Danbury United Methodist Church

Pastor Karen Karpow

June 6, 2010

Last day of Sunday School

Recognition of graduating seniors

Do Not Weep

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Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. Ephesians 6.19

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Twenty four hours ago, this time yesterday, a group gathered here in the sanctuary because someone had died. It was a memorial service for Donald Miller, Les’s brother, and the family really turned out. We did what we Christians do at a memorial service. There were flowers, and candles, and pictures, and a scrabble board that said “Goodbye, Uncle Donnie.” We sang songs and read scriptures and told stories and prayed prayers. We shook hands and cried and hugged. And then afterwards we ate. These are our customs, the way we comfort ourselves and each other in the face of death.

In today’s scripture from Luke, we see what people in Galilee two thousand years ago did when someone died. Picture the scene. Moving toward the small Galilean village of Nain, located about five miles southeast of Nazareth, is a rather large crowd of people, composed of Jesus and his disciples, as well as people from Capernaum who have chosen to follow the Nazarene.

Jesus is very popular right now. He has been preaching and teaching, and he’s not like anybody they’ve ever heard. He has also just healed a centurion’s servant, and no doubt they are talking excitedly about the fact that Jesus didn’t even have to go and touch the man or say words over him or anything. He just spoke—from a distance, no less!—and it was done. The servant was healed. The people are listening to this young, remarkable rabbi tell them things they have never heard before. He tells them of a God they have never known before. They are taking in his every word.

Just as they are about to reach the village gate, another group is leaving through it. In the middle of the crowd are six men carrying a funeral bier, upon which is the body of a young man who has just died. They are carrying the body to the cemetery, which is outside of town because of the beliefs and superstitions of that day.

This crowd of mourners is quite noisy. It was the custom, if a sufficient number of mourners were not available, to hire professional mourners to cry out, to insure that the deceased would be properly grieved over. In this case, the cries of the mother and her friends may well be enough. Beyond the grief of any parent losing a child, this mother has also lost her entire connection to the community. At this time, women had no social standing unless they were attached in some way to men. Daughters stayed in their fathers’ homes until they married. At that point they belonged to their husbands. If a husband died, his brother would marry the widow. This woman, however, has been left in the care of her son. Without him, she has no home, no income, no place in the community. We can be sure that the procession is loud with the public display of grief, not only for the son who has died, but for the mother who remains.

Jesus sees the woman, and he is immediately moved by her gut-wrenching anguish. He says to her, “Do not weep.”

Do not weep? Is he kidding? Is he cruel? How can he say this to her? She has just lost her whole life. But he can say this to her—because he has the power to restore her life.

Notice that she has not asked him for anything. Unlike the centurion whose servant Jesus has just healed, she has not demonstrated any particular faith. I suspect she didn’t even notice Jesus was there until he spoke. But Jesus recognizes her plight and is moved to fix it.

¹⁴ Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” ¹⁵ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

It’s a miracle!

And I think hearing about grand miracles like this can actually make a life of faith more difficult for ordinary Christians like you and me. Yes, Jesus is moved by the widow’s plight—which is quite desperate. But why isn’t he moved by mine?

Who among us has not prayed for a miracle at some point in our lives? There are so many bad things that happen, things that dismantle our working assumptions about the way the world works. Although we know, intellectually, that bad things sometimes happen to good people, it seems that they all happen to someone else—until they happen to us. Suddenly our belief that everything makes sense is thrown out the window, and we say, “Why me?” As people of faith, we go even further. We want to know where God is in this chaos that threatens us. What if we no longer live in a trustworthy world? When we reach the end of our ropes, we reach for God to make meaning.

And we cry out to God, asking God to fix it. Amazingly, sometimes we get the grand miracle we pray for—or the grand miracle we didn’t even think to ask for. About a year ago, my son Andrew called me from the hospital in Burlington. He works as a sales rep, and he drives all over northern Vermont every day. He had been driving north on I-81 right after a thunderstorm came through. His car hydroplaned, and flipped, and hit a rock bigger than the car. A National Guard medic was in the car behind him, and he said he expected to find the driver of that car dead. Instead, what he found was Andrew trying to kick the crumpled door open. Thank God for a miracle I didn’t even know to ask for.

But what about all the 17-year old new drivers who hit trees and die? That story is in the papers over and over. I do not believe that God loves Andrew more than God loves them. Where is God’s compassion then?

We can’t stop ourselves from praying for even the most outrageous, impossible miracles, especially for those we love. We cling to a central message of the gospel: in Christ, all things are possible. But things in this world aren’t usually that neat and tidy—there are unraveled edges all over the place. I hate when I can’t explain something—but there are a great many things about God that I cannot explain.

But here’s what I think: we need to practice recognizing miracles that come in less dazzling forms. When we get focused on our version of how things are supposed to be, we can become blind to the many ways in which God’s compassion reaches into our lives. When we pray for God to make the tumor go away, and the tumor doesn’t go away, we might not even notice the other gifts God sends. We may overlook the kindness shown to us, the good food that arrives unsolicited, the perfect song that brings a smile to our face, the up-close parking spot when it’s pouring rain, the peaceful night’s sleep.

With our eyes on the horizon, we may miss the garden of comfort, hope, compassion, and even joy that is growing right at our feet. We might not give God credit for the inexplicable way we don’t feel afraid any more. God touches us in the midst of our deepest pain, just as he reached out and touched the funeral bier. Jesus has compassion for us, and meets our needs, even when we are too torn up to ask for help.

Are these things miracles? Are miracles even possible? I guess it’s up to you to decide. Here is what Albert Einstein had to say on the subject:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

With thanks to M. Jan Holton, in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 116-120.

Luke 7

¹¹ Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. ¹² 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. ¹³ When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” ¹⁴ Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” ¹⁵ The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. ¹⁶ 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!” ¹⁷ This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.