Luke 7:11-17
The Church presents two stories for
our contemplation. They are similar in that the son of a widow is
raised from the dead. But they are quite different as well. In the
first story, Elijah has been living with the widow and her son. You
remember? He was fleeing from people who wanted him dead, and when
he was resting in this town, he asked the widow to make a little cake
for him. She said that she only had enough flour and oil to make a
little food for her and her son and then they would die. Elijah
promised that the jar of oil would not be empy and the bin of flour
would remain full until the famine was over. This story we hear
occurs later; the boy stops breathing, the woman blames her sins and
Elijah, and Elijah takes the boy to his room and prays that he be
restored to life. Even the widow did not see the miracle. And
clearly this miracle has to do with rewarding the widow for her
charity towards Elijah, and assuring her that her sin is not behind
her loss.
But the second story is so different.
We have two processions; we have a procession of death, a procession
going to the grave. The custom in those days was that the family of
the dead person would lead the procession, and in this case, that's
the widowbringing her son, followed by the townspeople, to the
graveyard, where she will bury all her hopes and dreams as well. The
other procession is the one of life. Jesus has been working miracles
of healing throughout the area, and has collected quite a following.
It seems as though he is using his power to overcome all those
limitations, blindness, deafness, being lame, being posessed by
demons – that keep people from living life to the fullest. And so
the procession of death meets the procession of life.
Jesus cannot allow death to pass, and
he takes pity on the widow. Unlike the case of Elijah, Jesus does
not know the widow personally. Unlike Elijah begging God for a
miracle hidden away in his room, Jesus simply tells the young man to
get up. And unlike Elijah's miracle, worked before no eyes other
than his, the entire crowd, the procession of life and the procession
of death, witness the miracle.
The young man went on, we presume, to
grow up, to marry, to raise his own family, and finally to die again,
perhaps with many people mourning him. The widow has been spared,
but not all those future mourners. Death is inevitable, for Lazarus,
for the young girl who was the daughter of the synagogue official,
for this person, and for Jesus himself. Only Jesus returns to live
forever. So why did Jesus choose to perform this miracle at this
time?
The gospel says he had pity on the
widow, and I'm sure he did. But what about all the other widows,
what about his own mother, who was probably a widow? Why didn't her
raise Saint Joseph? Did Jesus raise the son for his own sake?
Probably there was something to that. This is a young man, maybe a
teenager. He has not lived his life to the full. He was so full of
potential, and maybe Jesus sees that and gives him a second chance.
But again, why him, and not others?
I think the main reason Jesus worked
this miracle when he did and where he did was to show us all that
Life overcomes death. This is what we see acted out here, but this
is what we know by faith and by Jesus' own resurrection.
I take two things away from this
second story. I know many people who seem to have not done what God
has meant for them to do. Sometimes it's because they haven't lived
long enough, and one would hope that time will help. But there are
many people as we all know who because of poverty, drugs, alcohol –
or maybe just being born in the wrong part of the world, who will
never achieve what God wants for them. And there are many others
who, let's face it, have given themselves over to a life of
self-indulgence, of greed, of pursuit of wealth or power or pleasure,
and have turned their backs on God. And they are not achieving what
the father wants for them.
Jesus made it possible for the young
man to achieve his potential, and since we are his disciples, and we
are called to carry out his work in the world, that should be on our
agenda as well. How can we help each other to live full lives, to
live as God wants us to live? We can't raise the dead, but we can do
something about the living. In a sense, that's the purpose of a
parish – a community of people who seek to form the Body of Christ,
to help each of us to do our part in this body.
The second thing I take away is how
rare it is that through a miracle a person is raised from the dead.
Besides the Resurrection of Jesus, a very different event than these
resuscitations, There are a total of five instances in the New
Testament – three by Jesus, one by Peter, and one by Paul when
someone was raised from the dead. In the Old Testament I could only
find two instances, one by Elijah and another by his disciple,
Elisha. That's it. That seems to tell us that when we die, it is
God's will that it be at that time and place. That is somewhat
reassuring, I guess. Someone once speculated that we die at a time
when God sees that our chances of salvation are as high as they can
get; and that makes sense if you believe in a merciful God. He calls
us when he sees that we have achieved what He wants us to achieve, or
perhaps when he sees that nothing further can be expected.
This week we lost Father Vern
DeCoteau, one of my instructors in the diaconate program, and a
wonderful inspiring priest. He is mourned, he will be missed, but
would anyone want Jesus to come along and raise him from the dead?
If we believe what our faith tells us, he has reached the goal of his
life, and we can only hope that we will have a blessed death as well.
