Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Pentecost 2: June 10, 2007
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
Luke 7:11-17
Soon after healing the centurion’s slave, Jesus 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.
Today two of our readings are about widows. Most of us are accustomed to hearing about the plight of widows in the ancient world; few of us are aware of the plight of widows in the world today. And so I’d like to start this morning with the story of Angela, a young widow with four children, who lives in Nigeria. Her story is one of many stories collected by an organization in the UK dedicated to alleviating the suffering of widows all over the world. We’ll begin with Angela’s words; from there, we’ll go to Luke’s gospel and from there we will travel much closer to home.
These are Angela’s words:
“My husband was a cement merchant who traveled from Calabar all over the region to buy his goods. Six years ago, on his way to Gboko, his car was attacked by armed robbers. The driver managed to escape, but the robbers shot at the back windscreen and the bullet hit my husband in the head. He died immediately….
He had three shops , all manned by his relations, so when the news of his death reached our home town, his brothers first heard about it, and before I was told, members of the family in the village were informed and they came to my house in Calabar. I came back (home) to find the house filled with my husband’s relations, the foreboding looks on their faces warned me of imminent danger, so it was with trepidation that I greeted them. My father in-law waved me to a seat and began to address me thus:
‘Because of your wickedness; my son is dead! Armed robbers have shot him on his way to the market. When he wanted to marry you, I warned him that women of your village are ill wind that blows no one any good, so he should not marry you. He disobeyed me, and now, ten years after, he is dead! If he had listened to my good counsel he would be alive today….
‘Now I have to bear this painful loss as a man. Woman, listen to me, and don’t you dare attempt to flout my orders, otherwise you are a dead woman! The three shops have been taken over by the family and they are to be manned by the present managers. After the burial, we shall decide on what to do.’”
On his way into the town of Nain, Jesus and his followers encounter a funeral procession on its way out of town. The funeral procession, Luke tells us, is that of a young man, the only son of a widow. Upon seeing the widow, Jesus heart is stirred, and without being asked to do so, Jesus takes immediate action. He tells the woman to stop weeping, touches the bier and commands the young man to rise. The young man sits up and begins speaking, and the fearful onlookers glorify God, declaring that “God has visited God’s people.”
What is this terse little story in Luke trying to tell us? What is Jesus’ direct action that brings about the return of a son, now alive and speaking to his mother, all about? And what, pray tell, are we here in Seattle in 2007 to take away from this story?
I think it’s important, first, to get a sense of what this story is and is not about. As much, perhaps, as we would tend to see it this way, this story is not about Jesus simply being moved by and responding to someone’s personal loss. Instead, what Luke chooses to include and to leave out of this little vignette suggests that the focus is on something different.
In the story, the widow says absolutely nothing—not a word of greeting, not a word of sorrow, not a word of entreaty, not a word of thanks. Instead, except for her tears, she makes no sound, utters no words. The important thing about her, according to Luke, is that she’s a widow. What this means it that she is a powerless person, someone so diminished, in fact, that in this story she is presented as merely a silent and sad witness to her own life. And, of course, in this story she is not just any widow: she is a widow who has just lost her only son and with him, the last shred of power and protection she might have had in ancient society.
What Luke’s Jesus focuses on this funeral procession, therefore is not the dead person who is laid out on a bier, no longer moving or eating or talking and another dead person—the woman who though alive has lost the power to find her way, to provide for herself or to have any voice whatsoever. This story, then, I would submit, is not about a widow’s grief. It’s about God’s grief, God’s visceral grief over encountering a human being who is living a diminished life, a life with no power and no voice.
But, of course, our story is not just about God’s grief in the face of human diminishment. It’s about God’s decisive action.
God acts in this story, and once again, God’s action is not just about a compassionate response to someone who is grieving. We’re told that Jesus immediately touches the bier, and commands the young man to rise. The young man sits up and, significantly, regains the power to speak after which Luke says, “(Jesus gives) him to his mother.” The emphasis, then, is on the restoration of both son and power and voice to the wordless widow.
But this act in Luke, the gospel writer who is so concerned about the structures of society that enslave us, has an even wider significance. In this spontaneous act Jesus also rebukes all the structures—societal, and by extension, psychological—that conspire against us, with us or within us to diminish us, to seduce us into believing that we’re powerless to live into the image of God, an image that is all about dignity, freedom and a voice.
And this for me is what brings us to what this story might be saying to us today. To women such as Angela, to men and women who are demonized and denigrated by others on account of age, race, gender or sexual orientation, this story says: “No—this demonized and denigrated self is not who you are. This diminished life is not the life that God would create or tolerate for you.”
And to the rest of us who are not denigrated in this way but who are dogged by our own tendencies to diminish ourselves or who live with others who would diminish us or who out of sad circumstances find ourselves diminished and would take from this experience a distorted self-understanding, this story says: : “No—this distorted self is not who you are, this is not the life that God would want for you.”
For some of us it takes years to accept that though we have stood as sad and silent witnesses to our own lives, that God has already visited us, God’s own people. God has already visited us and seeing us paralyzed and wordless, has already had compassion upon us and has touched what is lifeless in us and has returned it to us, no longer dead but sitting bolt upright and full of speech.
For some of us it takes years to recognize and accept this, years to claim the new life we have had in our possession all the while. But sooner or later through the Holy One who continues to wait for us at the gate of all our comings and goings we come to see what has been there all the time: “a wedge of freedom in our own hearts, something new written in the ashes of our lives.”
I take these phrases from the poet David Whyte who puts it this way in his poem entitled “The Journey”:
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.
Works Cited or Consulted
Angela’s story and the story of other widows can be found at http://www.widowsrights.org/stories_main.htm
The poem “The Journey” is from David Whyte’s House of Belonging.
