Trinity 16 – I say to you, Arise!

Ephesians 3:13-21       St. Luke 7:11-17

That you might be filled with all the fullness of God!

For every one of us here I think it is true to say, that we experience times in our life where we are more alive to the Gospel, and times when we were less aware of it.  Why is this?

Let’s think of this for a minute.  When were you more or less alive to God?

• Maybe it was a way of life contrary to God that held you imprisoned, an addiction, following a passion having lost self control.

• Maybe it was in the time of being a teen or young adult and our world was taken up by the good of studies or work and when we weren’t studying or working, it was the enjoyment and good of developing friendships with others that took all our attention. For me it was a time when God slipped completely from my mind.

• Maybe it was later for some of you – a time when you had begun working without or within the home to attend to a young family. Every moment of the day seemed to be full of satisfying the immediate needs of those around you.

• Perhaps it was a career that really engaged you. Sometimes you may have even felt you were on auto-pilot, you just went through things day to day.  And maybe it was hard to keep God before your mind.

St Paul prays for us that we might be “filled with all the fullness of God.”  In his description of the life and hope of a Christian, it seems if we were that connected to God it could hardly be possible that God would slip from our minds.

St Paul speaks of a kind of spiritual maturity that we all hope for.  He reminds us that it is possible, it is our end in Christ, it is the hope of glory – “to have power to comprehend” just how much God loves us and “to be filled with all the fullness of God”. 

I ministered to a woman in her final year of life here when I was in Utrecht.  She told me of an experience she had.  She knew very well the Christian life and loved to listen to the Psalms sung.  She said she had been in her chair in the previous week, listening with headphones to an English choir singing Psalm 51 – and suddenly she was lifted into a heavenly realm where she saw and heard angels singing all around her and came to know God’s mercy at a level she had never imagined before.  It was a profound heart knowledge beyond a simple rational knowledge.

So how will this kind of knowledge that St Paul speaks of come about in us?

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In the Gospel this morning, a dead man, the only son of his mother, is being carried out on a bier by others out of a city called Nain – probably to be buried in a cemetery outside the city.

Of course on a literal level it a reminder of the compassion of Jesus for a woman who is a widow and is experiencing the double despair of losing her son and losing the only person who could care for her.  It reveals that Jesus is like the great prophet of old, Elijah, who restored to life through his prayers to God, the only son of the widow of Zaraphath.  When the Jews saw what Jesus did, they made the connection immediately.  “A great prophet is among us!”  Jesus is like Elijah.  But the miracle is also different – Elijah prayed to God, Jesus simply says, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” – and he was restored to life.  Someone even greater than the great prophet Elijah is here.

But the miracle lends itself to a spiritual reading.  As I mentioned last year, the word “Nain” means Pleasant.  The death of this man in the city called Pleasant, is the experience of all people who give themselves over to pleasure.  What is pleasant will destroy us if it is seen as an end in itself, that is, if it is not enjoyed in Christ, or with God in mind.

This man brought out dead could be a description of our inner spiritual life when we forget God – if we are engaged so much outwardly, that inwardly, there is a kind of death to the spiritual life, a life that keeps God in mind.

And the mother, is like the Church, that is us, who mourns for those in our midst who are getting lost in all that is pleasant in this world – whether it be a spouse, a child, a grandchild, a friend – and God has completely slipped from their minds.

In whatever way this spiritual death comes upon the members of the Church, we are moved with compassion for one another – we feel sadness in our hearts for them.

And Jesus does not just sit by idly while we weep.  He comes along side us, moved with compassion for the Church who weeps for her children.

“When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Do not weep.  Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.  And he said, Young man, I say to you, Arise.  And the dead man sat up, and began to speak.  And Jesus gave him to his mother.” 

The man in the Gospel came out of death to the new life in Christ.  And what did this man in the Gospel story do?  I’m sure he went back into Nain, into engaging again in all that is pleasant in this life – the pleasures of the body and of the mind, of friendship, of earthly loves.  But he will enjoy all the good things as a sign of the goodness of God, he will enjoy them in Christ.

This is the story of each one of us, isn’t it?  when our engagement in our daily life, even in all the pleasant things, has left us spiritually dry, even dead inwardly.  We give thanks for the Church who, in her compassion, prays for us even when we cannot pray for ourselves, and to our Lord who draws near in response to those prayers to reawaken us from a spiritual slumber to renewed life again in the Spirit.

The story is also reminder to us of something simple we can do to experience an inward spiritual renewal.  Our Lord, and his Church, has suggested that we sometimes fast, or sometimes take time to go on retreat.  It is a kind of willed denial of what is pleasant in this world, a dying to them temporarily, so that Christ might revive our inner life.

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The man in the Gospel story, through death to what is pleasant outwardly, began to know a new pleasure – the pleasure that comes from knowing in a very real way God’s love.  The Gospel says he sat up on the funeral bier, and looked upon God incarnate, Jesus Christ, before him.  (Every artistic rendering through the ages has him looking at Jesus!)  The Gospel says, he began speaking – no doubt he offered Jesus words of praise and thanksgiving, as well as simply beholding him with his eyes in loving adoration.  This is a figure of contemplative prayer.  And this is the shift we find in our readings in Trinity season in the weeks to come – a focus on union with God, on contemplation.

The Gospel story is a parable of the resurrection of the inner man, or the inward person that St Paul speaks of.  What is “the inward man” (or inner being)?  It is that capacity in the soul that each one of us are given to look upon God face to face.  It is what we are capable of, as we mature, as sons and daughters of God.

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul prays for the Church, that everyone might rise to this new life and come to know God through this inner capacity…

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…that we might…know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God. – imagine, filled with all the fullness of God.

All the calls throughout the Gospels about denying ourselves, about dying, about taking up our cross, about seeking first and foremost the kingdom of heaven – we are told all these things by Jesus so that we might be taken up into new heights of true and lasting pleasure.  This is the Easter (and Ascension) that follows Lent – the resurrection life that begins even now in this world after the cross – if we die with him, that we might live with him, and ascend with him.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jesus would do to each of us as he did to the man in today’s Gospel.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Jesus would touch each one us inwardly and awaken us out of death or out of our spiritual sleepiness?

This is exactly what Jesus promises to each one of us here this morning in Holy Communion.  We feast upon living bread, and drink from that life-giving stream – His Body and Blood given for us – for the forgiveness of sin and to raise us up to the new life.  Here, in the Holy Communion, we are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; here through the Sacrament Christ… dwell[s] in [our] hearts by faith; so that [we], being rooted and grounded in love, are made able to comprehend [that is, we are given a new way of knowing, an inward capacity,] to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge, [to know beyond what our normal reasoning leads us to] so that [we] might be filled with all the fullness of God. 

Our Collect this morning acknowledges how easy it is for God to slip completely from our minds through our daily engagement in the world.  Let us pray:

O LORD, we beseech you, let your continual pity cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your succour, preserve it evermore by your help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Amen +