Eddie, our organist, called me earlier in the week and asked if he should do patriotic numbers this weekend or next weekend. I said, "Do both!" Some will be expecting it to lead up to the holiday, and others will want it during the long weekend, even though it's after the fact. Besides, with the world in the mess it's in, it doesn't hurt to pray for the nation twice, right? So, a Happy and Safe 4th of July to all of you, and expect similar wishes next weekend too!!!
Now, let's move to the readings for the weekend. What do we make of a Sunday meditation that occurs just before our national holiday of Independence that presents with not one, but TWO "death marches?" We could focus on how anything that is worthwhile demands sacrifice, I suppose...
But, what I'd like you to see is that each death march--that of Elija wtih Elisha in tow, who was to succeed him, and that of Jesus as He turned his face to Jerusalem and began the several month long journey that would end at Calvary's Hill--while both are, indeed, death marches.......neither really ends in death! Elijah, according to the Text was taken up to Heaven in a Chariot of Fire from where he would wait the Day of the Messiah and then return to announce it. And Jesus, while he died, and was buried, rose in the Resurrection of Easter Morning Wonder!
Both men truly suffered in their lifetime. Elijah was abandoned by his people, and crawled all the way to Mt. Sinai, where Moses had stood, and said, "I alone am left! Now, what?" Jesus cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And as if things were'nt dark enough for Him, an eclipse of the sun occured, as He was expiring--not even sunlight was given Him at the end. And, YET....both of those people, according to the Text were truly blessed with Heavenly and Eternal Life. Death was just something that "really wasn't there!" It looked so foreboding, but when the climax came, and they passed thorugh those portals, God's Chariot of Light and Life arrived, or His Resurrection Power that overcomes every kind of death--the death at the end of human life, as well as the many smaller deaths within it, deaths to things we think so important we don't know how to live without them, but they "go" and we move on, and learn that they were not so essential, after all.
Death, then, in both readings is a chimera. It appears and is so frightening, but when one passes through it, one sees that it was nothing at all--and life goes on--a different life, but eternal life.
I think this is an essential teaching for all who hold the Gospel and wish to be imitators of the Christ, and walk in His gentle footsteps as His disciples. We need to hear it over and over again. For we are so often tried--not because God is testing us to see if we are worthy, but simply because LIFE is as annoying as it is wonderful. Crazy people live in this world, and they're ALL AROUND! Sometimes, they're EVEN US! So whether it's the crazies annoying us, or us crazies annoying them, life is filled with moments of darkness and trial. We understand the story of the eclipse on Good Friday, whether it happened or not, because We have been there! We know that that's the way things often are! Darkness just seems to descend.
So we also need to remember that it passes--sometimes quickly, sometimes terribly slowly, but these "death moments" do pass. All disciples need to know that. Otherwise every misfortune is seen as God's punishment. If we can look at life and see the trouble and the trial that simply livng in a finite world of free will, inhabited by 7 billion other people, can bring to anyone, instead of looking for God's punishment in everything that happens to us, we begin to look for God's saving Grace to take us beyond life's difficulties.
This is what the disciple of the Prince of Peace has to know. God is here, and God is here not to hurt us but to help us. God is not trying to test us--though living does test us in many ways--rather, God is here to help us overcome, and truly LIVE. Moreover, the ENERGY FOR LIVING--the RESURRECTION POWER FOR TRUE LIFE--that is given to us, helps us to be healers and menders of the broken who have no hope. We are NOT here to RISE and OVERCOME in order to look at those poor slobs who don't know God, or who don't have our faith, and say, "Huh! Guess you see who is right NOW, don't ya?" Absolutely not. That desire to be better, to show up the lesser, is what got James and John Christ's rebuke in today's Gospel. They had wanted to make a parking lot out of an entire village becasue it had rejected them....and Christ says, "Good grief! I'm about to die, and you STILL DON'T get it!" We are here to be the leaven in the loaf. What does leaven do? It lifts. It raises. We are here to lift ourselves and all humanity a little higher, and we only do that as we make their cares our own, and help them to rise, too, NOT by destroying others, but learning to love them as family.
And as we do that, as we make a friend out of an enemy, as we help someone who is suffering to see that hope is possible, we LIFt the world Godward.
We need this lesson as individual disciples, and we need it as a nation--so maybe it's good that it falls where it does. Instead of destroying our enemies before they can destroy us, maybe we need to befriend them--make them family. I know it sounds so bizarre to think that one can make a friend out of a person who is ready to toss a grenade into your house, and it feels like opening the door wide to him is just giving him less resistence, and makes it easier to get the grenade into the house, but look at who our "Enemies" have been: England, at the time of the origin of this national holiday...now they are our staunchest allies. At one time or another, Canada, France, Mexico, Spain, Germany--all nations who we NOW know are simply wonderful people--people we want to know better. Why would we think those folk who, now, seem to be so threatening will not be the same one day?
The message of the Christ is the Christmas message of Peace on Earth. Peace is made one friendship at a time, one good deed at a time, one offering of hope at a time. So, to celebrate our national holiday, let's get busy with peacemaking, shall we? And may the God of Peace bless you all. +
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