Sermon for June 9, 2013: Professional Compassion?

June 9, 2013

Luke 7:11-17 The Widow of Nain

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sisters and brothers, here we are, another Sunday into the season the church calls “ordinary time”, and this morning we hear an account from the life of Jesus which is anything but ordinary. In this scene from the 7^th chapter of Luke, Jesus encounters an ordinary funeral procession and does something extraordinary—he steps forward, places his hand on the funeral cart, and with a word raises a dead man to life. This miraculous event is all the more powerful because we are told the dead man was the only son of a widow. Her situation, which was tenuous before, was about to become even worse following the loss of her son, her only source of income and security.  This wasn’t just bad news—it was extraordinarily bad. The crowd following the procession outside the town gate had gathered to witness not just a son’s burial, but also the end of a mother’s life as she knew it. 

So while this isn’t the only account of Jesus raising someone from the dead—in fact, in the very next chapter of Luke Jesus raises a 12 year old girl with nearly the same words: “Little girl, get up!”—this healing story grabs our attention because Jesus doesn’t just raise a man to life; he restores life to the mother, too. He rescues this woman, a stranger, from a future of poverty and desperation. Verse 15 says “The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” Jesus gives the widow of Nain her son, but he also gives her hope and a life worth living.

It’s probably safe to say that any story of a dead man sitting up and talking is extraordinary! But this one stands out among the other miracles of Jesus because there’s no mention of faith having any part of the healing process. Unlike last week’s story, when we learned of the tremendous faith of the Roman centurion, this week we don’t know anything about the faith of the widow of Nain. She says nothing, she asks for nothing—and yet Jesus restores her life anyway.

Why does he do this? Because, we read in verse 13, when the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 

Jesus had compassion for the widow of Nain. Jesus changed his itinerary, took a detour, interrupted a funeral procession, raised a dead man and restored a woman’s life—not because of her faith, or because her friends asked on her behalf, or to make a point to the crowds who were gathered—but because he had compassion for her. 

Now, “compassion” is not such an unusual word, so when you hear it, it probably conjures up some images in your mind. Think for a moment: What does it mean for you to “have compassion” for someone? And how do you communicate that compassion? What does compassion look like? Perhaps, when someone shares a medical diagnosis with you, you might say, “I’m so sorry—let me know what I can do.” Maybe, if you are an employer or a teacher or have some other authority, you may “have compassion” for someone’s situation by treating them a little more kindly than usual. If you’re a Lutheran, you may show compassion through a casserole or a cake (time-tested remedies, for sure!) Often, however, in our ultra-connected world where bad news is shared across social media 24 hours a day, “having compassion” for another human being means little more than a quick thought of “Man, that’s terrible”; the sharing of a status update; and the perfunctory “You will be in my prayers”.

But when we read in Luke chapter 7 that “Jesus had compassion for her and said to her ‘Do not weep’”, there’s nothing perfunctory about it. The Greek word for “had compassion” in this text is one I couldn’t begin to pronounce: "splagchnizomai”. Now this is just the verb form of the noun "splagchnon," meaning your bowels, heart, lungs, liver or kidneys, which in that day were thought to be the center of human emotions. Throughout the Gospels, this is the word used when we read that Jesus was a man of compassion. Jesus was one who felt the pain and sorrow and grief of the world in his “splagchnon”, or, in other words, his very innards. He was affected deep within wherever he encountered poverty, or hunger, or pain, or grief. In the case of the widow of Nain, he felt her grief, her hopelessness, her desperation and lack of options so deeply that he was moved to raise her son from the dead and restore her to life.

And this is very Good News, don’t you think? We have a God who, through Jesus our brother, feels our pain and our grief more deeply than we can imagine. We have a God who, through Jesus our healer, restores us to life. We have a God who, through Jesus our redeemer, assures us that though we walk through the valley of shadow of death, we shall fear no evil, for the Lord is with us. Amen?

Jesus felt compassion on the widow of Nain and restored her life. But first, he stepped forward. Because he felt her pain and grief deep within, he took a moment out of his packed preaching itinerary and came forward to speak to a grieving woman. He stepped right into the middle of that funeral procession and reached out to touch the cart on which her dead son lay. And then he said, “Do not weep.”

Now this is the part where many of us say “And that’s why he’s Jesus, and I’m not!” Most of us find ourselves tongue-tied just thinking about what to say to someone who is grieving. We’re afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid of offending, afraid of making things worse. Often, we’re just afraid to come forward and place ourselves in the middle of those sacred moments that exist where life and death meet.

Many of you know that for several years I worked as a certified “doula”, or labor and birth assistant. It was a job that paid not even as well as being a pastor, and the hours were much worse. There were middle of the night calls and false alarms. There were hours of sitting with women in pain, knowing you couldn’t take it away. Being a doula meant touching someone who just weeks before had been a stranger—rubbing feet, massaging shoulders, holding hands, pushing pressure points. It meant seeing women at their best and at their worst, walking with families through difficult decisions, and being a witness to joyous and sometimes heartbreaking moments. 

When I went to seminary and was required to write about my call to ministry, I talked often about how the experience of being a doula was such good preparation for being a pastor. Being a doula had placed me right smack in the middle of that sacred, in-between space between life and death, over and over again. It opened my heart and taught me how to feel the pain, and grief, and struggle of others. In other words, it gave me a small taste of the kind of compassion Jesus has for our suffering—a compassion which he not only felt deep within, but took upon his own body when he suffered with us and for us on the cross. 

Now that I have a few years of ministry under my belt, I still think being a doula was good preparation for being a pastor. But these experiences have also brought to light what seems to me a significant challenge for Christian communities today, which is the professionalization of compassion. 

No one even knew what a “doula” was 100 years ago. It is a profession today only because birth was moved out of the home and into the hospital, thereby removing women from their systems of support. A doula is only doing what aunts and sisters and grandmothers once did.

In the same way, we now have hospice nurses to care for us when we are dying, and we send out pastors and chaplains to visit the sick and the grieving.

When I say that compassion has been professionalized, what I mean is that we now assume one needs special training to sit with the sick and suffering. We prefer to send the certified and accredited and properly prepared to be with those who are about to be born or who are about to die. Somehow, we’ve gotten the idea that these sacred moments are out of bounds for “regular” Christians. 

But the truth is, compassion is the call of every Christian. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he did extraordinary things—feeding, healing, and raising the dead. And every time, he called ordinary people to continue his extraordinary ministry. Today, he sends us out to the sick, and the suffering, and the grieving. He invites us to join him at the edge of the city, with the marginalized and those with no future, and to feel their suffering deep within our own bodies. We are the ordinary crowds gathered there at the gates of Nain. We have witnessed the great compassion of Jesus Christ, and we will never be the same.

Today, I see ordinary Christians continuing Jesus’ extraordinary ministry of compassion every time one of you dares to enter into that sacred space where life and death meet.

Every day, right here in our community, prayer shawls are delivered to those who are grieving. Communion is delivered to the homebound. Cancer patients receive rides to chemo and radiation.  Casseroles are baked and delivered to those who have had surgery. Meals are served to PADS guests. Donations are sent to end the suffering of malaria in faraway places. Hands are held, tears are shared…and people are restored to life, in the name of Jesus. 

Sisters and brothers, today I want you to hear that Christian compassion doesn’t require special training. You don’t need to be a professional to restore life and hope to someone walking in the valley of the shadow of death! You have everything you need to continue the feeding, healing, and raising the dead—for in Christ you have been restored to new life. In the Christ, you are healed. In Christ, you are called. In Christ, you are sent out. In Christ, you are equipped. And in Christ, your ordinary becomes extraordinary! 

Amen.