When God Comes to Visit

June 6, 2010
“When God comes to visit”
2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Year C
1 Kings 17: 8-24
Luke 7: 11-17

As a pastor I am reminded of an old saying – that in life all of us are either going through something, getting over something or about to go through something. Up until now I have never agreed with that statement – I would like to believe that there are some times in our lives, when things might not be great, but at least things are stable. But the truth is those times never last very long.
For much of our lives we are either going through something or coming out of something.
Grief is something that we are all familiar with. Grief is that mix of emotions that we get when we lose something that is important to us. It may be a spouse or family members, it may be our way of life, it may be a hope or a dream. Grief can come from something as simple as graduating from school and realizing that everything will be new next year, or it can be something as huge as having to say good bye to a trusted friend. At some point in our lives we are going to have to grieve. As a matter of fact, there are consequences in life when we don’t grieve the losses in our lives, then we start to express ourselves in not so healthy ways.
In your bulletins I have inserted an article on the stages of grief. Elisabeth Kubler Ross wrote a book on dying in the 70’s I think. Where she says that not only is grief a universal process that we all go through – but that there are certain predictable stages of grief that we have to go through.
I wont explain what is written in the bulletin – but I will say that the stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventually acceptance.
In life we are all either going through something or coming out of something. My sermon today is not about what it means to go through grief, it is about the process of coming through grief.
Grief is what I see as the common thread between the Hebrew scripture and the New testament this morning. Both stories are about a women who have lost everything and are about to lose their most prized possessions – their son.
Elijah is wandering the countryside – God has told him to go to a certain city and to just be with the people. He stays with a widow about to prepare her last meal so that she can die. There is grief throughout the land because of famine – no one can find enough to eat. Elijah tells her that as long as there is famine, he will be present and she will be able to eat. He keeps his promise of presence. But no sooner than the famine ends, her son falls sick to the point of death. And she does not understand the God of Elijah, but she knows that Elijah is a prophet, and can save her son. After prayer to God, Elijah lays the healed boy into his mothers arms. Proving that God not only has power, but also compassion. God cares about the lives of god’s people. And can bring healing.
As a matter of fact in those days it was believed that God came to visit us in the events of our lives. God could come to reward us with joy, or to punish us with grief. If things were going bad in your life, it was something that you did to anger God. In the story, when her son gets sick she says that Elijah has come from God to remind her of her sin and to take her son. Elijah’s prayer for mercy on this women is what saves her son.
In the New Testament story Jesus is processing one way with his disciples, and a crowd is processing another way grieving the loss of a young man. Jesus interrupts the funeral to see what is going on. He not only sees a young man who has died, but a mother who has lost her only son. A woman who will live in poverty for the rest of her life because she has no one to take care of her. He sees her suffering and scripture says that he has compassion. He enters into her suffering and restores her life, by restoring her son. Just as in the story of Elijah he returns the son back to the mother healed. And the grieving crowd realize that this is a man of God – bringing the presence of God into the situation.
When we are suffering – Jesus enters into our lives also. Jesus is god’s visitation to our lives. No longer does he bring judgement – but he brings mercy and compassion into our pain.
This scripture assures us that in our times of grief Jesus comes to you when you need him the most, extends his word of sympathy and assures victory over death.
Bob Greene tells the story of the death of his wife. He was devastated and had no idea of how to raise the children alone. He had no idea of what needed to be done and how to do it. The day after the news he gets a phone call from his best friend. He didn’t even want to get up that morning, or to think or to go forward. He friend tells him that he is in town.
He goes on to say I know you probably don’t want to see anyone, or discuss this or even think about it. I am not here to talk, I wont be over, I am not trying to solve anything. I have checked into a hotel and will just sit here. I just want you to know that I am in town. If you need me you can call me and I will be over, but if not I will just sit here in my hotel room.
Perhaps the friend did get a chance to rest, or a chance to get some work done. But his real work was the work of presence. Bob never did talk about the loss of his wife, he never did open up about what was going on, he was barely able to say thank you for the support the friend gave in taking care of the kids, but he felt the presence of his friend and it eventually got him through his grief, to the point where he was ready to go on with his life.
We all grieve, we all have to work through the cycle of denial, anger, bargaining, depression until we get to acceptance and we are ready to move on in our lives. It may take a moment, it may take a month, it may take twenty years to get to that final stage of acceptance – where we are ready to move on as resurrected people into the promise of new life. However long it takes that is up to our soul.
The good news is that we can be assured that God has indeed come to visit us at that time. We may never be able to remember the words, or to point to the actions, but we can always feel the presence. God always has a way of reminding us that life is stronger than death, that beginnings always come after endings, and that light is more powerful than darkness.
The day Martin Luther king was assassinated – Robert Kennedy was speaking to a crown and he had to pass on the devastating news. He spoke publicly for the first time about the death of his brother John. He expressed his grief at that loss. In his speech he gave this quote from Aeschylus – a Greek poet. “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
In life all of us are either going through something, coming out of something, or about to go through something. We all experience the grief process at some point. God’s promise is that there will be a comforter, a presence, a sense of compassion, a means of mercy. May the spirit of Christ be with you. Let us pray……

Wind, Fire and Words

May 31, 2009
Wind, Fire and Words
Acts 2
Romans 8
Year B
Pentecost


what images do they think of when an insight suddenly strikes You? Some will say a light bulb coming on. Or an electric shock.
Perhaps a billboard, a text message, a whack on the head...
But none of us would think of tongues of fire, or gusts of wind.
These are the images for the story of Pentecost.
The Pentecost story is clearly metaphorical an image. The biblical text
itself says, _like_ a mighty wind; tongues _as of_ fire...
Metaphor is like the sacraments – defined by Augustine of Hippo as
"a visible sign of an invisible reality." Tragically, our society has lost its
sense of the metaphoric. We distrust metaphors and analogies. We expect facts.
Yet we still speak of getting fired up. Burning with passion.
Suffering burnout. We refer to spirited horses, team spirit, blowing out the
cobwebs, feeling a fresh wind, a storm of change...
Those are all metaphors – a way of expressing something that would
otherwise be inexpressible. Because the Holy Spirit was not a thing, to be
measured and dissected. It was a feeling, an attitude.

For the early church, it was a realization that what they had been waiting for all along had finally come to them.

Research says that in the year of the Pentecost, this was the first year that many of the jews who had been in exile were first able to come to Jerusalem for the celebration of the gift of the word of God. They came from Meds, Pamphlyia, Cappodicia – places all over the middle east. They came speaking their own languages, and abiding by their own customs. But some how they all got along, they all understood one another, they all witness the same heavenly event, the presence of the holy spirit.
That is the gift of the holy spirit – unity where there is no unity. It was the beginning of the work of the church.
Like all gifts of the church, this story means different things to different people and traditions. For instance, for some the gift was speaking in tongues, for others it was the gift of speaking in different languages and being able to be heard. But the main point was that they knew that God was with them in a very special way. They did not have the words to describe it, but they had the hearts to feel it.
As a matter of fact, sometimes I think it is our words that get us in trouble. We can speak the same language, and sometimes not be understood. Because even though we use the same words- they don’t mean the same thing.
Sometimes it is words that makes thing worse. One Christian remembers the time she was looking for a parking space, she waited patiently for this couple to leave, and it seemed that a van pulled up in front of her out of nowhere, and took the space. She had a few words for the driver of the van and none of them nice. The van driver was so sorry that he pulled out and gave her the space. At first proud, she had to go home to pray to God. Her words totally betrayed whom she was as a Christian.
That is the point of the babel story – that a group got together for a common cause. They went into the project speaking the same language. They finished speaking different languages and accomplishing nothing.
Imagine how much chaos is present in the world because people misunderstand one another. Sometimes the best way to create an argument is to use words. The more you talk , the more you realize that there is disagreement.
Karl Barth says always preach the gospel sometimes even use words – but more importantly use who are you in Christ.
Romans states that the whole world is in birth pains. I feel that there seems to be chaos on every level of life. Everyone is hurting, and everyone is lashing out. And no one seems to understand what is really going on. Yet we are to hope – hope for things that we cannot see. And not worry if we have the right words to say- to just make sure that we trust in the spirit – who will interpret everything we say. The bible has been interpreted in ever language in the world. In one African village, they were looking for a word for the holy spirit – until the noticed that whenever a group had to carry a heavy load – there was always one man who went with them, but carried nothing himself. They explained that when someone gave out from exhaustion, this was the man who always took his place, so that the journey could continue.
They had their word for the holy spirit - the one who carries our burdens to God for us, when we are too weak to travel. The one who prays on our behalf.

In our obsession with the concrete, we’ve even made the Holy Spirit
a noun. We capitalize it, like a proper name. But in truth, it was more like a
verb – just as “faith” in Hebrew, mn, was a verb, best translated as “to

trust.”
Likewise, God does not describe godself as a noun, as a static thing, but as a verb, to moses God said not I am who I am, But I will be, who I will be. The spirit of God is always on the move in the world, making a difference.
Our greatest witness to the presence of God is to move in a static world. To be who we are and not to get caught up in definitions of who we were just yesterday.
The greatest image of the holy spirit for the world today in chaos in pain, are the be the people who trust in God. No words needed, just our hearts.