The first reading is Ezekiel 37:1-14.
The holy gospel according to
John
(11:1-44).
1Now a certain man was ill,
Lazarus
of Bethany,
the
village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2Mary
was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume
and
wiped his feet with her hair;
her
brother Lazarus was ill.
3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus,
“Lord,
he whom you love is ill.”
4But
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.”
5Accordingly,
though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,
6after
having heard that Lazarus was ill,
he
stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7Then after this he said to the disciples,
“Let
us go to Judea again.”
8The disciples said to him,
“Rabbi,
the Judeans were just now trying to stone you,
and
are you going there again?”
9Jesus 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.
10But
those who walk at night stumble,
because
the light is not in them.”
11After
saying this, he told them,
“Our
friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,
but
I am going there to awaken him.”
12The disciples said to him,
“Lord,
if he has fallen asleep,
he
will be all right.”
13Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death,
but
they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
14Then
Jesus told them plainly,
“Lazarus
is dead.
15For
your sake I am glad I was not there,
so
that you may believe.
But
let us go to him.”
16Thomas, who was called the Twin,
said
to his fellow disciples,
“Let
us also go,
that
we may die with him.”
17When Jesus arrived,
he
found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem,
some
two miles away,
19and
many of the Judeans had come to Martha and Mary
to
console them about their brother.
20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she
went and met him,
while
Mary stayed at home.
21Martha
said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my
brother would not have died.
22But
even now I know that whatever you ask from God,
God
will give you.”
23Jesus said to her,
“Your
brother will rise again.”
24Martha said to him,
“I
know that he will rise again
in
the resurrection on the last day.”
25Jesus said to her,
“I
am the resurrection and the life.
Those
who believe in me,
even
though they die, will live,
26and
everyone who lives
and
believes in me will never die.
Do
you believe this?”
27She said to him,
“Yes,
Lord,
I
believe that you are the Messiah,
the
Son of God,
the
one coming into the world.”
28When 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.”
29And
when Mary heard it,
she
got up quickly and went to him.
30Now Jesus had not yet come to the village,
but
was still at the place where Martha had met him.
31The
Judeans 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.
32When
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.”
33When
Jesus saw her weeping,
and
the Judeans who came with her also weeping,
he
was greatly disturbed in spirit and
deeply moved.
34He
said,
“Where
have you laid him?”
They
said to him,
“Lord,
come and see.”
35Jesus began to weep.
36So
the Judeans said,
“See
how he loved him!”
37But
some of them said,
“Could
not the one
who
opened the eyes of the blind man
have
kept this man from dying?”
38Then Jesus,
again greatly disturbed,
came
to the tomb.
It
was a cave,
and
a stone was lying against it.
39Jesus
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.”
40Jesus
said to her,
“Did
I not tell you that if you believed,
you
would see the glory of God?”
41So they took away the stone.
And
Jesus looked upward and said,
“Father,
I thank you for having heard me.
42I
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.”
43When
Jesus had said this,
he
cried with a loud voice,
“Lazarus,
come out!”
44The
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.”
The
gospel of the Lord.
-----
When
I started my first call in South Jordan, Utah, I didn’t know anybody anywhere
near me. So, I looked up the Salt
Lake City Pride Center as a way of connecting with the lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer community there.
In my search on the website, I discovered the 1 to 5 club, a group for
those of us who identified more along the bisexual, transgender, and queer +
lines than the lesbian or gay ones.
I
still remember the anxiety I had early on there as I came out, not as queer,
but as a pastor. Particularly in
the queer community of Utah, I knew my queerness wouldn’t be an issue in the
group, but I also knew that the dominant religion in Utah was pretty clearly
against lgbtq+ folks. And here I
was both queer and part of a religious institution. To many people not just in Utah, but throughout this country
and even in our town, I remain an anomaly or a contradiction.
I
wonder if that’s what Lazarus felt like.
Coming
out of the tomb, he was both dead—as in good and dead—four whole days of
dead! And yet he was alive. He would eventually die again, but for
now he was alive … and smelled awful!
He certainly didn’t fit the mold for an acceptable part of the community.
But
Jesus was there, so what else could he expect but to come out of the tomb?
That
tomb that had been comfort and tranquility, separation from all of his hardship
and heartache. Yes, it was
dark. Yes, it smelled terrible! But when you’re dead, I’d guess you
don’t really notice those things as much.
Then
Jesus gets the folks gathered to move the stone and calls out, “Lazarus, come out!” and as Ezekiel points
out, those dry—or perhaps just rotting—bones gain flesh and breath—gain life
again.
It
would be great if we could say that Jesus brings Lazarus back to life and
everybody lives happily ever after, but that just isn’t true. The smell still hangs on Lazarus, as
the strips of cloth used to bind him in his death, trail out of the tomb with
him. And when Lazarus is at this
most vulnerable moment, Jesus calls the community into the mess and stress and
stink.
The
abundant life that Jesus brings is radical and revolutionary. It threatens the systems we have in
place that govern power and resources.
It threatens, as we renounce in our baptismal rite, “all the forces that
defy God” and “the powers of this world that rebel against God.”
And
this abundant new life requires something from the whole gathered
community. Jesus doesn’t call
Lazarus back into life and leave him to go on his way alone. Jesus calls him out and then tells the community to “unbind him.”
Abundant
life is a community thing. It’s
not always convenient or comfortable, and sometimes it’s downright
dangerous. Touching this one who
was dead would challenge the community’s policies around being clean and
unclean. Is Lazarus unclean
because he was dead or clean because he’s now alive? To unbind him, the community has to risk their own
separation from religious practice, not to mention dealing with the stench and
grime of someone who’s been dead for four days.
Right
now, our government’s policies have bound up immigrants and minorities with
legitimate fears of immigration raids, deportations, bans, and a wall. The abundant community that we glimpse
each week as we gather in communion means that the comfort and convenience of
the relationships we’ve developed is being called to account.
No matter what, God will love us, but
we have the choice as a community of faith to give up some of our comfort and
convenience in order to remain faithful not only to the abundant life that
Jesus brings, but also to the relationships we’ve been investing in.
The
next part of today’s gospel, which we don’t get, is the fallout from Jesus’
encounter with Lazarus at the tomb.
The
gospel reads:
45Many of the Judeans therefore,
who
had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did,
believed
in him.
46But some of them went to the Pharisees
and
told them what he had done.
47So
the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council
and
said, “What are we to do?
This
man is performing many signs.
48If
we let him go on like this,
everyone
will believe in him,
and
the Romans will come and destroy
both
our holy place and our nation.”
49But one of them, Caiaphas,
who
was high priest that year, said to them,
“You
know nothing at all!
50You
do not understand
that
it is better for you to have one man die for the people
than
to have the whole nation destroyed.”
51He
did not say this on his own,
but
being high priest that year
Caiaphas
prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation,
52and
not for the nation only,
but
to gather into one the dispersed children of God.
53So
from that day on they planned to put him to death.
-----
We
will learn more about the fallout next week, especially on Good Friday.
But
what we do know is that abundant life is dangerous. It threatens our comfort and our convenience. It threatens the ways of the world so
much that people immediately begin plotting to kill Jesus and it will lead
Jesus to death on a cross.
And
yet it is profoundly life-giving.
My
relationship with those who became deep friends in Utah would not have been a
part of the abundant life Jesus calls us all to if I had not shared not only
the part of me that was similar to them, but also the part of me that was
potentially contradictory.
In sharing
all of myself and entering into the messy unbinding that comes with our
relationships and abundant life, I actually received the gifts of grace and
vulnerability from my friends as well, and together we walked with each other
in the struggles and triumphs of our queerness and in the struggles and
triumphs of our faith.
I
will never promise you that abundant life, this life we have through Christ,
will be comfortable or convenient.
I
can pretty much guarantee you that when we are most faithful to Jesus it definitely
won’t be, especially now, especially in these days.
But
it will be worth it.
Thanks
be to God.
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