resounding compassion

Some observations on Luke 7:11-17, the story of the widow's son raised at Nain, a text I preached on some weeks ago when it came up in the lectionary:

The story is about compassion, God's suffering with us in Jesus.  Jesus' compassion for the widow is central to the text.  Luke reports that, "When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her" (v. 13).  Luke underscores God's compassion for the widow in the detail that the "man who had died" and who "was being carried out" was "his mother's only son" (v. 12).  The phrase "only son" immediately evokes other New Testament texts, most notably John 3:16, in which Jesus himself is the only begotten of God whom God gave, even unto death, out of his love for the world.  Consequently, the tears of the widow for her only son are as the tears of the Father for his only Son, the very experience of loss in which human pain touches divine pain.  The Spirit of the Father in the person of the Son recognized the widow's pain for her only son as God's own, and was moved to action.

Further emphasis is laid on the close association between the divine and human experience of suffering in the crowd's acclamation of Jesus in response to the raising of the widow's son.  As Jesus had raised the son from his bier, so the crowd testifies, "a great prophet has risen among us!" (v. 16).  Just as the widow's son was dead and raised to life, so Jesus will die and be raised.  The crowd's acclamation that that prophet has even now arisen, powerful even over death, is an anticipation of God's ultimate victory over death in the resurrection of the prophet Jesus from his own grave.  Luke thereby invites the reader to see in the experience of the widow's son from death to life the eventual resurrection of God's Son from death.  All in all, the suffering of God in the suffering of humanity is an illustration of compassion, God's suffering with his people.

If compassion is God's suffering with us, then the antithesis of compassion is the posture of separation from the suffering of another.  The widow's predicament in this story, as in so many other biblical examples, is a suffering of separation from the men from whom she has been cut off.  In this story that separation is a result of the death of her son, though within its broader Lukan and canonical context, the separation of women from men is due to the unfaithfulness of men.  One example occurs subsequent to this story in the same chapter, the story of the woman who anoints Jesus' feet while he is sitting in the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50).  The issue in that story, as it is in the story of the widow of Nain, is the evidence of Jesus' prophetic identity.  Thus, whereas the crowd of Nain acclaimed Jesus a prophet for his mighty deed of compassion on the widow, Simon the Pharisee can only doubt the prophetic status of Jesus due to Jesus' refusal to reject the woman's act of love toward him.  Simon's concern is that the woman is a "sinner", and that Jesus' acceptance of her gift shows that he is unaware of her status, thus negating his status as prophet. Of course, the point of the story is that Simon, not Jesus, is the man unable to perceive the things of God; whereas Simon seeks to protect worldly status and privilege, Jesus values mercy and the repentance of sinners unto salvation.  In light of our first point, where Jesus values compassion, Simon would uphold separation.  Simon, consequently, is the embodiment of anti-compassion in the narrative, the contrast to Jesus' overwhelming compassion both in this story and in the story of the widow at Nain.

In valuing separation over compassion, Simon commits the sin of other men in the biblical narrative who abandoned women to their shame as sinners in the eyes of society.  An Old Testament example, the story of Tamar and the sons of Judah (Gen 38:1-26), brings together the themes of shame and death in the meaning of widowhood.  In that story, Tamar is not only a widow due to the death of her husbands (in turn the brothers Er and Onan), but a "sinner" in the eyes of Judah her father-in-law who blames her for the death of his sons.  As Judah should have provided for Tamar in her loss, he relinquishes responsibility by sending her back to her father's house.  Judah, by cultural convention responsible for Tamar his daughter, banishes her to the shame of separation from his household.  Judah too, therefore, is an embodiment of an all-too-common masculine aloofness, the anti-compassion to the compassion of the man Jesus.

The examples of Simon the Pharisee and Judah, therefore, paint the broader biblical context, both Lukan and canonical, in which the desperation of widows may be clearly seen.  Widows, as well as other women whom men have left behind, bore not simply the sting of death but the suspicion of society for the deaths of their husbands.  The predicament of "widowhood", therefore, is not simply a matter of losing a husband to death, but the abandonment of women by men to bear the shame of society.

A folk song from the American context captures well the widespread phenomenon of the separation of women from men in the South African context.

From a teenage lover to an unwed mother,
kept undercover like some bad dream
But unwed fathers, they can't be bothered,
they run like water through a mountain stream.  

Central to the salvation that Jesus brings is the restoration of men to women.  In the story, the compassion of Jesus for the widow led to the raising of her son from death.  What Jesus said to the corpse, he says to all men who have left women behind: "Young man, I say to you, rise!" (7:14).  And just as Jesus "gave [the young man] to his mother", so all men quickened by the voice of Jesus shall return to their wives and mothers as loving husbands and sons.

The compassion of Jesus in the lives of his people will resound across the earth.  The text moves from the predicament of death in "a town called Nain" to the proclamation of God's grace through Jesus "throughout Judea and all the surrounding country" (7:11, 17).  The good that is done in Nain is made known elsewhere. The compassion of Jesus spreads to all from wherever it is put into practice.

Then let the compassion that was in Jesus abound through his church.

-Joe

God’s justice, humans’ faith

For Wednesday’s discipleship class we studied Luke 18:1-8, often called the parable of “the persistent widow.”

The message of the text advances through four statements which may be divided into two sets of two. The first set is the repetition of the description of the “unjust judge”, the judge “in a certain city who neither feared God nor had respect for humans.” In its first appearance, the description is in the voice of Jesus the Narrator; in its second, it is the voice of the judge through Jesus the Actor (as Jesus plays the part of the judge). In both, the description is of a judge “who neither fears God nor has respect for humans” (vv. 2, 4). This is the characterization of the judge that we are not supposed to miss: no respect for God or humans; in short, he is, as Jesus calls him, “unjust” (v.6).

If the first set of repetitions is about the unjust judge, the second set of two is about the just judge, God. The first statement of the second set comes as Jesus’ question to his disciples: “Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?” (v. 7). The second statement, which repeats the critical information of the first, is Jesus’ emphatic answer to his own question: “I tell you, [God] will quickly grant justice to them” (v. 8). This, then, is the critical characterization of God: God grants justice—and “quickly” (v. 8).

Between the four statements of two sets lies the action on which the text turns—the action of “a widow” (vv. 3, 5). Because she kept “bothering” the unjust judge “for justice against [her] opponent”, the judge granted her justice. The unjust judge himself described the situation:

“ ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for humans, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming’” (v. 5).

The text continues, “And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them” (vv. 6-8).

There is an implicit comparison here in Jesus’ words between the widow and God’s “chosen ones who cry to him day and night” (v. 7). Though the widow was no one’s chosen, most certainly not that of the unjust judge to whom she continually cried, she received justice from the judge. How much more, then, will those whom the Judge loves receive justice? In fact, if God the Just is so predisposed towards his “chosen ones”, the absence of justice in human relationships must be a thing dependent upon the disposition of human beings—especially, as the parable seems to indicate, those humans who have been the victims of injustice. Though the widow, for example, may not have been responsible for the initial act of injustice that befell her, her incapacity to plead for justice is the cause of injustice’s continued reign. On the other hand, as the text teaches, her capacity to plead for justice—her perseverance through injustice—is that which restores to her her justice. Her perseverance is that which wins her respect precisely from a judge who does not “respect humans.” Though the unjust judge “for a while” did not have “a will” to grant the widow her justice, God has always a will to do so “quickly” (v. 4, 8). If, therefore, the lack of will is not God’s, the tarrying of justice in the lives of God’s people must owe to their own. God is looking for a people who care about justice enough to tell him about it. God is looking for a people with faith enough not to give up in the face of injustices.

And so, Jesus wants to know, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (v. 8)

-Joe