Let Loose to Live - A Sermon based on John 11. 1-45, preached on March 26, 2023 at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Scranton, PA
There is a special place in my heart and soul for the story of the raising of Lazarus. My very first attempt at a Sermon was based on this text. It was the last week of July in the summer of 1973 in Oregon. I was two thirds of the way through my first job in ministry as Youth Director of the Brookings Presbyterian Church. The pastor, John Lacy, had been Student Assistant at my home church in New Jersey while he was in seminary. He had been foolish enough to write to invite a 20 year-old rising college junior to drive across the country to direct an Adventurer’s Club for elementary kids, and youth groups for Junior High and High School students.
By
the time I stood in the pulpit on the last Sunday in July, I had been climbing a
learning curve as steep as the mountains to the east of that lovely little town
on the Oregon coast just above the California border. I had scrapes and bruises from the times I
slipped up and fell on my face repeatedly as I learned that doing ministry wasn’t
as easy as it looked. My missteps were
sometimes well-intentioned. My wounds were often self-inflicted. Looking back I count it as good fortune to
have been mentored by a friend who knew from his own experience “nobody ever
said it would be easy.” He had occasion to tell me that often.
So there I was living on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific one year after my high school sweetheart told me to on a Cape Cod beach that it was time to part ways. There I was about four weeks from the moment I first laid eyes on a blue-eyed blond in bellbottom jeans and platform shoes, who fourteen months later would say “yes” when I asked her to be my wife. In between had been a rocky rebound year with low-lights in attitude and behavior and poor decision making best summed up by the New Year’s afternoon when I stumbled down from my bedroom and my father offered me an antidote for having been over served the night before. He made me a mixed drink: Alka-Seltzer and water. It was all uphill from there.
Caring
friends, old and new, those with whom I shared a house, and others who came
along at just the right time, helped me move from what had been to what might
be. When John’s letter came inviting me
West, I jumped at the chance. Driving
across the country in a Chevy Vega in those gas-shortage days, with the added
danger of an extra one gallon can of gas tucked in the trunk, brought me to a
place where a fresh set of adults in the Brookings church were waiting to help
me learn and grow and discover what Frederick Buechner calls “a self to be.”[i]
Perhaps
that’s why, when I chose to preach on the raising of Lazarus my focus was on
the ending, where the once dead man shuffles out of the tomb. Jesus directed
those looking on to set him free from the grave clothes that bound him. Some of those who let me loose, I’ve been
able to thank…others are long gone…and the best I can do is to take my thanks
to the Lord and ask him to pass them on.
I went down into
the archives housed in our basement one day and pulled out the manuscript of
that nearly fifty-year-old sermon. Its
pages are yellowed, some are tattered. The sermon bears marks of indecision in
the age before computers and the blessed gifts called “cut and paste,” and
“scalable fonts.” Part of it is
typewritten in all CAPITAL LETTERS, the unevenness of key strike on page is
evident, as is the worn ribbon signature of the old typewriter that sat on the
table in the furnace room that served as my office that summer. The rest is handwritten in black felt-tipped
ink. My final edits are revealed by
pages sliced on a paper cutter and scotch-taped together, one paragraph typed,
the next two in my own flowing script.
The first page was once page 10. The first four lines are crossed out. Three paragraphs follow recounting a message placed in a church bulletin by an Episcopal priest. It was a cute variation of the old frog kissed by a princess story. It reflected on what it must feel like to be a frog and recalled those times when anyone of us might feel like a frog: “slow, low, ugly, puffy, drooped, pooped.”[ii] Then it retold the frog in need of a kiss story complete with the princess who set the handsome prince free. It ended with this: “So what is the task of the church? To kiss frogs of course.”
My
sermon went on to make a connection between the frogs all around us in need of
a kiss and the direction by Jesus to unbind Lazarus and let him go. I had quotes from mid-twentieth century
pulpiteer Harry Emerson Fosdick and an unbinding story from the then noted and
respected Presby-terian professor and author Robert McAffee Brown. I added a story from one of my boyhood heroes
who died the year before from ALS, then known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Wrapping it all
up, the sermon ended with an observation and a quote I still love to
share: “It is at the person-al level
where the love that Christ has given us is to be passed on. It has been said that “Christianity is like
electricity: it can’t enter a person unless it can pass through.”[iii]
Well,
it is slightly less than fifty years later and a lot of life has happened in
the meantime. To focus on the end of
the Lazarus story where the community is called upon to complete the work begun
by Christ still holds up well. That
said, there is so much more in the story to help us live as followers of Jesus,
who show our love for God by loving our neighbors..
The
story of Lazarus begins by mapping out a web of relationships. There was a man
who was ill. His name was Lazarus. He had sisters you will recognize from
stories in the other gospels, Martha and Mary.
Lazarus and his sisters knew Jesus and he knew them. We know this
because of the message the sisters sent to Jesus when Lazarus fell ill: “Lord,
he whom you love is ill.” The bond between Jesus, Lazarus and the sisters is
underlined by the curious note about Jesus’ response to that news: “…though Jesus loved Martha and her sister
and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer
in the place where he was.” (vv. 5-6).
The
delay of Jesus will be mentioned three more times in the course of the
storytelling, indicating that it was a feature we ought to think about. Much as we would like others to drop
everything and run to be by our side in a time of crisis or sadness, there are
often other commitments that get in the way, other responsibilities not easily
shunted to the side. We may have to be understanding when it seems another is
taking their sweet time.
Scholars
suggest there is something deeper to discover about the delay. The late Fred Craddock noted that in the
Gospel of John “Jesus acts according to his own time and not according to
external pressures. For example, Jesus separates himself from his mother before
acting at the wedding feast at Cana.”[iv] We are often reminded of the difference
between God’s timetable and our own. If nothing else, as one writer puts it,
the incident “is instructive in the sense that even these beloved disciples
cannot snap their fingers expectantly and have their wish fulfilled in the
manner they desire.”[v]
That is something for us to remember when we are storming God’s throne with our
requests. That’s when we need to take a page from the Psalm 130:
How
disappointing it must have been for Martha and Mary when Lazarus died before
Jesus arrived. The one they trusted, the one who had helped others, the one
they reached out to in their time of need didn’t get there in time. Their
respect for and admiration of Jesus can’t hide their disappoint-ment when each
sister greets Jesus:
“Lord,
if you had been here, my brother would not have died! What we hear beneath their words is the very
recognizable stage of grief where the human heart erupts in statements
beginning with the words, “If only…” “If
only the cancer had been detected sooner.” “If only she had stayed off those
icy roads that night.” “If only we had
taken his sadness seriously.” You get the picture. Mary and Martha had done
their part. They sent for Jesus. He
hadn’t come in time. Now there was nothing he could do.
Or
was there? Significantly, neither Martha
nor Mary turn and walk away from Jesus.
Martha keeps the conversation going, even indicating she has a glimmer
of hope he might be able to do some-thing. “Even now I know that God will give
you whatever you ask of him.” This leads to talk of resur-rection and eternal
life. Martha talks about them as
something the Pharisees taught happened in the future.Jesus insists they happen
in the present, when a person places their trust in him.
In
God’s good time, Jesus gets on the road against the objections of his
disciples. When he sets a course for Bethany, (which by the way, means “house
of affliction”)[vi],
the disciples recoil knowing it will put Jesus’ own life in jeopardy. After
some deep and easily misunderstood dialogue about going to wake up his friend,
Jesus goes anyway. Joseph Dayam
describes his choice this way: “He
resolutely sets his face toward Bethany to show his oneness with the suf-fering
family, to share their tears, and thereby to bring about life.”[vii]
Urged on by Thomas, the disciples go with Jesus to do the right thing.
Despite their
fears, the disciples followed Jesus to Bethany. There they discovered they were
not the only ones who had come to grieve and console the sisters on the loss of
their brother. Others had come to
Bethany to sit with Martha and Mary in the time honored tradition that
continues today. The doorbell rings and
a neighbor drops off a cake or a casserole. The visitation at the funeral home
alter-nates between laughter and tears as stories are shared in the receiving
line. Well-chosen words are helpful but
not necessary; being there means so much more. The ministry of presence is powerful
even when not a word is spoken, or when most of what you do is listen.
Read
through the story again and notice the kindness of Jesus. He absorbs the
questions and disappointment of the sisters in ways that respect their
differing personalities. There are lots
of words as Martha’s faith seeks understanding. There’s a flood of tears, even
from Jesus, as Mary’s broken heart is on full display. We are seeing “the Word” who became flesh
expressing the anger and emotion of his own breaking heart.
Then,
when his tears are dried, Jesus shows Martha what he meant when he said “I am
the resurrection and the life.” Lazarus
is called forth, and must participate in his own resurrection. Lazarus is not,
on that day at least, ushered into the many-roomed house of God on high. He’s
enabled to live again that day, and the next, which is what the here-and-now
gift of eternal life is really all about.
Twenty-five
years ago I bought the purple stole I am wearing in a little gift shop a few
steps down the street from the entrance to the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany. Only
minutes before I had viewed the place from which Lazarus wiggled his way out
when the Good Shepherd called his name.
It is a small space, and being none too fond of confined places, I chose not to take my turn and limbo my way into the cave. On another day, Barbara Brown Taylor visited the same spot and descended into the hole from which Lazarus emerged. She describes climbing out like this: “There is only one way to do it: head first, with your upper body already out while your feet are still finding the three small steps—looking up as you straighten up, trying not to scrape your back.”[viii]
Reflecting
on the experience in a sermon, Taylor said: “If it really is Lazarus’s tomb,
then he did not come out of it like a man walking out of prison. He came out of
it like a baby being born again—first his poor wrapped face, then his bandaged
hands, and finally his feet.”[ix]
“Like a baby being born again!” Hmm! A couple of years before Jesus told Nicodemus “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus came to Jesus at night at-tracted by the light of the world. As Jesus calls Lazarus out of darkness and into the light, we are allowed to witness what being born from above looks like, not only in Lazarus, but in his sisters, and in those who came to believe in him that day.
What we also see is that being born from above, like being born the first time, is not easy. It is a life-changing event that is more than a little messy, comes with no small amount of pain, and puts a strain on relationships as everyone adjusts to what is new. And as in the case of the child emerging from the womb, who is cared for by physician, nurse, midwife or dula, those who receive the new life in Christ require assistance.
So,
we are back to the part of the story I focused on in Oregon fifty years ago.
Veronice Miles writes eloquently of our frog-kissing, bandage unwrapping
responsibility toward those Jesus brings back to life. She says:
“Resurrected
women, men and children today also require caring communities that are willing
to nurture and strengthen them until they are able to walk alone; to remove
the grave clothes of self-doubt, social isolation, marginalization, and
oppression; to tear away the fear, anxiety, loss and grief, so that unbound
women, men and children might walk in dignity and become creative agents in the
world.”[x]
Jesus
still calls the dead from their living deaths.
Jesus still calls on those nearby to help
finish the job.
A refugee family
lands in a strange city in a new country and church folk provide a roof over
their heads, food to eat, a table to serve it on, & help to learn a new
language.
One called from
the tomb of substance abuse is helped along by the others who sip strong coffee
in the give and take of the circle of
support provided by 12-step program.
A
young person brought low by shattered dreams and destructive decisions, is let
loose to live by people of faith who offer encouragement and guidance in
response to the command of Jesus.
What
a gift it is to proclaim with the Psalmist:
[i] Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey, (New York, HarperSanFrancisco, 1982) p. 72
[ii] Apologies…the book from which this was taken…was lost in the 2011 flood of the Susquehanna River. The frog story was widely used in the early 70’s. Thinking it came from one of the Word Publishing books of that era by one of the “Faith at Work” authors.
[iii] No clue where that one came from…do your own Google search!
[iv] Fred B. Craddock, “A Twofold Death and Resurrection (Jn. 11. 25-26) The Christian Century, March 21-28, p. 299, copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by permission.
[v] Stephen P. Bauman, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 2, Chapters 10-21, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), p. 42
[vi] Joseph Prabhakar Dayam, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Vol. 2, Chapters 10-21, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), p. 42
[vii] ibid. p. 44
[viii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Dress Rehearsal,” God in Pain, Teaching Sermons on Suffering, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Pres, 1998), p. 66
[ix] ibid.
[x] Veronice Miles, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 2, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 144
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment