Before Your Time

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Ecclesiastes 7:15-18; Matthew 27:1-5

June 23, 2013 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO INTRO

It was early on a Wednesday morning, and I had gotten up to get the kids ready for school, then sat down to briefly check my messages. There was a private message on Facebook from a woman who is like my twin sister. We had met when her boyfriend and I roomed together in college. He was in my wedding, and Cathy and I drove to Indianapolis from Wilmore, Kentucky to be there when they were married. We didn’t get together all that often, mainly due to distance, but whenever possible, we would share a meal and it seemed like we could pick up just where we had left off. We had prayed him through several difficult, even life-threatening, situations, and no one gave me a harder time than she did. Still, it was strange to get a message from her that had been sent in the wee hours of the morning. The message was simply this: her husband had died the night before. I stared at the screen, shocked. It didn’t make sense; he was younger than me. How could this happen? Still stunned, I went upstairs and told Cathy. “Do you think it’s real?” she asked, and I remember saying, “I think so. I’m afraid so.” Later in the day, I was able to connect with her by phone and I learned that he had found himself in a desperate place. Many things had come crashing in on him, both in business and in his personal life, and so that night, he had left, telling her he was going to a meeting, when in reality he drove to a rental property they owned and took his own life. A few days later, we drove to Indianapolis to be present for his funeral, and the church was packed, as you would expect. None of us, at that moment, had any idea all the things that had led to his decision to end it all. We just knew that he had left behind a wife, two young sons, and many friends who were devastated, angry, confused, and hurt. It’s been almost three years since that happened, and I can tell you that the ripples of his decision in that moment continue to impact many people’s lives.

This morning, we’re continuing our journey through some of life’s most difficult moments, seeking to find “hope from the ashes.” As I shared a couple of weeks ago, there is no topic I’ve been asked more about in twenty years as a pastor than the topic of life and death. And so we’ve been discussing those issues this month, starting with matters of heaven and hell two weeks ago, and last week Pastor Deb helped us think about how we deal with our grief. But then there is the kind of death that one author has called a “fierce goodbye,” and that is suicide, the taking of one’s own life. For me, suicide was always a topic to reflect on, to think about, even to preach about, until about three years ago. All of a sudden, it became a reality, something that had directly affected my life. If you’ve been through it with a loved one, you know the pain, the devastation, the overwhelming hurt that decision causes all those who knew and loved the one who kills him- or herself. And maybe you’ve unfortunately also been the victim of someone who thinks they know what the Bible says and tells you that no person who commits suicide can be saved, that they are doomed to eternity in hell. The questions we want to address this morning are these: what does the Bible say about suicide and how can we help our friends or loved ones who might find themselves in such a desperate place where they would they contemplate taking their life before their time?

There are six stories of suicide in the Bible, and we’re not going to have time to do more than just look briefly at them, but if you follow along with the readings this week, you’ll read all six of these stories. So, roughly chronologically, the first story we come across is a man named Abimelek. In the days of the Judges, he made himself king. This was before Israel had a real king, certainly before God had authorized it, so Abimelek became king by killing all of his opposition and declaring himself as king. Then, as often happens, he pushes his attack too far and he enters a city that isn’t ready to have him as their king. When he enters the city to attack a tower, a woman drops a millstone on him, wounding but not killing him. It hurts him badly enough, though, that he knows he won’t recover, so he asks his armor-bearer to kill him so that no one could say he was killed by a woman (Judges 9). He dies by his own request. The next story is also in Judges; it’s the story of Samson. Samson is somewhat of a legend; his story is often told in Sunday School, which is odd, because it’s rather violent and he’s not the best example of how to live your life. Samson is given great strength by God; he is set apart as a special ambassador for God’s people. But Samson likes the party life, and likes the pretty faces. That becomes his downfall, and through a series of tricks by his enemy, the Philistines, through his girlfriend Delilah, he loses that strength and ends up in a Philistine jail. One day, they decide to bring him out, to show off their great prize, not realizing that his strength has come back. Samson asks to be put between two pillars of the Philistine temple, and he uses his strength to bring the temple down on him and on his captors. Samson dies, and takes many enemies with him (Judges 16).

King Saul, the first king appointed by God to rule Israel, also took his own life. The Philistines continued to be enemies of Israel, and in the midst of a battle with them, Saul is critically wounded. Like Abimelek, he asks his armor-bearer to kill him, but the man refuses, so Saul falls on his own sword in order to prevent being captured by the Philistines. His armor-bearer then kills himself as well (1 Samuel 31). It doesn’t seem to ever end well for armor bearers! Another member of a royal court kills himself in 2 Samuel 17. Ahithophel had served as an advisor to Absalom, King David’s rebellious son who tried to take away the kingdom. When Ahithophel realizes his advice is not being followed, he goes home, sets his house in order, and then hangs himself (2 Samuel 17:23). And the final Old Testament suicide is Zimri, a man who served as king of Israel for seven days. He murdered his predecessors, but the people didn’t want him as king, so his army turned against him. Under attack, he went inside the palace and set it on fire. He is listed as an evil king, but not because of his suicide, because of his actions that were not honoring to God (1 Kings 16).

If you’re keeping track, that’s five. There is only one account of suicide in the New Testament, and it is, perhaps, the most famous of all. We read that account this morning; it’s the story of Judas, a disciple who lost his way. Judas was one of the twelve followers of Jesus, but after three years of following, for reasons that aren’t spelled out in the Gospels, Judas decided to betray Jesus, to turn him over to the religious leaders in exchange for money. He sold Jesus to them for the price of a slave—thirty pieces of silver. There have been a lot of people who want to speculate as to why Judas did what he did. Had he lost his faith in Jesus? Was he hoping to force Jesus’ hand, make him into the kind of Messiah Judas wanted him to be? Was he just misguided? Did he expect Jesus to fight back? We don’t know, and we will most likely never know, because the Matthew doesn’t feel the need to tell us. He simply reports Judas’ betrayal and his subsequent realization that he had done the wrong thing. The other three Gospels ignore Judas altogether after Jesus is arrested, though Luke does mention his death in Acts. Where we pick up the story in Matthew 27, though, Judas sees Jesus being led away, bound, early in the morning, we’re told he was “seized with remorse” so he goes back to see the religious leaders again. You might remember that the Temple was made up of different courts, every one of them more restrictive than the other, and Judas charges through them all. He passes through the Court of the Gentiles, through the Court of Women, and into the Court of the Israelites. That’s as far as anyone could go in. He’s deep in the Temple, deep in the holy space, when he demands that the religious leaders take back the money and free him from his betrayal. It’s not too strong to say the religious leaders don’t care. They’ve got what they want, and whatever rethinking Judas might be doing is his problem. Judas is desperate at this point, and he throws the coins across the floor of the Temple. Can you imagine that sound, early in the morning, echoing in that huge building? Can you imagine that, even as Judas left the Temple, he could still hear the coins clattering? Judas runs out of the Temple and goes to hang himself. Literally, Matthew says he was “strangled.” Luke, the doctor, tells it much more graphically in Acts 1, but the fact remains that Judas saw no other option. He couldn’t face the other disciples. He couldn’t deal with what he had done to Jesus, an “innocent man.” He saw no other way out except to take his own life (cf. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, pg. 226; Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 314).

And that is often the case. When someone begins to think about suicide, they can’t see beyond the present dark moment. Whatever the situation, the person begins to believe nothing will ever be better. There is no room in their thinking for grace, forgiveness or mercy, the very foundations of the Christian faith. Every year, 30,000 Americans succeed in their suicide attempt, but for every one that completes the act, there are between 8 and 25 attempts that are unsuccessful. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people ages 15-24, behind accidents and homicide. There are four male suicides for every female suicide, but there are three female attempts for every male attempt. Men complete suicides more often than women (save.org). It’s safe to say that suicide has the potential to touch every person in this room, and in the church, we haven’t done a whole lot to help with the stigma of suicide. For too long, the church had this idea that anyone who committed suicide would go immediately to hell. The thinking was that such a person was taking a life, which is forbidden by the Ten Commandments and other laws in the Bible, and that by taking their own life, they could not ask for forgiveness; they would not have time. Without asking for forgiveness, they could not be saved. At least that was the thinking. And a lot of folks still hang onto that, but you know what I notice in all of those accounts of suicide in the Bible? There not a single one of them who is condemned for that particular action. The closest we get to that is in Acts, when the disciples are choosing a replacement for Judas. In their prayer, they ask God, “Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs” (1:24-25). But even in that prayer, there is not condemnation. They do not say Judas went to hell; only to “where he belongs.” There is trust there in a God who will judge justly.

The question is this: does God judge us based on our weakest moment? A couple of weeks ago, I shared about my grandmother who, in the last years of her life, had many strokes and did not act the way I knew my grandmother would act. She said things and did things that were out of character. Does God judge her based on those actions that come out of a weakness? I don’t believe so, any more than I believe God judges a person based on a single action performed in a moment of extreme weakness when they give in to the darkness around them. God’s grace is bigger than that.

Our United Methodist Church expresses that thought this way: “We believe that suicide is not the way a human life should end…A Christian perspective on suicide begins with an affirmation of faith that nothing, including suicide, separates us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Therefore, we deplore the condemnation of people who complete suicide, and we consider unjust the stigma that so often falls on surviving family and friends” (2012 Discipline). Sometimes that stigma comes from within, as family and friends grapple with a darkness they weren’t aware even existed. In my first appointment, within the first year, I got a call about one of our college students. She had been to Epworth Forest with us that year and then began as a freshman at Ball State that fall. But the pressure had been building for some time, and one afternoon, it became too much. She told us later that she thought she’d just take some pills and go to sleep and everything would be better. Thankfully, someone found her, got her to the hospital, and her life was saved. Today, she’s a married mother of twins, doing well. But in that moment, the darkness seemed to be too much. And I remember her friends and family—all of us—wondering what we could have done. What had we missed? And many were embarrassed to talk about it because of this stigma. Rather than judging persons who find themselves in this midst of this dark situation, I believe the call of Jesus would be, instead, to respond with help and hope in the midst of that darkness, to offer hope that arises out of the ashes.

Suicidal people are those who have lost all hope. So first of all, we have to pay attention to people. We have to become aware of what’s going on in the lives of those around us. There is no single “cause” of suicide; there are causes, so to be able to speak hope into someone’s life, we need to learn to pay attention and become aware of some common signs: things like prolonged depression, abrupt changes in behavior or mood or work performance, giving away personal belongings, things that were once important to them. And, of course, sometimes there are verbal statements like, “I don’t see any reason to go on any longer.” Or, “Life just isn’t worth living anymore.” Many people who attempt suicide have told someone they were thinking about it, hoping someone would hear them. Other times, suicide grows out of serious or even terminal illness. One of the demographics that is at high risk of suicide is the elderly, those who have suffered serious setbacks and don’t see that they can ever recover. And yet, still, we’re not to take the place of God. There’s a delicate balance here, between sustaining life with current medical technology and using that same technology to bring it to an end. It’s an ethical dilemma we don’t have time this morning to fully explore, except to recognize that sometimes, not always but sometimes, life-threatening illness can bring on suicidal thoughts. It’s not just young people who consider suicide.

So how should we respond? First and foremost, we take every suicide threat seriously. Don’t laugh it off. Don’t say something flippant, and for heaven’s sake, don’t quote Romans 8:28 to someone and tell them how everything will work for good. Quoting the Bible to someone who is in that sort of a desperate state will not accomplish what you think it will. At that moment, they don’t believe that all things will work out, which is why they are considering ending it all, and no amount of you quoting Paul is going to change that feeling. So listen, take their feelings seriously, but don’t ask them what they want to do. Tell them what they are going to do. Find help. Don’t leave them alone, but help them find someone who can direct them on the road to healing. Sometimes a person who is thinking of suicide will ask you to keep their thoughts a secret; never make that promise. This is a secret you cannot and must not keep. If you don’t know where to turn, you can call this number, the National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK, that’s 1-800-273-8255. Put it in your cell phone, memorize it, whatever it takes, because you never know when these moments might come up. And, in every moment, be someone who offers hope. Pray with them if you can, and in that prayer, offer hope. Help them remember that the worst thing is never the last thing.

Sometimes, though, there aren’t any signs. Or the signs are well hidden. In the case of my college roommate, I was stunned when he took his own life because I didn’t see it coming. Cathy, my wife, is a trained counselor, and she didn’t see it coming. He was a master at hiding what was really going on inside of him. We’ve come to realize how there were previous failed attempts, but he passed those off as accidents, and it all seemed perfectly believable. So what do you do when there aren’t any signs, or you miss them, and the suicide is successful? How do we handle that? Last week, Pastor Deb talked about the stages of grief, and we’re likely to experience all of those, maybe all at once, or so it might seem. But the one that stands out in the midst of suicide is anger. I know I’ve felt a lot of anger toward my college roommate, for what he has done to his wife, to his children, to his friends, for the way he avoided taking responsibility for the mistakes he made that led to his decision. And it’s okay; anger is natural and even expected in this situation. Be honest about it, but be sure, as Paul said, to not allow your anger to cause you to sin (Ephesians 4:26). There is no sin in being angry; it’s how we handle it and how we let it affect others that determines whether we sin in our anger or not. Even being angry at God isn’t a sin; God is big enough to handle it. But do know this: God did not cause your loved one’s suicide. Sometimes we want to blame God to avoid blaming the one we loved. And then, sometimes we even try to blame ourselves.

So maybe here’s the main thing we need to know in those times: it’s not your fault. I know I spent a lot of time wondering what I could have done to stop my friend. All the times we were together—did I miss something? Could I have helped him in some way? Those are natural feelings, and the reality is I couldn’t have stopped him. And it wasn’t my fault. I can’t take responsibility for his actions. There are limits to my power. I also came to realize there were more people involved in this than just me, and it was important for all of us to be able to talk about it, to share the grief and loss. Professionals advise that children be talked to honestly about a suicide also. Let the children know that the person was very unhappy, but don’t let them think that death is the answer to unhappiness. And to anyone who is caught in the midst of this trauma, offer to be there, to care. Offer them yourself. I know that I made a commitment for the first year just to send a text to my roommate’s wife every day to encourage and support her, to listen, and as a family we made more efforts to get together, to just be there for she and her children. In the end, all we really have to offer is ourselves and our faith to strengthen them. We can pray, and we can be there. We can be the community of hope that someone like Judas needed. In the face of and in the midst of a desperate situation, we are called to be the church (Kuenning, Helping People Through Grief, pgs. 169-182).

In the midst of the Old Testament is a book that sounds like it might have been written by someone who is contemplating ending it all. Tradition says it was written by Solomon, the wisest of all of Israel’s kings, but the book itself only claims to collect the words of “the Teacher.” The book begins in a dark place: “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And that’s very much the tone of the book, even in the passage we read this morning. “In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness” (7:15). But then he talks about living a balance of wisdom and righteousness. To be unbalanced in the way we live our life is to cause destruction, even to “die before your time” (7:17). So what is he talking about there? Well, when we talk about “wisdom,” we often are really talking about knowledge. But in the Bible’s understanding, wisdom is not just piling up information. Wisdom has more to do with knowing how to live. It’s knowing what to do with the information and knowledge we have. That’s why the “wisdom” books in the Old Testament, such as Ecclesiastes, are more about finding the way to the healthy and good life than they are about teaching us facts. And over and over again, having true wisdom means having God and God’s way of life in the forefront of your life. Wisdom is “the inner strength that comes from a God-instructed conscience” (Wright, “Ecclesiastes,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, pg. 1176).

Righteousness, then, is the way we live our faith, the way we line up our faith with what God calls us to do and who God calls us to be. When the Teacher is talking about being “overrighteous,” the first image that comes to my mind is the Pharisees whom Jesus warned against. Now, granted, the Pharisees were not in existence yet when Ecclesiastes was written, but certainly their forebears were. In every generation you can find the legalists, the ones for whom everything is black and white, on or off, right or wrong, and who don’t mind imposing their views on everyone else. That’s what Jesus got so upset with the Pharisees about. They said they were concerned about people following God’s law, and so to make sure they did, the Pharisees devised a whole set of other laws that people were not to break. Jesus got after the Pharisees for really being more concerned about their rules and their traditions than they were about helping people find God. Christians are always in danger of becoming legalists, overrighteous. The Teacher, then, says we need a balance. We need not be arrogant or overly pious, and that’s why the Teacher says, “Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes” (7:18). Once we see ourselves in the light of who God is, we realize none of us measure up, and we’re reluctant to assume we ever can.

So, what does this have to do with suicide? Again, the Teacher’s constant message is that the road to hope in this meaningless life is found when we embark upon God’s road for life. The only hope we have in this life is found in God, in living life the way God intended it to be lived, in grace and freedom, in hope and mercy. The image that came to my mind as I read this passage this week was of a desperate person, hanging over a wide chasm or abyss, and they’re holding onto two lifelines: wisdom and righteousness. They need both to be able to hang on. An over-focus on one or the other can cause us to fall into despair, to want to give up, and so our call as the church is to offer hope by helping people in desperate situations find the lifelines of wisdom and righteousness—a life of authentic faith. The end of this dark and difficult book says this: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is duty of all mankind” (12:13). When our lives authentically and hopefully point toward our creator, toward the one who made us and loves us more than we can imagine, toward the one who is the reason the worst thing is never the last thing—then we will help keep people from dying before their time.

Can you imagine what it might have been like if Judas had waited just another day or so? What if he had waited until Sunday? What if he had seen the risen Christ?  What if he had the chance to encounter the Christ who says to all of us, “No matter what you’ve done, you can be forgiven. Mercy and grace is for you, too, Judas”? Can you imagine the story he could have told? “I betrayed him, but even I found grace, forgiveness and mercy.” What a witness his story could have been, but we’ll never know. And for all the people in our lives who find themselves in a place without hope like Judas did, we need to be those who constantly offer hope, healing and help. Who in your life might need you to be the ray of hope, the shining light? Shine that light today, don’t wait. And be one who rescues that person from the very darkest place. I can’t go back and change what happened to my roommate, but I can invest hope in the lives of others. So can you. Be the light. Be hope. Let’s pray.