notes of a sermon preached on 10 June 07
INTRODUCTION
I am aware that
the theme of today’s readings is a sensitive one. Our
congregation includes people who have experienced miscarriages,
the trauma of a still-born baby, or the death of their child
before the usual expected term of life. We have seen and known
parents like the widow of Zarephath and the widow of Nain, who
have suffered grief upon the death of their children and would
give anything to have them restored back into the family.
It may be that
in the two instances recounted in these Bible stories, the boys
were not beyond resuscitation. It is not unusual for people to
be rescued from death by using the kiss of life when breathing
has stopped. Elijah could have blown air into the young boy’s
lungs when he ‘stretched himself on the boy three times’ before
praying for his revival. Similarly, the condition of catalepsy
gives the appearance of death. The muscles go rigid and there is
a lack of response to stimuli. The character Silas Marner, in
George Eliot’s novel of the same name, suffered from cataleptic
fits and seizures. It is possible that, although the widow of
Nain’s son had been declared dead, Jesus recognised this
condition and was able to restore him to consciousness.
But whatever
the circumstances of these restored lives were, the stories face
us with three important things.
FIRSTLY, THEY
FACE US WITH THE FINITENESS OF OUR PHYSICAL LIVES.
Benjamin
Franklin said that there are only two things that are certain in
life. One is death. The other is taxes! When we took my father
into hospital where he eventually died, I said to the doctor,
‘My dad’s GP says that his condition is terminal. Is that
right?’ The doctor, who had had a long and stressful night on
Accident and Emergency, shrieked back, ‘Terminal, what’s
terminal, we are all terminal.’ It was an unfortunate way to be
reminded of this, but of course what she said was true. We are
all born to die.
A Buddhist
story tells of a young woman whose child died. She walked from
house to house, carrying him in her arms, asking if anyone could
heal him. Finally she went to the Buddha, who listened to her
story with sympathy and then said, ‘To heal the child I need
some poppy seeds. Go and bring me four or five poppy seeds from
a home where death has never entered.’ So the demented woman
set out. Eventually she came to understand the meaning of his
words, and went out and buried the body of her child.
The widow of
Zarephath feared that the death of her son was a punishment on
her for her sins. Jesus revealed to us that God is NOT a God of
wrath and anger who feels obliged to chastise us and inflict
punishment upon us. The God of Jesus is a God of compassion, of
mercy, forgiveness and love. We must firmly reject all
suggestions that imply otherwise. It is our belief that
physical death is woven into the pattern of God’s creation,
freeing us from material bodies that are inevitably subject to
frailty, decay and limitation, to a form of existence that is
imperishable.
Jesus shared in
the grief of those who mourned and he shrank from the death that
he himself faced. Yet Jesus had total trust in God and had the
faith to say, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ It
is the same for us all.
SECONDLY, THE
STORIES FACE US WITH THE QUESTION OF WHAT WE THINK OF JESUS.
Luke says that
the crowds, who saw what Jesus did, said that ‘A great prophet
has risen amongst us’, and that ‘God has visited his people’.
They regarded Jesus as being in the line of the ancient
prophets, because he was able to do what the prophet Elijah had
done. There are a number of striking similarities between the
story of Jesus raising a dead boy to life and the Elijah story
and at one point some words are directly quoted from it. Early
Christians soon dropped the idea of Jesus being a prophet, in
favour of titles that gave more reverence to Jesus’ divinity.
They had no doubt that Jesus belonged to a succession of faith,
but they further sensed that in him God was uniquely present and
active amongst them.
Richard Dawkins
is a brilliant evolutionary biologist and the best-known atheist
in Britain today. Last September he published a book called
‘The God Delusion’ which is currently top of the paperback
non-fiction best sellers list. In it he maintains that Jesus’
divinity is fiction. He cannot find evidence to support a
belief in God, but he does have some respect for the values that
Jesus advocated. He wishes that ‘super niceness’ and generous
forgiveness could spread like an epidemic, so that we could
increase the numbers of kinder, more compassionate people. And
so he is running a campaign, ‘Atheists for Jesus.’ Dr Dawkins
says that in Jesus’ time and culture it would not have been an
option for him not to believe in God, but he was a radical
thinker who rebelled against many of the aspects of God’s
vengeful nastiness that are put forward in the Old Testament.
Dawkins maintains that if Jesus could return today he would be
appalled at what is being done in his name and would join the
campaign. He comments that Jesus would probably turn around the
slogan on the T-shirt so that it read not ‘Atheists for Jesus’,
but ‘Jesus for Atheists’!
One of Richard
Dawkins’ surprising targets has been the northern comedian Peter
Kay, who is well known for his gentle humour about garlic
bread. In his autobiography ‘The Sound of Laughter’, which has
also topped the non-fiction best sellers list, Peter Kay wrote,
‘I believe in a God of some kind, in some sort of higher being.
Personally I find it very comforting.’ Dawkins responded with
contempt. ‘How can you take seriously someone who has to
believe in something because he finds it comforting?’ But, like
Dawkins, Peter Kay rejects the divinity of Jesus. ‘Jesus did
walk the earth at one time, but I don’t think he was the
superhero that the Bible makes him out to be…. I think that
Jesus was an ordinary person, like me and you.’
This is what a
couple of people, whose books are very widely read, think of
Jesus today.
WE believe
that, although we live in a world that is mixed up, where life
is hard, where there are frustrations and sorrows, the universe
is not a meaningless jumble, but it has pattern and purpose
running through it. We believe that a Planner, whom we call
God, brought the universe into being in a creative act of love.
And we believe that the nature and purposes of God are supremely
revealed to us in Jesus, who was fully human, but whose life was
lived in such vivid awareness of the presence and the will of
God that everyone sensed the Divine when Jesus came near. These
things we believe. We KNOW that Jesus not only influenced
people in his own day, but that he is still of value and an
inspiration to people living today in a completely different age
and culture. We KNOW that in him we find joy and fulfilment of
life.
FINALLY, THE
STORIES CHALLENGE THOSE WHO WOULD BE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS TO BE
THE MEANS OF BRINGING LIFE TO OTHERS.
We may not be
able to raise people from the dead, but we CAN align ourselves
with those things that open the door to life for people rather
than siding with those things that lead to death.
For example,
today has been designated as a day of prayer to conclude a week
in which people have been taking action against the Arms Trade
and trying to raise awareness of the commerce in death that our
Governments have been willing to support. Ten days ago the
Chief Executive of the publishing company Reed Elsevier issued a
statement saying that they will be pulling out of the Arms Trade
and no longer organising fairs that promote products designed to
kill people. This followed a high-profile campaign comparing
the incompatibility of their position with the fact that they
are also the number one publisher of medical and science
journals that contribute to supporting life. Attention was also
drawn to the principles of the original family owners of Reed,
who were Methodists. Encouraged by this success, campaigning is
now focusing on the world’s fourth largest arms producer, BAE
Systems, and its dealings with Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of
Saudi permits only one religious faith, a branch of Sunni
Islam. Muslims from the Sufi and Shia traditions and Christians
are not tolerated, under penalty of capital punishment. There
are terrible tales of persecution. Yet our Government continues
to actively support the sale of arms to them, with taxpayers’
money, through the Defence Export Services Organisation, and it
has ignored continuing allegations of bribery and corruption
that have surrounded the arms deals. Today we are being asked
to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ in Saudi Arabia
who are suffering injustices because of their faith and gender,
and we shall be doing that shortly. There is also a petition
calling for the Government to allow the Serious Fraud Office’s
investigation into BAE Systems arms deals with the Saudi regime
to be re-opened. If you feel able to put your signature to
that, it will be sent to the Prime Minister’s office. Through
this campaign you can help support life for people in Saudi
Arabia, rather than accept their death from human rights abuses
as inevitable.
CONCLUSION
And so today, as
we acknowledge our own mortality, as we reflect upon who we
think Jesus is, and as we are called to bring life to others, we
offer our worship and commitment to the God who is immortal, who
is revealed in Jesus, and who offers life to all.
By Margaret Bradley
© 2007