Year C
Luke 7:11-17
The Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Compassion of God
It is not too difficult to get bogged down on any given day by the amount of suffering in the world. Every day, we read or see on the TV many examples all over our world. The readings for today show a God who is not only aware of the results of suffering in the world but is also the ever present helper of the victims. Therefore, it is not a surprise to learn that a major part of our Lord’s work on earth was healing. Everywhere Jesus went, the sick and those in need would follow hoping to get close enough for a look, a touch or a chance to touch him. His compassion was evident, and healing flowed from him to those around him. We see this compassion demonstrated in the Gospel this morning, which is another example of an unexpected guest and God’s surprising graciousness.
Luke records this story to confirm Jesus as a healer and a prophet through whom God is working to help God’s people. Jesus does not cast out demons, heal illnesses, or raise the dead but by the power of the Spirit of God. What this story reveals is not only Jesus’ compassionate nature but God’s intent toward us, his children. We love and serve a God who is filled with compassion for those who suffer. When Jesus comes upon the widow as her dead son was being carried out the city gate, she is in great grief. The text tells us that, “the Lord saw her”. Jesus saw her despair and the intense grief of a parent who is burying a child. His whole attention is on the woman, for whom he feels “compassion”.
The word compassion used here is an intense inner emotion of sympathy and mercy and Luke will use this word “compassion” in two later stories in his gospel. When the Samaritan sees the stripped and beaten man on the side of the road and when the prodigal father sees his lost son for the first time far down the road. In today’s story, we see this compassion in action as we witness Jesus’ power, and that God wants to meet our needs. Yet, the Gospel miracles can make our lives of faith very difficult, because in tragic times or in times of sickness, we long for Jesus to show compassion like he did for the widow at Nain and provide the miracle that will take away our despair, our illness. When things go wrong we look for the miracles, for proof of God’s compassion. We hope and cling to the vision that our miracles should be like those in the New Testament.
Amazingly sometimes we actually get the grand miracle we pray for but often times in spite of doing everything right and praying for every good thing we do not. When we do not get the grand miracle it makes the healing stories in the Gospels difficult to understand because we question why God seemed to be so willing to help then yet, appears absent at times in our world. Leading us to ask; where is God’s compassion? There is proof of God’s compassion throughout the scriptures .The central message of the Gospel is that in Christ Jesus all things are possible and nothing can separate us from the love of God. We cannot and should not stop from praying for even the most impossible of miracles, especially when it concerns the lives of those we love because the proof of God’s compassion is also evident in our world today.
I am a firm believer that God, though the work of the Holy Spirit continues to heal and there are miracles occurring in our world, some are as dramatic as this miracle of healing but more often than not, they are not as dramatic. I like to call these kinds of miracles the smaller miracles that occur all around us. When we only look for those grand NT miracles, we risk missing the smaller miracle moments in which God’s compassion enters into our upside-down world, touching our most pain-filled places so that we have life and have it abundantly.
The good news is that Jesus saw people as God saw them and responded to them as God continues to respond with compassion to us today. Yet, this compassion, for it to resemble the compassion that Jesus showed, must lead to action. If compassion meant merely inner sympathy, Jesus’ statement to the widow, “Do not weep,” would hardly seem kind. In Jesus’ actions with the widow and her son, the people recognize a prophet with power, and also the presence of God working in the world. You may have heard the song ‘they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love’; they will know we are Christians by our love. Love is an adjective, it describes a feeling, but it is also a verb, an action word. When we have compassion, our actions speak louder than our words.
Jesus initiates the actions that will restore the widow’s son to life and return her to a more secure place within society. “And the word spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.” By his actions Jesus demonstrated his understanding of God’s desire for mercy and social justice, thus fulfilling God’s wishes for the compassionate care of all people; especially the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the prisoner and widow. How we treat the poor, the widow, and other invisible members of society has a lot to do with responding to the presence of God. Jesus never failed to see those whom others could not or would not see. He raised up the son of the widow at Nain, as God raised him from the cross, for us, reaching out in compassion for all people.
Just as God acted through Jesus, God acts now in us, through the Spirit, sending us out to be God’s compassion. When we show this compassion to others an amazing thing happens in our life, we begin to recognize more frequently the little miracles that are happening all around us every day. We are to continue to ask for the grand miracles but also to recognize those small miracles for when we focus on only one vision of what is possible we can miss the many moments in which God’s compassion reaches into our lives to see us, to hear us, to touch us and to stand in the chaos of our lives, helping us even in the greatest tragedy. So look for God’s little miracles in your life and let us be witnesses…action in our world to this compassion, to God’s love and care for all.