Luke 8:26-39
1st Kings 19:1-15a
As
you know, last Sunday morning there was another tragedy, another mass shouting,
another attack of hatred and anger and fear, this time not at a school, not on
a campus, not in an apartment complex or a mall, but in a gay bar. 49 people
died, many others were injured. I would hope and trust that no matter what you
believe about anything else, the loss of more lives in yet another act of
hatred and anger would be upsetting, would be challenging, would be a cause of
pause, for questioning, for looking at how we handle our anger, our fear, our
hatred and how we might do all of that differently. When there is more and more
violence and more and more hatred and anger and disagreement and political
polarization we may find ourselves asking again and again, where is God? When will God show up?
(from Chicken Soup for the Soul): One cold evening during the holiday season,
a little boy about six or seven was standing out in front of a store window. The little child had no shoes and his clothes
were mere rags. A young woman hurrying
by to get home to her own family was none the less caught by the needs of the
little boy and the longing she read in his pale brown eyes. She took the child by the hand and led him
into the store. There she bought him
some new shoes and a complete suit of warm clothing.
They
came back outside into the street and the woman said to the child, “Now you can
go home and have a very happy holiday.”
The
little boy looked up at her and asked, “Are you God, Ma’am?”
She
smiled down at him and answered, “No, son, I’m just one of God’s children.”
The little boy then said, “I knew
you had to be some relation.”
--
Larry
Green wrote: "When I go through a drive-thru the person taking my order
says something like, "does that complete your order?" I always
respond by saying, "unless you would like me to buy you something."
Usually they will giggle and say they appreciate it, but decline. The young
lady today asked, "are you serious?" I told her to add her meal to my
order. When I got to the window, there was this young lady with tears streaming
down her face. She thanked me profusely and began to tell me her story. Folks,
you never know what others are going through. The people taking your order at
the fast food place are often working 2-3 jobs just to get by. This young lady
was working 3 jobs, pregnant, and was evicted from her apartment yesterday. She
now lives in her car. All this info because I bought her a salad ... yes, she
ordered herself a salad.” Larry spent 45
minutes with her, giving her community resources, listening, feeding her in
spirit as well as body. And I am certain
that in that time, Larry was God showing up for this woman.
So
it seems it can be when God shows up: unexpected beauty in the midst of what
can feel like chaos and confusion. Sometimes it can also feel like chaos and
confusion in the midst of what has become “normal” for us as well, though. For when God shows up, is it ever in the way
we expect? Is it ever with the message
we expected or thought that we hoped to hear?
Today
we have two biblical stories. Both of
which show us God showing up in unexpected and unsought ways.
In
the first story, Elijah is running away. And when he finally stops and faces
God, he asks for God to end his life.
He says - “It is enough. Now, O
Lord, take away my life.” But instead of
God answering his death wish with a “yes” God tells him instead that he has a
long, hard journey ahead of him. Just what Elijah wants to hear, I’m certain.
But Elijah does what he is told - he eats to prepare for the journey and goes
to the place where he is to meet God. And then we are told again, that God does
not show up in the way we might expect. Do we expect God in the noise, in the
rush, in the moving around? We are told God was not in the wind. Do we expect
God in the big shakes, in the natural movements? We are told God was not in the
earthquake. Do we expect God in the fire that guides us, giving us heat,
energy, light, warmth, passion? We are told God was not in the fire. Where does
God show up? In the sheer and complete
silence. In the stillness. In the calm after the storm.
This
story in 1st Kings reminded me of C.S. Lewis’ book, “A Grief
Observed.” C.S. Lewis, as many of you
know, was a remarkable Christian author who wrote both novels such as the
Narnia series as well as theological conversations such as “The Four Loves” and
“Surprised by Joy”. In 1945 he
experienced the death of a close friend.
About this death he said, “The experience of loss (the greatest I have
yet known) was wholly unlike what I should have expected. We now verified for ourselves what so many
bereaved people have reported; the ubiquitous presence of a dead man, as if he
had ceased to meet us in particular places in order to meet us everywhere...”
he continued, “No event has so corroborated my faith in the next world as
Williams did simply by dying. When the
idea of death and the idea of Williams thus met in my mind, it was the idea of
death that was changed.”
But
15 years later, in 1960, his wife of very few years, Joy, died. And that
experience was also unexpected for him - but in the complete opposite way. As
he said in the journal he kept following her death, “After the death of a
friend...I had for some time a most vivid feeling of certainty about his
continued life; even his enhanced life. I have begged to be given even one
hundredth part of the same assurance about Joy. There is no answer. Only the
locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero.” And in contrast to
the experience of the presence of his friend’s death changing his faith for the
better, after the death of his wife, his faith was tested beyond measure. As he continued, “go to (God) when your need
is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of
bolting and double bolting on the inside.
After that, silence. You may as
well turn away. The longer you wait, the
more emphatic the silence will become.
There are no lights in the windows.
It might be an empty house...not that I am in much danger of ceasing to
believe in God. The real danger is of
coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no
God after all,’ but, ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.” Deeply
disturbing words of pain and despair from a deeply faithful man. Have any of you ever felt that way?
God’s
coming, or seeming lack of coming is very rarely what we expect.
And
so it was in the second scripture we read for today, of the Gerasene
demoniac. For the people around the
healed man, God’s coming was nothing less than terrifying. They didn’t, perhaps
they couldn’t, understand or know how to take the change that had come over the
man healed of the demons. Before he had been naked, an outcast, sometimes so
strong with his infirmity as to break the chains that people put on him to bind
him, to confine him. While the people may have feared him before, at least they
felt they understood him. They knew what to expect. They knew of his violent
and odd behavior and they knew how to deal with it: bind him or let him live
away from them among the tombs. But Jesus’ healing of the man threw all that
they knew into confusion. The man seemed normal now. Would it last? The man was
changed. Would Jesus change them as well? Not only was the man different, but a
herd of pigs had gone crazy, and gone into the water and died. Scary things
were happening, things they didn’t understand and they were afraid.
And
how much more so for the man himself, for the man possessed by the demons. He had cried out to Jesus for Jesus to leave
him alone. For the only thing he knew was his demons, how to live with them,
how to survive with them. Never mind that his existence was miserable and that
he went between being tied up with chains and being isolated and living naked
without protection in the tombs. This was what he knew. But just as God did not
agree to Elijah’s request for death, God did not agree to this man’s request to
stay stuck with his demons. He healed him, and again, while we can only imagine
and trust that the man’s life was better after that, just like for Elijah, this
man was invited in his healing to enter a long hard journey. He wanted to go
with Jesus after he was healed. But that would have been safe. He could have
hidden his past, hidden his change behind Jesus’ loving protection. But Jesus called for something else for this
man, something more. Instead, this
prayer, too was turned down with a “no” and he was told he was to stay. He was called to the hard, hard challenge of
staying and telling his story and trying to live his life amongst those who had
known him, starting again, starting anew.
I
think we can probably relate to the fear of having our demons healed. For we all have demons. Some are more serious than others -
alcoholism, and other addictions, mental illness, these are the serious ones. But there are others that aren’t as obvious,
or don’t feel as serious.
A
“victim” complex, a struggle with low self-esteem, a struggle with food
addictions or a bad relationship with spouse, child, sibling. As much as we may
experience those demons as burdens, we also depend on them. What would it be
like to live without them? How would we
reenter the world, changed, if they were suddenly lifted, suddenly gone? How do we live without our crutches, without
that which is most familiar? But God
comes. And God comes unexpectedly. And sometimes, we are asked to be different,
to be healed, to live without the demons and situations we know.
If
we are willing to live through the hard times, to accept the gifts of change
that God brings, if we are willing to take the risk of healing and being new in
God’s way, God’s coming is always better than we can imagine.
C.
S. Lewis, too, got through his “dark night of the soul.” He got through the confusion and struggles
with his faith that he had after his wife’s death. His faith was never the same: for it had
entered a new level and reached a depth he never dreamt of before. It had been tested, and it had come out
new. As he said, “I have gradually been
coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in
my face? The time when there is nothing
at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t
give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches
and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated
cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to heard.” And from that place of reconnection he
continued simply but powerfully, “I know the two great commandments, and I’d
better get on with them.”
So
where is God when refugees like the Syrians are feeling their homes? Where is God in the earthquakes that have
rocked Japan and Ecuador? Where is God when people are beaten up or killed
because of their skin color or their faith beliefs or their sexuality? And
where was God last weekend? We have to look for God in the unexpected. With the
escaping Syrians, God is with those families who have taken them in, who have
offered care and love and home and support.
Where is God in Japan and Ecuador? Also with the people coming to help
with their resources and their love and their thinking through how to make
communities safer in the face of earthquakes.
And last weekend, God was with the communities that came together after
the tragedy, hundreds of folk lining up to donate blood, to grieve together, to
support each other, to plan, and to imagine the possibilities of a world that
functions differently, without the violence of hate and anger and fear. Where
is God? God is wherever love is. God is wherever that love becomes an active
verb, working for the good of the other, sometimes at our own expense. God is
wherever people are willing to take risks to care for those who are rejected by
the larger world, just as Jesus cared for and loved the Syrophoenicians and the
Samaritans and the women with bad reputations and the tax collectors. God is
wherever we dare to love in that same way. We are called to follow Jesus and go
out to love God and love one another. After each meeting with the unexpected
God, we will enter life in a new way, but still with the call to love. We, too, know the two great
commandments. And we, too had better get
on with it. Where is God? Where we are
doing God’s work. That’s what it’s all about.
Amen.
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