First Sunday after Trinity

Cardinal Basil Hume wrote ‘to share suffering with another person can sometimes lighten the burden, but not always. To share it with Our Lord, that is quite different. That is a moment of grace’.

Today’s gospel story is one of the very few occasions in Luke when we read of Jesus’ expressing emotion. There are numerous instances in Luke of Jesus responding to people in need such as through healing, by accepting the outcast and offering forgiveness to sinners. He demonstrates in his teaching and through his actions the concern God has for the marginalized and those who suffer. But we don’t very often get an insight into his emotions.

As Jesus was approaching the town of Nain he passed a funeral cortege. The people of Jesus’ time had no inhibitions in loudly expressing their emotion. As we sometimes see on the news after deaths in the middle east, there would have been loud wailing and crying from the large crowd accompanying the woman, whose son had died. She would have been consumed with grief. She was a widow, and now her only son had died as well. Alongside the devastating emotions of losing first her husband and then her only son, the deaths would also potentially lead to great future hardship as those who supported her were gone.

As Jesus passed the crowd he felt he had to stop and do something. Unlike other similar situations, no one approached Jesus appealing for help. Jesus initiated the contact. Luke describes how he was moved to act through his compassion for the grieving woman. Jesus commanded the young man to rise, and he was restored to life. Jesus’ concern was primarily for the woman, he performed the miracle for her. Jesus is described as ‘giving’ her son back to her. It was her life as well as her son’s that was restored by God’s intervention. It was, to use Basil Hume’s words, a moment of grace.

I think one of the emotions we feel most deeply, most particularly as a consequence of our faith, is compassion. It is a very natural emotion. But more than that, the gospel of Jesus Christ inspires us to mirror Jesus’ actions in this story by responding to the compassion we feel. By offering pastoral care, by bringing practical assistance, by giving money and many other ways. We are naturally inclined to respond to those in need, motivated by our instinctive compassion combined with God’s call to us as his disciples.

Reading this story of Jesus’ intervention, or indeed any of the accounts of Jesus reaching out to those in need, inspires us to mirror his approach. We want to reflect his concern and compassion and be channels for God’s love. But I think there is a greater message from this passage that helps us to understand just what our role is when we do respond compassionately to those in need.

Notice the crowd’s reaction to Jesus’ miraculous healing of the son. They immediately proclaimed Jesus as a great prophet. By great prophet they would have meant a man such as Elijah and Elisha. Hence our Old Testament reading this morning. The situation is almost identical. Elijah goes to a woman whose son was dying, or even dead, it is not clear. Elijah brings the child back to life and is proclaimed by the mother as ‘a man of God and the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth’. Jesus was being recognised at Nain as a new prophet – not at this stage as the Messiah.

What is so important in the reaction of these people to both Jesus and Elijah is that it is not the man, Elijah or Jesus, but it is God who is praised. Praised in the woman’s words ‘for looking favourably on his people.’ And this is the vital message for us as people who naturally want to respond to those in need. Being compassionate towards others is a wonderfully natural human response that is truly in Jesus’ image. But we should not trust on our own abilities to bring healing or comfort, to release pain or to bring joy where there is sorrow. It might happen, but often it won’t. As Cardinal Hume said in my opening quote ‘to share suffering with another person can sometimes lighten the burden, but not always.‘

The hardest thing to do sometimes in situations where we so urgently want to bring some comfort and help is to let go and place our trust in God’s grace. That does not mean we stop talking or praying, or responding in whatever way we feel appropriate. It means letting go of our self-belief and trusting that somewhere in the midst of our attempts at compassion, sometimes bungled and vulnerable to mixed motives, God is present.

Pope Benedict has said ‘To be holy does not mean being superior to others; the saint can be very weak, with many mistakes in his life.’ I think it helps for us to be aware of that when we try to do what we feel is right. He goes on to say ‘holiness is this profound contact with God, becoming a friend of God; it is letting the other work, the only one who can really make the world good and happy… For the person who stands in God’s hands always falls into God’s hands.’ It is why I think the best response when, as Jesus was at Nain, we are moved to respond compassionately is to turn to God and to pray. Pray for the situation, for the people involved, for God’s transforming presence. For if we stand in God’s hands, sharing another person’s suffering with him, we allow him to work – we allow the moment of his grace.

© Robert Jenkins June 2007