Second Sunday after Pentecost

This was a sermon I preached in class. Enjoy

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

As we complete our Easter and Pentecost season, we enter into a point of the church year where we grow as a community. Easter was a time when we heard the stories that make us who we are (creation, Noah and the Ark, the great Exodus to just name a few) and now we will hear stories that define our Christian faith. We grow as a community not only in numbers but in faith as we learn the life that God wants us to live. Today, we begin this cycle with the raising of a widow’s son.

And I know what some of you may be thinking. How does this story of the raising of a widow’s son help us grow as a community? Well you will just have to listen for a bit. First, we need to look at the Old Testament for some background information. This particular story in Luke parallels two other stories found in 1st and 2nd Kings. They involve the prophets Elijah and Elisha. In the first story, Elijah is summoned to a widow’s house because her son has died. She is bitter at God and Elijah at the death of her son. Elijah cries out to the Lord, "O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?"
Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again" (1Ki 17:20-21 NRS). Notice who does the actions. We will come back to that in a bit.

The second raising was done by the prophet Elisha. If you remember your biblical history, Elisha was the “apprentice” to the prophet Elijah. Elisha met a Shunammite woman back in 1st Kings. She showed hospitality to the prophet. However, her son falls ills and eventually succumbs to his illness. I can only imagine the pain Elisha felt at the loss of the young child. He enters the house and prays over the body to the Lord. The child received life back into his body and Elisha called for his mother said, “Take your son.”

Flash forward some 800 years. Jesus is traveling from village to village proclaiming that Kingdom of God is near. He comes upon the tiny, little village of Nain. I am talking small and insignificant. It is in the area that hold no real religious significance to people. Who would have ever thought something significant would happen in this place? In this village, he is met face to face with a grieving widow who just lost her only son. The crowd following Jesus meets the crowd following the widow. Jesus looks at the boy’s mother and says, “Do not weep.” Now let’s talk about this for a minute. “Do not weep.” The woman just lost her only son, her husband is dead, and now she has nobody to support her. And Jesus says, “Do not weep.” It would be cynical for any of us say “do not weep.” You have lost your son, your sole source of income, your social status is now gone and now this stranger walks in says, “Do not weep.” Ah but there is more to these three simple words. Luke does something here and I am sure everyone read over it without even thinking about it. Luke calls Jesus, “Lord.” Not only that, this is the first time Jesus is call Lord in the Gospel. Now for us, Lord means so many things. Lord could be a dignitary’s term and also used to identify someone who owns land. But it is so much deeper than that. κύριος, Lord, is how God is referred to in the Old Testament. In both of the stories in 1st and 2nd Kings, Elijah and Elisha pray to κύριος. Now Jesus is κύριος.

Jesus touches the structure carrying the body and says, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" "Young man, I say to you, rise!" Notice, Jesus does not pray to the κύριος but rather commands the man to sit up, to rise up, to get up, to live.The dead man sits up and fear seizes the crowd for they saw the glory of God that day. They saw the κύριος, Jesus, raise a man from the dead by his own power.

Imagine the look in everyone’s eyes. Imagine the awe, shock, and amazement they all felt. Imagine the feeling the mother felt when Jesus handed back her son from the grave. The young man is not the only one healed in this story but the widow has also been healed. In fact, I would even make the argument that she is the central character in the story and not her son. Woh Woh Woh preacher. What are you talking about? Jesus raised her son from the grave not her. Right but she also received a death sentence once her son died. She was poor, an outcast, uncleaned and Jesus restores her righteousness. Literally, Luke points the entire story to the widow. As one commentary shows, “the dead man (remember males were dominate) was his mother’s only son.” That statement shows ownership of the man by a woman. Woman were not allow to own anything. Further, “the focus of attention is on her: she was a widow, the crowd was with HER, Jesus saw HER, had compassion on her HER, spoke to HER, and finally, gave the dead man brought back to life to HER. She who is husbandless and sonless and in mourning, she who epitomizes the “poor” to whom Jesus has come to bring good news, is the real recipient of Jesus’s compassionate ministry.”

So now 2000 years later, we are left with this story in a time when we, as a community, is supposed to be strengthen physically, mentally, and spiritually. We are left to continue preaching this story of resurrection to a world where these stories seem strange and, at times, even outdated. But there is so much more we can learn from this story. It was here, through this healing, that Luke now begins to refer to Jesus as κύριος. It is through the raising of the young man (the widow’s son), in a village known to very few people, Jesus restores the boy’s life, his mother’s life and even the town. More importantly, Jesus always goes to the last, lost, least, outcast, and weeping and restores them--restores the weeping mother. A man, of great knowledge and importance, who attracts crowds through his words and his miracles, stoops down to the last, lost, least, outcast, and weeping. That is the mission Jesus is calling us to follow. That is at the center of Jesus ministry. Jesus does not start at the top but works his way through the bottom of society, through people who never expected the power of God (the kingdom of God) to come upon them, to come upon people like you and me. That is who Jesus wants us to minister too. That is mission we are all called to be in. Jesus went to the bottom and so shall we. It is here, at the bottom, that Jesus finds us. It is here that God will bless the works of our hands because we are following the example of the κύριος, of our Lord and savior, Jesus the Christ who now lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit amidst the weeping widows of our world. Amen.