Pentecost 2 June 10 2007
1 Kings 17:17-24
Psalm 30
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
When we are little, the moon is made of green cheese. The world ends at the horizon. Heaven is up there and hell is somewhere down there. People are good or bad. Stories have beginnings and endings. The best endings are happily ever after.
But as we grow, it all gets a little more complex. The moon is made of lava and dust. The world goes far past the horizon. Heaven is not a physical location like the sky and hell is not at the molten hot center of the earth. People are good and bad all at the same time and in the same body. The best stories haven’t ended yet. And happily ever after only happens in fairy tales.
Learning this is sometimes painful. In order to grow we always have to give up something. Our naivety, our childhood dreams, our denial.
In order to learn something new, something old usually has to give way.
We say that we have to deconstruct in order to construct. For learning isn’t simply a matter of piling up new building blocks on top of old. Sometimes we have to dig a whole new foundation and start fresh.
And then just when we think we have it all figured out, all in place, something happens to shake it up and we start to learn anew. Like thinking we’ve discovered all the animals of the natural world. Then this past week we learned of 2 dozen new species in the Amazon. Rewrite the text books!!
Or we find that, because of our own experience with an illness or close call we death, we see others with a bit more sympathy and understanding.
It’s like that with faith. I touched on that a few weeks ago with the knitting analogy. And it’s back again in today’s Scripture lessons.
The great apostle Paul had been a persecutor of Christians. A zealous, eager on eat that. He was out for blood. Feared by his enemies. Yet God chose him and changed his heart. And soon he was preaching the good news of Jesus. But in order to do that, he had to give up a lot.
He had to give up his former way of seeing the world. He had to give up his old friends and his old habits. He had to get rid of all that hate. And only then could he venture into new territory. Only then could he go even to the Gentiles with a message of love.
It wasn’t easy. His old friends no longer knew him. Many Christians didn’t trust him. He quit cooperating with the state which got him beaten and gave him jail time.
Yet he grew in amazing ways, surprising even himself. And always trying to point beyond his own words and works to the God who made a new thing out of his life.
This faith of Paul’s shook up his world view. He no longer had faith in the political powers or in the power of money.
He no longer had trusted his own physical strength or his own accomplishments. Yes, at times he sounds like he’s boasting, but he always turns the attention towards God.
Our other stories also share this theme. In the first, the great prophet Elijah is living with the widow of Zarephath. She is not Jewish. She is an outsider. A widow with no standing in her community but she does have a son who will protect her and her name.
Elijah has already made sure this woman’s jar of meal and jug of oil will never run out. But then her son dies; Her only hope in the world.
And she blames Elijah. Of course. We have to blame someone.
But Elijah takes the boy and restores him to life. And she is amazed. She has just learned that the dead don’t stay dead!
And the Gospel? Jesus sees another widow woman and has compassion on her. He touches the funeral bier (making him unclean) and tells the young man to rise. And he does.
And the dead don’t stay dead. Here are 2 widows who have some unlearning to do. And a crowd who saw Jesus do this.
Fear seized all of them. Well, yeah. Of course! The well-ordered universe has just unraveled! What we believed in before, that death is powerful, the end of the story, the guy in the black robe with the funny long knife thingy…
If that isn’t true….if God has power even over death….
What else isn’t true? What else have we been taught that will need to be unlearned in order to see God at work?
What breaks our rational boundaries and undermines our solid expectations?
Where do we see the miracles in our lives? The healing?
What assumptions need to change in order for us to grow?
I grew up fascinated by what my pastors did. They were all male. I remember seeing my first female pastor. Pretty powerful event for me. The silly thing but yet maybe not, was by that time I had double pierced ears. So did she! Wow, maybe I could do this after all! Told you it was silly…but I didn’t know…
What was even more powerful was reading the Augsburg
Confession in seminary. The Augsburg
Confession is a document that sets out the basic understandings of the
What? This means that the sacraments are powerful and true even if the pastor is having a bad day, or thinking murderous thoughts or otherwise as human and broken as the people in the pews.
I find a lot of comfort in that. And grace. And even now it shakes me out of my old ways of seeing and understanding. And into the fresh world of grace.
Suddenly, or slowly we are turned back to God. Our eyes are open to the world in new ways.
We see the world in a new way. Our old assumptions are deconstructed and new ways of thinking spring forth.
And death no longer has the power to frighten us or keep us in our rooms or keep us buying promises of longer, younger life. For even death is not the final answer. And if we don’t fear death any more, what is there to fear?
God hasn’t brought us, you, me, Lord of Life, this far to leave us. God hasn’t brought us this far to turn away. God hasn’t brought us this far and said, “You’ve learned enough. Kick back and relax. “
There is always more to learn. There are always more miracles to see if we open our eyes. There is always a corner of the room, a corner of our hearts in need of healing.
Sometimes the lessons are hard. Sometimes they are repeated…like Elijah’s widow. The never ending oil wasn’t enough…the return of her son cemented her faith…for a while.
Always, the lessons are led by the God of compassion, who sees us in our need and wipes away our tears. Until we see anew the wonders God has done, is doing, will do in our midst.
So, no green cheese on the moon (Sorry Wallace and Gromit fans).
No simple fairy tale endings. No black and white.
The hope, the joy, the miracle is that when what we used to know shifts beneath our feet, God is waiting with new faith, new healing, new stories for us to live out.
That is scary and exciting and enough to make us keep learning and growing and moving forward in faith.
Praise the Lord.