The first lesson read today is an example of the Bible’s storytelling at its best. The suspense is real. We have no idea how things will turn out. This is not some pat “if you have enough faith, all will certainly be well” little ditty. People of faith do not necessarily have it easy, and often the roads they must travel are quite difficult and the way is obscure. Elijah is kicked out of his country and forced into the wilderness where it is expected no one ever will hear of him again. The ruling authorities do not like what he is saying and they know how to silence people. Elijah is driven to desperation, and begs help from a foreign widow of Phoenicia and her young son who are on the verge of starvation themselves. He gets her to share their last food. They survive, but then the son gets sick and dies. The widow assumes it is punishment for helping this foreign prophet. Elijah, at his wits end again, takes the child in his arms, and the child revives. The story ends well, but you can be sure when Elijah left that widow’s house, the son, the widow, and Elijah all breathed a sign of relief, and no one was in any mood to exchange addresses.
Part of the importance of this ancient story of tribal times was to remind Israel that people, whomever they may be and wherever they find themselves, could further God’s purpose, and that God cared about foreigners, too. Israel benefited from the generosity and gifts of outsiders. The story also indicated that God’s acts of salvation sometimes took place in so-called strange places, and forced people to ask not only what was God doing inside the Temple, the synagogue or one’s own religious community, but what was God doing among the peoples outside one’s religious, social and political boundaries.
After the story of Elijah and the widow of Sidon, the account of Jesus’ healing outside the village of Nain seems rather mundane. It seems so thoroughly sanitized. Yet we know that Jesus crossed boundaries just like Elijah and his ministry stirred up controversy and strong opposition as much as Elijah’s. Roman army officers were very much part of the hated army of foreign oppression. To heal a servant of a centurion was like giving aid and comfort to an enemy. Who knows what the reputation of the man, who was being carried out for burial, was. We know that over and over again Jesus engaged with people in the midst of the worst possible circumstances and utmost misery, and introduced his disciples to people everyone, who was considered a decent person, normally would shun. Throughout history, people of faith are called to interact with people and remain in places no one else would consider.
This past Tuesday, some of us had a very informative evening with Pastor Bruce Davenport and his wife Deborah. As most of you know Pastor Davenport is pastor of a church in the ninth ward of New Orleans, and our parish joined together with Love Knows No Bounds and other groups in Ithaca to support the Davenports’ work immediately after Hurricane Katrina. However, Pastor Davenport’s ministry began years before Katrina. He reminded us that the problem of HIV and related diseases have long been concerns of his parish, and because his church became actively involved in ministering to people with HIV and those of high risk to HIV, he and his church were kicked out of their denomination. Even today, many other churches are very reluctant to help his church in one of the poorest sections of New Orleans for some of his outreach is quite bold. But as he reminded us, you just can’t say to people who are hungry and without hope, “just don’t do it” and “no, no, no” and then walk away. You have to get people talking with you and to trust you before they will ever listen to you. Yes, to get their attention, you may have to be in places and gain attention by controversial means. As Jesus discovered, so-called respectable people are going to squawk if you eat with sinners. (I’ve put on the bulletin board, an article on Pastor Davenport and St. John’s Faith Church No. 5’s ministry for further reading.)
Pentecost made it clear that the risen Christ expected the gathered disciples to be different than followers of other rabbis. With Christians in the congregation, synagogue worship would never be the same again. The risen Christ baptized with fire, fire-- totally different, actually almost the opposite of water. “Go out, make disciples of all nations, explore to the ends of the earth, and I will be with you”. The new community of faith, the community called the church, would be unlike any community the disciples had ever known. When the Holy Spirit baptized with fire, some of the disciples began to praise God in the language of the Parthians, others in the dialect of the Medes, and Mespotanians, Cappadocians, and so forth, all strange and foreign cultures. No longer was God’s word entrusted to be spread, taught, and interpreted by one particular ethnic group or by a people who had a common culture and history. Pentecost pointed to a universal community, something completely new and untried. Pentecost produced a profound crisis for the disciples and they were offered that basic choice--to accept it as an exciting opportunity or to dread it as a problem.
God seems to offer such a choice of a new future within every crisis. Moses was tending sheep when a burning bush caught his attention. Moses could have avoided it and passed by. But the Biblical account says that Moses turned aside to find out what this sign meant. And when God saw that Moses went out of his way and changed his course to investigate this opportunity, then God called to Moses from the fire. Later when the tribes of Israel were free from slavery, God would offer them the choice to become a nation, to be a light to all peoples, and to journey to a land of promise, or to stay in the desert, in familiar territory, wandering as their ancestors had done for centuries. When things got rough, Jesus offered the disciples a choice to follow or to return to their villages around the lake. I believe the Holy Spirit offers us a choice too, today! One of those choices is to be baptized with fire, the fire of the risen Christ, to be filled with the courage to discover, to learn, to choose the challenge of opportunity. It started way back with prophets such as Elijah, but Elijah’s mantel has been cast on us today. Today, we are called to go out and spread the Good News, to be healers, even in controversial areas and outside the boundaries. That is why I’m proud that we have supported Pastor Davenport’s ministry and why I pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to catch us and set our hearts on fire.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
.
