Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 10, 2007
1 Kings 17:17-24
Psalm 30
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
Isn’t it great to be alive. Even with all the aches and pains, stresses and disappointments in life, isn’t it just great to be alive. Especially when you think of what the alternative is. Not that Christians necessarily fear death or doubt what awaits them after they die. It’s just that life is so wonderful. Life is such a gift, and we are meant to live it as long as we have it.
That is why stories we hear about people being brought back from the dead are so awesome. And they are not uncommon events, even in modern times. Increasingly, you can read articles in newspapers and stories in magazines or you can watch TV specials about people being brought back from the dead. Modern technologies are often credited with the feat, but people in both the religious and secular world will confirm other ways that can happen. People believe that prayer and other forms of spiritual and psychic healing can make it happen. And medical science believes that the body has a natural mechanism for shutting down, as if it were dead, to protect itself from imminent danger is.
What is really interesting to me, however, is how often events like coming back from the dead are described as miracles. Even when they can be explained; if, in fact, they can be explained by any rational means. It makes me think that the same miracles found in the Bible are at least as credible as any we have today. And there is one thing that all such miracle stories have in common; human intervention serves a divine purpose. It is clear, at least for Christians, that this is the way God works. God works his miracles through people like Jesus and Elijah; he works through doctors and healers; and he also works his miracles through people like you and me.
Jesus and Elijah intervene in the case of two widows in our scripture lessons today to bring their sons back from the dead. Both Elijah and Jesus respond to situations which are devastating for these widows who implore their help. The death of their sons means a kind of death for them as well. In ancient times a woman was nobody without a man. Her life was defined and given meaning by the men in her life. Having a husband and a son gave a woman status and authority over her house. She was guaranteed the care and protection of her husband, and the son who inherited his father’s money and property was duty bound to care for his mother the rest of her life. So you can just imagine the suffering and pain of a widow who has just lost her only son. She knows she will become disenfranchised. She will lose her status in the community and she will own nothing. She will also become marginalized by her community. Her friends and family will abandon her. The only care and protection she is likely to receive is by someone who will give her a sympathetic handout. Essentially, a widow will go begging for the rest of her life.
The outlook for a widow who loses her only son in death is grim. Is it any wonder that prophets like Elijah cried out about abuse and neglect against widows? Is it any wonder Jesus cared so deeply for the plight of widows? Are we surprised that the care of widows is a primary mission and ministry of the early Church. We should not wonder why both Elijah and Jesus would take compassion on these women. We should not be surprised that Jesus and Elijah would want to restore their lives by restoring their sons to life. In fact, one could claim that these stories are more about restoring people to life than it is about bring them back from the dead.
From ancient times, miracles were not important in and of themselves. Miracles were not important merely for the fact that they happened; they were important for what the could do. For the ancients, miracles were signs which led them to larger truths. Miracles only had credibility for the ways they could change someone and change the world around them. Miracles still have the same purpose. Someone who is brought back from the dead is given new life. And new life opens new possibilities for living it. For someone who has been brought back from the dead, or even brought back from the brink of death, life will never be the same. And it will not be the same for the community he belongs to. But a miracle does not necessarily guarantee such change. Especially the kind of immediate change the widows will experience with their newly restored status in their community.
Sadly, I know some people—perhaps you do, too
--who have been brought back from death or the brink of death, and given new life who just didn’t get it. I have known people dying of a liver disease brought on by alcohol or drugs who received liver transplants days or hours before they are likely to die, yet not long after they returned to a normal life they returned to the same bad habits which placed them in such critical jeopardy. I have known people who have survived diabetic shock and smokers who have had parts of their lungs and throat tissue removed who resumed the same habits which was slowly causing them to die.
It has been difficult for me to understand people who squander the life they have been given after they are bought back from the brink of death. It is difficult to observe friends and family watch in disbelief and sadness. Disbelief over lives which had so much to gain and so much to give. Sadness over having a loved one restored to them, only to watch them decline all over again in dissipation. All because the miracle of being brought back from the dead did not lead to new life. Such people were not able or willing to read the signs in their miracle and follow them. The miracle did not bring a change of head and heart. And head and heart are where new life happens.
Just ask anyone who has found new life in the miracle which has happened in them. Ask anyone who has found new purpose for living it. You will find someone who has had a complete change of mind and heart about their life and how it is meant to be lived. Such people no longer take life for granted; they begin to live it intentionally. They really see what they are looking at; they listen to the sounds they hear, they savor everything they smell and taste, and they feel everything they touch. A new joy and enthusiasm pervades their new life; so does a sense of peace which keeps them from being anxious and fearful. People who have experience a change of mind and heart by the new life they have been given experience healthy detachment from worldly distractions, and healthy engagement with things that matter. But life and health does not stop there. The good outcomes of a miracle have a good impact on others who witness the results. Like the people who gathered to watch Jesus bring the widow’s son back from the dead, new life was given to those who witnessed it.
At this point you might be wondering if all this talk of miracles has anything more to do with us. You bet it does. Scripture always leads us to more than what appears on the surface. It always seeks to move us to the application of a larger truth. As I see it, that truth and its application lies in the fact that miracles happen to us all the time. Not in the literal sense, perhaps. But in a very concrete way miracles happen in the dead and dying places of our own life. And they happen in the same way. By human intervention for the sake of divine purpose. After all, it is the purpose of our divine Creator that we live the life he has created in us and for us. God does not want us to die in any of the places of our life. We know that because he is always seeking to redeem us in our dark and dying places, often through the intervention of other people. Persons God provides to us for the purpose of bringing a dead or dying place in our life back to life. Persons God uses to help heal us and awaken our spirit to the joy of living.
If you are wondering if you have ever experienced such a miracle, all you need to do is recall some of the dead or dying places in your life. Places which made you feel lifeless and sick of heart, depressed and even suicidal, or paralyzed by anxiety or fear. Perhaps you can remember feeling as if you were just going through the motions of living, putting on a happy face and mindlessly moving through the tasks of the day. Or perhaps you didn’t even try. Like the day you felt you just couldn’t get out of bed or you couldn’t wait for the day to end so you could get back in it. You felt your days become shorter and your nights longer as you sank into sadness and despair. Spiritual leaders of the Church call this death experience “the dark night of the soul.” And like many of you, I have been there.
I don’t know about you, but it is easy for me to remember the dead and dying places of my life. They happened in the aftermath of my divorce, and in the death of people who mattered to me; they happened in my being told by a governing official of the church I attended that I was no longer welcome to worship there and in the abandonment I felt by friends and family members who turned their back to me in a time of need. I felt lesser, but no less consequential deaths in the slights and hurts I experienced in the work place, in communities which did not include me, or who marginalized me by casting me aside. This is an incomplete and very general catalogue of the dead and dying places I remember in my life. I am sure you can identify with some of them, and I am certain you can name some of your own.
Remembering them is not a bad thing, but wallowing in them, or never having moved on from them is another. Because one thing we can be sure about in the dead and dying places of our life, whether we are remembering them or living in them, God does not want us to live our life by the ways we are dying in them. And God will provide us with opportunity to find our way back from our dead and dying places to new life again. All we need to do is believe in the miracle and pay attention to the signs that point us in a new direction, and follow them. And how do we begin? We begin by inviting the miracle. By being open to its possibility.
The first sign that we are open to the possibility of a miracle is knowing that God is with us in the dead and dying places in our life. Knowing that God shares our suffering and pain and he abides with us in places where we feel lost and empty. At the same time we make ourselves ready to receive the people God will give to us to bring about the miracle. People like Elijah who come to the doors of our home and people like Jesus who come to the doors of our heart. People who will not only bring us back from the dead, but also restore us to life. People who help us move on to new life, and new ways of living it.
And just like Elijah and Jesus, we will recognize such people when they come to us. They will come in the form of new friendships and the special relationships which grow out of them. They will come in forgiveness and reconciliation with family members and friends. They will come in the form of new acquaintances at work and new partnerships in our community. They will come in the form of deep conversation and hard work with professionals who help us work through the dark and difficult issues of our life which keep us from living it. Then, much like the widows in our scriptures today, we will be restored to the dignity and fullness of our life, and to good and healthy relationship with others in community.
It is no easy task to come back, or to bring back someone from their dead and dying places so that they can be restored to life. It takes a miracle. It truly is the work of a prophet—a person, who by God’s grace and vision, sees great human need and responds to it. We should not be surprised that God calls each and every one of us to be and do the work of a prophet. He calls us to be conduits of God’s grace to others. God wants to do his redeeming work in and through us. God wants us to reclaim our life in him and, so that we can help others reclaim their own life in him.
This is how God’s glory is revealed in us and in his creation. This is how we proclaim the good news of the gospel in Jesus’ own words. Jesus tells us flat out, I came to bring you life and to make your life more abundant. This is the miracle Jesus and Elijah want for the widows. This is the miracle we seek in the dead and dying places of our life. It is a miracle that will happen whenever we believe that it can happen, and we follow the signs that will take us to that place of abundance.