If we didn’t each
believe that—what in the world are you and I doing here or on any given Sunday
morning—voluntarily?
There are only two possible, good reasons why you and
I are here this morning. Either we have somehow or other, at some time or the
other, had some sort of an authentic experience of the presence and love of God
in our hearts and lives. And so we are here out of humble gratitude, yearning
to dwell in an on–going relationship characterized by that love with Jesus
Christ.
Or, we are here seeking such an
experience—desperately yearning for Someone-- something, anything-- an idea, a
prayer, a story, a song, a sense of call, a “heart strangely warmed”, an example, an honest word of hope that will speak
to the God-shaped hole we feel in our hearts. Many Sundays we’ll gladly settle
for even the barest glimpse of a distant glow on the horizon that could be
nothing but moonshine—or just as easily a glimmer of light that just might show
us a way out of the darkness that nibbles at our minds and spirits.
Frederick Buechner writes that as much as anything
else, it is our sense of the absence of God that brings us here in search of
God’s presence.
The absence of God is not just an idea to conjure
with…The absence of God is just that which is not livable. It is the tears that
Jesus wept over Lazarus and the sweated in the garden and the cry he choked out
(on the cross) when his own tongue filled his mouth like a gag. The blackness
of the preacher’s black gown speaks of the anguish of it. The Bible he preaches out of speaks of it…
We each of us, at one time or another in our lives,
have felt that absence. We all are one of those two widows’ sons. Empty, feeling
nothing when we pray. Angered, or
shocked, or disappointed by the wicked unfairness of life on this tear-stained,
blood-soaked planet we live upon. Broken-hearted, demon-haunted, confused, lost. Dead.
O, we’re still walking around, eating, sleeping,
working—but nevertheless we’re dead. Spiritually dead, morally dead,
emotionally dead. Filled with doubts and
fears. Living without hope or a sense of possibility. Ground down and killed by
little, soul-destroying deaths—the sins, the despair, the frustration, the
apathy, the anger, and the everyday frustrations that rob life of meaning and
possibility and joy.
We know what it is to find ourselves
feeling alone, isolated, or in thrall to a destructive attitude, or an
addiction, or to be in the middle of a feud about something or other that we
can no longer remember, or caught up in violence, or in the web of an
exploitive sexual relationship, (or by the fantasy of one), or unable to
forgive, or too proud to apologize, or too proud to ask for help, or simply
wrapped up in our own petty concerns, our own desires, and our own stubborn
refusal to surrender our life’s direction to God.
There are a million and one ways in which you and I
can find ourselves caught up and wrapped up and shut up—dead. They pile up, they break the camel’s back,
they cripple and blindside us and ambush us. And suddenly we realize that we’re
simply wrapped in a shroud of self—self doubt, self pity, self centeredness--
dead to the world, dead to those we love, dead to our own deepest truest
selves, dead to a God who seems to absent when we’re in need.
We all have been, or will be someday, sons and
daughters of the widow—in one way or another.
(And all of those around us as well.) We all have seen those around us who choose to
die by inches every day seeking mental
death by burying ourselves in spirit-dulling behavior— the bottle, or
the pill bottle, the lottery ticket, or the casino, the Internet sites, the TV
set, the video game, the eating disorders, the job that becomes all
important.
We’ve all seen others seek death in spurts—manic
activity designed to deaden fundamental loneliness, or apathy, or
undifferentiated rage, or self-pity that turns into depression--like Elijah
hiding in his cave. And we’ve known
others—who feel that absence and decide that God isn’t there, or worse, doesn’t
care. And so they despair and simply, quietly, gradually cut themselves off
from family, from friends, from God, and eventually from life itself—until they
are dead.
We’re all sons and daughters of the widow at
times. And other times we find ourselves
becoming the widow ourselves—trapped in profound grief or unendurable sadness,
lonely, depressed, resentful of other people, angry at God, angry at ourselves,
angry at the world.
But there’s good news. The sons and daughters of the
widow CAN live again! We’re don’t have to feel imprisoned in a
meaningless daily existence built around confusion, pain and death. You and I do
not have to constantly live with the unlivable. We do not have to
continue to exist as if we were already Iaying in the grave.
That’s the
other miracle. New life in Christ. You and I always have another chance.
Our God knows and accepts, and cares for each us—cares enough to listen to our
cries. Our God cared enough to walk this earth as one of us—enduring everything
human we endure—everything—death, pain, being deserted, even that soul eating
feeling of Divine absence. Recall what Jesus cried out on the cross—“Why has
thou forsaken me?”
And our God cares enough to willingly overturn the
established order of all other existence and pull a resurrection out of a
hat--willingly overturning the established order of all other existence-not
just for Jesus, but for Lazarus and for you and for me and for all the sons and
daughters of the widow.
God in Jesus Christ offers us life—a new lease on life. A new kind of life—now—here. A life that we
will find joyful and challenging, satisfying and meaningful, exciting and yet
filled with peace. Abundant life. No
longer unlivable, but now life worth living, life lived in harmony with our
Creator and one another, new life in Christ Jesus. Not beginning in heaven when we die, but
beginning now-- here on this plane of existence—on this
earth--just like those resurrected sons of the widow. If we only find the courage to reach out for
it.
We are each offered a Beloved Friend
who listens and acts in response to our prayers—although it may not always be
the response we expected.. A God who is not silent but speaks—although we may
not always know how to listen. A Savior who is at work in our
lives—although we may not always be aware of it. A Spirit who will encourage us
in times of trial-- although we may not know how to recognize it. A Comforter who will weep beside us in times
of pan—sharing, dividing our grief. A Companion
who will celebrate alongside us in times of triumph—multiplying our joy.
A Redeemer who will walk beside us and guide us through all the paths we walk
throughout our days—because He has already walked that road before us—as one of
us.
Those are the two miracles.
In the light of them, every other miracle story in the Bible becomes little
more than a sermon illustration. Every other miracle story in the Bible is in
fact, no more than a signpost, pointing toward these two-- God’s love for the
world in Christ, and the New life offered to us in Him.
And they
aren’t offered to us because of anything we do. Yes, the widow at Zaraperth was
spared from the famine—as a personal reward from Elijah for feeding and
sheltering him.. But the widow at Nain didn’t do anything for Jesus. They both
got their sons back because God heard their prayers and saw their tears, and
had compassion for them in their grief.
We don’t earn or buy salvation. We can only recognize
and accept it, giving thanks with a grateful heart. And then, simply start
living it out. (Even if you’re not totally sure it’s really there.) “Live faith until you find faith” John Wesley
said. Live out the new life in Christ—and new life will come to you. It may sneak up on you. You may not be aware
of it until it’s actually there.
But once our new life begins, we’ll find that
whatever you and I do in God’s name becomes a simple and obvious outgrowth of
God’s love for us, and of the new life that Christ gives. All the good that you
and I do in this world—feeding and sheltering strangers, comforting the
grieving, supporting our congregation, witnessing to others—suddenly comes
naturally, unselfconsciously, to us.
We’ll find ourselves growing new hearts— hearts like Christ’s heart--joyful, generous,
compassionate hearts, that respond as a matter of course to the tears and needs
of others. And then we’ll find God in one another-- ministering to one another
and and discover God’s Holy Spirit at work within our hearts. And we’ll realize
to our surprise, that God was never really absent—God was always there—trying
to break through our dead hearts with the call to live., But that’s another
miracle, for another sermon, on another Sunday.
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