June 10, 2007
The Second Sunday after Pentecost (Year C)
1 Kings 17:8-16; Psalm 146; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17
A number of years ago there was a TV miniseries called The Thorn Birds. Maybe some of you remember it. It was based on the book of the same name by Colleen McCullough. There was one scene repeated several times that I recall vividly. Every time there was a death there was a funeral procession to the cemetery and unlike your typical funeral procession today of a hearse followed by anywhere from one or two to twenty or more cars, the Thorn Bird procession was always shown in silhouette, usually at dawn, or so it seemed. There would be a group of people, the family, the community, walking slowly, solemnly, almost in single file across the barren land of the Australian outback following a horse drawn cart that carried the deceased. It was very simple. You knew what had happened and you knew what was going to happen. A family had lost a loved one.
This brings me to today’s gospel reading. Jesus arrived at this town called Nain accompanied by his disciples and a large crowd. He has, shortly before coming here, healed a centurion’s slave who had been close to death. One could visualize that the mood of the group was one of joy and laughter and an all round good feeling. And then they meet a funeral procession leaving the town. Grave sites for the Jewish community were always located outside the village or town. A large crowd would gather as town’s people would join the procession as it wound through the streets. Today a young man, his mother’s only son, has died. And she is a widow.
How Jesus knew who had died and what the family situation is is not stated but he was filled with compassion for this woman who in this patriarchal society now has no means of support. This is the Jesus that Luke so often portrays. The Jesus who cares about the poor, not necessarily the economically poor, but often those who are rejected by society for one reason or another: occupation – for example, tax collectors, the disadvantaged, the minorities, the outcasts, the sinners and lepers, and women. Luke is very conscious of all these every day people and their problems. And on this day he tells of Jesus not just standing there and watching the sad procession pass by, nor even just joining it and following along, but rather stepping forward and touching the bier.
The bearers, the gospel states, “stood still.” The crowd must have held its collective breath. A pious Jew did not do that kind of thing. He would be considered ritually unclean for seven days and would have to perform a purification ceremony. Jesus once again, as he so often does, is breaking with conformity. But he goes even further and speaks to the dead, “Young man, I say to you, rise.” This is no magic trick that the prophets were supposedly given to. This was “Authority” speaking and the young man “sat up and began to speak.”
An interesting detail that Luke includes, or so I think it is: “the young man began to speak.” But there’s no record of what he said. What do you think it might have been? First off I think it might have been rather difficult to understand him because of the burial cloths. If you remember that is the first thing Jesus said as Lazarus emerged from his tomb, his hands and feet bound and his face wrapped in a cloth. “Unbind him,” he said, “and let him go.” So then here, assuming someone leapt to the fore and unbound the young man, what do you think he would have said? “Where am I?” “What has happened?” “Why are all these people here?” Or do you think he might, like Thomas, have looked at Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God?” Think about it for a moment! If you had been that young man, what would you have said?
Not surprisingly fear filled those around, the same kind of fear that seized the shepherds when the angels appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth. A fear that caused this crowd to glorify God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us?” At this point in his life Jesus is easily acknowledged as a great prophet, on a par with Elijah and Elisha and maybe Moses. We heard earlier of Elijah’s miracle for the widow of Zarephath, how he provided food for her and her son until the end of the drought. A drought incidentally which Elijah had predicted would happen to demonstrate the power of his God over the power of Baal, the god of the pagans. Had we read on we would have heard how Elijah restored that same widow’s son to life. It is because Jesus did such deeds like Elijah and other prophets, that the people proclaimed him a great prophet, but not the Messiah. That they could not comprehend, not yet, but a prophet, yes.
But Jesus was even then, although they could not see it, beyond being a mere prophet. He acted in people’s lives even when they didn’t seek his help. He acted in this case through compassion for a woman who was to be utterly destitute with no means of support because of the norms of her society. He acted going against other norms of this same society by touching the funeral bier. He was not afraid of raising the consciousness of his society to see their wrongs, nor of what people might say or do. Above all he was not afraid to die.
None of those funeral processions in the Thorn Birds was met by Jesus saying to the deceased, “Rise.” Nor do we expect that to happen when we ride in our corteges today. What does that say about us? Is our society so perfect? There are no wrongs to be righted? I don’t think so! So, are we of so little faith? Do we no longer believe in miracles? I don’t believe we are of little faith and miracles still happen, an unexplained healing, an incredible job offer, an unanticipated legacy. (And I don’t count winning the lottery!) But in this twenty-first century we have become so knowledgeable, so well educated, so steep in science and philosophy. And none of this is wrong; it has just changed our perspectives and our expectations and challenges our faith in different ways. We understand so much more the causes and effects of the world around us, why things happen, what are the origins, not everything mind you. Even the Big Bang theory can’t answer the question of where did it all start! However, we can now predict storms although we still cannot change their courses. And we do not believe they are the wrath of God vented on a sinful people. Birth defects are the result of some genetic mix-up, not God’s punishment because a young woman chose to marry out of her church. Diseases have physical explanations, hereditary, environmental, bacterial, viral, even psychological; they are not God’s will.
God’s will is for us to live safe, healthy, happy, productive lives in relationship with him and in relationship with each other. That is why he sent Jesus to live among us, teaching, healing, joining with us in our everyday events and not so everyday events, marriage, death, a meal. And that is why God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus no longer walks among us the way he did when he met the widow who was burying her only son. But his presence is here; it’s just very different. The world became a different place following the Resurrection.
So we don’t go around expecting to see Jesus changing water into wine, and raising the dead to life, but we still share meals and the greatest is that which we will shortly share here at our Altar. This is the meal that goes on nourishing us day after day, week after week. This is the meal that satisfies us even more than those cakes of bread that Elijah provided for the widow of Zarephath and her son. Those lasted only until the rains came. The benefit of the meal we share with Jesus and with each other lasts forever, even beyond the grave. Jesus still walks among us but in a very different way.
That is where our faith is, wrapped in that meal, to be carried with us through all times, the celebrations, as well as all the funeral processions of life. Let us pray that in the great miracle of that meal our faith, by the grace of God, may continue to grow and spread throughout our community and our world.
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of The Good Shepherd