“The Face of Compassion”

Luke 7:11-17
June 10, 2007

St. Paul United Methodist Church of Little Rock

Rev. John A. Fleming

I think that it is hard to go to the cemetery with someone you have loved but who has died. You arrive at the cemetery and get out of your car. Then you walk up to the tent provided by the funeral home. There is a casket in front of you. Your pastor comes and stands near you, pulls out his Bible reads from it, prays some prayers, offers words of hope, and then comes by and shakes your hands. The service is over and the life without someone you love begins. Near you are the folks who you love and who love you enough to know that there is no other place they would be but beside you on a day like today. Visiting the cemetery is a little easier than the burial. Both are tough.

Like I said, I think that going to the cemetery is tough. Can you imagine going to the cemetery a second time, in a short period of time? Some of you can. Some of you have done that. My family has.

It has been years ago and happened before my parents were married and before I was a glimmer in their eyes. I am sure that the Fleming side of the family will always remember the winter of 1953 and 1954. That is the year that my Uncle Wendell, my dad’s oldest brother, became ill. He thought what he had was a sinus infection and it may have been that, but it was much more than that, too. As it turns out, he had an autoimmune disease that attached his circulatory system. Things went from bad to worse. Wendell went to the hospital and in December of 1953, he died. Wendell was just thirty-three years old. He left behind both of his parents, his two brothers, his wife and his two children.

I can only imagine what the funeral procession was like. In my mind’s eye I can see the family gathered around a grave they were sure they would not gather around for many years. Somehow I can see the people who stood with them and beside them that afternoon. These people must have been at the church. They went to the cemetery and they came back to the house. And they checked on my family for several days, I am sure.

I am sure that it was not everyday, but I am told that my grandfather, Bill Fleming, would go to the cemetery and stand over his son’s grave. I am sure he shed many tears. Some say my grandfather died of a broken heart. Others say, “No, it was a stroke.” But die he did, just two months later, in February of 1954. I am sure that the people gathered again at the church, at the cemetery, and back at his house. I’ve often wondered what those days were like for my grandmother. I should have asked her what was going on in her mind. Death came once and then again, quickly. Can you imagine that?

Luke tells the story in our scripture lesson this morning of a woman who can imagine it. In fact, she is living it. This story reads like bad news on top of bad news on top of bad news. To understand it, you should be from Nain, a small town, just south of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. If you were from there, then you know all about the woman whose son had died.

Luke tells us that he was a young man. Just how old, we’re not sure. Whenever there is someone who dies at a young age, we always consider it a tragedy. We think that there is much that lies ahead. We know the potential that is there. There is still a lot of life to be lived. There are children to raise. All those kinds of things. As you know, my family has lived this story.

So there is bad news. A young man in the city of Nain has died. Luke tells us more. The gospel writer says that he was the only son of this woman. It was the job of her son to take care of his mother in her old age. So in his death, her pension is taken away, her retirement account is taken away, her security is taken away.

There is still more bad news on top of that. There is another layer to it. Her husband has also died. Luke tells us that she was a widow. She had been down this road before and now she was walking it again.

In the days of Jesus bodies were buried quickly, either the day of their death or the next day. There was no embalming back then and dead bodies were considered ritually unclean. And so the cemeteries, caves really, were always just outside the city. Archeologists believe that they have found the ancient city of Nain and this cemetery, some ten minutes just outside the city gate.

The boy’s body would have been carried by bearers, just like today, except that they would not be carrying him in a casket. Back then he would have been on a wicker basket with a shroud on him. The whole town would have been with this widow. Professional mourners would have been hired. By the way, when I die, I want Susie to hire professional mourners. I want weeping to be done professionally! Seriously, in Jesus’ day professional mourners were hired to cry and to play instruments so that loved ones could cry out loud without any attention being brought to them.

Everyone from Nain was there, in this procession. Death in a small community touches everyone. Some came out of a sense of duty and to honor this family. I am a firm believer in that we ought to attend funerals. Some people came because they attend all funerals. Others came because they knew this young man. Still others came because they knew his mother and dad.

When Emily died I was told that someone’s life will touch close to two hundred people so that when they die, two hundred people could easily come to their funeral. That makes sense. Two hundred came for Emily. Two hundred came for me. Two hundred came for my brother. And two hundred came for my parents. That’s eight hundred people.

So there they are, on their way from the city gate to the cemetery near Nain, the funeral procession. Now I get the idea that Jesus and the ones following him around stumbled upon this funeral procession. They were on their way into Nain when the procession was coming out. They must have stopped when they noticed it. Jesus must have looked at the boy on the bier and noticed his mother following closely behind. Jesus must have noticed that there was no husband there. I don’t know if Jesus put two and two together and knew the great tragedy of this woman or if God revealed the tragedy to him. What I do know is that when Jesus saw the woman, he had compassion for her.

By the way, the word compassion is Greek here and it literally means to be moved to the depth of one’s heart. I will tell you this, it is used only a handful of times in the gospels.

I can remember a Bible study that I was teaching a few years back, when I was still the Associate Pastor at First Church. The study was Disciple IV and the subject of the study was the gospel of John and the book of Revelation. The people who signed up for the study were the ones who always signed up for the studies I taught. Except for one. There was a man in the study who, quite frankly, surprised me by enrolling. He came to church faithfully, but he did not seem like the kind of guy who would take a long term Bible study. To be honest with you, I was a little intimidated by him. He knew his Bible. He knew his Bible better than I knew my Bible. When he talked, which wasn’t often, he always said something powerful.

Disciple Bible study has a teaching plan and I was following it. It was the week when John 11 was in the lesson. In that chapter was the story of Jesus coming to Bethany when he heard that his good friend, Lazarus was sick. Jesus purposely takes his time and arrives in Bethany after Lazarus has died and has been in a tomb for three days. Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha are upset about their brothers’ death. They say to Jesus, “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.” John paints a picture. It is the same picture that Luke paints with our story this morning. The picture is of a compassionate God.

The man from our study asked, “Is there a more powerful line in all of scripture than the one here. We kid about it. We say it is the shortest verse in all of the Bible. We talk about memorizing it. But is there a more powerful line than the one, ‘Jesus wept?’”

He was right. It paints a picture of a God who loves us so deeply and so powerfully. It says, among other things, that this Jesus of ours feels our pain, knows our grief, and is right there with us. How did the people in our lesson put it, “A great prophet has risen among us!” And the other line, “God has looked favorably on his people!”

Now more than anything else, I want you to go home this morning not with a great miracle story on your mind. It is a great story. Someone lives again and a widow’s life is forever changed. Don’t go home with just that. Also go home with a picture of a God who is compassionate and wants us to be compassionate to others.

How can we be compassionate? Where do we learn it, besides Jesus? Well, we might also learn it from our children.

Just this week I received an email from one of our members. It is one of those messages that promises a high price to pay if you don’t pass it along to at least ten of your friends. I thought I would pass it along to more than ten. It has a great message.

It is the story of Shay, a young boy who was physically and mentally handicapped. One day he and his father passed a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay wanted to play and so his dad asked one of the boys if he could. The boy said, “Sure. We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I’ll try to get him to play in the outfield and then bat in the ninth.”

Shay struggled to the bench and put on a team shirt. His father watched and a tear trickled down his cheek. The boys noticed the father’s joy. As it turns out, the game got interesting. In the ninth, there were two outs and the bases were loaded and the potential winning run was on base. It was Shay’s turn to bat. Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat, much less hit the ball. The picture moved up and Shay swung mightily and missed. The pitcher came in a few more steps and tossed the ball softly towards Shay. He swung and hit a soft ground ball to the pitcher. The game was about to be over. The pitcher picked up the ball and threw it past the first baseman and out of everyone’s reach. The team started yelling, “Shay, run to first. Run to first!” Shay struggled to get there. By the time he rounded second base, the right fielder had the ball. The right fielder was the smallest guy on the opposing team. He had a chance to be a hero. He could have thrown the ball to the third baseman who would have tagged Shay out. Instead he threw it way over the third baseman’s head. Shay kept running. The crowd kept cheering, “All the way, Shay, all the way!”

Shay rounded third and headed towards home, running as fast as his legs would carry him. He stepped on the plate and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam to win the game for his team. That day, the father said with tears softly rolling down his cheeks, was a great day.

Shay died that winter never forgetting what it was like to be a hero. And those who were at the ballpark that day understood a little better about winning and losing and what compassion really looks like. Go home with this today, friends. Let compassion be all over your faces. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to Jeanne Colglazier for sharing the story about Shay).