Edges - Luke 7:11-17

Sermon on June 6, 2010

Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, Rise!”

Luke 7:11-17 is a good example of what I sometimes like to call “routine Jesus.” He and the disciples are traveling through the countryside, and as they often seem to do, they stumble upon a scene of sad desperation. Here it’s a funeral procession. A man has died, and now his mother, who is a widow, along with a crowd from the town, is carrying his body out through the town’s gate.

We know what’s going to happen already, don’t we? We’ve read or heard enough gospel material to know almost exactly what Jesus is going to do in this situation—so much so that reading through Luke chapter 7 is a bit like driving past a dairy farm in central Wisconsin. We know what we’re going to see before we get there: cornfield, house, barn, silo, cows, cornfield.

Getting into today’s passage, we read the sentence, “As [Jesus] approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out,” and we know what we’re going to see before we get there: compassion, touch, miracle, and a bunch of people glorifying God. And that’s what happens, pretty much. Jesus has compassion for the widow—the young man’s mother. He touches the frame on which the man’s body is being carried and says, “Young man, I say to you, ‘Rise!’” and it’s a miracle—the dead man sits up and begins to speak. The crowd goes wild.

No big surprises here on the surface. If you or I had been there in that crowd that day, we’d have a real story to tell, but because this one is so short and because it’s tucked into Luke’s gospel with dozens more, we tend to drive by quickly without looking.

This morning, however, I would like to suggest that a few details in this story make it stand out. But let me say this first. Luke 7:11-17 is not a story about Jesus raising somebody from the dead. No, Luke 7:11-17 is a story about Jesus meeting somebody on the edge of her life and saving her there.

Here’s what I mean by that. In verse twelve, we’re given two details about the situation. We learn that the man who died was his mother’s only son and we learn that she herself is a widow. Now this isn’t added background information to give the characters depth or make the narrative more interesting. The fact that we have a widow who’s lost her only son is actually the true crux of the story.

To explain that, here’s a quick, nutshell lesson in ancient economics. If you are a woman in the ancient Middle East, you’d better pray you have a father or a husband or a son to take care of you financially. A woman in Jesus’ day could not own property or earn income by herself. She couldn’t take out a loan or start up a small business. Without a man to rely on for financial security, a woman in the ancient Middle East had two awful choices: she could beg for a living or she could turn to prostitution. So, friends, when we’re moving along in Luke’s gospel and we read the line, “He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow,” what we have is a woman on the very edge of her life, perched on the brink of desperation with no way back.

Sometimes your life gets pushed to the edge. You don’t go there willingly, it seems. But you get pushed there sometimes. Financial ruin, a death in the family, your marriage is in trouble, your drinking becomes a problem, your job isn’t yours anymore… And it’s weird: most of the time, normal life just feels normal. We’ve all got our problems to work through; we’ve all issues to straighten out. But then the bottom falls out, and you’re standing there on the edge of it all.

We could tell any number of stories here, couldn’t we? Stories from our own lives, from our own families, stories that have grown out of this family of faith… The cancer diagnosis, the car accident, the loss of good mental health... And there are no answers on the edge—no simple solutions. There’s not a formula for what-to-do-next on the edge.

Sometimes, like the woman in Luke’s gospel, you’re on the edge with a crowd. And sometimes you’re there alone, wondering, maybe, if anyone will show up. Normal life doesn’t prepare us, does it? Relatively safe routines don’t equip us to handle a trip to the edge of life.

The first thing I noticed about Frank and Carole was how tender they were with each other. I met them in a hospital room in Chicago. Carole was there with stage four lung cancer and Frank was there with Carole. The doctors had done what they could. Too late for surgery, they’d said, so it was chemo and radiation and chemo and radiation. Gradually their plan was turning away from aggressive treatment to pain management. Frank was there with her, each day, talking, reading to her, wiping her forehead, sitting with her in silence…

One day I stopped by Carole’s room and Frank wasn’t there. We chatted for a bit, and I asked, “Where’s Frank today?” “Oh, he just went downstairs to get something to eat,” she said. And then she stopped and she cried. Through the tears she said, “Oh, Frank can’t see me like this. It would kill him to see me like this.” Later on she said something that stuck with me. She said, “I know that I am coming to the end, but I have to be strong for Frank.”

That afternoon I caught up with Frank in the lounge. And we talked for a while. And it was clear to me that here was a man feeling completely defeated. At one point in our conversation, oddly, but maybe not surprisingly he said through his own tears, “One thing I know—I can’t let her see me down. I’ve got to stay “up”—got to stay strong for Carole.” A part of me wanted to say kindly but bluntly, “You two spend a lot of time together. You should really try talking with each other about this.”

On the edge, trying to look like we’re not on the edge. Trying to be “strong.” Because normal, safe life doesn’t prepare us for the edges. So even though we’re getting close, we we strive to maintain a picture of business as usual.

Someone asks us how we’re doing and we say something like “Doing ok. How ‘bout you?” A big part of our problem is our stubborn reluctance to admit that the edge is near. Of course, in this culture of ours, when we ask someone how they’re doing, we’re usually not prepared for “I’m falling apart,” “I’m losing my mind,” or “I feel like I’m going over the edge!” But maybe we should be open to that possibility when we start a casual conversation.

Jesus says to the man—to the body of the man—“Rise!” But that’s just part of it, because in that act of healing, he says to the woman, “It’s ok. You can step back from the edge now.” That’s the miracle in this story. Jesus saves the woman from a life of begging or even worse. He rescues her at the edge of her life.

Maybe there’s an edge in your life that you’re afraid to get close to. A relationship that seems lost, a job that’s going nowhere, a mountain of debt, a looming cloud of sadness… Maybe there’s an edge you’re staying away from—maybe for good reason. But know this: Jesus is waiting for you along the edges of your life, waiting for you there, ready to offer hope.

And we could leave it at that, and that would be enough—a call to trust Jesus on the frayed edges of our lives. We’d be silly, though, not to mention that our ministry to each other and to our world should never be confined to a safe, manageable distance from the edge. No, as we are called to the loving ministry of Jesus Christ, we too are called to the edges. Where sadness turns into despair. Where a problem turns into an addiction. Where poverty turns into homelessness.

Is there an edge in this world that God is nudging there towards? For the person sitting next to you? For someone else in this room? For someone you haven’t met yet? Every day, everywhere, people are approaching the edges in their lives. Where is God calling you?