Where is the miracle in the gospel account we have just heard read to us?  There are two miracles, actually – one divine and one human.  The divine miracle is that Jesus brings back to life the only son of a widow.  As Luke tells it to us, Jesus is approaching the town called Nain with his disciples and a large crowd of followers when he meets a funeral procession coming toward him.  Pallbearers are carrying the corpse of a young man to the cemetery outside the city walls.  Jesus sees the mother weeping and says to her, “Do not weep.”  Then he touches the stretcher on which the body is lying and commands, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”  And the dead man rises and begins to speak, and Jesus commends him to his mother, “Here is your son.”

A divine miracle only to be done by Jesus.  He does not turn to his astonished disciples and say, “Go and do likewise.”  They cannot, and Jesus knows it.  This first miracle is about Jesus and his identity.  Luke includes it to convince his readers that Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God, and he writes that all the observers went about the region telling others how they had seen the power of a great, new prophet.

So, where is the human miracle?  It comes before the resuscitation.  Luke says, “When Jesus saw (the widow) he had compassion on her.”  He had compassion for a widow whose only son had died. 

It is important to know that in Jesus’ time and place most people did not have such compassion, at least not enough to get involved and make things better.  Why is it that we so often read in the Old and New Testaments godly directives to take care of the widows and the orphans?  Because no one else would.   When the male head of the household died – the husband, the father, the son – the women left alone had no way to make a living.  The economy of the day had no place for working women, except maybe Lydia selling purple cloth at the city gate, but she was the rare exception.  No, the husband dies, and the widow must rely on her son.  Her son dies, and she is left to fend for herself.  For a day the neighbors may weep with her, but tomorrow she will be out on the streets.

When I meet with wedding couples I explain that we no longer include the traditional question that was asked of the father of the bride as he stood next to his daughter, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”  Women are not property to be given by one man to another.  Our sense of individual worth is different than in Jesus’ day, our economic system is more inclusive, our social fabric more supportive.  So, the question is obsolete, but I ask the couple to see the context out of which the ritual arose and its essential humanity in assuring the continuity of support and protection.

Jesus senses immediately what is at stake when he sees the procession approaching him, and he has compassion on the mother, the widow.  And he has compassion to the point that he gets involved and makes things better.  It is that miracle which Jesus then can say to us, “Go and do likewise.”  That is a miracle on a human scale.  And it is on that scale that Jesus yearns for us to grow, to become more human.

His whole ministry focuses on making us more human, not making us divine, not making us into little “Jesuses.”  His goal was not to start the Church, not as the Christ to make Christians any more than Martin Luther desired to make Lutherans, Calvin Calvinists, or Wesley Wesleyans.  The purpose of Jesus’ ministry is to compel us to grow more closely into what God intends for us – a true humanity found through love and care and compassion.

“Com-passion,” feeling-along-with.  More precisely, “suffering-along-with.”  Remember the “passion of Christ,” the suffering of Christ.  Jesus calls us into the midst of human suffering because it makes us more human, more alive, more at-one with each other, an earthly kind of atonement.

The human miracle of compassion, when suffering along with others bring life out of death.  Where do we see that happening?

A man says, “This church helped me find the courage to stop drinking, and now I have been sober for six years.  I still struggle with things – money and a job – but I give thanks to God every day that I am sober.”  Life after death, a miracle of compassion.

In this particular case it was the result of intensive and extended counseling by one of our clergy staff members.  We get involved with scores of people each year, and in most of their situations we detect no change.  But then, every so often comes the breakthrough, and we can never tell ahead of time where it will be.  It surprises us, and it keeps us going.

Another form of this miracle is that this congregation hosts fourteen 12-step groups a week – A.A., Al-Anon, and variations of all sorts.  We will be hosting a fifteen meeting starting Tuesday night, an A.A. meeting for young adults organized by a member of one of our church families.  These programs do not meet everyone’s needs, but they are salvation for some.  They can bring life out of death.  We are engaged in miracles when we have enough compassion to welcome those who are seeking one another’s support.

Another member of our church family had trouble getting registered for the health care support he is entitled to, all the time suffering noticeably from some treatable conditions.  We had pity on him, but then a church member with expertise in the area learns of his dilemma and has compassion on him.  She interviews him, sorts out the registration problems, intervenes on his behalf, and now he gets what he should be getting.  It is a form of resuscitation, new life coming out of a deadening situation.

Yet another member, inspired by a conversation held at church, befriends the terribly stooped-over man who begs on the corner each day.  She learns his name, hears his story, and goes to the trouble of getting him signed up for Social Security.  The man no longer lives on the streets, has money to spend, and is getting medical help for his back.  He still stands on the corner with his cup – that is his office where he reports to work every day just like you and I – but his life has changed, thanks to the miracle of compassion.

Someone experiences the death of a family member and then discovers that we have a bereavement ministry, a quiet, steady gathering of those needing a place to be understood and those who will understand because they have gone through the same thing.  Sometimes praying harder, reading the Bible more, and pleading with God for comfort does not work as effectively as finding others who will listen to us and suffer along with us.  And gradually the overcastness and dreariness begins to dissipate and life begins to look livable again.  

Simply, the church can be a community of compassion for those associated with the community – and beyond to those whom we know only through their neediness.  When our volunteers feed people who are hungry on Saturday mornings and distribute pants and shirts and socks and shoes, that is an act of compassion that can bring life to others.  We do not see very often the actual invigoration that it brings people, but we trust God that it does.  And as one of our guests said to us some years back, “Just to be called by my name rather than to be called names gives me a sense of being alive.”

Over a decade ago we were among several Christian and Jewish congregations that built a single room occupancy facility south of the Loop.  It is called the Central City Housing Ventures.  A single room for someone who has been homeless – a place to keep clothes and possessions under lock and key, a place to shower and to wash clothes, a place to sleep with both eyes closed, a place to heat up simple meals, a place to serve as a mailing address, a place to receive job counseling, a place to get clothes proper for a job interview.  That brings new life, and it is a human-scaled miracle in which Jesus calls all of us to participate by having compassion.

We can describe our tutoring program with school children as a miracle of compassion of sorts because it brings a new perspective on life to young people.  Our Samaritan Counseling Center on the third floor with the Rev. Anne Hampson as the counselor, certainly holds miraculous possibilities to people who are seeking a way where there is no way.

And then, just by being a church in the middle of the city open day and night seven days a week is a miracle of compassion for some.  All the time people come in here to find silence, solace, safety, sanctuary – a place to get away from it all.  Maybe away from the office, from the courtroom, from the noise, from the jostling on the sidewalks.  People, who are thanking God, people who are working through problems, people who are driven to their knees in despair, people who just in need of a place to sit down and drowse off for a few minutes.

The miracle of compassion – the possibilities are all around us; I just mentioned ten of them.  Jesus shows us how to pay attention, get involved, and make things better.  It is easy for us in these days of discontent to moan and groan about all of the acts of brutal disregard that we see.  Just read the papers, watch the news – children shooting children, scam artists bilking people, the housebound elderly who are forgotten and not missed until it is too late.  And then there are the tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, landslides, and floods.  There is a natural urge to fold in on ourselves in order to protect ourselves.  It is normal, an instinct of self-preservation.

However, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about self-preservation but about bringing life to others.  Underneath this gospel is the paradox that those who try to preserve their lives will lose it, and those who risk personal loss in order to serve others will be more alive than ever before.

Where is the miracle in this gospel account?  There are two of them.  The first one is divine; Luke reports that Jesus resuscitated the son of the widow in Nain.  But we are not divine, so we look at the second miracle – having compassion for others.  Com-passion, feeling-along-with, suffering-along-with – it is that which brings life to others and to ourselves.  It seems nonsensical upon first hearing; but then, most miracles do.  Amen.