Resurrection and Life

During this Lenten season, the Gospel readings have been coming from the Fourth Gospel. I've not been preaching this Lent but I've been posting some reflections here for preachers and those who listen to sermons over the course of these past five weeks. The reading for the Fifth Sunday in Lent is John 11:1-45.

Going all the way back to the seventh century, these readings from John's Gospel, sometimes called the “scrutiny gospels, were chosen to help form and shape converts to the faith during the forty days of Lent. These catechumens would then be baptized at the Easter Vigil. In our own time, these same gospel readings continue to form and shape us, helping us to take the next steps in our faith journeys by embracing the living Christ who gives us the new birth offered to Nicodemus, the living water offered to the Samaritan woman at the well; the one who helps us to see what we previously were too blind to notice in the same way he healed the man blind from birth. These gospel readings have layers upon layers of nuance and depth.

In today’s reading we get a fourth encounter, but in some ways it is even more complex than those that have preceded it.  It may be harder as a preacher to know which way to go with it.) At first glance it might seem obvious to say this is an encounter between Jesus and Lazarus: after all Lazarus was dead at the beginning of our narrative and walking around in a daze by the end. But here’s the thing: Lazarus speaks not a single word in this text.

We could come at this from the perspective of Jesus’ encounter with the disciples, and in particular, Thomas. Jesus has only a few days earlier “slipped away” from Judea where he was almost stoned to death. The disciples are completely aware of that and therefore are pretty anxious about going back but Thomas bravely speaks up: “Let us go with him so that we may die with him.” This is one of those great disciple ironies that all the gospel writers love—disciples never seem to get it. So Thomas is willing to go back to Judea with Jesus to face death, but the joke here is that in they are returning to see life. Clever, eh?

Or we could see this as an encounter between Jesus and “the Jews.” I need to say a word here before we go any further, and that is to just notice that this translation “the Jews” is unfortunate on so many levels. It is clearly not referring to all Jewish people then or now. That is obvious, since Mary and Martha and Thomas and Jesus and Lazarus are all Jewish in that sense. What the phrase really means is “the temple leadership” in Jerusalem. They are nervous about Jesus, a northerner who doesn’t conform to their expectations about what the messiah is supposed to do (or even what a good rabbi is supposed to do for that matter.) Jesus is in conflict with the religious leaders. Yet there is nuance here, too, that we do well to notice. When Jesus comes back to pay his respects to Mary and Martha we discover that they are already there to sit Shiva and that they have brought along casseroles for the family to eat. These temple leaders, as it turns out, are pretty good at pastoral care; they are there for Mary and Martha in their hour of need. They are not bad people; but simply (as religious people are prone towards) a bit narrow-minded and perhaps judgmental in their theological perspectives. No faith tradition has a monopoly on that, or is immune from it.

The second thing, however, to notice is that they are blown away by Jesus in this encounter and we are told that some of them did believe in him because of this sign.

So we could look at Jesus and Lazarus, or Jesus and Thomas, or Jesus and the Jews.

But for me the energy in this encounter is in the exchanges between Jesus and his two friends, Mary and Martha. We know from other texts about how they are pretty different (as sisters can be.) Mary is reflective and interested in just sitting and talking while Martha always seems to be running around the kitchen. (Although we do well even to take that with a grain of salt and read with a hermeneutic of suspicion!) But in this text we see that they are also similar (as sisters can also be.) Both confront Jesus with the same words, words that carry with them the hint at least of an accusation: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Those words have energy for me because at some level they are words that many of us think (even if we do not utter them) when we lose someone we love, especially someone in the prime of their life. The text isn’t clear, but if all these friends are roughly contemporaries then that would mean that Lazarus is a young man in his early thirties when he dies. We know (as people a week away from Holy Week and as readers of John’s Gospel) that Jesus is not too far himself from meeting an untimely death. But in this moment, in this encounter, it is Lazarus who is dead. We aren’t privy to the coroner’s report. We only have these words of these two grieving sisters that if Jesus had been present, then this tragedy would not have happened.

Our Lenten journeys always begin the same way, on Ash Wednesday, with the reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Whether we have had a lot of experience with death or only a little to this point in our lives, it is the one certainty even more real than taxes for all of us. Yet very often death still catches us off-guard, It can sneak up on us, even if we have lived a good, long, and happy life; death still seems unfair and unreal. That is only magnified when somebody dies before their prime. But if all of us have some experience with death, I suspect it is also equally fair to say that most of us don’t have as much first-hand experience with resurrection. 

There is at least some part of all of us that wants God to give us lives free from pain, free from those moments in the funeral home or standing at the grave of a loved one. We want God to just make death evaporate and disappear so that we don’t have to face it, so that it won’t happen to people we love and care about. We wish that we wouldn’t have to feel that much hurt and grief and sadness.

But that isn’t the God we get; not on the fifth Sunday of Lent and not even on Easter Sunday. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, not the absence of death. All created things are born and die; that is what it means to be created and not the Creator. There is no “get out of death free” card! Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

But that isn’t the end of the story. Next weekend is Palm/Passion Sunday. We will remember the story of the how Jesus was betrayed and denied by his friends and put to death on a cross by his enemies. Jesus himself wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane about whether or not it needed to unfold this way. And as he was dying, some people taunted him because they thought that if he really was the Son of God, then maybe he should now would be a good time to pull out that “get out of death free” card. But it doesn’t work that way. Not even for him.

“I am resurrection and life,” Jesus says. Not I will be or I once was, but I AM. Christ is alive, and that is our song not just at the empty tomb on Easter morning but it is our song whenever we encounter loss and grief and pain in our lives. It is our song by the gravesides of those whom we love but see no longer; when life is changed, not ended. When we dare to make our song, even if we sing those alleluias in a minor key.

But that song doesn’t immunize us from death. Rather, it allows us to not be so afraid of death (with God’s help) and then to see our way past death to new and abundant life. It allows us to trust that death will ever get the last word.

Mary and Martha mistakenly thought that somehow Jesus’ presence would remove death—that Lazarus wouldn’t have died if Jesus had been there. It’s an understandable feeling, but it doesn’t work that way. Jesus’ presence doesn’t negate death. Rather, it gives us hope that when we die life really is changed, not ended. It gives us faith that our dying and our grief and our confusion are never the end of the story, because we believe that hope is stronger than fear. We believe that Jesus is resurrection, and life. And that love is stronger than death. 

I once was blind but now I see

I've been trying something new this Lent. I'm not preaching, but I'm offering some thoughts here that may help those who are preaching and those who will be listening to sermons this Sunday to preview the "thick" texts we've been getting from the fourth gospel. For the fourth Sunday in Lent, that gospel is John 9:1-41. 

Rabbi, who sinned here? This man or his parents? In one form or another, human beings have been asking this question throughout history. We yearn for simple cause-and-effect answers to the very difficult question of human suffering. And so inquiring minds want to know, and particularly, people of faith want to know. 

Notice that the question doesn’t come from the crowds or from the scribes and Pharisees. The question is posed by Jesus’ disciples. It's asked by those who have left all things behind to follow him. Like Job before them, they are committed people of faith yearning to understand the problem of human suffering.

Why was this man born blind? Or why was that woman down the street cured of her cancer, but my father was not? Why was my child diagnosed with cystic fibrosis? Why did that tsunami strike where and when it did? Is this all some kind of punishment?

I adore John's Gospel but I find it the most challenging of the four to preach on because it is so mystical. There is more packed in there than a fifteen-minute homily can tackle. But it seems to me that this is the great theological question and it cannot be ignored on this day, whatever else the preacher may say. We should notice that although Jesus almost always answers questions with a question, he doesn't do that here. He leaves no doubt. He responds clearly and directly: neither this man, nor his parents sinned. Jesus rejects the notion that disease is some kind of punishment for sin. 

Why was this man born blind? We don’t know. All that we can say with any amount of certainty is that in this man’s healing, God’s glory is revealed—if only we have eyes to see.

The healing itself occurs in a fairly straightforward matter: Jesus spits on the ground, makes a little mud pie from the sand and his saliva, spreads that mud on the guy’s eyes, and then tells him to go wash it off. The man does so. God’s grace is so amazing that this man, who once was blind, now sees.

But the healing story quickly is left behind, and instead what we have to unpack is this conflict over the practice of keeping the Sabbath holy. In this case we’re talking about the accepted societal practices around keeping the Sabbath holy. The poor guy who was blind, and now sees, finds himself at the center of a media storm and ultimately a criminal investigation. One can only imagine if CNN and Fox News had been around how this scandal would have unfolded with a twenty-four hour news cycle. As it is, we get to see that even without modern technology, Middle Eastern villages in the first-century do just fine at passing along the big story of the day.

No one wants to believe this guy who now sees is the one they’ve all known to be blind from birth. “I’m the man,” he insists. And they keep asking him, “but how did this happen?” Notice his frustration, and notice how in the midst of all the shouting, his voice gets lost. Notice how his parents get dragged in and interviewed by the media. It’s a real frenzy, and the guy’s whole life is disrupted as Jesus becomes the real story. Jesus is pushing their buttons, and it seems to be apparent that he wants to rock that boat. He is saying that doing the work of the Kingdom takes precedence over everything else. Jesus is reminding people that the Sabbath is given for humans, in order to make life more abundant, not so that humans can become slaves to it.

In today’s gospel reading there are a whole lot of competing agendas. While it’s easy for Christians to caricature and scapegoat the Pharisees, the truth is that they are sincere people trying to keep the faith. Their sin, however, may be in their certitude that they know and see all that there is to see. And in their vigilant desire to keep Sabbath holy, they are blind to the transformation that is unfolding before their very eyes.

This gospel reading is only initially about the healing of a blind man. In fact, it is about exposing certitude—especially religious certitude—for what it is: a form of idolatry and pride. When we are absolutely certain that we have it all down and that we grasp the whole truth and that we have a clear command of all the right information and that our perspective is “pure”—it is precisely then that we may be most blind to what is unfolding right before our very eyes.

 

The Wesley Boys

Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls and endowed them with eloquence of speech and song: kindle such fervor in your Church, we entreat you, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. 

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Every year on this day, my heart feels strangely warmed as my chosen denomination (The Episcopal Church) remembers and gives thanks for the life and witness of John and Charles Wesley, who loomed large in the denomination that formed me. 

John is considered to be the founder of the Methodists. Charles was a prolific poet who composed more than 6,500 hymns, many of which can be found in the Episcopal Church's hymnal. Their parents were Anglican rector, Samuel Wesley, and his wife, Susanna, who had strong Pietist leanings, but remained Anglican.

Neither John nor Charles had any intention of ever leaving the Anglican Church to start a new denomination. At Oxford University, the two were founding members of a small reform group. In 1728, they were ordained as priests of the Church of England, and they faithfully kept their holy orders throughout their lives.

When I left the United Methodist Church, in which I served as an ordained minister from 1988-1993, no one ever asked me to "renounce" my former denomination. In fact, just the opposite: Bishop Geoffrey Rowthorn, who was Suffragan Bishop in Connecticut when I made the move to the Episcopal Church, urged me to bring my Wesleyanism with me. "We still need what they were trying to do in the Episcopal Church," he told me. 

Why did I make this move if I love these brothers so much? The United Methodist Church was founded when I was five years old, in 1968, the result of a merger between the Methodist-Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren. At the risk of over-simplifying, the Methodist-Episcopal Church was more liturgical and probably more progressive, generally, than the EUB. When I went to Drew Theological School I learned liturgy that was Eucharistic-centered and actually very close to the Episcopal Church. But there remained a lot of freedom for pastors to draw on their own creativity in congregations, at least into the 1980s. I not only felt drawn to the more Eucharistic-centered liturgy of The Episcopal Church as the place for me to grow into the full stature of Christ, but I came to believe that I'd be a more faithful "Wesleyan" in the tradition that had formed them. It was the right move for me, but I've always tried to heed Bishop Rowthorn's wise counsel and because of my seminary education and my commitment to ecumenism (not to mention most of my family of origin!) I still love the United Methodist Church. 

The Wesleys were committed to prayer and to social justice. It's hard in these days to verify quotes attributed to famous people but John is reported to have said: "the church changes the world not by making converts, but by making disciples."  That's what those groups at Oxford were all about and it's at the heart of what I learned in the Hawley United Methodist Church. However one comes to understand Wesley's doctrine of "sanctifying grace," it was important to him that people recognize that there is always room for growth. God is not finished with any of us yet.

As for Charles, it's hard for me to pick a favorite of his many wonderful hymns but one that makes the list for me and that I love to sing in Advent begins like this: 

Come, thou long expected Jesus,

born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our rest in thee.

Israel's strength and consolation,

hope of all the earth thou art;

dear desire of every nation,

joy of every longing heart.

Blessed John and Charles Wesley, whom we remember today. 

The Woman at the Well

Below, some notes and reflections for those who will be preaching sermons or hearing sermons preached on the Third Sunday in Lent. 

Last weekend's gospel reading focused on an encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus from the third chapter of John’s Gospel. I shared some thoughts about that one-on-one encounter here.

Today, in the fourth chapter of that same gospel, we see Jesus with an unnamed Samaritan woman. John has juxtaposed these two encounters in a way that is meant to get our attention, in a way that makes it clear that God really does so love the world. We are meant to notice the polarities: male and female, Jew and Samaritan, community leader and socially marginalized. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night; this Samaritan woman comes to the well in the middle of the day

And yet even as we notice these differences, I think that John means for us to see that Jesus meets each of them where they are, and takes their questions seriously and engages each of them in serious theological conversation. This is obviously not surprising with Nicodemus, a man of some social status and privilege. But it's just plain wild that Jesus treats this unnamed woman with the same dignity and respect. The disciples’ astonishment is a clue to us of just how shocking it was for Jesus to be talking to a divorced, Samaritan woman in the middle of the day. “Jews do not (even) share cups with Samaritans," we are told...

If one follows Barth's advice of holding the Bible in one hand and the news in the other it's hard not to think about the recent news about the U.S. Hockey Teams' gold medals: one earned by the women's team and one earned by the men's team and how each team has been treated by the sitting president of the United States. 

I know - church and politics and all of that. But the key, as I see it, to the Baptismal Covenant is about respecting the dignity of every person and striving for justice among all people. And although sometimes the Church has contributed to sexism (and racism and homophobia) we need to be clear that's on the Church, not Jesus. Jesus is willing to challenge the social conventions of his day to model authentic encounters with all kinds of people - which will ultimately lead the pastoral theologian, Paul, to insist that "in "Christ there is neither male nor female." I don't know how to thread that needle but we should notice that Jesus sits and talks to everyone, and treats them with dignity and respect and kindness. If we mean to be his followers and his friends we must do the same. 

It’s interesting to me that this encounter at Jacob’s well begins with Jesus asking the woman for a drink of water.  I can’t help but to hear those words from Matthew’s Gospel about the sheep and the goats echoing in my head whenever I hear this gospel reading: when did we see you Lord? When did we not see you? Jesus responds by saying that whenever you visited those in prison, or clothed the naked, or fed the hungry, or gave a drink of water to one of these little ones in my name, you did it to me. And whenever you didn’t do those things, you didn’t do it to me.

So before the conversation gets deep and turns to theological discussion about “living water” that quenches a thirsty soul, Jesus is just a stranger in a foreign land asking for a drink of water. And while it’s true that Jews and Samaritans don’t share cups in common, and while it’s true that men aren’t supposed to be talking to women they aren’t related to in public, it is also true that this stranger is thirsty and far from home and this local woman has access to the well. Whatever deep theological insights emerge beyond this we should not miss the way it all begins: with an act of human kindness. 

I think of that verse from Brian Wren’s great Eucharistic hymn, “I Come With Joy,” that says, “as Christ breaks bread and bids us share, each proud division ends/ That love that made us, makes us one, and strangers now are friends.” Someone needs to take a risk for a stranger to become a friend. Before we get to profound metaphysical interpretations, I think we are invited to simply watch Jesus and this woman sitting at Jacob’s well, having a normal conversation in a world where that isn't supposed to happen. The energy that is released when strangers become friends invites transformation and healing and encourages us to imagine the world as otherwise.  

This encounter between Jesus and this Samaritan woman has everything to do with us, because I think Jesus keeps seeking us out too: all of us—male and female, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight. Jesus cares about our stories, about our lives, about the stuff everyone in town or our church or our families "know" about us, even if it is never said out loud.

Jesus keeps finding people like us in the middle of Lent, in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. Sometimes at our favorite watering hole. He cuts through all the shame and fear and guilt to tell us everything about ourselves, especially the truth that we are loved. When he offers us living water to quench our souls, we do well to drink as deeply as we can.