We are Easter people! Just because the Sundays after Pentecost shifts the focus slightly from the surprise of resurrection to life in the Spirit we remain Easter people. Easter people celebrate new life in Christ. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection we are raised to new life. Personal salvation, yes, but even more God makes all things new (Rev 21:5). A paradigm shift has occurred. Before Jesus rose from the dead the rules of the road were made by the powerful for their advantage. Their image was set up everywhere to remind who was in charge. But on that day at Golgatha a word was spoken changing everything, Father, forgive (Lk 23:34). For those who now live by faith in the Son of God the world is seen through the eyes of Christ. It is Christ’s mission that we undertake: Love one another as I have loved you. God’s project unfolds with the Spirit leading God’s people, at times reluctantly, at times driven, into ways of peace and justice that pervade every aspect of life.
The story of God’s prophet Elijah has fixed our imagination these past weeks. There we find indications of the new things God is doing (Isa 43:19). “New” was in God’s vocabulary long before advertisers used it for leverage. In Elijah’s day civil life was corrupt. Religion divided the people. Kingship was ineffective. But God’s purpose had not changed, so God planned new strategies, tactics and agents to carry out his will.
Elijah had been successful in all God asked of him, but his life was in crisis and his energy was sapped. He had condemned King Ahab’s lawless and idolatrous ways, and now had offended Queen Jezebel who cursed him and threatened his life. He experienced a failure of nerve. He traversed the land from north to south and further still into the desert in order to hide out at Horeb, the mountain of God.
Elijah felt all alone and wanted to die. Reaching the mountain of God, exhausted and depressed, he placed himself on the altar challenging God to accept his sacrifice. Why are you here, Elijah? God asked (I Kg 19:9). That’s not such a silly question. Here is the place Moses hid from pharaoh. Here is where Moses learned God’s name, I am who I am (Ex 3:14). From here God would lead his people from slavery to freedom. This is a God whose purpose does not change while creating newness and blessing.
Witnessing an earthquake, whirlwind and firestorm, Elijah must have been awed by God’s power to destroy. He anticipated an end to Ahab and Jezebel similar to God’s wrath visited on the disobedient Israelites who made and worshiped the golden calf. Instead he learned God’s purpose was known not in the external forces of destruction, but in a still small voice spoken to change a single human heart--his own fearful heart and weakened will. Take courage Elijah, your work is not done. Rather than hide in fear Elijah must Go! to anoint two new kings and a successor for his prophetic work.
Change came about immediately. His homeward journey would take a detour through a different landscape with unfamiliar landmarks but God would lead Elijah to accomplish God’s will. Though a small remnant remained, God’s chosen people can no longer be counted on to be faithful, so foreigners would become agents of God’s judgment and God’s mercy. The blessing promised to Abraham would no longer travel in a straight line from Abraham to his descendants to the world at large. God will choose others to be his agents as well, and they will correct Israel’s faults and failures to make her stronger and more faithful. Elijah may hear only God’s call to get up and dust off his clothes for his work is not over, but our ears perceive that God is doing something new.
This is not so strange. We may find ourselves similarly besieged. A student registering at a new college learns that though she had sufficient transfer credits to enter the upper division program, reduced course offerings and a lack of available classes, plus higher fees, would extend her degree work beyond what seemed financially feasible. So many obstacles now stand in the way of attaining that long sought after goal. “This is unfair! It’s not supposed to be this way, when I’ve been so good and sensible and dedicated.”
Or the person, who never smoked, ate right and lived a healthy life, the regular volunteer, sports booster, “Number 1 Dad,” with little warning is diagnosed with lung cancer. How is the family to manage, especially in these economic times? One can honestly protest, “It is enough!”
Stuck for the moment, we bemoan our fate, but the Lord’s work calls us for blessings abound for the faithful. A new way of thinking is required, thinking outside the box of all that is known, dependable, and reliable, to incorporate God’s new reality.
Luke’s telling of the story of the healing of the man possessed by demons is a powerful witness to Jesus’ authority over the world of the spirit as well as human life. It is preceded by two incidents that make it all the more significant. First, at the conclusion of a session in which he taught in parables, his mother and brothers came to see him, but Jesus told the crowd surrounding him, My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it (Lk 8:22). He recast what it means to be family to include all who believe and live according to his teachings.
And immediately preceding this morning’s account, Jesus sets off in a boat with his disciples for the eastern shore of Lake Galilee. That is like Dorothy and her friends seeking out the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West. To anticipate disembarking on the eastern shore was to cross the border into foreign, even enemy territory. If that’s not bad enough, while on the lake a storm suddenly arose, water almost swamped the boat, putting the disciples in immediate fear for their lives. Jesus calmed the storm and challenged their faith as they continued on their way.
The eastern shore of Galilee presented problems for religious Jews. Arriving there Jesus and the disciples encounter a man possessed by demons, wildly out of control and living among the tombs, pig farmers and their pigs nearby. Jesus healed the man and sent the demons into the herd of pigs which ran into the lake and drowned. When the villagers investigated the loss of the herd they found their former neighbor, whom they feared because of his behavior, calmly learning from Jesus. This gentile had become Jesus’ disciple. The townspeople could not make sense of the miraculous healing, only their financial losses. A believer would be awed by God’s power revealed in Jesus, but the townspeople were afraid of Jesus’ presence among them. He destroyed the local economy. Who knows what other devastation will occur if Jesus were allowed to hang around! They insisted he get back in his boat and leave.
We’ve just learned amazing things. Jesus is no ordinary messiah. Blood relations are no longer as binding as a radical attachment to those who risk everything for the fellowship of other believers, whether they are Jew or gentile. Jesus not only is a powerful teacher but one who can bring the forces of nature into harmony. As a healer he cares as much for a poor demented gentile living among the tombs as he does for Simon’s mother-in-law. A different pattern is emerging of what it means to be God’s chosen and what we understand about God’s purpose. A new perception calls for a new commitment.
Paul succinctly describes the shift in his thinking in his Letter to the Galatians. Faith has superseded the Law which had been an adequate guardian until faith came, but now in Christ all who believe are children of God without distinction of race, economic status, or gender: If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise”(Gal 3:29). It is a new day, and there are new challenges.
In our day prophets appear in new places, speaking of new crises. If God is doing something new the prophetic voice is as likely to speak to us from a murdered child’s parents crying out for reform, or oil-coated pelicans dying in the Gulf Coast, or refugees fleeing ethnic fighting in Tajikistan, Darfur, or poverty in Haiti. The old ways of responding to God’s call have often been ineffective because they attempted to make over others to be like us, for we are assured that we are God’s chosen. But God is calling us to see in the other the face of Christ, to value that person and culture for the greater glory of God, to grow in a deeper understanding of our common humanity.
Go home by a different way, said God to Elijah and draw new persons into God’s redemptive work. Return to your gentile family and neighbors and tell them what God has done for you, said Jesus to the man who harbored the demon hoard, and observe God at work in them. Go into your community, Jesus says to us, and provide homes for the homeless, a safe haven for the mentally ill, jobs for youth, educational and health care, justice for all in the land. Take courage and act on faith. The Lord will bring the blessing.
