Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Crowd-Sourced Exegesis: Luke 7:11-17

Proper 5C/Ordinary Time 10C/Pentecost +3C



11A little later Jesus went to a city called Nain. His disciples and a great crowd traveled with him. 12As he approached the city gate, a dead man was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. 13When he saw her, the Lord had compassion for her and said, "Don't cry." 14He stepped forward and touched the stretcher on which the dead man was being carried. Those carrying him stood still. Jesus said, "Young man, I say to you, get up." 15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 

16Awestruck, everyone praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people."17This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding region.

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8 comments:

  1. I'm not sure there is much difference between the Old and New Testament events, at least when you look at God's response. In the Elijah account i'm not sure that God is so much responding to a true in-justice as he is moved to compassion by Elijah crying out to him (passionate emotional response) about a perceived injustice. To think otherwise would imply that God is capable of injustice in allowing the death of either widow's only son. In the same way God, as Christ, demostrated his compassion for the widow based on her grief. It may shed some light on how to approach God. So many times we approach god from a rational, thinking state of mind (as good Greco-Romans) and in many cases disapprove of emotional responses to and approaches to God (Jewish tradition - torn robes, ashes, etc). Perhaps we should, instead, come to Him as He suggested Himself, as a child comes. Children respond emotionly and most often approach others in the same way, wearing their emotions on their sleeves, with no regard to what anybody else thinks. At least they do until they are taught to do otherwise. After all we have to maitain the illusion that we are in control. Perhaps we are doing them and ourselves a dis-service in doing so. God seems to work most effectively in and through those who have willingly surrendered control to Him.

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    1. Great comment Les! Thanks for jumping in and getting things started.

      I really like the connection you made between stoicism and our Enlightenment-influenced use of our Rational minds. The idea of coming to God with child-like trust and expression is one that I think is borne out in other places in scripture as well.

      The differences that I see are in the actions of the prophet Elijah and the Christ Jesus. Elijah is much more animated, stretching himself out three times and crying out to God. Jesus, who is God, shows that he is greater than Elijah by merely touching the stretcher and speaking to the boy. It's a very similar story, but with the prophetic intermediary removed, the experience is intensified.

      What do y'all think it means that Jesus, who probably only lived until his 30s, called the Widow's Son "Young Man?"

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    2. The difference between the actions of Elijah and those of Jesus are the difference between the petitioner and the petitioned. Elijah's actions were part of the petition, on the third time God, the Holy Spirit, used Elijah to raise the boy. Jesus's actions were a bold statement that he was/is God. He had no need to petition anyone; he just commanded the young man to rise.

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    3. Totally agree. Although Jesus does petition God at other times, mostly in the Gospel of John, as I recall.

      Through the incarnation, God connects with us in every way, and acts even when we might assume it's too late.

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  2. (not to hijack the thread, but the stole over your left shoulder is AMAZING!!!)

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    1. Thanks! It was a gift from the people who are St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church! They all signed the back of it.

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  3. I would like to also comment on the typewriter. Dude, nice touch. However, real men use quills and handwriting! As for Jesus and Elijah, stoicism and gut-spillings: I love that God's Word becomes God's Word as the Holy Spirit makes the word effectual. What I mean is the fact that it's very likely this conversation never would've happened (in Greek or Aramaic) back in the day. I doubt seriously Luke's audience would've even thought of Elijah. Heck, I didn't, and I'm a 21st century Christian, Reformed, Presbyterian pastor with a seminary education. The story simply funnels my thoughts onto Jesus and begs the question: Who is he that even the dead are gettin' up? But, just playing with words and concepts here, stoicism seems to be much more in depth than the poo-pooed generalizations we tend to throw at it. My mind immediately begins weaving a tapestry of Romanticism, Sufism, Eastern'isms, Gnosticism, and many other wisdom traditions. Those are probably all irksome to the "intelligent" conservative; but, they all help me to obtain a fuller picture of stoicism. Maybe that Greek audience wasn't afraid to "spill their guts" typically. Maybe, just maybe, it was precisely the stoic who could understand (assuming the connection was somehow made, Holy-Spirit-wise or what have you, between a spastic Elijah and a Snoop-Dog-cool Jesus) this subtle but subconscious-driven tension between emotionalism and stoicism. As I (mis)understand stoicism, it wasn't that folks lacked adrenaline or were akin to the Zoloft blob we see in commercials. The stoic was stoic because the stoic was enlightened. The stoic understood the general rhythm of nature (kind of like the Crocodile Hunter used to say when he happed upon a dying animal: "yts naycha's wuay"). The stoic, like those brave souls who knot themselves into painful Yoga positions and seek wisdom by relaxing into the painful pose with controlled breathing and a slight smile, embraced and accepted the reality (truth?) of life; and, it was a sign of wisdom or sage-hood when one kept emotions at bay and clearheaded in crisis. Even Paul said that for him to live is Christ and to die is gain and that he didn't really care whichever it was going to be. Remember in the movie Lincoln when the Yankees finally attack Fort Fisher. Casualties are heavy. It's chaotic. Lincoln begins telling a story in a calm, sage-like manner. One of the leaders yells, "I cannot listen to another one of your stories right now!" and walks out. Lincoln, not phased at all, continues the story and captures the audience, much like Jesus telling a parable. The story, in a round-about way--and only for those who had ears to hear--, reminded those in the war room of the most-feared reputation of their greatest general, which called to mind the greatest story of that greatest general where the impossible was made possible by both divine grace and unfailing courage on the icy waters of the Delaware. But all this was inferred in a story about a portrait of George Washington hanging in a "water closet." Lincoln, one might say, was stoic in that moment. Yet, he was stoic because he was wise, maybe even enlightened. I'm rambling. All this to say that we 21 century Americans generalize everything, making it part of the vernacular, like the word "stoic," which for us means something like "unable or unwilling to show emotion." Stoics, maybe(?), were those who had learned to release, relax, or rest INTO the chaos that was always the Creator's first dance partner. All this opens Pandora's Box on "will" and a bunch of other philosophical ideas; but, it just may be that, if we can get passed our urban-dictionary understanding of the notion of "stoicism" and relax into the possibilities we encounter when walking in the shoes of those deemed sages back in the Hellenistic days, the Holy Spirit may open God's Word in the word up to us even more.

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    1. Wow, that's a wall of text that's just packed with good discussion.

      Seems like you primarily lift up stoicism as something that is not without benefit. That's a great pushback. It's easy to think of stoicism as a simple "pretend to be a Vulcan" philosophy, and you're right to point out that it's much richer than that. However, even in your characterization of stoicism, it's a way to remain calm in the face of chaos, a way to not be swept up in the whirlwind.

      I see Christ being swept up in the whirlwind of the widow's grief, and stepping into the midst of it and breaking the "general rhythm of nature" by bringing this dead man back from the dead. It's not nature's way that matters here, it's God's way. Not only do we see God's compassion in this story, we see God's power. Who is he that the dead are getting up indeed!

      Luke is known for being the most literary of the gospel writers, and so this reference, while it may have passed over his largely gentile audience, but it's the kind of thing I picture him doing just because he enjoyed it, and thought that allusions were important ways to connect us to the whole of God's involvement with God's people.

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