June 5, 2016
Each of the different lectionary scriptures for today bring up a reversal of one thing to its opposite. Wailing to dancing, mountains to dust, persecutor to persecuted, grief to joy, death to life. Perhaps God is trying to teach us something about how He works. I think these extreme examples are used to illustrate the point clearly and obviously; there is no other reasonable explanation for what has happened but that God is at work.
Earlier in 1 Kings, chapter 17, God had told Elijah to go to Zarephath because there was no water where he was. God had commanded a widow there to give Eliljah food. When Elijah gets there he sees a widow and calls out to her to bring him water and some bread. She does not reply the way we expect from what God had said. She says, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have any bread - only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it--and die.” (1 Kings 17:12) She is gathering sticks for a fire to prepare the last meal for herself and her son, and Elijah appears and asks for some food. Elijah asks again and says that if she prepares some bread for him, too, then her flour and oil will not run out. So she goes along with all of this, and it works: her flour and oil do not run out!
And then the story takes another turn; her son gets sick and dies. She brings him to Elijah, asks him if this is his fault. Did he come just to do this to her? Elijah cries out to God to bring back the child’s life, praying over him three times. God hears Elijah’s cry and the boy’s life comes back. The mother says to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.” (1 Kings 17: 24)
God selected one of the poorest, most vulnerable people to help Elijah in his need and Elijah trusted that she is supposed to help him, that God will provide for her, and he does. But then, her son gets deathly ill. We’ll come back to this.
I’m a part of a reading group for the book, The New Community by Elizabeth O’Connor. The first chapter is titled “Jenny,” and it is the story of a young girl named Jenny who passed away at two years and nine months old because of a brain tumor. In this story God did not give the child her life back. The writing highlights the significant value of community for her parents through their grief and loss.
In our discussion group we shared about our own experiences with death. We were all surprised that this was the first chapter of the book. It seems to be an odd beginning to a book that is mostly about the inward journey, outward missions, social injustices, psychological and spiritual health, and the development of small faith communities. We concluded, though, that it is relevant to the other themes of the book because death at such a young age is a kind of injustice, a life not fully lived, seemingly taken without reason. This is the same thing that the mother in 1 Kings feels, “She said to Elijah, ‘What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?’” (1 Kings 17:18) Elijah empathizes with the mother, feels that this is wrong, and petitions to God to save her son. The son does come back to life, and that is what makes the woman believe.
In Psalm 30 there is a similar plea, “What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me; O Lord, be my help.” (Psalm 30: 8-10) The psalmist is asking, what use is my death?
The Luke passage presents a very similar story. Jesus comes into a town and finds a funeral procession. He sees the pain and sadness of the mother whose son has just died and has compassion. “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.’” (Luke 7:13) The Message translation says that “his heart broke.” And then Jesus gives life back to the son and presents him to his mother, who is also a widow. Earlier this week I was talking about these passages with Michael Schaff. He told me I could share his thoughts with you all. When asked what he thought these stories meant he responded, “It means it was not their time. And so he raised them.” God sees or hears the injustice and does something about it. I also asked my friend Eileen how she felt about the stories of the widows and God raising their sons back to life, and she said, “At the beginning it was sad, and then it is happy.”
Oftentimes, my life does not feel this clear, this black and white. And I think it is fair to say that it isn’t. I have not been raised from the dead, and have not known anyone close to me who has been. I do not believe because I’ve seen someone physically raised from the dead. However, I think there is something here for those of us who have not experienced this resurrection first hand. In all of these stories someone saw and recognized the pain and suffering of someone else and it moved them to do something about it. I do know that my life is full of opportunities to notice pain in others or myself, and then to either enter into it and do something about it, or to turn away and ignore it.
But why do we need to enter into the pain? Because through this pain and weakness God restores life. And this is not always because God raised someone from death. Most of us probably know of, or have experienced a loss that seems unjust, or too soon. I’m thinking of a very good family friend named Suzy who passed away earlier this year from ALS. She was 65 years old and had a beautiful life, and it still felt too soon. Elizabeth O’Connor writes in “The New Community” about how Jenny’s parents were able to come through their grief together.
Her father and mother found deeper places in themselves. They learned not only to care for Jenny in new ways, but to care anew for each other. For this to happen is not as usual as one would think. Only a rare couple goes through an experience like theirs and emerges without serious and often lasting marital difficulties. What probably made the difference was that they were able to share their feelings with each other, and to be honest about those feelings, to turn from offered ways of escape and to save energy for private places in which to scream and to tell it like it was to a God who was not beyond their confrontation. Perhaps this is what enabled them to wait for each other when their timing was not the same, and often it was not. In any relationship there are times when we are not together at the important junctures, and then someone has to wait and the quality of that waiting makes all the difference in the world. (“The New Community, p. 7)
They were able to be open and honest about their feelings with each other and with a God who was not beyond their confrontation. This confrontation is a critical piece in the process towards healing and restoration. In general, I do not like confrontation, I tend to avoid it, so this concept is somewhat uncomfortable for me. However, each of these stories illustrates how essential it is. When we are put up against something disturbing, what do we do about it? It is through confrontation that God restores the kingdom, restores life, all life, especially to the most vulnerable, and those who might be seen as the least valuable. It is not supposed to be a comfortable process, but it is what we are called to engage in, together. There is so much pain and injustice in our culture and world—a polarized and dysfunctional political system, a history of racial injustice and colonialism, environmental destruction and climate change, homelessness, seemingly declining emotional and psychological well-being, the distracting and isolating effects of technology … there are many more we could add. It is important that the list not weigh too heavily on us. We are designed to work in it together, to help each other through it, while knowing that there are times when we will not be in the same place at the same time and will have to wait for one another.
God is about restoring life towards a greater unity. Jenny’s father reflected to his community on his experience of losing his daughter, “Death has always been destructive in my life. It is strange to say it, but in the death of my daughter I have not been diminished. I have experienced the resurrection. I am more alive as a person. The quality of your caring had to be rooted in the love of God.” (“The New Community”, p.9)
While her father experienced death in the tragic loss of his daughter he also experienced the resurrection, new life in himself. What is waiting to come alive in you, what can come alive in our community, and our world? Let us walk through this together.
Amen.