Arise!, The Reverend David R. Williams, Pentecost II--Year C--June 10, 2007

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.
 
The mourners gather.  Jesus comes forward.  He touches the coffin, an act forbidden by Jewish law.  The people gasp in fear.
 
In a clear confident voice, Jesus says to the corpse, “Young man, I say to you , rise!” Silence for a moment.  The dead man sits up and begins to speak. 
 
Jesus gives the living, breathing young man to the man’s mother.
 
This uncommon act of drama becomes common and routine in the journey of Jesus.  Widows, especially women with children, seem to be a significant part of Jesus’ healing stories.
 
The widow in Jesus’ day is known by Jewish tradition as anawin – the poor one.    For the most part, the husbands are lost or die in the many tribal wars of the age.  A husband and wife couple is part a system of providing strength, sustenance, security for a family.  The two, husband and wife work together, but when the husband does not return from the ravages of war, the widow, the one remaining, becomes ever more vulnerable, unable to provide for herself and especially for any children in the family. 
 
The widow of Nain is a true example of anawin – a poor one.  The widow of Zarephath in Elijah’s day is the same – anawin – a poor one.  She also has a child.  Both stories are about death and the deep emotions around loss, especially the death of one’s child.  But more than death, the stories are about life.   In the same picture of death, out of nowhere, the breath of life comes into focus. 
 
“Young man, I say to you, rise!”
 
The son of the woman becomes ill, his illness so severe that there is no breath left in him.  The woman goes to Elijah.  “What have you against me, O man of God?  You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son.”
 
The woman from Zarephath speaks for all of us.  She loses her child.  Her grief and her cry come from the depths of the human heart.  It is a cry to be uttered throughout humanity, until the end of the world.
 
The woman strikes out with her cry of grief to the person closest to her at that time – this visiting man of God whose name happens to be Elijah.
 
The woman has already taken a risk for Elijah as he asks her to prepare bread and food.  The woman knows she has barely enough for her son and for herself.  Because Elijah is a person of God, she takes a risk.  The miracle happens as she prepares and gives her food to visiting Elijah.  The jar of meal and jug of oil is left full, fuller than before Elijah journeyed to her little home.  
 
But now, the story turns.  Her son becomes ill and dies.  Her sadness is expressed through irrational anger.  Pain, bereavement, loneliness and fear are looking for an outlet.  “What have you against me, O man of God?”
 
Elijah’s compassion for the woman is revealed as he shares in her grief, and he also cries to God. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”
 
A well-known and well-liked English clergyman discovers that he has cancer.  His notoriety is based on his preaching about power in prayer and the possibilities for healing through prayer. 
 
A former Archbishop of Canterbury tells the story of this clergyman.  “He was only in his early forties when he found out about the cancer.  Literally tens of thousands of people around the globe prayed for him to be healed.  But the cancer progressed and it soon became evident he would die.  Just before his death, the clergyman says to his archbishop: ‘God does answer all prayer. I know now God had a different kind of healing in mind for me than what I prayed for.’”
 
Here is a story of death and a story of healing, but a healing not as we might wish. 
 
Many of us have been through life-discoveries similar to this clergyperson.  Each outcome is different.  Some difficulties are more life-threatening and traumatic than others.  Facing a knee replacement may be different than facing a bone marrow transplant.  Having to quit smoking may be a different level of concern than a parent’s terminal illness. The loss of a child surely is beyond expression.  
 
But we all have known dark times of anxiety and pain, wondering how we may ever again know differently.  Perhaps we have with intention sought a Godly healing and release from unrelenting darkness.
 
It is said that a widow’s son is important not only because of the obvious bond between parent and child, but also because, in the days of Jesus and Elijah, the son represented the future for the widow.  The widow’s son could provide sustenance and care for his aging mother.  Practically speaking, her future depended on her child.  For both widows in this morning’s stories, any hope of tomorrow is severed by the deaths of their children.  
 
“I will have to be on oxygen everywhere I go for the rest of my life,” a friend says.   A future is changed. 
 
“I will have hip surgery and I will be restricted in how I walk and move for the rest of my life.”  A future is changed. 
 
“My memory will begin to fail. I will begin to disappear, even to myself.” A future is altered.
 
We can be very angry in the midst of crisis. Surely, this cannot be real, this is not who I am. I have much to do, so many dreams to know.
 
A seminary professor of mine returned to his faculty home late one afternoon to hear the gunshot go off in an upstairs bedroom as his son took his life.
 
“I have been to the bottom of the pit,” the professor says from the pulpit not long after his child is buried, “But I have found the ground firm.”
 
Another professor says before Chapel on the morning after his wife has died, “I am not able to say the words of Morning Prayer this morning, my friends. You will have to say them for me.”
 
“O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son.”  The words are similar to those prayers in a garden before a trial, and then an execution.  “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” 
 
In grief, we turn to the Creator, the Lord of Life. Our raw emotions lie exposed, absolutely vulnerable and open.
 
We recall some of the last words spoken by Jesus. Even on the cross, Jesus expresses compassion and caring for the widow standing below, the widow about to lose her son, her hope for the future.  “Woman,” Jesus says, “Here is your son.” Then, to the beloved disciple, Jesus says, “Here is your mother.” 
 
We all gather with our own very personal needs for healing. We bring forth bread from grinding the wheat and we bring forth wine made from crushing the grapes.  After the bread and wine are blessed, we come forward in our brokenness and yet with hope in the healing power of the Risen Christ.
 
We hear the words of our Lord. “Child of God, I say to you, rise.”
 
Amen.