Jesus' Abundant Life is Dangerous

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.

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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.

Lord of the Hogwarts Art

Last month some friends introduced me to Draw with Jazza.  Jazza's an Australian animator and does a bunch of how to videos, challenges, and other fun stuff.  For his March Challenge of the Month, the theme was Lord of the Hogwarts.  Anybody who knows me, knows that this is perfect!  ...Now I just had to remember my high school art classes :-/

So, I started out sketching some different ideas.  My initial idea ended up also being the one I went with, although I did seriously consider thestrals rescuing Sam and Frodo at the end...maybe another time.

Then I set about sketching out the scene

and laying down base colors.  During this whole process, I lost count of how many times I watched Jazza's How to Shade with Colored Pencils video (among others).

Getting the colors down nice and strong.

And my final picture (taken with a camera on the left, scanned on the right).

It was really fun to try my hand at art after all this time and I really like what I came up with.  The ent, Treebeard, is doing a great job mending up the Whomping Willow after Ron and Harry's unfortunate crash.

Courtship to Faith: Lent 3a

One reading was Romans 5:1-11.

The gospel was John 4:1-42.

As we begin today’s gospel reading, we’ve jumped from last week’s encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in Jerusalem over some time that Jesus and John spend in the Judean countryside baptizing folks.  In this part that we miss, John reminds some of his followers that he is not the Messiah, but instead has been sent ahead—to cultivate the field, sow the seeds, as it were.  Then we pick up the story today.

¹Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard,

      “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John”

            ²—although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized—

         ³Jesus left Judea

            and started back to Galilee.

                  ⁴But he had to go through Samaria.

Jewish people like Jesus and Samaritans, living in Samaria, were linked through their ancestors.  According to Jewish New Testament Scholar Amy-Jill Levine, “Samaritans are descendants of two distinct groups: the remnant of the ten tribes associated with the Northern Kingdom of Israel who were not deported when the Northern Kingdom fell in 722 BCE, and foreign colonists from Babylonia and Media brought by the Assyrian conquerors of Samaria.” Typically, though linked through their ancestors, Jews and Samaritans were not on good terms and would avoid each other whenever possible.  So for Jesus to be compelled to go through Samaria, it’s a bit scandalizing.

            ⁵Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar,

                  near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

                        ⁶Jacob’s well was there,

                        and Jesus,

                              tired out by his journey,

                                    was sitting by the well.

                                          It was about noon.

Wells in biblical tradition have a special role: they are a place of courtship. In Genesis Abraham’s servant finds Rebekah at a well as a wife for Isaac, their son Jacob then finds Rachel at a well.  These stories and this tradition would have been very familiar for the first hearers of the gospel, so this encounter would be filled with visions of courtship. 

Unlike Nicodemus, a named man who is a religious leader, who seeks Jesus out in the hidden anonimity and mystery of night, this chance encounter happens in the bright heat of the noonday sun—in the open for all to witness.  And it happens, as we will soon find out, with an unnamed woman who is a Samaritan.

⁷A Samaritan woman came to draw water,

      and Jesus said to her,

            “Give me a drink.”

                  ⁸(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to Jesus,

      “How is it that you, a Jewish man, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

            (Jewish people do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

As we know, Jews and Samaritans come from the same lineage, at least in part, yet like many half-siblings, there is a great distrust and even enmity between these cultural groups—an understood divide that no one expects to be bridged.  It no longer feels like there is anything in common between these peoples.

¹⁰Jesus answered her,

      “If you knew the gift of God,

            and who it is that is saying to you,

                  ‘Give me a drink,’

            you would have asked him,

            and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹The woman said to Jesus,

      “Sir, you have no bucket,

      and the well is deep.

            Where do you get that living water?

                  ¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob,

                        who gave us the well,

                        and with his children and his flocks drank from it?”

Jesus, as he did with Nicodemus, brings the conversation to a level deeper than either Nicodemus or the woman are ready for, bringing confusion to them both.  Jesus brings up the gift of water and life from God and we can hear the incredulity of the Samaritan Woman, who can’t figure out how this Jew without a bucket is going to get her any sort of living—or flowing—water. 

Owning her lineage, tracing her ancestry back to Jacob, the common ancestor of Jews and Samaritans, the woman, seeks to understand this bizarre thing that Jesus is saying even as she embraces the cultural perspective she brings to their conversation.

¹³Jesus said to her,

      “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

            ¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.

                  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water

                        gushing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵The woman said to Jesus,

      “Sir, give me this water,

            so that I may never be thirsty

            or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
 

As Jesus dives into the living water—floods of God’s mercy and grace that we encounter in baptism, the Samaritan Woman hints at her reluctance in coming to this communal place to draw water.  For most women in the community, gathering water in the morning before the sun gets too overwhelming at midday is also a social affair—a time to catch up on each other’s lives and the goings-on of the community.  Yet this woman comes at the heat of the day, when she is almost guaranteed not to encounter anyone—and is pretty eager for a way to avoid this well altogether.  What is it that makes her avoid the crowd?

¹⁶Jesus said to her,

      “Go, call your husband,

      and come back.”

¹⁷The woman answered Jesus,

      “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her,

      “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;

            ¹⁸for you have had five husbands,

            and the one you have now is not your husband.

                  What you have said is true!”

¹⁹The woman said to Jesus,

      “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

      ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,

            but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Over the years as we’ve heard of and read about this encounter, we’ve wondered many things about this woman.  In following the custom of engaging with a male head of household, Jesus names her reality.  She has had five husbands and the current one is not her husband.  So often this fact has been used to denigrate her—to call her promiscuous, to condemn and dismiss her, but that is not what Jesus does.  Jesus knows that women have virtually no say in marriage or divorce—that these five husbands could be due to death, an inability to have children, domestic abuse, adultery, or even boredom. 

Jesus doesn’t place any moral or ethical judgment on this woman—those judgments are only from us and our own theological—and patriarchal—ancestors.  But what if her last statement points to the reason she is an outcast in her community?

Rev. Allison Unroe points out that this woman bravely names the metaphorical elephant in the room.  Some traditions name this Samaritan Woman Photina, which means “the luminous one” or “light bringer”—she brings into the light of the noonday sun, the conflict that goes unnamed between these cultures and people that once were one people and now feel so far apart.

What if her community has cast her out for her willingness to tell the truth about their reality?  Not only to name openly the divide between Jews and Samaritans, but to name the other problems that they face as a community?  What if she is ostracized precisely because she persisted in truth telling?

²¹Jesus said to her,

      “Woman, believe me,

            the hour is coming when you will worship the Father

                  neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

            ²²You worship what you do not know;

                  we worship what we know,

                        for salvation is from the Jewish people.

                  ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here,

                        when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,

                              for such worshipers the Father seeks.

                        ²⁴God is spirit,

                        and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵The woman said to Jesus,

      “I know that Messiah is coming”

            (who is called Christ).

            “When he comes,

                  he will proclaim all things to us.”

²⁶Jesus said to her,

      “Here I am, the one who is speaking to you.”

Here Jesus acknowledges the divide that this woman has brought to light and points to the third way—the way that leaves neither Jews nor Samaritans to claim triumph over the other.  Jesus’ hour—his time, God’s time—is now here.  The new Way of worship—through the living waters of baptism into new and abundant life—is coming to be in Jesus who is, as he reveals to the woman, the Messiah (who is called Christ).

Then as this encounter, this courtship to faith, builds, it is abruptly cut off.
 

²⁷Just then Jesus’ disciples came.

      They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman,

            but no one said,

                  “What do you want?”

                  or, “Why are you speaking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar

      and went back to the city.

            She said to the people,

                  ²⁹“Come and see someone who told me everything I have ever done!

                        Can this be the Messiah?”

                  ³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.

The disciples return, presumably with food, and a LOT of awkwardness.  Their silent astonishment speaks volumes.  The absurdity of encountering Jesus, this Jewish Rabbi—leader—talking casually with a Samaritan woman at a well silences the disciples—they know the stories, they know what wells are for.  Though I can imagine the scandalized looks passing between themselves as the woman leaves her water jar behind.  So caught up with the new life, the living water, Jesus offers, she is filled with a new and different purpose that compells her back into the community she had avoided.

The very bluntness with which she names reality and which has pushed her out of the community becomes her key tool for witness as she preaches the Good News of how Jesus knows her—everything she has ever done!  The suffering she has endured in her exclusion from community is being transformed, as Paul states in today’s reading from Romans, into hope, “⁵and hope does not disappoint [her], because God’s love has been poured into [her heart] through the Holy Spirit that has been given to [her].”

While last week Nicodemus’ big question was one of logistics, asking Jesus “How can this be?” the Samaritan Woman asks of her community, with hope and longing in her voice, “Can this be the Messiah?”   

And in response to perhaps the shortest, most effective sermon ever, the crowd goes with her, returning to the well and to Jesus.
 

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging Jesus,

      “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But Jesus said to them,

      “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

³³So the disciples said to one another,

      “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”

³⁴Jesus said to them,

      “My food is to do the will 

            and accomplish the work

                  of the one who sent me.  

            ³⁵Do you not say,

                  ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’?

                  But I tell you, look around you,

                        and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.

                              ³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages

                              and is gathering fruit for eternal life,

                                    so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

                                          ³⁷For here the saying holds true,

                                                ‘One sows and another reaps.’

                        ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.

                              Others have labored,

                                    and you have entered into their labor.”

While the Samaritan Woman is preaching the Good News to the community, Jesus is reminding the disciples of the work—the ministry—they were just doing with John before this in the Judean countryside.  God was at work sowing seeds for the harvest through John and his disciples—laying the groundwork so that Jesus and his disciples can reap what was sown—gathering the fruits of the labor.  And as evidence of what Jesus is saying, we read on.
 

³⁹Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus

      because of the woman’s testimony,

            “He told me everything I have ever done.”

      ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Jesus,

            they asked him to stay with them;

                  and he stayed there two days.

                        ⁴¹And many more believed because of Jesus’ word.

⁴²They said to the woman,

      “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe,

            for we have heard for ourselves,

            and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

This encounter in the brightness of day between one Jewish man and one Samaritan woman, two people who have every reason to not even talk to each other, let alone engage in deep, honest conversation, leads to a new faith for the whole community of Samaritans.  This woman’s courage to name what others may have avoided is both a curse, casting her out of her community and the exact gift that God uses.  

Jesus shares with her the gift of God’s loving grace and the Holy Spirit runs with this preacher, bringing new life to the whole community through her one witness.  In this one day, the Holy Spirit works in her new life—a radical change—that she never could have imagined when she woke up to begin her day.  That is the power of the Holy Spirit in her life and in yours.  Are you ready?