What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, June 6th, 2010

The Second Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 10)
June 6, 2010
1 Kings 17:17-24 • Psalm 30 • Galatians 1:11-24 • Luke 7:11-17

Soon afterwards 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.


Grief is something we all have to face. Our whole life, we are losing things—and no I don’t just mean the keys that I sometimes forget when I go running or go for a bike ride. I mean the loss of loved ones; of safety; of family; of friends; the loss of jobs; of entire eco-systems; and the loss of facing the truth of our own death. The widow of Zerephath and the widow of Nain know this grief, this loss, just as we do, as does this widower who describes the loss of his wife this way:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says…Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing [God], so happy that you are tempted to feel [God’s] claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to [God] with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to [God] when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence…

An odd byproduct of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.”


This is how C.S. Lewis describes his grief following the death of his wife Joy in a book called A Grief Observed. Loss hurts! One can hear C.S. Lewis describe his loss, and can feel that a piece of him has been amputated. As he says, it feels like there is no one left.


The widow at Nain knew this kind of grief. Granted, the weight of being a widow was difficult, but on top of that she also bore the weight of the death of her only son, who provided for her economic well being in the absence of her husband. Losing her son meant she was without social security. She was without protection. There was no expectation she would live much longer. At her son’s funeral, she was on a march towards death.


When Jesus shows up, she is in the middle of processing to her son to his grave. But Jesus quickly changes her steps from walking towards death, to walking towards life. Unlike the prophet Elijah, Jesus does not need to do any tricks or say any prayers or do any magic to raise the dead. All Jesus needs to do to change her life is to speak one word to her son: “Rise!” And immediately, the young man sits up and begins to speak. In an instant, Jesus intercedes for this woman, to save her from her isolation, to save her from certain death, to allow this son to provide for his mother, to lead her not to death but to new life.


I can’t help but think, as I hear this story, that this procession that C.S. Lewis was in and that the widow of Nain took, are also familiar to us. We are all stuck in a funeral procession of some sort. Last time I checked, death is still one hundred percent terminal! And we are content to sit by and watch the feet of others go on ahead towards their death, and let them walk right off of the cliff…


How do we “step out of line” from this death march? How do we get others to stop this death march? Brothers and sisters, we don’t get ourselves out of line. Jesus’ voice gets us out. Jesus’ words save us from this death march! Jesus interrupts our life’s processions with his compassion. Jesus is named in the raising of the widow of Nain for the first time in the Gospel of Luke as Lord. This is what Jesus does as our Lord: he comes to say “rise!” so we can step out of line to live again. Jesus touches the untouchable casket of the widow’s son and also comes to touch our untouchable death, to share the power of his Lordship over death with us. Along with that widow at Nain, the love of Jesus brings our weary feet to a screeching halt and changes their direction with love.

Jesus dares to come to us and say, “Do not weep. Life does not have to be a funeral procession to our demise!”


How appropriate then, that today is Celebration Sunday at United Lutheran Church. Today is the celebration of everyone who contributed prayers, time, energy, skills, talents and financial resources to our capital campaign. We are not the “frozen chosen”, brothers and sisters! We are not dead. We are alive! Jesus makes us alive! Our congregation has been told to “rise”, and you have responded by getting up, and giving life to this church. Because of our stewardship we are saying that we care for that which we have been given. We can also celebrate today as we welcome three new sisters in Christ today! Today is a celebration of life—Jesus life. It’s a Celebration Sunday celebration of Jesus who makes life possible.


On Friday and yesterday I was at the annual Metro Chicago Synod Assembly, gathering with Lutheran rostered leaders and laity from all over the Chicago area. One person who spoke to us was a representative from The Lutheran Magazine. You hopefully have seen it—it’s in a magazine rack in the entryway when you come in from Greenfield Street. Talk about a publication that’s about lifting up the celebration of Jesus bringing life out of death! Peter Mayer, the guitarist for Jimmy Buffet’s band, and who is also a Lutheran, has said he would not be a Lutheran if it wasn’t for picking up the Lutheran Magazine in his mother’s kitchen and seeing that it talked about the issues and topics that were relevant and important and that gave him life to be the kind of Christian he felt compelled to be out in the world.


This month’s issue has this quote from Gerland Vande mark, a retired ELCA pastor, living with the grief of losing his mobility, as he lives with Parkinson’s. He says: “Parkinson’s can be devastating to body, mind and spirit. It can best be described as a disease of movement and mobility…Parkinson’s is not my punishment but a reality of this life. I have the here-and now presence of God holding my right hand….I have help from many sources, including a Parkinson’s support group, church, colleagues, family, friends and Scripture. These enhance my well-being and uphold my Spirit.” Sounds like someone’s feet got moved by Jesus to me!

When we leave today, where will our feet travel? Are we getting busy living, or getting busy dying? Will our feet follow the life of Jesus, who is the Lord of our lives? No one else can do that walk for us. But our feet can travel in ways that reflect the energy and life that Jesus brings to the widows’ son, and to us!

Today we enter “ordinary time” in the life of the church year. In this season when we’re asking “What Sunday after Pentecost is it?”, in these supposedly “low” days of the church year. But even now, the procession of our daily, ordinary lives, we continue to get interrupted by the words of Jesus’ speaking good news to us: “rise!”

Near the end of A Grief Observed, Lewis writes: “I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want [my wife], not something that is like her…[I need] not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of my wife, but my wife. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor.”

Today, with C.S. Lewis, with the widows of Nain and Zarephath, God gives us what we desire: the real saving presence of Jesus, who interrupts our lives with his love that is burning within our hearts. Today our neighbors sitting around us are not fake, they are real. Today Jesus speaks to us as an embodied, living, alive, and celebratory body of Christ. Hear his voice today. Go and serve the Lord of live for the sake of the healing of the world. Thanks be to God! Amen.