3 Pentecost Yr C Proper 5 June 5 2016

3 Pentecost Yr C Proper 5 June 5 2016 Audio

We continue in the gospel of Luke following the story we heard about the Roman Centurion. Again we see Jesus showing up, and showing forth compassion. The stories from Luke and the piece we hear today from 1 Kings are about prophets and widows. But in the end they do what all the sacred stories do, they point us toward God. They show us and tell us who God is and what our relationship to God is.

As we listen to these stories, it's important  to understand the social structure of 1st century Mediterranean culture, and when we do, we see Jesus as the compassionate benefactor of the poor. The structure of 1st century Mediterranean culture is like a pyramid, with the householder or benefactor at the top, and then all his household and all his servants and slaves below him, the widows and children are on the very bottom. Each person in this structure derives any honor or wealth by their attachment to the householder. A woman is attached to a man in the household. Without that man, she has no status, no honor, no protection, and no means of support; she is effectively dead, unless she has a son. The Luke story assumes that the reader is well aware of the prophet Elijah, and the widow’s son who Elijah resuscitated, and it reidentifies that story with Jesus. But it goes one step further. The widow who is husbandless and sonless and in mourning, she who epitomizes the “poor” to whom Jesus has come to bring good news, is the real recipient of Jesus’ compassionate ministry. In fact, it is not too much to say that “healing” in this instance, although it entails the miraculous raising of this young man from the dead, should be interpreted as the restoration of this woman within her community.

What that means is that the restoration of the widow, her “poor” status, her unconnected status, her outcast status, is as important if not more important than the miraculous healing. Luke’s gospel is all about Jesus who brings this good news of new life to the poor. It’s all about restoration to the community and restoration of the community. It is about being made whole. It is about God’s unfailing love for God’s people. I want you to get a sense of this. This story is mind blowing, it is amazing and astounding, this woman was as good as dead, and restoring her son, restores her to life. I hope you're catching this story. If we were Jews of Jesus' time and hearing this we would be gasping, we would be clambering to know who this man is, and if we were a Roman we would be reporting him to the authorities.

So what does this good news mean in our world today? How does God’s unfailing love for God’s people make a difference in our lives? And as importantly, for the lives of all the people outside our doors who are desperately searching for something that makes sense in their lives. In this broken and fragmented world, how does the wholeness that God gives make a difference for us?

Our world is full of disconnections; the message from every corner is that you are not good enough the way you are. It is not unlike the 1st century Mediterranean world of Luke’s gospel, perfection is just attained differently today. You don’t look good enough, you don’t smell good enough, you don’t perform well enough. All of this serves to reinforce a deeper and much more insidious message that your worth is based upon some sort of external measure.

But there is no external message of worth that is true. The gospel story today says that we are truly loved in all our brokenness and that love restores us. Now some may say this is a message of mediocrity. If I am loved just the way I am, why should I bother with the way I treat people, why should I bother loving anyone, why should I bother if ultimately God will not be disconnected from me. God will never break the relationship; I however can turn my back on God. But the question of worth and ultimately salvation, arises out of that external message again. I do what I do because of the reward I will get. If I am good, I will attain heaven, for some it’s as simple as that. But the gospel is not about what I do, it’s about who God is. God is the lover whose love makes us whole, whose love fills us and feeds us. God’s love is about living fully today. God’s love is about relationship, about being connected to one another, and that relationship with God, that connection to God, is what makes us whole. God came into this world to show us that. God came into this world to restore us to wholeness, to free those who are enslaved, to give honor and status to those, in this world, have none.

How we live is in response to that abundant and unfailing love. I go out and love my neighbor, not because I get a gold star, and not even because it makes me feel good, I love my neighbor because I have been loved, because I have been restored to wholeness, because in loving my neighbor I enact healing and reconciliation. I love my neighbor because my life has been transformed, because I am created in God’s image.

The woman in Luke’s story today was restored to wholeness, she was restored to the community, she was cared for and loved, and so our response to God’s love and wholeness also has an ethical imperative. We love one another as we have first been loved, and we show forth that love to others in ways that also brings the good news to the poor.

Who are those in our lives whose lives need wholeness, whose lives need healing and reconciliation? Are they our family members? Are they the people who sit next to us in our pews? Are they the people at our workplace or school? Are they the clerks at the grocery store? Are they the people who work on our streets and roads? Are they the folks that come asking for money and food?

They are all these people.
What if every encounter throughout our day shows forth God’s love and wholeness? What if even just some of our encounters show forth God’s love and wholeness? What if we lived in the reality of our imperfection, and instead of trying to attain some sort of external perfection we embraced the person God created us to be and humbly lived the wholeness God has for us?

We would live in the reality of God’s kingdom here and now. We would live proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, that the poor are given power, that those who seem to have nothing are extended grace. We would live forgiven and freed, without resentment or revenge. We would live without the need for violence, without the need for using others for our own personal gain. We would live as God lives in our midst, rejoicing in the life of the beloved, laughing with us at our folly, crying with us in our suffering, making us whole, complete. We would live no longer in broken fragments but as a beautiful and complete tapestry.

Thanks be to God. Amen, Alleluia!