Seeing God in Ward 5B

(sermon 6/23/19)

(The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was started in 1987 to celebrate the lives of people who have died of AIDS-related causes. Currently weighing over 54 tons, it is the largest piece of community folk art in the world. Each panel measures 3’x6′ and is made by loved ones of the victim. It currently occupies 1.3 million square feet, and can no longer be displayed in its entirety on the entire National Mall. It consists of more than 48,000 panels honoring more than 94,000 individuals. This is 14% of the total number of people who have died from AIDS in the United States alone.)

1 Kings 19:1-15

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return; and on your way, go by way of the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.

 

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Luke 7:1-10

After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

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Maybe you could think of today’s sermon as a play in four acts, with each act dealing with finding and experiencing God in surprising and unexpected circumstances. The first act was our reading from the First Book of Kings. There, we see the prophet Elijah, who’s on the run. He’s just publicly humiliated the prophets of the god Baal – the god worshiped by the evil queen, Jezebel. As if publicly humiliating these prophets wasn’t enough, Elijah also killed them all, which would seem to be a bit excessive to anyone, and it was certainly seen as excessive to Jezebel, who swore to capture Elijah and give him a taste of his own medicine. So Elijah did what any reasonable person would do if their life was in danger in their own country – he fled across the border. Feeling that the whole world was against him, he trekked all the way to Mt. Horeb – which most of us probably know better as Mt. Sinai, where Elijah knew God had appeared to Moses and gave him the Ten Commandments. Elijah knows the story: God appeared to Moses in a cloud, with thunder and lightning and wind and a loud booming voice – really, you know this; I know you’ve seen the movie. And Elijah has seen the movie, too, and so in the midst of his own crisis of faith, Elijah wanted to have a meeting with the boss now, too, as it were. He wanted to offer God a list of grievances and get some advice, and he figures this is the best place to find God. Well, as we heard, Elijah definitely got the big theatrics – wind, earthquake, fire – but ultimately, Elijah encounters God in a completely unexpected way – in the quiet. In the small, still voice, asking him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” along with the implied “Now quit complaining and get back to work.” Elijah encountered God in the way and place he least expected.

The second act in this play is our reading from Luke. Here, Jesus had gone to Capernaum, a favorite place of his and one that he knew well. On this particular trip, he got a request for help from a centurion in the Roman army. This man is essentially part of the muscle of the Roman Empire, imposing the Roman thumb on top of the local residents, keeping them in line and quiet and, most importantly, paying their taxes. By any measure, a Roman centurion wouldn’t ordinarily be seen as a friend of the townspeople, but apparently, this one was at least a bit different, having helped the people build a synagogue. So when the centurion seeks out Jesus’ help to heal a beloved slave who was near death, the townspeople told Jesus “Well, yes, he’s a Roman, but as Romans go he’s a decent one; you really should help him.” Of course, we heard about the centurion’s faith, the trust he placed in Jesus, telling Jesus he doesn’t even need to bother himself with coming all the way to the house. He trusted in Jesus’ power and authority such that he could just will the slave’s healing from wherever he was. And just as Elijah was shocked and surprised at how he experienced God’s presence, now Jesus was similarly shocked, seeing the presence of God so powerfully, and faith exhibited so strongly, and by a Gentile, a Roman occupier of all people. Incredible!

Scene three of this play takes place in much more recent times. Since today the Presbyterian Church recognizes World AIDS Awareness Sunday, this scene takes place in the mid-1980s, in and around Ward 5B of the San Francisco General Hospital. It was the first hospital ward dedicated to treating AIDS patients, even before it was even called AIDS, at the very beginning of the epidemic when very little was understood about the disease and when people were terrified, panicked. Into this scene, enter Ronnie. Ronnie was a gay man living in the Castro District of San Francisco. He had a slight build, and he dressed flamboyantly, and talked with a lisp and he had a limp wrist and his hips swished when he walked. Ronnie was basically a walking catalogue of all of the stereotypes that the general public had negatively held, assuming all gay people were like. Add to that the fact that Ronnie could be really nasty, catty, cynical, and frankly, even bitter – which was understandable, given the physical and emotional abuse that people had heaped upon him all his life. Unlike many gay men who could blend, who could pass as straight, passing was never an option for Ronnie. He couldn’t hide who he was, and he’d paid a heavy price for it. And Ronnie’s real hot button was religion. Mention God, or Jesus, or the Church to Ronnie and he would unload a barrage of profanity and obscenity on you like you’d never heard before, and he might even physically throw something at you. That was the result of being told his entire life by people inside the church that he was a terrible person, sinful pervert who was going to hell.

And then came AIDS. Ronnie started to see his friends and acquaintances getting sick – first just a couple, and then more, and then even more. It was maybe just a few dark blotches on their skin at first, but then they’d start losing weight, and a lot of weight, fast. They’d become gaunt, and weak, and over time blotches of Kaposi’s Sarcoma would cover their bodies, and still, no one really understood what was happening. At first, “gt was just called the “gay plague,” since it was predominantly, not exclusively but predominantly, appearing in the gay community. No one really knew what to do for them. A lot of people didn’t want to do anything for them, out of fear it was contagious and they’d get “it.” And frankly, a lot of other people didn’t want to help them simply because they were supposedly just a bunch of perverts who deserved to die anyway. It was God’s punishment and condemnation, according to Jerry Falwell and others.

Ronnie started to visit his sick friends and acquaintances in their homes – especially those whose families had long ago disowned them and even whose friends had now abandoned them; the ones who had no one else. Ronnie knew what it was like to be friendless and abandoned. Some of them he didn’t know well, if at all. Still, he helped them take their medications. He helped them eat, and get dressed, and get to the doctor’s. He bathed them, and he cleaned up after them after they’d lost control of their bodily functions. And when things got worse, and they always got worse, and they were admitted to Ward 5B, Ronnie spent hours visiting them there, too. He would bring them their trays when hospital orderlies refused to deliver food into the rooms, and he’d feed them when their skeletal arms were too weak to allow them to feed themselves. He listened to them when they could talk, even when their dementia caused them to speak nonsense, and he talked to them when he wasn’t even sure they could hear him. Ronnie actually had a remarkable singing voice, and sometimes he sang to them – maybe a Top 40 hit, or a disco favorite, or maybe a showtune. On a few occasions, when they’d asked him to, Ronnie even momentarily put aside his own hostility and sang some comforting old religious hymn that they’d both remembered from being in church as kids. Just as importantly as all that, Ronnie gave them the incredible gift of simple human touch. When others wouldn’t even come in the room, he held their hands, and stroked their cheeks, and brushed their hair, and in general let them know that someone cared. That they mattered. That even if everyone else in the world had abandoned them, there was still someone who loved them.

And when they died, and they always died – they always died, thirty or forty of his friends every single year – it was Ronnie who came up with the extra money the orderlies demanded just to their bodies; and it was him who fought and argued with funeral directors who refused to take the bodies, or who wanted to charge three or four or five times their normal fee to do so. And it was often Ronnie who ultimately got their box of ashes, too, because no one else would come to claim them. And it was him who spread their ashes out over someplace that had been special in their memories: out over a mountaintop, or into the sea, deep in a lush forest, and even a few times into the parking lot of their favorite dance club. And then, after that, he went back to Ward 5B and did it all over again.

Sometimes, you see the existence and the power and the holiness of God in the most surprising of people and situations. Even though he would have sworn at you if he’d heard you say it at the time, Ronnie was the very presence of God on Ward 5B.

Both of our Lectionary texts are reminders to us to always try to see the presence of God in the world. To be prepared to see the face of God in others, sometimes even in the people you might least expect it. In the Roman centurions of the world. In the Ronnies of the world

And that brings us to the fourth act. What is the fourth act of this play? Honestly, I don’t know yet. It’s up to you and me to write it, by way of our words and actionsover the course of this coming week, and all the weeks to follow – because you see, God doesn’t want us to just see God in unexpected places; we’re called to *be* God in unexpected places. Out of gratitude for the love that God has surrounded us with, to be the face of God, the face of Christ, to someone you encounter this week. Maybe someone completely different than you are, maybe someone you don’t even know well, or maybe someone you do know and frankly, you don’t even like, and you might think wouldn’t even appreciate the gesture. We live in very trying times, as you know, and we all need to see God’s presence in more of it. So this week, find some way to be the surprising encounter with God that *they* have this week. Elijah, and Jesus, and now even Ronnie, who is now enjoying the eternal reward that God had prepared for him before he was even born, would agree.

Thanks be to God.

Where Is It? (sermon 8/9/15)

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life. … He came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go…”   – 1 Kings 19:1-3a, 9-15a

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Today’s Old Testament text is a small part of a larger story that you need to know a little more about in order to be able to put into context, and hopefully understand a little better. This is a story of the prophet Elijah during the reign of King Ahab. Ahab had married Jezebel, who was the daughter of the King of Tyre, an adjacent kingdom to the north of ancient Israel, in part of what is modern-day Lebanon. This marriage undoubtedly helped Ahab with trade relations, political and military alliances, and so on. Jezebel worshipped Baal, the ancestral god of her people, and while Ahab kept focused primarily on the military, and statecraft, and the business of the kingdom, he let Jezebel handle the religious affairs of the household, and by extension, the countryside. Jezebel established temples to worship Baal, and supported hundreds of priests and prophets of her religion. And that’s when problems with Elijah, who had never been a big fan of Ahab anyway, came to a head.

There was a dispute over who would be the God that the people worshiped – Baal or YHWH. In order to decide the matter, Elijah proposed a competition, a showdown of sorts. The prophets of Baal would slaughter a bull and put it on an altar, and Elijah would do the same. Then, they’d each call on the name of their respective gods, and the one who actually sent fire down from heaven to consume the sacrifice would be one to worship. The people all thought this sounded fair enough, so the competition was on.

The prophets of Baal – all 450 of them – went first, but despite praying and calling on Baal for pretty much an entire day, nothing happened. Now Elijah was a cheeky, sarcastic sort of prophet, and as the other prophets were praying and wailing to Baal, he started to taunt them – What’s wrong? Where is your God? Maybe he’s off praying somewhere and can’t hear you; maybe he fell asleep; maybe he took a long weekend to the beach.

Finally, it was Elijah’s turn, and he placed his sacrificed bull on the wood on the altar. And then, just for added theatrics – I told you he was a cheeky sort – he had them doused with gallons and gallons of water, twice even, until everything was completely saturated with water. And then, standing there in the mud from all of the water running off the pile, and water trickling between his toes, Elijah calls on the name of God to send fire, and BAM! Fire shoots down from heaven and the sacrifice bursts into flames. The people were all impressed, as I supposed they should have been, and they side with Elijah; and in the religious fervor of the moment, Elijah orders that they seize and kill all 450 of the prophets of Baal. Which brings us to where we pick up the story in today’s Lectionary text.

Well as you might expect, Elijah’s killing all of the prophets of Baal doesn’t sit very well with the Queen, , and she vows that if she ever gets her hands on Elijah, she’ll do to him what he’d done to the prophets of Baal. So Elijah flees for his life. Ultimately, he ends up in this cave on Mount Horeb, the same mountain where God spoke to Moses and handed down the Ten Commandments according to the book of Deuteronomy. There in the cave, God asks Elijah, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And Elijah tells God how everyone has turned against him and away from God, and they’re all out to kill him, and that only he was left in all of Israel to stand up for God and defend God’s name – which seems a little odd, considering it was just a few verses earlier that there were apparently enough followers of God to seize and kill 450 prophets of Baal – but Elijah was on a roll at that point, and God seems to just let him go. And he undoubtedly reminds God of that event too, to show how devoted and faithful a servant he was.

After listening to Elijah’s answer, God seems to set up an object lesson for Elijah. God tells Elijah to go stand out on the mountain, because God was about to pass by. And then, there’s this tremendous show of force and power and fury – a mighty wind, and earthquake, a huge fire. It was a scene that made Elijah’s sacrifice showdown look tiny by comparison. But the story tells us that God wasn’t found in any of that. It was only after that show of force, that illustration that God was perfectly capable of taking care of himself against his enemies, without Elijah needing to supposedly defend the faith by killing a bunch of people and then playing the martyr card – it was only after that, when everything had died back down to absolute silence, that God offers Elijah a second chance to answer the question. So… What are you doing here, Elijah?

And in what seems to be a classic scriptural case of cluelessness, Elijah seems to miss the whole point of God’s demonstration and just offers God the exact same answer again. At that point, God tells him to just go, setting him off on his next adventure. At this point, you can almost hear God sigh. You can almost feel God’s shoulders droop. You can almost hear God say “Well… maybe we’ll work on this lesson with him another day.”

Even as great a servant of God as Elijah sometimes gets things wrong. Even Elijah can get wrapped up in delusions of grandeur, that he’s the sole defender of the faith, that he’s got to go to extreme, maybe even violent means, to save the faith and protect God’s name, all in the name of faithfully trying to hear the voice of God.

This story shows us that we don’t usually hear God’s voice in the big, mighty, loud things of the world. We don’t usually find it in the high drama or theatrics or sarcasm. Contrary to some televangelists, we don’t hear the voice or judgment of God in earthquakes or floods or hurricanes or mudslides. And we certainly don’t find it in acts of violence. Whether in Elijah’s time or our own, the voice of God is most present, most hearable, in the still, small moments. In the silence.

Where is it that you find the voice of God? Maybe in moments of silence, here, or in the chapel, or looking out at the lake at sunset. Maybe we hear God’s voice in a recurring dream that we can’t seem to shake, that comes to us over and over again in the middle of the night when the distractions of the day that tend to drown out the voice of God are largely set aside. Maybe we hear God’s voice through the surprisingly wise and observant words of a small child. Or maybe, as sometimes happens when we’re in times of real distress, we just hear the voice of God within us – not in actual words, but just resonating inside our very being, just as audible as my words are to you right now.

Where is it that you’ve heard God speaking in your life? Wherever it may have been, one good thing that we can get out of this Old Testament story is that if God’s asked something of us, and we didn’t quite get the point, or if we didn’t really come up with the answer God wanted us to, God will keep speaking to us. Just as was apparently the case with Elijah, God will keep loving us and working with us on getting the right answer, maybe on another day.

Thanks be to God.