Breaking Boundaries 2: A Widow and a Corpse
Luke 7:11-17 January 25, 2009
Intro: (setting: the city gates at Capernaum; circa 74AD)
The old man sat at the city gates, watching the people come and go, catching up on the news of the community and the countryside, as he did most days, when he felt well enough to walk down from his humble home. Two men approached the city from the road, dust on their sandals from a long journey, well worn cloaks, travelers packs that evidently had seen many miles. One was obviously a gentile, and had a look of learning about him. These, the man could tell, were experienced travelers.
As they reached the gates, they removed their packs, took a drink offered by one of the others in the square, and sat to rest. As they did, they looked around at the others, sizing them up, with an inquisitive eye, and spotted the old man. They stood, walked over, and sat beside him. “Greetings, old one,” the gentile said.
“Shalom,” came the reply. “You two have come from a long journey. What is it you seek?”
The gentile smiled warmly. “In a word, Jesus of Nazareth,” he replied.
The old man’s heart beat hard in his chest as he heard the name, a flood of memories of that day long ago returned, and he became excited. He reached for the gentile’s arm and pumped it vigorously: “Jesus! Yes, Jesus… but tell me, what is your name?”
“Luke,” came the reply, and he felt he could risk the next sentence. “I have heard many of the stories of Jesus, and have determined to set them down in writing so that all may hear and know that Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord.”
“Well, then come to my home, we will eat together, and I will tell you a story.”
Following a simple supper, the men sat together and the old man began to speak.
“It was a long time ago. My cousin had taken ill, and my mother was filled with deep concern for her sister. She had been widowed only two years before, and now her only son was gravely ill. You are not one of us, so please understand what this would mean – if my cousin were to die, his mother would be destitute. An outcast, without standing in the community, without any means to support herself. We had little extra, and though we would certainly share what we could, it would not be enough. My aunt would be reduced to a beggar woman, she would likely have to leave for a larger place such as here, where she would sit with the other beggars you saw at the gate today, depending on the handouts of others for basic survival.
“We lived then in a little village called Nain, about a day’s journey from Capernaum here. A small place, where everyone knew everyone else, and where my cousin died. Yes, I was there, I saw the life leave his body, and I wept. I wept for him, of course, and for the loss of my cousin and the grief that I felt, but mostly I wept for my aunt as I knew what this would mean for her. She was now an outcast, alone, desperate, and with no hope.
“I went out with the news, and soon our whole village knew, and the grief was great. I found the wailing women and hired them for my aunt, I went to the carpenter and had him prepare the plank on which my cousin’s body would be carried. I got the burial shroud, the piece of cloth that would cover my dead cousin’s body, and returned to my aunt’s small home. My father and other cousins had left the city to the burial ground to dig the grave, and they returned and cleaned up. Others began to gather as evening approached, the carpenter arrived with the funeral plank, and we placed my cousin’s body upon it, and began the processional. Most of the town joined in, my aunt walked in front with the aid of my sister, and the grief was great.”
The old man paused in the story to take a drink, then he looked straight into Luke’s eyes and said, “you may not believe what I tell you next, but I was there, I witnessed it, and I tell it to you now exactly as I saw it.
“I was one of the men carrying the funeral bier, it was hard to keep my footing through the tears in my eyes as I heard the weeping of my aunt and my mother. We walked through the village and continued towards the city gate, and as we neared it we saw another crowd, this one heading towards our city. It was a large crowd, and I was confused. ‘How have they heard about my cousin, and who are these people come to mourn him with us?’ I wondered. As we got nearer, I saw one at the center of this group, the leader, he came near to my aunt and I saw the compassion on his face and the tears flowing freely from his eyes and then I heard him speak.
“ ‘Don’t cry.’ That is what he said, and I remember feeling angry at the words. ‘He must not know, or else he is completely insensitive,’ I thought. ‘Why shouldn’t she cry – her only son is dead, she has no husband, her life is now far worse than ever it has been. If ever there were a time to cry, it is now…’ But I was also confused, for the man’s face was full of compassion and he had tears also, and so we simply kept on walking.
“As we got closer, he appeared to be some sort of Rabbi, and he walked deliberately up to us, and he reached up and touched the wooden plank we were carrying with my cousin’s dead body.” Again the old man stopped the story and looked at Luke, wondering if he appreciated the importance of this act. “Understand, in our culture one does not touch the funeral plank. It makes you “unclean”, and certainly this Rabbi would know our laws. He shouldn’t have done that. He could have just joined us and walked with us, but it is taboo for him to touch the funeral plank as he did. We stopped, in some shock, wondering how to respond to a Rabbi who was breaking the rules, but we had no time to respond for we heard this man speak They were short, simple, plain words, which I have never forgotten: “Young man, I tell you, get up.”
The old man saw a bright smile cross Luke’s face, and he continued the story. “I felt the weight on the plank shift, I looked up and my cousin was sitting up. He started to talk – words came from his mouth, I heard that voice I had known since my earliest childhood with my own ears, I tell you. He sat up, tore the burial shroud from his body, and spoke. The rabbi reached and took him by the hand as we lowered the plank to the ground, and the rabbi took him and led him to my aunt where they embraced as mother and son, a widow restored to her only son, her entire life now returned, her desperate situation reversed, now full of hope and life once again.
“Well, imagine the response of our village. Our hearts stopped, I began to sweat, I wondered if I should flee, I felt fear at this unknown and unheard of event. I had watched my cousin die, and now I could see him laughing and dancing with my aunt, fully alive, no trace of disease or death left in his body. Moments after the fear, together we felt another strong emotion – gladness, exuberance, and praise to God. For we knew now that the stories of old, of Elijah and Elisha, were true and had happened again, to us, the people of the village of Nain, one of our sons had died and was now raised from the dead. And so we praised God, for God has sent another great prophet among us, God had come once again to help His people, God had restored the life of a woman who had lost everything, by giving her back her son. And so we celebrated, and we sent the news far and wide. Please, Luke, tell our story in your book of Jesus, for I too know that Jesus is Lord.”
Later that night, when the old man had retired to bed, Luke took his quill and wrote the story he would later confirm with the disciples:
Luke 7:11-17
Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. 12 A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. 14 Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” 15 Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people today.” 17 And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside.
Breaking Boundaries:
We are in a little series of sermons about how Jesus broke through boundaries to bring the Kingdom of God as a reality in the lives of people that were “outside” the existing community of faith, so that we might see that the call of Jesus to us is that we also would break the boundaries and invest our time in bringing the Kingdom of God to those “outside” the existing Kingdom of God. We’ve seen Jesus break the boundary of “polite society” by going to a wild party at the home of a tax collector whose name we know of as Matthew. Last week we saw Jesus break the boundary of race by healing the servant of a Roman Centurion. Luke follows that story with this one, where Jesus breaks a bunch of boundaries:
- Jesus breaks the boundary of “ceremonial cleanliness” by touching a funeral bier.
- Jesus breaks the social boundary of single Jewish man speaking directly to women.
- Jesus breaks the economic boundary by rescuing a woman from a future of abject poverty and thus social rejection.
- And, the obvious one, Jesus breaks the boundary between life and death and restores the life of a young man who had died.
So What?
It is a great story, one well suited for Sunday School. A great need, a present Jesus, a healing miracle. But that was a long time ago, and you and I don’t live in a simple, “Sunday School” world, and you and I are not Jesus who could break the boundary between life and death by simply speaking the words “get up.” So what can we learn and apply from this story?
1. “His heart overflowed with compassion.” Jesus was busted up by the grief He saw. In my creative expansion of the story, I painted a picture of Jesus with tears streaming down his cheeks, because of this line and the emotion in the original words. This is not some detached Jesus, marching up and barking “stop crying, woman, and watch this…” Jesus here gets emotionally involved. Seeing the woman at the front of a funeral procession, without a husband or any male children with her, Jesus would have known she was a widow burying her only son, and He would have understood what the rest of her life would have been like. And in the face of this desperate human need, Jesus got emotional.
Do we? Now, I’m not talking about the abstract, distant and often overwhelming needs in our world, because that is not what the story is about. It is about Jesus walking into the middle of a funeral procession and feeling great compassion. He personally encounters a need, a desperate situation, and dives in. Notice in the story that no one asks Jesus to help, not like the story last week where others come and tell Jesus about a need and beg him to intervene, in this story Jesus takes the initiative in responding to a need He sees.
In our lives, this would probably prove inconvenient. Many of us don’t have the extra time and energy to get involved in the deep, ongoing needs of people around us. Sometimes we even harden our hearts against the need, finding ways (which can often be valid) which the needy could have and should have acted differently and then they wouldn’t be in such a desperate place. Or we say a simple, “I’ll pray for you,” and leave it at that.
But that is not like Jesus. He got involved, though it was inconvenient at times. Though it got Him in trouble at times. He let Himself get emotional, and He chose to act.
Now true, in this story all Jesus had to do is speak a word. If you are, as I hope, thinking of some of the needs of people around you, you are maybe feeling like, “yah, but it would be a whole lot easier if I had the power to just say a few words and fix the problem.” My first response to that thought is that we better try, because if that is a situation where God does want to do some incredible miracle then we had better be asking! That is why we pray, because we believe God can. My second response, though, is that when we truly have hearts “moved with compassion”, we tend to not concentrate on how it might be inconvenient or costly to us, but rather in a Christ-like way we see how we could help alleviate some of the suffering, or at least be a companion through the suffering. Our true compassion leads to involvement, and action, which is why I begin with the observation that the passage teaches us that we need to let ourselves care about other peoples’ pain. To not harden our hearts and turn away, but to let our hearts “overflow with compassion”.
So how is your heart? Are you letting it be broken by the needs of others, or have you calloused it so that you don’t feel a need to respond? Have we made choices in our lives that leave room, emotionally and time-wise and practically, to respond when situations of need arise? That, I think, is what Jesus models for us in the passage.
2. Ignore the barriers. Then, as we’ve seen for the past few weeks, we need to ignore the barriers, and reach across them. Jesus does that here, once again, and models that for us. This is what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus, which we recognize that we are as God’s children living in our world. And the hands and feet of Jesus need to get out of the pockets and off of the footstool and into the needs of people with messy lives that we encounter, so that they can see the Kingdom of God in action.
Conclusion:
Two weeks ago I talked about my attempt to live as a child of God in my community of Terwillegar Towne. On Friday I got an email about some community stuff, and the sender apologized to the group for not getting something done and mentioned that he has been busy with a marital separation. For the last month I’ve been calling us all to get involved with people in our neighbourhood, and this shows up Friday. I could just pray for him. I could go a step further and tell him I’m going to pray for him. I could maybe just ignore the situation. But here is a need, and me with some training in how to listen and a God who loves to take broken situations and people and make some changes. So I offered a listening ear, and we are going to get together this week. I don’t know where it will go, what God will do, but when Jesus saw a need, he let his heart be filled with compassion, and he ignored the barriers, and brought the Kingdom of God. I’m going to try to do the same, and I’m going to pray, now, that each of you have similar opportunities and needs come across your path this week. So that God’s Kingdom may come, and His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
