1 Kings 17:17-24
Psalm 146
Galatians 1:11-24
Luke 7:11-17
I’m guessing Jesus could hear the funeral procession long before he saw it.
Nothing compares to the primal sound
of a mother who’s on her way to bury her child—
something no parent should ever have to do.
And this, her only child.
Not only that—her only family,
having already buried her husband.
She’s a widow.
And now a childless mother.
Facing unimaginable losses piled atop one another
forming a mountain of impossible, impenetrable grief.
Not only that, but also facing the knowledge that her livelihood has dried up.
No one left to provide for her,
and no opportunity in her time and place to provide for herself.
Yes, I’m guessing Jesus could hear the funeral procession long before he saw it.
Hearing it, he moved toward it.
And seeing it, he stepped into it.
Luke tells us that this is compassion.
That when Jesus saw the widowed, childless mother,
he had compassion for her.
This Greek word for compassion appears only 3 times in Luke’s gospel:[1]
once when a Samaritan sees a stripped and beaten man lying on the side of the road,
once when a prodigal father[2] sees his returning son off in the distance for the first time,
and once when Jesus sees a woman about to bury her only son; her only family.
In Luke, compassion begins with seeing.
In Luke, compassion links deep emotional feeling with action.
The Samaritan bandages the man for whom he has compassion,
transports him to an inn,
and pays for his care.
The father runs toward the son for whom he has compassion,
lifts him up from the ground where he has fallen in shame,
and throws him a grand party.
Hearing the woman’s grief, Jesus moves toward her.
Seeing her, he has compassion for her, and steps into her suffering.
Compassion is movement.
Compassion seems like a noun, but behaves like an active verb.
And then comes The Moment.
The Moment when,
having entered the scene,
having stepped into the funeral procession,
having enacted and embodied his compassion for the grieving woman,
Jesus reaches out and touches the bier upon which the corpse of the young man lies.
The Moment when Jesus touches the bier and
(whisper) the whole scene goes still.
The Moment when none dare breathe for fear of breaking the magical spell
that seems to have fallen.
Everyone knows the magical spell will be broken.
Moments, by definition, don’t last.
And even when we’re caught by one, we know they’re fleeting.
So…occasionally a Moment is so powerful, so universally recognized,
that everyone present enters a sort of unspoken collective pact
to not move,
to not speak,
to not breathe,
allowing the Moment to linger as long as possible.
“Arise,” Jesus says,
breaking the magic of the clock-stopping Moment
with a word of life.
I’m not going to touch the question
of Jesus raising a corpse from the dead this morning.
That’s what your pastor is for.
I simply get to swoop in,
point to the poetry that’s beautiful, true, prophetic,
and fly away again.
The beautiful, true, prophetic poetry starts, as it often does, in the Psalms.
Jesus would have grown up hearing and singing the Psalm we heard this morning.
As a boy, he would have been deeply formed by its ethic
and shaped into the likeness of God that it reveals:
a God who lovingly made all that is, and called it ‘good’;
a God who executes justice for the oppressed and gives food to the hungry;
a God who sets prisoners free and makes the blind to see;
a God who lifts up those who are bowed down and loves those who love justice;
a God who has particular love for society’s most vulnerable:
strangers, orphans, and widows.
This song swells to life in Jesus.
The beautiful, true, prophetic poetry comes to life in him.
Jesus, the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
reveals that the movement of God is toward and into suffering;
reveals that the presence of God is deep, powerful, clock-stopping Presence;
reveals that the word of God is Life,
reveals that the heart of God is compassion.
Thanks be to God.
I want to say one word about Jesus and pastoral care:
Despite all the beautiful things I’ve just said
about Jesus revealing God’s heart of compassion,
a case can be made that Jesus royally sucks at pastoral care!
I skipped over the part of the story when,
just before stepping into the scene with compassion
and stopping the clock by touching the bier,
Jesus’ first words are directed toward the woman,
and he says to her “Do not weep.”
I don’t know a single teacher of pastoral care who would think that’s a good idea.
That’s a terrible thing to say to someone who’s grieving.
And y’all have been through quite a lot in these last years, months, weeks, days.
I’m guessing many of you have done your fair share of grieving recently.
I will not “what would Jesus do?” you this morning, CHMF.
I would never ever in a million years tell you not to weep.
Then again, I’m not Jesus.
I’m going to say, in fact, quite the opposite of what Jesus said.
I tell you, friends: Weep.
Weep for the violence and harm the church has and continues to perpetrate
against those of us who are queer.
Weep for the broken relationships with those in the church
you’ve tried to remain in reconciled and just relationship with.
Weep for the bodies and souls we leave in our wake
as collateral damage of this supposed “dialogue” and “accountability” and “process.”
Weep until you find you are baptizing one another with your grief,
and nourishing the soul of this earth with your sorrow.
Weep, friends.
Because one thing I know for sure:
As you weep, Christ will come.
As you weep, Christ will step toward you in compassion.
As you weep, Christ will enter with holy, clock-stopping Presence.
As you weep, Christ will speak a word of Life.
Yes, in this story and in life, we are not Jesus.
To be absolutely clear: we are not Jesus.
We are the mourners to whom Jesus comes.
And yet.
And yet: we are self-professed followers of Jesus.
We are ones who seek to follow and walk in Christ’s Way.
We believe that Jesus’ life, teachings, and actions revealed the heart of God.
And we seek to embody—to incarnate—that heart of God…
for friend, neighbor, enemy alike.
Part of our call as Jesus followers is:
A) to notice suffering—to see those who suffer,
and B) to have compassion.
Remembering again what Luke and what Jesus reveal about compassion:
Compassion is not a mere feeling,
but an action.
Compassion is carrying a beaten up foreigner to a hospital and paying for his care.
Compassion is hiking up your robes and running to greet with a kiss
the one who said he wished you were dead and spent all your money.
Compassion is joining the funeral procession at the city gate.
We are called to have compassion…
a noun that behaves like an active verb…
to step in,
move toward,
speak life.
When we, seeking to follow Jesus, notice suffering,
when we move forward in compassion,
when we speak life,
word will spread.
Just as word spread when Jesus had compassion on the woman from Nain.
When we embody the compassion of Christ, word will spread.
You all know a little something about that, too.
Though Luke doesn’t explicitly mention online comment sections,
or pervasive hashtagging,
or some seriously impressive social media strategizing,
these things are arguably implied,
if a bit anachronistically.
Word will spread.
Word has spread.
It always does when gospel good news is spoken,
enacted,
embodied.
It always does when Life rises up in a community.
And Life has risen up here.
Christ’s compassion has been embodied here.
I am here to bear witness to that;
to testify to seeing Christ in you, Isaac,
and to seeing Christ in you, Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship.
Even from way across the country,
because we are church together and therefore connected,
I see you all embodying Christ’s compassion.
I see it when you show up for a protest against House Bill 2,
the dreaded “bathroom bill” that would be a “mess for LGBTQI persons,
for the poor and marginalized, for women, the disabled,
people of color and anyone who faces discrimination in [your] state.”[3]
I see it when you train for and run the Palestine Marathon in Bethlehem,
“a run that draws attention to the exhaustion of having to live in the shadow of the wall,”[4]
and you raise money for the just peacemaking work of Mennonite Central Committee
in Israel-Palestine while you’re at it.
I see it when some of the men you’ve worked with on death row
at Central Prison in Raleigh
find their voices and participate in a storytelling performance called “Serving Life.”[5]
I see it when you join with neighboring faith communities
in a vigil against gun violence here on your streets,[6]
or in welcoming refugees to your community.[7]
I see it when I see a photo of CHMF children doing what Mennos do best:
singing, [8]
or gathered around their beloved Sunday School teacher and pastor,[9]
or making astute connections they should be far too young to make—
connections like seeing our prisons as a new form of slavery.[10]
I see it when you bless the love and covenanting of two women in your congregation,
for whom “the whole experience…[was] very restorative.”[11]
Yes indeed, Life has risen up here.
Christ’s compassion has been embodied.
I am here to bear witness to that;
to testify to seeing Christ in you, my dear siblings in Christ.
Even from way across the country,
because we are church together,
I see you all embodying Christ’s compassion.
And word is spreading…
Everything I know about Drake, I know from Isaac Villegas.
Everything.
I’m admittedly an amateur,
but…
“Man what a time to be alive.
You and yours vs. me and mine.
Oh we talkin’ teams?
Oh we talkin’ teams?”[12]
I do love talkin’ teams.
And I do, in fact, have a really big team;
a really fabulous team.
And that team includes Isaac, of course.
As well as all y’all.
Like you, and some of the finest folks across our Mennonite church, I stand with Isaac.
But even more importantly,
I stand with Jesus.
Or at least I try to on my very best days.
And when I fail to,
I inevitably get my butt kicked by someone who loves me,
and I try again.
I see you standing with Jesus, CHMF.
Because I see you embodying Christ’s compassion in so very many ways.
And when you inevitably fail to stand with Jesus,
I’m pretty sure you’ll kick each other’s butts,
and try again.
As we seek to—faithfully and falteringly—follow Jesus,
as we seek to—faithfully and falteringly—stand with Jesus,
we remember this:
Jesus, the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
reveals that the movement of God is toward and into suffering;
reveals that the presence of God is deep, powerful, clock-stopping Presence;
reveals that the word of God is Life,
reveals that the heart of God is compassion.
Thanks be to God that, together, we’re on that team.
[1] Splagchnizomai (pronounced splawnk-NITZ-oh-my), meaning literally “churning guts” or “to be moved in the inward parts” (“especially the nobler entrails”), https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2016/06/02/the-scandal-of-the-compassionate-way/, http://biblehub.com/greek/4697.htm
[2] Prodigal: “carelessly and foolishly spending money, time, etc.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prodigal. I was first introduced to the idea of the father as a prodigal character in this parable in Henri J. M. Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. From a sermon I preached at Chicago Community Mennonite Church on March 17, 2013: “Anyone else find it interesting that the younger son, who was out partying away his inheritance, partying on top of his living father’s grave, is welcomed home with…you guessed it…another party? ‘Cause what’s a better antidote to too much partying than a big fat party? This brings us to the issue of the prodigal father…”
[3] Melissa Florer-Bixler, “Love is a Verb: What love feels like,” http://mennoniteusa.org/menno-snapshots/love-is-a-verb-what-love-feels-like/
[4] Isaac Villegas, “Right to Movement: Palestine Marathon,” https://donate.mcc.org/registry/right-movement-palestine-marathon
[5] http://events.unc.edu/event/race-innocence-the-end-of-the-death-penalty-serving-life/.
[6] http://www.ncchurches.org/2015/12/20219/
[7] http://www.ncchurches.org/2015/12/testifying-hope-refugees-join-us-dinner/
[8] https://www.facebook.com/Chapel-Hill-Mennonite-Fellowship-150470024990099/?fref=ts (photo posted on November 24, 2015).
[9] https://themennonite.org/daily-news/pastors-credentials-suspended-resigns-executive-board-performing-sex-wedding/
[10] Isaac Villegas, “Another Moses,” https://themennonite.org/feature/another-moses/
[11] https://www.facebook.com/isaac.villegas.581/posts/1115392485192198?pnref=story
[12] Drake, “Big Rings,” http://genius.com/Drake-and-future-big-rings-lyrics