March 9, 2008

The Lenten stories we have been reading over the past few weeks of Lent have profiled encounters between Jesus and various people. We began with the temptation of Jesus by the devil; through that story we learned of Jesus' strength, endurance and complete dependence on God. Next, we heard of the nighttime visit by Nicodemus, who came to Jesus looking for understanding of what if meant to be born again. We read of the mid-day encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus speaks at length with her, intuiting what her situation is like and offering her life-giving water to sustain her rather than simple well water. Next we heard a story of Jesus as healer - healing the man who was born blind. The story is complicated by the timing of Jesus, as the healing is done on the Sabbath; surely a way to attract attention and questions. Now, today, the fifth Sunday in Lent, we hear the famous story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. What picture emerges for us regarding this Rabbi and teacher from Nazareth? What portrait of God is he espousing through this final narrative before Holy Week?

First of all, I think it is important for us each to open the Bible and read these stories for ourselves. They are detailed and well-developed stories and it is important for us to know what they say and don't say. When I returned from Minneapolis on Monday, I got into my car at the airport and flipped around the stations, marveling at how many stations we get in L.A. I settled on a religious program - somewhere just beyond KROQ where my son likes to reside; one of my guilty pleasures is radio and TV religious programs. It's like moth to a flame for me. Just need to know what other messages of Jesus are out there!!! This one was interesting for about 2 minutes. They were talking about straying from the wholesome path and following a path of self-destruction and drugs, all in a very casual, accessible southern Californian-speak; but then the preacher started to talk about Satan and naming things that were of Satan. When he got to yoga and Harry Potter as glorifications of things evil, I was done. I just sat there amazed, asking myself how the New Testament Jesus could have morphed into this modern day rigid messiah! So, it is important to open the Bible and read these stories for ourselves. We need to test and see if the stories we are told about Jesus are actually in sync with the biblical stories of Jesus.

So, in John's Gospel, chapter 11 we stumble upon the story of Jesus and Lazarus. It's a little preview of Easter. However, unlike John's Gospel account of Easter which we will hear in two weeks, the story of Lazarus gives us the full resurrection. On Easter Sunday we get the empty tomb, the linen wrappings, and the mystical encounter between Mary Magdalene and a man whom she thinks is the gardener (from David M. Powers in e-mail UCC.org Stillspeaking Lenten Devotional for Sun. March 9, 2008). Here, in the encounter of the resurrection of Lazarus we get the "spine-tingling moment when the grave opens and a wounded, bandaged figure struggles to life." (Ibid) David Powers writes in his Lenten reflection, "Resurrection will always escape detectors. Nobody is ever really ready for it. We will see only the aftermath, the effects of resurrection? that is the miracle? the mystery. (Ibid)

The Church is here today because we believe that the loving power of God was not put to death completely with the death of Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrate each spring is a celebration of renewal, re-birth, restoration, and reconciliation which are all at the heart of the Christian message. Yet, in all the hoopla surrounding Lazarus coming out of the tomb after 4 days, we almost miss his death and the grief that surrounds his death. Life and death come close at times but in this instance the life crowds out any of the reaction to his death. So, when you read the story of Lazarus, read the entire account. It is a quirky narrative because some of the later editing is evident - things are being explained to us even as they are unfolding. There is also a deliberate nature to the events and how they unfold. For example, Jesus hears that Lazarus is very ill; he waits two days before he comes to him. Once he gets there we find out that Lazarus is more than ill, he is dead. So now, the four days that it took for Jesus to arrive now make Lazarus fully dead since the thinking was that one's soul floats around for 3 days and then departs, making it impossible for one to come back to life after that three day period.

So, we hear the grief of Mary and Martha, along with the subtle accusations that if Jesus had arrived earlier, he might not have died; but mostly we learn of the raising of Lazarus from his tomb. The miracle, according to John's Gospel is both literal and symbolic. It is a physical death that the gospel writer is chronicling. Four days dead. Martha is reluctant to have the stone in front of the tomb moved because of the stench from a dead body. This is presented as a literal and physical death and resurrection.

It is also presented as a symbolic resurrection. Jesus gives life to people who are estranged from God. This estrangement is death. Lazarus is bound by cloth in this symbolic death and needs to be released. Where these two types of resurrection meet is in John's conviction that our connection to God transcends the boundaries of life and death. We are bound to God in life and in death and in life beyond death.

One writer noted that for all John's mysticism in this gospel, he begins the gospel with a wedding and ends with a death - both basic and accessible parts of our human life. The message throughout John is also that life and death are bound up very close with one another as we celebrate one instance and then grieve in another. I've been noticing recently that there have been a number of deaths in our community - either of family members of friends. A few of you have articulated the grief that comes and overshadows us with loss. One of the pieces of this story today that I would like to hold up is the grief of Mary and Martha. It is not the centerpiece of the story, but it is significant, especially for the ones who grieve. Both women call for Jesus to come and help; both women accuse him of not coming fast enough to save him.

Joan Didion writes about the grieving process in her recent book The Year of Magical Thinking. She writes in the aftermath of her own family tragedy, when in December of 2003, her twenty something daughter is first hospitalized with the flu, which moved to pneumonia and finally to septic shock and induced coma. While her daughter is in the hospital, she sits down at home with her husband for dinner one night and he has a massive coronary at the table and dies enroute to the hospital. Her daughter pulls through and is able to come to dad's funeral a few weeks later (the same church that she was married in just 8 months earlier), but is back in the hospital 2 months later for brain surgery after a fall. Didion writes about the swirl of grief and chaos that surrounds loss. For her, "Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant." She also says that grief is "nothing we expect it to be." (p. 27) It comes in waves? sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailyness of life?. She says there is a particular look on the faces of those who have recently lost a loved one - extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness? the look of someone who walks from the ophthalmologist's office into the bright daylight with dilated eyes." She writes, I seemed to have crossed one of those legendary rivers that divide the living from the dead, entered a place in which I could be seen only by those who were themselves recently bereaved." (Ibid., p. 75)

Even though the story of Lazarus ends up with life, it reminds us that even amidst life there is death - ultimately for Lazarus, for Jesus and for us. So, what to do in the meantime? Didion writes that ultimately she needed to relinquish the dead - she needed to eventually let her husband be a beautiful and searing memory. She needed to return to living her life and reveling in its daily beauty and ordinariness. I would add that we are to surround ourselves with not only community but also the awareness that God is present to us in our life and in our death. Many people don't want to be around others when they are feeling so vulnerable, and yet our connection to those who love us and care about us is crucial to us not sinking into quicksand. So, even as we celebrate the life-giving power of Jesus, we are reminded to circle the wagons and build communities that will sustain us when grief visits us.

The texts in the Lenten and Easter season explore life and death in all of its joy and pain. We are invited through these stories of life and death to reflect on all of our births and deaths with courage and faith with the knowledge that God accompanies us through both. Amen.