Proceed to Life

Proper 5C
Luke 7:11-17

In my diocesan role, I have the privilege of coordinating the annual confirmation liturgy that happens at Grace Cathedral. Yesterday, more than 140 Christian people were confirmed, which meant that—including with their families and presenters—the Cathedral was quite full. A few days before that, I had mentioned to the Precenter—that is, the resident liturgist on the Cathedral—that I was feeling a bit anxious about it all. His tongue in cheek response was “Worry? Why? We’re having 1000 close friends over some quality one-on-one time with the Bishop, followed by a light meal. What could possibly go wrong?

Thankfully, nothing significant did go wrong. It was a wonderful and joyful event. But interestingly, the most complicated part was organizing the procession into the Cathedral. Who knew how challenging it could be to get all those teenagers into parish groups and through the grand Giberti Doors, into reserved pews in the right order, and then back out again to kneel before their bishop. It puts Jesus’ raising of the widow’s son into some perspective. Miraculous things can happen in processions!

So recall that in Luke’s Gospel that there were actually two processions that met at the gate to Nain. On the way in, Jesus and his disciples—a large crowd, Luke assures us—fresh from the healing of the centurion we heard about last week. We can only assume they were a happy crowd, following the one who was making God’s power and glory known wherever he went.

On the way out of town there was the widow and her only son—also accompanied by a large crowd—bearing immeasurable grief. For all the reasons any of us might imagine: to lose a child is the greatest of sorrows. Add to that the certainty that this widow childless widow would certainly have been among the most economically vulnerable people in her community, having neither husband nor sons to support her. There were more than enough reasons for her to be crying when Jesus met her and said “do not weep.”

As these two processions—one joyful, one sorrowful—cross paths, Luke tells us this about what happened. “When the Lord saw her,” the text says, “he had compassion for her.” At the nexus of this story of opposing processions is Jesus own compassion; the human face of God’s mercy on all who suffer.

It’s worth noticing that the widow had not sought out Jesus’ help; she didn’t pray or beg, and the text says nothing of her great faith. She simply— honestly and appropriately—cried. So we know that when Jesus raised her son, it was not because of something she did, but because his heart went out to her. And this is the essence of God’s grace. It comes to us unearned and often unbidden, frequently at the times and places when we least expect it. Perhaps especially at the times and places where two contrary forces—like two crowded processions—bump into each other.

I mean that somewhat literally. New Testament scholars John Domanic Crossan and Marcus Borg remind us that there were likewise two processions entering the gates of Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday. From the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, led a column of well-groomed horses carrying armored Roman soldiers. 
And from the east, Jesus, riding on a donkey, led a ragtag procession of peasants.

These two processions embodied of the central conflict—between the power of coercive violence and the compassion of God— that led to Jesus’s execution. And at the heart of our holy week story of colliding processions and worldviews, there is—like at the gates of Nain—a story of grace and triumph over death. In Jesus’ world, when sorrow meets joy, joy wins. When the merchants of death meet the life of the world, life wins.

But what does that mean for us now, for we who grieve and perhaps even lose children to death or the forces of darkness, for we who may be feeling lonely and wondering where our crowded procession is, for those of us longing for the voice or touch of Jesus. Well we might cry with the psalmist “How long, O Lord? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” I don’t know how long; I wish that I did. But in those poignant words I imagine I hear the widow of Nain, who might well have cried something much like this before she saw her son raised.

If you are feeling alone in any sorrow that you are bearing, know that she is with you. The psalmist is with you. Jesus is with you. To stand in the procession of those who weep is not easy, but neither is it lonely if we are willing to share our cry with another. And our scriptures remind us—time and again—that there is another procession, bearing compassion and grace, coming down the road to meet us.

I had a different experience of procession recently, quite unlike yesterday’s adolescent chaos at Grace Cathedral. As some of you know, I was in Scotland the week before last, visiting the sacred island of Iona with a small pilgrimage group organized by Stefani Schatz, our Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of California. Stefani fell seriously ill along the way, and although she is doing much better, she is still hospitalized in Glasgow more than three weeks later. Which is a reminder that we don’t control the journey when we set out on pilgrimage.

So I spent a lot of the trip praying for Stefani, and—perhaps because she is the same age as me— being reminded of my own mortality. And on the last day our group spent on the island of Iona, which has been home to a Christian monastery for almost 1500 years, I felt moved to walk the ancient processional road to the abbey cemetery. I had imagined it as prayerful journey towards death, which is the road we all walk our whole lives, if we’re honest about it.

But here’s the funny thing. The geography of the Abbey complicated my plans. The short hike up from the Episcopal guest house landed me midway on the processional road, so I had to decide whether I’d enter from the cemetery end or from its beginning. Which starts at this ruined building whose foundations are now filled with a resplendent garden. And since the ancient road is kind of sunk into the landscape, I really did have to choose where I’d scramble down to begin my prayerful path. So I paused to pray about it, and I felt a clear call to begin right where I was, in the middle. And to turn first towards the garden flourishing in the ruins, before walking back to the burial grounds.

And isn’t that in the nature of the earthy procession we are all on? We enter where we are—with tears or joy or questions—and we end in death. Of that there is no escape. But along the way there is always a garden we can turn towards. It may look like a literal garden or favorite outdoor place, it may look like a visit with an old friend, it may look like a moving Sunday in Church, it may look like Jesus himself: the new Adam in the garden to which God longs to restore creation.

So my prayer is that each of us—in the place where we are with the people we are given—process towards wherever life is being made manifest in our midst. There we may just find God walking towards us already. Because he looked favorably on his people.