Sermon for Pentecost 3C

Clothed With Joy

 As he [Jesus] 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. Luke 10:12

Just a few a days ago while on my way home, I had to stop and wait for funeral procession. The hearse led the way, followed by a limousine in which I assumed the family was the riding, followed by car after car that identified itself as part of the procession with window signs that read “funeral.”

I witnessed the entire procession go by, but I did not catch glimpse of a single face of a single person who had joined the procession, each mourner in their own vehicle or in the limo, hidden by tinted glass. I knew nothing of the people in the procession, their story, how they came to be in that procession on that day, and I could not even begin to guess what the days ahead might hold. I couldn’t see them. I didn’t know them. Neither did anyone else on the road that day because as the procession went on, other drivers got impatient and tried to go around or cut across the ongoing procession – in a hurry to get to their destinations, I guess.

I said a quiet but very general prayer for the family. I trust God was there for them already, but I added my intercession anyway. On they went. So did I.