Sermon 6/10/07
Second Comings - 1 Kings 17:8-24, Galatians 1:11-24, Luke 7:11-17
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Many of you know that I usually listen to books on CD while I’m driving. I just finished listening to a book by Fannie Flagg called Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven. The story centers around a woman in her nineties in the small-town Midwest named Elner Shimfissle. I don’t want to ruin any surprises for you, so if you haven’t read the book and you plan to you have my permission to plug your years for the next few seconds (but just for the next few seconds!) At the start of the book, Elner falls off of a ladder after happening on a wasp nest while trying to pick figs off a tree in her yard, and she’s pronounced dead at the hospital. Word of her death spreads extremely quickly, and people begin reflecting on how Elner has touched their lives. They think about things that they might have wanted to do or might be inspired to do in her memory. Because of her death, many are shaken to the core, and they resolve to make significant changes in their lives, to honor what Elner would have wanted. But then something very unusual happens. Elner wakes up, hours after she’s pronounced dead. We never find out exactly how this mix-up has happened, but we know that apparently Elner has more living to do. She wakes up, full of life, even in somewhat better shape than she was in before.
Of course, people are shocked by the news. Who ever expects to get news that good, right? But actually, people don’t seem to be immediately overjoyed. In fact, they’re a bit terrified and immobilized by the event. The hospital is worried that it will be sued for wrongful death. A truck-driver friend of Elner’s is so started by the news that he drives off the road into a ditch. A niece faints. A radio station that has broadcast the news has to retract it, and so many people immediately ordered flowers for the funeral that the florist just has them sent to the woman’s hospital room. All in one day folks in the small town go from not knowing how to go on without Elner to not knowing how to go on now that Elner is alive after all. All the things that went through their minds when they heard of Elner’s death now have to be reevaluated in light of her life. The changes they promised, the regrets they had, the new things they promised God and themselves they were going to try out – will they do them now that Elner is alive after all?
I was thinking about this book as I read the gospel lesson for this Sunday. This Sunday we read a text that probably most of us don’t even remember. If we were asked about stories in the Bible of someone being raised from the dead, we’d probably – hopefully – first say Jesus, then Lazarus, raised by Jesus, and then maybe we’d remember the young girl, Jairus’ daughter, being raised from the dead. But we probably don’t remember this short scene from Luke – at least I didn’t. The scene takes place after Jesus has been doing some teaching and healing, and just before Jesus is met by disciples of John the Baptist who have questions for him. Jesus is on his way to a town called Nain – why, we don’t know – but as usual his disciples and a large crowd are with him. When he gets to the gets of the town, a man who had died is being carried, and with the dead man comes his mother, a widow – the man was her only child. A widowed woman without a male child was very unprotected and at risk in Jesus’ day, susceptible to extreme poverty at the very least. When Jesus sees her, he has compassion on her, a word that means his stomach literally turns over with feelings of empathy for her. He touches the bier that is carrying the man, an action that would make him ritually unclean, and says, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The man immediately stands up and begins to speak, and Jesus ‘gives him’ to his mother. And the people, the crowds, respond – not with rejoicing, but with fear. They praise God, but they are seized with fear. They declare that Jesus is a prophet raised up among them, and word about Jesus spreads throughout the region.
What happens next for this family? What happens in the life of the mother – this widow? What does the young man, her only child, do with this second chance at life? What happens to the people who witnessed this event? We don’t know, but I wonder. I wonder how you live when you have a second chance at life. How do you live when you had such an experience, or witness something like this, when you’ve encountered God, and you know that you’ve encountered God?
One of the scripture lessons in the lectionary today that I had decided not to use was from Galatians – a brief passage from Paul where Paul describes how much his life has changed. He reminds his readers that he had been violently persecuting the church of God, trying to destroy it, because of his strong faith, but after meeting Christ on the road to Damascus his life took a completely new direction, and he was working on proclaiming the faith of the movement he once sought to stamp out. I was struck in this passage by Paul’s complete transformation because of his encounter with God, his encounter with Jesus. And in our gospel lesson we have someone who is literally brought back to life because of an encounter with Jesus. And I wonder – has my life been so completely transformed because of my encounters with God? Or am I simply afraid to do anything differently than I’ve been doing all along. Am I afraid to be transformed? Am I afraid to claim new life? Some of us may not feel we’ve really encountered God before, but I don’t count myself in that category. I’ve encountered God. How has it changed me?
The scriptures are full of stories of people who have completely changed lives. We don’t read many stories of people who meet God and then change just a little, just change a behavior here, add a good deed there, or eliminate a bad habit there. That’s not how the people of the Bible react when they encounter the living God. It would seem silly, wouldn’t it, to encounter God, but to not have that encounter change you deeply? Permanently? Thoroughly? And yet, somehow, it seems that so many of us are living as though we’ve never been touched by God, as though we’ve seen no evidence in our lives of God’s presence, or as if we’ve never experienced God’s love. There’s no sign of transformation in us or in how we live or what we do or what we’re about. Are we afraid, like the crowds, of rising from the dead, rising out of the ashes of our own lives? Are we afraid to have a second coming, a new life?
I’ll confess to you that I don’t know what these stories mean if you want to get down to the details – in 1 Kings when we read of Elijah raising the nearly dead son whose home he is visiting, and when we read of Jesus raising this man back to life, I certainly don’t know what exactly really went on, how such things can be. But I do know that in Christ we are offered a promise of new life that can be practically as significant to us, as meaningful to us, as being raised from the dead. I know that Jesus tried to explain that we can – we must – be born again. I know that when we celebrate baptisms and confirmations and reaffirmations of faith that we are saying as a congregation that we believe in second births, second chances, blessed by God, because of our experience of God’s love in our lives. What will we do about it?
In the last month, since I’ve received this new appointment, and as I’ve thought about our time together, four years at St. Paul’s, I’ve found myself thinking things like, “I wish I had tried to do this while I was there,” or “I wish I was brave enough to have said that.” I think about plans that I tossed around in my head that just never got off jotted ‘to do’ lists or elaborate plans for ministry that would occasionally excite my mind – only to be forgotten in light of the day to day tasks of ministry. “I wish I would have . . .” But I’m trying to quiet those voices in my head, and instead listen to the voice of God, the voice that tells me that I can, I have been, and I will be transformed by my time here with you. New life is possible here with you and with me because of the ways that we have encountered God together. And that new life doesn’t elude us just because of the new paths we’re taking.
In the book I listened to, about Elner Shimfissle, most of the folks eventually got over their fear and anxiety and shock and trauma on finding out that Elner wasn’t dead after all. And most of them chose to be transformed anyway, even though they would still have her around, and to be transformed because they still had her around. Elner had a second coming of sorts, a second chance at living, and through her, so did the rest of the town.
Our gospel story is similar. At the close of the gospel lesson, we should take note of what crowds say, or better, what they don’t say. They don’t say, “God has looked favorably on this widow.” Instead, they say, God has looked favorably on [God’s] people.” (1) They understand that the blessing for this woman is a blessing for them too, and that the new life the young man receives is new life that they can share in too. Today, and everyday, God is offering us the gift of new life. Don’t get stuck in the shock or fear of such an offer. Accept the gift, and let yourself be changed because of your encounter with God. Because God is looking favorably upon us, God’s people. Amen.
(1) Rev. Frank Schaefer, http://desperatepreacher.com/c2pnt.htm