February 5 -- Raising the Widow's Son

So how do you feel about the fact that you’re the one Jesus raised from the dead?  I don’t just mean after you die, I mean right now, today!  Male or female, gay or straight, black or blue, white or brown, native or immigrant, young or old – you’re the one in the story, you’re the one Luke was talking about, you’re the one lying on the funeral bier!  

How’s that hit you?  Incredulous, relieved, terrorized, unwilling?  If you’re anything like me these days, its hitting you distracted – pulled in at least 5 different directions as I speak, busy, broken, maybe even battered.  But sisters and brothers in Christ, I in all my brokenness and busyness, proclaim to you in all your brokenness and busyness that Christ comes alongside our funeral processions today, whatever those might look like…and declares them finished!  The dirge is over, and now the party of God has begun!

  

funeral procession

Not that there isn’t any space for lament, for a good funeral procession.  God knows we need to lament, to walk along together remembering and honoring our beloved dead, and not just the people who have died, but also the opportunities that we’ve missed, the great ideas that have come and gone, the money wasted, the programs that have run their course, the people who have left, the separation, division and isolation that has taken place.  Death is truly all around us, in many, many forms.  God knows that we need to prepare good funerals, like the people of Nain and start making our somber way to the grave. 

But Jesus meets us in our dirge, has compassion for us, trudging along, and says to us, to you, plainly and prophetically – get up!  God has looked favorably upon you!  

I think weeping is very good, and I believe Jesus affirmed that when he modeled it at Lazarus’ tomb…but we also need to hear his word for today:  “Stop your crying, and get up.”  Might sound insensitive.  But the opposite is true, and this is being spoken like someone who knows how the story ends.

Then Jesus turns us over to one another.  As if there wasn’t enough grace in just raising us from death, it gets better:

Jesus hands us to our loved ones, to our communities.  We are given to one another here at church 

-- gotta say something here:  We live in a culture of just drifting and doing whatever we want, but Jesus gives us to one another in a anew way this day! Risen from the dead, Jesus gives us to one another.  Let’s recommit ourselves to one another, recommit ourselves to our communities, to our families, to our loved ones, to our congregations, to our nation, to our world, to our species, to our planet.  

Lifted by Jesus we will not “do church” in the culture’s terms, which draws dividing lines and builds walls that isolate and vilify (the walls we build here are only for sheltering, educating, nurturing, and feeding -- yes, unlike the culture, we will commit to one another despite our differences -- that’s what happens when Jesus raises us and hands us over to one another.  

And specifically, he hands us over to our mothers.  That is, Jesus reconnects us to where we came from, to the matriarchs of our lives, the ones who gave us birth.  Where did you come from?  Did you come from creativity but somewhere you hit a wall?  Did you come from hope but somewhere got cut off?  Did you come from joy but lost your way?  Creativity and hope and joy can be the widows in our culture can't they (the ones with no voice)?  [pause]  And yet we are raised and handed over to them this day.  We are reconnected with God and with the earth.  We are reconnected with one another in these simple words: “Stop your crying and get up.”  God has indeed looked favorably on us, this day and always.  AMEN.