Lent - Year A -- 2011
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Lent Year A
Genesis 2: 15-17, 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5: 12-19
Matthew 4: 1-11
On January 30, 1933 the first of what would become almost 3,000 episodes was broadcast over the American airwaves. I don’t know when the Lone Ranger, his faithful sidekick Tonto and speedy horse Silver crossed the border into Canada but for almost as long, the masked man also represented what was good and just, if not in our country, then in the one next door. “Who was that masked man?”; why it’s the Lone Ranger.
If we were reading the Gospel of Matthew for the first time we may ask a similar question, “Who is this Jesus who has just been baptized?”
The passage telling of his temptation is located between Jesus baptism and his ministry. This story helps, you might say, to unmask Jesus and show who he really is.
At first it seems that it is inappropriate for Jesus, the son of God, to be tempted. It may even seem like heresy. We know that he won’t submit, don’t we. After all, if he had, his mission would have been over before it started.
But its not there to show us how holy Jesus was, its there to show us that the quest for holiness and faithfulness is fraught with temptations to go off in ways that seem good but are really soul destroying.
He is hungry and is tempted by bread, for the purpose of satisfying that hunger - who could argue with that?
He is tempted to trust that God would save him, despite careless of deliberately dangerous behaviour. It would have been a useful thing as he encountered the Herod’s of his world.
He is tempted to take all the power the world has to offer him; but the price is his soul. For Jesus that is too high.
It would be nice if we could pull the answers to the world’s problems out of a hat. It would be nice if we could respond to the crisis in Japan, for example, without it costing us a cent, but what WOULD it cost us? It would be nice if we could clean up the planet without us having to change, but WOULD we really?
It would be tempting to believe that all our problems would be solved by looking at easy solutions and surface issues, but this passage seems to indicate that the faithful way is not the simple way - the easy way is certainly not the way of the cross.
Yet the temptation is not about setting up arbitrary rules - thou shalt not feed people with bread, for the story of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes is part of his ministry and is presented as being a good thing. Thou shalt keep all of the ten commandments - and especially thou shalt not work on the Sabbath - and healing is work. In Sunday school this morning the children are going to be looking at the story of Jesus healing the blind man by the pool of Beth-zatha. They probably aren’t going to look at the verses which tell us that Jesus got in trouble because he healed on the Sabbath and the man got in trouble because he carried his mat on the Sabbath - both of which were work.
So the temptation is not about finding rules, refining them clearly, and sticking to them, no matter what!
The temptation is first of all about Jesus - his identity and purpose. The temptation is secondly about the ministry to which Jesus’ followers are called.
Jesus’ identity and his ministry are so closely interconnected that they cannot be separated. Matthew’s Gospel shows us that the journey to the cross (which we pay particular attention to in Lent) is a primary focus of his journey. While the cross may not have been absolutely inevitable, I think the temptation is about whether or not he will conduct his ministry in such a way as to have as goals, saving his own skin, and becoming popular through feeding starving people. Will he follow the will of God as he understands it, even if it costs him his own life.
As I see it; this is what the temptation is about. We see that Jesus chooses the hard way of faithfulness - and eventually it leads to Calvary. It was not his first choice, rather it became the inevitable consequence of a life lived in utter obedience to the will of God. Jesus was not willing to sell his soul and compromise his identity to save his skin. He relied on God’s word and on God’s call to proclaim the Good News - and not count the cost. That is the One we follow and that is the one whose identity is shown to us throughout the gospel of Matthew. It will be a while before he is fully unmasked - but as Lent begins we are shown exactly who he is!
The temptation of Jesus also has something to say to us; to the people who name ourselves as Christian and who seek to follow in the way of Jesus. It seems that while the temptations Christians face today are not exactly the same, they are of a similar nature and our challenge is to seek to respond as he did by relying on God’s word and our deep sense of our mission as the people of the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ.
Our mission is to be community. Our mission is to proclaim the Good News of God’s love. Our mission is to be the hands and feet of Christ! There’s more, but we can start there.
It stands to reason that we should be open and welcoming. It stands to reason that we should try and invite people to be part of our community. Along with this does the desire to bring young people into our community of faith! Who could argue with that!
If there was a sure-fire method to attract children to our Sunday School, would we choose it? We need to make some changes to our curriculum and programming from time to time because children are changing. Our Christian development Committee is working hard on this.
But we sometimes face a dilemma as we seek to be attractive to children. What if we offered the children in our Sunday School a chocolate bar of their choice if they bring a friend to church?
We want to grow our church and we want to encourage people to make a financial commitment that does not depend on them being ale to be in church every Sunday. PAR is an excellent way for the church and for individuals to budget for church donations. But, maybe we should take a page from the Eastern Graphic A local weekly newspaper and offer a free pizza to everyone who signs up for PAR! Or make it even better, 1 free 12" for every $10 a week ! Hummmmm!
Given the prevalence of raffles in our culture why don’t we get someone to make a really nice quilt and raffle it off! Or to make it really worth it we could go down to the local car dealership and buy a car - tickets are $100 each. Or we could invest our money in a company that makes a great profit, because it knows how to get around all of the employment standards and environmental regulations in the countries where they do business!
Have we ever really thought about why we don’t do that in the United Church or do we just wish we could because everyone does it, its easy money and we all like to win something for next to nothing.
Yet as tempting as they may be, we have to really struggle with whether or not the gimmicks and bribery used by some organizations are appropriate within the church, or perhaps are not appropriate at all.
The temptation of Jesus does not offer easy answers to the problems of modern life and to the challenges of the contemporary church in a heavily secular culture - but it does tell us that the way of Jesus is the way of the cross.
The way of Jesus is the way of faithfulness, not a way to win friends, influence people and make a fortune.
The question is: Whose way are we going to follow this lenten season?
Amen!
Genesis 12: 1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4: 1-5, 13-17
John 3: 1-17
Some of us are morning people and some of us are night owls.
Some of us are up at the crack of dawn and go to bed with the chickens.
Others of us get up only when we absolutely have to but never get to bed before one or two am. (I have a friend who used to do that all the time - I was told that I could never call her too late at night! She used to live across the street and if I was calling her after midnight I would look for a light! )
Last weekend there was an accident the perimeter road of the UPEI campus late at night. There are no sidewalks on that road and the young man MAY have been difficult to miss. I doubt he was wearing reflective clothing and he may not have been walking facing traffic. Drivers and pedestrians have to be very careful at night especially in places a driver just doesn’t expect to encounter pedestrians. Unfortunately the driver of the truck compounded his problems by leaving the scene and although it took a few days, the police did find the driver. It’s now up to our legal system to sort it all out!
I love driving in the daytime - provided the weather is good, but add snow or darkness and I would much rather stay home. Yet, there is nothing more peaceful than sitting in a canoe on a moonlit stretch of water listening to the night air and the sound of the water lapping on the nearby shore.
I remember the night I came home late and saw two skunks leaving my garage for a safer place underneath my doorstep. (That door was the only one for which I had a key.) I tread softly and quickly when I unlocked the door and entered my house that night. I worry about encountering skunks at night in my yard here in Dundas so I don’t often go wandering around the yard at night and am especially careful not to let the cat get out at night!
The cover of darkness is often chosen for criminal activity - for example, hunting deer at night is easier than in the daytime, but it is also illegal. I would expect that more crimes, such as theft and vandalism, are committed at night than in the day time.
In our gospel reading for today we are told that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. It would seem to me that John has included this seemingly small fact because it actually has great significance.
This passage contains what is probably the most well known verse in the entire New Testament. I remember translating the first couple of verses of this passage in a take home test in a Greek course when I was at Mt. A. (Mount Allison University)
While I was at Mt. A, I took part in a prison visitation program during which we sometimes sang the phrase “John 3:16" over and over as a concluding verse to the hymn “Amazing Grace. “ It was as if the verse numbers itself had some kind of spiritually uplifting effect!
Like all passages in the Bible however, it should be taken in its context. The context in this case is a dialogue between a religious Jew and the itinerant rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus. The passage presents us with an unusual situation.
In this case it is the powerful man who is sneaking around in fear and trembling, hoping that no one important will see him talking to Jesus.
Jesus is the one in charge of the conversation and it is clear that Nicodemus, while wanting to understand, just does not “get it”. He is in the dark in more ways than one.
Jesus tells him he must be “born from above” and Nicodemus responds immediately by pointing out the impossibility of the situation and saying that a “grown man cannot be born again”. Jesus would agree; if you were talking about literal birth; but he wasn’t, of course.
The concept of a spiritual re-birth would not have been unheard of within Judaism (but perhaps the metaphor is so startling that Nicodemus became hung up on it) and Jesus expresses his surprise that a religious leader would not “get it”. To Jesus this was crystal clear, but Nicodemus was still stuck in the metaphor and wondering how this was possible.
Perhaps Nicodemus wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to follow Jesus without the necessity of having to change or to allow himself to be changed by the powerful movement of the Spirit. Perhaps he wanted to follow Jesus without having to step into the light and let everyone know that he was a disciple.
In the time when John was writing his Gospel the church was heavily persecuted - people gathered in secret because getting caught being a practising Christian was a death sentence, yet some people WERE WILLING to make a commitment to the faith, to allow the Spirit to work in their lives and many paid the price.
I suspect that Nicodemus came at night because he was worried that his fellow Pharisees would disapprove.
He was what some churches might call a “seeker” these days, but he wanted to keep his search very quiet. Later on in the gospel of John - and John’s gospel is the only place where we meet Nicodemus - he asserts to his colleagues in the powerful religious elites that they needed to wait until they have given Jesus an opportunity to defend himself before they condemned him. The last time we encounter Nicodemus he was in the company of Joseph of Arimathea (who is called a secret disciple) and they take down Jesus and prepare his body for burial. This also happens at night and in the context of much fear. This is understandable for Jesus has just been executed as an enemy of the state and of Israel and it would stand to reason that his followers would fear for their lives.
How widely it was known outside of his close circle that he was interested in finding out more about Jesus and his teachings, we don’t know but it seems to me that when we read this passage today, Jesus challenge for a birth from above is a challenge to all of us to take one’s faith from being a purely private matter to a matter which makes an obvious difference in our lives.
It’s not just about going to church on Sunday morning and making it known that one is a “church goer” or a “believer” but it is about our faith making a real difference in how we live.
Sometimes the differences between committed Christians and what we might call “people of goodwill” are subtle, but as a person of faith I know why we do what we do and we need to be able to answer those who question us with bold honesty.
I know that I am called to take my faith into consideration as I respond to the crisis in Japan caused by the earthquake, the resulting tsunami, the damage to the nuclear power plant and continuing powerful aftershocks. The situation in Haiti continues to be very difficult. I know that my faith causes me to respond with the heart and mind of Christ to the problem of hungry children in Canada.
I was watching Dragon’s Den the other day and a man was making a pitch to the Dragons for investors to support his project of a new and improved gun scope - for hunting big game, I suppose. One Dragon refused on the principle that she did not invest money in guns or anything related to guns. Another asserted that his only principle was to make money. The question for us is, “How do we invest our money and can we square it with our faith?” Other questions are, “How do we spend out time?”
The nighttime visit of Nicodemus to see Jesus calls us all to ask a big question of ourselves in the season of lent. “Are we secret disciples, hiding our faith and bringing it out only when we are among friends, or are we willing to let others know that we are followers of Jesus?”
I saw a poster years ago that said, “If being a Christian were a crime would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Would there?
Its not about becoming holier than thou, or holy rollers but being willing to let our faith show when it needs to. Are we people of integrity - willing to stand up and tell others what is in our heart?
Are we willing to let God’s love as shown in Jesus change us - or are we holding our innermost selves tightly - afraid that God will demand too much change of us?
You must be born from above.
Amen.
Exodus 17: 1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5: 1-11
John 4: 5-42
A number of years ago a friend and I went to New York City. It was the middle of summer and it was hot. We were told that the city had turned off all of the water fountains as a water conservation measusre and all the busses had signs about not wasting water and a number to turn in water wasters! I noticed though that the public drinking fountains in the parks were still working. Then I realized that the fountains they had turned off were the large decorative fountains which shoot water high into their air. In the heat of a New York summer much of it would evaporate. Never having been to New York before I did not notice their absence.
While the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman is a story that centres around water I would like to take it in a different direction. On this day Jesus is tired and thirsty after his journey and he has no means to draw water from the community well which had been there for generations upon generations. The disciples have gone to buy some food.
Apparently the kinds of wells we have seen in pictures, or may have on our properties; the ones with a little peaked rood, a crank and a bucket on a rope did not exist in that time or place. In Jesus day, when women went to the well they brought what they needed to draw the water and carry it home. At ten pounds to the gallon (or for you younger metric folks about a kilogram per litre) drawing and carrying water is heavy work, but in Jesus’ day, like most household tasks, carrying the water was women’s work.
This story contains some unusual elements, but we would not immediately recognize just how unusual some of them are because our culture is so very different.
In that day and age carrying water was a social task - women went in groups from their village homes to the local well, which might have been at some distance from any of their homes and they would socialize and help one another with this task. There is no question that it is very significant that this unnamed woman is there alone. Perhaps no one wants to be seen with “her” as they go about the household tasks; she has a “reputation” after all! Now, we don’t know but it’s a good guess.
In that day a man, and especially a rabbi, would not speak to a woman in public unless she was his wife.
This story tells us, even if we ignored the fact, that Jesus is Jewish and the woman is a Samaritan. If Samaria and Israel were not “bitter enemies” they were certainly uneasy neighbours. We are reminded in the passage itself that they would not even share the same drinking vessels.
It was not that long ago in some places in North America that black people were not permitted to share drinking fountains with white people, or washrooms, or movie theatres - and the list goes on.
Not that long ago in PEI Protestants and Catholics did not want their children attending the same schools. School conciliation in the 1960's and early 1970's helped to change this and these days in most communities Protestants and Catholics can live side by side or even it the same household, quite peaceably!
This is a crucial gospel story and it is found only in John’s gospel. While, in previous generations, the meaning of the story may have been limited to the message that Jesus was open to the people of Samaria in ways that most of his fellow Jews, including the disciples, were not. But in more recent years the seemingly OBVIOUS fact that she was a woman is not lost on authors of the commentaries I have read.
In this text the woman of Samaria is the one who became an evangelist; she is the one who proclaimed the good news of Jesus in such a way as to inspire enough belief, or at least curiosity in her neighbours, that they wanted to see for themselves. One of the marks of a prophet was that the prophet would be able to know things about a person by just meeting them and not being told anything. Clearly this was part of this woman’s preaching; Jesus was a prophet and Jesus treated her like a person, not like the outcast that she was treated as by many.
Drawn together around the necessity of finding water, this woman’s encounter with Jesus changed her into both a disciple, and an apostle; from a stranger, to a learner to a teacher of others.
Throughout the gospels it is clear that Jesus’ relationships with women were unique for his time. His respect for them, even when he is challenging their choices or lifestyles, implies an acceptance that changed their lives so completely that they were born to Jesus way of looking at the world.
It intrigues me that we sometimes impose on the biblical story more negativity toward the place of women in society than Jesus or even the gospel writers did.
Yet those among us who were born in the 1960's or later can easily forget how far we have come, even in Canada. It is only within the last 100 years that women won the right to vote in municipal, provincial and federal elections. It was not until 1970 that a woman was elected to political office in this province. I gather it was not until 1963 that special voting rights for property owners were abolished in this province.
Some of you here today were not even considered persons under the law when you were born. Women in Canada did not win that battle until it was decided by the privy council of England in 1929. While my own parents were not yet born, by that date, both of my grandmothers were married and each had three children; one grandmother had a university degree, one a graduate of the Normal School at Prince of Wales and both had been schoolteachers - but were not considered persons under the law. While it may seem a “no-brainer” to us, even educated and thoughtful people (women included), opposed the movement and the subsequent granting of the vote to women.
I file my sermon illustrations by lectionary date and this week I came across a little tidbit submitted by a colleague to be published in a preaching magazine in conjunction with this same text about 15 years ago, of 5 cycles of the lectionary ago. (I will soon start having to pare down my files, I know). This minister was having a dinner-table conversation with her husband about a colleague and she referred to this colleague as “he”. Their young child started to snicker and when asked what was so funny he exclaimed, “Mommy, that is so funny because boys can’t be ministers; even I know THAT!” This small child had a mother who was a minister who probably had a number of friends known to the child who were both ministers and women but the child had never encountered a male minister!
In two of my four pastoral charges I have been the “first woman minister”. I don’t know where I would fit here, because until 2005 we were two Charges, but I can name at least Beth Brehaut, Sheila Mallory, Melaney Matheson, Marg Archibald, Janice MacLean, Elsie Dame and Nancy Wilson, (did I forget anyone?)
In this season of Lent we encounter this story about Jesus and the woman of Samaria. We find out that what Jesus did on this day was new and startling, even shocking. Yet the woman became an evangelist; she became one who proclaimed the good news. She was more faith-filled than the disciples who travelled around with Jesus; more faithful than the good Jewish men we usually call the 12 Disciples.
In our journey through Lent we are called to be open to the leading of the Spirit; even if the Spirit is beckoning us down paths we have never gone before, to encounter those we may never have encountered before, in new and unique ways - it seems to me that it is the leading of the Spirit that is primary. The water of life may very well be found in some surprising places and we may be shown to it by some very surprising people.
Let us pray: Open my eyes that I may see the refreshing truth you have for me, O God of surprising grace.
(Pause)
Let sing as we continue to pray in thanksgiving and for guidance
274 (Voices United) “Your Hand O God Has Guided”
1 Samuel 16: 1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5: 8-14
John 9: 1-41
I decided to title my sermon: “Here’s Mud In Yer Eye!” When it came into my head, I thought this was too cute not to use.
But, do you know where it comes from? It comes from horseracing! It is an expression of bravado and confidence! The one saying it is probably raising a glass in a pre-victory toast and boasting that he (and jockeys are mostly men) will be ahead of the pack with the mud flying off of his horses hooves, into the faces of those riding the horses behind. However that is the end of any attempt to be cute in this sermon.
There are two things I want to say before I focus on the topic of my sermon today. This is one of those passages that could be used to support an anti-Jewish sentiment. When we encounter passages such as this that paint a negative picture of the Jewish leaders of Jesus day we must remember that they were written down during a time of conflict, difficulty and persecution. The reasons for Jesus eventual arrest and crucifixion are far more complex than the gospels often explain outright. He was not in conflict with ALL of the religious leaders and certainly not with all of the Jewish people of his day
Another thing I want to just touch on is the relationship between sin and physical handicaps such as blindness. As the passage begins, the parrot the view common in their day that such things were caused by sin! Jesus discounts this and instead asks them to look it as an opportunity to experience “God’s Works”. That answer would require quite a lot of further scrutiny to develop it fully.
The third thing I saw and wished I could preach on but can’t is the whole issue of Sabbath observance. Suffice to say - Jesus saw things differently than the people who grumbled on this day.
What I would like to do today is to look at this passage as a story about healing and seeing (metaphorically speaking, that is) and being open to the Spirit. I don’t know in how many languages or cultures physical sight and the metaphor of sight are so closely related. We say, “I see now” when we mean, “I understand it now”, or “I get it,” or “that finally makes sense”. In the well known hymn “Amazing Grace”, author John Newton, used the metaphor of being blind and then receiving sight to describe the personal experience of once being a slave-trader and then seeing how the slave trade was not an appropriate way to treat other human beings.
When we take this metaphorical approach and translate it into our own context what I believe we actually end up with is a story that is even more challenging to us in our 21st century context than the original might otherwise be.
WE have to decide if we want our eyes opened. The blind man wanted to SEE but the religious leaders who could not get beyond the fact that it was a Sabbath day, DID NOT. They did not think that there was anything wrong with their vision, they saw no reason to change.
When I was studying for ministry at AST in Halifax I took a course on ministry with women. It was about family violence, pay equity, poverty and the many small and large ways in which women’s lives are impacted negatively by the very fact that they are women. It was a very difficult course or me and I wish that I had more appreciation for it than I did at the time. I could have learned a great deal more; but thankfully it was the kind of course whose teachings keep coming back to me and I can still learn from it, over 20 years later.
One of the things we did every class was to learn a song; usually one that spoke of the difficulties in some women’s lives. About the only one I remember was written by a woman named Carol Etzler and it goes like this:
“Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn’t been opened Sometimes I wish I could no longer see All of the pain and the hurt and the longing of my Sisters and me as we try to be free”
The question is asked of us this day:- Do we really want to see? Do we want to risk the changes that will come from this new sight? Do we really want to accept Jesus as the Messiah when we know that acceptance and that knowledge could very well change our whole lives?
I ask these questions because once we see we have to act in the light of this new knowledge. Generally speaking we like being blind to some of the things that are going on around us; we like wearing our blinders. When a teacher reports a certain unacceptable behaviour to a parent, some parents say, “not my child! That can’t be true!” The parent does not want his or her eyes opened. I am told that this is one aspect of teaching that has changed dramatically in the last number of years. I would certainly be in big trouble if “had a note sent home by my teacher”, and I hope a majority of parents would take such a note seriously. But more and more teachers fear the reaction of the parents who either blame the teacher for the behaviour, or accuse the teacher of lying, or exaggerating, mostly because they do not want to see what their child is capable of.
When a teacher or other professional has reasonably solid proof of child abuse that person is compelled by law to report this to the authorities. Surely they must dread this task. What if they are wrong? The better question might be: “what if they are right?
We don’t want to admit there are things in our lives that need to be changed. We don’t want to see that what we may be doing is hurtful to ourselves or to others.
Some of us don’t want to change our attitudes toward poverty. Some of you here today grew up in the Great Depression or raised children with next to no money coming in - and you survived. Some people translate this kind of experience into an attitude such as “welfare is too easy to get”; or “people on welfare have it made”.
I was talking to a friend the other day about her experience of being a single parent and raising a family on social assistance while attending university so that she would be able to get a job which would enable her to provide a good living for herself and her children. She understands why people on social assistance are tempted to take advantage of the system and she knows that the working poor are probably even worse off.
Some people think that people who go to food banks don’t really need the food, and they don’t give to them. WELL I didn’t know much about food banks until I started volunteering at one. My eyes were certainly opened! I read the list and I packed the boxes, and I knew how little went into the boxes on a weekly basis. Of course it was only supposed to be enough for about three days but I did enough visiting to know how much food a family of that size could eat; even if I wasn’t feeding one of my own!
At Presbytery a few months ago I watched a DVD titled, “Someone Else’s Treasure” . It is about how mining companies are destroying livelihoods and communities the world over in the quest for the ever precious metals such as gold and gems such as diamonds. And it’s not foreign mining companies; 57% of these companies are registered in Canada. Recently in the House of Commons, Conservative MP’s were ordered to vote against a private member’s bill which would require higher standards and a greater environmental and social accountability on part of Canadian companies. We need to ask ourselves, “what difference would it make to me if I knew that my new piece of jewellery was the cause of much suffering and destruction. Would it be worth it? Or would you rather just not see? What about our investment portfolios: do we really want to know if we have investments in companies with un-ethical practices? What if we count on those investments for our bread and butter? (Of course, as shareholders, we can exert pressure on the Board in a way that the general public cannot)!
It’s not easy being a sighted person, because one you can see there are no excuses; we can’t pretend we don’t know.
The journey of Lent is taking seriously what the cost is of being a follower of Jesus. The gospels never present it as a way to win friends and influence people; it is not presented as a way to climb the social ladder and we should never see it as something for which God will reward us financially (though some Churches seem to teach this).
We follow the One who came to show us the way to truly abundant life; it is not something we can put in the bank or under our mattress for safekeeping. It is something we carry in our hearts and souls; it is something we live out in family and community; and it is something which promises us true happiness as only God can give us.
Open our eyes God. Lead us to true abundance of life.
Amen.
Ezekiel 37: 1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8: 6-11
John 11: 1-45
A TV couple have a premature child who is very sick. Despite the best efforts of all involved the child dies soon after he is born. In a subsequent episode, more than a season later, the father of the child is speaking to his wife and says something like this, “we had a child and that child died, but that does not have to be what defines us.” He did not want that to be the last word, but unfortunately she was unable to seein their lives in any other way - while continuing in the relationship.
In today’s rather lengthy Gospel reading we heard the story of the “raising of Lazarus”. Mary, Martha and Lazarus are the grown members of the same family and they are friends of Jesus and the disciples. It seems that Jesus could go there just to ‘hang out’, ‘put his feet up’ and just ‘veg’. People with busy public lives, even people like Jesus, needed places like that and still do! Everyone needs a place they can go and ask, “what’s for supper?” It seems that their home in Bethany was that kind of place for Jesus. But then tragedy struck this happy family. Lazarus fell ill and died! You heard the story that I just read. You have probably heard it before.
Jesus was summoned to his friends’ home; they had a feeling he could do something for them! Jesus delayed his trip though. When he arrived he found out that his friend had been dead for several days. Despite this, he summoned Lazarus from the tomb and Lazarus came out. We are told that many people believe in Jesus because of this.
The closer we come to Holy Week the closer we come to the crucifixion and, of course, to the mystery of the resurrection. In the next chapter of his gospel John tells us that the Chief Priests are even more determined now to “get Jesus” and to put him to death. Of course, as I said last week, we must remember that John is writing in hindsight and from the perspective of a church community under heavy persecution. What can we learn from this passage for our lives today? What can it mean for us in 2011?
It’s a long story and it would be impossible to do justice to the entire, very complex, story in just one sermon, or even a series of sermons. I was tempted to preach on the Ezekiel passage but I was faced with the same dilemma; it too is a complex story that could take up a number of sermons. I had to be content with just the children’s story on the dry bones.
In the middle of last week I was discussing this passage with a colleague and she mentioned to me a phrase from this Gospel passage that has always struck her - which is the command of Jesus to the astonished onlookers, “unbind him and let him go”. She explained what it was about the phrase that struck her, but as I rolled it over and over again in my head my thoughts went in a somewhat different direction than hers.
How many times do we form an opinion of someone which is certainly well deserved. After some time has passed - and we hear that this person has changed - we continue to our old opinions and our old prejudices. How often are we unwilling to let the past stay in the past? How often do we keep digging it up? How often can we actually let bygones be just that, bygones?
Sometimes it is we ourselves who are unwilling to unbind ourselves and let ourselves go free of that which has bound us for so long.
At the time I moved back to PEI I was having terrible problems with back pain and eventually with increasing mobility problems that I assumed were related to the “back issue”. For several years I had tried many, many different treatment options but in the end the only thing that worked, and would have worked, was surgery. After my recuperation one of the things both my friends and I had to do was to re-define myself as a “well person” in terms of my back and my mobility.
We all know of people who have been their own worst enemy; people who had a reputation for violence, or some kind of addiction, or dishonesty, for example, and that person has had to live in the shadow of that past or that reputation for the rest of their lives, despite their best efforts to show they have changed, or even just “grew up”.
Most of us live our lives out of the spotlight, even in this internet age. Aside from the stuff we post ourselves on sites like Facebook, most of us would not be able to find our much about ourselves on the net. In his regular life, the hockey player I know of also works as a carpenter, but I doubt that you could go on the internet and find out anything about his carpentry skills.
Sometimes we make the news and people all over know who we are. Sometimes the entire world knows of our misdeeds.
Those of you who are history students or who are old enough to remember the Vietnam war may remember the pictures that were broadcast around the world after the napalm bombing in the village of Trang Bang. The picture I am speaking of shows a number of children, one of them a young naked girl, after having been severely burned by a napalm bomb dropped by mistake by a pilot of the South Vietnamese Air Force, thinking they were enemy soldiers. Despite the initial prognosis, Kim Phuc, the girl in the centre of the photograph did survive, and is now a Canadian citizen living in Ontario. In a broadcast in National Public Radio in the USA in 2008 she said, “Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?”
During a speech at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington in 1996 she spoke on forgiveness and a Vietnam Veteran who was certain that he had played a crucial part in the attack went public with his story of how much her forgiveness had meant to him.
When traumatic events happen to an entire country or culture, how do we set them aside so that we can embrace life once again?
No one can ignore the changes that have come about since persons unknown masterminded a plot to attack the most powerful nation in the world with four ordinary passenger jets aimed at significant locations in the United States.
Every time we fly on a commercial flight we are “bound” in some senses by the new regulations that have been put in place in an attempt to ensure that such a thing does not happen again and every time it doesn’t we wonder if the cautions are worth it! Of course, we don’t want to find out otherwise! There is a great deal at stake.
If you ask many young men or Arab heritage, they have not been allowed to forget it, not allowed to put it behind them, not allowed to be just ordinary citizens, not allowed to travel and live as they once did. We can’t “go back again”, but how do we go from here as a people who embrace life instead of being a people who fear death!
I once read a story about a young couple who didn’t have very much money so they rented a room to a struggling young artist. He could not pay much rent but became good friends with the couple. When they had a child and needed the extra room the painter moved out but before he left he painted a wall in the small apartment with a beautiful scene. The couple were touched and very fond of the paining. As time went on though, more children were added to the family and eventually they had to give up both the apartment and the painting because they simply had to move. They needed more space and had to give up their attachment to the painting meant because insisting on living there was keeping them from living life as needed to and now could.
As a pastoral charge we have been struggling, and it HAS been a hard struggle, to decide what buildings we need to enable our ministry. What do we need? What can we afford? Perhaps more importantly what can our children afford? What kinds of spaces do we need for our Sunday school to have life and vitality? We are trying to honour the gift of resources given by our ancestors but also trying to discern what will serve our ministry in present and into the future.
The people who stood there, open mouthed, amazed at the power manifested in and through this friend from Nazareth.
They had to do something - Jesus said -
UNBIND HIM
LET HIM GO
In our lives
In our community
In our church
We have experienced the power of life in Jesus -
let us unbind it so that it can live and be free.
Amen!