Joseph: The Story of Reputation

The First Presbyterian Church of Hemet

Women: The Story of Compassion

Dr. Larry Thorson
May 9, 2010

Luke 7:11-17

11 Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." 14 Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. 16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." 17 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

1. Summarize the biblical text:

Jesus' heart went out to a widow at the funeral for her only son and as a result he raised him from the dead. Everyone was filled with awe and praised God.

2. What’s the point of this sermon? – one paragraph description

Jesus demonstrates that having and showing the compassion of a mother for a stranger is not just for women but is a part of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving God as our neighbor.

4. What action do you want the people to take as a result of this sermon?

Test your compassion level for strangers and discern why you feel the way you do about those encountered in your daily life.

Today, in honor of mothers, we have the story of a mother Jesus encountered on one of his journeys. Read the story in Luke 7...11 Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. 12 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." 14 Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. 16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." 17 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

To encounter this mother, Jesus just traveled about 25 miles on foot. That would be like walking from Hemet to Riverside. He was approaching as little city called Nain, famous for nothing and no one. He probably was going to use it as a rest stop.

As he approached the city walls, Jesus saw this long funeral procession leaving the city. Jewish burial grounds were always placed outside city boundaries because they believed the dead would contaminate the city.

In Jewish funerals, the mother customarily walked first in the procession. Sadly they did as a reminder that Eve being a woman, sinned first and kick-started this “mortality thing.” But even more tragic in this case, the mother leading the procession was also a widow. In that culture the woman's income was tied to her husband so a widow was normally associated with poverty. With the passing of her son, she now had no income and no one to care for her. Her life was a double tragedy.

Jesus and this woman, as far as we know, had never seen each other before. All Jesus was doing was passing through and he just “happened” to pass this funeral procession. Of course we know that nothing in Jesus' life or ours just “happens.” Everything and every time has a purpose.

The writer Luke says that Jesus' heart went out to her. That's another term for compassion. It's like what happens to someone when they visit an animal shelter. Their heart goes out to the pets. I've seen it happen on mission trips when we work in or visit orphanages. Somebody always wants to take a child out of her poverty and give her a good home. It's what happens to our deacon Shirley Jouglard whenever she sees homeless people wandering the streets of our city. Her heart goes out to them and that's how our homeless feeding program started. It's what happens to a mother when her mother needs her. Her heart goes out to him and she helps him regardless of what he has done. It's a mother's compassion for her children. It's exactly what Jesus experienced when he saw this woman leading the funeral procession.

Later in his letter, Dr. Luke in 13:31-35 quotes Jesus who gives us an even clearer picture of what a mother's compassion is like using an example from nature when he writes... 31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you." 32 He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' 33 In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! 34 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'

If you've ever watched geese and ducks you know what Jesus is talking about with hens and chicks. When someone approaching a mother mallard with babies she'll become immediately aware and gather them together to hide. But if someone comes really close to her babies, she'll fly away. Why? She's offering herself as a decoy because she wants the intruders to notice and follow her, away from her ducklings. A good mother mallard will be willing to sacrifice herself in order to protect her offspring. That's a mother's compassion. That's how Jesus describes himself, sort of like a loving mother.

A loving mother will still be there for her child even when he rejects her. A loving mother will go the extra mile when everyone else is saying she's taking advantage of you. A loving mother won't give up on her children. To have this image of Christ as a loving mother helps us to understand God's pain at our rejection of Christ's love.
Think about it. It was not a spear forged by some pagan craftsman that cut into our Savior's heart. It was not the iron nails nor the crown of thorns that hurt him the most. It was the rejection by the very ones he had come to save. Like a child rejecting a mother's love. But a mother's love does not stop loving just because her love is not returned. Her love is not conditioned by response. Her love is! Period!

The love God has for us could not be aborted, either by a cross or by a flock of rebellious children. The cross of Christ becomes the symbol of arms outstretched that gathers all those in the world into a community of love and grace.
What a great image for God -- a hen gathering her brood -- for what is the cross but the love of God that is so great, so passionate, that it is willing to die so that his children might live? What is the cross but the gathering under the outstretched arms of God of all of her children? What is the cross but God's compassion for his stray and straying children and his longing to gather them under his arms? What is the cross but a mother's love displayed as a Godly passion?

What a loving mother does naturally for her own children, those who are filled with God's Holy Spirit do when they live the Jesus Creed to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, strength and their neighbor as themselves. It is from that creed that causes us to look at strangers in such a way that instead of judging them our heart goes out to them.

        There was a young English woman who entered Oxford University not knowing what she wanted to be or do. But she had a colorful professor of English named C. S. Lewis, the famous author of the Screwtape Letters who helped her become a Christian.
        She left Oxford, against the advice of friends and family, and began to study nursing. After five more years of rigorous training, she was certified as a nurse. She began working on a cancer ward in a London hospital. Gradually, she came to realize that most of the doctors ignored the patients who were deemed terminally ill. With the result being that she watched many of them die virtually alone.
        This troubled her greatly. She felt that Christian compassion needed expression to these patients in a visible way. So she approached the hospital administration with an idea she had for surrounding those dying of cancer with friends and loved ones during their last days, rather than isolating them in sterile rooms with strangers. Her radical ideas were quickly rejected.
        But undaunted, she decided to enroll in medical school to try to make a difference even though she was already 33 years old and would not graduate until she was 39. Cicely Saunders, out of Christian compassion and a sense of calling to help in a specific way, began a movement in England in the 1950s that later moved to America and became known as the Hospice Movement, and it drew its inspiration from Jesus' own passion and compassion for his children -- "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings."

Sociologist Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University has explored how it is that people make everyday ethical decisions. Many people, he found, perform deeds of compassion, service, and mercy because at some point in their past someone acted with compassion toward them. He wrote, "The caring we receive may touch us so deeply that we feel especially gratified when we are able to pass it on to someone else."

He tells the story of Jack Casey, who was employed as an emergency worker on an ambulance rescue squad. When Jack was a child, he had oral surgery. Five teeth were to be pulled under general anesthetic, and Jack was fearful. What he remembers most, though, was the operating room nurse who, sensing the boy's terror, said, "Don't worry, I'll be right here beside you no matter what happens." When Jack woke up after the surgery, she was true to her word, standing right there with him.

Nearly 20 years later, Jack's ambulance team was called to the scene of a highway accident where a truck had overturned. The driver was pinned in the cab and power tools were necessary to get him out. However, gasoline was dripping onto the driver's clothes, and one spark from the tools could have spelled disaster. The driver was terrified, crying out that he was scared of dying. So, Jack crawled into the cab next to him and said, "Look, don't worry, I'm right here with you; I'm not going anywhere." And Jack was true to his word; he stayed with the man until he was safely removed from the wreckage.

Later the truck driver told Jack, "You were an idiot; you know that the whole thing could have exploded, and we'd have both been burned up!" Jack told him that he felt that he just couldn't leave him.

Many years before, Jack had been treated compassionately by the nurse, and because of that experience, he could now show that same compassion to another. Receiving grace enabled him to give grace.[1]

Today we honor our mothers and rightly so. Maybe you were one of the fortunate ones as I was to have a mother who cared very deeply for me. When I struggled in school she'd march down to the school and badger those teachers until I received the help I needed. When I got home from school she was there to listen to my stories whether they were interesting or not. When I was hungry she always had the best meals prepared.

But not everyone is so fortunate. Maybe you never had a mother who's heart went out to you. Maybe your mother was too busy thinking about her own challenges to think about yours. That's unfortunate, but it's not your fault. I'm here to say that I know someone who's heart goes to you. I know someone who wouldn't be able to walk by your presence in your darkest moment without stopping you and offering to help. That person is Jesus Christ and he has a mother's heart. Experiencing his grace will enable you to give grace to someone else.

So today test your compassion. Who moves your heart like a mother's love for her children? An indication that you are living the Jesus Creed which says “love the Lord our God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself” is who you have compassion for. Like the woman who founded the hospice movement or the ambulance driver who stayed with the trapped truck driver, may you have compassion for someone who needs you this week. Remember this that someone this week specifically needs your love.

This week pray a little simple prayer when you get up in the morning after you say “This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice in it” and after you thank God for where you are that day, say “give me a mother's compassion for those my eyes see today.” Amen.

Small Group Ice Breaker Questions

1. Describe a time when a stranger did something kind for you or you

heard of a stranger doing something kind to someone.

2. How would you describe your mother?

Recite the Jesus Creed as a Group

Discussion Questions

1. What does it mean to have compassion for someone or something?

2. Why is compassion both so hard to show and so intensely satisfying when shown to those in need?

3. Read Luke 7:36-50. In what ways did Jesus show compassion to the woman in that story? In what ways did the woman show compassion on Jesus?

4. Read Luke 8:1-3. Name the women mentioned in this passage. Describe any ways in which these women experienced compassion from Jesus. Describe how they responded to the compassion they received.

5. Read John 9. How did the man in the story receive compassion from Jesus? Why do you think Jesus helped this man?

6. Read Mark 6:30-44. How did Jesus show compassion in this story? How did the disciples try to show compassion?

[1] Taking the Risk Out of Dying, Lee Griess, CSS Publishing Company, 1997 as read in www.esermons.com