Do What Jesus Did

As she walked the dusty road toward the Nain city gate she repeated to herself, It was not supposed to end this way. . . . They had dreamed of owning a little vineyard. Years of hard work and sacrifice was about to pay off. Then it was all gone. As the hired mourners continued to wail, she vividly remembered the moment when she unexpectedly had lost her husband. That was nearly three years ago. Not knowing what would become of her, she was lost in her thoughts. Too old to remarry, she thought, and the rest of the family was gone. However, God had blessed her with a strong son to look after her. There would never be a vineyard now, but she was grateful for a son to provide enough food and security to live modestly. And then he had gotten sick and died too. It was not supposed to be this way. Something in the distance caught her eye. She could barely make out what appeared to be a large crowd heading her way. It was difficult to see anything with eyes swollen from two days of tears.

As she walked ahead of the funeral procession, she wondered what would come of her. She had heard their whispers. Many thought the deaths of her husband and son were the result of sin and God's judgment on them. How could she respond? They had tried to live according to the laws of Moses and the Pharisees. Whom was she kidding? She had to admit they had not been as careful as they should have been. Maybe the whispers were true; maybe God had judged them. She was sure of one thing: No matter how hard life was about to get she would never prostitute herself the way other widows did. She would maintain her dignity even if it meant starving to death. She had been lost in thought for some time when she looked up to see the crowd now in front of her. They were moving quickly. She wondered why they are in such a hurry. Where had they come from and where were they going? The questions and answers would have to wait because she had a funeral to attend.

Widows in ancient Israel suffered in many ways. Mosaic Law addressed the needs of widows and the poor. In Deuteronomy 25:5-10, the law required the deceased's brother marry the widow. Some parents took their widowed daughter back into their household (Leviticus 22:13). Deuteronomy 14:28-29 reminds us of the need to care for the aliens, fatherless, and widows.

The poor were often exploited, ignored, and faced harsh treatment. Since death was often viewed as a result of sin, (Ruth 1:19-21; Isaiah 54:4) widows lacked rights to an inheritance and often lived without basic human necessities. A widow without family and too old to marry faced the ultimate dishonor of deciding whether to turn to prostitution or die of starvation.

Regardless of how progressive life may appear in 21st century America, suffering still occurs. Most of us know people facing difficult choices. The widow faced a choice between prostitution and starvation. While social programs have reduced a widow's exploitation, we still find examples of people facing harsh treatment, and stigma. I want you to ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?" Some elderly people must decide whether to pay for medication or their heating bill. Homeless people live on the streets with drug addictions and mental illness often ignored or abused. Ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?" Single parents face criticism and financial hurdles as they try to raise their children. AIDS patients must decide whether acknowledging their condition and seeking treatment is worth the social stigma they will endure. Ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?" In this real life story about a group of homeless people living in San Francisco, I want you to listen for Rita's story.

The little concrete divider wouldn't get a second glance, or have a name--if not for the colony of people who lives in a jumble of shopping carts loaded with everything they own. The shopkeepers who work near it and the street sweepers who clean it call it “Homeless Island”; to the homeless, it is just the “Island.” The inhabitants here live hand-to-mouth, sleep on the cement, and abuse booze and drugs, mostly heroin. Vina, the one-legged woman with broken teeth, weaved her wheelchair in and out of traffic all morning, panhandling with a cardboard sign that read, "Anything helps." Michelle, the willowy transvestite, dozed alongside her heaped shopping cart, occasionally waking to stare at the cars. Wild Woman Angel and One-Leg Mike were out getting heroin, and Cowboy squatted on the cement, cleaning a crack pipe. It was after noon when they found out their leader-44-year-old Tommy Rettig, a rail-thin man with a curly red beard was dead of a tissue-dissolving bacterial infection common to junkies all over the city.

Someone tacked a picture of Tommy with a cardboard sign bearing his name and some flowers up on a tree. Rita, Tommy's off-and-on girlfriend, had been wandering all morning when Bobby Ray met her on the sidewalk and told her Tommy was dead. "No way, it's a lie," she said. She started to twitch and pace. Then she saw everyone else crying. "Oh, my God," she wailed. She began whipping the picture of Tommy with the jeans she'd been holding. "Damn you! Why'd you die?" And then--in about an hour--it was over. Rita stared at the tree one last time, and then wiped the tears off her face. "I can't think about this anymore," Rita mumbled. "I gotta go." She shuffled off to find a dope dealer.

"What would Jesus do?" Did you consider this question as you listened to Rita's story? Rita was so addicted to heroin she spent only an hour to mourn her boyfriend Tommy before she had to wipe the tears off her face and shuffle off and find a drug dealer. Poor Rita we say! Or maybe we think, I'm glad I don't live in San Francisco! However, versions of Rita's story are found in our villages, cities, and world. There are many suffering “Rita's” in our world today. They are the forgotten people. Ravaged by drugs and bad choices most have become invisible to us. What is our responsibility? What can we do? "What would Jesus do?" I think the right answer is to "do what Jesus did!" But how do we know what Jesus did? Good question! We find the answer in today's text.
The widow looked up just as He walked toward her. He was hot and sweaty. The difficult 25 mile walk from Capernaum took most of the day and He was breathing hard from the journey. She heard someone say “it's Jesus.” She had heard of this teacher. He was the one who had healed the sick and lame. She asked herself, Why didn't this Jesus come yesterday while her son was still alive? How could she have known Jesus walked all the way just to meet her need? Out of His love and compassion, He had gone out of His way for her! He had just finished preaching to a crowd of nearly 10,000. He was hot. He was thirsty. Jesus walked 25 miles to some “Podunk town” just to meet her need. Can you sense how much Jesus loved her? Can you imagine how much Jesus loves us? Jesus walked up to her and said, "Do not cry." Ha, she might have thought! Jesus could heal the sick, but her son was already dead. In a blink of an eye, everything changed! Jesus touched the son's dead body and commanded the him to get up and returned to his mother. Awe filled crowds as they respond by praising God. A widow's world changed in an instant.

Only Luke included this story in his Gospel account. Have you ever wondered why? One writer suggested the healing aspect intrigued Luke, a Gentile physician. Certainly, Jesus defied current medical practices. Jesus did not carry a little black bag, nor express the whimsical and colorful language and practices of a magician. He made no animal sacrifices and did not chant prayers to God. Jesus simply spoke and the dead son came back to life. I think Luke included this story for a different reason: barriers.

This story demonstrated God's willingness to cross any barrier to extend grace to His creation. Luke was a Gentile who wrote his account for a Gentile audience. If there was tough boundary to cross it was the Gentile, Samaritan, Jew-barrier. In this story Luke describes the barriers Jesus crossed to meet the widow's need. Distance and personal comfort was no barrier for Jesus. Jesus walked 25 miles to an unremarkable town to show compassion for a poor distraught widow. Reputation was no barrier for Jesus. Jesus defiled himself by touching the dead. No good teacher of the law would defile himself this way. Even death was no barrier for Jesus. Jesus simply spoke and the dead came back to life. Crossing barriers is the key to understanding Jesus and understanding God's grace for us. The real reason Luke included this story was to establish Jesus' willingness to cross all barriers, even ethnicity and culture. This is the key to "doing what Jesus did!"1

I would like to tell you another story about a woman named Rita. It is not the same as the Rita from San Francisco, but we may see parallels between them. There is one significant difference though. While the first homeless Rita was all alone in her plight, here we have an example of "doing what Jesus did."

It was a beautiful, sunny, joyous, spring day. In just six short months, Rita would be released from the women's institution. One day as she sat on her very hard iron bunk thinking about life, Rita asked herself, "What are you going to do with your life?" She knew she could not continue to keep living as she had. She reasoned, It's time to make a change. Though Christian, she was unsure where she was going to live after she was released. Her roommate suggested she consider Rachel's House, a faith-based housing provider. She decided to check it out and signed up to attend the pre-release Bible study. On her first day Pastor Jan introduced herself and said, "Welcome to the Rachel's House Bible Study." Rita's first response was, What am I doing here? What can this woman offer me? She looked at Jan and said, "I want to change my life." After six months of Bible studies, Rita's release day had finally arrived. Listen to her story in her own words.

On May 15th, I walked out of the Franklin Pre-Release Center. Pastor Jan was there to pick me up with another woman named Gwen. Gwen welcomed me with open arms, a big smile, and a cold Pepsi. The ride to the house was exciting. To just ride in a car with the wind in my hair looking out the window at the trees blooming and the birds singing brought tears to my eyes. I was so overjoyed, just rejoicing how God has blessed me with a faith-based house. Once at the house, the women there brought me gifts. Jennifer was sitting in a rocking chair with so much love in her eyes. She said, "Welcome home and Jesus loves you." What a joy to know that I was in a Christian house. The house itself made me feel ecstatic overjoyed, with love. My mind was running a hundred miles a minute. I was trying to take all this in, I could not believe that this was real and all this love was for me. When I laid down that night, I was exhausted. But it was a good tired, the kind where you cannot go to sleep. I did not want the day to end. It was like a dream, or sitting watching a movie with me in the leading role. Only this was real. As I sit here today writing this paper I am still in the Rachel's House, working, attending church regularly and in college. Now isn't God good?2

What is your consensus? Did Pastor Jan, Gwen, and Jennifer "do what Jesus did!" I think they did. They willingly crossed barriers of culture, convenience, and reputation to meet a woman's need. As the Church, we are to respond to the hurting with compassion and willingly inconvenience ourselves to spread the

Good News. We must "do as Jesus did." We are to risk our own reputations by eliminating barriers resulting in alienating the lost and causing them to feel unwelcome. We must "do what Jesus did" at school, at the workplace, and in the Church. In Matthew 25:40 Jesus reminds us, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." God never wanted the “least of these” to be ignored, exploited, or stigmatized. There are no barriers to God's grace. There is no place too small, no disease too great, no person too insignificant, and no sin too costly for Jesus. Like Jesus, we must willingly cross social, racial, and economic boundaries to bring good news to a dying world. "When the Lord saw her, His heart went out to her and said, 'Don't Cry.' God's people must go and do the same. Now go and "do what Jesus did.”

1. Kevin Fagan. 2003. Shame of the City: Homeless Island. Chronicle, November 30. www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/11/30/MNG263BHKR1.DTL

2. The Compassionate Samaritan. 2004. The Story of Rita. www.ncm.org/pdf/compsam0009.pdf (accessed on February 5, 2007).