Trinity Sunday                                  Luke 7:11-17                               June 6, 2010

Recently I read about a funeral. The deceased was a man who had had been diagnosed with a mental disorder, which caused him to be extremely paranoid, a condition that hindered any relationships with other people and the outside world in general. The man and his wife had lived in a small house in the country, a house that had a maze of old farm machinery, which made it very difficult for people to get there. The man was very controlling of his wife’s behavior and offered her limited contact with anyone or anything outside their home.

On the day of the funeral only three people attending the funeral: the widow, a psychiatric nurse, and a lady who ran a small corner grocery store, where the couple bought supplies from time to time. It was a sad commentary on a life that had so little to be remembered in it, reduced to a name on a death certificate and the small piece of granite.

The miracle of this story however is found in what took place after the funeral.
The widow seemed to come alive in the aftermath of her husband’s death. She moved out of the little house and into an apartment in town. She got a job and started to relate to other people. She made friends. She bought new clothes. She began to do things that she was held back from for years. Life began to take on new dimensions and she was excited about the direction it was going. She had a new awareness of life. It was like being born again into a new life. As I read about this woman I was reminded of how no matter what life has dealt us in the past, new beginnings are always possible.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues his journey. He had just left Capernaum after healing a Roman centurion’s servant and was now heading toward the village of Nain. As he was entering Nain he encounters a funeral processional. A widow’s son had died. As you might imagine it was a somber affair as this was the widow’s second trip to the cemetery.
In addition to the loss and pain that comes with the death of a loved one, this widow also faces life without any economic security—with no guarantee that there will be anyone to care for her in her old age.

Luke tells us that when Jesus encounters this funeral processional, he has compassion toward the widow whose son had just died. And out of his compassion he walks up to the widow and says to her “Do not weep”.

He then walks over to the dead son and says, “”Young man, I say to you, rise!” and he does. One can only imagine the automatic jaw dropping as people grasp the significance of what has just happened in front of their eyes. The dead are raised. Their sadness is turned to joy.

As this story was read this morning I hope you saw the comparison to the story as found in 1 Kings with the prophet Elijah who comes upon a widow whose son had also died and was raised to new life. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament reading we had stories of how both mothers and sons received new life. You could also make the case that today’s reading from Galatians ties in as Paul talk about being given new life even after he had been persecuting those who believed and acted in Christ’s name.

Like any good story, the stories in scripture are timeless and are not restricted to one-time events. In other words, the truth is always larger than one event in time and not restricted to any place or particulars. The truth that is presented in the story is also about us in our time. It gives us encouragement and feeds our faith in our struggles and fears.

The truth that we face in these stories is that the Spirit of God can still come into our lives and raise us to new life at any time and place on our journey. This is the theme of scripture that we have faced throughout the Easter season and now into Pentecost: Life is stronger than death. We can continually be brought into the fullness of life and true living.

The good news is that new life can happen in many ways here and now and throughout our lives. It can happen through reflecting on our life and realizing the direction that we are heading is not a good one or is a dead end and we resolve to change our direction to a more meaningful goal. The Greeks had a word for this: Metanoia, which literally means “a change of direction”. This is the kind of change that Paul experienced. He changed directions so that people were able to say of him: “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once destroyed.”

When people of faith talk about being “born again” or have been “raised to new life” it might be helpful to remember and realize that unlike Paul, this is rarely as dramatic for the vast majority of us who walk by faith. While it is true that both stories regarding Elijah and Jesus tend to be pretty spectacular—they are not required. In other words, they don’t have to be filled with “made-for-TV” action and drama. For most people of faith, metanoia or repentance is a slow transformative process going through a number of events and experiences of life. There are some things in our lives that evoke more change than others and you realize only by looking at them after the time has elapsed that they were formative in our journey toward maturing discipleship.

As I look back on my own life I find that those transforming experiences more often than not in my participation with avenue so of outdoor ministry, living in community and mission ventures. Each has helped shape my faith life as well as my call to ministry.

As a kid I grew up going to church camps. My family went to family Camp when I was young; I went to camp as a kid; while in college I worked a couple summers at one of our Lutheran camps here in Minnesota and then after college I spent a year out in New York working for a camp. In each of those experiences I was reminded of the wonder and beauty of God’s great outdoors and our need to be faithful stewards of what God has so richly blessed us and commissioned us to care for.

While working in New York I had the opportunity to experience life within an intentional community. What I mean by that is that there were about 20 of us all living year round at this camp tucked in the forests of the Southern Catskill Mountains. Together we lived, worked, served, taught, and worshipped side by side. Looking back, that year was a year of discerning my call to ministry and living in community taught me how to compromise, seek mutual ground, be respectful of others sometimes differing opinions and perspectives. All good things to develop if you are going to be a parish pastor. It was a good way to smooth down some of my sharp edges and it taught me about the need to work and play well with others. It also taught me about servanthood—the importance of remembering that it is not about me—that it is about being Christ to one’s brother or sister in need.

In a similar fashion I lived in another community in Washington DC with the Paulists, a Catholic Religious Order. It was the Paulists who taught me about Christian hospitality and the biblical mandate to welcome the stranger. Having arrived as a stranger they welcomed me, insisted that I become a part of the community in all manners and matters of life, all the while being respectful of our similar and yet different faith traditions.
By the time my stay was up I was sad to return to Minnesota and yet I knew that I would always be welcomed back as a brother in faith.

And lastly, there are those mission ventures that I have been privileged to be a part of.
The call to mission has provide me with the opportunities to travel to places like Central Mexico, twice to Honduras, the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, inner city Denver, Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota, Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and soon, inner city Milwaukee, Wisconsin. If you ask any one who has participated in some sort of mission trip, the response will most likely be the same—the person went assuming that they would be the one giving and serving and helping—and in the end they discovered that they end up receiving more in return. What I mean by this is that in the act of giving one’s self to another – you are also on the receiving end.
In giving you receive. In serving you are served in ways that you might not have imagined. It is amazing how folks who you assume are poor, disadvantaged, lacking things like electricity and modern plumbing, people who might have a 3rd grade education—can really teach you a lot. You discover that doing the most mundane thing can be both humbling and rewarding. You find that sitting down to chat with a toothless old man can be the most rewarding part of your day. If you are lucky, you will discover that the smile of some grubby little 5 year old ragamuffin who wants nothing more than a piggy back ride and some to play with for a couple of hours will melt and break your heart when the day is done and you head for home. And you will hopefully discover and realize that you have been richly blessed in so many ways—and so have those folks who you thought you came to do charity work for. Doing mission work can be some of the hardest and sometimes frustrating work you will ever encounter depending on the circumstances—and yet, it is incredibly life giving and it may even change your life if you allow to. Regardless of where you go—your worldview will never be the same—your easy answers to life’s challenges will no longer work. Every challenge will have a face and a story attached to it. And while that might be challenging and disturbing, it will also be a blessing. Odd how that works out, isn’t it? The truth is God is not going to call you to serve and allow you to come back unchanged, unmoved. We serve a God who is constantly challenging, transforming, and turning our world upside down so that we might gain a glimpse of the kingdom of God. In other words, if we want the same-old-same old—you have come to the wrong place.

Outdoor ministry, living in community and servant mission trip have shaped, molded, and guided my faith life and my world view in ways that I can only see looking back, being reflective and I am greatly appreciative of those experiences.

Not everyone shares the same experiences. Some people have found that their lives have changed after a near death experience. They tend to see life differently and what they thought was important like work, getting ahead, getting more money, and more public recognition was not as important as some other things like their relationship with Christ, family, relationships with others and being loved and giving love.

It doesn’t have to be a near death experience. Some people change when they just face the fact that they are not going to live forever. When we are younger we all know that we are going to die some day, but no one believes it. Then we come to a high noon moment or a turning point—or mid-life crisis-- when we can see both horizons, the sunrise and the sunset and we begin to mark our lives no longer from our birth but from our death.
We don’t have “forever” anymore. We realize that some values and beliefs have proven false and transitory. And the question is: what is really important for us then?

Sometimes a person doesn’t even remember how a change in their life took place and under what circumstances. However, at some moment they said, “Yes” to something or someone and from that time on they became certain that life had meaning and they personally had a goal to fulfill.

Some people just come to realize that they have changed. In his book, Going Home, Robert Raines tells the story of a 38-year-old woman named Chris who wrote a little story entitled, “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”.

She wrote: “Alice doesn’t live here anymore. She left, and someone else has moved in. the new woman is something different from Alice. What a pleasant change! Alice kept the shades drawn the doors locked, and was always crabby to her neighbors.
She must have been a lonely and unhappy person! But the new tenant—Wow!
Warm and alive, windows and doors always open, garden in bloom, and the tea kettle on the stove. She’s really human—joys and hurts, too, but she seems ready to meet them and deal with them. I’m sure glad to know here. Poor Alice—wonder where she’s gone. I don’t really care—I’m just glad!”

Suffice it to say; new beginnings are always possible, out of death comes life, and new life can be experienced in many ways and many circumstances. For the widows who encountered Elijah and Jesus, new life came to their sons and to themselves. For Paul, new life came when he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus and sent him on a journey that would spread the faith to the ends of the earth. In Paul’s case we know that he took that new life and lived it to the fullest to the glory of God. Interestingly, in the case of the mothers and their sons, we know nothing of what became of them.
We have no idea how their lives were transformed. We have no idea as to how they lived out their new lives—did they return back to the same old--same old? Or, did this new lease on life have a ripple effect in their day-to-day activities and relationships?
Were broken relationship restored? And what about the their individual relationship with God? We don’t know. What we do know is that’s the amazing thing about God’s grace—it’s a gift, no strings attached, no hoops to jump through—it is simply given.

The woman in the opening story—was given a gift of new life in the midst of her bereavement—and she found the courage to step out and say, “Yes” to life and a new beginning. And this, my friends is something to celebrate and it is something that we too can find hope for our own lives.

May the God of Life, new beginnings, and fresh starts calm our fears, ease our struggles, grant us peace and guide us to the place where God desires us to be, being the people God created us to be: Disciples, apostles, stewards, brother and sisters in Christ. Amen

Pastor Stephen Blenkush
Zion Lutheran
Milaca, MN
www.ZionMilaca.org

 

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