I
was speaking recently with a Henrico County police officer about his job and he
explained to me, much to my surprise, that one of the riskiest and least
favorite parts of his job was escorting funeral processions. I’ve been in
dozens of funeral processions before, but it had never occurred to me that from
the police officers’ perspective they are complicated and dangerous to manage. There’s
a lot of maneuvering and delicate choreography, if you will, that needs to
happen between the different cars to pull one off. The worst part of escorting
a funeral procession, he said, was managing the intersections. In order for a
procession to move smoothly and continually through a stoplight or stopsign, the
police have to position their own cars and lives against the flow of traffic. It’s
not always a guarantee that the people coming in the perpendicular direction, or
those getting to turn left against the line of cars, for example, will pay
attention. That’s what this police officer found so risky. For it not to turn
into a disaster, the police officer has to rely on other drivers’ alertness and
other people’s compassion. It must be a bit frightening to be so vulnerable and
in the midst of such confusion as the living make way for the dead.
This
morning’s gospel text, there is an intersection and there is confusion, and the
living have to suddenly make way for the dead. The scene unfolds at a major
stoplight of the ancient world: the town gate. Each town and city in Jesus’
time would have had at least one gate. It was the breach in the protective city
wall where traffic essentially bottlenecked. Commerce flowed in and out through
the gate, and so often there was a lot of commotion due to trading and
bartering going on. Certain people who were considered undesirable and
unwelcome in the city often congregated at the city gate, looking for help. And
likely, every day there would have been some sort of funeral procession through
the gate since bodies would have been buried or entombed outside the city. Just
as one of these funeral processions, with all of its accompanying drama of
wailing and mourning, is making its way out of the city of Nain one day, Jesus
and his entourage are approaching it. There’s no police officer to make sure
these two groups don’t collide.
At
this point it’s important to realize that there are really two dead people in
this funeral procession. There is the son, who is lying on the bier, which would
have been similar in function to a hearse. He has just died a physical death and
is on his way to disappearing into the ground. The second dead person is his
mother, and in many ways she is the one worse off. She is in the process of
dying a social death and is disappearing into poverty and obscurity.
It
is never easy to suffer the death of a spouse. It leaves a gaping hole that can
never be filled. And in ancient times in Jesus’ culture it was especially
difficult for women who survived their husbands. They had no property rights
and if they had no male heir who agreed to care for them and bring them into
their house, they were utterly vulnerable in society. Their existence was
entirely dependent on hand-outs from others, and people tended to treat them
pretty poorly, especially if they were of a younger age. In fact, the Hebrew
word for “widow” was associated with the term “one who is silent” or “unable to
speak.”
That
tells us something about what kind of future this woman would be contemplating as
she weeps over the death of her son. Without a family she’d have no community. Without
a name she’d have no identity. And without an heir she’d have no future.
There
at the gate they run into the other procession that is making its way into the
town. This procession is basically just a crowd of people following a new
fascinating teacher. And there as they intersect compassion becomes the force
that transforms the scene. Hundreds of funeral processions had passed that way
before. Countless widows had walked those steps, fearing the danger that would
come once the crowd put the body into the ground and went back to their lives. But
on this day the Lord is there, touching that which is said to be unclean. On
this day the Lord and his compassion is present, and we see the living make way
for the dead.
So,
just as there are two dead people in the funeral procession, there are also two
restorations to life. The young man on the bier sits up once Jesus addresses
him and returns to life, and the first thing he does is speak. I wonder who is
the first person he speaks with? Wouldn’t it be cool if were his mother, who
until that moment, as a widow, was bearing this label of “one who is unable to
speak”? Even if the son doesn’t speak first to his mother, Jesus brings about
such a transforming experience by immediately giving him to his mother.
That
is the second instance of new life in this story by the gate, in this place
where people are coming and going, changing directions, doing trade. Jesus’
compassion does not just resuscitate this young man. It restores this woman to
life. It makes her visible again, and gives her a voice, a place, a future.
Christians
talk a lot about being raised to new life. We throw that phrase around all over
the place—in our weekly worship, in our prayers and hymns, when we baptize.
Jesus
raises us to new life…but what does that mean? Surely when we use the phrase
“raised to new life,” one thing we mean is that after our own death, we too, shall
be raised to eternal life. That is the power of the cross and the promise of
our baptism. Jesus, by his death, makes way for the living. He conquers sin, he
places his own body at the intersection of evil, into the traffic of all that
goes against God, and dies that we might live.
But
before that occurs for us, before that day we are taking part in our own
funeral procession, we say Jesus raises us to new life elsewhere, and that is
what we see happening at the gate of Nain. When we say we’re raised to new life
it means is that we hear we have worth again. It means we hear the news that we
are not meant to be invisible, meaningless. It means the brokenness of what came
before can give way to something better, that the labels the world applies to
us or we apply to ourselves matter less than the dignity the Word of God gives
us. It means we are re-dedicated in service to our neighbor, able to see that
our life can and does make a difference in this universe. It means that, like
the son in this story, we are given to one another, over and over.
New
life in Christ is no end unto itself. Jesus does not enter Nain or any life,
for that matter, as some kind of “Zen” experience, as if inner balance or peace
is his goal. Jesus comes that we may rise from whatever death we’re in so that
we may be given to others in service and love. The reorientation of compassion towards
the world that Christ gives us—towards each individual human being, especially
the most vulnerable among us—is one of the most truly life-changing parts of
this new life.
 |
| Phillip Sossou |
There
was a remarkable story out of Boston this week about high school senior named
Phillip Sossou who gave himself to others by taking the time to draw a portrait
of every single person in his graduating class, all 411 of them. He worked on
them during every moment of his spare time beginning in February, and this week
he snuck into the school to hang them on the walls. It was an especially moving
gesture of love given that the school, Boston Latin, has had a rough year
regarding racial tension. When the students came in this week to see them a
kind of new life was breathed into the community. Many were moved to tears. As
one of his classmates put it, his portraits (which were beautiful, by the way) kind
of made them all realize that each one of them was noticed.
That’s
one way to think about what worship is in a congregation each Sunday morning. Here
Jesus, amidst all the confusing tension of the world, is entering the
intersection. He is entering and stopping dozens or hundreds of different funeral
processions of meaninglessness and pain, division and discord. They are the
funeral processions of those who file in here broken or lost by what life has
handed them, unsure of what their next step will be and whether anyone will
notice it.
And
it is Jesus, in his compassion, noticing every single one us, giving the
painstaking time to restore each of us to life…rendering us again beautiful as
we are…handing each of us a piece of his own broken body and blood and reminding
us we have a place, bestowing on us true dignity, and giving us to one another
again.
And
we witness this with joy, knowing God has once again looked favorably upon his
people.
Thanks
be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W.
Martin, Jr.
This is perfect.
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