Episcopal Church of Our Savior

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The Rev. Ajung Sojwal Found in the crowd, Year C, Sunday June 10, 2007 Luke 7:11-17 In ten days I will be leaving with our daughters for India on a long vacation. Since we immigrated to this country in 1994, we have made it a point to go back to India as a family once every three or four years because we still have most of our extended family there. It will be at least sixteen hours of flying time before we finally land in Mumbai, the largest city in India with an estimated population of more than 25 million. Since I grew up in India, one would think I should be quite used to all that there is to be expected when we land there. But, every time we land there and emerge out of the air-conditioned enclosure of the airport, I am always shocked and overwhelmed by the sea of people waiting, heckling and begging outside. Everything seems rather oppressive; the heat, the crowds, the smells and the traffic. You cannot go anywhere in Mumbai without getting sucked into the crowd, and if there is one place on earth that you want to literally see individual significance dissipate in minutes into the crowd, I think it is Mumbai. It is the most frightening thought for any parent to lose grip of her child in Mumbai, because it can take just seconds for the child to be swallowed by the crowd and be lost. For a dark haired, brown skinned adult, it is quite an experience to be swallowed up in that crowd of thousands of dark haired, brown skinned people. I imagine an ant colony would feel the same, if I were to be an ant. Imagine yourself walking along in that ruthlessly impersonal crowd, what if as you are walking along you see an internationally well-known person walking in the crowd, and what if that person came up to you and said, “Mike! I have heard so much about you; I have been looking all over for you! Thank goodness I have found you!” Quite ridiculous, I must say. Things like that don’t happen unless you happen to have known that famous person at a personal level for many years. Well, Jesus does not think it is such a ridiculous idea to expect such a thing in our lives. Not only to be noticed, but also to actively be searched out by God from amongst the millions of people that swallow up our identities and needs. While Jesus lived and walked on earth like one of us, he always managed to find the people whose personal significance had somehow evaporated into thin air, people who had no hopes of anyone missing them. The widow of Nain was one such person. The emphasis of her insignificance made even more pronounced by her namelessness in the story, by her state of widowhood, and her destituteness sealed by the death of her only son. For the developed western mind and society, it is nearly impossible to comprehend just how much of a woman’s identity and wellbeing in ancient and developing societies depend upon her association to her male relatives, whether it be father, husband, brothers or sons. It is not only a matter of protectiveness and societal attitudes toward women, it is also the deeply ingrained self-understanding by the women themselves about their place in society. As primitive and as obnoxious as it sounds for a progressive society like ours, a woman’s sense of self-worth even today in many parts of the world comes from her sense of belonging to her husband. To a large extend it ensures not only her material well being, but also her courage and strength to assert herself in many ways, which otherwise she would not be able to do without the protection and claim by a husband. Now I do understand that this very special responsibility of the male population toward its women folk is greatly abused, but my point is about what this woman had lost and not about women’s rights. So, this woman from Nain, had probably been living as a widow for sometime. No doubt, most of her resources depleted, but maybe not yet neglected too much by her family or her in-laws’ family because she still had a son. She probably had been hanging on to some self-worth and dignity in the hope that her son would in the future care and provide for her. Unfortunately, the son dies, and she is left with the prospect of nothing but a worthless, nameless life doomed to insignificance in the fringes of her society. In that patriarchal society, there is no way that she could ignore and minimize the depth of her impoverished life as she walks with the crowd to bury her son. In so many ways symbolically, she is walking with her son’s corpse to bury her meaning in life too, and she is heading out of the city gate away from the city, to a place of neglect and oblivion. And then, the preposterous thing happens! Jesus not only sees her, he recognizes her for who she is. Luke beautifully tells the story from Jesus’ point of view, not from the societal point of view. He says, “he was his mother’s only son,” as opposed to the mother of the dead man; the attention is clearly on *her. “she* was a widow,” again, Jesus saw the woman who happened to be a widow. “With *her* was a large crowd from the town.” It is like saying, “with Mike there was this large crowd in the city of Mumbai!” clearly with that kind of a statement, there cannot be any sense of dissipation into the crowd. It is a distinct and deliberate recognition of the person and her individual state of affairs, with a deep desire to engage actively in that person’s life. And Luke nails it simply but powerfully by saying, “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.”” Our Old Testament reading has a similar story of Elijah raising from death the son of the widow in Zarephath. Both these stories are accounts of miracles, these stories point to both Elijah and Jesus as prophets of God, and both stories bring to light God’s concern for the marginalized and the underdogs of society. But, Jesus’ engagement with this woman is fundamentally different from Elijah’s story in that, it is not a story about the miracle itself, it is about Jesus as the compassionate *Lord, who has the will and power to transform lives. Jesus’ words of “do not weep” captures profoundly not only his compassion, but also his authority and his power to heal and transform. It encompasses his longing and desire to lift this woman out of all her misery, of not only losing her son, but also losing her identity and her sense of self-worth, and also the will and the command to transform her mourning into laughter and dancing. Furthermore, unlike Elijah, Jesus has no need to beg God to give life back to the dead son, because he is more than a prophet and a healer, Jesus is the Son of God, the source of all life, Luke says, “when the Lord* saw her…” After the young man is raised from death Luke says that, “Jesus gave him *to his* mother.” Right to the end, this encounter remains primarily about Jesus recognizing, meeting and transforming the life of the woman. The restoration of life to her son is a concrete restoration of her own life too. It is the restoration of her identity, her self-worth, her hopes and her place in society. Furthermore, this miracle in her life has a distinct effect on the crowd. They praised God! Henceforth she will not only have her worth and hopes in society because of her son, but she will be known as the woman through whose life God announced and brought forth the good news of His favor toward His people. Luke says that the crowd glorified God, that they rejoiced in Jesus as the great prophet amongst them, and that the crowd also saw Jesus’ touching and transforming the life of this woman as the sign of God’s favor toward His people. In our lives today, we also have the miracle of transformed lives, lives touched by God, but often in our skepticism we do not attribute transformed lives to God. But, in His compassion, Jesus continues to search us out through the Holy Spirit even as we go through life trying to make meaning of our existence and worth. Day in and day out we land up dealing with our own definition of death. For instance, the death of meaningful relationships, the death of identity that we have managed to forge for ourselves from our work and community, death of our once good health, death of maybe our faith and belonging to God, death understood and experienced only in the privacy of your own hearts and souls, and yes, the death of our loved ones. It is true that it is particularly difficult for us to hope and rejoice when we live with the constant news of sons and daughters dying in the line of duty in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is hard to imagine that God can be in our midst when we read of the thousands dying of AIDS, malaria, cancer, terrorist attacks and natural disasters. And it makes sense often to walk with the burden of our losses and think of burying ourselves to oblivion. But, just like he said to the woman, Jesus says to us, “do not weep.” Let us remind ourselves, that the miracle is not so much in the raising of the dead. Rather it is that God who is all-powerful, the almighty, the creator and the Lord of all, recognizes John Doe or Jane Doe as Mike, or Pam and all the painful shackles in our lives with compassion. And that pure compassion of God has the ability to transform our mourning into joy and peace. God’s compassion brings to light His deep desire to engage in relieving our sorrows, by giving new meaning and hope to our broken lives. And if and when God touches our lives with His compassion and healing, it is meant to be shared with the crowd. The good news of our transformative encounter with God is good news only when we stand as witness of God’s wonderful deeds. Jesus’ compassionate touch in the life of this destitute widow manages to transform even the mindless impersonal crowd into the very vehicle of witnesses and proclamation of God’s glory and salvation. The crowd that witnessed Jesus’ compassion and healing of the widow’s life not only saw, but they also interpreted it to mean God’s favor toward all people, and they joyfully spread the word around. Such is the transformative nature of God’s compassionate presence in our lives. It changes our whole perspective, like in that patriarchal society, the insignificant and worthless widow who gets transformed into the very meaning of God’s presence and favor toward all people. No longer could she ever be looked at as one of the nameless, faceless widow that society forgot. Are we willing to recognize God’s compassion in our lives? And are we willing to be recognized by God in the crowd, to be transformed not only in our personal lives, but also to become the means of transforming the impersonal crowd into the body of people that glorifies God together? May God give us the humility to recognize our despondency without His touch and presence in our lives, so that we can be ready to receive His compassion, be transformed and be the transforming agents. Amen.

The Rev. Ajung Sojwal

Found in the crowd, Year C, Sunday June 10, 2007
Luke 7:11-17

In ten days I will be leaving with our daughters for India on a long vacation. Since we immigrated to this country in 1994, we have made it a point to go back to India as a family once every three or four years because we still have most of our extended family there. It will be at least sixteen hours of flying time before we finally land in Mumbai, the largest city in India with an estimated population of more than 25 million. Since I grew up in India, one would think I should be quite used to all that there is to be expected when we land there. But, every time we land there and emerge out of the air-conditioned enclosure of the airport, I am always shocked and overwhelmed by the sea of people waiting, heckling and begging outside. Everything seems rather oppressive; the heat, the crowds, the smells and the traffic. You cannot go anywhere in Mumbai without getting sucked into the crowd, and if there is one place on earth that you want to literally see individual significance dissipate in minutes into the crowd, I think it is Mumbai. It is the most frightening thought for any parent to lose grip of her child in Mumbai, because it can take just seconds for the child to be swallowed by the crowd and be lost. For a dark haired, brown skinned adult, it is quite an experience to be swallowed up in that crowd of thousands of dark haired, brown skinned people. I imagine an ant colony would feel the same, if I were to be an ant.

Imagine yourself walking along in that ruthlessly impersonal crowd, what if as you are walking along you see an internationally well-known person walking in the crowd, and what if that person came up to you and said, “Mike! I have heard so much about you; I have been looking all over for you! Thank goodness I have found you!” Quite ridiculous, I must say. Things like that don’t happen unless you happen to have known that famous person at a personal level for many years.

Well, Jesus does not think it is such a ridiculous idea to expect such a thing in our lives. Not only to be noticed, but also to actively be searched out by God from amongst the millions of people that swallow up our identities and needs. While Jesus lived and walked on earth like one of us, he always managed to find the people whose personal significance had somehow evaporated into thin air, people who had no hopes of anyone missing them. The widow of Nain was one such person. The emphasis of her insignificance made even more pronounced by her namelessness in the story, by her state of widowhood, and her destituteness sealed by the death of her only son. For the developed western mind and society, it is nearly impossible to comprehend just how much of a woman’s identity and wellbeing in ancient and developing societies depend upon her association to her male relatives, whether it be father, husband, brothers or sons. It is not only a matter of protectiveness and societal attitudes toward women, it is also the deeply ingrained self-understanding by the women themselves about their place in society. As primitive and as obnoxious as it sounds for a progressive society like ours, a woman’s sense of self-worth even today in many parts of the world comes from her sense of belonging to her husband. To a large extend it ensures not only her material well being, but also her courage and strength to assert herself in many ways, which otherwise she would not be able to do without the protection and claim by a husband. Now I do understand that this very special responsibility of the male population toward its women folk is greatly abused, but my point is about what this woman had lost and not about women’s rights.

So, this woman from Nain, had probably been living as a widow for sometime. No doubt, most of her resources depleted, but maybe not yet neglected too much by her family or her in-laws’ family because she still had a son. She probably had been hanging on to some self-worth and dignity in the hope that her son would in the future care and provide for her. Unfortunately, the son dies, and she is left with the prospect of nothing but a worthless, nameless life doomed to insignificance in the fringes of her society. In that patriarchal society, there is no way that she could ignore and minimize the depth of her impoverished life as she walks with the crowd to bury her son. In so many ways symbolically, she is walking with her son’s corpse to bury her meaning in life too, and she is heading out of the city gate away from the city, to a place of neglect and oblivion.

And then, the preposterous thing happens! Jesus not only sees her, he recognizes her for who she is. Luke beautifully tells the story from Jesus’ point of view, not from the societal point of view. He says, “he was his mother’s only son,” as opposed to the mother of the dead man; the attention is clearly on her. “she was a widow,” again, Jesus saw the woman who happened to be a widow. “With her was a large crowd from the town.” It is like saying, “with Mike there was this large crowd in the city of Mumbai!” clearly with that kind of a statement, there cannot be any sense of dissipation into the crowd. It is a distinct and deliberate recognition of the person and her individual state of affairs, with a deep desire to engage actively in that person’s life. And Luke nails it simply but powerfully by saying, “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.””

Our Old Testament reading has a similar story of Elijah raising from death the son of the widow in Zarephath. Both these stories are accounts of miracles, these stories point to both Elijah and Jesus as prophets of God, and both stories bring to light God’s concern for the marginalized and the underdogs of society. But, Jesus’ engagement with this woman is fundamentally different from Elijah’s story in that, it is not a story about the miracle itself, it is about Jesus as the compassionate Lord, who has the will and power to transform lives. Jesus’ words of “do not weep” captures profoundly not only his compassion, but also his authority and his power to heal and transform. It encompasses his longing and desire to lift this woman out of all her misery, of not only losing her son, but also losing her identity and her sense of self-worth, and also the will and the command to transform her mourning into laughter and dancing. Furthermore, unlike Elijah, Jesus has no need to beg God to give life back to the dead son, because he is more than a prophet and a healer, Jesus is the Son of God, the source of all life, Luke says, “when the Lord saw her…”

After the young man is raised from death Luke says that, “Jesus gave him to his mother.” Right to the end, this encounter remains primarily about Jesus recognizing, meeting and transforming the life of the woman. The restoration of life to her son is a concrete restoration of her own life too. It is the restoration of her identity, her self-worth, her hopes and her place in society. Furthermore, this miracle in her life has a distinct effect on the crowd. They praised God! Henceforth she will not only have her worth and hopes in society because of her son, but she will be known as the woman through whose life God announced and brought forth the good news of His favor toward His people. Luke says that the crowd glorified God, that they rejoiced in Jesus as the great prophet amongst them, and that the crowd also saw Jesus’ touching and transforming the life of this woman as the sign of God’s favor toward His people.

In our lives today, we also have the miracle of transformed lives, lives touched by God, but often in our skepticism we do not attribute transformed lives to God. But, in His compassion, Jesus continues to search us out through the Holy Spirit even as we go through life trying to make meaning of our existence and worth. Day in and day out we land up dealing with our own definition of death. For instance, the death of meaningful relationships, the death of identity that we have managed to forge for ourselves from our work and community, death of our once good health, death of maybe our faith and belonging to God, death understood and experienced only in the privacy of your own hearts and souls, and yes, the death of our loved ones. It is true that it is particularly difficult for us to hope and rejoice when we live with the constant news of sons and daughters dying in the line of duty in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is hard to imagine that God can be in our midst when we read of the thousands dying of AIDS, malaria, cancer, terrorist attacks and natural disasters. And it makes sense often to walk with the burden of our losses and think of burying ourselves to oblivion. But, just like he said to the woman, Jesus says to us, “do not weep.” Let us remind ourselves, that the miracle is not so much in the raising of the dead. Rather it is that God who is all-powerful, the almighty, the creator and the Lord of all, recognizes John Doe or Jane Doe as Mike, or Pam and all the painful shackles in our lives with compassion. And that pure compassion of God has the ability to transform our mourning into joy and peace. God’s compassion brings to light His deep desire to engage in relieving our sorrows, by giving new meaning and hope to our broken lives. And if and when God touches our lives with His compassion and healing, it is meant to be shared with the crowd. The good news of our transformative encounter with God is good news only when we stand as witness of God’s wonderful deeds.

Jesus’ compassionate touch in the life of this destitute widow manages to transform even the mindless impersonal crowd into the very vehicle of witnesses and proclamation of God’s glory and salvation. The crowd that witnessed Jesus’ compassion and healing of the widow’s life not only saw, but they also interpreted it to mean God’s favor toward all people, and they joyfully spread the word around. Such is the transformative nature of God’s compassionate presence in our lives. It changes our whole perspective, like in that patriarchal society, the insignificant and worthless widow who gets transformed into the very meaning of God’s presence and favor toward all people. No longer could she ever be looked at as one of the nameless, faceless widow that society forgot.
Are we willing to recognize God’s compassion in our lives? And are we willing to be recognized by God in the crowd, to be transformed not only in our personal lives, but also to become the means of transforming the impersonal crowd into the body of people that glorifies God together? May God give us the humility to recognize our despondency without His touch and presence in our lives, so that we can be ready to receive His compassion, be transformed and be the transforming agents. Amen.