Mary was a single mother

1 Kings 17:17-24

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

Psalm 30

I will exalt you, O LORD, because you have lifted me up and have not let my enemies triumph over me. O LORD my God, I cried out to you, and you restored me to health. You brought me up, O LORD, from the dead; you restored my life as I was going down to the grave. Sing praise to the LORD, all you faithful; give thanks in holy remembrance. God’s wrath is short; God’s favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping spends the night, but joy comes in the morning. While I felt secure, I said, “I shall never be disturbed. You, LORD, with your favor, made me as strong as the mountains.” Then you hid your face and I was filled with fear. I cried to you, O LORD; I pleaded with my Lord, saying, “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness? Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me; I LORD, be my helper.” You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

Galatians 1:11-24

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. You have heard no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. Then after three years did I go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.

Luke 7:11-17

Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. Then the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

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By this point in the Gospel of Luke, I can just imagine Jesus’ followers singing the Mighty Mouse theme song for him. I mean, he has just healed the slave of a centurion simply by saying the word, and that’s some serious authority. So his roadies start talking him up, bringing new fans along to see what he’ll do next, and I can hear them singing, “Here he comes to save the daaaaaay! Jesus Christ is on the waaaaay!”

I jest. But only partially. This crowd is getting bigger everywhere he goes, and they’re probably not too quiet about their excitement, either. And you know how it can get in a crowd, at a party, when everybody is just riding the high energy and it’s easy to miss more serious things going on, especially because you want to keep feeling good. So they enter this town called Nain, Jesus and his fans and his disciples, and they meet this other crowd, this crowd that’s definitely not so happy. It’s like the Pride parade meets a funeral procession. Which it is. This widow, who has already buried her husband, is on her way, with her community, to bury her only son. She may have had daughters, we don’t know, but this only son business is serious business. Maybe he looked just like his father and that was a comfort to her, or maybe it was most certainly not a comfort. Maybe he was the son who could work hard and help her keep her property and a roof over their heads, or maybe he was a freeloader who expected everyone else to wait on him. We don’t know. 

But because the Gospel is storytelling, we hear the phrase ‘his only son’ and it means something else, too. Because whether or not it’s true, we call Jesus the only son of Mary. Certainly the only son of God in the particular way he was said to be conceived, right? And Jesus knows he’s going to be putting his mother in a very similar situation soon, when he will die before her and she will have to grieve and bury him. The young man on the bier, the burial pallet, is probably about the same age as Jesus, just about thirty or so, that’s what the phrase ‘young man’ in the Greek illustrates. So the foreshadowing Jesus might see here of his own mother’s impending grief, at least the foreshadowing we see, stirs some compassion. 

Jesus was basically raised by a single mother. We don’t hear much about Joseph after the return from Egypt, and chances are Joseph was much older than Mary when Jesus was born. We don’t know how long Joseph lived, but he disappears from the story pretty early on, leaving Mary to raise this budding Rabbi, and from the looks of it, well, since we know now who Jesus is and what he did, we can say Mary did a good job, but I’m sure at the time there were many who disapproved of the way she formed him and then let him wander village to village like that. Single mothers are always being given the side eye by somebody, even when they work so hard and love so fiercely and do so unsupported.

But that’s the narrative we’ve been telling for ages, isn’t it? That single mothers, widows, orphans, are unsupported, isolated, destitute. Which makes us the ones who have to save them. And don’t get me wrong, there are many ways in which we have built the system against women, some subtle, some overt. And the early church was known for the way we cared for widows and orphans without expectation of payment in return. That was our specialty, to take care of those people otherwise uncared for by the rest of society. But we paint far too bleak a picture of widows, as though they had no access to resources of their own, as though they didn’t have their own network of support, and single mothers don’t need our pity. Who wants pity?

Jesus doesn’t respond to the widow at Nain with pity. He responds with compassion. splagniztheis is the Greek word, it’s a gut-wrenching. Compassion is the suffering with, not the lording over of strength and power that comes with pity. Which is exactly who Jesus is, compassion, gut-deep, living with us.

What I think is happening is that Jesus hasn’t been home to see his own mother in ages, though for all I know she may have been traveling with them. I think he might see the relationship he and his own mother have, recognize the garbage she had to put up with for getting pregnant out of wedlock, and facing the ridicule with strength and keeping her heart open for her son, and I think Jesus’ compassion for this widow mirrors the compassion he had for his own mother. It’s just a theory, of course, just storytelling, only conjecture. But to be an only son and meet someone who has lost their only son, or to be a mother and meet someone who has lost their mother, there has to be some element of self-recognition there, some way to identify.

The thing about this particular healing, though, is that we don’t know the details about what comes after. First off, this mother in the middle of her grief may well have to grieve again if her son dies before she does, again. Secondly, we don’t know the relationship these two had, and maybe it was a relief, for her or for her son. She might have been "mommy dearest" for all we know, or he might have made her life miserable. But I’m not a mother, I don’t know firsthand the depth of love one has for their own child, I’ve only heard the stories of those who spare no expense caring for their children even when those kids are worse than awful to them. Kind of makes me wonder why we don't call God "Mother" more often. But the only thing the storyteller of Luke’s Gospel is concerned with here is that this sign points to who Jesus is, the authority Jesus has over death, and the compassion he carries for those who are on the margins. They meet, after all, on the literal margins of Nain.

I had a seminary professor from the Catholic Passionist tradition for a semester on God and the Mystery of Human Suffering who told us once that Jesus didn’t heal people for their own sake, as though they needed their sight restored or their hearing or to be able to walk and work again. He said that Jesus healed one person in a community for the sake of the community who could not recognize the work and miracle of God in those who were different. The man born blind did not need to see, he needed to be seen, for example. So I wonder how much of that is going on here in this story with the widow and her only son, too. We don’t need to be saved from our grief, certainly, and death is as much a part of life as breathing or photosynthesis. But I wonder how many of the men in Nain valued this woman’s contribution, or even just her own stories and her own strength, outside of the fact that she had a son. What if this was how Jesus honored his own mother, not that she was weak and needed him in order to be acceptable to society, but that he wanted her to be recognized for her own strength?

There’s another widow in our lectionary today. One who lived in Old Testament days, during a great drought and famine brought about because her puppet king and his very cruel queen were so awful that God’s prophet Elijah had to go tell them the rains were closed off to them until they got their act together. This widow also had a son. And when the prophet Elijah met her, though she is never given a name, she is working hard, breaking her back to feed herself and her son their last meal before the produce of the land runs out entirely. This widow is a strong and capable woman, and, even under all of the stress of impending starvation, she opens her home to a stranger, the very stranger whose word put her in this situation whether or not she knows it. She may or may not have much choice in the matter, not knowing what connections Elijah might have to call on if she refuses, but she also may not have the energy to make one more argument and maybe takes pity on this scraggly looking prophet. He promises that her food will not run out while she cares for him, which could just be selling snake oil, but his promise is true, and their food does not run out for the duration of the famine.

Of course, things turn bad when her son stops breathing. She has worked her tail off to take care of that boy, and here this man of God comes sauntering in during a time of crisis to call her to account for her sins and take her son’t life in payment? Oh, no, that is not okay. That’s probably also not what’s actually happening, but chances are she didn’t have the best relationship with the religious rulers of the day, church folks have a long and well-earned reputation for being judgmental, especially of women. And Elijah is pretty upset, too. You can hear it in the story. He doesn’t take offense at the woman’s accusations. He doesn’t try to explain that sometimes these things just happen. He doesn’t defend himself against her anger and grief, he cries out to God with his own anger and grief. He prays for her, for himself, for the child. He performs something that sounds like CPR, and the child is revived.

But, again, this story isn’t really about the widow. It’s not about the child, either. It’s about Elijah, the great prophet, keeping a woman on the margins alive, while thumbing his nose at the great and powerful queen and king who have all sorts of glitter and power about them but ultimately no authority over life and death. 

Jesus’ work is set today in light of the Elijah story, in line of the great prophets. Those who first heard about the widow at Nain would surely have remembered this widow from the Old Testament, would have remembered Elijah and made the connection with Jesus. He’s thumbing his nose at Roman authorities, at religious authorities, at any powers that be which would devalue life on the margins. He is showing no different treatment to a widow than to a centurion. Let me say that again: a military commander with authority over one hundred soldiers gets the same care as a widow whose only son has just died. Can you imagine what that would look like here, if we treated single mothers with the same respect we gave our active duty servicemen? If we paid people equally for their work and didn’t have this ridiculous gender pay gap? If we stopped making light of sexual assault on college campuses as though men couldn’t control themselves around women and that was somehow expected? Can you imagine if we who carry his name lived like Jesus in our day and age, how much would need to change, how much could really change?

And this is the abundant life Jesus brings to us, for us. It’s also the reason he gets killed. Anybody can kill. It’s bringing life that’s the hard thing. It’s bringing life that takes work, it’s healing that requires effort and difficulty, it’s resurrection that takes a miracle. These miracles are happening all around us every day. It’s not just the big processions and suddenly unexpected signs. It’s a change of heart, like Saul encountered when he turned from persecuting early followers of the Way of Christ and became Paul. It’s the moments of revelation when we come face to face with our own power and know how much we are capable of and live into that strength and that vulnerability, and trust that life will ultimately win, that love will have the final say.

Because it will, and it does. Life and love are our source and our destination. We receive this in the person of Jesus, when God comes and walks among us, in our Pride parades, and in our funeral processions, and in every moment in between.