Neill Morgan
Sermon Delivered June 10, 2007
17After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” 19But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. 20He cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” 21Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” 24So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
11Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 12As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. 13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” 15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” 17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.
Why Me, Lord
Elijah has the “Why Me?” syndrome in a bad way. For a prophet sent from God, he surely seems to lose his confidence quickly and in a big way. Even after God has provided the widow and Elijah a miraculous supply of water in the drought, and oil and meal to eat, when calamity strikes, Elijah takes it personally. It’s not just, “Why did you do this to this boy,” but, “Why did you bring calamity on this widow with whom I am staying?”
A couple of chapters later, we’ll see this “Why Me?” syndrome of Elijah in even greater measure after he has won a great victory over the prophets of Baal and Jezebel has threatened his life and he has run off and stopped to rest under a broom tree. “Why me, Lord?” he moans and says, “Just take me now, Lord, just take my life.”
In the gospel of Luke, the question, “Why me, Lord?” is turned on its head. In chapter 4, Jesus’ inaugural sermon, he refers to this story of Elijah and the widow, saying “there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.”
For Elijah, the question of “Why Me?” is the question of “Why do I have to suffer so?” But for Luke, the question of “Why me?” becomes one of “Why have I received this grace?”
Of all the widows in all of Israel, why did God send Elijah to the Gentile widow? And, in Luke, of all the widows who had lost sons in all of Galilee, why did Jesus raise this widow’s son from the dead? Why just this one and not all of them?
Kris Kristofferson captured this turnaround from victim thinking to grace-thinking in his song, “Why Me, Lord?” In our men’s breakfast conversation on this passage, Ted Burgoon reminded me of this song I hadn’t thought of in years. I invited him to come up and sing it, but he was not enthusiastic about that.
Why Me Lord
Written by Kris Kristofferson
Published by Resaca Music
A E B7 E E7 B7
E A
Why me Lord, what have I ever done
E
To deserve even one
B7
Of the pleasures I've known
E A
Tell me Lord, what did I ever do
E
That was worth love from you
B7 E E7
Or the kindness you've shown.
|A
|Lord help me Jesus, I've wasted it so
| B7 E E7
|Help me Jesus I know what I am
|A E
|Now that I know that I've needed you so
| B7 E
|Help me Jesus, my soul's in your hand.
E A
Tell me Lord, if you think there's a way
E
I can try to repay
B7
All I've taken from you
E A
Maybe Lord, I can show someone else
E
What I've been through myself
B7 E
On my way back to you.
Chorus
When Jesus raised the son of the widow, Luke does not tell us the response of either the widow or the son. He tells us that “fear seized all of them,” that is, the people who witnessed it. And, he tells us, “they glorified God.”
In the New Revised Standard version, there’s a semicolon between those two phrases, “fear seized all of them;” and, “they glorified God.” What Luke does not tell us is how much time is represented by that semicolon. How long did it take the people to move from fear to gladness?
Imagine attending a funeral and the deceased suddenly sits up and begins to speak. You can understand that their first response is fear. When something as dependable as death is reversed, there’s a period of adjustment before we can respond with gladness, with a sense of God’s grace and providence.
With this story in our consciousness, it comes as no surprise when our ministry of compassion as the church, the body of Christ, does not always immediately produce a response of glorifying God with grateful hearts.
When someone walks into the church office in need, and the church staff puts in the time and energy to discern the most effective help we can offer, sometimes hours, and then we use the resources we’ve gathered from this congregation, sometimes other congregations, and local agencies, and we offer a person in need the best help we can, we’re surprised when sometimes they say, “Is that the best you can do?”
When we join a team of people from different congregations in Sherman for Great Days of Service and work on their home for three days, scraping, painting, replacing rotten wood and repairing a porch, usually the homeowner expresses a grateful heart and a sense of being blessed. But sometimes, the homeowner stays inside the house, never seen by many of the volunteers. Whether from fear, or embarrassment, or disability, or a lack of social skills, we cannot say for sure.
When we go to New Orleans next week for our mission trip, we can expect to work on some homes of people who see the grace of God in church groups that come to help restore or repair their homes. Some will wonder, “Why me, what have I ever done to deserve such grace?”
But there are those who will be absent, and there are those who are still asking, “Why me? What have I ever done to deserve Hurricane Katrina?”
Here are a couple of claims the Gospel makes that cry out to us in these situations.
One, the ministry of Jesus’ compassion does not depend on the response of the receiver. Our ability to recognize grace when it is handed to us does not interfere with God’s sovereign desire for us, or with the compassion Christ has for us. So, our ministry of compassion in Christ’s name, when we do it faithfully, does not depend on the receiver’s response. Whether fearful or glad, grateful or self-pitying, faith-filled or cynical, the human response is what it is. The social graces of those we serve in Christ’s name do not increase or diminish God’s love in Jesus Christ for those people for whom Christ died.
Second, the Gospel does not offer a pat answer to the question, “Why me, Lord?” whether it is asked from the standpoint of Elijah the victim (Why have you caused me such suffering?) or from the standpoint of Kris Kristofferson immersed in grace, “What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known?”
While it doesn’t offer an answer that completely satisfies, the Gospel does tell us that the “Why me?” question of grace is the right question, and the “Why me?” question of the victim is a dead end.
“Why such grace for me?” yields a life of joyful discipleship, eyes open to the work of God in our lives and this community, in our congregation and in the lives of our friends.
“Why have I been chosen for this suffering” cuts us off from the ability to see God’s grace at work through us and around us.
Paul in Galatians faces a terrible conflict with Peter and his allies over the importance of dietary laws and circumcision in the early church, and his writing reveals deep pain over the divisions the issues have caused. And that’s only the beginning of the suffering Paul will experience because of the fact that God has acted powerfully in his life.
In contrast to the widow of Zaraphath and the widow of Nain, for whom God brought new life and hope and relief from destitution by acting powerfully to bring new life, Paul can see that his previous life of power and privilege is gone forever because of Christ’s intrusion into his life. Paul now faces a life of hardship and suffering, punishment and derision. “Why me, Lord? Why must I suffer so?” he might ask, but instead he sees through his suffering that God is working through him.
That, I think, is the more difficult position from which to see God’s work through us. When our own needs are met, when we can see progress and results from the energy we put into ministry and a life of faithful discipleship, it is easier to keep our eyes open to God at work. When God appears to be working according to our own plan, faith comes more easily.
When, however, we lose someone we love; when our own plans for the future are dashed; when our bodies will no longer hold up to the things we want to do; when our relationships suffer strain or brokenness; when it seems others are getting our share of grace; it is more difficult to see how God is working through us.
But that’s what the gospel calls us to do: to move beyond the “Why me?” question and focus on the “How?” “How is God working through me to reveal Jesus Christ to the world?”
So, if you are one who wants to take away from the text something we can do, it is this. Take a good look at your life now – your joys, your victories, your moments of hope and optimism; and, on the other hand, your disappointments, your failures, your bad luck; let’s ask ourselves, “How is God working through my life to reveal Jesus Christ to the world?”
Second, and this is the harder part for us Presbyterians, let’s talk about it with each other. Do you have someone you can trust to talk about something so personal as how you believe God may be working through your life; and, to ask and listen to how God may be acting through the life of another? Much is made of how ill-equipped the average Presbyterian is to talk about faith with friends outside of the community of faith; but, before we can even think about how to do that, and how to invite someone into the life of faith we enjoy together, wouldn’t it make sense to talk about it with one another?
This is hard for a people who take seriously the warnings of Jesus not to wear our religion as a badge of honor, not to pray too loudly or too long in public, but to go into a closet in secret to pray; to hide any evidence of fasting; to give quietly, not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.
The key I think, is to wear our religion, not as a badge of honor, but as a garment of wonder. The only answer to Kristofferson’s question, “What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known?” – the only answer is “Nothing.”
If we start there, knowing how we stand in need of grace, then we can rise up with the new life of a widow’s only son, and live and speak in a way that reveals that God is at work in the world, and we are part of that. Thanks be to God. Amen.