Sermon 10th June 2007
Jesus’ gift to a widow
Today's sermon is from our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, based on the reading from Luke 7:7-11
The situation that Luke describes was a serious one. This young man was the only son of his mother, a widow. She had been without a husband and now without a son. What did this mean? We know from an interesting conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mark 7 – there was an expectation that children would use their resources to help their old parents.
There was an old Hebrew custom (Lev 27:28 & Nus 18:14) where a son could declare his goods Corban which meant dedicating his wealth to God. At death this would pass on to the temple, and thus possibly deprive his parents of the support they would need at old age. Once something was declared Corban, priests discouraged people from withdrawing any property.
However, according to Jesus, this is wrong and in contravention of the fifth commandment. The correct interpretation of honouring your father and mother as the fifth commandment demands includes providing for them at old age.
This widow’s future well being depends on her son. He is all she has got for support. It is clearly a catastrophic state to be in.
She is also probably past the age of child bearing with no hope to marry again. She is now without any means of support.
We are told in verse 12 that there was a large crowd from the town with her; carrying the young man’s body, mourning. Honouring a dead person was important business; a ‘good work’ that any believing Jew could not neglect. It might as well be that some simply joined the crowd because they were expected to.
Relatives would generally expect bystanders to join a funeral procession while mourning could go on for thirty days.
As a closely knit community, it might be that the whole neighbourhood was still in shock at the death of this young man – an only son.
Sometimes also, hired professional mourners would cry out aloud to attract attention to the procession. As Luke recalls the incident, there was a large crowd! And this is not the only crowd mentioned. We are also told that Jesus and his disciples went with a large crowd along with him to the town of Nain; therefore, two large crowds meet; one with Jesus and another with the woman. All put together it must have been an enormous crowd – so large that Luke and other people would remember this important funeral years later and write about it!
Do you remember that funeral in Nain? Of course, who would not!
It is all very good that there is a crowd of enthusiastic supporters. What would we do without close friends who look out for us?
It is a great thing to have people by your side when tragedy strikes.
Some communities in the world today still hire professional mourners. Others still have relatives of the deceased hosting large parties that last for days, depending on their status and wealth.
And all is usually (hopefully) done in the honour of the deceased. It is good to be surrounded by sympathisers. However, this widow must have clearly known what she must face when all the noise and euphoria of the funeral crowd is gone. There was no social security system, no community welfare. Without children, a widow was left to the charitable impulses of the community. Today they were crying with her; who would be there tomorrow? Because that is when reality of loss begins to set in.
Her visible means of support is gone. Her access to the larger community is gone. Her social status within the village is also gone. She would likely be reduced to a beggar, unless someone came to her aid. This was clearly the end.
And then Jesus saw her. Verse 13 records that when the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her which can also mean he had pity, felt sympathy and he said, ‘Don’t cry, don’t weep’. Commentators say the site of this town is well known, lying off one of the roads leading from lake Galilee to the coast and on the side of a steep hill. Then as Jesus and his disciples and his large crowd approach the gate of the town, they meet with this equally large noisy funeral procession carrying a body on a wooden plank.
Jews were normally buried within hours owing to the high temperatures. Since graves had to be out of the town walls, a procession had to pass through the main gate. And this was the life transforming venue for this woman. She certainly had passed through the gate many times – probably all her life. Sometimes in funeral processions, other times not. But she probably never imagined that she would soon be in a funeral procession of her dead and only son – probably also after having escorted her husband through the same gate.
But on this day, Jesus had an appointment with her. And this made the difference. Jesus makes the difference! Just imagine the cacophony and the commotion and the noise and then Jesus spotting her, then walking towards her saying the words – don’t cry.
I have no idea what this widow must have thought! What does he mean don’t cry? Then you hear the commotion and noise suddenly drop as Jesus makes his way towards the corpse. What is he about to do? And then he touches it – breaking all rules of ritual purity. Touching a dead body defiles. All the boundaries of ritual purity have been crossed and blatantly broken! And all this for love and compassion; to give a gift to a widow.
And what a splendid gift! Jesus said, young man, I say to you, get up! The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. What a gift! What a wonderful disclosure of the character of the mission of Jesus! What a revelation of God’s redemptive and timely intervention! What wonderful compassion! What a great love! What restoration! What a magnificent piece of news for the socially marginalised!
For this is our God, friends. That is the God I commend to us all this morning. He reached out to us – hopeless sinners. And his amazing compassion led him to the cross. He had pity for us and his love, his great love held him on that Roman cross till he said, it is finished!
He is compassionate to the able, articulate, powerful who ask and have faith like the centurion. He is their God.
He is equally compassionate to the helpless, destitute, those without a voice. And he speaks to the dead hopeless situations too! He is the God of the universe. That is our God!
Jesus came to make a difference – when I met him, he transformed me, and I know I speak for many. But it could be that you are here today and still haven’t met him – I mean the man Jesus himself, not the Sunday morning/evening routine church experience.
I do not diminish the importance of ekklesia - meeting together like this on a Sunday – it is a biblical and Godly thing to do.
It aids process evangelism, the journey to faith that leads to, if one wants, to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ through repentance. The difference in our lives comes with this encounter!
I would encourage you to take a step of faith and try him. Things change. Jesus came to rescue us from ourselves… from eternal death and he offers his gift of eternal life. All we need to do is accept it, just like the woman accepted his son back.
And this has far reaching implications on how we live.I like the famous quote by GK Chesterton:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
Things totally changed when Jesus showed his compassion to the widow. The mood of the crowd changed from mourning to awe and praises. They immediately remembered their history. Not too far from Nain was located the Old Testament town of Zarepath (1 Kings 17) - where the great prophet Elijah had raised another widow’s son to life. No wonder they proclaim, a great prophet has appeared among us! The still hadn’t recognised Jesus as the one to come.
Don’t cry, do not weep – powerful words by Jesus.
Yet we know that he does not always intervene in our sickness, our suffering. Sometimes we are angry when God does not answer our prayers as we desire.
Other times we blame him for not intervening when our loved ones suffer or die. Other times he is just silent! I wish I could explain why! I don’t know. Only God knows.
Paul’s words to the 2 Corinthians 4 :7-10 encourage me. I hope they do the same for you.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
I really struggled with why God had allowed my Christian family of three to be reduced to two, especially when other families in the village had so many members. Why me, I asked. I now know truly with all my heart that He, God, is justified to ask – why not you?
Today's sermon is from our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, based on the reading from Luke 7:7-11
The situation that Luke describes was a serious one. This young man was the only son of his mother, a widow. She had been without a husband and now without a son. What did this mean? We know from an interesting conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees in Mark 7 – there was an expectation that children would use their resources to help their old parents.
There was an old Hebrew custom (Lev 27:28 & Nus 18:14) where a son could declare his goods Corban which meant dedicating his wealth to God. At death this would pass on to the temple, and thus possibly deprive his parents of the support they would need at old age. Once something was declared Corban, priests discouraged people from withdrawing any property.
However, according to Jesus, this is wrong and in contravention of the fifth commandment. The correct interpretation of honouring your father and mother as the fifth commandment demands includes providing for them at old age.
This widow’s future well being depends on her son. He is all she has got for support. It is clearly a catastrophic state to be in.
She is also probably past the age of child bearing with no hope to marry again. She is now without any means of support.
We are told in verse 12 that there was a large crowd from the town with her; carrying the young man’s body, mourning. Honouring a dead person was important business; a ‘good work’ that any believing Jew could not neglect. It might as well be that some simply joined the crowd because they were expected to.
Relatives would generally expect bystanders to join a funeral procession while mourning could go on for thirty days.
As a closely knit community, it might be that the whole neighbourhood was still in shock at the death of this young man – an only son.
Sometimes also, hired professional mourners would cry out aloud to attract attention to the procession. As Luke recalls the incident, there was a large crowd! And this is not the only crowd mentioned. We are also told that Jesus and his disciples went with a large crowd along with him to the town of Nain; therefore, two large crowds meet; one with Jesus and another with the woman. All put together it must have been an enormous crowd – so large that Luke and other people would remember this important funeral years later and write about it!
Do you remember that funeral in Nain? Of course, who would not!
It is all very good that there is a crowd of enthusiastic supporters. What would we do without close friends who look out for us?
It is a great thing to have people by your side when tragedy strikes.
Some communities in the world today still hire professional mourners. Others still have relatives of the deceased hosting large parties that last for days, depending on their status and wealth.
And all is usually (hopefully) done in the honour of the deceased. It is good to be surrounded by sympathisers. However, this widow must have clearly known what she must face when all the noise and euphoria of the funeral crowd is gone. There was no social security system, no community welfare. Without children, a widow was left to the charitable impulses of the community. Today they were crying with her; who would be there tomorrow? Because that is when reality of loss begins to set in.
Her visible means of support is gone. Her access to the larger community is gone. Her social status within the village is also gone. She would likely be reduced to a beggar, unless someone came to her aid. This was clearly the end.
And then Jesus saw her. Verse 13 records that when the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her which can also mean he had pity, felt sympathy and he said, ‘Don’t cry, don’t weep’. Commentators say the site of this town is well known, lying off one of the roads leading from lake Galilee to the coast and on the side of a steep hill. Then as Jesus and his disciples and his large crowd approach the gate of the town, they meet with this equally large noisy funeral procession carrying a body on a wooden plank.
Jews were normally buried within hours owing to the high temperatures. Since graves had to be out of the town walls, a procession had to pass through the main gate. And this was the life transforming venue for this woman. She certainly had passed through the gate many times – probably all her life. Sometimes in funeral processions, other times not. But she probably never imagined that she would soon be in a funeral procession of her dead and only son – probably also after having escorted her husband through the same gate.
But on this day, Jesus had an appointment with her. And this made the difference. Jesus makes the difference! Just imagine the cacophony and the commotion and the noise and then Jesus spotting her, then walking towards her saying the words – don’t cry.
I have no idea what this widow must have thought! What does he mean don’t cry? Then you hear the commotion and noise suddenly drop as Jesus makes his way towards the corpse. What is he about to do? And then he touches it – breaking all rules of ritual purity. Touching a dead body defiles. All the boundaries of ritual purity have been crossed and blatantly broken! And all this for love and compassion; to give a gift to a widow.
And what a splendid gift! Jesus said, young man, I say to you, get up! The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. What a gift! What a wonderful disclosure of the character of the mission of Jesus! What a revelation of God’s redemptive and timely intervention! What wonderful compassion! What a great love! What restoration! What a magnificent piece of news for the socially marginalised!
For this is our God, friends. That is the God I commend to us all this morning. He reached out to us – hopeless sinners. And his amazing compassion led him to the cross. He had pity for us and his love, his great love held him on that Roman cross till he said, it is finished!
He is compassionate to the able, articulate, powerful who ask and have faith like the centurion. He is their God.
He is equally compassionate to the helpless, destitute, those without a voice. And he speaks to the dead hopeless situations too! He is the God of the universe. That is our God!
Jesus came to make a difference – when I met him, he transformed me, and I know I speak for many. But it could be that you are here today and still haven’t met him – I mean the man Jesus himself, not the Sunday morning/evening routine church experience.
I do not diminish the importance of ekklesia - meeting together like this on a Sunday – it is a biblical and Godly thing to do.
It aids process evangelism, the journey to faith that leads to, if one wants, to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ through repentance. The difference in our lives comes with this encounter!
I would encourage you to take a step of faith and try him. Things change. Jesus came to rescue us from ourselves… from eternal death and he offers his gift of eternal life. All we need to do is accept it, just like the woman accepted his son back.
And this has far reaching implications on how we live.I like the famous quote by GK Chesterton:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
Things totally changed when Jesus showed his compassion to the widow. The mood of the crowd changed from mourning to awe and praises. They immediately remembered their history. Not too far from Nain was located the Old Testament town of Zarepath (1 Kings 17) - where the great prophet Elijah had raised another widow’s son to life. No wonder they proclaim, a great prophet has appeared among us! The still hadn’t recognised Jesus as the one to come.
Don’t cry, do not weep – powerful words by Jesus.
Yet we know that he does not always intervene in our sickness, our suffering. Sometimes we are angry when God does not answer our prayers as we desire.
Other times we blame him for not intervening when our loved ones suffer or die. Other times he is just silent! I wish I could explain why! I don’t know. Only God knows.
Paul’s words to the 2 Corinthians 4 :7-10 encourage me. I hope they do the same for you.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
I really struggled with why God had allowed my Christian family of three to be reduced to two, especially when other families in the village had so many members. Why me, I asked. I now know truly with all my heart that He, God, is justified to ask – why not you?
posted by Parish Administrator at 8:52 pm
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