Sermon - 2 after Pentecost "gut feeling"

Sermon – 2nd after Pentecost
Luke 7:36–8:3
June 6, 2010
“gut feeling”

I have a strong glasses prescription, and I am near-sighted. If you were ten feet away from me, I wouldn’t be able to recognize you. When I am walking to my bed at night without my glasses on, I need to be careful to have a clear path. Everything becomes unclear, and all I can trust is what is right in front of my face. This reality is true with people as well, when there is distance in relationships they can often be strained. This also applies to God, as God can seem distant, therefore leading to uncertainty.

When we read this Gospel lesson today, the scene is of a funeral, dark and gloomy, and it appears as though God is distant. Today’s Gospel lesson we are back in the Gospel of Luke. In Luke’s Gospel, there are several parallels with Old Testament passages, and today’s Gospel lesson is an example of such a parallel. In both passages there is a widow’s son who dies, and then is resurrected by the prophet.

Leading up to the Gospel lesson today, Jesus has preached the sermon on the plain, heard the faith of a centurion, and he his servant. Now Jesus along with his disciples whom he recently chose, and a large crowd who just started to follow him, approached the gate of a town called Nain, where a man who had died was being carried out in a funeral procession.
They were leaving the gate of the town into the wilderness, the unknown, where the dead lie buried. We can imagine how quiet and somber this crowd was. You could feel the sorrow, grief, and uncertainty in the air, and not only death, but the fear of death, also was lurking. We can picture the people in the crowd, some of them carrying the coffin.

Then, somewhere in the large crowd, we can picture this man’s mother. She was a widow, so now her only son, her beloved son, her source of pride and joy, and her only means for support, has also died. One of the greatest tragedies imaginable is a parent who has to bury their child.
The other tragedy is the bitter social reality that without a means for support and no legal inheritance, we know that at this time in Israel, (and today for that matter) this woman would now be economically and socially ostracized.

We know that the woman was weeping, and we can imagine the tears are soaking her shirt. These tears represented her strong inner feeling of deep, utter loss, a huge, gaping void. We can imagine this grief is consuming her entire being. While the Gospel text does not record what she said, we can also imagine that she felt distant from God, and maybe even abandoned by God. Consequently she may have felt frustrated or angry with God.

We know for certain that in today’s lesson from 1 Kings, after the widow’s son died, she was frustrated with God’s prophet Elijah, and subsequently, God. While holding her son, she says: “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!”
The woman is thinking: Okay, Elijah, I invite you into my home, and offer you food, and now you kill my son, my pride and my joy! I am already a widow, and now with my beloved son DEAD, how will I survive?!
Where are you, O God? Why have you abandoned me?

When I read these two stories and think about the tears of these widows, I cannot help but to have flashbacks of moments during my CPE during seminary. In the hospital the scene of a mother standing over the bed of her young son was far too common, especially sons that had been shot in gang related violence. One 22 year old young man suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and would soon die.
Again, the tragedy of a mother who had to bury her child. His brother looked at me and said “the bullet was for me. He didn’t deserve this.”
I could see this innocence of this son in the tear filled eyes of his mother, eyes that pierced right through me. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me.Like the widow in the Gospel lesson, she said nothing, but she didn’t need to. Her eyes spoke a strong sentiment of fear, desperation, uncertainty, and abandonment.
Where are you, O God? Why have you abandoned me?

This feeling of distance with God is often felt at times like these, at times of loss and death. However, the feeling of distance with God is pervasive, it can happens at any time.
When we experience this feeling of distance with God we say,
“God if I could only see you, if you could only touch me.”
Just as we struggle with intimacy with people, we struggle with intimacy with God. God seems so distant.
Where is God in the cold and stale hospital room of the mother whose son died from a bullet that wasn’t meant for him.
…And where is God when the widow is walking out of the city into the wilderness to bury her only son?

As Jesus approached the town of Nain, all of sudden, in the middle of this large crowd, he saw or could be translated, paid attention to this widow.
All his attention went straight to the widow. Whatever Jesus’ purpose was in going to Nain was suddenly irrelevant. The large crowd surrounding Jesus, as well as the large crowd surrounding the widow, began to fade into Jesus’ periphery. Until all Jesus could see was the tears pouring from the widow’s eyes and all he could hear was her weeping.

When Jesus saw her, he had compassion on her. What is compassion?
The root of the Greek word for compassion refers to the inner parts of the body, like the intestines. In other words, Jesus felt the widow’s pain and grief deep in his GUT. It was a deep visceral response. He could feel the love this widow had for her son, and he knew the socio-economic reality she was sure to face. The widow’s pain became his own. So he says to her, “Do not weep!” Jesus drew near.

As Jesus approached the woman, he touched the coffin, in fact, he grabbed a hold of it. This radical act was also in deliberate violation of Jewish purity laws. This touch was breaking cultural and economic barriers. This was such a powerful act that the coffin bearers froze.
Then Jesus boldly tells the widow’s son: “Young man, I say to you, RISE!” Then, just as Elijah did, he gave him back to his mother.
We can see here that Jesus’ compassion is very evident. There are several accounts of Jesus’ compassion, including a couple more that show up later in Luke’s Gospel.

Just when God seemed far away… suddenly drew close through a compassionate Jesus, and was among the people. Then fear, referring to the awareness of the divine among them, seized all the people. Then they began to glorify God as a result.
The Gospel proclaims that God became flesh through Jesus to break our natural feeling of distance with God. This Gospel breaks everything that separates us from God, and everything, like socio-economic barriers that separate us from each other. Jesus shows us what real intimacy is.
Just because God may seem far and out of reach, it doesn’t mean that God isn’t reaching. Just because we can’t feel it, does mean we aren’t being touched.
It is in these times of distance that Jesus gives us himself to touch and to taste (in Holy Communion). In a few moments we will stand before the alter at a distance, but then Jesus will draw near, and the intimacy of God will be so close that it touches our lips, we can taste it, we can swallow it, and allow it to become a part of us.
Then, may we go and live with the conviction that God is near. When we are at the pit of uncertainty and distance from God, when we feel the weight of grief and pain, or the void of the mundane, may hear the voice of Jesus saying , “I say to you, RISE!”
RISE from distance to closeness,
RISE from brokenness to intimacy,
RISE from uncertainty to confidence,
RISE from desperation to hope,
RISE from darkness to light,
and RISE from death to everlasting life.

Like the widow leaving the town into the wilderness, in our moments when we feel that God is far away, we can cling to the promise that Jesus sees through the large crowd, pays attention to us, draws near, and with deep intimacy feels our grief and pain-- deep within his gut. Amen.