Authority, Compassion, Reversals, and Resurrection

Luke 7: 1 – 17

True confession: after a full day of meetings and big conversations yesterday, I found myself still wrestling with our scripture for today. I came home and told my husband that I was tired and sad, striving to find a good word amidst what has been a very hard few weeks for so many of you within the sound of my voice. 

 

I opened my computer and reread the title that landed on my spirit Friday afternoon – too late for the bulletin publication deadline.

 

Authority, Compassion, Reversals, and Resurrection

 

And somehow those words were a comfort to me. They landed in my heart like a solid foundation. This is who Jesus is. And this is who we need as Lord and Savior, particularly right now. This is the undergirding of the Kin-dom of God - divine authority and deep compassion set against the backdrop of reversals. All of those things combined are fertile ground for resurrection - Christ’s, ours, and the small resurrections that happen around us and among us every single day. 

 

Thy Kin-dom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 

So I am holding onto those words as we begin.

Authority, Compassion, Reversals, and Resurrection

 

This morning you’ve heard about two healings – or rather, one healing and one resurrection.  Each happens under different circumstances and Jesus responds to each encounter differently. 

 

Before we go deep on those, let’s place these stories in the bigger arc of the storyline in Luke’s gospel.

 

Last week’s lectionary reading ends with Jesus naming the twelve apostles – those who would have the authority to go out and act and teach in his name. Next week’s text will have John the Baptist’s followers asking Jesus if he is really the Messiah – a question about his authority. Let’s hold onto that as a thread that continues to weave through this gospel.

 

In the part of chapter 6 that we didn’t read, Jesus offered the teaching that many know as the sermon on the mount or the sermon on the plain. In that teaching, Jesus named that the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated are those blessed in God’s sight. 

 

Unique to Luke’s gospel in that teaching is a set of parallel woes – woe to the rich, to those who have more than enough, to those who laugh, to those who are spoken well of. We’ve talked about how in Luke’s gospel Jesus is turning lots of things upside down. This is a prime example of the reversals that are proclaimed in this gospel. In many ways, Jesus’ teaching here is a continuation of Mary’s song in Luke’s first chapter:

 

⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
    and lifted up the lowly;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty.

 

So in addition to the thread about authority we also need to look for reversals that might be found in today’s episodes.

 

In the first story told today, a Centurion, a Roman soldier who would have commanded 100 men, has heard about Jesus’ work. He’s gone to Jewish leaders in Capernaum and asked them to approach Jesus on his behalf to ask for healing for a slave in his household. The Jewish leaders vouch for him – he has helped to build the synagogue in Capernaum, he is a good man. 

 

As Jesus heads toward his home, the Centurion sends friends out from his house to meet Jesus on the way with a message. Essentially, the Centurion’s message is that he understands how power works, he knows Jesus has power and knows that all is needed is for Jesus to say the word and his slave will be healed.

 

Jesus turns to the crowd following him and talks about how faithful the Centurion is – it’s almost like Jesus saying, “He gets me!” (And the sub text there is that his followers do not have that same understanding – they do NOT get him, something we’ll see in the questions asked by John’s disciples next week).

 

 When the Centurion’s friends return to his house, his slave is indeed healed.

 

While the Centurion uses his own understanding of chain of command to describe power, he is recognizing that Jesus has the ability to heal his slave’s sickness. Jesus has the power to make wholeness out of brokenness. Jesus has the ability to bring about the kind of reversals he’s teaching about. Jesus has divine authority so much greater than any human power.

 

In the next episode, Jesus and his followers come upon a funeral procession at a town gate. The dead man is described as a widow’s only son.  Maybe you can imagine in your mind’s eye the weeping woman accompanying the body as it is carried to its final resting place. Jesus takes in what is happening before him, and the text says that he is moved by compassion for the woman.

 

(It’s noteworthy here that Jesus exercises some poor pastoral care, telling the heartbroken woman not to cry. That’s just bad form, and that’s another sermon. But I feel the responsibility to say aloud that “don’t cry” is not a compassionate reaction to grief.)

 

But…back to the compassion Jesus does show: the word translated compassion here is the Greek word  splagchnizomai (splonk neez o my) derived from the word splagchnon (splonk known) – which refers to inward parts or entrails.  Jesus has a gut reaction to this woman’s pain. A bodily response. 

 

He touches the bier on which the man’s body is carried and says to the man, “Rise!” And the man does – in fact, he begins to speak. The text describes Jesus “giving” the man to his mother – which is again a very bodily description of Jesus acting. Can you see him scooping up the man’s still limp body and laying him back in his mother’s arms alive?

 

Maybe in this story you hear echoes of  Hebrew scripture stories about the prophets Elijah and Elisha each bringing a widow’s son back to life. Certainly the crowds gathered around Jesus would have heard this echo loud and clear. 

 

The gathered know that they have seen a resurrection in their midst. They praise God and name Jesus as a great prophet among them. 

 

I have been captured by two different snapshots of Jesus in these stories. In the first story, Jesus doesn’t have to lay eyes on the sick slave. He doesn’t need to be in the same room! He is asked to act because the Centurion understood that he had power and authority. Without any direct contact, the slave is healed. 

 

This is Jesus – fully divine.

 

In the second story, Jesus is deeply moved by what happens before him – by what he sees with his own two eyes. He brings the man to life and hands him back to his mother. 

 

This is Jesus – fully human.

 

This is Jesus, fully human, fully divine – just as the two candles on our Table remind us each Sunday.

 

This is Jesus, fully human, fully divine – with compassion and with authority. 

 

For all sorts of reasons, the world feels like it is on fire right now. And yet somehow last night, revisiting that title – authority, compassion, reversals, and resurrection – I was reminded who is Lord. I was reminded that Jesus felt like we feel. He saw injustice and pain and war and sickness. And waded into it all with authority and compassion.

 

That is who I want to follow.

That is who I am called to follow.  

May it be so.

Amen.