A Chain of Caring Hands      a Sermon based on Exodus 2. 1-10 and 2 Timothy 1.3-7, preached on Mother’s Day, May 14, 2023 at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Scranton, PA

            Standing shoulder to shoulder, volunteers pass sandbags hand to hand, linking the point where a pile of sand is shoveled into the bags, to the make-shift dike protecting property from a river on the rise.

            Lined up from the designated storage area to tables arrayed in a church hall, bags and boxes and precious treasures are passed person to person in preparation for the annual flea market or rummage sale.

            On the 4H fairgrounds at a horse show, a baby boy born in January is sung to by this one, rocked to sleep by that one, fed and changed by the other one, so his mother’s hands and heart are free to prepare their children to enter the show ring.

            Each story involves a chain of caring hands, each set attached to a heart that cares and a head filled with the knowledge that we do much better together than we do alone. Many hands do make the work light. And each one’s touch adds something to the process: the suggestion that improves efficiency, the humor that diffuses tension, the fresh infusion of patience when every-one else has had enough.

            On a sticky May night a couple of decades ago, two dozen of us crowded into the vacant Methodist parsonage in Pittston.  It was almost a week after the Postal Workers Food Drive, and the donations delivered for Meals on Wheels which operated out of the church kitchen next door filled the first floor.  We were knee-deep in plastic bags of food.  There was little room to move about. People were getting frustrated and frazzled by the chaos.  Then one spoke up to suggest a way to impose some order. A system was outlined. Before long we were transformed into specialists with manageable tasks: un-packers and passers, stackers and packers, box-builders, barrel haulers, and bag folders.

It didn’t take long for the place to be filled with the sound of rustling bags and stacking cans amid the constant chatter and laughter of people having a good time doing a good thing together.  And through it all, there was to my recollection, no mention of God.

            Yet all the while the work of God was being done. Most notably the work enabled the staff and volunteers of Meals on Wheels to provide the kind of caring Jesus spoke about in Matthew 25 when he talked of people caring for him when he was hungry or lonely.  Beyond that, in the side conversations taking place, there were hearts unburdened, there was helpful information shared, there were expres-sions of support and solidarity exchanged. And since there were children and adolescents among us, an example was set which demonstrated that faith involves more than giving thanks for being forgiven and saying what we believe. We are, as a friend reminds us, “saved for service.” And the enjoyment experienced as the jokes and jibes fly across the room make it clear that serving is not a joyless grind.

            If you read the Book of Exodus, you are seventeen verses into the first chapter before God is mentioned. You’ll have to wait until the last word of the twenty-third verse of the second chapter before God is mentioned again.  But that doesn’t mean God is absent from the stories contained in between. It turns out that God was at work the way God often works: in quiet ways through people going about the business of living their lives.  Even in the middle of difficult times and horrendous circumstances, God is discovered in the lives of faithful people doing what they can where they are to live up to the purpose for which they were created.

            Though Exodus begins without a mention of God, we are only seven verses in when it becomes clear that the promises made to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, have come true. Years have passed, Joseph and his eleven brothers have all long since passed from the scene, but the fulfilled promise is declared in one verse: “But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” (1:7) Unlike the politicians of every age, God does not require plaques on every building or bridge to trumpet accomplishment. God relies instead on the stories of faithful people.

            Speaking of politicians, a new administration had taken over in Egypt where the Hebrews continued to live in the land of Goshen. The new Pharaoh did not appreciate that the prosperity he inherited had its roots in the wise management of resources instituted by a former Hebrew slave named Joseph. His dream-inspired plan to prepare for and survive a multi-year famine imposed order on what could have been a chaotic experience for Egypt.

            Unfortunately, the new Pharaoh and his advisors viewed these numerous foreigners among them as a threat. To eliminate the menace, it was decided to enslave the Hebrews and work them to the point of exhaustion. With harsh taskmasters in charge, the children of Abraham were put to work as the new Pharaoh built a new capital with lots of impressive structures on which to place plaques to proclaim, “See how great I am.”

            Hard labor did not curb the growth of the Hebrews as a people. So, the king summoned the Hebrew women who served as midwives and instructed them to kill any boy born to their neighbors.  Those women, whose names were Shiprah and Puah answered to a higher power.  Their reverence for God and respect for life empowered them to engage in the first act of civil disobedience recorded in the Bible. They quietly ignored the Pharaoh’s edict. No sit-ins, no marches, no bull-horn shouted slogans in front of the palace. All they did was risk their lives by doing what they knew was right. In so doing, they became the first in the chain of caring hands that made it possible for God to act to remove from the Hebrews the yoke of Egyptian slavery.

            When the king discovered that the number of male Hebrews continued to increase, he instituted more drastic measures. A decree was issued. All Egyptians were to comply. Pharaoh commanded: “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.” (1.22) But a chain of caring hands, some of them from his own household, once again thwarted the Pharaoh’s plan. Which brings where our reading began this morning.

            A Hebrew woman, a descendant of Jacob’s son, Levi, married and gave birth to a son. In words that echo the creation story in Genesis, we’re told she looked on the child God had created and saw that he was good. “A fine baby” is how our translation put it.  And like the Hebrew midwives before her, she ignored the Pharaoh’s command.  In another quiet act of civil disobedience, she hid the baby.

            Only this little Levite wouldn’t remain quiet. After three months the child was no longer easy to hide, but its mother had a plan. Creatively she set about doing exactly as the Pharaoh ordered. She constructed a basket, gave it a waterproof coating, placed the child in it, and cast her baby upon the waters. The boy born to the Hebrews was thrown into the Nile, though not with the results Pharaoh intended.  Don’t you love it? The child’s mother undermines Pharaoh’s order by obeying it with a minor modification.

            Now one of the peculiarities of translating Hebrew into English is that we miss the fact that the word for the basket is the same word used for Noah’s Ark. Once again the future of God’s promises floats protected on the waters. The instrument of Pharaoh’s version of the final solution becomes the incubator for God’s plan for liberation!  And, can you imagine the hope of the world resting on a baby placed in an unconventional cradle?  Hmmm!

            The child’s mother, whose name we learn later in the book is Jochebed, enlists another set of caring hands to help watch over the child moored in the marsh.  Her daughter, Miriam, stands guard from a safe distance. The family influences exerted upon us are not limited to our parents and grand-parents. Siblings play a part too.  When I lived across the street from an elementary school, I once spotted an older sister walking a little brother to the door. Being a little brother with a an older sister myself, I knew what was behind his contented smile as they walked hand in hand into the building.

            With Miriam peering through the bulrushes, Pharaoh’s daughter came down with her entourage for a bath and a stroll along the riverbank.  She sends one of her attendants to retrieve the basket she sees among the reeds. Discovering the little ark’s cargo crying,” she took pity on him. Pharoah’s daughter decides to ignore her father’s instructions. Miriam steps forward and offers to find a wet-nurse to care for the child. Next thing you know the child’s own mother is on Pharaoh’s payroll getting paid to feed her own child.

            The chain of caring hands linked to watch over this particular baby boy now extends from the midwives to his mother to his sister to the daughter of Pharaoh and her attendants.  Without an organizational meeting or a handbook to follow, each one becomes a part of the conspiracy to subvert the unjust policy of the Pharaoh. 

            What a wondrous thing it is to behold. The king of Egypt ends up footing the bill to feed and educate the child who will become the man who will one day deprive him of his slave labor. That’s the final irony. Without being mentioned by name, God sets things up so the king contributes to his own undoing. From his biological mother and sister, the child learns the history and traditions of the children of Abraham, who came to Egypt few in number but grew and prospered according to God’s promise. From his royal, Egyptian, adoptive mother and her aides, he learns the protocol and procedures of life in the courts of the king.

            To lead the Hebrew people after Pharaoh lets them go, all Moses lacks are the skills for survival in the desert. God fills in those blanks after Moses murders an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew slave.  Moses goes on the lamb and lands on his feet by marrying the daughter of a desert shepherd. More caring hands in the chain teach him all he would need to know to fulfill the purpose for which he had been born.

            Faith and practice don’t just fall into our laps. We learn them from others.  It begins in the home and is supplemented by influences beyond.  Our scriptures both Old and New today celebrate the chain of caring hands involved in the process.  This being the day that it is, the passages have been chosen because the highlight the contributions of a variety of women. Though the culture focuses on Mother’s Day, some churches call it “The Festival of the Christian Home, in recognition that there are lots of people who contribute to who we become.

            Timothy’s mother and grandmother, and Moses’ mother and sister represent the biological connections. Pharaoh’s daughter stands in for the adoptive mom’s and step-mothers.  The midwives and the attendants of the Egyptian princess call to mind the teachers and coaches, Den mothers and the camp counselors who’ve had an impact on us.

            When a child is baptized in our tradition, we as a congregation promise to do all in our power to provide the environment and the teaching that will help each child grow up to declare him or herself a disciple of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t end with merely providing classrooms and curriculum and recruiting teachers.  And it doesn’t end with only those who have been baptized into our fellowship. In our homes, in our neighborhoods, and from the soccer field sidelines, we all have opportunities to model what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Every once in a while, we might even get the chance to explain why we do what we do.

            You may not be able to influence what your children or the neighbors kids learn in school, but you have some choice about what books you read them at night and what historical sites you visit on vacation.  You may not be able to control what goes on when they’re at the neighbor’s house, but you have a say in what games are installed on the screens, large and small, they play upon. You might not be able to choose what movies they see in someone else’s com-pany, but you have a choice about what you stream for your family movie night.

            Common courtesy, respect, time management, kind-ness and compassion are attributes and skills that need to be passed from generation to generation.  The rhythms of work and play, service and Sabbath, study, reflection and prayer are all learned behaviors. If no one models them for us, we are the poorer for it.

            Years ago, I received a message on the answering machine from a concerned parent. One of the Sunday School teachers had given her students some books with prayers for use in differ-ing circumstances at various times of the day.  The child handed the books to the parent.  The parent placed the books on top of a coat rack before Worship. A day of two later, the child went searching for the books and couldn’t find them.  She called the parent a work, asking, “Where are my books from Sunday School?”

            Thus the message on the machine: “Are my books still there…and if not, can you tell me the titles so I can get another set?”  Turns out the books were right where they had been left. In short order they made it into the mother’s hands and into the hands of the child. Another chain of caring hands. And a grateful parent expressed gratitude for others involved in teaching her child to pray.

            Take a moment or more today. Reflect on the human links in the chains of caring that have made a difference in your life.  Thank God for each one of them. Then take a few moments more and consider how active your hands are in the caring chains within your reach.  Then, resolve, with God’s help, to keep your hands busy!

           

 

                                         

Slowtu B. Leave and Bishop W.G. Mildew

First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA is one of many congregations that observe Holy Humor Sunday the week after Easter.  What follows below is A Chancel Drama co-written and presented by Jim Thyren and Bill Carter.  It followed a scripture reading from the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, verses 19-24.

HOLY HALITOSIS!

Nate:    There are some conversations that didn’t get written in the Bible. And this might be one of them…between the disciples Nathanael and Thomas. 

Nate:    Thomas, where have you been? We’ve all been hanging out together.

Tom:    Nathanael, I didn’t think that was such a great idea. I mean, if Judas told the authorities where to find us, don’t you think he gave them this location too?  Rounding you all up would be like netting fish in a barrel. So I decided to make myself scarce until things calmed down as the Passover celebrations drew to their close. 

Nate:    “Well, turns out they didn’t come after us, but you did miss a very important visitor.”

Tom:    “And who might that be?

Nate:    “Jesus.”

Tom:    Who?

Nate:    Jesus

Tom:    Say that again!

Nate:    Jesus!

Tom:    No way!

Nate:    Yes, the Way himself! I am telling the Truth. Our Life depends on it.

Tom:    Okay, start from the beginning. Tell me everything that happened.

Nate:     Well, you know how he is. He just showed up. Didn’t knock on the door…or use it that                         matter.He was just suddenly standing there, and the first thing he said was: “Peace be with                     you…”

Tom:     Peace? You mean the whole Shalom Alechem thing? That was his favorite greeting. Most                     people say good morning, or hi, or yo. Always Jesus loved to say “peace be with you.”
     
Nate:     Still does, apparently. Just like that night when he washed our feet. Remember that?

Tom:      Of course I do.

Nate:      “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you…:

Tom:     Well, he didn’t leave us with a lot of peace that night. I still have nightmares of the whole                     evening: Judas selling him out, Peter swinging the sword, the soldiers arresting him, the trials,
             the crowds wanting Barabbas instead of the Lord – and then the way the whole thing ended.
            Too much for me to take. I can’t sleep.

Nate:      Tom, he’s back. 

Tom:      What do you mean he’s back?

Nate:      He’s alive. Breathing. Looking better than ever.

Tom:      Nate, he may have pegged you as a man without deceit,
               but that doesn’t mean you can’t be deceived.

Nate:      No, Tom, he’s here.

Tom:      Where?

Nate:     Well, here… I guess he’s wherever he wants to be.

Tom:      I find this impossible to believe. And I’ve about seen it all.

Nate:      He showed us the holes in his hands and his side.

Tom:      (pause). You’re kidding.

Nate:      His wounds…from the crucifixion.

Tom:      Ghosts don’t have wounds.

Nate:      He’s not a ghost. Just like that night he sauntered across the water and jumped into the boat.
               Scared the life out of us, remember?
               I’m talking about Jesus, the real Jesus. Same Jesus. Same wounds in his wrists, same wounds                   in his ankles, and that big gash in his side. Remember?  John and the women told us all about                that one.

Tom:     Well, so much of this week’s stories come to us second hand. I still don’t believe it.

Nate:    I understand. The rest of us are stunned, too. But it’s the same Jesus – alive! The wounds are                 the same that he endured last Friday. Inescapable! It took us a while to comprehend what we                 were seeing. Peter looked into his pomegranate juice, wondering if it was fermented. Andrew                 stammered, couldn’t find his words. James and John stood on each side of him to get a better                 look. Jesus laughed and said, “Stop staring.” The whole time, Mary Magdalene is over at the                 table, saying: “I told you so. I told you so.”

Tom:      She can be so annoying. And this all sounds so impossible.

Nate:      You know what they say: Nothing is impossible with God.

Tom:     Yeah, but God is so invisible. I just can’t grasp any of this. Weren’t you all afraid?

Nate:      Of course, we were. That’s why we were in that room. That’s why we locked the door.

Tom:      Wait – the door was locked? Are you sure you weren’t seeing a ghost?

Nate:      Listen, I saw him sneaking a piece of pita bread and dipping it in the hummus.

Tom:      This is inconceivable.

Nate:    Oh, I know. We were scared to death – of him, of his enemies, and then he has the audacity to                say Shalom Alechem – peace be with all you. And it was him. I’d recognize that Voice                            anywhere. Never thought I’d hear it again. And there he was. And suddenly the laughter started             bubbling up in our bellies. We were beside ourselves with joy. James and John were first. They                 started hootin’ and hollerin’ and stomping just like a thunderstorm. Mary Magdalene laughed so              hard she farted. Matthew said, “Shh! Somebody is going to hear us.” Jesus waved him off, not a              care in the world. Then he said a second time, “Shalom Alechem – peace be with all of you.”                 This time, it wasn’t a greeting. It was a gift.

Tom:    Well, good for you. I’m glad you had that…experience.
            But do you think I can make any sense of this?

Nate:    I tell you, Thomas, the room had changed. I don’t know how that happened. But the Word he                 spoke, it was like the first light of dawn, breaking through the gloom – yet inside that locked                 room. Peace, peace…in the middle of all that has happened. Later on, after he departed, Philip                 said, “It’s just as he promised, his peace is different than any peace the world can give. He’s                     alive, Thomas. Alive! That’s the truth of it. And that’s why the peace is so different, so real. It’s              peace that stays with us. I saw him, the peace is still with me.

Tom:    Well, good for you. It always came easier for you than for me. I tell you, unless I can poke my                 finger in his wounds and touch them myself, I’m not going to give into any of this. I need more              proof.

Nate:     But wait, there’s more!

Tom:     I think you’ve told me enough.

Nate:      Oh, wait ‘til you hear this. He lifted his hands and told us to get on with our work.

Tom:      What?!

Nat:      He said, “As the Father sent me, so I send all of you.”

Tom:     Where?

Nat:      What do you mean, ‘where’?

Tom:      Where is he sending us?

Nate:    Didn’t specify. Or rather, didn’t limit where we should go. But listen: how many times did he                 tell us and others that the Father had sent him?
 Tom:    Never kept track. Hundred times, maybe? It was a lot.

Nate:     “As the Father sent me, so I send you…”

Tom:      Well, that’s a bit troubling. Does he expect us to get arrested, beaten up, and crucified, just like                 him?

Nate:     Oh, Thomas, get your head out of the dirt. Have you remembered nothing? How he lifted the                 little boy in Cana from his death bed? How he asked us to feed that huge, hungry crowd? How                 he took on all the nonsense of those dim-headed religious leaders? How he lived with us,                         laughed with us, challenged us – and how he kept forgiving us, leading us into the truth and life             every step of the Way?

Tom:    I thought all of that got buried with him, that the whole movement was over.

Nate:     Not if he is alive again. He’s come to tell us to get on with his work. “As the Father sent me,”                 he said, “so I send all of you.”

Tom:    Well, good for all of you. I wasn’t there. Sorry I missed all of that.
            And I tell you, not only do I doubt he’s alive, I doubt any of us could do his work like he did it.

Nate:    Oh, Thomas. I’ll tell you one thing more. He showed up in a locked room, he wished us peace,                 he gave us peace, he showed us his wounds, and then – he took a big breath and puffed on us.

Tom:     He…what?

Nate:      He breathed on us…

Tom:      What did his breath smell like? Fish? Stale Passover wine? Like he hadn’t brushed his teeth in                three days? Holy Halitosis!

Nate:   Oh, Thomas, ever the skeptic. As he breathed, he said, “Receive the Holy Ruach – the breath,                the wind, the Spirit.” Right in our faces, a “breathe on me breath of God” moment. I was taken                back to the beginning, when the Father scooped up some mud, formed an earth creature, and                    breathed life into its nostrils, and said, “Let there be Adam.” And I remembered dem bones,                    dem bones, dem dry bones, when all of Israel’s hope had been slaughtered. And God asked                    Ezekiel, “Can these bones live again?” Then God blew the breath, the holy wind, and the ankle                bone connected to the shank bone, and the shank bone connected to the knee bone, and all those             bones started dancing. It was because of the breath, the Holy wind, the Spirit of the Living God.             It brings us alive – and Jesus breathed it on us.

Tom:    What is that breath like?

Nate:    It was earthy, pungent and fertile, kind of sweet and kind of strong. It smells like the scent of the              first daffodils on a morning in Spring, the smell of a charcoal fire on an Autumn evening. It is                 invigorating, bracing like a winter wind or the summer breeze that fills the sail and powers a                 boat across the water.

Tom:     Well, I don’t know. Sounds like you were in the right place at the right time, if, in fact, all of                 this is true.  But I wasn’t there. I can’t be sure.

Nate:     Oh, Thomas, sweet, thoughtful Thomas, I agree it was a “had to be there” moment. But I’ll tell               you this. Since Jesus is alive, since he can come and go where and how he wishes, there’s a                     very good chance he’s listening in on this conversation. He could show up at any moment, in                 any place, but he’s not going to sit around and wait to show us proof. He sends us to get on with              life – his life – and to share that life with everybody we meet, loving, forgiving, offering                         ourselves to the needs of the world. He breathes that life on us, into us, through us, in spite of                 us, ahead of us… He’s alive. He’s still breathing…

Tom:      I don’t know what to say…
              I guess I wish that I could feel some of that Spirit breath, too.

Nate:     Be careful what you wish for. In any case, it’s been a week since we saw him Why don’t you                  stop by for dinner tonight? You know the place. Knock three times. We’ll let you in, and we’ll               lock the door behind you.

Tom:      Can I bring anything?

Nate:      Just an open mind…and an available heart.
                                                                                                    Written by Bill Carter and Jim Thyren,                                                                                                                 April 2023

 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:

“I wait for the Lord; my soul waits,

and in his word I hope.” (Ps. 130.5)

            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:

People of God “hope in the Lord!

For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with him is great power to redeem

[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

Notes from Night School and Beyond – A Sermon based on John 3. 1-17 – preached on March 3, 2023 at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA 

       I stand before you as a recovering Pharisee. My name is Nicodemus.  I was a teacher in Jerusalem, and took pride in my ability to understand and interpret the Word of God as it came to us  in the scrolls of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Books of Wisdom.  I was well versed in the teachings of the rabbis who debated the proper ways to live faithfully. Even so, I was always ready to discover new truths, and hungry to fill an emptiness all my learning failed to satisfy.

            And so it was that I found myself one night seeking out a new rabbi who showed up in the city just before the Passover.  Believe you me, he made quite a scene when he entered the temple.  He marched right in like he owned the place. He went to the spot where animals were sold for sacrifice. Grabbing some strands of rope, he cracked them above the sheep and cattle, and without touching their flesh sent them stampeding into the street.

            Coins clanged on the stones as he turned over the tables of the money changers. Pigeons and doves flew the coop.  In the quiet after all the commotion he shouted: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

            Someone stood up to challenge him: “What sign can you give for doing this?” Said he: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

What an audacious claim!  Our Temple rebuilding project was in its forty-sixth year. Thousands of workers had labored to build this monument of praise to God.  There was no way one man could build it in a mere 3 days!

            For the rest of the week we kept our eye on him. We watched what he did. We listened to what he said. There was power behind his words. There was love displayed in the way he touched people. It was as if everything he did and said pointed beyond himself to God.

            Into the mix stories were poured of his teaching in synagogues up north.  “He doesn’t mince words,” someone said. Another added: “No hiding behind a wall of quotations for him.” He had been so bold as to claim that he had “come to fulfill the law.”

            We also heard reports of water turned to wine at a wedding at Cana, and healings per-formed along the way: A crazed man he’d spoken to became a model citizen. Lepers were left without lesions, blind eyes took in the sights, deaf ears let in the sound, and some who were lame no longer limped along.

            It was all quite puzzling. Everything about him became a subject for debate among us.  Was he a force to be reckoned with, or just another bright light that would fizzle out?  Should we celebrate him as a prophet who came from God, or denounce him as a fraud who did not?

            I was curious to know more. It felt like he had the piece I was missing …that something I hungered for.  So, I went to see him at night. Many of my colleagues were al-ready convinced he was a trouble-maker who needed to be silenced, so I had to be cautious about my curiosity.

            I greeted the teacher respectfully. What I couldn’t say in public, I said to him in private. Addressing him as his disciples did, I said.  “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God. No one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.”

            I was totally unprepared for his response. Yet the more I think back on it, I realize he cut through the fluff and got right to the heart of the matter.  What I wanted deep down was to gain entrance to this kingdom he talked about.  He told me what was necessary, but the way he said it was very much like a riddle. He said: “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

            The curious thing about the word Jesus used about being born is that it can mean “from above,” or it can mean “again or anew.”  He meant it one way; I took it the other. Had anyone witnessed our discussion they would have said we were talking past each other.

            I know now he was saying the kingdom of God can’t be experienced without being “born from above.” That is, access to God is a gift that comes only to those who are open and receptive to a new beginning initiated by God. At the time, all I could hear was “No one can see the king-dom of God without being born again.” How preposterous. What a physical impossibility. As any infant would tell you if it could, one trip through the birth canal is plenty!

            When I pointed this out to him, my misunderstanding became an opportunity for the teacher to teach.  My protest led to a deeper explanation, the meaning of which I did not get at the time. As a teacher of Israel I should have remembered how often  God met impossible situ-ations with new possibilities. Think of Abraham and Sarah outfitting a nursery for Isaac, young David swinging a stone at Goliath, or Ezekiel encouraging exiles with a vision of a valley of dry bones brought to life by the breath of God.

            When I asked, “Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” His answer was this: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” That went right over my head. Now, long after his death and resurrection, I know he was talking about the waters of baptism and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

              Have you noticed that some truths, like seeds, have to sink in, take root, and grow slowly before the heart and mind are ready to accept them?  He was telling me to be born from above has everything to do with the miraculous new start that comes as one accepts—all at once or gradually over time—that Jesus is the Son of God sent in love “not to condemn the world,” but to save it.

            He wasn’t talking about starting over from the beginning. He was talking about making a fresh start with the help of God’s Spirit.  He was talking about being open and trusting toward God.  My friend Mark helped me under-stand this. He told me about a day when some people tried to bring children to Jesus so he could bless them.  The disciples tried to head the kids off, but Jesus welcomed them and said, “I assure you that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”

            A child is a marvelous creation. In its innocence a child learns to trust those who provide its care. Unencumbered by the so-called “laws of nature,” the child believes stories filled with impossible happenings and learn useful lessons.

            Instead of a story, Jesus spoke of the wind to teach me the ways of the Spirit.  You absolutely cannot see the wind. You can see the leaves of a tree shaken by it, you can hear the sound of it passing as it roars through its branches, but you can’t see the wind. You can’t see where it comes from or where it stops. All you can see is the evidence of its presence. It is the same with the Spirit. We can’t see it, but we can feel it and see the evidence of its presence.

            Truth be told, I was still in the dark as Jesus laid this lesson on me. “How can these things be?” I asked. To his credit Jesus did not dismiss me in disgust. Like many a wise teacher, he knew that even if I didn’t put it all together in one night’s class, time and reflection would allow his teaching to take hold.  The older I get, the more I have come to appreciate how often my “new” insights are the result of bits of learning pieced together over time.

            Reading my eyes to see I was still lost, Jesus switched to storytelling. He told a story he knew I would know from the time of Moses.  In the wilderness, the recently freed Hebrew slaves were in one of their “what has God done for us lately” moods. They accused Moses and God of bringing them out into the desert to die. Tired of their murmuring, God brought forth poisonous snakes to nip at their ankles and put an end to their complaining.

            Repenting of their short memory of God’s gracious gift of bread from heaven, some Israelites approached Moses confessing their sin. Moses prayed to God and God provided an antidote to the snake bites. The One who had forbidden Israel to make images of anything, commanded Moses to make a bronze snake, stick it on a pole, and lift it up where the people could see it.  Anyone bitten was told to look up at the snake. Despite the poison coursing through their bodies, they would live.

            Even though I knew the story, what Jesus said about it next made no sense to me at the time. He said “…just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Who could have guessed what he meant. But on the day he died, when Joseph of Arimethea and I came to claim the body of Jesus, I looked up at the cross and chills ran up  my spine.

            I’ve thought about his words and that moment a lot. His words start me thinking about where or to whom I look for help and guidance. The people who inhabited the land before us looked up the hilltops where they built shrines to the various gods they worshiped. From cradle to cross and beyond, Jesus sets our sights higher, as did the psalmist who wrote: “Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121. 2)

            The Hebrews who looked up at the serpent were given the gift of life.  As we know now, those who look up at the cross of Jesus and believe him to be the Son God sent to save, are given what Jesus called “eternal life.” Jesus spoke of it the night I visited him. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”

            Some people claim that “eternal life” starts after you die. But that doesn’t fit with a lot of what Jesus taught. He spoke of eternal life as beginning when you first believe. He said, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” He never said you have to wait for it. Eternal life is about more than life after death. It is about is living in the presence of God here and now, now and always—even when it doesn’t seem to be so.

            There are days when my faith is as strong as the walls of Jerusalem; but there are others when it is as fragile as a clay pot.  Some nights, after a full day of surprise blessings, I think to myself, ‘no way I’ll ever forget this.’ Comes the next day, full of unexpected challenges, and you would think I’d never heard of God or Jesus or the Spirit’s helpful presence.  But strong or weak, confident or confused, what I learned that night holds true: God is for us, not against us.  As Jesus told me that night, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

            Just like Jesus took time to lead me from curiosity toward commitment, God is patient about allowing us the time to receive his Word, take it into our hearts, and choose to live in the ways he taught us to. 

Being born from above brings no exemption from life’s trials, but it does guarantee help for those who seek it. There are times when I still ask for God’s help to get through a dark passage. Yet not a day goes by when I am not thankful for the gift of eternal life. And how would I describe this most wonderful of gifts? God’s presence is with us always.  My own words don’t quite do it justice, so I’ll borrow words from one of David’s psalms. Speaking about what God does for the faithful, David captures what makes me treasure this gift:

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out

and your coming in

from this time on and forever more.

(Psalm 121. 7-8)

Amen!