Choosing to Make a Difference
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Communion Meditation for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost – June 10, 2007
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: 1 Kings 17:8-24/luke 7:11-17]

I’ve enjoyed the television show ‘Studio 60’ and am sorry that it’s not going to be continuing. The storylines and the characters have kept me interested. I’ve been particularly drawn to the strange relationship between the Jewish head-writer, who’s really more of an agnostic-atheist, and the comedienne who is an evangelical Christian. Oil and water, but they can’t get over being in love with each other. This week they engaged, once again, in their ongoing fight: he arguing against belief and she arguing in favor of it. What struck me was that he, like so many people, got stuck in two areas: the problem of evil and miracles.

We’ll have to save the problem of evil – the theological term for it is theodicy – for another time. I’d like to say; based on the Scripture we’ve read today, that I think miracles tend to be distractions. As John Shea says, “Miracles steal the show. More than they should . . . The hunger for the fantastic can never be completely filled. When there is nothing else to feed it, it gorges itself on the technique of the miracle.” The point of the stories we read today isn’t the miracle, or even how the act was accomplished, but rather two men of God choosing to make a difference and acting consistently with their message.

Luke is the only Gospel to recount the story of the Widow of Nain and her son. In telling this story Luke is picking up a motif from the Hebrew scripture on the role of the nabi, the prophet, as man of God. I think it important for us to realize that the primary work of the prophet is not to predict or foretell the future, but to serve as an assurance of the Divine presence and good will toward humanity. As we read earlier, “the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, ‘See, your son is alive.’ So the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.’”

Luke wants his readers to get that point, which is why this event recalls Elijah in Zaraphath and Elisha in Shunem – which, by the way, is no very far from Nain. Like the great prophets (whose names mean “The Lord is God” and “The Lord is Powerful”), Jesus doesn’t just come with words, but with words and deeds that are intimately linked. His words and his actions are completely consistent and reveal who Jesus is, what he is about and what he brings to this hurting world into which he has been sent. So, later in the chapter, when John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Jesus answers, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”

I like what Richard Hays says of Luke in his masterful book The Moral Vision of the New Testament: “…Luke presents the events surrounding Jesus’ life as the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. Scripture is read not as a book of oracular predictions about future events but as a book of promises to God’s chosen people, promises that have been made good in the dramatic events of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection as well as in the subsequent experience of the church. God’s word to Israel is a binding, self-involving commitment that can find fulfillment only in God’s action of saving the people” [p. 113-4] Early on God said, “I will be with you” and, to me, that’s the essence of our faith and the core of the covenant, God is with us, regardless. That is the self-involving, saving promise and it is made to Israel and to us and it is in and through that promise that we are empowered and enabled to make a difference in the lives of those around us.

Both Elijah and Jesus chose to make a difference in people’s lives. It is particularly interesting to me that Jesus sees the widow on her way to the cemetery – essentially burying her future as she buries her only son – and Jesus has compassion on her. Compassion in the New Testament connotes a deep identification with the person. He chooses to connect with her in this deep way and then make a difference in her life and as a result all of those who witness his action realize that God is with them, that God cares. So, it’s not about the miracle. The miracle is only there to bring the point home to the people, and to us, that our choosing to make a difference has an effect and witnesses to God’s presence and promise.

We live in a time and a place where choices are abundant. If you don’t believe me, walk through a supermarket or through a shopping mall. I’ve watched people stand in front of the dairy case, transfixed because there are just so many different kinds of yogurt! Flavors, with fat, without fat, half-fat, whatever, so many different kinds from which to choose, but it’s still just yogurt! Choices are all around us, choices confront us every day from the moment we get up until we go to sleep – and how and where and when even we do those basic things, like sleeping and rising, it also engages our choices. Earlier I referenced my choice to watch “Studio 60,” which others, obviously have not chosen to do since it’s going off the air. Since we don’t have cable, my choices are somewhat limited, but I still have choices. Our days are filled with choices, some large and some small, and the problem sometimes lies in determining the difference and the priority.

Soren Kierkegaard, Christian Existentialist philosopher, said that choice can lead to two different experiences of despair. Too many choices can lead to the “despair of possibility” where the freedom to make choices and to take action is lost in endless possibility. I think many of us suffer from this in the US. We have so many choices that we often can’t even bring ourselves to make even one, so we end up doing nothing. On the other hand, the “despair of necessity” occurs when a person is buried in the givens, the ‘have-tos,’ of life and feels boxed in by what already exists. In this case the limitations lead to losing the willingness and the freedom to imagine other alternatives. In either case, the result is the same – we feel stuck. We’re either stuck with having to choose or we feel stuck because it looks as though we have no choice. Regardless, we’re stuck and none of us likes that feeling.

I’m here to tell you that we don’t have to be the victims of either one of those despairs. Jesus came preaching not just to the poor in pocket, but to the poor in spirit as well and proclaims to us, still, the good news that we have the freedom of the children of God. The Scriptures we heard this morning remind us that God’s presence and God’s desire for us is life – a life that is filled with meaning, with hope and with promise. While the stories may have recounted the seemingly miraculous raising of someone from the dead, the message we’re to take home is that a choice was made to make a difference in someone’s life – in some cases that can be miracle enough.

If we want to feel God’s presence, know God’s purpose and experience God’s power in our lives we have to choose to make a difference. Our call is to live outside ourselves toward God and toward others, to make what we say we believe real in what we do. As I am fond of saying, all orthodoxy (right belief) issues in orthopraxy (right action) and if it doesn’t, it isn’t. In other words, actions speak louder than words and Christians are called more to be sermons than to preach them. That’s not miraculous; it’s just being authentic, being who we claim to be and making our faith a living reality.

Our Congregational forebears called the Lord’s Supper “the Gospel made visible” and “the seal of the covenant.” They didn’t come to the table looking for something miraculous or magical, but they did understand that external signs can carry a deeper meaning. The bread broken and shared and the cup poured and shared speak to us of the self-giving love Jesus lived out. Our participation in this sacrament both reminds us and binds us to live in that same way – to choose to make a difference. As we are drawn together, nourished and blessed by sharing at the tables of the Word and the Sacrament, so our lives are to be for others. To choose to live in this way will not lead us to despair, but to hope and to the fullness of God’s Spirit living with us and within us.

So, bottom line, don’t get lost in the miracles. These signs, which is how the Bible describes them, are simply there to remind us that God is trustworthy, that God’s promise of presence still holds true. Make the choice to make a difference, no matter how small the act of kindness, and maybe you’ll see a little miracle in a life touched by God through you. Choose to make a difference.