LIFE UNBOUNDED
Psalm 130, John 11:17-44
This summer I have had the privilege of spending Tuesday evening with a group of women with Bibles on our laps reading through the book of John. I continue to be surprised in the book of John, by the depth of theological conversations that Jesus has with these women. You know the women...the ones who do not speak unless spoken to, the ones who are busy in the kitchen or gathering water at the well, the Jewish mother who is behind the scenes orchestrating the details at a wedding feast. Well, a few weeks ago, we studied the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead--and I was hooked.
Our four-year-old daughter Maya overheard Brent and me discussing this story in the car last week, so she asked what we were talking about. I explained that I was going to be sharing with the congregation the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. She perked up and with bright eyes she responded, "Mommy, that story is in my Bible too! She suggested perhaps I should use her Bible.
We enter the story where Lazarus has been dead for four days. Not four minutes or fours hours--where Jesus can heal him and Lazarus jumps up from his bed or mat, but four days. Dead as a doornail-dead. And it wasn't as if Jesus didn't see this coming. Mary and Martha had sent a message to him days before alerting Jesus to the fact that their brother Lazarus was ill. Now they don't just say our brother is ill, they write, "The one whom YOU Love is Ill." They are laying it on thick.
One would expect Jesus to jump up from what he was doing and go to them immediately--this is practically the family he has chosen for himself. But instead he waits....
He hasn't yet made it to Bethany but the word is out that Jesus is en route. As soon as she hears it, Martha is on her way out the door. Now remember Martha is the sister who is known for preparing the meals, cleaning, and serving while Mary hangs out at Jesus' feet. Martha in a sense is even reprimanded by Jesus--Mary has made the right choice....And so it seems that Martha has taken this lesson to heart. She is not about to stand in the kitchen with the broom and sweep her grief away--she is on the road ready to confront Jesus with her grief.
This is where I wish YouTube could jump in. How do you imagine Martha coming down the road to meet Jesus? I imagine Martha coming down the road with her hands on her hips--her anger just barely under the surface--"Jesus, where have you been? I sent you a letter; you were supposed to answer it!" We hear that conviction in the first part, "Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
How many of us have laid the same blame or guilt on another person--and on God? Lord, if you were really here, my child would have been safe. Lord if you were really here, my partner wouldn't have come home drunk. Lord if you were really here, I wouldn't have to fight this disease.
Martha doesn't hide her grief from Jesus. Her grief is verbal--in some way she is cognitively processing her grief. Yet, her complaint is also laden with faith. Faith in what Jesus could have done if he had been there and faith that he can still do something...."But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of Him"--she is declaring who Jesus is in relationship to God.
Can you hear Jesus' voice over? "Your brother will rise again."
At this point I imagine Martha rolling her eyes at Jesus response. "Yeah, yeah, I know that he will rise again on the last day"--she is almost exasperated. The woman knows her theology and she doesn't want a pat answer from him.
I imagine Jesus looking at Martha's downcast face, her head bent in disappointment, and saying, "You're almost there, but you don't quite get itÖ.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." Then I imagine Jesus lifting her chin as he asks, "Do you believe this?...."
Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life?
Over and over in John we hear the I AMs of Jesus: I am the Bread of Life--I am The Gate (10:7)--I am the Good Shepherd (10:11)--I am the Light of the World.
But in a story that focuses on death, Jesus claims to be Life and to bring life. Life that doesn't begin after the grave, but life that begins when we are in relationship with Christ. Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly. Life that is abundant. Life starting NOW.
Martha responds: "Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world."
Some of you may be aware that this Spring, my husband's brother Doug died of colon cancer. He was not quite 40 years old. I am sure one of the reasons I felt moved to preach on this story is because I am part of an extended family that is grieving. Some family members have been grieving since the day Doug was diagnosed six years ago.
Over this time I have seen various faces and phases of grief. For some grief is a weight like a heavy rock that can't be lifted off their chest, or colors that were once vibrant are now muted. Grief can be a void; or a constant stream of memories both of words and deeds done, and those left undone.
It is a shadow that stands toe-to-toe with you.
Each has responded in their own way in that particular moment of time: Stoic and resolute, rational and faithful, detached and placid, weepy and anxious, angry and relieved.
And at some point, did not at least one of us ask, Lord if you had been here, my brother, my spouse, my son, my friend would not have died?
When Mary gets to Jesus she echoes Martha's exact words--Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. This time, we see grief that is expressed emotionally; she is weeping. Jesus sees her and the other Jews weeping and the scriptures say that he was disturbed and greatly moved. And how many of you know this next scene because of the Bible trivia question, "What is the shortest verse in the bible?"--Jesus wept. He meets Martha where she needed to be met--to answer her questions and he meets Mary in her emotion for he too begins to weep--not just shed a tear and cry, but weep--we are talking about puffy eyes, snot that that you wipe with your sweatshirt, shuddering shoulders--Weeping.
Given this great display of emotion from Jesus, many commentators inquire about the cause of Jesus' weeping--is it because he witnesses the grief of his friends? Because he has lost a person whom he loved? Because he knows that his own time of death is near?
What we do see is the humanness of Jesus. The book of John is historically known to emphasize the divinity of Jesus--quite a few monologues and proclamations like Martha's that he is the Son of God. But in this instance with Mary we see that Jesus is human. Jesus is not an Immutable Being that can sit at a distance and be unaffected. Jesus breaks down.
Finally, Jesus inquires about Lazarus--"Where have you laid him?"
And Mary's response is, "Come and see"--Come and See--One of my favorite invitations of scripture. We hear Jesus use this invitation at the beginning of this gospel in Chapter 1 when Jesus invites the disciples to "Come and See." When I hear Come and See--I hear it as an invitation and as a warning: Turn on the blinking lights: BEWARE: if you come and see your life will be changed.
Jesus, the disciples, you and I are invited to come and see--come up to the tomb, come face death and sin, come to the dark place--so that we may come into the light.
When they arrive at the burial place Jesus commands, "Take away the stone"--and here comes the comic relief--Martha with her eyebrows raised looks at Jesus and remarks--"Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." I can hear my two-year-old saying "Peeyew!" The grittiness of the gospel is revealed in this scene; not only do we have weeping mourners, and dense stones, we have stinky corpses and Martha has no problem letting Jesus know this seems a bit absurd.
Jesus reminds Martha that he is fulfilling his promise--"Didn't I tell you if you believed that you would see the glory of God?" And it is here that Jesus has a conversation with God in the presence of everyone around him, in order that they might believe he was sent by God. This is about belief. "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" we cry so often as disciples.
Here we reach the climax of the story, "Lazarus COME OUT!" I feel like holding my breath even as I read it. A tenuous glimmer of hope in that Present Moment....
I have a dear friend Amy Julia Becker who writes--she has a blog "Thin Places." She describes thin places as those places or events in life where the dividing line between the holy and the ordinary is very thin...to the point that the ordinary becomes holy and the holy becomes ordinary. One of her novels addresses grief and hope in the context of her ministering to her mother-in-law Penny in the last months of her fatal illness.
She writes this:
In the midst of Penny's illness, I read that the word "hope" in Hebrew is similar to the word for spider's silk. I also read that spider's silk is stronger than steel, that researchers are hoping to use spider's silk to make lightweight bulletproof vests. I'm not sure the Hebraic etymological connection was intentional, but it provided me with a helpful image: hope as a strand of spider's silk, stretched tight between the pain of the present moment and the promise of future reunion. Hope is a place between. It is remembering the pain of the cross and anticipating the reality of the resurrection. It is an awareness that this world is not yet what it should be, even as God is already at work. Hope is as strong as steel, and as fragile as a thread.
Jesus enters this moment of hope--between death and life. Enter the dead man walking. It was as if Lazarus had been spun in cloth like a spider's prey, the mummified man comes out--stench and all--bound from head to toe.
Just as Jesus met Martha, Mary and Lazarus bound as they were in rational anger, weepy emotion and saturated cloths--Jesus too comes to us; even as we are bound: bound by regret, bound by addiction, bound by grief, by resentment and guilt, and all of us have been bound by loneliness...and Jesus proclaims: Unbind him and let him go.
Notice that Jesus did not walk over and dismantle the strips from Lazarus' limbs--he calls the community to gather around and participate in the unbinding of their friend and brother. Each of us is part of the healing, the miracle, the resurrection. God does not intend to bring about this restoration alone.
We are called to set one another free through the power of Jesus Christ. We are called to New Orleans to restore the land, we are called to Africa to feed the hungry, we are called to the Sunday School classroom to teach, to the nursing home to bring comfort, to the neighbor to share a meal, to laugh with a child, we are called to pray.
Unbind him and let him go.
Unbind her and let her go.
Unbind this church and let us go....
Life Unbounded is actually a myth--because when we ask God to unbind us, we find ourselves more fully bound to Christ. We are bound to Jesus--not sin or death--and we are called to unbind one other with resurrection power...to remove the cloths from our hands and feet, from one another's eyes--and to walk more fully into our life with Christ.
Amen.
August 16, 2009
Elizabeth Ferguson
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