CHANGING SIDES
FBC, November 8, 2009
Readings: 2 Kings 7:3-9; Mary Oliver, When Death Comes
Before I begin the sermon this morning, a quick exercise for us that I promise will be easy: please stand as you are able, and look around the sanctuary, noticing who is here. Make eye contact as you are comfortable, and acknowledge one another’s presence. Now look around again, and this time notice the empty spaces in the pews, the empty places in the congregation gathered here this morning. Let the spaces among us, the empty places, fill your awareness for a moment. Thank you. Please be seated.
The somewhat obscure passage of scripture read this morning is set in a time of famine, when an opposing army has blocked off the city so effectively and for so long that food prices have soared, provisions are scarce, and people are starving on all sides. A time of famine, when the possibility of rescue, of salvation, of being filled once more seems so remote as to be impossible.
While those here this morning may not be in a time of literal famine, when hunger pains make it difficult to think of anything but food, we do often go through times of spiritual famine, dry spells where work becomes tedious, relationships bring more frustration than satisfaction, entertainment and escape are the sole sources of relief, and just getting through another day, step by step through another day, is a monumental effort.
I believe our church is also in a time of famine, and perhaps you share that perspective. As you looked around this morning, whose face did you not see? Who used to be among those regularly gathered here but comes no more, because of life changes, because of disappointment in the direction our church has taken? I know some among you believe the church is dying, so severe has the sense of famine become. When, when will our next spiritual meal be forthcoming? When will we see our congregation grow rather than shrink, feel alive rather than feel heavy? When will there be more space in the sanctuary filled rather than empty, more sounds of children rather than echoing silence?
Famine has gripped the city, and four men, identified in the story as lepers, which is another way of indicating that they are outcasts, not people in the circles of power and wealth but people on the margins, four forgettable, unimportant people assess the state of things and decide they have nothing to lose. “They said to each other, ‘What are we doing sitting here at death’s door? If we enter the famine-struck city we’ll die; if we stay here we’ll die. So let’s take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves on their mercy. If they receive us we’ll live, if they kill us we’ll die. We’ve got nothing to lose’” (2 Kings 7:3-4).
Nothing to lose, since staying put ensured a slow death by hunger, and heading over to the enemy side risked a fast death by spears and arrows. Nothing to lose. When I am in the grip of spiritual famine with no end in sight, it may still take me awhile to conclude that I have nothing to lose by heading off in a new direction, taking a risk, trying something out of character. Really seeing that famine has grown so severe that I truly have nothing more to lose requires a willingness to give up every illusion, every bit of magical thinking that insists if I just try this, go there, do that, if someone else will just do something, things can still turn around.
I wonder: have we reached that point in our shared life in this church, where we feel the hunger is so deep, the famine so severe, the likelihood of death so sure, that we might conclude we have nothing more to lose? To be blunt, I actually hope we have reached that point, because at that point, when we are convinced we have nothing more to lose, then we will be ready to risk everything, to take ridiculous chances, to act in ways we have never acted before because we never felt so besieged before. Optimism is wonderful, hope is exhilarating, and individuals and churches do great things buoyed by optimism and hope. Yet if optimism is hard to find, if hope seems lost, if famine has truly got you in its grip, then you shift from buoyancy to riskiness, for you have nothing more to lose.
The four lepers, outcasts, disreputable, marginalized, unremarkable people set off for the enemy camp, fully expecting to die. The story then shifts into miraculous mode: in response to a divine intervention that played upon fears of a secret attack, the Arameans have fled, certain that the Israelites were about to pounce and slaughter them. So hasty was their retreat that they left behind everything, tents, animals, gold and silver—and food. Into the deserted camp walk the hungry lepers and find, to their amazement, not certain death but abundance beyond imagining. And like anyone who is starving, starving literally, starving spiritually, they dig in with gusto.
If you have experienced a time of famine, emotional or spiritual famine, then you know how you can begin to slip into a mode of helplessness, feeling that you can do nothing to make matters better, that anything to help must come from the outside, that only divine intervention or miraculous rescue, a savior or hero galloping in on a white horse, only such a turn of events will save you. Starve a person or a group of people long enough, deprive a person or a group of people of affirmation and support and spiritual sustenance long enough, and initiative and action seem to become impossible. Creative thinking, resourceful problem-solving dwindles as the wait begins for someone or something to come in from the outside—a surprise donation of money, an inspired pastor or leader, a rallying cause or program—some sort of outside possibility, a divine intervention from elsewhere, that will change everything and bring life back where life seems absent. This is a normal human reaction to prolonged famine; unfortunately, it tends not to be a helpful reaction, as waiting for famine to lift, waiting for someone or something else to fix things, is likely to have just the opposite effect and deepen the famine, intensify the sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
But the lepers had taken action, rather than waiting. The miracle came after they had resolved to walk into the enemy camp. Not before, but after, after they determined to risk everything, to abandon their state of helpless waiting and do something, even if that action hastened their death.
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
. . . . . . . .
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower . . .
. . . . . .
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
Poet Mary Oliver describes a sensation often experienced by persons standing on the verge of death, whether it is literal death, or the suddenly real possibility of death that may come when I receive alarming medical news or realize the prospect of overwhelming loss: at these moments when we stand at the limits of our comfortable usual lives, when literal or symbolic death is only inches away, then a special kind of clarity may come. For Oliver, that clarity takes the form of heightened awareness of the uniqueness of each living thing and the freedom from time constraints. Others describe that clarity as suddenly discovering what one’s real priorities are, or appreciating in a whole new way how precious those we love are to us. For the lepers in the story, the clarity came as they saw a miraculous abundance where before there had been famine, and where enemies vanished. Whatever form it takes, this special clarity belongs only to those who can stand right on the edge of their lives, knowing death may come with the next step, and who risk everything.
Have you stood in that place? Are you standing there now? Is our congregation standing in that place now? If so, what is becoming clear? What will your next move, our next move, be?
I once met a woman who had undergone a classic “near-death experience.” As she recounted her story, she had been walking the beach in California when an unusually large wave came and swept her out from the shore, where she then became caught in an undertow that carried her further down. Despite the odds, her body was washed up and she was revived. Happy ending, right?
Not entirely. The woman found the jolt of returning to life so disorienting that she became unable to function, spent a couple of weeks on the psychiatric unit of a hospital, and continued for some time after struggling to explain to the family she loved why she was not entirely happy to have returned to them, so profound had been her experience of a kind of afterlife peace. In time, she regained her psychological and spiritual balance—sort of. A professional artist, she found that all her artwork became explorations of her near-death experience. She convinced her husband that they must sell their long-time home and move to Sedona, the place in Arizona known for being especially conducive to spiritual experience.
Standing on the edge of life, on the edge of death, and then coming back to some kind of new, enlarged perspective sounds like a wonderful thing. For the person living through the change, it can be harrowing, to say the least. Our scripture story has a satisfying ending, with the lepers initially gorging themselves, then deciding to do the right thing and share their discovery of abundance and wealth. Scripture stories tend to compress events, to leave out details. Like the woman I met, the four lepers might have undergone their own disorienting and difficult times after escaping death and discovering riches. To have marched up to the moment of death and managed not to die sounds heroic, and it often is heroic; it is also the sort of experience that forever changes a person in ways beyond imagining or predicting. If our church is near death and we survive, we are likely to find that survival disorienting, to see the church change in ways we never envisioned. If any one of us is near death, literal or spiritual death, and we survive, we are likely to hear those who know us comment on how different we seem—and such comments will not necessarily be approving of the change.
Churches should be places where we hear messages of life, and the story we read this morning is a message of life. But as a Christian church, we know that real life, abundant life, comes after the experience of dying to a former way of believing and living. It is tempting to try and seize the life while dodging the death, to get renewed without having to undergo the dying. But it does not really work that way, no matter how clever we are. To reach the abundant life, we have to be willing first to die.
At least, that is the message we proclaim, in our own words, in words first spoken by Jesus. I wonder how much we believe what we say. I wonder whether we dare act on our beliefs.
Theologian Mae West once asked, “Life’s a banquet—so how come so many poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death?” May we join that banquet, and soon.
