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Homily for the Second Sunday after Pentecost
Christians sometimes speak about the “God of the Old Testament” and the “God of the New Testament” as though they were speaking of two different Gods. This is not particularly surprising, given that the language of the New Testament and the Christian faith often make comparisons between old and new “testaments,” old and new “covenants,” and old and new “dispensations.” Contrasting the “newness” of the Gospel with the “oldness” of Old Testament teaching is a time-honored theme for Christian preachers that began with Jesus himself. Jesus, however, did not stress these differences to advocate rejection of Judaism’s core understanding of God. Jesus advocated departures from Jewish custom that sought to broaden humanity’s relationship with God, not reject Judaism’s belief in its unique relationship with God. Jesus and his disciples cherish the Israel from which they come, but equate the kingdom of heaven with a new Israel that encompasses all nations and peoples. We often hear readings from Scripture on Sundays in which the Gospel passage echoes the Old Testament reading to a remarkable extent. Such arrangements are not accidental. The scholars who devised the lectionary chose to link these stories in order to call attention both to important similarities and differences. This morning’s readings from 1 Kings and the Gospel of Luke offer us a good example of such a choice. In each story, a great prophet sent by God restores a young man to life and returns him to his widowed mother. In both stories, God exhibits remarkable compassion for women who have suffered grievous loss while bystanders praise the miracles God has worked through chosen emissaries. The human emissary, the great prophet Elijah, upbraids God over the “calamity” of the death that threatens his relationship with the widow who has welcomed him into her home. God responds to the prophet’s plea and, using Elijah as a conduit for divine power, restores life to the dead boy. The boy’s mother proclaims her certainty that Elijah is a “man of God” who speaks divine truth. In restoring life to the man at Nain, God incarnate as Jesus Christ is the emissary. Both human and divine, Jesus responds to his own emotion, acting out of compassion for the widow as he witnesses the tragic scene. The crowd proclaims Jesus a great prophet, recognizing him as a successor to Elijah and his actions as a sign of divine favor. In the episode in Luke, there is no mention of a cause for the death and certainly no discussion of who bears responsibility for such a tragic occurrence. The episode in 1 Kings is quite different, as the widow turns on Elijah after her son dies of a suffocating illness. "What have you against me, O man of God?” she says. “You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" The widow’s words point to an understanding common among the women and men who populate the Old Testament narrative. They harbor a suspicion, if not an outright belief, that worldly misfortune is punishment for human sin. In this view, God often responds to human transgressions and shortcomings with pestilence, famine, drought and other natural disasters. The men and women who defy, scorn, mock, or turn their backs on God frequently meet violent and undignified ends. Think of the dogs consuming the battered corpse of the scandalously defiant Jezebel or the plague of frogs raining down on the subjects of the hard-hearted Pharaoh. With few exceptions, the Jewish people who cherished their sacred books did not question this understanding of divine action, Though they praised God’s generous gifts of fertile lands and courageous leaders, they saw Israel’s setbacks and humiliations as God’s just punishments for their own selfishness and weakness. The coming of Christ did not put an end to this way of thinking, but Jesus’ Gospel message certainly tempered it. Though Jesus is often righteously impatient with the stubborn selfishness and callous indifference of people he encounters, he does not link the suffering of the sick and the poor to their sins. In John’s Gospel [9th chapter], when the man blind from birth asks Jesus for the gift of sight, Jesus dismisses the bystanders’ questions about whose sins—the man’s or his parents’—are responsible for his blindness. He instead tells the crowd that the man was born blind so that “the works of God may be made manifest in him” when Jesus opens his eyes. If Christianity puts more emphasis on God’s capacity to forgive than on a divine inclination to punish, many Christians have remained persuaded that human misfortune is a Godly punishment. The Puritans’ enthusiasm for the Old Testament included an embrace of the understanding that God punished sin with flood and famine and rewarded good behavior with peace and prosperity. These puritanical explanations became less persuasive as scientific information made them seem less reasonable. In our own day, some Christians may wonder if the clouds of volcanic smoke afflicting Europe constitute a divine punishment for the misdeeds of bankers from Iceland to Spain. But far more Christians accept the scientific explanation that the recent eruption is a normal event in the cycles of volcanic activity. Along with many non-Christians, they may comment on the coincidence of financial and natural disasters without concluding that divine intervention is responsible. Along the same lines, Christians and non-Christians may wonder if there is some kind of cosmic poetic justice in the disastrous oil spill currently causing havoc in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists are not alone in arguing that human shortcomings, not random accidents, are responsible for this catastrophe. But a Christian who recognizes God’s compassion as we see it in today’s lessons cannot conclude this disaster is a divine punishment for human greed. Anyone paying attention to this tragedy knows it is hitting the poor and the powerless hardest. God’s presence in all this suffering is one of comfort and support, not punishment. Christians should recognize that God is not punishing people with this disaster. What is more, God is not taking sides in the conflicts rising up along with the spilled oil. Many Christian churches, including the Episcopal Church, rightly argue that God expects us to be good stewards of the earth and the seas. A ban on offshore drilling may be good stewardship, but we should be wary of arguing that God demands such a ban. A total ban would, after all, affect not only oil companies but also the livelihoods of many people who are neither rich nor powerful. Many of the same people who are demanding a prompt cleanup are also expressing caution about long-term bans on drilling. The fishermen who live alongside oil workers understand the solutions to this crisis are not simple. The oil spill crisis is only one of many crises facing our nation and the world this summer. God is not inflicting suffering on humanity because we are greedy, irresponsible, prone to quarreling, or unwilling to recognize the legitimate needs of our fellow women and men. We do an excellent job of inflicting suffering on ourselves through these sinful behaviors. God, like the wise parent of a rebellious and selfish adolescent, is patiently sticking with us while we figure out for ourselves that our suffering is the result of our sins. Like that wise parent, God yearns not to punish us but instead prays for our enlightenment, so we will stop doing the things we should not do and start doing the things we should do. The widow who appealed to Elijah and the widow at Nain were not to blame for their sons’ deaths. Neither mother can have been free of sin (no human being is), but God was not punishing these women for sins of omission or commission. Acting through Elijah and incarnate as Jesus Christ, God was pouring balm on the wounds these women, their children, and their friends and neighbors endured in a difficult world. We live in that same difficult world and while we may never fully understand why our world is beset with disasters and diseases, we know we are responsible for much our own unhappiness. The good news is that God is with us in Christ Jesus not to add to that suffering with punishment, but to comfort us with the healing power of his compassionate love. AMEN.
The Rev. Daniel LaRue Gross Rector Emmanuel Church, Chester Parish |