Sermon preached on Luke 7:11-17
Second Sunday after Pentecost
If you pay enough attention in God’s church, you can observe a whole range of stories, customs, and traditions about funerals and burying the dead. They range from the really poignant to the really confusing. They can make you want to call your mom or dad and tell them you love ‘em or they can make you scratch your head in disbelief- sometimes in the same breath.
When he was a young priest in the diocese of West Texas, Bishop Ed Browning (from the diocese of Hawaii) has gone down in history as the curate who got too close to the side of a grave while officiating his first burial service. Not only did he remember that sandy soil doesn’t hold up well in a really deep hole, but he also learned that it is awfully hard to figure out how to get a priest from the bottom of a freshly dug grave with a casket suspended over. Which, by the way, is a particularly wonderful story when you take into account that the young curate who had this experience went on to become the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.
Deep in the rural south, I officiated the service for a man who had died suddenly and tragically a few weeks after his wedding. Aside from the massive grief of losing this beloved son, brother, and husband, the family didn’t quite understand why he choose the Episcopal Church as his faith community rather than the Pentecostal tradition he grew up in- they couldn't relate to the weirdness of an Episcopal Prayer Book funeral and the "stuffy" nature of this particular tradition (stuffy was their word, not mine... although I definitely see where they're coming from sometimes). As I worked with them explaining some of the funeral customs and church traditions that their beloved embraced, we could all see that something was missing in our plans that we just couldn’t put our finger on.
When we pulled into the cemetery and approached the gravesite on the hill, I saw what it was that the family had been missing, or more accurately, who. Awkwardly ambling behind the pallbearers was an incredibly tall woman wearing a bright pink hoop skirt and carrying an auto-harp. As we made our way to the standard-issue green tent with the funeral home’s name on it, I couldn’t help but cringe at the thought of an encounter with this person who looked more like she belonged on the stage at the Opry than in the middle of a traditional Rite I, Prayer Book-Style burial service.
However, in traditional God-like fashion, the experience from this woman was an experience of grace that none of us will soon forget. Standing next to me at that burial service was an Appalachian Pentecostal deaconess who had, for the better part of seven decades, devoted her life to singing for the people of her community in times of joy and pain. At baptisms and burials, this sister in Christ had served our God by offering the finest gift she had, in the finest style she knew.
When she launched into a unforgettable mixture of Amazing Grace, The Lord’s Prayer, and some mountain-style version of Psalm 23 that I had never dreamed existed- there were no doubts concerning the resurrection that has been promised to all of us in Christ Jesus.
Not only were we comforted in our grief, we walked away knowing that God had moved an entire hillside closer to Christ’s presence. The joy and passion of that moment in time crushed the sadness of that man’s burial. Don’t get me wrong, we were still sad, but all of us knew that tragic death and wicked heartbreak do not get the last word in the grasp of God’s loving authority.
This story from the seventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel gives us a similar taste of that gracious movement that surprises, comforts, and challenges the people of God in life and death. Jesus and his pals are returning from Capernaum where they have just experienced the miraculous healing of a Roman centurion’s slave. Jesus and his friends are traveling from Capernaum to Nain, riding the good vibes of the miraculous healing that they have just witnessed.
If you’re a disciple, then you know that you’re walking beside The Man right now, and something big is going on… You may not fully understand it, but you know that something is happening through this man Jesus. There is a sense that history is unfolding before your eyes and somehow, through the grace of God, you are right there in the midst of it… walking with the Healing Hero of Galilee, the mighty prophet who heals the sick and doesn’t even have to be in the same room with them! If you’re a disciple right now, then you have no problem shouting that His is “the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever! Amen!”
It is right there in that moment, the “glory-be-forever” moment, that the procession of disciples meets the procession of mourners that is leaving the city gates with the only son of a widow carried on their shoulders. We don’t know what brought them to this point other than the tragic and heartbreaking death of a son, but we do know that in the intersection of Joy and Grief, the love of God does powerful things.
There, in the intersection of two seemingly different processions, God’s presence is made real for all of us. When excited disciples meet woeful mourners, the future and the reality of God’s kingdom come into focus for the widow, for the disciples, and for us. It is a reminder that “even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil” because God walks with us, no matter which procession our journey follows.
When Jesus reaches out and places his hand on the dead man’s coffin the two processions grind together in a mass of human experience. “Rise Up,” he says. “Rise up!” from death and enter into the new life of faith that comes even in the midst of a horrid march to the cemetery. “Rise up!” and go into the world proclaiming a new kingdom where death no longer gets to define a funeral procession. “Rise up!” and take hold of your beloved and share in the good news of life everlasting.
Just like the prophets of old, just like Appalachian deacons on the side of a hill, Jesus comes to us with a reminder and a promise that widows, slaves of roman military officers, and all of us, really... are subject to the miraculous new life that happens in Christ Jesus. The gift of life happens when we experience in our own call to “rise up!” from the old life of sin and death and embrace the procession that God has given us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Rise up dear ones, and remember that God walks with us in all our processions, in valleys of shadow and green pastures, God is there. And the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours… now and forever. Amen.
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