Luke 7:1-17
June 6,
2010
Patrick Preheim
Christological NAFT—Jesus crosses borders
When Patty and I were visiting my relatives a couple of weeks ago, the unthinkable happened. In a shopping center I started to act like a Canadian. Overcome by the shelves filled cheap stuff I began to load my arms with packages. I had seen Canadians act this way in the past-- travel south of the border, fill their trucks with loot, and head home. In a previous life I had scoffed at such behaviour. But here I was on a social outing with my mother pawing the grossly reduced product. I am ashamed to say that the third to half price tag on some goods eclipsed any concern about fair trade or carbon footprint. I am ashamed to say that the miserly Mennonite within me won out over the moral Mennonite shopper. Having given myself near completely to greed I was deluded into thinking that NAFTA would permit me an amiable border crossing. For those who don’t know, the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented back in 1994 with the goal of eliminating barriers to trade between the USA, Canada and Mexico. I had never dreamed of cashing in on NAFTA, but as I approached the border I had hopes free trade could work for me. Not so. I now know NAFTA is meant to help some of the people buying and selling goods out there, but not me.
I bring up this experience because Luke 7:1-17 is a story full of border crossings in which no duty is assessed. Jesus easily moves from the realm of the Jewish insiders to the realm of Gentile outsiders. Jesus is undaunted by the insidious wall separating life from death. And Luke 7.1-17 is another example of the gender barrier which Jesus chooses to cross regularly in the books of Luke and Acts. What are the goods that Jesus takes with him on these border crossings? Jesus brings acceptance, love, and life. Jesus accepts all classes and castes: military personnel, religious leaders, women, men, the living, the dying, etc... Jesus does not have an issue importing his goods to whoever opens the border to him. Jesus wants free trade with us. The real question of the text is if we are willing to open our borders to Jesus. For inspiration let us take a look at the journey Jesus takes us on in the text.
Jesus does not allow gender barriers to impede his travels or his product. In his book Women and the Genesis of Christianity Ben Witherington III carefully outlines the status of women within 1st century Palestinian, Greek and Roman society. Different communities had slightly different rules on gender mores, but the upshot is that 1st century societies were patriarchal (see part 1, pp 3-26) granting more privileges to men than women. New Testament writers subvert the dominant cultural attitudes by curtailing the social rights of men (divorce and insisting men love their wives in the household codes). They include discipleship and healing stories about women. And they address women on par with men. When we work with biblical stories it is very important to read them relative to their culture, not ours. While we may feel we have come a long way since the 1st century we are still striving for the kingdom of Jesus which does not distinguish between male and female. Females in North America still earn less on the dollar than their male counterparts and sections of the world still treat their girls and women as property.
The author of Luke / Acts crosses the gender barrier in his own way by paralleling male and female stories. For example, when Jesus is presented in the temple we hear from Anna the prophetess in addition to Simeon (Luke 2), Simon the Pharisee is paralleled with a sinful woman of the city (Luke 7), the story Jarius the synagogue leader is intertwined with the woman who suffers from a twelve year flow of blood (Luke 8). In our narrative today a widow is paired with a Roman centurion. Witherington writes that “Lk. 7.11-17 reflects Luke’s general theme of the ministry of Jesus to women, and his special interest in the way the Gospel aided such disenfranchised groups as widows and the poor” (ibid, 85). Jesus has so much compassion for this woman that the topics of forgiveness or faith simply do not come up in the story (ibid). Jesus does not care if the widow has sins which need to be forgiven. Jesus does not care if the woman even believes in a Christ or that he is God’s beloved son. In other healing stories such questions are asked, but not here. Jesus acts unilaterally because the situation of the woman is so pitiful.
The case of this woman allows us several avenues of application. One route is thinking about the way in which we are like the widow of Nain. No one dare say they are not worthy of God’s love and compassion—not in this place where we have heard about the care of Jesus for a widow. If you are going bankrupt (like the widow), if your sexual orientation or relational status puts you on societies low rung (like the widow), if the losses you have suffered are causing you to doubt the goodness of God (like the widow), REMEMBER Jesus cares for you and will bring some life out of the death you are experiencing. REMEMBER the lesson of the widow. Another route of application is for us to consider the ways in which we are the voice and hands of Jesus which bring the grieving widows among some consolation. MEDA’s work with micro-financing is a wonderful example of one way people are being allowed to experience new life in the midst of death. Interestingly enough, the bulk of their low interest loans go to women. We need not, however, go to other countries to find people who are suffering like the widow of Luke 7. Some can found in the core neighbourhoods, some can be found in retirement complexes, some can be found in our congregation. We need to have our eyes open and hearts prepared for action because sometimes the funeral procession meets us. Jesus does not go to Nain with the grieving widow in mind. The text says that the funeral procession meets Jesus more than the other way around. In the tradition of Jesus, if we are simply paying attention we may begin to see the new life which God wants us to bring. Enough about widows, back to the centurion.
Jesus is also interested in crossing the boundaries posed by the centurion. While the centurion is a male, he is of dubious male stock. He is Gentile and he is a leader in the dreaded Roman military occupation. The story reflects the tensions between Jews and Gentiles in the early church. For his part, the military officer is “very sensitive to the social barrier between himself and a Jewish holy man. First the centurion sends Jewish elders to Jesus. He apparently assumes that a recommendation from Jewish leaders is necessary for a Jewish healer to consider the case of a Gentile at all..Apparently Jesus sees no problem in healing the centurion’s slave, for he goes with the elders to the centurion’s house. Now, however, the centurion realizes that there may be another issue. It may be presumptuous of him to ask a Jewish holy man to defile himself by entering the dwelling of a Gentile. (Dwelling places of Gentiles are unclean, according to m. Oholot). Hence, a second delegation is sent. The words the delegation speak are the centurion’s, and they form the longest speech in this episode...Because Jesus is set under God’s authority and acknowledges that authority, he can command with divine authority in healing. The analogy is drawn from the experience of a soldier. A person in another line of work might use a different analogy”. The military metaphor itself would be offensive to Jesus and his Jewish friends, not?
Rather Jesus “responds with strong words of praise, ‘I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.’ Jesus is not denying that there is faith in Israel...But the centurion’s faith is extraordinary, and it is found where one would not expect it, in a Gentile soldier. His faith consists of his determination to surmount the social barrier between Jew and Gentile.”(Robert Tannehill, Luke (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries, pp 124-125), the philosophical barrier between pacifists (Lk 6:29) and military soldier, and the emotional barrier between occupier and occupied.
Faith filled Gentile soldiers and poor widows were real issues that faced the early church. How would the church respond to women leaders among them as well as military men of Gentile origin? The centurion of Luke 7 is, I believe, a foreshadowing of Cornelius in Acts 10 who is another Roman centurion. Perhaps the ministry of Jesus to the Centurion in Luke 7 gives Peter the openness to accept the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10. And perhaps the care of Jesus for the widow of Nain emboldens Tabitha (aka Dorcas) to care for the widows of Joppa as Acts 9:36-41 illustrate (Ibid, 126-129). The community of Christ is called to affirm and replicate the ministry of Jesus in our time and place. The continuation of the Luke 7 stories into Acts make this clear to me. We, the 21st century church, need to be in relationship with the powerful and the lowly extending the healing of Christ to all who ask and all who God puts in our way.
Another boundary Jesus marches across is that between the living and the dead. This past Friday we worshiped the God of the living and the dead as we said farewell to Martha Froese. Our worship service here was a type of celebration: Martha’s suffering is passed; she with God; she did not leave dependents or debt. The funeral scene in Nain was not like this at all. There is weeping and people are distraught. “Since the woman had already lost her husband, the loss of her only son is not only a second family tragedy but also ends her main economic support. ‘A son was a mother’s lifelong protector and her ultimate social security’ (Malina and Rohrbaugh in Tannehill’s Luke, p.128). In the midst of the grieving crowd Jesus inserts himself. “He violates Jewish practice by stopping the funeral procession and touching the coffin, an act which causes those carrying it to stand still (WitheringtonIII, 85). If someone had stopped our funeral procession on Friday it would have made me mad. If a stranger had dared to touch Martha’s urn, I would have been outraged. Who is this guy who does not respect the dead? The answer is Jesus. Jesus does not differential between the living and dead. We are all alive to him.
This reckless boundary crossing may be of particular interest for all those making jokes about being 80 years old last Sunday at our semi-annual meeting. Actually the wisdom and peace I have experienced from these octogenarians tell me that they get this aspect of the ministry of Jesus. They get it that in Christ, God extends friendship to the living and the dead. They get it that there no place we can go that God’s presence has not gone (to paraphrase Psalm 139). Most of those 80 and older in this congregation understand this, but do the rest of us?
Most of us youngsters find it hard to release our elders into God’s eternal care and release the conflicts that taint our living. We still live with the illusion that we can control things, make everything turn out right, maybe even save the world. This story challenges those ideas because it is the faith of Jesus and God which saves, not anything particular that the widow or her son said or did. Like the story of Lazarus and the story of the empty tomb this is a powerful lesson in the way God sees the world. God and Jesus see all of us as alive, even those who have died. Since Christ sees as fully alive why not let go of those wounds that mummify us?; why not live with joy rather than fear?; why not embrace the transition from the life of this world to the life of the next?
Luke 7 is about boundary crossings. God in Christ cross all sorts of borders so that we might have life and have it more fully: borders of male and female, insider and outsider, living and dying. No customs official can deny the imports of Jesus; Jesus doesn’t accept their authority. Our task is to pay attention to the heavenly goods Jesus offers and to extend that goodness to others. May God grant us the dignity to see our poverty, the humility to receive God’s grace, and the courage to extend healing and life to others. Amen.