Good morning, dear people.
Before I start my reflection, there are a couple of things that I feel I must say. The first is that, this year, we celebrate the anniversary of something that is way older than the Democratic Party, way older than the USA, way older than the current State of Israel. This is the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. This is what we say we believe. We also believe that we should love our neighbors as Jesus told us. But loving our neighbors derives from what the Nicene Creed recognizes – that Jesus is divine, the Son of God. In telling us to love our neighbors, Jesus wasn’t giving us some ethical advice. He didn’t come to found the United Nations. He founded the church in the world and this kinship right here. This is what Saint Paul was always yammering about over and over – that the Gospel derives from Jesus’ divinity.
The second thing has to do with current events. I am deeply unhappy about the attack on Iran and the escalation of war in the Middle East. And yet we sit here so safely. What is to be said? Well, the Vatican has probably the world’s greatest media empire. And the Pope addresses people every day almost. So, I looked to see what Leo XIV might have said. He said that we should look to diplomacy. Well, that’s true. Let’s hope. But he also said that war inflicts deep wounds on a people’s history. He also said it leads to consigning other issues to oblivion. And I ask, in this respect, where is the suffering of the people of Gaza in the newspapers these past few days? He said that victory is no compensation for the fear of children or for their stolen future. He said that no conflict is far away when human dignity is at stake. So, now, let’s turn to the message of today’s readings which concern, in their way, what we do for our children and what are God’s expectations of us.
So, onward.
The people we love – parents, children, spouses, friends — sometimes go through hard times. Then, we comfort them. But our job is really to help them get through it and often we have to push them really hard. The pushing can hurt everyone a lot and it makes us wonder if we’re doing the right thing. I’ve said this before: Love can be a sword that pierces your heart.
I’m most familiar with this dynamic, if that’s the right word, in the case of my children. I remember when our teenage daughter and we went to the airport for her travel to a whole other state to start college. Suddenly, a necessary farewell turned into mourning. Tears flowed. Finally, she, wearing a pair of red pedal pushers (if that’s the right word!) got on the plane to start out.
How can such a right thing cause so much pain? But, now, practically thirty years later, I see how she is a whole, healthy, highly competent woman, a mother and a professional. Perhaps it had to do with pushing her onto the airplane.
Twenty or so years ago, I pushed my son out the door to make him take a job offered to him in New York City. It had to be. He had to go out the door. It was painful and frightening for us all. (Parents get scared at almost anything.) But he ended up making a life for himself. It was not easy, but it became positive. And New York is now his home more than California ever was.
This dynamic of deciding, grieving, and pushing is something that we see in the Old Testament reading and in the Gospel for today. But, instead of parents, for example, it is God who does the deciding and the pushing. And I ask myself whether he also does not grieve.
Elijah is one of the great figures of the Old Testament. He was active during the reign of Ahab, King of Israel, who, as the Bible says, “did more evil in the sight of the Lord than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30) One of his evils was to marry Jezebel who was not a Hebrew. The two of them institutionalized the worship of Jezebel’s false gods in Israel. And Jezebel made sure that as many of the prophets of the Lord that she could catch were hunted down and killed. This is the scene that Elijah steps into.
Elijah’s story is interesting and stretches over seven and a half chapters of the Old Testament. (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2:12). He definitely has singleness of heart in trying to return Israel to the Lord. He is constantly on the road, constantly in danger. He seems powerful and he seems humorless. He is actually not the person I’d like to spend time with.
I think we all have heard the story how Elijah challenges the priests and prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. He and they are each to prepare a sacrifice and see which divinity will bring down fire from heaven to burn it up. (1 Kings 18:18-40). Elijah, or rather the Lord, wins. Baal does nothing, and the Lord consumes even the stones of the altar that Elijah set up for him. Then – tit for tat, I guess — Elijah had the people kill every one of the prophets of Baal.
Elijah runs away because Jezebel is out to skin him alive. He ends up by himself in the wilderness near Beersheba which is way down south in the Kingdom of Judah, far from Israel. And, at this point, the Bible gives us one of the first great descriptions of despair and depression. Elijah sits under a tree and asks the Lord to take away his life. He is exhausted. He is scared. He falls asleep under the tree or shrub. He awakes to the comfort of a simple hot meal. (I think we’ve all given unhappy people something to eat and said “this’ll make you feel better.”) Elijah falls asleep again. He gets another meal. And he is told to get up and get going. He gets going to Mount Horeb which is in the Sinai. Elijah finds himself, in the silence, in the very physical presence of God. He is able to explain less emotionally the reason for his being so far away from Israel. The explanation of his flight is rational. God really listens, but God has expectations for Elijah.. Elijah is sent on other tasks all to assure the continuation of God’s worship in Israel. (Our selection for today leaves his assigned tasks out.) God has pushed him on his way as we often do for loved ones.
In today’s great Gospel reading, Luke gives us one of the great scenes of a confrontation with truly tormented insanity. Jesus heals this man who has seemed totally divorced from our reality, who is in such unimaginable pain. So what happens? The Gerasenes, who are the people of this area and are Gentiles, come down and ask Jesus to leave. They are afraid and upset because of his vast intrusion into the ways of their world – the healing, the loss of their pigs. They wonder what could be next. Jesus does go away. The man who has been healed begs to go with him. But Jesus says “No”. Jesus has expectations of him. He is to go to the Gerasenes and glorify God among them for the miracle of his healing. He is given a mission. He will replace Jesus who is being chased away. He is to become “Jesus” to the Gerasenes. He is pushed away.
The Bible is like a mirror of our lives. God intrudes on us where we are and as we are. The healing of Elijah and of the madman of the Gerasenes is like our giving comfort to our children. But when God sends Elijah onward and sends the formerly mad man on his mission to the Gerasenes, he is like us pushing our children away on their own path – to college out-of-state, to a job and life in New York City, and whatever the experience of each of us brings up.
We have expectations of the people we love when we need to push them onward. We want them to mature and grow. But what is God’s expectations of us? For surely God has them. They are more like what he wants from Elijah and the formerly insane man. Broadly speaking, he wants us to live the Gospel. But I sense that there is more detail than this bland statement about living the Gospel. Saint Paul, a great pusher if there ever was one, says that we are on with each other; that we are one with God; that we share God’s spirit because we are the Spirit’s Temple. And Saint Paul speaks a million times about the Body of Christ – well, I exaggerate: he talks about it three or four times. It is one of his lifelong themes. The Body of Christ is the church in the worldwide sense and as a local kinship, like us here in this room. The Body of Christ has many parts. Paul enumerates them – the teacher, the healer, the preacher, for example. (For example, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Romans 12:4-5) And we can go way beyond Paul’s enumeration of the parts — to vestry member, school teacher, retired person who volunteers, a person who prays for all and sundry, Bible student, theologian, observer of the beauty of the universe, proclaimer of the day of the Lord’s favor, and you name it.
And so our important question is: What does God expect of you as a baptized person? What does he push you onward to do? It may be something not so big, like a seed that sprouts and becomes a big tree. Jesus loved talking about seeds. Every little thing you do is a sprouting seed. Think about this! You may not know it, but you’re already doing it. Make yourself think about it!
We have also a great starter outline in the Baptismal covenant. Do we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? Do we continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the Eucharist, and in the prayers? Do we resist evil and repent our sins and return to the Lord? Do we proclaim the Gospel by word and example? Do we serve Jesus in all persons and love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we strive for justice and peace? And as the Pope mentioned in his recent message that I referred to: Do we respect the dignity of all people?
Amen.
