heaven is so big

you don't need to look up

TheGospel for this Sunday is so interesting, so loaded with humanity, so incredible that the problem for the preacher isn't "what can I preach," but rather "where to begin."

The scene is set, right after Jesus heals a Gentile he goes to another town in Galilee, and as he enters the city his entourage is interrupted by another; an entourage of death.

A young man; young enough not to be married yet, but presumably old enough to provide some economic support to his widowed mother; has died. There is a funeral procession carrying this young man outside the city, so the mother can bury her son.

It is tragic.

As the two parties cross paths, however, something remarkable happens. Jesus breaks from the entourage of life, and in so doing, interrupts the procession of the entourage of death.

Jesus breaks from his group to cross the boundary of clean/unclean; the boundary of life into death.

When Jesus does this, time freezes.

Everyone stops and now the one who had been stopped by death moves, he moves and he speaks.

Suddenly time moves again, and the people praise God.

There are so many things to preach on, those moments when time stops and God breaks into our world, those moments when (as a member put it) Jesus touches our coffin and we sit up and start to speak, the fact that Jesus heals both Gentile and Judean. These don't exhaust the list, either!

For me, though, I think one of the most compelling dimensions of this story is WHO Jesus intercedes for; the widow.

While the young man is the recipient of the miracle, it is safe to say the apple of Jesus' eye in this Gospel-scene is the widow, the poor, the tragic, the one with no means to support herself.

Recently I had the occasion to listen to a presentation from the local chamber of commerce. The presentation was supposedly "research."

I won't spend much time speaking about the presentation, suffice it to say that what the presentation's implication was their are certain residents we want (affluent and presumably young, heterosexual, white) and their are residents we don't want (anyone who doesn't fit in that first narrow group).

The presentation was hard to stomach. What was most striking about the presentation was that the very person Jesus notices and has compassion for, are the very folks the local chamber of commerce were describing as undesirable.

Today's Gospel-scene shows that the persons Jesus acts on behalf of, associates with and frankly identifies with; are those same people the world, then as well as now, try to cast aside, ignore, marginalize.

Today's Gospel-scene drives home the fact that God's city will be nothing like the city people in the local chamber of commerce are trying to promote. Rather than driving away the lost, lowly and lame; all will be included.

Today's Gospel-scene drives home the fact that the city God builds is the city that proclaims the good news, because while for the time being I am able to go to comfortable meetings that implicitly judges who should be in and who should be out; there will be a time when I am brought low and I will need a God who opens the city gates for any and all. That same is true for you, dear-reader.

That is the good news that finally catches my eye in today's Gospel!