Last week we heard the story of Jesus
healing from a distance a centurion's slave who was close to death.
Today Jesus is much closer as he touches the bier of a dead man
bringing him back to life. In both cases Luke is presenting Jesus as
one who has the power to defeat death and restore life.
In Luke, Jesus is referred to as a
prophet of God in several places. This isn't inaccurate, it's just
incomplete – being a prophet of God is only one aspect of who Jesus
is. Luke uses this term as the first step in understanding the
complete Jesus. After all, he certainly exhibits prophetic speech
and actions, so this seems to be an appropriate method. And in
showing that Jesus is at least as great as the greatest prophet of
Israel, you may have noticed that today's gospel quotes verbatim from
a scene in 1 Kings where Elijah restores to life the dead son of a
widow. That's no accident, as this story would have conjured up
images and comparisons to Elijah among the early Jewish-Christian
followers of Christ. This was a good literary move on Luke's part.
We hear these stories about the healing
of the mostly-dead slave from last week and the all-dead son from
today and we probably immediately think, “Well of course, it's
Jesus and he's the one who has the power to defeat death and restore
life.” With these two people as the subject of these two gospel
stories, though, I think we can lose our theological imaginations if
we don't pay attention. What else is going on in today's story? Who
else has died? Who else is restored to life?
The other dead person who is restored
to life in today's gospel is the mother.
Remember, she is described as a widow,
a precarious place for any woman at that time. In a patriarchal
society where women had to depend on men for a livelihood as well as
protection, widowhood ofttimes meant that she lost both. She was not
eligible to inherit property or money, and what little rights she had
when her husband was alive were now gone. Therefore she was at the
mercy of society at large.
This is why the Law as given in Exodus
and Deuteronomy was strictly opposed to harming widows in any way,
and any mistreatment of any widow came with dire warnings and
consequences from God. Additionally, both Isaiah and Jeremiah speak
up for the voiceless widows by reminding the people of Israel to
treat them with respect and care. And Job, speaking in his own
self-defense, says that he cared for the widow. But just because
it's in the Law doesn't mean people always obeyed.
This is one reason why it was so
important to have male children – in the event of the father's
death, rights and inheritances would be passed onto the son, as well
as the responsibility to care for the father's wife. Upon her
husband's death, she was reliant on her son for protection.
That's what makes this story
particularly painful. The widow is completely under the care of her
only adult son; and now her protection, her means of survival, her
well-being, her status, her entire life has passed away with the
death of that son. She literally has nobody to rely on. She is
utterly alone. For all practical purposes, she is dead. And then
along comes Jesus.
In the gospel accounts, Jesus raises
three people from the dead – Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, and the
young man in today's story. Jairus' story appears in all three
synoptic gospels (although Matthew only identifies him as 'a
leader'), Lazarus appears only in John, and today's story appears
only in Luke. In all five stories of Jesus raising a person from the
dead, this is the only one where Jesus is said to have compassion for
the relative of the deceased.
I’m wondering if this act of raising
a man from the dead was less about Jesus exhibiting his power as a
prophet of God who was mighty in deed, and more about following the
Law in ensuring that a widow was taken care of. I’m wondering if
he had compassion for her because he knew she was a walking dead
woman. I’m wondering if the impetus for this miracle was to bring
the woman back to life.
In today's story the woman was alive
but on the verge of death. She was living, but had no way to live.
Being dead doesn't always mean physical death. Being dead can mean
something else.
How many people find themselves in
situations or places where they might as well be dead? From
depression to unemployment to homelessness to kids moving out to
divorce to loss of a loved one to financial debt to illness, the
answer is, “Probably too many.” It is into this situation of
great loss and the very real imminence of a living death that Jesus
steps. When he sees this woman on the brink of death herself, it is
through his compassion for her that she is restored to life.
We need to be careful here, though,
that we don't fall into a sappy, sentimental version of Jesus where
we offer pious-sounding phrases that do absolutely no good. Things
like: It's all part of God's plan; His ways are not our ways; God is
testing you; You'll come out stronger; and others can do more harm
than good when said to someone who, for whatever reason, is in the
midst of a living death.
Instead of praying to Jesus to solve
the problem, we need to remember that we are the collective body of
Christ and you are individual parts of that body. We are in a
post-resurrection, post-Pentecost world where the mission of Jesus is
to be carried out by us. Yes, Jesus heals. Yes, Jesus restores to
life. But in this post-resurrection, post-Pentecost world, the
actual healing work is manifest through us. It is our job to lift
the fallen, restore the broken, heal the hurting, and bring the dead
to life.
Just as Jesus recognized that the real
subject needing restoration wasn't the dead man but his mother, we
also need to look deeper and wider at the events around us in order
to see who really needs healing. When we live into the mission of
Christ, when we take seriously his admonition to love our neighbor,
then the healing power of Christ will be made real and people will be
restored to life.
Know this: today, as in the day of the
widow, Jesus is present with the fallen, broken, hurting, and dead;
but never forget that Jesus is present because we are present.
In a post-resurrection, post-Pentecost
world, we are charged with presenting and being the body of Christ to
the world around us. How we heal and restore life depends as much on
our faith as it does on whether or not we are able to be present and
show compassion to those who are suffering.
Amen.
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