1 Kings17:17-24; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, St. George’s Episcopal Church, June 6, 2010

 

The parallel stories we hear today about Elijah and Jesus raising people from the dead are the very kind of stories that non-believers can point to and say, “Your religion is phony.” These are the kind of stories that even some of us within Mother Church might want to put aside as to not have to explain them.

 

If we see these stories through our modern rationalistic science-worshipping lenses then, yes, they do seem silly. But if we can put aside our evidence based thinking we will find truth in these stories. As Jesus and Elijah raise these sons from death they are recognized as prophets. This is about sign and symbol pointing us toward a truth, not evidence pointing us toward facts.

 

The truth in these stories is that God is very present to us. When we feel dead trusting in God can bring us back to life. Think about how many times God has brought you back to life. How many times have you come to this altar for Word and Sacrament and been healed of something? Even in the midst of what we see as the most hopeless situations, God shows us signs of life.

 

Another truth in these stories is that God feels compassion for us. When Jesus sees the widow he has compassion for her. The Greek word used for “compassion” is splagchnizesthai it comes from the noun splagchna. Splagchna referred to the noble organs of the body, the heart, lungs, liver and intestines.

 

Jesus sees this widow burying her son and he feels for her from the core of his body. His empathy is so strong that he touches the funeral brier which makes him ritually unclean. Jesus reaches beyond all social and religious boundaries to bring life out of death. 

 

God in Christ is so intimately involved in our humanity that he feels within his organs; he is a body, a person who empathizes with us.

 

This is the glory and mystery of the Incarnation. It is what sets Christianity apart from any other religion: God becomes so human that he feels empathy within his body and yet remains divine. He shows forth that divinity in bringing life out of death.

 

New Testament scholar William Barclay points out that in addition to this story there are two other times in the Gospels when Jesus feels this depth of compassion. When he sees the crowds he sees sheep without a shepherd. He sees the spiritual need of the people. He is moved in his gut to reach out and show them the kingdom. The  other instance is before the miracle of the loaves and fishes when he is moved by the crowds hunger, exhaustion and pain.

 

God in Christ feels it in his gut when he sees our spiritual emptiness, our pains and our sorrow. As Barclay puts it, “He did not see men as chaff to be burned; he saw them as a harvest to reaped for God.”

 

God in Christ felt compassion for St. Paul. Christ lead Saul from his life of persecuting others to a life of bringing expectation and healing to others. Christ saw Saul’s inner pain masquerading as a need to hound and persecute others. Saul was dead inside using his talents to be a critic, to condemn, to stand against something rather than to be for something. Christ raised him from that funeral brier, gave him a new name, and sent him out to bring hope to the forsaken.

 

This is how God is calling us to feel for one another. God is calling us to listen deeply to one another’s pain. He is calling us to look past other’s behavior that repels us to see the brokenness inside.

 

This past Thursday we observed the Feast of Corpus Christi. In this feast we give thanks for the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. As I anticipated and then prayed through that feast day I was struck again by the compassion of God in Christ.

 

In the Holy Eucharist God is offering his very body and blood to us. There it is again, the glory and mystery of the Incarnation. God is embodied and then he gives that embodiment back to us.

He lets his body be broken and his blood spilled so that we can learn how to let go; how to experience forgiveness and reconciliation. As Christ walks through this life with us he sees that instead of enjoying the harmony which is God, we are living in a disjointed power game. He sees how we hurt each other and how we find it hard to forgive ourselves.

 

In the Holy Eucharist he offers us a way out. He says, “Here, take my body and my blood. I will suffer with you and for you. In this offering I will reconcile you to God and to each other. I love you unconditionally and I can feel your pain deep in my gut. Here, take this body and blood and live again.”

 

This is a mystery to enter into and enjoy not a fact to be proved or disproved. Here in this bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ we find the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament: we are broken  and God is here with us. When we learn to empathize as God empathizes then we are risen with him; we ascend to the true altar in heaven where there is no death, sorrow or crying but only life, reconciliation and hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference: New Testament Words by William Barclay (pp. 276-78)

                   Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY 1974