Sermon 06.06.10 - Jesus cared about widows

Pentecost 2 Luke 7:11-17

Jesus cared about widows. There is nothing particularly remarkable about that. His own Jewish tradition , especially the prophetic tradition of which he was a part, was very clear that God commands us to care for the widow and the orphan, and all who are oppressed and disadvantaged.

But Jesus seems to have had a particular care and admiration for widows. Think for example of his use of widows in his teaching. He gives, as an instance of the need for persistence in prayer, the story of the widow who hammers on the door of the unjust judge until she gets satisfaction. He also draws attention to the widow who casts her last mite into the coffers of the Treasury – not so much to commend her for her generosity, as to condemn the unjust system that would demand such a response form a poor widow.

So why this interest in widows?

Certainly in Jesus day to be a widow was to be one of the most vulnerable members of society, especially if you were poor and had no children. The Hebrew scriptures provided that a man could marry his brother’s widow – and that if a brother was not available, then a more distant relative on the husband’s side could do the same thing. This was how Boaz, in the story of Ruth, came to marry her. – and of course Ruth is one of Jesus' forebears.

However it was not an ideal system, and widows in Jesus day carried stigma – both for their husband’s death and, if no family member was found to marry them, for their circumstances. As single women, with or without children, they were regarded as the lowest of the low. This applies to many widows in our world today also – but we’ll come to that.

Jesus seems to have had a special care for widows. And I wonder if there could be some personal reasons for that. We do not know for sure, but there is a strong tradition that Joseph died young. Certainly he does not appear in our Biblical narrative beyond the story of Jesus being left behind in the temple at the age of twelve. By the time Jesus begins his ministry he is nowhere to be seen. Presumably therefore Jesus mother Mary was a widow. As such she would have been heavily reliant on her eldest son Jesus for her day to day needs. Maybe this indeed is why Jesus does not begin his ministry until he is about thirty – until perhaps his younger brother James is in a position to care for her.

We shall never know. But it does seem as though Jesus might have had a particularly strong affinity for the plight of a poor widow, whose only son has died, leaving her destitute, both physically and culturally, as she would have lost her place and standing in the community.

Jesus encounters the widow in today’s story, just as her son is being carried out of the town to be buried. In those times, burials took place outside the towns, for obvious reasons of hygiene, and as soon as possible after death. The young man’s supposedly dead body is being carried on an open bier.

When Jesus sees her, we’re told that he “had compassion for her” Now the Greek word used for ‘having compassion’ is splagisamai – it is a very strong word, and it means to be moved to the very guts and bowels. It is a word that is used only occasionally in the Gospels, but in some very significant places, both in the teaching of Jesus and on other occasions when He is described as being ‘moved to the very guts and bowels’.
It is used for example of Jesus' compassion for the crowds – both when he feeds the four thousand and when he identifies them as being ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ It is also used early in Mark’s gospel, in Jesus' first recorded encounter with a leper. And Jesus uses it himself in the story of the Good Samaritan, who was the one who ‘had compassion’ on the man who fell among thieves; and in the story of the Prodigal son, where the Father has compassion on his errant son and runs to welcome him home. Always it is used of a compassion that issues in significant action. It's not just a matter of feeling.

Jesus ‘had compassion’ for the widow of Nain; he was moved to the very guts and bowels on her account. He could see what fate awaited her, in the loss of this only son. And he took action.

We might like to ask ourselves, what things, what people, what situations move us to such an extent? And what are we doing about them?

Jesus does something very immediate. First of all he tells her “Do not weep.” (He will say the same thing at the healing of Jairus daughter – ‘do not weep; she is not dead but sleeping’). He is telling her that her emotions – completely valid though they may be – are not what is needed. What is needed is an accurate appraisal of the situation.

So he walks up to the bier and touches it.

We have no idea in our culture of the huge significance of that action. As you may recall from the story of the Good Samaritan , for a Jew to touch a corpse or anything that a corpse was touching, was to be made ritually unclean and unable to participate in prayers and offerings until cleansed.

Jesus calmly risks his reputation and his ability to function within his culture, for the sake of a person whom he has barely even met. The widow has not even asked for his help, and there is no suggestion that she knew who he was, or had any faith whatsoever in his ability to alter the situation.

And then he tells the young man to get up. The word used is not the word for resurrection, but for getting up, waking up as from sleep. Whether in fact Jesus perceived that like, Jairus daughter, this young man was not in fact dead at all, but merely comatose – a state not then well understood – is not really material.
What matters are the two things that follow from his action, especially in terms of our discipleship.

The first is that Jesus is acknowledged as a ‘great prophet’ – he has after all repeated the action of the great prophet Elijah in healing the son of a widow. His fame and reputation spread; and we are part of the spreading of that fame and reputation. We are able to say that Jesus was someone whose compassionate action towards those least able to help themselves, brought new life.

And the second is that, as his disciples, we are called to do the same.

Now we are probably not capable of raising the dead.

But we are capable of being moved with compassion – of being ‘moved to the guts and bowels’ on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.

And when we are so moved we are capable of doing something about it.

‘Stepping up to the bier and touching it’ may mean setting aside some lesser things; like reputation or wealth or our own advantage; it may mean being laughed at or misunderstood. But the example of Jesus is quite clear – where there is need, we are not to be afraid.

Many situations in our world today command our compassion and our action to attempt to bring new life, where all seems dead and hopeless. Many of them require a cool headed re-appraisal of the situation. But in solidarity with Jesus himself I want to draw your attention to the plight of one group in particular – the widows of our world.

A recent research document prepared for the United Nations showed that there are 100million widows living in extreme poverty in our world today. Their situation in many places is not improving but rather worsening and the figures rising.

The report tells this story for example
“Twenty-four-year-old Seetha lives in a slum in Chennai, a bustling metropolis and the capital of India’s southern state Tamil Nadu. An AIDS widow, Seetha was driven out of her village on the outskirts of the city last year when her husband, a truck driver, succumbed to the disease. The onus of bringing up her two children - four-year-old Lakshmi and two-year-old Anand - fell on her shoulders.
Being illiterate, she was forced to work as a daily wage labourer at one of the various construction sites in the rapidly growing city. Now, she has lost that as well. Seetha contracted AIDS from her husband and when the labourers working with her found out her HIV status, they pressurised the contractor to remove her from the job. She wants Lakshmi and Anand to go to school so that they don’t have to suffer
a fate similar to hers but being unemployed, weak and unwell, Seetha doesn’t know if she will be able to give them the next meal, let alone a school education.

For (women like Seetha) widowhood means denial of basic human rights, brings lowering of living standards, legal obstacles to inheriting property, problems in caring for and educating children, harassment by relatives, being socially outcast, religious stigma and a host of other problems - making them and their children the most vulnerable and the poorest of the poor.”

In many parts of Africa and Asia in particular HIV –AIDS has left many widowed, and with poor understanding of how the virus is transmitted these women often carry the stigma of their husbands death and are blamed for their own sickness. In these countries as well as in much of India and South America, such widows are forced into prostitution in order to feed their families.

June 23 has been proclaimed International Widows Day but it has not so far gained UN recognition. Widows in the developing world remain some of the least regarded and most defenceless human beings on earth. So today’s Gospel is a real challenge to us, who follow Jesus.

Will we ‘step up to the bier’ and recognise their need?

Will we help that day to gain UN recognition?

Will we, like Jesus, tell them that they need weep no longer, because the possibility of new life is at hand?

Will we allow ourselves to be ‘moved to the guts and bowels with compassion’, in order that we may act to change our world, that new life may come?

Amen