SERMONS - This Sunday
Gary W. Goran
June 6 , 2010
"Risking to be Compassionate "
The Message
Author, Barbara Brown Taylor said, “I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was, in other words, and it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.”
Mother Teresa said, “I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.”
Author, Henri Nouwen said in Sabbatical Journey, “Our faithfulness will depend on our willingness to go where there is brokenness, loneliness, and human need. If the church has a future it is a future with the poor in whatever form.”
Each of us has been given this life. How we choose to live it out is one of the most significant gifts we have been given. How we are faithful to what we believe is always a project in the process of becoming. Sometimes we take a step forward and sometimes a step back. We do not so much seek balance in our living as we seek wholeness as a person of faith. When human will intersects with Divine purpose then our journey of seeking begins. What is my life about?
In today’s gospel, death appears to call the shots. A widow – that is, a woman on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, has been visited by death. Her adult son, that is, her only means of survival, has been taken from her by death. Her son’s death means that she too will die, for she is totally dependent on her son for survival.
“Michal Montaigne’s Renaissance essays are the greatest, most enlightening writings in history” says, author, Willemon. In fact he invented the word “essay”, that is, an attempt to test, to examine and essay some deep subject. In his Essays, Montaigne attempted an utterly frank assessment of human nature. “I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself,” he declares. One of Montaigne’s concerns was death. In fact, he says that all of his writings were his attempt to detach himself from worldly things to prepare for death.
In his pessimism and his obsession with death Montaigne was different from many of the other philosophers of his day. “Death is dominant,” says Montaigne. “It determines every step of our lives.” Of all the fears that a human being may have, the fear of death is the most challenging, because human beings are finite/mortal creatures.
Nothing is more inevitable than death. All that lives, dies. Death has the last word in our stories. Or does it?
The Luke story of Jesus and the widow is almost identical to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings. Both stories remind us of deaths finality. Some may want to emphasize from the texts the possibility of eternal life. For Elijah and Jesus, by their very presence the dead are brought back to life.
I remember one beautiful day by the ocean in Victoria; I was having coffee with a friend, who was also a UC Minister. WE had a good time together and interesting conversation. I remember one comment he make, concerning our discussion around dying, surely you (Gary) emphasize the Christian hope of eternal life?
While hope related to eternal life is a complex question, I am not so sure that the Elijah and Jesus stories are relating to our need to have life eternal. Jesus shows up and he brings people back to life. Possibly some may want to believe, if they are worthy enough, that God will favour them.
I think the story of Jesus and the widow is really not about death, at least in the physical sense. Jesus offended confronts life’s inevitabilities and fundamentally changes the direction of the story. There is a fresh unexpected newness to the journey because of Jesus.
In Luke’s gospel there are two crowds coming from different directions with very different contexts and they meet in the center of the village of Nain. The crowd travelling with Jesus has just seen Jesus heal the slave of a Roman official. The other crowd has witnessed the death of a widow’s only so and now accompany her to bury him. The contrast between the two crowds couldn’t have been greater. The first crowd watched as Jesus responded to the faith of someone at the top of society. This one was male, wealthy, powerful, and Roman; four things that guarantee him privilege in society.
The other crowd watched helplessly as someone at almost the lowest rung of society slipped even lower. The one was a woman and a widow. Both of these things were strikes against her and this final humiliation, the death of her only male offspring would ensure her total cultural extinction.
The reason Luke relates the Elijah story to Jesus’ ministry is to ensure that we see the great disparity between the situation of the Centurion and the widow and the absence of disparity in Jesus’ response to both.
That is because, I believe Jesus did not respond to class distinction or preferential influence, he responds to people’s faith and the particular life situation they were and are facing.
Hope in eternal life is not an excuse for not living faithfully with the life we have been given. One aspect of our living faithfully is our compassion for all things. As Mother Teresa said, “I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.” Is there anyone who you could use as an example of compassion, risky compassion, with the widow like illustration in the Jesus story?
Jesus’ presence creates a fresh unexpected newness to our living as we endeavour to live faithfully with the One who calls us and says do like I have done.