The son of the woman, the mistress of the house at Zarephath, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

Luke 7:11-17

Soon after healing the centurion’s slave, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Weddings can bring unexpected experiences…and insights, some of which only come clear days or weeks afterwards.

Saturday a week ago I officiated at my niece’s wedding in suburban Atlanta. This was the first time my brother, my sisters, my son and some of his cousins and I had gathered since my mother’s death over a year ago.

The wedding story—the one I want to tell you thing morning—is not about the rehearsal dinner, not about the bride and groom saying their vows in the little suburban Episcopal church, not even about the touching or embarrassing toasts that family members made to the couple. No, my story begins after all of that had happened. My story begins on the dance floor.

Picture this—a small hotel ban quet room, the tables decorated, as they say, in “the bride’s colors”—in this case sky blue and bright green—and with little gifts on the tables for each guest. A bar is set up at one end of the room and at the other a table holding a mound of gifts for the couple. The room is plush and carpeted, and in the center is a wooden dance floor.

Yes, my wedding story begins on the dance floor as a DJ played the music of the 80’s and before—Michael Jackson, the BeeGees, Donna Summer and an occasional soulful and slow Sinatra tune. As at all weddings, everyone was dancing with everyone else and with no one in particular. Couples were dancing; grandmothers were dancing with little children, men were dancing with other men and women with women. I had been coaxed onto the dance floor by my sister-in-law, a woman who dances the way I only dream of dancing. At one point I twirled away from her and found myself dancing with my one and only son.

This, I suppose, is where the story really begins, because he wanted to talk to me (once again) about God. He wanted (once again) to rehearse with me the fact that he does not believe in God, the fact that while he wants to be respectful of his father and my being priests, the fact is that he finds the religion thing oh so very odd and perplexing. He wants to tell me all these things while dancing with the moves of a young John Travolta (I am not lying), dancing with moves that make everyone including his mother stare, slack-jawed, at him.

“You know that I don’t believe in God, right?” he shouted over the music as he swiveled and bumped in perfect rhythm to the music.

“Yes” I shouted back while watching him intently.

“I mean I just can’t wrap my mind around some big spirit or whatever up there plotting out our lives. And then there’s the Bible. My Dad told me that he didn’t need to believe that the stories in the Bible—especially all those miracle stories—happened exactly the way they’re described.”

“What’s your point?” I asked. He then moved into the middle of the dance floor and others encircled him, clapping to encourage him on. He did this for a while and then moved out of the center of the circle, leaving his adoring fans, to return to me.

“I mean, he said, “Do you believe in creation or evolution?”

“Both” I shouted back.

And then I came out with it. “Look,” I said, “Go to the Bible and pick out a story, one with Jesus doing a miracle, and wherever you find the word “Jesus” substitute it the word “life.” Give that a try for a while and see how it feels.”

He looked at me quizzically, smiled a sweet, wicked smile and danced away toward his beautiful fiancé who had been dancing with a child of about eight, toward his beautiful fiancé, the one he will marry in the fall of this year, the one he plans to have children with almost immediately. He danced away, and as he went, I got one last look at his dance moves—they said so much about his grace, so much about his own beautiful manhood, so much about the energy of his life.

In his late teens this same beautiful, questioning young man was spiraling down to places where I as his mother could not reach him. All mixed up with drugs and alcohol at an early age, he was close to flunking out of school and probably being arrested. There were times when late at night I thought to myself, “I’m going to lose him. God, he may even lose his life.” I suppose I prayed for him in those days, but mostly I remember being afraid, trying to think of how I could stop him from going down the path he’d chosen.

And then somehow, almost at the lowest point, things began to change—he turned in another direction, something or someone got through to him. Somehow God or should I say “life” opened a door and he walked through it, away from the deadly path he was on and toward some kind of light.

Which brings me to our two stories for today: two stories about widows who have lost their only sons and who miraculously get their sons back.

In the ancient world, of course, to be a widow whose only son had died was the ultimate catastrophe. To be without a husband to protect you and then to lose all possibility of a son doing the same, and along with that, to lose all hope of grandchildren: all of this would mean you were the most bereft, the most cut off, the most hopeless and desolate of people.

In both of our stories this is the situation—the widow of Zarephath who has taken Elijah in and whose young son gets sick and dies and the unnamed woman in the town of Nain, whom Jesus encounters as she and a large crowd accompany the body of her son as it is borne forth, presumably for burial.

Both of these stories are those miracle stories I shouted to my son about as he danced his dance of life, suggesting that he do a word substitution so that he might be open to the stories—open to what they might say about the power of God through life itself to create new life.

And, of course, I believe this with all my heart. I have to. Here I am, having lost one child to a heart defect and almost another to drugs, divorced two years ago, and here I stand alive and kicking. Life does have the power, if we are open to it, to open to us. And yet, this is not enough, is it?

There are times when the power of God goes beyond what life of its own power seems capable of opening for us. There are times when we are so bereft, so cut off, so hopeless so desolate, so dead that nothing else but a savior could rouse us or could give us back our connection, our hope, our future.

And so I want it both ways—want to be able to substitute the word “life” for the word “God” or “Jesus” in those stories and be open to the organic way that I believe God works in my life and in the world. And I want not to do this alone, but to cry out for, to claim and even rest on the power of the one who in spite of the way life works, has the power to bring life out of death and who has mercy on those who over and over again lose everything that they have pinned their hopes on.

Where have you experienced the power of life itself, the power of God in the return of what you believed was lost, in your movement or the movement of others from isolation to connection? And where have you or where are you crying out for a savior whose merciful heart and strong arms have the power to do what life itself seems incapable of doing: to raise the dead, to cause the lame to walk, or for that matter, to dance.

Glory to our God who in Christ lived our lives and died our deaths, infusing life itself with a new power and potential for renewal. Glory to our God, the raising and risen one who can be called upon as Savior and Lord.

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