Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

to know quite what to do with

miracle stories like these.

There is part of us

that finds them terribly exciting and compelling.

Like a child

seeing a magician for the first time …

watching the rabbit appear out of nowhere,

and seeing the lady get sawed in half

and then appear back all in one piece,

with no blood or nothin’!

We’re captivated by these miracles

where Jesus or Elijah comes forward

and does the ultimate magic:

restoring the dead to life.

And like the child watching the magician,

we wish that we had the skill or the power

or whatever it is you need

to do such amazing things.

But there’s another part of us

that’s skeptical about these and other miracles.

After all, we’ve grown up thinking scientifically, for the most part.

We know that germs cause disease, not demons.

The laws of physics demonstrate that

humans can’t walk on water.

And we know from sad experience

that death is a one-way ticket.

So, stories like these give us pause.

We may wonder if they

"really happened that way."

We know that if we saw something today

that looked like bringing the dead back to life,

we’d get our eyes checked,

or find out who spiked the punch,

or simply assume it was a clever illusion

like the magician David Copperfield

walking through the Great Wall of China.

But there’s still another part of us

that’s somewhere between the first two.

And it’s a confusing place to be.

Because we want to believe,

and yet we’re afraid to.

We know there is a God,

and we believe that God loves us,

and yet, we’ve lived long enough to know

that at certain points in our life,

God surely seems to have let us down.

We needed God to act

in a powerful and unmistakable way,

and it didn’t happen.

And so we’re left in a tense kind of position:

We believe that God can do miraculous things,

but we’re hurt and bewildered

that God hasn’t chosen to do so for us.

We see that many people were brought to faith

by the miracles God did through Elijah and Jesus,

and wonder why those of us who already believe

don’t get similar privileges.

God’s ways are indeed puzzling to us.

A miracle would be

such a sure sign of God’s presence.

Why then are they so scarce?

Now unfortunately,

since none of us has the privilege of

entirely knowing God’s thoughts and plans,

we can’t answer the question

in quite the way it’s phrased.

But in cases like this,

where our faith and our experience

seem to contradict one another …

it’s here that we have to dig deep

and look behind the scenes

to see what’s really going on.

We have to ask, in this instance,

what’s the real purpose behind the miracle?

Is it to demonstrate the power of God?

to be a sure sign of God’s presence and strength?

The answer to that is partly yes,

because many of the people who saw

the miracles Jesus did, and Elijah did,

came to have faith

because of what they had seen.

But that can’t be the whole story …

Because Jesus had lots of other opportunities

to display God’s power by doing something miraculous,

but he chose not to.

He could have fed himself in the wilderness

by turning stones to bread,

but he didn’t.

He could have thrown himself down

off the pinnacle of the Temple,

knowing God would save him,

and others would see it and believe …

but he didn’t.

He could have struck down Herod, or Pilate, or Caiaphas,

or any of the Pharisees

who gave him such a hard time,

or Judas, for that matter,

but he didn’t.

In fact, in the end,

Jesus could have saved himself

and come down from the cross,

but he didn’t.

So there must be something more to the miracles

than a simple display of the power of God,

or even a demonstration that Jesus is God.

There is another common thread

that runs through the miracle stories,

particularly the ones involving Jesus.

The miracles come about

as a response to human pain or suffering.

They don’t exist in isolation.

A miracle is only called for

when people can be genuinely helped

and hurts healed.

Throughout the Bible,

from the Hebrew people escaping Egypt

to the work of Jesus and his disciples,

the miracles demonstrate more than anything else

God’s concern for the suffering,

for the poor and the downtrodden.

In both of today’s readings,

the recipient of the miracle

is not so much the dead son

as it is the grieving mother.

She is a widow;

she has already lost her husband.

She’s already in a marginal position socially,

and a dangerous position financially.

Now she has lost her only son …

For the rest of her life

she will live in poverty,

dependent on the charity and good will of others.

So her genuine grief over her son’s death

is compounded by

knowing what that means for her future, also.

And the miracle is,

yes, her son is given back his life,

but she is given back her life as well.

The sure sign of God

is not meant to be a virtuoso display of power

so much as a simple act of compassion.

And even though that

doesn’t entirely answer the question of

why God didn’t heal a particular loved one of ours,

it does tell us in no uncertain terms

how it is that we can do the work of God.

Because if we believe that "the work of God"

is doing great signs and wonders,

In the nearly ten years I’ve been here,

none of you has shared with me

any stories of miracles you’ve done.

Which isn’t surprising;

most of us don’t have that gift.

But if we believe that "the work of God"

is to show compassion,

then every one of us is qualified.

We may not be able to

bring back the widow’s son,

but we can surely comfort her in her grief,

keep her company through lonely days,

help her out financially if she needs it,

and pray for her.

Now all of that may seem almost too obvious.

And if so, that’s good.

It speaks well of us

if we think in terms of caring for one another.

But what isn’t obvious enough to us,

most of the time,

is that these works of compassion, even if small,

are God’s work.

The sick person visited,

the casserole delivered,

the prayer said for healing,

the shoulder damp with someone else’s tears –

these are not "merely human" acts of compassion,

as we sometimes think.

They are the work of God,

channeled through us.

We need to give ourselves more credit!

The back side of this is also true.

Sometimes when we are the ones

in need of care and compassion and healing,

we may feel that God is far away

if our help and healing

don’t come in some huge dramatic miraculous way.

Truth is,

God is nearer than we know.

God is in that hug from a friend …

God is behind the prayers said for us …

God is in that pot of spaghetti the neighbors brought,

God is in that tongue-tied visitor to our hospital bed,

who doesn’t know what to say but came anyway.

I’m not saying that big miracles

don’t ever happen any more …

I think they probably do.

But the bigger miracle is

that all of our seemingly-little works

add up to God’s work.

The real sign of God,

the sure sign of God’s presence,

is care and compassion among God’s people.

God is among us

and within us.

May we show it

in all we do.

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)