Matthew 28:1-10
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
The earth is fearfully and wonderfully made, at least we as people of faith believe that it is. We believe that these surroundings—dirt, grass, trees, flowers, bees, birds, sky, even pollen! —is made for us by God. And the movement and seasons of this earth are beyond our control, just as God is. So it makes sense to us that this ground on which we stand belongs not to us but to the God who made us, and it! At least, we proclaim that when we gather for worship. God is in control. God is all-powerful. God’s creation is our home, and God created it for us. Jesus came to be part of that creation so that we could intimately know God. The Holy Spirit of God continues to reside in, around, under, above, and through this creation we call home. And we are thankful for it.
But we may not have been so thankful just one week ago.
As I drove to church last Sunday, I came through from my home in Avondale Estates by way of Glenwood Avenue. I drove slowly so I could look at one house and then another, noticing which yards had trees down, near misses of trees lying inches away from cars and roofs. I had heard a local weather reporter say the night before something about the tornado that came through Atlanta and the subsequent tornadoes and storms that passed through Georgia all day last Saturday being some kind of “act of God”—a favorite phrase of insurance writers and storm reporters. Many people at the time were praising God’s providence over the fact that no lives were lost in the city of Atlanta until a body was discovered in rubble over the weekend. Many of our friends and neighbors’ lives have been changed dramatically because of the severe weather from last weekend. In some parts of the state, lives were lost who could not escape the tornadoes. What kind of act of God was this disruptive, destructive, terrifying blackness of wind and rain that led us into the early morning with questions like, “Was anyone hurt?” “Are my loved ones ok?” “Will I be able to survive the damage done to my home, business, cars, security?” Why today are we gathering in this setting, albeit beautiful in its own right, instead of in Oakland where trees and monuments have been uprooted and permanently damaged?
Last night, I ran an errand to the grocery store at about 9 pm. As I drove home on College Avenue from Decatur through Avondale Estates, I rounded a curve just as I came to the elementary school and caught my first glimpse of last night’s moon. Did you see it? It was one of those nights when your first glimpse of the moon from a moving vehicle is breathtakingly beautiful. The moon seemed to inhabit the entire sky. It was full, large, golden, looming heavily over the ground I covered on my way home. I could hardly take my eyes from it to watch the road I was driving.
But as I watched it, it became smaller and smaller. It was as if it were shrinking behind the trees on the horizon the closer I came to it. What once had looked as if it were the heaviest stone one could ever imagine got smaller and smaller until it was like a pebble. What had moments before loomed largely over the horizon as if to consume it completely now became nothing more than a disappearing dot falling underneath the tree line in the far distance away from where I was. What had been almost terrifying upon its initial entry into my line of vision was now just an ordinary moon in the early night sky.
Things can change in an instant. What once was safe and secure can become terrifying and intrusive. What once looms large on the horizon can become small and out of sight while you blink. Is not the power of God able to turn the world upside down in an instant, a moment, an incredible experience that comes and goes in a flash?
The angel who rolled the stone away at the tomb, who appeared as lightening and dressed in white clothes must have frightened the Marys as they came to the tomb expecting to find a dead body beginning to decompose. The probably expected a very large, looming stone to sit heavy on the ground in front of the tomb. Perhaps they had planned to ask a gardener for help removing it so they could enter the tomb. Maybe they just needed to be there, on the other side of the huge rock between them and Jesus. Imagine their surprise as they approached and the rock suddenly seemed to become light as a feather, not the looming, heavy presence they had expected. Imagine their eyes widening as the big ole stone sank away into the horizon, not even a player in the drama anymore as the angel invited them to come in where the body had been laid, only to find nothing decomposing, nothing rotting, nothing smelling foul, everything changed in an instant.
That’s what I call an act of God. That is the kind of life-changing moment that gives us hope in the midst of all the other disasters, destruction, and disarray life gets us into. That kind of change tells us that death is not the end. That kind of change tells us that God has the power to reverse the most horrible thing we can think of. That kind of change means that all the bad stuff we go through, the things which loom in our darkest nights like a big, fire-y moon that feels so heavy we could never roll it away into morning, are not the final word. For while we hide from the night, God overcomes it.
Last Saturday, we hid for a while in our basement as Dekalb County sat under a tornado warning for a couple of hours. This Saturday, people were out in broad daylight, picking up debris, beginning the reversal process on the fear and despair people felt last Saturday in Cabbagetown and East Atlanta as they came out from under the weight of the previous night’s storm. And life has begun again, with neighbor helping neighbor, hands joining together in a effort to bring new life to these damaged communities.
The refrain says, “Jesus Christ is the Light of the world; a light no darkness can extinguish.” No storm, no stone, no moon, no fear, no threat, no terror, no disbelief. Jesus lives. He reigns with God and the Holy Spirit. The heaviness is lifted forever if we will realize and accept it. Come and see, and then go and tell the world. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed.
Amen.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Holy Thursday
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
When someone close to us dies, or when some important event in our lives is over, we cling to memory, don’t we?
I can think of 2 such events in my life: last summer when my aunt died, and years ago as I drove away from my first summer job.
Many of you may also be able to remember these kind of important occasions in your own lives: the death of a parent, child, family member, or friend; or the end of an important season of time that left you with a lot of emotion to deal with.
Last summer was difficult for me. My Aunt Inez was as much like a third parent as I have in my life. She came to our home when I was born and helped take care of me and my sister. She hosted us when my mom had surgery when I was only 2. She dressed us up to come and visit my mom in the hospital. She invited us to stay at her house when our parents were at boring old annual conference when it used to meet up in the mountains from time to time. She came to my recitals, band concerts, and graduations. She’s in most of the pictures of my immediate family at all of our significant events. I miss her.
And then there is the experience that summer job ending that I mentioned. It was at our conference youth camp. The first summer I spent there was when I was 20, although I had been attending there for years one week out of the summer—my very favorite week, I might add! And when I finally got to stay on Friday night past when all the parents left, it was quite literally one of the biggest thrills of my life. There was nothing like it. We were paid to have fun, to pray, to participate in the spiritual formation of kids and youth, and to build an authentic Christian community. The friends I made that summer are still some of the closest I have, and the day we had to leave, I felt heartache like I had never felt before. It felt like death; something was over that I could never have back. Even if I returned to that place, the people weren’t there. Even if we returned together in a group, the campers weren’t there. It looked different in the winter than in the summer. The atmosphere wasn’t as full of life. Oh I cried and cried that day. I just couldn’t imagine what the next day would be like, or the next week or month.
It would be a mistake to imagine that the disciples felt any of the things I’ve described already when they gathered for their last meal with Jesus. They had no real idea that they were about to lose their beloved leader to death, or that the authentic community in which they had been living with Christ was about to come to an end as they knew it. I think, rather, than Jesus might have been feeling these things. I think that Jesus might have been feeling sadness and pain, loss and grief, because he knew that he was about to lose this, too, this community that he had built and on which he had come to depend. These were his brothers, like family, and they had lived together in laughter and tears, and tomorrow it would all be over. What would the next day possibly be like? How would they go on without him? And what would it be like for him to be present with them in the days to come but in a completely different way?
I think that is what faith is all about—this belief in things hoped for but not yet seen.
I still feel Aunt Inez yet she is no longer seen in my physical eyes. I feel her in my parents’ home when I go to visit even now. I feel her in her house when I go to help my dad work there from time to time. I feel her in my own home when I tell Dave stories about her from my childhood. I feel her in my dad’s tears when he talks about her. She is not gone from me; she’s not gone from my family; she’s not even gone from this earth completely because we who are still alive here have pictures of her in our minds and hearts—still photographs in our minds’ eyes of her hugging us, helping us, loving us. It’s like…as our grief begins to become joy, as our tears turn from sadness to fondness, we are putting her, putting her presence, putting her memory back together. We are re-membering Aunt Inez.
And that community in which I was so deeply formed all those years ago at summer camp—that community is still so real for me that when I’m in the presence of some of the ones who made up that community, I still feel it! I feel love, acceptance, and accountability for who I am and whom I serve. The memories that I helped to create there play back in my mind’s eye to remind me of where it is from which I come—a group of people who, having loved me then, will love me to the end. It is a presence as palpable for me as yours here tonight. It is that body of Christ being re-formed, re-membered in my heart.
Isn’t that what Christ calls us to do this night? Whenever you are together again, re-member me; re-build this community, this body so that we go on and on through time spreading love and grace that comes from God in Christ. “As often as you gather around a table for food and drink, remember me:”
• Remember all that I have done in your sight.
• Remember how I have healed with my touch.
• Remember how I have loved with my words.
• Remember how I have served with my actions.
• Remember how I have shown you the ways of God.
Do this for the remembering of me.
Love one another. Love each other like there’s no tomorrow. Love each other when it’s hard to love each other. Love each other even after you have passed from this life to the next. Love each other, and in doing so, love me. Remember me. Put back together the loving, thriving body of Christ, the authentic community in which you have lived and served…and loved before.
We re-member together the gracious, extraordinary, sacrifical, undeserved love of Christ. We re-member the acts of healing and hospitality and peace that he exemplified and then called us to follow. We remember that he is the Son of God and we offer our praise. We remember that we will be recognized in the love of Christ we receive through this sacrament and that we are called to practice that same love on one another. We re-member the body of Christ so that we may be equipped to heal with our touch, love with our words, serve with our actions, and search for the ways of God.
Let us re-member every time we meet at table for food and drink that Jesus Christ, in love far more amazing than we can ever comprehend, loves us. Every action of his life and death show us that love. We claim our Christian identity in that love. We are called to share, to make real, to re-member that love.
May it be, friends. Amen.
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you." For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, "Not all of you are clean."
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord--and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
When someone close to us dies, or when some important event in our lives is over, we cling to memory, don’t we?
I can think of 2 such events in my life: last summer when my aunt died, and years ago as I drove away from my first summer job.
Many of you may also be able to remember these kind of important occasions in your own lives: the death of a parent, child, family member, or friend; or the end of an important season of time that left you with a lot of emotion to deal with.
Last summer was difficult for me. My Aunt Inez was as much like a third parent as I have in my life. She came to our home when I was born and helped take care of me and my sister. She hosted us when my mom had surgery when I was only 2. She dressed us up to come and visit my mom in the hospital. She invited us to stay at her house when our parents were at boring old annual conference when it used to meet up in the mountains from time to time. She came to my recitals, band concerts, and graduations. She’s in most of the pictures of my immediate family at all of our significant events. I miss her.
And then there is the experience that summer job ending that I mentioned. It was at our conference youth camp. The first summer I spent there was when I was 20, although I had been attending there for years one week out of the summer—my very favorite week, I might add! And when I finally got to stay on Friday night past when all the parents left, it was quite literally one of the biggest thrills of my life. There was nothing like it. We were paid to have fun, to pray, to participate in the spiritual formation of kids and youth, and to build an authentic Christian community. The friends I made that summer are still some of the closest I have, and the day we had to leave, I felt heartache like I had never felt before. It felt like death; something was over that I could never have back. Even if I returned to that place, the people weren’t there. Even if we returned together in a group, the campers weren’t there. It looked different in the winter than in the summer. The atmosphere wasn’t as full of life. Oh I cried and cried that day. I just couldn’t imagine what the next day would be like, or the next week or month.
It would be a mistake to imagine that the disciples felt any of the things I’ve described already when they gathered for their last meal with Jesus. They had no real idea that they were about to lose their beloved leader to death, or that the authentic community in which they had been living with Christ was about to come to an end as they knew it. I think, rather, than Jesus might have been feeling these things. I think that Jesus might have been feeling sadness and pain, loss and grief, because he knew that he was about to lose this, too, this community that he had built and on which he had come to depend. These were his brothers, like family, and they had lived together in laughter and tears, and tomorrow it would all be over. What would the next day possibly be like? How would they go on without him? And what would it be like for him to be present with them in the days to come but in a completely different way?
I think that is what faith is all about—this belief in things hoped for but not yet seen.
I still feel Aunt Inez yet she is no longer seen in my physical eyes. I feel her in my parents’ home when I go to visit even now. I feel her in her house when I go to help my dad work there from time to time. I feel her in my own home when I tell Dave stories about her from my childhood. I feel her in my dad’s tears when he talks about her. She is not gone from me; she’s not gone from my family; she’s not even gone from this earth completely because we who are still alive here have pictures of her in our minds and hearts—still photographs in our minds’ eyes of her hugging us, helping us, loving us. It’s like…as our grief begins to become joy, as our tears turn from sadness to fondness, we are putting her, putting her presence, putting her memory back together. We are re-membering Aunt Inez.
And that community in which I was so deeply formed all those years ago at summer camp—that community is still so real for me that when I’m in the presence of some of the ones who made up that community, I still feel it! I feel love, acceptance, and accountability for who I am and whom I serve. The memories that I helped to create there play back in my mind’s eye to remind me of where it is from which I come—a group of people who, having loved me then, will love me to the end. It is a presence as palpable for me as yours here tonight. It is that body of Christ being re-formed, re-membered in my heart.
Isn’t that what Christ calls us to do this night? Whenever you are together again, re-member me; re-build this community, this body so that we go on and on through time spreading love and grace that comes from God in Christ. “As often as you gather around a table for food and drink, remember me:”
• Remember all that I have done in your sight.
• Remember how I have healed with my touch.
• Remember how I have loved with my words.
• Remember how I have served with my actions.
• Remember how I have shown you the ways of God.
Do this for the remembering of me.
Love one another. Love each other like there’s no tomorrow. Love each other when it’s hard to love each other. Love each other even after you have passed from this life to the next. Love each other, and in doing so, love me. Remember me. Put back together the loving, thriving body of Christ, the authentic community in which you have lived and served…and loved before.
We re-member together the gracious, extraordinary, sacrifical, undeserved love of Christ. We re-member the acts of healing and hospitality and peace that he exemplified and then called us to follow. We remember that he is the Son of God and we offer our praise. We remember that we will be recognized in the love of Christ we receive through this sacrament and that we are called to practice that same love on one another. We re-member the body of Christ so that we may be equipped to heal with our touch, love with our words, serve with our actions, and search for the ways of God.
Let us re-member every time we meet at table for food and drink that Jesus Christ, in love far more amazing than we can ever comprehend, loves us. Every action of his life and death show us that love. We claim our Christian identity in that love. We are called to share, to make real, to re-member that love.
May it be, friends. Amen.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Lent 5
John 11:1-45
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, 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. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Years ago I was given a book titled, The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal, a WW2 Nazi concentration camp survivor. The book tells his story of coming face to face with a German soldier on his death bed, searching for forgiveness from a Jew for all of the terrible things he had been responsible for, both by his own hand and by the knowledge of what was happening in the Nazi camps and doing nothing to stop it. In the beginning of the story, one of Mr. Wiesenthal’s companions in the prison camp makes a simple and profound observation: God is on leave. What other explanation could there be for the situation in which they find themselves—they, the chosen people of God, now being exterminated by the thousands at the hands of greed and power. How could God be sitting by and watching what was happening to them and not intervene on their behalf as God had done so many times before? No, God must not have known what was happening. It’s the only explanation that made sense.
“I once read somewhere that it is impossible to shake a man’s firm belief,” Mr. Wiesenthal reflects. “If I ever thought that true,” he goes on, “life in a concentration camp taught me differently. It is impossible to believe anything in a world that has ceased to regard man as man, which repeatedly ‘proves’ that one is no longer a man. So one begins to doubt, one begins to cease to believe in a world order in which God has a definite place. One really begins to think that God is on leave. Otherwise the present state of things wouldn’t be possible. God must be away. And He has no deputy…we live in a world that God has abandoned[.]”*
I hear an echo of those words in both Martha’s and Mary’s desperation when they each confront Jesus as he makes his way to their home. “Lazarus is already dead. Thanks a lot for nothing. I thought we were friends,” they must have been thinking. Martha shows some kind of level-headed reflection on the death of her brother when she tells Jesus that she believes what she has always been taught about death—that it will not be the ultimate end. We’ve come to expect things like that from Martha—responses born out of pragmatic belief and dogma. But Mary’s response does not seem as forgiving: Why didn’t you come?
The death and the rising of Lazarus calls to our attention that day toward which we labor during Lent: resurrection day, Easter. There are so many connection points for us in this story: human pain that occurs at death; stages of grief; hope that death is not the end; frustration with the apparent ignorance of God to the human situation; amazement at the power of Jesus.
Many of us may be able to relate to the frustration of Lazarus’ sisters who do not understand why Jesus did nothing to prevent Lazarus’ death. He waited too long to get involved, in their opinion. He gave up on Lazarus and, therefore, them. It is easy to feel that, because life does not always progress the way we want it to God has forgotten or is ignoring us or is just concentrating on other things or people. If you have ever been in this situation, when a loved one has died and you had prayed for it not to be, then you know exactly how these women feel. Those of us in the church live in the knowledge that death is not the end, that the ones who have gone on before us will be raised and will live again. But when death comes to our home, we can hardly bring ourselves to accept that there is anything else past it. It feels very final, doesn’t it? And we feel a little more alone, don’t we? And we often have a lot of questions, like why did this happen? Where is God, really, in death? What are we supposed to believe? Are we supposed to be happy, or is it ok to be sad and angry and frustrated and afraid?
I think we can understand what Mr. Wiesenthal and his friends felt in the Nazi camp. While we know God well enough to know that we are never left alone by God, we may wonder why God is not answering the prayers we have said for things to change, for something to get better, for life to keep going, for a miracle to occur. Where are you, God, we may ask? Where are you? And why can’t we understand what is happening in our lives? Why does it have to be a mystery? Why do we feel so alone? Why do we hurt? Why are we left only with our questions?
The beauty of the gospel of John is the mystery John weaves for us of the presence of Christ, both with God and with us—Immanuel. Jesus is both like us and unlike us. He is human being and divine being in one. Therefore, he experiences what we experience, but the parameters for him are far less limited than for us. In fact, there are none. All things are possible. Jesus is life-giving power, and death is not a terminal issue with him. In fact, the reversal of Lazarus’ death indicates the power Jesus has over death and, therefore, over all things we can grasp and that which we cannot. It is a scary proposition he puts forth in the calling of Lazarus to come out of the tomb on his own: he shows us that there is nothing that cannot be reversed by the power of God. Nothing.
Is that a frightening or reassuring message for us? In our deep moments of grief, it is a message of hope that things will get better, that God trumps whatever hand we have been dealt in life—whether our own doing or by someone else’s. In our moments of arrogance and challenge to God’s power, we sometimes respond to hardship by blaming God for not doing anything or not doing enough, as if we trump God’s decisions and actions in the world or in our lives. A less confrontational response is to simply disbelieve in God when difficult times come our way. It is, however, no less arrogant.
How can we hear the message of John 11 as painting a portrait of what can be, of the power of God to reverse the things that threaten us, as a call to participate with God in life-giving instead of trying to take that power away from God? How can this story serve as a conversion to assurance and peace in the care of God in a world so full of control freaks? So full of death? So full of circumstances that would convince us that God has taken leave, and we have no idea when God’s return will be?
It takes a lot of courage to come to church during Lent; the lessons are hard to hear and hard to live with when you leave this place, and they have been for so many generations before us. These stories we hear during Lent as the shadow of the cross grows longer and longer on the ground before us may begin to crack away at our hearts so that they are good and ready to break when that Friday comes along that we dread. Our feelings and responses are real, and Jesus had them, too. The Greek words used in the story to describe what Jesus felt when he encountered the grave they had fixed for Lazarus’ body help us to understand that he was truly and fully human, just as we are. He was greatly disturbed. He was moved in his spirit. Tears fell from his eyes. Anyone who has stood at the grave of a loved one can relate to these feelings of lament and a troubled spirit. And it is sometimes out of those feelings that our questions rise: where are you, God? Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t things turn out the way I thought they should or could or would?
It’s not always the response that we want—the one that God gives in our hours of deep questioning. Mary and Martha and the others wanted to know why he didn’t prevent this from happening, why he took leave of them in their greatest hour of need. They did not really seem to care what he would do about it now. The people watching wanted to know why he stood there and cried when he knew this was going to happen; they didn’t care what he had to say now. After all, shouldn’t and wouldn’t his words just add to those of the others gathered around the grieving family? “I’m sorry. He was a good man. I loved him so much.” Could there be anything else that he would say or do?
“Lazarus, come out!”
It wasn’t just a call to life for Lazarus, though it certainly gave us an idea of those things of which God is capable beyond our own imaginations. It wasn’t a way to prove that it was ok that he hadn’t come earlier, that his judgment was sound. It wasn’t a last ditch effort to keep the family from experiencing heartache. It was a full-blown demonstration of the life-giving love and grace of God.
Lazarus, come out of death and into life.
Martha, come out of your stone-like recital of what you have been taught happens to us when we die, and actually believe that death is not the end.
Mary, come out of your situational response to God not answering your demand for Lazarus’ life and realize that because of his death, the promise of life for all people is beginning to be made real and clear.
You people all gathered around the tomb, come out of your skepticism and experience even for a moment the powerful presence of God which is able to turn your assumptions and expectations into dreams and visions of how good things could really be.
And it is a call for all of us in this place to remember either for the one hundredth or even the first time that there really is nothing that we can do to get life wrong that cannot be made right by the hand of Jesus. Absolutely nothing.
These last days of Lent are not a time to hide in our self-discipline and question God. They are a time to be called out in the presence of God. Come out. Jesus and the others have almost made it to Jerusalem. And even the stuff that happens there will not be the end.
Thanks be to God for what will come.
Thanks be to God for the never-ending, never-dying promise of Immanuel.
Thanks be to God for calling us out.
In the name of the one for whom death will have absolutely no power, Amen.
*The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Simon Wiesenthal, Schocken Books, Inc. New York. 1998. pp. 7-8.
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, 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. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Years ago I was given a book titled, The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal, a WW2 Nazi concentration camp survivor. The book tells his story of coming face to face with a German soldier on his death bed, searching for forgiveness from a Jew for all of the terrible things he had been responsible for, both by his own hand and by the knowledge of what was happening in the Nazi camps and doing nothing to stop it. In the beginning of the story, one of Mr. Wiesenthal’s companions in the prison camp makes a simple and profound observation: God is on leave. What other explanation could there be for the situation in which they find themselves—they, the chosen people of God, now being exterminated by the thousands at the hands of greed and power. How could God be sitting by and watching what was happening to them and not intervene on their behalf as God had done so many times before? No, God must not have known what was happening. It’s the only explanation that made sense.
“I once read somewhere that it is impossible to shake a man’s firm belief,” Mr. Wiesenthal reflects. “If I ever thought that true,” he goes on, “life in a concentration camp taught me differently. It is impossible to believe anything in a world that has ceased to regard man as man, which repeatedly ‘proves’ that one is no longer a man. So one begins to doubt, one begins to cease to believe in a world order in which God has a definite place. One really begins to think that God is on leave. Otherwise the present state of things wouldn’t be possible. God must be away. And He has no deputy…we live in a world that God has abandoned[.]”*
I hear an echo of those words in both Martha’s and Mary’s desperation when they each confront Jesus as he makes his way to their home. “Lazarus is already dead. Thanks a lot for nothing. I thought we were friends,” they must have been thinking. Martha shows some kind of level-headed reflection on the death of her brother when she tells Jesus that she believes what she has always been taught about death—that it will not be the ultimate end. We’ve come to expect things like that from Martha—responses born out of pragmatic belief and dogma. But Mary’s response does not seem as forgiving: Why didn’t you come?
The death and the rising of Lazarus calls to our attention that day toward which we labor during Lent: resurrection day, Easter. There are so many connection points for us in this story: human pain that occurs at death; stages of grief; hope that death is not the end; frustration with the apparent ignorance of God to the human situation; amazement at the power of Jesus.
Many of us may be able to relate to the frustration of Lazarus’ sisters who do not understand why Jesus did nothing to prevent Lazarus’ death. He waited too long to get involved, in their opinion. He gave up on Lazarus and, therefore, them. It is easy to feel that, because life does not always progress the way we want it to God has forgotten or is ignoring us or is just concentrating on other things or people. If you have ever been in this situation, when a loved one has died and you had prayed for it not to be, then you know exactly how these women feel. Those of us in the church live in the knowledge that death is not the end, that the ones who have gone on before us will be raised and will live again. But when death comes to our home, we can hardly bring ourselves to accept that there is anything else past it. It feels very final, doesn’t it? And we feel a little more alone, don’t we? And we often have a lot of questions, like why did this happen? Where is God, really, in death? What are we supposed to believe? Are we supposed to be happy, or is it ok to be sad and angry and frustrated and afraid?
I think we can understand what Mr. Wiesenthal and his friends felt in the Nazi camp. While we know God well enough to know that we are never left alone by God, we may wonder why God is not answering the prayers we have said for things to change, for something to get better, for life to keep going, for a miracle to occur. Where are you, God, we may ask? Where are you? And why can’t we understand what is happening in our lives? Why does it have to be a mystery? Why do we feel so alone? Why do we hurt? Why are we left only with our questions?
The beauty of the gospel of John is the mystery John weaves for us of the presence of Christ, both with God and with us—Immanuel. Jesus is both like us and unlike us. He is human being and divine being in one. Therefore, he experiences what we experience, but the parameters for him are far less limited than for us. In fact, there are none. All things are possible. Jesus is life-giving power, and death is not a terminal issue with him. In fact, the reversal of Lazarus’ death indicates the power Jesus has over death and, therefore, over all things we can grasp and that which we cannot. It is a scary proposition he puts forth in the calling of Lazarus to come out of the tomb on his own: he shows us that there is nothing that cannot be reversed by the power of God. Nothing.
Is that a frightening or reassuring message for us? In our deep moments of grief, it is a message of hope that things will get better, that God trumps whatever hand we have been dealt in life—whether our own doing or by someone else’s. In our moments of arrogance and challenge to God’s power, we sometimes respond to hardship by blaming God for not doing anything or not doing enough, as if we trump God’s decisions and actions in the world or in our lives. A less confrontational response is to simply disbelieve in God when difficult times come our way. It is, however, no less arrogant.
How can we hear the message of John 11 as painting a portrait of what can be, of the power of God to reverse the things that threaten us, as a call to participate with God in life-giving instead of trying to take that power away from God? How can this story serve as a conversion to assurance and peace in the care of God in a world so full of control freaks? So full of death? So full of circumstances that would convince us that God has taken leave, and we have no idea when God’s return will be?
It takes a lot of courage to come to church during Lent; the lessons are hard to hear and hard to live with when you leave this place, and they have been for so many generations before us. These stories we hear during Lent as the shadow of the cross grows longer and longer on the ground before us may begin to crack away at our hearts so that they are good and ready to break when that Friday comes along that we dread. Our feelings and responses are real, and Jesus had them, too. The Greek words used in the story to describe what Jesus felt when he encountered the grave they had fixed for Lazarus’ body help us to understand that he was truly and fully human, just as we are. He was greatly disturbed. He was moved in his spirit. Tears fell from his eyes. Anyone who has stood at the grave of a loved one can relate to these feelings of lament and a troubled spirit. And it is sometimes out of those feelings that our questions rise: where are you, God? Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t things turn out the way I thought they should or could or would?
It’s not always the response that we want—the one that God gives in our hours of deep questioning. Mary and Martha and the others wanted to know why he didn’t prevent this from happening, why he took leave of them in their greatest hour of need. They did not really seem to care what he would do about it now. The people watching wanted to know why he stood there and cried when he knew this was going to happen; they didn’t care what he had to say now. After all, shouldn’t and wouldn’t his words just add to those of the others gathered around the grieving family? “I’m sorry. He was a good man. I loved him so much.” Could there be anything else that he would say or do?
“Lazarus, come out!”
It wasn’t just a call to life for Lazarus, though it certainly gave us an idea of those things of which God is capable beyond our own imaginations. It wasn’t a way to prove that it was ok that he hadn’t come earlier, that his judgment was sound. It wasn’t a last ditch effort to keep the family from experiencing heartache. It was a full-blown demonstration of the life-giving love and grace of God.
Lazarus, come out of death and into life.
Martha, come out of your stone-like recital of what you have been taught happens to us when we die, and actually believe that death is not the end.
Mary, come out of your situational response to God not answering your demand for Lazarus’ life and realize that because of his death, the promise of life for all people is beginning to be made real and clear.
You people all gathered around the tomb, come out of your skepticism and experience even for a moment the powerful presence of God which is able to turn your assumptions and expectations into dreams and visions of how good things could really be.
And it is a call for all of us in this place to remember either for the one hundredth or even the first time that there really is nothing that we can do to get life wrong that cannot be made right by the hand of Jesus. Absolutely nothing.
These last days of Lent are not a time to hide in our self-discipline and question God. They are a time to be called out in the presence of God. Come out. Jesus and the others have almost made it to Jerusalem. And even the stuff that happens there will not be the end.
Thanks be to God for what will come.
Thanks be to God for the never-ending, never-dying promise of Immanuel.
Thanks be to God for calling us out.
In the name of the one for whom death will have absolutely no power, Amen.
*The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Simon Wiesenthal, Schocken Books, Inc. New York. 1998. pp. 7-8.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Lent 4
John 9:1-41
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
There is nothing I love more than a well-told story.
Perhaps it goes back to my early days of story reading and hearing and telling with my dad at bedtime when I was a little girl. Or, maybe I can attribute it to the fact that God created us for laughter and tears, imagination and wonder, all of which good stories can invoke with just words.
And while the Bible is full of stories that help us to relate to God, that tell us of God’s love for us, the gospel lesson we have for today is an extraordinary work of storytelling: the story of God’s participation in our world, the story of justice cracking through the thoroughly bricked and mortared halls of injustice, and the presence of God in Christ, helping us to see that the things we think will never happen have already happened and are waiting to be revealed to us as soon as we get through waiting impatiently for God to jump as high as we tell God to go.
You see, there was this one time, when Jesus and the others were “walking along.” Actually, they had probably been running away from an attempted stoning that had just taken place on the opposite page—and at the temple! That was a pretty weird story. But I digress.
Where was I? Oh, yes—the whole lot of them were walking along. Just sitting there, minding his own business—really, who else was going to engage this man in conversation, or life for that matter?—was this blind man. He didn’t ask for them to stop—no, Jesus just started teaching. Can’t you just imagine what it was like to travel with him—every single thing, person, or situation they encountered was a teachable moment. Like rocks on the ground—“I remember another time I came across some rocks that looked a good bit like these right here. Stop me if I’ve already told you this, but Satan came along and…”
But that is in another gospel. And I digress.
Where was I? Oh yes, the blind man minding his own business. Jesus performed a home remedy on him, and it worked. Can’t you just imagine the staging of it? A guy who can’t see meets another group of guys. One guy spits on the ground and then plays with it, smears it on the one who can’t see, and tells him where to go to wash it off. There’s no conversation about it except instruction. The blind one doesn’t really even ask for help. The disciples spot him and he becomes an instant parable. John’s parables, you know, are not told in third person. They happen in real live action.
So people notice that this guy is not blind anymore. He tells the story of how it happened, but no one believes him. Sounds like the makings of at the least a good made-for-TV-movie, right? Even the antagonists are not of one mind. A good God-person wouldn’t be betraying the intent of the law by disregarding the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, would he? After all, the leaders of the Temple decide what is and is not holy when it comes to the Sabbath, and this is not. But who else besides Almighty God could do this?
Maybe it’s all a hoax. So they bring in his parents to prove that he was, in fact, blind before. They can see that he can see; they just can’t see how he can see. Maybe the boy’s mama can shed some light.
Nope—fear is a powerful thing. “The deciders of what’s holy or not are asking me to tell them whether this whole thing is right or wrong?” says Mama. “Not in a million years am I getting mixed up in that!”
So they bring the man, himself, back and ask how he regained his sight. Do they have a hearing problem, too, he wonders? “I just told you what happened. I know it sounds unbelievable; no one has ever done this before. But seriously—I’m just telling you what I felt, heard, and saw. He spat in the mud; he rubbed it on my eyes; he Sent me to wash them; and now I have come to show myself to you so that you will declare that I am now clean. So could you just get that over with and let me go?”
Nope.
“Ok,” says the one formerly known as blind. “I don’t know what to say about him. You’re the scholars; you decide. All I know is that I have been changed by this man. And I’ve told you how twice. If you will not see that, then maybe you are the blind ones!”
Oops—he didn’t really say that, did he? I made that little part up. See what I did? I called them blind, but the seeing man did not do that. He just lost his patience with their non-ability to see goodness when it stared them in the face. Luckily he didn’t have to rely on whether or not they recognized his healing. Jesus straightened it all out in the end by revealing himself as the Son of Man to his new friend. And the new friend worshipped him. What a nice ending!
Except that wasn’t the end. You know that happy/proud/almost judgmental feeling you get in the story when the hero goes back to stick it to the antagonist? Well, here it comes: Jesus is the one who calls the Pharisees blind. He just walks straight up to them, looks them in the face, disregards their place of holiness, and spits their own judgment right back into their faces. Blindness caused by sin? Not quite. That guy wasn’t being punished, and neither were his parents, he said. That’s not the kind of thing sin does to you. Sin removes your ability to see God’s presence in the world. Sin makes you unable to distinguish who it is that calls you: the Good Shepherd, or the Accuser. Sin makes you do things like bare false witness to the glory of God. And y’all better watch it: because you look for ways to punish others, that sin is heaped back on your own head, covering your eyes and making you unable to see what God is up to all around you. Shame on you.
It was a commonly held belief of that time that disability rose from someone’s sin—either the sin of the disabled person or of the people who created that person. It is much easier, after all, to make a pronouncement about difference than to actually live with it. This belief, strongly held by the leaders of the synagogues and the teachers of the law (Pharisees), served as a way to make clear division between light and darkness as they defined it, between being able to see God and God’s intentions and being blinded to them. It was sinful to suppose yourself worthy of a place in God’s house when you obviously had sin in your life. Disabilities and disease were the most obvious and physical indicators of sin in those days.
But in the end, it was the Jewish leaders who, ironically, were disabled. They were not able to receive the Son of God or the healing he brought from God to the earth. They dismissed it as sinful themselves, trying to shove it into the darkest corner while they held onto the light—light they constantly hid under a bushel so no one else would be able to discover it.
Jesus gives sight to the blind: he heals those who are unable to participate fully in life because of blindness. For those who claim to be free of blindness, he shows them the darkness in which they are actually living and brings to them light, also; often it is a light that they do no want in their lives.
Recently I received a call from an old friend. Some of you will be able to relate to her story. She called to tell me that about a month ago her middle son came out to her. “We had wondered,” she said, “but in that moment that he said it, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.” It’s not that she and her husband had ever been personally hateful to gay and lesbian folks. They just didn’t think they knew any, and so it made it much harder to actually see a member of their own family telling them that he is gay—that he is one of the people they’ve read about in papers and seen stories about on television, one of those people whose true life has changed the lives of those around him, one of those people God made in God’s image and called good.
Tears came to my eyes as she talked. I fully expected her to tell me that she and her husband just couldn’t have a relationship with this child to whom they had given life anymore. I was waiting for her to say that she didn’t agree with it and was heartbroken that her son would be going to hell. As she talked on, I was forming arguments in my mind to throw into the conversation to try and convince her that she was wrong and that she needed to look at this whole situation in a different way.
And they she said, “He’s my son. I love him. God loves him. And God doesn’t make mistakes with us. My son loves God more than anyone else I know including myself. And if that’s good enough for God, then it’s good enough for me.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. This woman who I have heard make questionable remarks about a life she knew nothing about, who is as theologically far apart from me on so many social justice issues, this woman who I thought I had summed up and whose response to this news I had already scripted in my head, instead left the script and offered grace into the situation. “I’m planning a trip to see him, to get to know his partner in about a month. My husband says his partner will never be a member of our family, but I think I’d like to have another son.”
I owe her a debt of gratitude for spitting on the soil of my assumptions, rubbing a healing balm across my eyes of judgment, and Sending me to wash in tears of joy over one who now, through the witness of her own son, is beginning to truly see.
Amen.
As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
There is nothing I love more than a well-told story.
Perhaps it goes back to my early days of story reading and hearing and telling with my dad at bedtime when I was a little girl. Or, maybe I can attribute it to the fact that God created us for laughter and tears, imagination and wonder, all of which good stories can invoke with just words.
And while the Bible is full of stories that help us to relate to God, that tell us of God’s love for us, the gospel lesson we have for today is an extraordinary work of storytelling: the story of God’s participation in our world, the story of justice cracking through the thoroughly bricked and mortared halls of injustice, and the presence of God in Christ, helping us to see that the things we think will never happen have already happened and are waiting to be revealed to us as soon as we get through waiting impatiently for God to jump as high as we tell God to go.
You see, there was this one time, when Jesus and the others were “walking along.” Actually, they had probably been running away from an attempted stoning that had just taken place on the opposite page—and at the temple! That was a pretty weird story. But I digress.
Where was I? Oh, yes—the whole lot of them were walking along. Just sitting there, minding his own business—really, who else was going to engage this man in conversation, or life for that matter?—was this blind man. He didn’t ask for them to stop—no, Jesus just started teaching. Can’t you just imagine what it was like to travel with him—every single thing, person, or situation they encountered was a teachable moment. Like rocks on the ground—“I remember another time I came across some rocks that looked a good bit like these right here. Stop me if I’ve already told you this, but Satan came along and…”
But that is in another gospel. And I digress.
Where was I? Oh yes, the blind man minding his own business. Jesus performed a home remedy on him, and it worked. Can’t you just imagine the staging of it? A guy who can’t see meets another group of guys. One guy spits on the ground and then plays with it, smears it on the one who can’t see, and tells him where to go to wash it off. There’s no conversation about it except instruction. The blind one doesn’t really even ask for help. The disciples spot him and he becomes an instant parable. John’s parables, you know, are not told in third person. They happen in real live action.
So people notice that this guy is not blind anymore. He tells the story of how it happened, but no one believes him. Sounds like the makings of at the least a good made-for-TV-movie, right? Even the antagonists are not of one mind. A good God-person wouldn’t be betraying the intent of the law by disregarding the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, would he? After all, the leaders of the Temple decide what is and is not holy when it comes to the Sabbath, and this is not. But who else besides Almighty God could do this?
Maybe it’s all a hoax. So they bring in his parents to prove that he was, in fact, blind before. They can see that he can see; they just can’t see how he can see. Maybe the boy’s mama can shed some light.
Nope—fear is a powerful thing. “The deciders of what’s holy or not are asking me to tell them whether this whole thing is right or wrong?” says Mama. “Not in a million years am I getting mixed up in that!”
So they bring the man, himself, back and ask how he regained his sight. Do they have a hearing problem, too, he wonders? “I just told you what happened. I know it sounds unbelievable; no one has ever done this before. But seriously—I’m just telling you what I felt, heard, and saw. He spat in the mud; he rubbed it on my eyes; he Sent me to wash them; and now I have come to show myself to you so that you will declare that I am now clean. So could you just get that over with and let me go?”
Nope.
“Ok,” says the one formerly known as blind. “I don’t know what to say about him. You’re the scholars; you decide. All I know is that I have been changed by this man. And I’ve told you how twice. If you will not see that, then maybe you are the blind ones!”
Oops—he didn’t really say that, did he? I made that little part up. See what I did? I called them blind, but the seeing man did not do that. He just lost his patience with their non-ability to see goodness when it stared them in the face. Luckily he didn’t have to rely on whether or not they recognized his healing. Jesus straightened it all out in the end by revealing himself as the Son of Man to his new friend. And the new friend worshipped him. What a nice ending!
Except that wasn’t the end. You know that happy/proud/almost judgmental feeling you get in the story when the hero goes back to stick it to the antagonist? Well, here it comes: Jesus is the one who calls the Pharisees blind. He just walks straight up to them, looks them in the face, disregards their place of holiness, and spits their own judgment right back into their faces. Blindness caused by sin? Not quite. That guy wasn’t being punished, and neither were his parents, he said. That’s not the kind of thing sin does to you. Sin removes your ability to see God’s presence in the world. Sin makes you unable to distinguish who it is that calls you: the Good Shepherd, or the Accuser. Sin makes you do things like bare false witness to the glory of God. And y’all better watch it: because you look for ways to punish others, that sin is heaped back on your own head, covering your eyes and making you unable to see what God is up to all around you. Shame on you.
It was a commonly held belief of that time that disability rose from someone’s sin—either the sin of the disabled person or of the people who created that person. It is much easier, after all, to make a pronouncement about difference than to actually live with it. This belief, strongly held by the leaders of the synagogues and the teachers of the law (Pharisees), served as a way to make clear division between light and darkness as they defined it, between being able to see God and God’s intentions and being blinded to them. It was sinful to suppose yourself worthy of a place in God’s house when you obviously had sin in your life. Disabilities and disease were the most obvious and physical indicators of sin in those days.
But in the end, it was the Jewish leaders who, ironically, were disabled. They were not able to receive the Son of God or the healing he brought from God to the earth. They dismissed it as sinful themselves, trying to shove it into the darkest corner while they held onto the light—light they constantly hid under a bushel so no one else would be able to discover it.
Jesus gives sight to the blind: he heals those who are unable to participate fully in life because of blindness. For those who claim to be free of blindness, he shows them the darkness in which they are actually living and brings to them light, also; often it is a light that they do no want in their lives.
Recently I received a call from an old friend. Some of you will be able to relate to her story. She called to tell me that about a month ago her middle son came out to her. “We had wondered,” she said, “but in that moment that he said it, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.” It’s not that she and her husband had ever been personally hateful to gay and lesbian folks. They just didn’t think they knew any, and so it made it much harder to actually see a member of their own family telling them that he is gay—that he is one of the people they’ve read about in papers and seen stories about on television, one of those people whose true life has changed the lives of those around him, one of those people God made in God’s image and called good.
Tears came to my eyes as she talked. I fully expected her to tell me that she and her husband just couldn’t have a relationship with this child to whom they had given life anymore. I was waiting for her to say that she didn’t agree with it and was heartbroken that her son would be going to hell. As she talked on, I was forming arguments in my mind to throw into the conversation to try and convince her that she was wrong and that she needed to look at this whole situation in a different way.
And they she said, “He’s my son. I love him. God loves him. And God doesn’t make mistakes with us. My son loves God more than anyone else I know including myself. And if that’s good enough for God, then it’s good enough for me.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. This woman who I have heard make questionable remarks about a life she knew nothing about, who is as theologically far apart from me on so many social justice issues, this woman who I thought I had summed up and whose response to this news I had already scripted in my head, instead left the script and offered grace into the situation. “I’m planning a trip to see him, to get to know his partner in about a month. My husband says his partner will never be a member of our family, but I think I’d like to have another son.”
I owe her a debt of gratitude for spitting on the soil of my assumptions, rubbing a healing balm across my eyes of judgment, and Sending me to wash in tears of joy over one who now, through the witness of her own son, is beginning to truly see.
Amen.
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