Life and Death

Luke 7:11-17

June 9, 2013

This passage could not be more clear:  We are talking about life and death.  Whatever we might believe about the miracle and its scientific possibility, the passage is talking about a foundational issue:  How do we give life in the face of death?

First we have to recognize that there are two deaths here in this passage.  One is obvious: the son of the widow has died.  He is on a funeral bier – a platform for a coffin – headed out to be buried.  In the words of the coroner in munchkin land after Dorothy’s house lands on the wicked witch of the east, the widow’s son is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.

But that is not the only death here.  In Jesus’ day, when a woman had no husband and no son, she had no place in the economic system.  She was, in short, destitute.  There is a reason that the widow is listed alongside the orphan and oppressed over and over in the Hebrew bible as those most deserving of the care of the community: They are vulnerable.  Without the community’s care, they have no way of making a living, getting food, securing shelter.  In other words, they have little chance at survival.  With the death of her son comes the death of a life of security and care.  She becomes, as they say, the walking dead.

In this passage, it is the widow who is at the center – it is her death that Jesus is most concerned with.  He doesn’t bring the son back to life because the son has died – he brings the son back to life because that’s the only way to restore life to the widow. 

This passage is about all of the walking dead…all of those in our midst most in need of care, security; all of those who are crushed in the current economic system by the current rules.  This passage is about how Jesus responds to the destitute and brings new life to their death-filled days.

Now, I know preachers are supposed to talk in threes…I should now give you a list of three things Jesus did to bring life back to the widow.  I tried…I failed.  I have four.  I see four things Jesus did that led to life for the walking dead.

First he had compassion.  The author writes, “As Jesus approached the city and saw the widow, he had compassion.”  It was the first thing he did.  Or maybe more accurately, it was the first thing that happened to him.

Second, he stopped:  He was headed to the city of Nain, but when he felt the compassion, he stopped.  In fact, he went right up to the head of the procession and with a touch of his hand to the coffin, everyone stood still. 

Then he spoke words of life:  To the dead man he says, “I say to you, rise!”

Finally he gave the new life to the widow.  Namely, he gave her back her son, her source of security and care.

If we want to bring life in the midst of death, we need to understand each of these, and why they are necessary for giving life to the walking dead.

Compassion:  This is a powerful word in this text.  Splagchnizomai.  It is not just a feeling – it’s guttural.  This is sick to your stomach, racing heart, fall to your knees in the face of suffering.  Jesus saw what was happening, and it struck him deeply.  He knew what it meant…what it meant to have your son die if you were a widow:  And he was moved to his core.  He was stricken.

It is this yearning that is required for new life to emerge.  If we want to bring life from death, we can’t just act out of our head – we can’t just see what’s wrong and think our way into making it right.  That co-feeling, splagchnizomai; that is what puts us in the best place to know what would alleviate the suffering…what will stop the weeping.  Our thinking is always limited – it is almost always bound by our own prejudices and biases.  If we can’t feel for the other deep in our souls, we may try to help, try to bring life, but often all we do is delay the funeral procession for a little while.

But compassion is not enough.  Moved by his compassion, Jesus stopped…he made everything stop.  This was crucial, of course.  We can be moved by compassion, and still keep walking right past the procession of death.  Jesus was headed to Nain – that was his goal – but that became unimportant as soon as he saw the woman and had compassion for her.  He stopped to address her, her situation, and to respond as lovingly as he knew how.  Stopping – giving up a goal, a plan, giving over to the moment, pausing to address someone’s pain – is the only way we can bring life out of death.  Otherwise, we just let death march on.

When Jesus stops everyone in their tracks, he speaks, and they are words of life.  There is power in words – a lot of power in words.  Words frame everything.  “Rise!” he says.  It is the word of resurrection – the same word used when Jesus was raised from the dead.  Rise is the most significant word of life in our tradition.

I read a story this week about a member of the Israeli parliament.  He is an orthodox Jew and is deeply concerned with divisions that are arising between orthodox Jews in Israel with differing ideas about what is best for the Jewish people.  These divisions are not trivial.  In fact at times there has been violence.  The member of parliament was in such a situation shortly after he emigrated from the United States.  Some orthodox Jews were staging a protest about some actions of the Israeli government.  One of them hurled a stone that hit the member of parliament in the forehead.

This man was compassionate.  He yearned deeply to heal the violence.  But what struck me most was that the thing he used to remind himself every day of what he was working for was the stone that hit him.  He placed it on his desk and looked at it every day.  The stone that hit him – the sign of violence, not life.  The stone is the word that guides him and his decisions.  And it’s the tomb, not resurrection.  He is well meaning, he has compassion, he is trying to do something about it, but if he always starts with the stone – the word of death and violence – he may never get to life.  Jesus speaks a word of life – Rise!

But words are not the end.  Jesus still had one more thing to do.  He gave the new life found in resurrection to the widow – to the one who needed it most:  the walking dead.  The resurrection wasn’t complete when the son rose to life.  It wasn’t about the son…it was about the most vulnerable ones; it was about figuring out what causes vulnerability and suffering, and finding a way to reverse those causes.  Jesus understood the system, he knew the causes of death, metaphorical death, and he knew that the word of life was for the widow…he gave the risen son back to the widow and she could once again live.

Now, if we are, in any sense, to model this giving of life – this way that Jesus shows us of bringing life to the walking dead – I think we have to first be honest and acknowledge that it’s not easy.  I mean, of course Jesus did all this.  He’s Jesus.  For us, each of these things can be hard…really hard.

First there’s compassion:  Now, I’ve come to believe that we can’t stop compassion from happening.  It’s not something we do.  We are made in the image of the God of compassion – we’re hard wired.  I think it happens to us; happens to our body.  But what we can do is put it away as quickly as our minds can make that happen.  We push it down, make the feelings go away, move to our heads.  We distract ourselves, move on, think about what’s for dinner.  And we do this because compassion is an intense feeling – sometimes too intense.  It grips you…it claims you.  If you stay with it, it demands you do something.  And sometimes that’s just too much to handle.

But even if we try to stay with the compassion, it’s still hard to stop; to stop our lives enough that the procession of death does not just pass us by. When faced with suffering, stopping to help interrupts our whole life, and that interruption is just not feasible.

We had a guest in our Friday lectionary bible study.  Jim Fyfe’s son, John, was here from Chicago, and he gave me permission to share with you what he shared with us.  We were talking about this passage – about compassion – and he described what it’s like to walk to work in downtown Chicago every day.  He talked about passing countless people on the street asking for money – many of whom he knew were in desperate need of help.  But he knows he can’t stop every time. 

His heart breaks, he wants to help, but how do you stop every time and make it to work in the morning?  How do you stop at every person, every day, and keep your life going.  You don’t.  You can’t.  John’s heart, it’s clear, is enormous.  You could see that in how much it all bothered him.  He does try to help as much as he can.  But how do you stop every time you feel compassion?  You have to make decisions, and those decisions are extremely difficult and fraught with complicated trade-offs.

But, even when I am able to stay with compassion, and even when I stop long enough to act, words of death come so much more easily to me than words of life.  I think that has something to do with the fact that words of death don’t require imagination.  When I see people suffer, I am good at saying why…all the reasons and people and systems that have created the suffering in the first place.  They become the focus of my passion:  Dismantle, subvert, judge, shame.  I know how to speak words of death.  I know how to hold on to symbols that fuel my rage and passion.  I know how to take a stone, set it on my desk, and fight to end an injustice using symbols and words of division. 

It’s harder to find the word of life.  It’s not that critique doesn’t have its place.  It’s not that naming what is isn’t an appropriate first step.  But often we stop there.  We let that dictate what we do.  When we see something that pains us, we want to blame someone because then we think we know what or who to fix.  We want to find a way to stop it, no matter what that way is.  Our means to end the suffering themselves bring suffering to others.  We are outraged at senseless deaths and slaughters, and so we kill.  We are angry about how policies demean the poor, and so we shout at politicians and demean those with whom we disagree. 

It’s hard to know what the right path to healing is – to new life.  But if we start with words of death, I think we’re less likely to move in the life giving direction.

Finally, even if we have compassion, stop, find words of life to speak into death, actually giving life is hard.  It’s hard because – well because we can’t raise people from the dead.  We can’t fix systems in a single miracle.  We can ache for people deep in our souls, but not have any clue how to fix it.  If tens of thousands are being slaughtered, and the answer isn’t to fight back with violence, what is the answer?  What act would bring life in the midst of death? 

It’s hard.  Each step is hard.  But we do have a model – we do have Jesus.  And I think the best place to start is where the crowds started that day – they watched Jesus.  They saw what he did.  They witnessed new life for the widow, and they believed it was possible.  They saw that when we have compassion, stop to respond, speak words of life, and give over that life to those most in need, miracles occur.  Just believing it’s possible makes new life itself contagious.  They glorified God – they gave thanks for this incredible possibility.  And then they told everyone around them about it.  They spoke the word of life far and wide – till all of Judea and the surrounding country knew of it.

It seems insignificant at first…to just believe it is possible and spread the word.  But when you do, you start to see it around you.  You see someone like John  Fyfe who struggles with what to do with his compassion, and then you hear that he goes on mission trips regularly, building schools and homes for people.  Raising things up, not tearing people down.  He speaks about these things not in anger or self righteousness, but earnestly and with care.  And it struck me – it struck me as a model.  It’s hope and imagination, not just pain and suffering. 

When we hear things like this, when we believe it’s possible, we ourselves become viable agents of this new life.  Not perfectly, not every time, but more and more often as we see how new life works. 

The walking dead are among us.  We know this.  Compassion comes to us whether we want it to or not.  What we do with this is up to us.  And if we’ve seen it – if we’ve heard tell, we have what we need to stop, speak life, and give it to those most in need.  I know this, because I’ve seen it in you – not perfectly, not every time – but I’ve seen it…and it inspires me.  And I’m willing to spread that news far and wide.  Amen.