SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2023 | LENT - 5A

Preliminary

Ezekiel - life is a gift from God, God makes death things alive, restoration of chosen people - there is hope, even beyond grave (for an individual and community)

Romans - Holy Spirits makes us alive in our flesh

John 11:1–45 NRSV

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But 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.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus 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. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “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. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” When 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.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews 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. When 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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus 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.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I 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.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The 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.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

It is an archetype - a mirroring and foreshadowing story to Jesus’ own narrative of resurrection - tomb, multiple days, entrance stone, miraculous resurrection, ...

Otherwise, the particulars are really strange - Jesus says that it ain’t nothing and he will be fine (sort of true), does not hurry back right away, and is quite cryptic about the whole thing. He seems to be making it into a teachable moment, learning others to trust.

Application: Link to Ezekiel - God makes everything come back to life - people think it is not possible (just like the Jews are doubtful), but God can do the “impossible”

What are our resurrections? St. Luke’s has ended, but other communities are being made alive with new members from this church, so is ours. It may not bring St. Luke’s back, but little resurrections are happening

God leads us to help make life happen around us - nurturing our community through good stewardship

Nothing is hopeless in God, not even death

We gotta listen to God to guide us, where to act

Good morning,

It is the last Sunday in March! Easter is really close, indeed. And with it, we have a resurrection story, a pretty obvious one!

A body laying in a tomb for multiple days? Check. Rolling away of the stone? Check. Resurrection by the power of God? Check, check, check. It is an archetypical resurrection story - I believe a true story, but there were some theological liberties taken, just like in many parts of John. Otherwise, it would make for a rather bizarre story. For one, Jesus is quite nonplussed about the illness of Lazarus - telling that Lazarus will be just fine and then stayed two more days where he was before setting to see Lazarus. Compare it to Jesus’ response to hearing of the execution of John the Baptist, when he took a moment in his busy schedule to weep for his death! Sure, John the Baptist was related to Jesus, but I don’t think he cared less for Lazarus. No, I do not think so. The timeline here is important - both to link it to Jesus’ resurrection, but also to stress that Lazarus wasn’t “just sleeping” and that it was a mighty sign that happened by the grace and power of God through Jesus as the conduit. To prove that indeed Jesus is being sent from God.

And it links back to Ezekiel quite nicely - God through Ezekiel’s prophesying resurrected old dry bones of the whole house of Israel, symbolically speaking. Through one many are alive again. Through God, what is dead may live again, what is broken is made whole, what is hopeless is filled with hope again. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.

Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2009).

So in today’s readings we have two types of resurrections, both inseparably connected - personal and communal resurrection. Let’s look at both as they are both important.

Let’s begin with the one we perhaps do not talk enough in our hyper-individualized society - communal resurrection. Obviously, it is not about one person dying and than being risen up again by the power of God. It concerns the whole community and the church is perhaps one of the last few places in the West that talks about an importance of a community that is not just bound by familial relations, ethnicity, lifestyle, or political orientation (well, ideally). On the contrary, voices that call for division, for a divorce between differing parts of a community are louder and louder - if only we can be separate from those that do not agree with us! Then we can have our utopia and FINALLY arrive. Virtue signalling is on an all time high all around and the opportunistic poppulists are excited about the prospects of getting more power by aligning with the most outlandish demands.

That’s…not what kingdom of God is about, I believe. We’ve talked about it during our Wednesday Lenten Study and we agreed that kingdom of God has an opposite values to that of an earthly kingdom or any government really. And a part of it is the belief that we should be ALL healed, restored, made whole....or in an encompassing phrase “all become one in God.” That is communal resurrection - not even Wakanda or Narnia can achieve that! For humanity it is impossible, but it is possible in God! When we gather on Sunday, first and foremost, we do not proclaim and pray for our personal resurrection, but the resurrection of the whole world! We are not here to gather the people and then blast off on a spaceship ark. I do believe that those that push for exclusion of whole groups of people for being different are not doing God’s will - as an example, we have what is happening in Uganda, where a new law bans even identifiying as LGBTQIA+ and new provisions to the old law are made, so that death penalty enters the mix for certain acts. Or, as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk notes, "If signed into law by the president, it will render lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Uganda criminals simply for existing, for being who they are." Such laws are not declaring communal resurrection!

So what about individual, personal resurrection? That is yet another thing about kingdom of God - every single one of us matters, no exceptions, we are all cherished and valued as irreplaceable bearers of God’s image. We’ve already talked about how God’s dominion has no outsiders. It would really defeat the point of the goal for communal resurrection - for all to be one in God! Not for all to be one in God, except Tony, nah, maybe also Lucy…eh, and definitely Toby, Toby of all people! Individual resurrections matter, but they are a part of the communal resurrection. Just like we shouldn’t picture a spaceship ark blasting off, I do not think it is individual rescue vehicles launching off a sinking ship. If we just talk about resurrection in terms of individuals, that is where all the nasty exclusion and bias creeps in - in a mindset of a rescue boat, there is never enough of them! Just remember poor Jack, he couldn’t fit on the plank!

So there is an undeniable intersection of the two - you may have heard “until all are free, nobody is free” and I think there is something to it. Through God and in God, we are all connected as an integral part of God’s creation - no person is an island, all by oneself, not really. As we look towards Easter, let us remember that it is both personal and COSMIC event. Jesus, in his obedience to God unto death, cracks open the shell of status quo and really tears it open. Overcomes death and its hold on our world and makes way to reconciliation between God and the world. God’s love, care, and justice is all the more reachable, like the best toll bridge there is…but no EZPass or petty cash is necessary for that one. Resurrection is both for each of us and the WHOLE world. One day, I sincerely believe, all will be healed, put back together, all will be one in God. Before that happens, we can be empowered by THE resurrection, creating little pockets of grace and love, inviting people to the bright fire of Jesus, perhaps serving a meal, and then telling them, through words and actions, about the resurrection and life that is both for each one of us and the whole creation. Amen.