| The Rev. Catharine W. Montgomery | 2nd Sun. after Pentecost |
| Grace Memorial Episcopal Church | Proper 5 |
| June 10, 2007 | Year C |
"I can’t stand the Old Testament," she said. "It is full of violence and weird people who do weird things. I think it makes God look bad. The God of the Old Testament can’t be the God of Jesus in the New Testament." She was in a bible study that I taught, and her opinion is not that unusual. You may have felt that way yourself at one time or another. In the weeks to come we will revisit some of the wonderful stories of the prophets in the Old Testament who spoke for God and did miraculous and weird things in the name of God. The Old Testament is important for our faith. These prophets like Elijah and Elisha were the ones who set the stage for John the Baptist and Jesus… and for Paul.
For instance, compare today’s stories of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath…. and Jesus and the widow of Nain. You will see how they parallel each other and one points to the other. Both Elijah and Jesus came to the gate of the town. They both met a widow whose son had died. Elijah cried out to the Lord for her and Jesus had compassion for her. Both Elijah and Jesus reached out to touch…. and the dead child and the dead man came to life again. In both stories the son was given back to his mother, and in both cases the people had a revelation that God was working through these men. “A great prophet has risen among us,” they cried. Give God the glory.
We live our lives on that continuum between birth and death. These scripture stories of people being rescued from death remind us how vulnerable we are and how painful is the loss of someone we love. The fear of death that is in all of us is the fear of the loss of control and participation in the world. More than ever these days we are aware of how quickly the light of life can be snuffed out and we can do nothing to prevent it. There are people who say that religion has nothing to say to people who suffer or grieve. We live …we suffer or don’t suffer… and we die and that’s it. I wonder sometimes if that attitude is the reason that there is so much anger, anxiety and carelessness in the world around us.
What do these stories tell us? What can we take from them to sustain us? Religion has much to say about life and death. Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” “The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah and the life of the child came into him again.” Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you, rise.” “The dead man sat up and began to speak.” An angel at the tomb of the dead Jesus said, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” It was this risen Jesus who reached out to Saul/Paul and blinded him to his old way of life and gave him a new name and vocation.
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first… of all who have died.” (15:20) “In the end the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (26) Paul also said, Therefore my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (58) Religion has much to say to us if we will listen. We can remain steadfast and excelling in the work of the Lord if we study and know our stories…if we pray and do what Paul says…by keeping our hearts and mind on Christ.
Paul spoke of the church as the Body of Christ. In his book, Peculiar Treasures, theologian Frederick Buechner had Paul describe the purpose of the church this way, “God was making a body for Christ. Christ didn’t have a regular body anymore so God was making him one out of anybody he could find who looked as if they might possibly do. (That is you and me) He was using other people’s hands to be Christ’s hands and other people’s feet to be Christ’s feet, and when there was some place that Christ was needed in a hurry… and needed bad… he put the finger on some…. maybe-not all-that-innocent bystander…. and got him to go {or her to go} and be Christ in that place himself… for lack of anybody better.”(132)
Well, that body is you and me…both convicted, converted. And so I ask you today to spend time thinking about the times in your life when the word of the Lord has come to you to touch you in your grief or your happiness. Remember what that was like. Has there been a moment of conversion in your life? Maybe you were not persecutors of Christ like Paul, but perhaps you were doubters or careless about your faith. Maybe you have not been felled by blinding flashes of light - maybe you are here because of a change of heart - perhaps you just took a different path than you thought you would or… perhaps you were invited. Perhaps your eyes were opened enough by the birth of a child or a crisis to know that something was missing and so you came through these doors seeking….seeking a word of hope….a new direction and purpose in life.
Paul’s message to us would be the same as two thousand years ago. He would say to us, “Keep your eyes on the Cross.” “Remember we worship Christ crucified and risen again.” The Lord who acted through Elijah and Jesus and Paul is our Lord too. We are the hands and feet and Body of Christ and his Spirit is in us – that is our hope. Give God the glory.