5th Sunday after Pentecost
June 19, 2016
Father’s Day
1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke
8:26-39
(Video found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps9NV94eviQ )
How many of you are familiar with the term ‘compassion
fatigue’? It’s when you get worn out from helping people so much and caring so
much that you can get to a point where you no longer care and can no longer
motivate yourself to help. It’s usually caused by not doing enough self-care
while you’re caring for others. You only have so much to give, if you don’t
rejuvenate and refresh and renew yourself. If you don’t take care of your own
needs, then you can easily feel overwhelmed by the world’s needs. Or, as a
father, if you don’t take care of yourself, it becomes that much harder to take
care of your family. Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” meaning that
you love and take care of yourself, too; not yourself more than others, or
others more than yourself. You have to take care of yourself in order to take
care of others, and we are all called to care for others.
Today’s Old Testament reading about Elijah picks back up from
a couple weeks ago, when we read about Elijah challenging 450 prophets of Baal.
He completely blew them out of the water, and then, if we read one verse more,
went too far and had them all killed. Now, Queen Jezebel has responded by
threatening to kill Elijah, “May the gods strike me dead if by this time
tomorrow I don't do the same thing to you that you did to the prophets.”[1]
It’s quite the death threat. And even though God has just proved that he is
indeed the Lord, Elijah is terrified by Jezebel’s threat and runs for his life.
He runs into the wilderness and just completely despairs, praying to God to
take his life. Elijah then lies down and falls asleep. Twice an angel wakes him
to make him eat and drink so that he has strength for the next journey. God has
Elijah travel 40 days and 40 nights to his holy mountain, Mount Sinai, and by
then Elijah has regained some of his strength and his composure and is ready to
talk. God asks him, “Whatcha doing here, Elijah? You know, a month’s journey
from where you’re supposed to be ministering, despairing for your life, and
after I just proved myself dramatically against the false prophets of Baal. Why
are you worried about Jezebel’s
threat?” Elijah tells God “I’ve been very zealous and passionate for your
cause, God, and they killed all your other prophets. I’m the only one left and now they’re coming
after me, too. I’m worn out and at the end of my rope. I don’t have anything
left.”
God
responds by telling Elijah to go stand on the mountain because God is about to
pass by. First Elijah feels the gust of a strong wind, strong enough to knock
him off his feet, but God’s not in the wind. Then Elijah feels the ground shake
underneath him in an earthquake, but God’s not in the earthquake. Then Elijah
feels the heat of a fire, but God’s not in the fire. And then there’s a very
quiet sound, a still, small voice, a gentle and quiet whisper; one translation
says it’s the sound of sheer silence.[2] When
Elijah hears it, he covers his face and goes out to stand before God. Again,
God asks him, “Why are you here, Elijah?” and you can hear the tender gentleness
in God’s voice. And again Elijah says, “I’ve been very passionately serving
you, God. They killed all your other prophets. I’m the only one left, and now
they’re trying to kill me, too,” and you can hear the grieving and despair in
Elijah’s voice. It’s like Elijah could have written our psalm for this morning,
“My soul thirsts for God… My tears have been my food day and night… These
things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led
them in procession to the house of God… My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount
Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and
your billows have gone over me.”[3]
God hears this lament, and then gently tells Elijah, “Go back. I have new work
for you to do.”
Like we read in Ecclesiastes and The Byrds sang in the
‘60’s, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under
heaven.”[4] There is a time to keep quiet and to lie
low. There is a time to seek refuge. And there is a time to mourn and
lament and grieve. It is a healthy way to deal with suffering and pain. There
are times we need to be by ourselves. There are times we need to go to places
of shelter, places we know we’re safe, places where we know we’re completely
loved. Those are good coping mechanisms. Elijah did all right taking time for
himself. He hadn’t yet mourned and grieved for his fellow prophets. With a loss
like that, you’re got to take the time to grieve.
There is definitely a time to mourn, especially
in the face of such a tragedy, such a
time of despair. Especially when you’re trying to handle such strong emotions
and such suffering, you have to take the time for yourself to start healing
before you go back out in the world again. Otherwise those emotions and that
pain is going to bubble up or even burst out at other times and it may be
inappropriate, it may permanently ruin a relationship, it may make you bitter
and unhappy, if there’s grief you haven’t acknowledged and worked through yet. And
I trust you know that those “7 stages of grief” aren’t necessarily linear and
you don’t necessarily go through them in a precise order or cross them off
after you’re done with one. Here with Elijah we already see guilt and anger and
depression. And after taking this time apart at Mount Sinai, he moves on to
acceptance and hope.
There
is also a definite time to mourn when the truth of our passage from Galatians
is not acknowledged. Paul wrote, “You are all God’s children through faith in
Christ Jesus. All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves
with Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you
are all one in Christ Jesus.”[5] We
who believe in Jesus are all God’s children and we are all one in Jesus. I had
a New Testament professor in seminary who said that this verse from Galatians
was Paul’s Gospel, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave
or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus.” These other differences are there, but they are not the most important
thing about you. The most important thing about you is that you are God’s
beloved child. And there is definitely grief when this is not acknowledged,
when your life is threatened, like Elijah, or even like Paul. Paul was
eventually put to death by the Roman authorities, martyred for his faith in
Jesus, this faith that completely turned the Roman hierarchical system upside
down by claiming that we all are one. When we don’t see each other as made in
the image of God and clothed with Christ, it is a time to mourn.
However,
if you know that passage from Ecclesiastes, there is “a time to be born, and a
time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot…” then you know that these
times are paired up.[6] There is “a time to weep, and a time to
laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”[7] So
after the time to mourn and grieve, then follows a time to dance and celebrate.
In our Gospel reading, the man healed of the demons is told by Jesus to go and share
what God has done for you. He wants to join Jesus as one of the disciples, but
Jesus says, “Return home, and tell the story of what God has done for you.”[8] Like
Elijah, he is told to go back. And isn’t this what so many of our dads teach us,
to get up and swing again. Dust
yourself off, take a minute outside the batter’s box if you need it, and then
get back in the game and try again. Get a Band-Aid if you’re bleeding, or ice
for a new bruise; take time to take care of yourself. And then get back out
there, ready to play again.
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