I have often begun a sermon by reminding you as well as myself that a central task of preaching is connecting stories from the Bible with the story of our lives in the present. The world of the Bible can seem very distant from our world. In terms of time and geography, it is. In terms of what we can call "world view" we are far apart. Our understanding of biology, meteorology, and psychology is radically different from that of the people who lived in Biblical times.
But we are not very far from the people of the Bible when it comes to human emotion. They knew the joy of human love...as do we. They experienced fear, anger, envy, and grief...as do we. They wondered about the boundary between life and death, about whether there was something beyond the realm of physical existence...things we wonder about today, although it can be unfashionable to talk about such things in certain circles.
We read stories in the Bible like the one about Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and the one about Jesus and the widow's son at Nain. We wonder what to make of them. We ask what we can learn from them.
In the second sermon I preached here in my time at Rutgers, I talked about reading the Bible. I said,
...don't read it as though it had been dictated word-for-word by God, speaking to people whose humanity was set aside so that they were exempt from the limitations of their culture. Don't read the Bible simplistically, and don't read it without recognizing the humanity of its various authors who wrote down their experience of God and of God's activity in their world and the world of their ancestors.
There are churches and other places of worship, some not far from here, where people assemble in such a way that they give unquestioning credence to what they hear from the pulpit, or platform, or podium. They take notes and they regard what they hear as authoritative truth. If it is a Christian church, often the preacher will hold a Bible in his or her hand and quote selected verses to support a position or belief, not acknowledging the complex nature of Scripture, how it was written and how it can be read or misread.
It is not easy to approach today's readings that way, but I know of some preachers who do. I have spent time with parents who, having lost a child to death, were told by their spiritual leader that their faith wasn't strong enough or they didn't pray hard enough for the curing of the disease that took their child. In some cases the pastor used stories like the ones we heard today to make the point that God can and will heal diseases for those with the right kind of faith.
I don't believe that, not in the simplistic way I just stated it anyway. I don't believe God gives us what we ask for if we have the right amount of faith. I believe that when Jesus taught his followers to pray in his name, he was teaching them to pray as he prayed: Nevertheless, your will be done.
What do these texts mean to me seven and a half years after the death of my daughter, for whom I prayed and for whom hundreds of other people prayed?
The story of Elijah is larger than his interaction with the widow at Zarephath. Elijah's ministry as a prophet is set against the background of Israel's political history. Elijah reminded kings, queens, and ordinary people that history is more than events and dates. It is the arena where great themes are played out—righteousness, justice for the oppressed, compassion for the weak, and accountability for the rich. Elijah's voice was a reminder that nations disregard the purposes of God at their own peril. God is not a puppeteer, not a capricious manipulator of cosmic forces, although some parts of the Bible can imply such. God created the world for good, and God gave freedom to men and women so that they can enjoy the goodness of creation or abuse it. History shows us a record of human abuse, with brokenness sharing a place with wholeness, and tragedy sharing a place with tranquility.
The New Testament story of Jesus and the widow of Nain echoes the Elijah story. (This story has occurred twice in the lectionary during the years since my daughter's death, but I haven't preached on it. I'm ready to deal with it now.) Living a thousand years after the time of Elijah, Jesus intentionally continued the ministry of the prophets, declaring and embodying God's purposes for people and nations. Of the four Gospel writers, only Luke tells the story of Jesus' restoring a dead child to his widowed mother. Reading the story, I sometimes asked, "Why did he do it for her and not for me?" I don't ask it anymore.
I doubt that the question has an answer that would satisfy people who ask it. I fully understand the need to ask it, but I don't think it can be adequately answered. What I see in the story as Luke gives it to us is the profound sympathy of Jesus, his unswerving compassion for people in pain, whether the pain comes from the death of a child, social ostracizing, or the loss of hope. For me Jesus is the revealer of God, and in stories like this morning's I find the good news that God does not turn aside from people who are part of funeral processions. God is right there, touching the coffin, touching the mourners, and saying, "There is more. Death is not a period. It is a comma. Feel your grief, do not deny it. Do not shut your heart against mysteries beyond our understanding. In God's design, darkness yields to light, and the good wine is served at the last."
I can tell you as I have told other people, that when I realized my daughter was dying, I prayed for a miracle, that her liver would regenerate itself as occasionally happens. I believe God heard my prayer and the prayers of all those who interceded for my daughter. My wife and I know that God did not give us the miracle we wanted. But we know God gave us other miracles, profound and deeply comforting. And we live in gratitude for God's love.
Those miracles are part of my story, part of my faith journey, part of who I am. I talk about them in appropriate settings. Luke tells us that after Jesus restored the dead man to his mother at Nain, word about Jesus spread throughout the region and beyond.
Telling our stories is part of how we heal. It's part of being the Church, the people who live in the faith that God is love, and that God's love is stronger than the worst that can happen to us, stronger than death itself.
In your life and in my life there are incidents that have similarities to incidents in the ministry of Jesus and other people in the Bible. The incidents in our lives may not end precisely the way the events in Jesus' ministry ended, although they may. But your story and my story are deeply important to the God who self-disclosed in the prophets and in Jesus of Nazareth. I have come to trust that God in life, and to trust that God in what I cannot yet see or understand.
Nothing in life or in death can separate us, and those we love, from the affirming, welcoming, completing, inclusive live of God.
Thanks be to God.