God is visiting and redeeming his people

When I started reading the commentaries for this week’s Gospel (Luke 7.11-17) I could not help but notice all of the similarities that there are between the text and the contemporary situation we face in this city. Let’s see if you can hear what I was hearing:

The name “Nain” means beauty and pleasantness. Once very prosperous, the town had fallen on hard times because the price of the one commodity people wanted (called simsum) fell through the floor. The local economy was yet to recover for all of that. Plus its geography did not led itself to helping things out. It is 3 miles south and west of Mount Tabor in the Galilee. Nain was also 25 miles south and west of Capernaum and it was a steep climb on the road from one to the other. So it was not the usual route people would take to the larger centers in the south.

So the fact that Jesus deliberately sets out for this place is a bit of a wonder not to mention a shock. And it was as much of a shock to the people of Nain as it was to the people that were following Jesus. As they came to the town and entered from the West they came across the funeral procession of a man who had died very recently – the day before. Purity laws demanded that the body be buried in 24 hours after death and anyone who touched the body was spiritually polluted for a length of time – a week usually.

Why is all of this important? Because there is a theme that we need to pay attention to here that comes up over and over again in Luke’s Gospel: who is lost and how do they get found?  And we need to be aware of the fact that God is coming and visiting his people to redeem them and make them his people. It is building on the theme that we heard in Nazareth when Jesus read from Isaiah at the Synagogue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4.18-21)

God anoints his servants to do the things that are going to build his nation, God’s priesthood in the world. And more to the point of the Gospel we are considering, dead men not only don’t tell tales, they don’t provide for their widowed mothers either. Jesus and those following him, meet this group of people led by a women who is now at the mercy of everything bad that has happened to her in her family and in her community.

I consider this a moment of sudden ministry. It is not a moment where one is invited in, you just know that you know that you need to do something, anything because you have looked at the this pitiable woman and recognized the state of her life and her situation. What does Jesus do? He confronts the situation by telling this grieving widow not to cry but to dry her tears. The he reaches out and touches the beir – causing the procession to grind to a halt. Then Jesus says to the dead man – “Get up!” Not only did he sit up but he began to talk – proof that he was not dead or a spirit but truly alive! Doesn’t that make you wonder what happened next? Does it raise in your mind the question of how the bearers of the body reacted? Did they lower him gentle like or did he get dumped? And how did this man “stick the landing” having fallen from a height if he was dumped?

Then the most remarkable thing happened – Jesus gave him back to his mother. He wasn’t just set free to do whatever. He was raised to life again and that life had a purpose – to care for his widowed mother, that he might be her help and her defense. In turn this means that he was sent back to the community that was prepared to bury him. It would have an impact on the community in terms of joy in having this young man back and give them hope that more help and a turnaround was just around the corner. Most of all, the people praised God for this and claimed Jesus as a prophet because he made them aware of God’s presence and power among them. And the news of this happen spread all over the land, including to John the Baptist. All of this happened during a funeral in the middle of a cemetery and a burial. God visited and redeemed his people.

Where does this leave us? Let me ask you a question: where is God for you when you are suffering, crying or in pain? Where is God for you when you believe that there is nothing life to do but die yourself? I wish I could show you (but cannot for pastoral reason and privacy concerns) where God is at work in the lives of people in this congregation right now. If God is here and he does visit, heal and redeem his people then there is a connection to be made in the words that we hear in the Eucharist, “Do this for the remembrance of me.” God in Christ is here and we are with him. God has come to visit, heal and redeem this congregation. He has come to you, to heal you and to heal you and to celebrate your redemption.

Seeing Isaiah fulfilled is only the first steps in moving into the kingdom. God calls on us to reach out to this city as only we can. If not us, then who? Do you really see the people of this city and know people who need those moments of sudden ministry? Do you love them enough to draw them in and share with them what we have?

Recently at coffee after Church I was a part of a conversation about how to grow the Church. There were thoughts about programs and so on. It has become clearer and clearer to me that we as Christians need to live in the Scriptures and the fulfillment there of. We need to see people get their sight back, the deaf their hearing and enable the lame to walk up right. We need to see the dead rise and talk. It is a good thing to come here, into this place and to worship and pray but it is a better thing, having done that to go and tell this city, one person at a time that God is coming to visit and to redeem this people and share the joy that comes with having a relationship with a God who will interrupt a funeral to make the kingdom known.

Jason+