Pentecost 3C
June 5, 2016
1 Kings 17:17-24; Psalm 30; Luke 7:11-17
The Internet
exploded this week after a horrific incident took place at the Cincinnati Zoo.
In case you haven’t heard, here is the gist of it: a 4-year-old boy slipped
away from his mother while she was taking a picture. He crawled into the
gorilla enclosure, fell 15 feet into a moat, and a 400-pound gorilla got ahold
of him. As the crowd screamed in horror, the gorilla got agitated, and began
dragging the boy around the water. The gorilla did not respond to zookeepers’
calls to him. The Dangerous Animals Response Team made the snap decision that
tranquilizer darts would likely make things worse before they got better, and
so in order to save the boy’s life, they would have to kill the gorilla – which
they did. Their quick action saved the life of the boy, but took the life of a
beautiful, endangered creature. It is difficult to read the story and not feel
completely heartbroken.
The response on the Internet,
however, has been largely hateful. Much blame has been spewed toward the apparently
negligent mother, calling for her arrest. A fair amount has been directed
toward
the zoo, for insufficient safety measures. Some has been directed at
zoos in general, for holding dangerous animals like gorillas in captivity in
the first place. But almost everywhere you look, you see a great big pile of
blame, shame and finger-pointing.
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| Harambe the gorilla and the little boy |
It is a
common response to tragedy, isn’t it? We scramble, in the face of things we
don’t understand, to identify a reason for the tragedy. If we can make sense of
it, and point out the cause, then perhaps we can file it away safely in the
“Now It Makes Sense” file of our brains, and move on. If it is a tragedy that
doesn’t affect us directly, like the gorilla story, we don’t have to think
about it again. If it is more personal – perhaps the untimely death of a loved
one – then we may blame ourselves, or someone else, or even God. Such blaming
may be painful, especially if we blame ourselves, but the blaming at least makes
us feel more settled, even if it results in broken relationships or a burden of
guilt we carry for the rest of our lives. Blaming and finger-pointing is our
go-to method for making sense of things we could not otherwise understand, for
getting over tragedy.
We even see
this method in our scripture lessons today. In our first reading, a widow
watches as her only son – the only person she has in her life – becomes so ill
he stops breathing. And what is the first thing she does? She blames the
prophet Elijah: “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to remember
my sins, and to cause the death of my son!” Why else would God be letting her
son die? It must be the fault of this man before her, proclaiming to be God’s
messenger, or her own sins, or a combination. Though it doesn’t say so, I
wouldn’t be surprised if similar thoughts were running through the mind of the
other widow we encounter today, in our Gospel lesson. Both of these women are
in a desperate situation – with no men in their lives, there is no one to take
care of them, and they will spend the rest of their lives relying on the
kindness of strangers. Someone must be to blame for this. If there is no one to
blame, how will they ever move on?
But I’m not
really sure “moving on” is what we are ultimately looking for. “Moving on”
doesn’t require any growth, any change, any self-reflection. It requires only
putting something behind you, or sweeping it neatly under the rug, and hoping
it doesn’t crop up again in the future to bite you.
No, “moving
on” is not really the goal. Rather, I think the goal here is healing. Both of the widow stories we
hear today are stories about healing; and we’ll actually hear several such
stories from Jesus’ life in the coming weeks. Though in the biblical healing
stories, it happens almost instantaneously, we who have experienced healing,
whether physical or emotional, know that it is, in fact, a long, sometimes
painful process, one that requires commitment, patience, endurance, and
support. It comes not from walking around or over our grief, but right directly
through it. It comes from acknowledging pain as a part of the process, and
facing it bravely, and coming out the other end as a stronger, healthier
person.
So what does
healing look like in the face of tragedy? Thinking again about the gorilla
story: I have found in my reading this week, that amidst the vitriol and shame
piling, a few voices have arisen to offer not blame, but empathy and
compassion. I’ve seen it come especially from other parents of young children,
people who know how quickly a determined child can slip away from your sight
even if you are watching with a keen eye, people who know that mistakes happen
all the time. It comes from people who have imagined themselves in the same situation,
and tried to feel that same heartbreak before casting stones.
That is a much more difficult
approach to helping someone through tragedy, isn’t it? We want to steer clear
of as much pain as possible – that’s why we search for reasons. Rationalizing
it makes the pain at least make sense. But what can be more healing than someone crawling down into
your dark, grief hole with you and saying, “Man, it’s dark and scary down here.
Can I sit with you a while?” Not fixing, or applying reason, or blaming someone
else, or offering a silver lining. Just
sitting there, with you, with the pain.
This empathy, this compassion, is the first step toward healing.
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| Cartoon of empathy from Brene Brown animation |
Jesus and
Elijah both feel compassion for their respective widows. But at least the way
the biblical narrative unfolds, it seems that from there they both quickly move
to a solution: they bring the sons back to life. In our lives, healing does not
happen so quickly. You have to sit in that dark hole together with your loving,
compassionate community a lot longer before healing occurs. That is why, as I
search for the gospel message that speaks to our management of tragedy, I am
drawn this week to our Psalm.
When I read Psalm 30, I am
transported back to Slovakia, where I lived for a year after college. I had
just moved there when I learned of a horrific tragedy back home. I had never
and have never felt so desperate and alone and helpless. And I found myself
drawn to Psalm 30, which acknowledges so poignantly the pain of desperation and
helplessness. Though it starts from the perspective of having already been
healed, the way it reflects on those painful times from before resonated with
me. They were so real. “You hid your face, I was filled with fear… Hear O Lord,
and have mercy on me. Be my helper.” But then, finally, “You have turned my
wailing into dancing. You have put off my sackcloth [the garment of mourning],
and clothed me with joy.” Oh, how I clung to this hope! I prayed this prayer,
knowing it was not yet true for me, that I was still in the night of weeping
and wailing, but knowing also that joy does come in the morning, that God does,
finally, clothe us with joy.
That joy and
dancing that follows the night of weeping – that, my friends, is healing. That
is the gospel. That is what God through Christ does for us. It doesn’t come
when we point a finger, assign blame, and move on from our pain prematurely,
and it doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes the night of weeping lasts for many
months or even years. But God promised us on that Easter morning that joy does come in the morning, that our
wailing will turn to dancing. We are
assured of that promise when we are baptized into the death and the resurrection of Christ.
As we cling to that promise, that
same God calls us toward loving one another and showing one another compassion
and empathy, hearing one another’s pain, striving to understand one another
Weeping spends
the night – it always done, whether we want it to or not. But joy comes in the
morning. May we in all tragedy, near and far, and all conflict, cling to that
promise, that God will bring dancing out of mourning, healing out of pain, and
life out of death.
Let us pray…
Healing God, in the face of pain,
tragedy, or struggle of any kind, you have promised us that the night does not
last forever, and that when it finally ends, joy will come. Help us to have
compassion for one another in our pain, until that day when your morning light
finally shines on all of us, and all of life is joy. In the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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