Ordinary Time, Summer 07
Cycle C, Proper 5
June 10, 2007
Title: He had compassion
Speaker: Linda
Song leader: Annette
Worship leader: Rob
Texts:
1 Kings 17:17-24; Psalm 146 (alternate text; using
Jim Taylor’s paraphrase); Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17
1 Kings 17:17 After this the son of the woman, the
mistress of the house, became ill; his
illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 17:18 She then said
to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to
bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!" 17:19 But
he said to her, "Give me your son." He took him from her bosom,
carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his
own bed. 17:20 He cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought
calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?"
17:21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to
the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again."
17:22 The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into
him again, and he revived. 17:23 Elijah took the child, brought him down from
the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said,
"See, your son is alive." 17:24 So the woman said to Elijah,
"Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in
your mouth is truth."
Psalm 146
Leader: Who can you trust these days?
Congregation: Only
God. Forever and ever.
L: You can put your faith in God as long as you
live.
C: God
will never let you down.
L: Do not put your trust in any government.
C: You
cannot count on them.
L: Human life is short, but governments are
shorter.
C: With each election,
their policies change;
their
promises dry up faster than morning dew.
L: Put your trust in God;
C: for eternal confidence,
count
on the one who knows eternity.
Men: What human agency can claim
to have created the earth?
What
human agency can claim to care for it?
Look
and see those whom God chooses to help:
Women: To feed the hungry; to set free the
prisoners;
To
give sight to the blind; to let the lame walk;
to
grant liberty to the oppressed;
All: Those who always take care of their own
concerns
are brought down by their own
ambitions.
God
cares for the strangers, the widows, the orphans –
God watches over those
who
cannot watch out for themselves.
Can
any human authority make that claim?
That is why God rules over all
creation.
Trust
in God forever!
paraphrased by Jim Taylor, Everyday Psalms, Wood Lake Books.
Galatians
1:11 For I want you to know,
brothers and sisters, that the gospel
that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; 1:12 for I did not
receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through
a revelation of Jesus Christ. 1:13 You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life
in Judaism. I was violently persecuting
the church of God and was trying to destroy it. 1:14 I advanced in Judaism
beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the
traditions of my ancestors. 1:15 But when God, who had set me apart before I
was born and called me through his grace, was pleased 1:16 to reveal his Son to
me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any
human being, 1:17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already
apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I
returned to Damascus. 1:18 Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to
visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; 1:19 but I did not see any other
apostle except James the Lord's brother. 1:20 In what I am writing to you,
before God, I do not lie! 1:21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,
1:22 and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in
Christ; 1:23 they only heard it said, "The one who formerly was
persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy."
1:24 And they glorified God because of me.
Luke
7:11 Soon afterwards he went to
a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. 7:12 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. 7:13 When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and
said to her, "Do not weep." 7:14 Then he came forward and touched the
bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you,
rise!" 7:15 The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to
his mother. 7:16 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!" 7:17 This word about him spread throughout Judea
and all the surrounding country.
Contemporary
Quote:
Once
you've done the mental work, there comes a point you have to throw yourself
into the action and put your heart on the line. That means not only being
brave, but being compassionate towards yourself, your teammates and your
opponents.
--
Phil Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers head coach
Introduction:
Having
a break from preaching in May has opened up time to read Scripture the Bible in
larger and less focused pieces and it’s reminded me all over again how much I
love the Biblical stories—they’re great drama, profound in their simplicity and
ability to carve universal reality out of such sparse detail.
The
break also reminded me of the anecdote of the parishioners discussing the
amount of vacation their new pastor was going to get:
“Four
weeks!” remarked one. “Man, that’s a
lot!”
“Well,”
said the second; “if he’s any good, he’ll need it. And if he’s not any good—we’ll need it.”
So,
the larger sweep of the story
in which today’s gospel reading is
held
shows us Jesus wandering around
Galilee, preaching, teaching,
doing
the occasional healing and miracle.
Crowds
are beginning to follow him,
wondering what bizarre thing he may
do next…
He
astonishes them by responding as compassionately to Gentiles
as he does to his own people, the
Jews.
Surely,
a man in his influential position,
a rabbi,
should know better!
After
all, just a few chapters back from our text today,
he preaches an inaugural sermon in
his home town of Nazareth,
and after charming everyone with his
introduction
he
infuriates them with two simple statements that
so set their teeth on edge
that
they try to fling him over a cliff….
Do
you remember this?
Jesus
reminds his home town congregation
that two of Israel’s greatest
prophets, Elijah and Elisha,
both
performed spectacular miracles for—
not just any old pagans, but the
worst kind—
Gentiles,
chosen from some of Israel’s most deadly enemies:
the
Sidonian widow of Zarephath
with whom Elijah actually boarded
during a great drought
and whose son he raised from the
dead.
And
Elisha healed Naaman, a commander in the Syrian army
who was even at that time engaged in
military hostilities with Israel.
This
is an unexpected angle on Israelite history that the home folks
absolutely do not want to look at
without its protective covering of
centuries
of
polite interpretation and convention.
When
Jesus blows the dust off those stories and holds them up
in their original disturbing inclusive color
his audience goes from pride in
their hometown boy
to murderous rage in an instant.
They
try to shut him up for good.
Stubbornly engaged in
raising hell/the unclean/the unholy/the dead:
Why?
Has
Jesus learned anything from this close call?
No,
he hasn’t.
He
keeps right on horrifying and amazing the crowds—
by responding with compassion to the
riffraff of the earth,
the
demon possessed, lepers, tax collectors;
by talking as though he had the
power to forgive sins,
by
healing on the Sabbath.
In
Luke, chapter 6,
he
preaches a shorter version of the sermon
we know from Matthew as the Sermon
on the Mount;
in
Luke it is the Sermon on the Plain
and it includes some key themes and
phrases
that help us understand some of his
foundational theology
and
understand why he is willing
to rattle the cage of the social and
religious establishment.
Here
are some highlights from Luke 6:20—49, the sermon on the plain:
Love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you….
Do to others as you would have them do to you…
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful…
do not
judge, and you will not be judged;
do not condemn and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven;
give and it will be given to you,
a good
measure, pressed down, shaken together,
running over
will be put into your lap;
for the measure you give will be the measure you get back…
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye
but do not
notice the log in your own eye?....
The good person out of the good treasure of the heart
produces good,
and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil;
for it is
out of the abundance of the heart
that the
mouth speaks….
Having
launched this powerful sermon
with its powerful and provocative
words,
Jesus
promptly continues his shocking trajectory
burning through the social and
religious expectations of the region.
Right
after this sermon, he heads into Capernaum, a Galilean city.
As
is the case in much of Galilee,
the population includes many
Gentiles,
including
a Roman centurion—one of the enemy!
One of the hated Roman military
occupiers!
but
this is a man who has succeeded in winning the hearts and minds
of some of his Jewish neighbors by
his cultural sensitivity.
And
these neighbors come to Jesus on the centurion’s behalf,
asking him to heal the centurion’s
servant—
and
without any questions, Jesus does, responding immediately.
In
fact, he praises the man’s faith;
a risky business as Luke has made a
point of telling us
that while some in his audiences
have
been filled with amazement and awe,
others have been filled with rage or
fury….
but
here the man is, consorting with the heathen again.
This
guy just doesn’t learn.
Doesn’t he realize that the people
who are “filled with rage”
at his actions
are
the ones that hold the power??
Unexpected confluence of
points of view:
And
then Jesus heads to the village of Nain, on down past the south end of the sea
of Galilee and about a third of the way over towards the Mediterranean
coast.
The
text—it’s printed in your bulletin—
says that a “large crowd” has come
along
with
the group of Jesus and his disciples
and that as they approached the town
gate,
a
funeral procession comes out.
It
is a dead man who is his widowed mother’s only son
and another “large crowd”, this one
from the town.
So,
here the unexpected junction of two “large crowds”
becomes the mixed audience for the
Lord’s compassion
over the anguish of this widowed
woman
who
has now lost her only son as well.
Here
Jesus shows us just how a “good person
out of the good treasure of the heart produces good”—with compassion.
Think
about the viewpoints and perspectives milling about in these two intersecting
crowds:
the folks following Jesus just for
the shock and entertainment factor,
with those who are watching with
hostility
hoping
to catch him doing something so bad
they
can hang him for it,
and those who are desperately trying
to get up courage
to
touch him themselves, for their own healing or need
or
for the desperate needs of those they love…
and
then the other crowd, the people coming out of the town gate with the desolate
widow and her dead son,
her friends, neighbors, extended
family,
coming along out of a whole bundle
of motivations,
solidarity,
grief, obligation,
and the need for following convention and
propriety;
the sober young friends of the dead
son,
threatened
by mortality
and
the guilty relief that they at any rate are still breathing;
and again, those who tag along with
any crowd
for
the entertainment factor…
I
want to look at this incident through three additional pairs of eyes.
The widowed mother:
First,
the widow herself….
Her
despair must have been overwhelming.
For the second time in her life,
her
security has been ripped away by death.
At
that time in that culture, women had very little agency or power,
and very few options.
Girls
left the care and security of their father’s household
for the care and security of their husband’s
household.
If
they lost their husbands by death or divorce,
their sons would have to become
their providers;
women
could not inherit.
Losing
an only son, this last source of support,
was a prescription for abject
poverty.
Begging
on the streets and prostitution
were the common end points to this
desperate scenario.
Imagine
the feelings, the thoughts swirling helplessly through this woman’s mind as she
struggles to keep herself together enough to follow the bier of her son
Jesus:
And
then, there are Jesus’ eyes. How did he
perceive this situation? We aren’t
often given a verbal clue in the gospels to Jesus’ emotions. It happens occasionally, and this is one of
those few times.
Verse
13 says simply, “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and
said to her, ‘Do not weep.’”
Our
English word “compassion” comes from Latin and means literally, “to suffer
with.”
The
Greek word here, though, has a different twist;
it comes from a root word which
means literally “the chief intestines.”
I
used to hear echoes of this
in the King James English of my
childhood
which sometimes talks about having
“bowels of mercy.”
That
is actually a pretty good translation…
Some
of the studying I’ve done with my heart issues
uses research that talks about our
three brains;
we
all know about the brain in our heads,
but did you know that there are two
other brain-like centers
in
our body as well
that produce large quantities of
neuro-transmitters,
just like the brain in our heads?
One
of these additional brain centers is in our heart;
the other is in our gut.
So
when you listen to your “gut feeling” or have a “visceral response”
to someone or something, you are
literally utilizing another brain,
the
brain in your gut.
One
of my favorite stories about these additional brains
is the driven type A businessman who
got a heart transplant—
and shortly after his recovery
developed
a passionate love of salsa dancing,
something
he had never explored
or even recognized the existence of
before.
His
baffled family, wondering a little about his mental stability
as
this was so out of character for him,
did some research and discovered
that the heart donor had been a
young Hispanic woman
whose
passion was salsa dancing…
and her heart remembered even in someone else’s chest!
Jesus
didn't keep an objective professional distance here;
he
opened his own boundaries and heart right up
to suffer with this desolate widow;
to allow himself to enter into her
suffering…
he had compassion for her;
we could justifiably say that he
used
the brain center in his “bowels of mercy”
to connect
viscerally with her.
Compassion
is an enormously healing emotion;
to have some one willing to try to
enter into your experience,
to
suffer with you
takes away some of the deadly power
of suffering alone.
This
is part of what we have to offer our sister church—to be open to
compassionately listening, and as we can, sharing in their suffering, their
daily experiences.
We
may not raise anyone from the dead, but believe me,
we can help return people to hope,
to life.
The dead man:
The
third pair of eyes through which I’d like to try to imagine a glimpse of this
incident are the dead young man’s eyes.
Close
your eyes for a moment.
Imagine
opening them now and finding yourself on the way to your own funeral!!
I
wish the text told us what he said;
it doesn’t.
It
just says that he began to speak
and Jesus gave him to his
mother.
What
do you think he might have said? What
pops into your head as what you might say?
Alex Ruth, a pastor on a
lectionary discussion group plays with this; he suggests that the young man may
have said something like:
--
Hold it! The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!
--
You got me, Uncle Steve. This has to be your best practical joke ever!
--
MOM!!! What a crazy dream!
And
maybe….Thank you.
I’ll
close with a short poem from my file; unfortunately I couldn’t find the
author. I think Jesus would like this
one:
Be
sloppy with compassion.
Don’t
measure it out,
ounce
by ounce. Don’t
hunt
in cupboards, looking
for
the right size container
before
you pour.
If
it spills over, it’s okay.
You’ll
be surprised
how
easily it cleans up.