MATERNAL SHALOM
II Kings 4:8-37

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
May 9, 2004 / Fifth Sunday of Easter

You may never before have met the great woman of Shunem. But if you have not, it is high time you did. The Bible is full of great stories of women that seldom make it into the lectionary.

The great woman of Shunem is a wealthy woman – she has servants and a large home. She is also a person of a different faith and background. Shunem was a Phoenician city in northern Palestine that had been captured by the Israelites only a few generations earlier. The double conversations in our text indicate that the woman does not speak Hebrew, and translation is going on. The interactions then between the Hebrew prophet Elisha and the Shunammite woman are, therefore unusual and surprising.

What these encounters show to us is a woman of honor and a woman with strong family commitments. She becomes a model of what it means to be a mother. Take heed to the inclusivity of this text: it lifts up a woman as an example; it finds high moral value in the family life of people of another nationality and probably another faith; and it demonstrates God’s inclusive love of all peoples, tribes, nations, and languages.

It has always seemed to me that the Bible’s sense of family is conditional. The Bible does not say that family is always good, family is always blessed, family is the condition we should all be in. On the contrary, families have principles and standards that they need to live by. Families of blood are often disastrous and disgraceful. Families of love can be filled with God.

Let me point out the maternal and family examples set by the great woman of Shunem:

First, she shows hospitality to strangers. She somehow recognizes the religious presence or aura of Elisha. She does not speak his language and she is not part of his religion, yet she sees a value in his religious consciousness. So she responds to the stranger with hospitality. She first offers the stranger a meal and, after getting to know him, she makes a room for him to stay in on his journeys. So her first attribute is hospitality.

Another aspect of the way she lives is tenderness. When they bring her sick boy back to her, she sits with him on her lap. You can imagine her stroking his hair, or whispering in his ear. She knows that the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. So here is another aspect of effective mothering: genuine tenderness, real gentleness.

Third notice, that when she sets out to go to see Elisha, she saddles her own donkey. She has servants. They are helping her to get ready. But she is no rich prima donna – relaxing while everyone else scurries around. Instead she is part of the work crew, part of those busy to get things done. She is a woman of action.

And then she is also a woman of prayer. She is willing to plead with Elisha for help, to take hold of his feet. She bends down as if begging. She throws class position to the wind. She is willing to advocate.

Here are four principles of effective mothering. Here are four aspects of moral living. We can measure ourselves and our families and homes against these standards: hospitality, tenderness, hard work, prayer.

This is the activist part of this sermon. Do these things to match your life up with this holy woman: hospitality, tenderness, hard work, and prayer.

But I want to move on forward to the spiritual basis of her holy action. Holy action comes out of a spirit that is close to God. Right decisions grow out of a spirit that is nurtured, cared for, rightly directed, deep. Life means little if we merely mechanically try to fulfill certain things we have taken on as necessary obligations. At some point we must assess the motivation.

I am intrigued by the quote that the chronicler of Kings gives to us.

The cultural tradition of the Middle East was that you went to talk with religious leaders on the new moon or the sabbath. That is still true today: most people go to listen to clergy on the Sabbath So, even after the loss of her child, her husband is surprised that she wants to go to see Elisha right away. He asks, "Why go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath?" She does not answer him directly. Instead she says, "It will be all right." It will be all right.

Then the same thing happens later. Elisha sees the Shunammite coming towards Mount Carmel. So Elisha sends out his servant Gehazi – who is apparently bilingual – he sends out Gehazi to meet her and ask her why she is coming at such a time. So Gehazi specifically asks "Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is the child all right?" The arrival at this time is obviously concerning – like a telephone call at three in the morning.

But instead of breaking down right there on the road, she again says "It is all right"” It is all right.

Well, we know it is not all right. And when she gets to Elisha up close he can see that she is in bitter distress, even though he doesn't know why. Only face to face does she open up.

But notice her message to both her husband and to Gehazi: “It will be alright. It is alright.” In the Hebrew text this is written “It will be shalom. It is shalom.” This is the word we also translate as peace. “It will be peace. It is peace.” We can imagine this is the same thing she said to her sick little boy when he was on her lap, “it will be all right. It’s all right.” This is the conversation of mothers. Do you remember your own mother cleaning your scraped knee, or washing dirt out of your cut, holding ice to a bump on your head? Can you remember in your own mother’s voice, “it will be all right. It is all right.” “It’s all right, it’s all right now.” Blessed are you if you have that memory, and blessed is your mother, who knew at that moment how to be a mother.

And if you did not have a mother like that, let the great woman of Shunem be your mother today. Let her hold you and comfort you, and say to you, “It will be all right. It is all right.” “It will be peace. It is peace.”

It is because of this great peace in her soul that she finds hospitality and tenderness, hard work and prayer: because she believes peace, she lives peace, whenever people are concerned for her own spirit, she speaks peace.

And what Elisha learns in this experience is that shalom is spoken to him by a woman who does not speak his language. Shalom is spoken to him by a person who honors his religion, but is not of his religion. The peace known by mothers extends across languages, across cultures, across international boundaries, across religious barriers, among people who were former enemies.

So the mothers of Palestine say to their children "it will be all right," and the mothers of Israel say "it will be all right" And the mothers of Iraq say to the their children "it will be peace," and the mothers of America say "it is peace."

And why is it that we can not see that we speak the same message? Why is it that we have not learned the lesson of the mother of Shunem? Why can’t we learn hospitality and tenderness, hard work and prayer? For mothers in all of our places have said the same thing: "it will be all right. It is all right."

We pray for the day when we shall be one with the great woman of Shunem.

"And all shall be well
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive…" 1

Amen.

1 – Eliot, T. S., Four Quartets, (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1943/1971), p.57.