Sermon
Lent VYear A
2/4/17
Eltham
Readings
OT:Ezekiel 37
Psalm: Psalm 30
NT:
Gospel: John 11:1-45 Lazarus
+FSHS
When asked what surprised him most about humanity, the Dalai Lama, leader of the world's Buddhists, said: "Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money in order to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."
I saw this as a meme on Facebook, and it's stuck with me, because I suspect it is true! What the Dalai Lama points to is the futility of the fact so many of our thoughts are focused on death, or on things that lead to death - worry, anxiety, greed. These things are tied up in the fear of death... "Wait, wait! I can't die until..." These things stop us from being in the present moment. They stop us, as he says, from truly living.
The Dalai Lama in saying these things echoes the words of Jesus - he not far from the kingdom of heaven in his assertion of life in the face of the human tendency to get caught up in cycles of death and despair. Unlike the Dalai Lama, Jesus offers us a way out of the conundrum. For he IS life, he is the resurrection and the life. What does that actually mean?
The two ideas are linked: he has life in himself, he is brimful of life. Why? Because he lives in communion with the Father and Spirit and his friends. His thoughts are for life, for hope, for growing things and people. The last four weeks we've had stories from John's gospel - Nicodemus and the breath of the Spirit, the woman at the well and the water of life welling up from within, the blind man being given light and new life. And today it's Lazarus and the resurrection, new life, for the dead. They are all organic, living metaphors for the effect of Jesus' vivifying, life-giving presence, the sense of the indwelling of the Spirit of God in our lives, the awareness of God's presence with us. To live in the presence of God is to know life. And in the presence of God's life there can be no death... As Paul says, the resurrection was by the power of an indestructible life... God's life defies death and ultimately shows it as empty and powerless.
Why then do we get caught up in cycles and patterns of thought which lead to death? The disciples challenged Jesus because, when he got the message from Lazarus' sisters (and it was an intimate one, calling on his love for Lazarus), he tarried two days before leaving where he was to visit the three at Bethany. When he arrived, everyone was weeping and gnashing their teeth because Lazarus was dead - and had been dead for some time. "If only you'd been here, Jesus..." But you weren't. You weren't there for us, for Lazarus, in his hour of need. Where the hell were you anyway? Didn't you get our message... like some dead letter written to dearest him who lives alas away? Don't you care? And what's Jesus' response? He weeps. He cries with them, empathising and sharing their grief. For a little while he experiences death with them. And then enough is enough. He challenges Martha, who replies still with her thoughts of death: "I believe in the resurrection of the dead" - a future hope, one day. That's not good enough for Jesus, though. No, he says. Choose life now! I AM the resurrection and the life. I am life itself. Turn your mind and heart and eyes towards me, towards life, and stop allowing yourself to be limited by your perceptions of death and despair. Like the blind man from last week, she says "Lord I believe." And so Lazarus is summoned, the dead hears the voice of the Lord of life, and shuffles forward out of the tomb. It is a sign of the power of the life Jesus commands, and a demonstration that it is not to be doubted, but trusted in. But the sign isn't over: He next says "unbind him and let him go." And with those bindings, unbind your eyes and your minds and hearts, come out of your tombs, and let go of the thoughts of death and darkness and despair, and embrace and look to life.
We are surrounded by thoughts of death, and most of us have a tendency to think death-giving thoughts. I’m not good enough. I don’t have enough money/enough time. I am too grumpy today to do something nice or creative. I hate work. I feel lonely. I’m too old. I’m getting old and I don’t want to and I don’t want to die. Or: society is worse than ever before, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Kids these days are worse than they were in my day and parents don’t know how to raise them. Crime and violence are rife. Or: the church is dying. We don’t have enough money, enough time, enough resources, enough young people, enough families. We don’t have enough! And there’s no hope. What would happen if we chose life instead? We forget God's power: Think of the valley of dry bones... not even a recently live body, but bones, which the prophet watched as God breathed life into them and knit sinew to muscle and bone. Jesus rebukes those death-tending thoughts, he himself is the rebuke to those thoughts, and he defies them because he is life itself.
The challenge for the week ahead is for us to notice these patterns of thought, and to speak the truth of Jesus the resurrection and the life to them. God's purpose for us is life in its fullness, not death. For Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and he offers that same life to us, not just as a future hope, but for each and every moment. Let’s live in the fullness of that life in the coming week.
The Lord be with you
And also with you.
1