A Sermon for The Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 10, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 7:11-17
Soon afterwards he 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. (NRSV)
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Before this scene in our gospel lesson from Luke, Jesus has healed a highly valued slave of a centurion. But it is the faith of the centurion himself that is most impressive. He believes if Jesus just says the word, his servant will be healed. And sure enough, he was right. Jesus says, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” (Luke 7:9)
Now, Jesus arrives in the town of Nain. As he enters the gates, Jesus notices a funeral procession leaving the town. They are carrying out a dead man. He is the only son of a mother who has already been widowed. Now she has no men to protect her and provide for her financial well-being, as these were the rules of her patriarchal culture. The scripture doesn’t tell us just how devastated this woman is, but given her circumstances, we can be sure she is immeasurably grieved.
A pastor friend of mine officiated at a funeral of a baby that was stillborn. The child’s mother knew from early in her pregnancy that the child would not live, but still she carried the baby for many more months, hoping for a miracle. Alas, when delivery time came, her child emerged into the world fully formed, beautiful, but not alive. At the graveside service, the tiny casket was placed into the hole in the earth because it was too small to sit on top like they do with adult-sized caskets. The mother was so overwhelmed with grief, that she jumped into the hole to embrace the casket of her tiny child once more. It was a devastating moment for everyone. Sometimes grief is just too horrible to even witness.
So it must have been for the mother of this adult child in Nain. Then, along comes Jesus. He sees the mother’s intense grief and he says to her, “Do not weep.” How can she not weep? It almost seems like he is mocking her pain.
But then he moves toward the dead body and he says, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” (Luke 7:14) The dead man sits up and begins to speak. Resurrection! Before everyone’s eyes.
I have always wanted to witness something like that, haven’t you? I remember when I was a child, one of the first visitations I went to was for an elderly woman named Mrs. Zurcher. She was a dear friend of our family. I was somewhere around third grade when she died and as I stood before her casket, I just could not believe Mrs. Zurcher was gone. She looked so lifelike. I was absolutely determined that if I watched closely enough, I would see her chest rise and fall. I kept a close eye on her throughout the time we were at the visitation because I had concocted an elaborate fantasy that she would suddenly open her eyes and begin to speak to us, saying something like, “Oh for Pete’s sake, dry your eyes everyone! I’m not dead anymore.”
Knowing how much I wanted Mrs. Zurcher to reawaken from her slumber of death, I have a sense of how relieved and amazed the people of Nain must have been when the man was resurrected. How surprising! How amazing! What a miracle! I don’t even think they could have put into words what they were feeling in that moment.
Let’s think for a moment how different this healing story is from the one just before it. In that instance, the centurion dazzled Jesus with his great faith in his request to have the servant healed of his illness. Here, the woman is minding her own business, going along with the funeral procession of her son. She doesn’t ask Jesus to heal him, she doesn’t demonstrate any faith. We don’t even know if she harbors the hope of her son waking up as I did with Mrs. Zurcher. Maybe she’d like Jesus’ help very much but she doesn’t feel worthy to ask for it. We have no idea what was going on in her head. All we know is that her only son has died and she is weeping.
Unlike the centurion, the mother has demonstrated no faith—at least none that the gospel writer saw fit to mention. And when her son is raised, there is no report that she even thanked him.
So, it doesn’t seem to me that this story is about faith. It doesn’t even seem to be about gratitude, though both of these things are wonderful. No, I think what Luke is trying to teach us by including this miracle story is that our God, as demonstrated by Jesus Christ, is a God of grace. Grace—the unearned, unwarranted, unbelievably lavished-upon-us love of God—comes to us not because we are faith-filled or particularly thankful but because God is good, because God simply wants to love us. The resurrection in the story doesn't happen because of a mother's strong belief. It happens because Jesus has compassion for her. This story is not about the woman or her son, but about the amazing compassion and grace Jesus offers. The point is that when grace comes into our lives, it requires nothing of us but to receive it.
How have you experienced grace? In my years in ministry, I have heard some pretty remarkable grace stories. Some people have beat cancer or other life-threatening illnesses. Others have even been pronounced dead and seen the light and heard God’s voice and then been brought back to life—to have a second chance. Some people have come out of a deep depression to find joy and wholeness. Some have found reconciliation in a relationship they thought was entirely over. Still others have found the strength to move on with their lives after a tragic loss. And a great many haven’t had anything dramatic happen, but they have experienced the grace of knowing Christ as a Savior who walks with them throughout their lives.
You see, this story teaches us that God’s grace is all around us at each and every moment. That we are alive is itself a miracle, a gift of God. We cannot do anything to make God love us any less because God is just that loving. God is a God who zealously seeks out and snatches up the lost sheep. And so grace is not just some abstract concept, some idea we like to toy around with in the church. It is a concrete reality. It brings life out of death. It brings hope to the hopeless. It forgives the unforgivable. It promises us eternal life with God. And it has to power to so transform us, that we can offer grace to others as a natural outpouring of the delightful grace in our own hearts.
In this season of Pentecost, we focus upon the Holy Spirit—how it is at work within our lives and how it seeks to develop deeper, more substantial faith in us. And today, as we witness the miracle of grace in our gospel story and we are invited to ponder anew the amazing power of grace at work in us. How is grace working in and among us? How completely loved do you feel? And how does this grace compel you to take bold and loving action in the world? May these questions draw us to an even more grace-filled life. Amen.
© Laura E. Gentry 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment