The theme of Jesus being the resurrection and the life is indeed part of this message. Yet, as we see, Jesus is not the only one who raises a widow's son from death. Elijah is also able to resuscitate the body of a widow's dead son. In no way does this diminish the role of Jesus as God's perfect revelation that came to deliver us from the bondage of sin and death, and raise us to eternal life through his own passion, death and resurrection. It does mean that there is something more than bodily resurrection that we are being provoked to consider.
In the time of these Biblical stories women had one major role to play. Women were the incubator for male seed that led to procreation. Once a woman's husband had passed on and she was left to herself, she was very much abandoned by society. Out in Scripture reflects quite a bit on the social status of widows in Biblical times.
Widows figure prominently in the passages for this Sunday. In ancient Israel a woman's worth was measured by her procreative ability. She was valued as an unmarried virgin in her father's household, or a child-producing wife in her husband's household. Therefore widows were considered worthless by patriarchal Israel's standards and often found themselves on the margins of society. The only way a widow might have worth was if she had sons, a continued reinforcement of a patriarchal system that valued a woman by the men who defined her.
Because of their marginal status, special laws were created in Israel to care for and protect widows who were poor. These laws were often ignored, however, as evidenced by the indictment of prophets such as Amos (2:6-7)
It is important to understand that widows who had no children, or who's children who also died had a much worse social status than a woman who was just a widow did. When Elijah and Jesus reach out to the widow and the dead bodies of the sons who were dead, they went beyond the Torah as well as what was the social norm of the day. Jesus and Elijah reached out to the "untouchables" of their time. See again, HRC's Out in Scripture for the commentary.
In similar fashion, Jesus encounters the widow of Nain in Luke 7:11-17. Women figure prominently in Luke's gospel and widows appear more in Luke than any other part of the New Testament. Often Luke will pair stories with male and female characters such as this one, the raising of a widow's only son, with the raising of Jarius' only daughter (8:40-56). Like the story in 1 Kings, it is Jesus' touch that brings the son back to life. And in similar fashion, the people respond to Jesus' actions in the same way the widow does to Elijah's actions: God is made known in the action, and Jesus and Elijah are proclaimed God's prophets.
The Torah, Jewish teaching, forbade contact with dead bodies. In both stories Jesus and Elijah risk becoming ritually unclean by coming in contact with a dead body. In both stories Jesus and Elijah touch across the boundaries of clean and unclean so that life will be restored. Often, and especially with regard to AIDS, LGBT people are regarded as "untouchables" by communities who are afraid of difference and who operate from the misinformation that homosexuality and gender variance are "sicknesses." The stories from 1 Kings and Luke provide powerful examples of healing touch based on compassion, not purity.
Some of this sounds very familiar. Particularly over these past few weeks as the compromise for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been happening. Religious Right groups like the Family Research Council have spread every false accusation towards LGBT people who want to serve openly in the Military. Accusations such as suggesting that open LGBT people will rape other soldiers and/or spread HIV/AIDS throughout the Military. In recent weeks we have also heard that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have stated that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) should not be passed. The USCCB is opposed to ENDA passing because they feel that it gives "license" to the idea that same-sex relationships are normative or an alternative to marriage between one man and one woman. We have also seen in recent weeks the Archbishop of Canterbury suggesting that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada refrain from participating in ecumenical dialogues, because they support the ordination of open LGBT people to be Priests, Bishops and Deacons. Thank God for the wisdom of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her educated and pastoral response. So in the minds of religious conservatives and other anti-gay voices LGBT people and our sexuality should remain "untouchable" unless we are willing to consider changing innate, natural feelings and attractions.
Returning just for a bit to the original interpretation of this weekends Bible passages, it is clear that God does not wish that which is dead and lifeless about humankind to remain without a face, name and purpose. In Jesus Christ, God gives a name, face, and purpose to the widow and all women as being more than just an incubator. Jesus gives more than just the breath back to the dead son of the widow. Jesus recognizes in the widow woman, and the dead individual a person, an individual to be loved unconditionally and all inclusively. In God's eyes the widow is not a second class citizen, and the lifeless son is also not a lower class citizen. Each is honored, and given a new meaning and life, in and through the power of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
The lives and love of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are not without honor and acceptance by God. God gives to gay and lesbian people the natural and gifted attraction for the same sex, so as to build life-giving, loving and committed relationships through which they take part in the building of God's kingdom on earth. Bisexual individuals are blessed with that awesome ability to love people of both sexes to compliment God's sometimes double and complex nature of love. Transgendered individuals are given the life needed to pursue the gender identity and expression that God gave to their heart and soul, even if it is not in the body through which they were born.
It is God's Holy Spirit that has blessed each person with her gifts of love, life, holiness and opportunity. The Holy Spirit leads each person into all truth by virtue of who they are, and how God created each person to love others, including those who are different than themselves. God the Holy Spirit wants to stretch our hearts and minds so she can teach us and mold us to be able to reach out and touch the "untouchables" of society and the Church. If those individuals happen to be LGBT people, so be it. If the "untouchables" are women, people of color, then those are the people the Holy Spirit is moving the hearts of Christians everywhere to reach out to. Often individuals who are emotionally, psychologically and behaviorally challenged are "untouchables" because they make people too uncomfortable. All of these examples and so many more are opportunities for the Holy Spirit to help us reach out to the "untouchables.".
Sometimes the Holy Spirit challenges us to reach within ourselves to look at our own attitudes towards those we consider "untouchable." Those uneasy feelings about that someone that just shakes our interior selves, that is the Holy Spirit speaking and moving us about those "untouchables" in our own lives. May the Holy Spirit help us with her grace so to realize that God wants to touch us, and through us reach the "untouchables" of society and the Church.
O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 5, Book of Common Prayer, Page 229).
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, Page 101)
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, Page 816).
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