Resurrection… or Resuscitation? – sermon on June 5, 2016
1 Kings 17: 8-24 God said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.” So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, “Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?” As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread, too.” But she said, “I swear by your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.” But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you’ve said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what’s left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when God sends rain and the crops grow again!” So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many days. There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as God had promised through Elijah.
Some time later the woman’s son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally he died. Then she said to Elijah, “O man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son?” But Elijah replied, “Give me your son.” And he took the child’s body from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying, and laid the body on his bed. Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, why have you brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?” And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to God, “O Lord my God, please let this child’s life return to him.” God heard Elijah’s prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he revived! Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. “Look!” he said. “Your son is alive!” Then the woman told Elijah, “Now I know for sure that you are a man of God, and that God truly speaks through you.”
Luke 7: 11-17 Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people today.” And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside.
Sermon: Resurrection… or Resuscitation? by Rev. Doreen Oughton
So we have these two stories this morning of widows and their beloved sons – only sons. What a special relationship that must be – a mother who sees so much of her departed husband in the boy, who begins to lean on him as he grows, who takes such pleasure in the love she sees in his eyes. How wrenching to be faced with the loss of this one comfort she had since her husband’s death. Of course it is always wrenching for any parent to lose a child. It is probably more tolerable for the widow in the first story, the widow of Zarephath, to believe they will die together of starvation, rather than her being left without him. But when that prophet comes, Elijah, as his God said he would, and the flour and oil don’t run out, what relief she must have felt. They both can live! And then this cruel turn of her son getting sick and dying, leaving her behind, her worst fear come true.
Elijah gets how awful this is and is distraught on her behalf. God chose this woman to help him, and now she has to suffer like this?! It’s not right. It’s just not right. And they both hold God responsible for the death. And figuring since God did it, God can undo it, Elijah cries out and begs that the child be returned to life. And God complies.
We don’t get nearly so much detail in the gospel story – just Jesus happening upon a funeral procession. He learns the deceased was the only son of a widowed woman, and he sees her crying. His heart is moved, and, unasked, he touches the coffin and calls the young man up.
I find these stories pretty amazing, given that the most celebrated work of Jesus, the thing that started a whole new religion, was his resurrection – the belief that Jesus was risen from the dead. But here we have two stories of people come back to life from death, and one of them taking place centuries before Jesus was even born. And these are not the only two. The Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus raised a girl – the daughter of Jairus, and John tells us of Jesus calling Lazarus out of his tomb four days after he died.
I had a working title as I pondered the text for the week – Resurrection: It’s Not Just for Jesus. But I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say. What could I say – pray hard enough and God will bring your child back to life? Stir compassion in the heart of Jesus and just watch what happens? And again I was left with the question about why the resurrection of Jesus is such a big deal when we have at least four other stories of resurrection that happened before Jesus’. Peter and Paul both raised people from the dead, but that was after, when we can assume Jesus’ resurrection led the way. In fact Jesus commissioned them to do so.
But then I read a line about resurrection that struck me. Someone said, “You don’t get to remain the same after a resurrection.” The writer reminds us that many who saw Jesus after his death didn’t recognize him right away. And then, after 40 days, he ascended, but remains available to all who call on him. And I read the stories again, and noticed a line in both of them: these sons were “given back” to their mothers. And I wondered, were they changed? What about Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter? The scripture tells us nothing of their experience, only that those who witnessed it were amazed, and believed in the power of Jesus, or Elijah for the Zarephath widow.
Let’s step back for a moment from looking at death only in the departed body form. We can get a sense of the role of death in the cycle of life by looking at nature, right. We understand that when the leaves fall off the tree, the leaf might “die” but the tree does not. The leaf is transformed into nutrition for the soil that enables other things to grow. In our own lives, we have lots of little deaths – things we have to let go of, say good-bye to. We move out of our parents’ home, our children grow and move out of our homes. We lose jobs, or retire. We divorce, or move away from friends. We quit drinking or give up an unhealthy or unethical lifestyle. We go broke, lose the business, have the car repossessed. The church closes. Death is a fact of life, but the promise of resurrection is that we can die into new life. Without resurrection we would die into old life; at best a resuscitated life, a life that is smaller and weaker, more frail than it had been – a diminished life.
Now perhaps sometimes there is a greater good in such a resuscitation – such as comfort and nurture for a mother who cannot bear such a loss. These young men come back for a time, but then will die again, and perhaps then into new life, eternal life. But perhaps we who claim to be resurrection people cry out too often for a resurrected life. We want something to come back to us the way it used to be. I think of Jesus with Mary at the tomb, telling her not to cling to him. But we cling. We want the old life, even if it is diminished. We are afraid to trust the promises of new life because we don’t know what this new life will be, what it will look like and feel like.
But can we learn from Jesus something about a resurrected life? To me the most significant thing about the resurrected Jesus is his expansive presence. Before his death he was available only in that small place, to a relatively small group of people, for a brief period of time. But the resurrected Jesus is available everywhere, any time, to anyone who calls on him. If we are looking for a small resurrection, maybe we look for something that is expansive, that opens us up, that connects us wider and further. Or, like with the cycle of nature, is a death in one place nurturing new life in another? I think of the closing of the Adams Square Church so thoughtfully, faithfully, funding new ministries far and wide. I think of my return to school after my divorce, moving my focus from my small family unit outward, letting others in to help me while I sought to be shaped and formed to minister to others. I think of all the mothers here who lost sons and daughters who kept their hearts open, who let their love and compassion grow for other parents and children, nurturing hope. I think of people who lose their sight find a sharpness in their other senses, newly alive.
As a church, we have suffered many little deaths through the years. From Federated to First Congo, upheavals in ministerial leadership, decreasing membership, the closing of the Sunday school. And so we must ask ourselves, what are we going to die into – new life or old life? Are we going to cling to the past, or open up to something new? Now perhaps there is a reason to cling. Perhaps we need the comfort and nurture of what we know, and even a temporary reprieve will help. But new life awaits us if we are able to let go and trust. I don’t know what it will look like, but I am quite certain it will open us up, connect us farther and wider, and enable hope to flourish. It’s true, you know. Resurrection? It’s not just for Jesus. May it be so.
