June 6 Proper 6
Over the last forty or so days we have seen photos of frightening proportions: oil spewing forth from one mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, oil-coated marsh grasses and birds, empty boat docks, and worried faces of people in southern Louisiana who depend on fishing for their livelihood, as well as the faces of people who depend on jobs made possible by the drilling of oil wells. And we can throw in the looks of worried investors on Wall Street. What we have is a closely interlocking environment, in the largest sense of that word, the change of one part of which ripples across the entire eco-system—and economic system—of our nation, even our world. The oil spill has become a sign that nothing ever takes place in isolation.. All are connected.
It is a story as old as the Hebrew Bible. I have a feeling that when you heard the lesson from the First Book of Kings today you started thinking about miracles, of how it is that Elijah could produce oil and wine out of nothing and could raise the dead. But limiting the story to the miraculous alone is about as valid as looking at that oil well blowout and thinking solely about tar balls on any of our favorite beaches along the Gulf Coast. There is another interpretation of this biblical story that looks at what is taking place from another angle. It is the angle that this story is about how God provides for Elijah. Go back and reread it. The story is very much about how Elijah’s needs will be met even though he is traveling in a foreign land, Zarephath, an area in which God is not supposed to have any power. But all the same, there God is, taking care of him.
If you think I am missing the main point of the miraculous, take a look at what happens when the woman tells Elijah that she and her son are dying. Elijah seesm to think it okay that she go home to get ready to die, but what he really wants is for her to take care of his hunger. It diminishes any feelings of respect that we might have for Elijah as a man of God, and makes us wonder why we so often sing a hymn about Elijah at ordinations. Are all ordained people so selfish? And why does God let the ordained get away with it?
So, here we have two stories: Elijah the miracle worker, seen from an age in which we don’t take such miracles literally, and Elijah the prophet who wants his own needs taken care of, an all too common demand today as well. Add to this yet a third story, that of the woman who never thanks Elijah for the food, and instead complains when her son gets deathly ill. Now we have a potentially unholy mess, somewhat like what is going on the Gulf of Mexico.
The way to make sense of what is happening in 1 Kings is to look for a larger story, to look for the holy story, the meta-narrative. And that story is a story as old as creation itself, the story of interdependence and stewardship. Elijah and the woman and the son all need one another, and eventually in each other’s presence they find food and health and well being.
That becomes our good news—and our challenge. God is always calling us to stewardship, to act as if nothing is ours alone, but it is instead in our relationships and interdependence that we find well being. It applies to our lives as people who attend a church, and as people who live in society, and as people who are called to live in concert with all created order. We are not whole in isolation, and when we think that we can get along independently, we will eventually find ourselves hungry and at the point of death in so many ways.
I have talked a lot in my ordained ministry about the holiness of relationship of one person for another, and it is now time to talk about the holiness of our relationship with creation. When we do not act as stewards of creation, and instead act as masters who use what we can for our own benefit only, we are going to find ourselves going hungry one of these days, possibly hungry to the point of death. Living peaceably with the earth is not simply a scientific or political issue; it is a spiritual one as well.
We have a lot to account for. We have wanted more and more conveniences. We have acquired way too much junk. We have built our lifestyles on the overuse of an earth that we continue to exploit. We have avoided talk of stewardship and of the dignity of every human being.
Look at that lesson from the First Book of the Kings. It is when they finally recognize their interdependence that Elijah and the woman and her son find wholeness. On the surface, Elijah may look like the winner in this equation; after all he gets the food and the reputation as a man of God. But he also has to give something, in that it takes energy out of him to touch and heal that son. Speaking as someone who goes around touching people each week in Confirmation, I can attest to the truth of what Elijah must offer to the equation.
When we see this story as one of interdependence it changes how we see the world around us. Treat the earth with respect, and we will find life. Treat our fellow human beings with respect, and we will be fed in ways we cannot now imagine. It is good news.
Take a look at Jesus and his ministry. Today we read of him raising the son of the widow at Nain. Yes, there is interdependence in that story as well. The widow needs Jesus, but healing her son costs Jesus something. After this healing he is declared a great prophet. The word spreads throughout Judea. And all we have to do is imagine what that reputation does for him in the eyes of the authorities who eventually decide to take care of that problem. We call it crucifixion. But in Jesus’ very life of relationships, of interdependence, we begin to see how being in relationship brings about life even in the face of death itself. The disciples discover it as resurrection. Ultimately, there is a brand new creation when the universe comes back into harmony, all once again “of a piece.”
As long as we continue to look out only for our own desires, there will be more tragedies in the natural world. But if we can ever see the larger picture, the picture of us all related one to another and how those relationships are life-giving for all, then a new story will start to emerge.
It is the charge of the people in this room to present this vision to the world, to show by our own lives what relationship looks like and our hope that such relationships will change the face of the earth. And it will affect everything, from the walls we build between peoples, to the wars that we will become ashamed to fight, to the health of the physical world around us. Somebody has got to do it, and in the stories from First Kings and Luke’s gospel, we have a solid foundation on which to build our case. Amen.