10th Sunday in OT: Memento Mori


Sometimes I’ve heard it said that everybody prays, and I think that’s probably true. Believer or atheist or agnostic or indifferent, there are moments in life when your soul cries out for help from some higher power. It just does. You don’t think it through, it isn’t a decision you make, it’s almost like a laugh or a scream - something that comes out of you unbidden. Take the world’s staunchest atheist, put him in the right situation, and whether he likes it or not a prayer will arise in his soul. It can be a moment of terror, of desire, or I think also a moment of gratitude. In a moment of great beauty, our soul can’t help but say, “Thank You.” And that only makes sense as a prayer. You can appreciate the laws of physics, but you can’t be grateful to them. You can only be grateful if you acknowledge Someone behind them. So whether they like it or not, I think it’s probably true that everybody prays.

We pray for lots of different kinds of things: safety, healing, guidance, strength, wisdom, etc. In our passages from 1 Kings and the Gospel of Luke, we have two men in a moment of prayer. Elijah and Jesus, with the same prayer, and it is a special one. Because of all the prayers that have ever been uttered, there is none in all the world like the prayer for a child in danger.


Prayer at such a time can take on different stages and voices. Sometimes we begin spontaneously bargaining: “God, just grant this miracle and I’ll be a better person, I’ll never miss church, I’ll start doing all that religious stuff I haven’t been doing...”  At other times the prayer of our soul is one that would threaten God: “If you’re going to let this happen, we’re finished. I don’t care what big plan you have... I won’t have anything to do with a God who would let this happen.” Is this theologically problematic, so to speak? Yes. Is it understandable? You bet it is. Then, there’s the Christlike prayer of sacrifice that simply says, “Take me.” But in every case, as though your whole being is involved in one, focused prayer. Please. Please.

I’ve joined, as perhaps you have, in prayers for children in grave danger. I’ve seen those prayers answered with what I will unreservedly call miracle and life, and I’ve seen those prayers answered with silence and a funeral.

See, miracle stories are a two-edged sword. Sometimes it’s great to hear them, they fill us with hope and faith and confidence, they call forth our praise and gratitude. The Bible is full of miracle stories, and Christians continue to love telling miracle stories, for just this reason.

But here’s the trouble with miracles: we don’t always get them. At least not the ones we were asking for. Someone else hears that same story and it’s just salt in the wound, because their miracle didn’t happen. In a summer of hospital chaplaincy during seminary I sometimes witnessed visits from local pastors to patients and their families. Depending on their denomination and background there were some very different ideas. One thing that I heard said by a few pastors that really disturbed me was, “Just have faith, and she’ll be healed.” They would say that very bluntly. The logical corollary is that if she isn’t healed, you must not have prayed right. You didn’t have enough faith. What an awful thing to tell a family - thank God it’s not true.

Elijah, as a Prophet, and Jesus, as God Incarnate, saw the miracles they were looking for. But did they save these children from death, really? Death was only postponed. The message of these miracles is not that we never have to die; it’s that God has power even over death. It’s what comes after death that’s real salvation. Jesus gave that child more years of earthly life before his death, and that was a great thing. But the real gift of Jesus was to open the way to Heaven, and the way He opened passes through death.

Catholic tradition contains an idea called the memento mori, the reminder of death. It was more popular a few centuries back, not so much anymore at least in our culture. But it involved some token or representation, a reminder that this doesn’t go on forever. It wasn’t about being obsessed with death, or making every day Halloween. It was about simple sanity: remembering an important fact about reality that we sometimes are tempted to ignore. I remember seeing a tomb somewhere in Europe, I forget whose, that included a sculpture of a decaying body. It was pretty graphic. And the inscription was something like “Remember, all ye who pass by, that as you are I once was, and as I am you soon will be.” Woah.

Remembering death is a very healthy thing. There’s such a thing as unhealthy morbidity, being obsessed with death, but it’s just as unhealthy to somehow try to ignore it or pretend it isn’t there. I know a priest who had his coffin made and used it as a coffee table. Unconventional, but spiritually very healthy. If nothing else, it helps you keep perspective. Earlier this week I was exposed to some negativity and it was really bringing me down and I thought, “I don’t know how many days I have to live here on Earth, but it’s not all that many, and I just refuse to let this ruin a single one of those precious days.” Knowing that it won’t last forever teaches us to appreciate it more.

It also keeps us focused on our priorities. When we forget how precious time is, we can easily lose sight of what’s important. I was listening to a guy talking about his favorite sports team and how they were doing. I like sports and I like talking about sports, but this guy was kind of alarming me. I thought, “God help him, this guy actually thinks this is important. He actually thinks it matters!” Maybe he should get his coffin made for a coffee table.

One of the blessings of a healthy Christian spirituality is that you aren’t obsessed and terrified by death, and you don’t have to go to ridiculous lengths to pretend it isn’t there. You can accept it as a fact, as a step on our journey back to God. That doesn’t make it easy to say goodbye, and it doesn’t mean our hearts don’t break, but it does mean we can face death without despair.

The miracles in these Bible stories, the miracles we may personally witness, they are gifts and reminders of God’s power and mercy. But we’re meant to look past them, to the real and ultimate healing still to come. Final, complete healing will come in the Kingdom of God. Until then, we do well to remember how precious time is and to be grateful for the miracles around us. They are foretastes, previews, echoes and ripples of the great Miracle to come.

Comments

Post a Comment