The Rev'd Jane Bearden
You could hear the wailing from a mile away. There we were walking along the road just a few miles southwest of Nazareth. We were coming out of the mountains and getting into an area that was pretty much the beginning of the desert. It was a hot day too.
But I am getting ahead of myself in this story. Let me tell you a little about myself. I live just a little way outside of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. My dad runs a fishing business and I help him out, but I had some time off coming and when the Teacher came to town – well I just thought I would tag along for awhile and see what his message was all about. At first it was just the disciples and a few of us who were traveling from town to town with the Teacher, but since that healing in Capernaum a couple of days ago there have been a lot of extra people walking with us, you might even say that there was a real crowd of folks hoping to see what Jesus would do next. Well maybe not all of them were all that friendly. Some of them were traveling with us to try to find some reason to discredit Jesus. Personally, I think that they are jealous of him, but every time I suggest that maybe we should not be traveling with such disinters, Jesus just smiles and tells us one of those parables about how God cares for us or how we will be surprised at whom God chooses to be his messenger.
Even so everyone was still talking about how Jesus had healed that Centurion’s servant back in Capernaum. That was an amazing day, Jesus had not even gotten to the man’s house after being summoned - when word came that the Centurion himself had acknowledged that Jesus had power beyond his wildest imagination and that his faith told him that if Jesus simply said so - that he knew his servant would be made well. And so it was. Jesus was truly impressed by that Roman’s faith too. He told us that this Roman soldier had more faith than any of us Israelites. Anyway things had happened pretty fast after that and we had made our way down the west side of the lake and were planning on doing a little preaching at the local synagogues. But then we heard quite a commotion as the funeral procession for this poor man was coming out from the city making the way down to the burial place. The pall bearers were carrying the young man high above their heads on the bier.
We had to sort of move off the road for the procession to go by. It is just the right thing to do – out of respect for the dead you know - and also for the mourners. Then I saw this man who had been traveling with us and who lived nearby. He went up and whispered to Jesus that he knew this young man who had died and his mother too. As it turns out the whole thing was doubly sad as this woman had lost her husband to death also. She had not been able to have any more children after her first and only son was born and so given the economy and the social customs of our day – this woman had run out of luck.
The man told Jesus that he bet the woman would be foraging the dump for food before the month was out. There was no one left who cared one whit for her. Everyone was too busy taking care of their own families to take on a childless widow. And besides everyone knew that if her luck was this bad then even God did not care about what happened to her. Religious laws forbade anyone from stepping in to make things right for her. And everyone knows that whenever a religious or social custom is violated there is no mercy for the person who challenged it. Whoever is hurt, whoever is marginalized – well just too bad for them. No one should risk stepping outside of what the current society says is right or wrong.
You know we all felt sad about the young man’s death and about the suffering that his mother faced, but we all knew that there was nothing to be done. Death is death and we would have had to spend the next several days doing ritual washings if we even stepped out to give her a hug. So we all stood back to give them plenty of room to pass by. I sort of looked down, so I would not catch anyone’s eye. But then we looked over at our Teacher. Boy you could see the change in Jesus’ face. All of a sudden, I thought he was going to cry. You would have thought that Jesus himself had lost a family member. And then he did the unthinkable. He went right up to the woman and said “Do not weep”. I admit I snickered a little. I mean - really Jesus – what a dumb thing to say to a grieving mother. Then Jesus walked right up to the bier and touched it and said, “Young man, I say to you rise” My first thought was yea right – you and Elijah are going to bring the dead back to life, but you could have bowled me over with a feather when the dead man sat up and begin to speak. Then Jesus helped him over to where his mother stood and just like that he gave her back her son.
But here is the thing…
It wasn’t just the loss of a family member that Jesus made right that day. This woman had lost everything and the compassion that Jesus felt for her speaks to that deeper loss – it speaks to the suffering that makes her fold under the weight of it, the one that makes life not worth living anymore. Jesus changed her life on multiple levels. And as I was standing there watching all of this unfold I realized that Jesus was reaching out to me too. Jesus, through his act of compassion right there in Nain, showed all of us how God responds to our suffering. This wasn’t some magic act that intended for us to know about Jesus’ power, this was Jesus telling you and me that when there is injustice, when someone - who has no one else to help them - is suffering, then God wants us to step up and do something. God expects us to stand up to injustice, to speak truth to power, and to be compassionate, to stand with the helpless even though people might make fun of us or speak badly of us or even exclude us from their circle of friends. I have to tell you – it was not just that widow’s life that Jesus changed that day. He changed my life too.
Now when things happen to other people or even when things happen in places that are far off – whether it is some kind of war, or some natural disaster, or when a group of people lose their homes, their jobs, even when they see their oceans and coastline destroyed by greed – I try really hard to put myself in their place – to understand how they feel. I think that is the way God looks at us. Jesus said so you know. He told us that God loves us and so we are to love each other, help each other, have compassion for each other. You see just telling someone that you are sorry that they lost their job or that they are the victims of violence is not enough. If Jesus did not teach us anything else he taught us that compassion not only means sharing the grief that another person feels, compassion makes us do something about it.
Sometimes that is just a hug and sometimes it means giving up something that we really do not want to give up in order for that suffering person to be made whole. Sometimes it means taking a risk myself in order to care for the world that God has created. All I know is that once I came to know how deeply I am loved by God then I cannot go on living just for myself. I know that when I am hurting, Jesus will come to me and stand with me and I pray that I will have the will and the courage and the strength to follow Jesus wherever he leads me.
Let us pray, Gracious God, through the compassion of your son Jesus you have shown us that you care for even the least of your creation and that we too are to stand with those who suffer alone, who have no voice or power. Help us to see those who suffer and to have compassion for them. Strengthen us find ways to right the wrongs of this world, and give us courage to love others as You love us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
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