Luke 7 | Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) Manchester MO

Pastor:

Pr. Anne Chida

Luke 7:11-17

The opening of our reading from Luke today is a scene of immense tragedy. Jesus and his disciples and a crowd of people who were perhaps curious about Jesus, are entering into a small town right as a funeral procession is leaving the town limits.

We see a distraught woman, a woman who has lost not only her husband, but also her only son. In the time and place when this text was written, a widow had neither status nor income. An unmarried woman had no status in society, so both her status and income depended on her husband or a grown son. This woman was grieving not only one of life’s most painful experiences- the loss of a child, but was also without any source of livelihood, food, and perhaps even a home. Surely this would have been a time of horrible despair for the widow.

Have you ever felt like life was crashing in on you? Like you were in a very dark place or pain? I know I have had those moments- I think it is part of being human that we each experience “dark nights of the soul.” It sometimes feels in these moments that we are alone.

We wonder where God is? How could God let this happen to us? It’s at these times we often question our faith. It is human nature to sometimes look through eyes that see only the darkness around us.

In the midst of all this woman’s pain and suffering, Jesus, just shows up. She doesn’t appear to be expecting him, indeed we don’t even know what her faith beliefs are; if she is a follower of Jesus, a Gentile, a Pagan Luke doesn’t even mention her faith. In fact, it is not unlikely that the widow has not even heard of Jesus at this point. The Gospel also does not mention that she has done anything that God needs to reward. Luke just tells us that she was on her way to bury her son and that she was weeping.

The next scene is simply that Jesus had compassion for her. Actually the Greek word which is used in Luke-ἐσπλαγχνίσθη “splagnizo” means that your internal organs are literally moved- what we might call “ a kick in our stomach.” Our English interpretation defines compassion as to “suffer with.”

Jesus responds to the woman’s tears, her pain. Jesus responds to the woman’s pain when she has not even sought him out. He has mercy for her; he feels her pain and brings life to her, without her seeking him first. Jesus came to her; Jesus found her, not the other way around.This is truly the definition of Grace. Without any action on her part to merit God’s kindness, Jesus finds her, is moved by her pain and tears, suffers with her, and uses his authority to bring her son to life. God’s mercy touched her purely because Jesus had sympathy for her. God’s mercy made the impossible happen. God’s unsolicited mercy gave life where there was only sorrow and tears. God’s love and kindness found her. Her son’s body was resurrected; her soul was resurrected simply out of God’s love for her.

On the face of things, this reading states a simple core principal of our faith- we are saved by God’s grace. So if we truly believed that everything comes to us from God’s grace and mercy we would not be afraid, but rather we would live in joy knowing that God loves us and has mercy on us. God is always with us.

I wonder though if many of us actually live expecting God’s grace? Do we really believe God is “going to show up” for us when we are in our dark night of the soul? It’s hard sometimes to trust in God’s grace. Sometimes it’s hard to see God’s presence when our lives are the darkest. God finds us even if we don’t feel like we can find God.

When I lived in Texas many years ago I adopted a pregnant cat that showed up on my doorstep. I thought she was just fat, so I was very surprised when one morning I woke up to hear little mewing sounds. The mama cat’s idea of a good place to have her babies was in the bottom drawer of my dresser which had been open enough for her to get into. I didn’t think this was the best place for her to raise her little family so I moved the kittens into a box in the kitchen. The mother cat was exhausted and lay down with her babies. A little while later I was reading in bed when suddenly the mother cat appeared at the dresser drawer and began meowing loudly. I opened the drawer and there lay a tiny, tiny kitten- smaller than all the rest. I could not hear the little left behind kitten mewing, but its mother traveled through three doors, four rooms and past my large St. Bernard to find her baby. She heard the tiny sound when no one else could.

Sometimes we may pray in voices so small that even we have a hard time hearing them. Our prayers may begin as a whisper in our heart. Our prayers may not always be even full fledged prayers. One of my favorite authors- Anne Tyler says that the best prayer is “help.” God, responds to our sighs, our silent cries for help, our tears. God responds with love and compassion even when we do not search God out.

The good news is that we can trust that God will show up, even when it’s the darkest night of our life. When we look through the eyes of our daily life, sometimes we might be unable to see God’s presence. ҉҉ When we look through the promise Jesus has given us that God is always with us and always loves us, we can see Gods hand even in the darkest hour. If we see through the eyes of our faith, if we focus on God’s presence, we can see the goodness of God all around us. You will find the Living God in the bible and wherever you are. We find God in a smile when we are sad; or perhaps in a beautiful sunrise when we can’t find beauty in our own lives. We, like Paul until “the scales fell from his eyes” (Acts9/17) may be walking in the presence of our Lord, but be blinded by our own doubts.

Maybe, like the woman in Luke, we are surrounded by those who support us but forget to see them. The good news is that even when we are in despair, God comes to us, God finds us and loves us. Like Paul, the scales will fall from our eyes and we will be filled with the Holy Spirit.

There is an old story about a man who worked in the Gaslight Square area in the days before automatic lighting. The lamps had to be lit at night and put out in the morning. The lamp lighter had led a life of destruction before he allowed himself to hear God. He was once asked how he could stand to put out all the lights in the square in the early morning hours when it was still dark. His reply was that when he lit the lamps, he was reminded of how God’s light had come into his life and changed it. When he put out the lamps, he knew the light was coming, that dawn was going to “show up.” We can see with new eyes, eyes that trust that God is present, God loves us and that God will find us, God will “show up” no matter where we are. Amen