Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When we were on internship as a family in 1985, my boys used to play “church” in our living room. Sam would play Pastor, and Jake would be communicant and Sam would say “The Body of Christ, given for you” and act out the motions. It was adorable and we’d get a big kick out of it. Children always like to enact and “play” the things in their lives that are “Holy” (by “Holy” we mean of God.)
When I told this story to my father-in-law, he shared that when he was little, he and his brothers and sister, would play “funeral”. I was surprised to learn this, but Grandpa, now almost ninety, lived in the time when viewings were in people’s homes, in their front parlor. A coffin would be set up and four candles placed around, and mourners would come to the home of the person who had died and grieve with the family in their home. Often they’d bring food or a cake to help support the grieving.
In the 1930’s and 1940’s this custom changed and death was removed from the home. Human beings are always trying to put distance between themselves and death. Death is the last and ultimate enemy. Ernest Becker, theologian and scholar has called us “death deniers”, we human beings. Ironically, the more control science gives us over life – we have increased life span by almost 20 years in the last generation, - the more we try to deny death. We use wrinkle creams, hair coloring kits and take anti-oxidant tablets to help us stay young, but 100% of us die just the same. No matter how much we fear death or live in denial of it, it will happen to us all. Many folks die without a will because even thinking about or talking about their own dying is such a fearful subject.
Our lesson from both 1 Kings and Luke are forceful, beautiful stories about God’s compassion and about God’s control over life and death. In both of them the only son of a widow is revived, is brought back to life. In those times there was no social security and no safety net for widows. A woman without children, particularly sons, was very vulnerable. Often they were reduced to begging or sold themselves into virtual slavery in order to survive. On top of this, of course, is the fact that the death of a child upsets the natural order of things. We are supposed to be buried by our children not bury them. Anyone who has lost a child, no matter how old the child was at death, will tell you that the pain remains throughout one’s life; it never goes completely away.
Into the despair of these two women God comes and in a mighty display of power God speaks, through Elijah and through Jesus, and reality is rearranged. The power of death is cancelled, trumped by the greater power of the life- giver. Sorrow becomes joy. Pain becomes relief and a whole new world of possibilities is opened again.
The Good News is that we are joined to that amazing power in our baptisms into Christ. We, who put on Christ, put on his eternal life. We are joined to the eternal life and the eternal hope of all those who have faith in Christ.
This raising from death is a major miracle of God’s awesome love and power. Yet God is constantly about working miracles, mini-miracles through the power of Christ. Love that lives and moves in us. For instance, this week 10 of us in the Lovin’ Life group here at HCLC went up to New Windsor and helped to price and package craft items that SERV International markets to buyers here in the United States. Last year SERV did over 3 million dollars worth of business. SERV markets craft, clothing and jewelry items made by third world peoples in 90 of the world’s poorest places. By providing a market for their crafts, SERV give hope and restores life to people who live on the edge of desperation.
For example, some of the crafts were from El Salvador in Central America. In El Salvador, 90% of the land is owned by 2% of the population. These 2% have incredible wealth; the others live in grinding poverty. Up and back during the trip we talked about the problem of illegal immigration here in the US, and it is a very complex issue, but part of the reason two million Salvadorans live here is because they face poverty and have no opportunity in El Salvador.
SERV sets up co-operatives in El Salvador and buys the crafts from villages at a fair price so that villagers can stay in their homes and earn a fair living. The men used to migrate to El Salvador’s cities or go to the US to find work. Now families stay together. There is enough money to create clinics and schools. Life improves and families remain intact because Christ, living in us and working through us creates a mini-miracle of new life and resurrection in El Salvador.
Each village in El Salvador that is stabilized and given renewed hope means that so many more people will stay where they were born. We have problems with an international violent gang called M-13 that plagues American cities, Washington DC in particular, among them. Gangs are born because of the violence and hopelessness that poverty breeds.
Mary Grossnickle, who works at SERV told us, that our labor which saved the organization over $350 is like a rock thrown into pool. The waves and ripples reach very far. We are all interconnected – throughout the planet and world that God created. It is said that we are only six people away from touching everyone on earth. We are an interlocking system of inter-relationships.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen
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