Sermon delivered Sunday, April 16, 2017 (Easter Day) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA -- my last Sunday serving that congregation as long-term supply priest.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Our observance of Easter is the liturgical high point of the year, one of the most joyful moments in the life of the church. Christ is risen! Life has triumphed over death! On this day, churches all over the world, from small communities like ours to the biggest cathedrals, pull out all the stops to put on the biggest celebration of the year.
But the first Easter wasn’t so purely joyful. The day the women discovered the empty tomb and Jesus began appearing to his followers, there were many other emotions that were likely more prominent than joy for the disciples. The stories of the first resurrection appearances show the disciples grappling with grief and sorrow, bewilderment, disbelief, and fear.
The Gospel of Mark tells us that after the angels appeared to the women at the tomb telling them Jesus had been raised, they fled from the tomb and said nothing to anyone, because they were terrified (Mark 16:8). John’s Gospel tells us that while Mary Magdelene was out weeping at the tomb, the disciples were gathered together in the upper room with the doors locked, out of fear (John 20:19) – presumably fear that they too would meet a similar fate as Jesus at the hands of the authorities. When they received the news that Jesus was alive... well, it seemed to them “an idle tale,” as the Gospel of Luke puts it (Luke 24:11). Even though they had seen Jesus raise dead people to life before – the daughter of the leader of the synagogue in Galilee (Mark 5:35-43), a widow’s son in the town of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), and Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus (John 11:1-44), somehow the concept that Jesus could be alive after they’d seen him so brutally murdered was incomprehensible to them.
And perhaps rightfully so, because what happened to Jesus wasn’t exactly like what happened to the synagogue leader’s daughter, the widow’s son, or Lazarus. The disciples didn’t see the miracle in person, as they had with the people Jesus raised. The disciples only discovered it after the fact, after he was risen and began appearing to them. No one actually SAW him rise, and as our beloved forefather Thomas reminds us, it’s not just we modern scientific types who like to see things for ourselves in order to believe them.
Not only were there no witnesses to the actual event itself, but Jesus’s Resurrection had changed him in some pretty incredible ways. Although he still retained the scars and marks of his crucifixion, which the disciples were able to physically touch, and he ate and drank with them to prove that he was an actual physical being, not a ghost or some kind of apparition, he also wasn’t exactly the same as he had been before.
Presumably, the synagogue leader’s daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus all looked exactly the same before and after their resurrections, but when Jesus appears after his Resurrection, he’s not always immediately recognizable. The people who have spent many years traveling with him day after day don’t recognize him! Mary Magdelene mistakes him for the gardener. The disciples on the Road to Emmaus walk and talk with him along a long journey, not knowing who he is until he breaks bread with them when they arrive at home. And if that weren’t enough change, apparently he could also enter locked rooms without recourse to the doors, and appear and disappear at will.
Clearly, what happened to Jesus changed him in a way that the resurrection of Lazarus, the widow’s son, and the synagogue leader’s daughter did not change them. Their resurrections were a restoration of life and health to their physical bodies, but Jesus’s Resurrection was a complete transformation of the physical body. Presumably, all three of the people Jesus raised from the dead went on to die again at the end of their natural lives, but after his Resurrection, Jesus remained alive forever. His Resurrection wasn’t a simple resuscitation, bringing life back to his physical body. It was a complete transformation into a different plane of existence, one in which the physical body is still very real but the properties of this world no longer apply.
All of this was confusing and strange and mystifying to the disciples on that first Easter, as it still is to us if we take the time to really reflect on what we’re commemorating this day. When we say “Christ is risen,” when we talk about the power of life to overcome death, we’re talking about much more than the flowers blooming again after being dormant all winter, or the way in which new life can emerge from decaying matter in the natural world. Those transformations are certainly a kind of resurrection, bringing life from death, but at the end of the day, no matter how much we use that imagery at Easter, filling our churches with flowers, ultimately that image is a woefully inadequate metaphor for Christ’s Resurrection, and indeed all imagery or metaphors fall short to describe it. Because nothing that we can see or touch or feel with our senses could possibly come close to the complete radical transformation that was the Resurrection. That first Easter was like nothing humanity had ever known or experienced, before or since.
And as we all know, any time we experience significant change in our lives, it can be disruptive and unsettling. I’ve been reading a lot about transition lately, as I prepare to leave St. Cuthbert’s and begin my new ministry at the church of St. John the Baptist in Aptos, and all the psychologists will tell you that even good change, even positive change, even something that you’re happy about, causes stress. As human beings, for some reason, even though change is a regular part of our lives – we live in a world that is constantly changing, and we inhabit bodies that are constantly changing – most of us experience change as distressing in some way.
But no change you or I have experienced in our lives could possibly compare to the disruption the disciples were faced with on that first Easter. If we have mixed emotions when we move, or start a new job, or start a new relationship, or lose a loved one, imagine those experiences magnified about two hundredfold and maybe that would start to come close to something like what the disciples might have felt that first Easter morning.
Because unlike the resurrection of the synagogue leader’s daughter, the widow’s son and Lazarus, Jesus’s Resurrection wasn’t a restoration of the way things had been before. The families of the people Jesus raised were comforted that their loved one was healed and things could go back to how they’d always been before, but for the disciples, the fact that Jesus was now alive didn’t mean they would go back to wandering the countryside with him, and healing the sick and watching him teach. Instead, it meant that their entire lives were about to be changed, even more so than when they had left everything to follow him. They were about to embark on an entirely new journey, something that looked and felt totally different from what they had been doing before. And while some might have been excited and thrilled by that prospect, others were probably wary and skeptical, even scared. It was much more complex than the unadulterated joy we express on Easter morning in our liturgies. It was a direct experience of the power and presence of God that shook them to the core and completely rearranged their lives.
So while we rejoice in the Resurrection of Jesus, that central event of our faith that assures us of the promise of everlasting life, we also realize that that Resurrection also means that we are now tied to a life of transformation that leaves things unlike the way they were before. Through our baptism, we are joined to Christ; we become a part of his body. And as the Apostle Paul says, “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will surely be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5) – a resurrection that means not the restoration of breath to our physical bodies, not an assurance that we will live forever in this world, in these bodies, as we are now, but a promise of complete transformation into a different plane of existence, a plane where death can no longer touch us, a plane where we too will receive our resurrected bodies, which may be as different from our physical bodies as Jesus’s resurrected body was from his. We don’t know exactly what that day will be like, and until then, we can only imagine, basing our guesses on the glimpses of God’s transformational power that we occasionally receive in this life.
“Christ is risen!” is a message not of restoration, but of revolution. It means incredible, mind-blowing change is not only possible but inevitable for those of us who have chosen to link our lives with his.
And if that thought brings you something other than pure joy, if you find yourself a bit wary of what that could mean for your life, remember that the disciples probably had mixed feelings about the Resurrection as well. The first thing Jesus said when he appeared to them after his Resurrection, as he stood before them, the embodiment of disruptive, unsettling change, was, “Peace be with you.” That was the first thing he said to them. “Peace be with you.” Peace to those who stood by him to the bitter end at the foot of the cross, and peace to those who deserted him and fled. “Peace be with you.”
Peace, and “remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). This new reality may turn your entire world upside down, it may transform you in ways that scare you, but do not be afraid. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” Jesus says to the disciples the night before his death (John 14:27). And as he sends them forth after his Resurrection to spread this world-changing news, he tells them, “Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” “Peace be with you.”
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Thursday, April 13, 2017
What is the "new commandment" of Maundy Thursday?
Sermon delivered Thursday, April 13, 2017 (Maundy Thursday, Year A) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
We call this day Maundy Thursday after this “new” commandment Jesus gives the disciples – the word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word “mandatum,” meaning “commandment.” But this all-important commandment, this commandment that we give its own religious holiday, doesn’t seem to be so new or unique. “Love one another” – isn’t that what the prophets have always said, both before Jesus and after?
“Well,” some Christians will say, “He tells them to love one another ‘just as I have loved you.’ Loving as Jesus loved is different than any other kind of love.”
Or, “He’s showing that the leader or master should serve his followers – this was a revolutionary idea in that culture. Washing feet was the work of a servant, something a great leader never would have done, so Jesus was breaking social convention and showing them a new way to love.”
But I don’t buy any of those arguments. Yes, in washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus did something countercultural by being a leader who engaged in humble, loving service. But he wasn’t the only or first leader to advocate for this kind of love.
I have no doubt my friends from non-Christian religious backgrounds would recognize this commandment from what they have been taught in their own traditions. According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad once said, “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.” Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and final of the Sikh gurus said, “Only those who have love, will attain God.” The Bhagavad Gita, one of the sacred texts of Hinduism, teaches, “When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.” (Bhagavad Gita 6.28-32). There are passages like these throughout the world’s religions, some of which pre-dated Jesus and some of which came after him. “Love one another” was hardly a new idea with Jesus, nor is it unique to him. So why does Jesus say he is giving the disciples a “new commandment?”
Well, maybe that’s not what he actually meant. One thing that was lost when the stories of our faith moved from oral tradition to the written word is tone of voice. As we all know, tone of voice can completely change the meaning of a sentence. “You are so talented” could be a compliment or an insult depending on the tone of voice in which it is said: (demonstrate: “You are so talented!” (genuine) or “You are so talented!” (sarcastic)). We tend to read the scriptures straight, taking them at face value, assuming that what they say is what they mean, especially when the words are coming out of the mouth of God. But sometimes I wonder whether at times, Jesus might have been joking, or being sarcastic. I can’t remember who first suggested this solution to the puzzle of what’s “new” about the commandment Jesus gives the disciples on Maundy Thursday, but it’s the way I now read this passage from John, with a wry tone in Jesus’s voice that suggests that he wasn’t actually presenting a new idea, but was reinforcing what they should have already known and been doing all along, perhaps with a twinge of the frustrated “don’t you get it yet?” attitude we see him take with the disciples at other times throughout the Gospels:
“I give you a new commandment: that you love one another. There’s a novel idea for you – how about you try loving one another? That would be something different and new for you!”
And the church, in her infinite wisdom, has taken that phrase and elevated it – oh, MAUNDY Thursday! The day we got the NEW commandment from Jesus! That revolutionary new teaching… you know, the one God had been trying to get through our thick skulls since the beginning of time.
What was new the night of the Last Supper, though, was Jesus’s commandment to continue the sacred meal they shared, in memory of him. While John’s Gospel focuses more on the footwashing than the meal, all the other Gospels emphasize the Last Supper and the institution of the communion ritual that Paul recaps in our passage from 1 Corinthians tonight:
“The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)
The Gospel writers disagree as to whether Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples was a Passover meal or was eaten slightly before the time of the Passover, but the institution of this ritual meal is the real “new commandment” of this holy night, this meal in which Jesus instructs his followers to take his flesh and blood into themselves. This wasn’t normal, this wasn’t something that was common sense to people of any religion. This was a strange new teaching that got the earliest Christians called cannibals on more than one occasion, when people heard them talking about eating flesh and drinking blood in their worship services.
Jesus’s followers interpreted this strange teaching by connecting Jesus’s death on the cross to the sacrifice of the lamb the Jewish people were commanded to eat during Passover, the history of which was recapped in our first reading from Exodus. Sacrificing a lamb and eating it every year at the Passover recalled the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Jesus’s followers decided after his resurrection that those strange words he had said to them the night before he died meant that Jesus was now the Passover lamb, and eating his flesh and blood in the ritual meal of bread and wine that he prescribed to them as his dying wish was their new way of observing the Passover, their way of recounting not just the liberation from slavery in Egypt, but the liberation from their sins and from the sins of the world.
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” we sing when we gather to share the Eucharist. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.” All of this imagery links Jesus’s death with the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, and makes our ritual meal the liturgical descendant of the Passover meal, the seder. This “new commandment” Jesus gave to his disciples that night was what would eventually separate Jesus’s followers from traditional Jewish communities and Jewish practice, and is why Christians do not observe the holiday of Passover to this day. The Eucharist is our Passover, and more specifically, the first Eucharist of Easter, celebrated at the Easter Vigil or on Easter morning, is our Passover. It’s a reinvention and reinterpretation of an ancient tradition, changing it enough that it created a separate religion. Now that’s a new commandment.
But “love one another?” That’s not a new commandment. It’s perhaps the oldest commandment there is. And it’s one that we can all agree on, regardless of which ritual practices we observe in which tradition. So tonight, we remember simultaneously both the most universal and the most particular aspects of the Christian faith – the commandment to love and the commandment to celebrate the Eucharist. And at its best, that most specific of Christian commandments – to receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist – leads us to live out that most universal commandment – to love one another – more fully and completely than we would have without it. The particulars of our faith nourish the universal.
So as we wash one another’s feet tonight, an action that any human being can do for any other, and then receive communion, an action that is specific to the Christian tradition, let us remember that the God we worship in Jesus Christ, the God we attempt to take into ourselves through the sacrament of his Body and Blood, is the One who taught that very universal message – that the essence and core of all religion is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40).
Sermon Text(s): Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
We call this day Maundy Thursday after this “new” commandment Jesus gives the disciples – the word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word “mandatum,” meaning “commandment.” But this all-important commandment, this commandment that we give its own religious holiday, doesn’t seem to be so new or unique. “Love one another” – isn’t that what the prophets have always said, both before Jesus and after?
“Well,” some Christians will say, “He tells them to love one another ‘just as I have loved you.’ Loving as Jesus loved is different than any other kind of love.”
Or, “He’s showing that the leader or master should serve his followers – this was a revolutionary idea in that culture. Washing feet was the work of a servant, something a great leader never would have done, so Jesus was breaking social convention and showing them a new way to love.”
But I don’t buy any of those arguments. Yes, in washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus did something countercultural by being a leader who engaged in humble, loving service. But he wasn’t the only or first leader to advocate for this kind of love.
I have no doubt my friends from non-Christian religious backgrounds would recognize this commandment from what they have been taught in their own traditions. According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad once said, “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another.” Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and final of the Sikh gurus said, “Only those who have love, will attain God.” The Bhagavad Gita, one of the sacred texts of Hinduism, teaches, “When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.” (Bhagavad Gita 6.28-32). There are passages like these throughout the world’s religions, some of which pre-dated Jesus and some of which came after him. “Love one another” was hardly a new idea with Jesus, nor is it unique to him. So why does Jesus say he is giving the disciples a “new commandment?”
Well, maybe that’s not what he actually meant. One thing that was lost when the stories of our faith moved from oral tradition to the written word is tone of voice. As we all know, tone of voice can completely change the meaning of a sentence. “You are so talented” could be a compliment or an insult depending on the tone of voice in which it is said: (demonstrate: “You are so talented!” (genuine) or “You are so talented!” (sarcastic)). We tend to read the scriptures straight, taking them at face value, assuming that what they say is what they mean, especially when the words are coming out of the mouth of God. But sometimes I wonder whether at times, Jesus might have been joking, or being sarcastic. I can’t remember who first suggested this solution to the puzzle of what’s “new” about the commandment Jesus gives the disciples on Maundy Thursday, but it’s the way I now read this passage from John, with a wry tone in Jesus’s voice that suggests that he wasn’t actually presenting a new idea, but was reinforcing what they should have already known and been doing all along, perhaps with a twinge of the frustrated “don’t you get it yet?” attitude we see him take with the disciples at other times throughout the Gospels:
“I give you a new commandment: that you love one another. There’s a novel idea for you – how about you try loving one another? That would be something different and new for you!”
And the church, in her infinite wisdom, has taken that phrase and elevated it – oh, MAUNDY Thursday! The day we got the NEW commandment from Jesus! That revolutionary new teaching… you know, the one God had been trying to get through our thick skulls since the beginning of time.
What was new the night of the Last Supper, though, was Jesus’s commandment to continue the sacred meal they shared, in memory of him. While John’s Gospel focuses more on the footwashing than the meal, all the other Gospels emphasize the Last Supper and the institution of the communion ritual that Paul recaps in our passage from 1 Corinthians tonight:
“The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)
The Gospel writers disagree as to whether Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples was a Passover meal or was eaten slightly before the time of the Passover, but the institution of this ritual meal is the real “new commandment” of this holy night, this meal in which Jesus instructs his followers to take his flesh and blood into themselves. This wasn’t normal, this wasn’t something that was common sense to people of any religion. This was a strange new teaching that got the earliest Christians called cannibals on more than one occasion, when people heard them talking about eating flesh and drinking blood in their worship services.
Jesus’s followers interpreted this strange teaching by connecting Jesus’s death on the cross to the sacrifice of the lamb the Jewish people were commanded to eat during Passover, the history of which was recapped in our first reading from Exodus. Sacrificing a lamb and eating it every year at the Passover recalled the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Jesus’s followers decided after his resurrection that those strange words he had said to them the night before he died meant that Jesus was now the Passover lamb, and eating his flesh and blood in the ritual meal of bread and wine that he prescribed to them as his dying wish was their new way of observing the Passover, their way of recounting not just the liberation from slavery in Egypt, but the liberation from their sins and from the sins of the world.
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” we sing when we gather to share the Eucharist. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.” All of this imagery links Jesus’s death with the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, and makes our ritual meal the liturgical descendant of the Passover meal, the seder. This “new commandment” Jesus gave to his disciples that night was what would eventually separate Jesus’s followers from traditional Jewish communities and Jewish practice, and is why Christians do not observe the holiday of Passover to this day. The Eucharist is our Passover, and more specifically, the first Eucharist of Easter, celebrated at the Easter Vigil or on Easter morning, is our Passover. It’s a reinvention and reinterpretation of an ancient tradition, changing it enough that it created a separate religion. Now that’s a new commandment.
But “love one another?” That’s not a new commandment. It’s perhaps the oldest commandment there is. And it’s one that we can all agree on, regardless of which ritual practices we observe in which tradition. So tonight, we remember simultaneously both the most universal and the most particular aspects of the Christian faith – the commandment to love and the commandment to celebrate the Eucharist. And at its best, that most specific of Christian commandments – to receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist – leads us to live out that most universal commandment – to love one another – more fully and completely than we would have without it. The particulars of our faith nourish the universal.
So as we wash one another’s feet tonight, an action that any human being can do for any other, and then receive communion, an action that is specific to the Christian tradition, let us remember that the God we worship in Jesus Christ, the God we attempt to take into ourselves through the sacrament of his Body and Blood, is the One who taught that very universal message – that the essence and core of all religion is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40).
Sunday, April 2, 2017
We must actively participate in resurrection -- we have a part to play in our own liberation and that of others
Sermon delivered Sunday, April 2, 2017 (Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
Our readings for today seem to be getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re all about resurrection! God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to bring them back to life, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and Paul tells us that “he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also” (Romans 8:11).
Resurrection, bringing life from death, is everywhere in these readings. With the exception of the psalm, there’s hardly a word anywhere about the Lenten themes of sin and repentance. What’s going on here? If Easter is still two weeks off, why all this talk about resurrection in the middle of Lent?
Perhaps it is because we most need to remember the promise of resurrection during times of repentance. Whenever we stop to take a cold, hard look at the ways we are dead in our sins, we need to simultaneously remember the promise that we can and will be made alive through the Spirit of God working in us.
The 40 days of Lent metaphorically recall Jesus’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness and the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land, and it is during our own periods of wilderness that we are most in need of resurrection. When we come face to face with our shortcomings, our mortality, and our need, we are most open to the gift of grace and new life that God offers to us. By anticipating the resurrection two weeks before we make it to Easter, our readings today remind us that God’s offer of new life is available even in the midst of the wilderness.
And these readings also remind us of something about resurrection that we don’t hear as clearly in the Easter passages – they remind us that God invites us to participate in the process of resurrection. In today’s passages, the people are not passive bystanders to God’s miraculous power to bring life from death; they actually join with God in bringing about resurrection.
Ezekiel joins with God in bringing new life to the dry bones by speaking the words God has given him to speak, and the bystanders in the Gospel join with Jesus in restoring Lazarus to life by moving away the stone from the grave and removing Lazarus’s burial clothes. While only God has the power to bring life from death, in these stories, God does not do so without involving others in the process. God could have showed Ezekiel a vision of the dry bones coming back to life without any required words or actions on Ezekiel’s part, and God could have moved the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb miraculously, without human involvement, and Lazarus could have walked out already unbound from his burial shroud. But for whatever reason, God didn’t do it that way. He chose to leave parts of the process for us to do.
It has become somewhat of a catch-phrase in modern theology to talk about people as being “co-creators with God.” This idea proposes that human beings partner with God in the maintenance of the created world and in bringing about God’s purposes in it. In contrast to a view that sees human beings as entirely passive because “God is in control,” this theology insists that human beings are active partners with God in God’s redemption of the world.
A common critique of this theology is that it ascribes too much power to humans, coming close to saying human beings are equal to God, but the theologian who first coined the term, Phillip Hefner, actually used the phrase “created co-creator.” We are not co-creators – as if we were fellow gods in the heavenly court – we are created co-creators. We are, in fact, creatures, and the creature is not greater than the creator.
But, because we are created in the image of God who is a creator, we are made to be creators as well. From this perspective, our creative abilities – in the arts, in science and technology, in problem-solving – are seen as a stamp of the divine nature in us. This theology also emphasizes human freedom, because it stresses the ways in which God does not direct every little action that happens on earth, but gives us the freedom of self-determination. No, God does not need us to do anything, but rather than exert total and utter control over us, God chooses to leave certain things for us to do, so that we become partners with God in the great work of the divine redemption of the world. It is an unequal partnership, to be sure, but it is a partnership all the same.
The people in our readings for today are examples of the created co-creator. They are partners – however unequal – with God in making resurrection happen. Ezekiel delivers the words; the bystanders in the Gospel roll away the stone and remove Lazarus’s burial clothes. They remind us that although God is fully capable of bringing about transformation all by himself, God often asks for our help in doing so. God invites us to participate in the work of resurrection.
The actions that Jesus tells the people to perform in today’s Gospel reading are rather symbolic. His specific instructions to them are, “Take away the stone,” and “Unbind him and let him go.” Although we can assume the people were invited to do these things in a literal sense for very practical reasons, the stories in John’s Gospel always have a deeper symbolic meaning.
Jesus invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by taking away the stones – the obstacles in our lives and in the lives of others that prevent the power of God from reaching us. I’m sure we’ve all known people who have constructed such emotional walls around themselves that they shut out everyone around them, and even shut out God. We might have even done this in our own lives at some point. There is a saying of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who relates that God said to him, “O Son of Being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee.” We must give love in order to be open to receiving love. If we do not take away the stones from the entrance to our hearts, the power of resurrection can in no way reach us.
Jesus also invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by doing the difficult work of unbinding the shroud of death. Even though he had been restored to life, Lazarus’s freedom was still restricted by the shroud tied around him until the people unbound him and let him go. Likewise, even if we have received the gift of new life through the resurrection in our baptism, we too can remain bound by our old burial shroud of sin and death, unless we do our part in the resurrection process and work to loosen those bonds. We must do the difficult internal work of unbinding the painful memories, the negative self-talk, the grudges and resentments – whatever keeps us bound to the ways of sin and death. We must cut loose those cords in order to experience the full power of the liberation given to us in the resurrection.
And often, that process requires the help of others. Just as Lazarus could not untie himself, and certainly could not have moved the stone away from his grave while he was still dead, so we too sometimes must rely on others to help us move the stones and unbind the shrouds in our lives – therapists, spiritual directors, friends, mentors. Those helpers cannot do the work for us, but we do need companions as we do this work.
And while others have a part to play in our liberation, we also have a part to play in theirs, because the two are inextricably linked. As we strive to do the difficult spiritual work of opening ourselves to God and others, of rolling away the stones and unbinding the shroud of death, we often find that our best guides and companions on the way are those people who know something about rolling away stones and unbinding shrouds because they have done so in their own lives, those people who have been there and have found a way through.
So maybe it’s not so out of character to think about resurrection during Lent after all. For it is only when we have experienced resurrection in the midst of our own wilderness that we are able to understand how to participate more fully in God’s redemptive work in the world and to help others in their quest for liberation.
Sermon Text(s): Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
Our readings for today seem to be getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re all about resurrection! God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to bring them back to life, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and Paul tells us that “he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also” (Romans 8:11).
Resurrection, bringing life from death, is everywhere in these readings. With the exception of the psalm, there’s hardly a word anywhere about the Lenten themes of sin and repentance. What’s going on here? If Easter is still two weeks off, why all this talk about resurrection in the middle of Lent?
Perhaps it is because we most need to remember the promise of resurrection during times of repentance. Whenever we stop to take a cold, hard look at the ways we are dead in our sins, we need to simultaneously remember the promise that we can and will be made alive through the Spirit of God working in us.
The 40 days of Lent metaphorically recall Jesus’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness and the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land, and it is during our own periods of wilderness that we are most in need of resurrection. When we come face to face with our shortcomings, our mortality, and our need, we are most open to the gift of grace and new life that God offers to us. By anticipating the resurrection two weeks before we make it to Easter, our readings today remind us that God’s offer of new life is available even in the midst of the wilderness.
And these readings also remind us of something about resurrection that we don’t hear as clearly in the Easter passages – they remind us that God invites us to participate in the process of resurrection. In today’s passages, the people are not passive bystanders to God’s miraculous power to bring life from death; they actually join with God in bringing about resurrection.
Ezekiel joins with God in bringing new life to the dry bones by speaking the words God has given him to speak, and the bystanders in the Gospel join with Jesus in restoring Lazarus to life by moving away the stone from the grave and removing Lazarus’s burial clothes. While only God has the power to bring life from death, in these stories, God does not do so without involving others in the process. God could have showed Ezekiel a vision of the dry bones coming back to life without any required words or actions on Ezekiel’s part, and God could have moved the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb miraculously, without human involvement, and Lazarus could have walked out already unbound from his burial shroud. But for whatever reason, God didn’t do it that way. He chose to leave parts of the process for us to do.
It has become somewhat of a catch-phrase in modern theology to talk about people as being “co-creators with God.” This idea proposes that human beings partner with God in the maintenance of the created world and in bringing about God’s purposes in it. In contrast to a view that sees human beings as entirely passive because “God is in control,” this theology insists that human beings are active partners with God in God’s redemption of the world.
A common critique of this theology is that it ascribes too much power to humans, coming close to saying human beings are equal to God, but the theologian who first coined the term, Phillip Hefner, actually used the phrase “created co-creator.” We are not co-creators – as if we were fellow gods in the heavenly court – we are created co-creators. We are, in fact, creatures, and the creature is not greater than the creator.
But, because we are created in the image of God who is a creator, we are made to be creators as well. From this perspective, our creative abilities – in the arts, in science and technology, in problem-solving – are seen as a stamp of the divine nature in us. This theology also emphasizes human freedom, because it stresses the ways in which God does not direct every little action that happens on earth, but gives us the freedom of self-determination. No, God does not need us to do anything, but rather than exert total and utter control over us, God chooses to leave certain things for us to do, so that we become partners with God in the great work of the divine redemption of the world. It is an unequal partnership, to be sure, but it is a partnership all the same.
The people in our readings for today are examples of the created co-creator. They are partners – however unequal – with God in making resurrection happen. Ezekiel delivers the words; the bystanders in the Gospel roll away the stone and remove Lazarus’s burial clothes. They remind us that although God is fully capable of bringing about transformation all by himself, God often asks for our help in doing so. God invites us to participate in the work of resurrection.
The actions that Jesus tells the people to perform in today’s Gospel reading are rather symbolic. His specific instructions to them are, “Take away the stone,” and “Unbind him and let him go.” Although we can assume the people were invited to do these things in a literal sense for very practical reasons, the stories in John’s Gospel always have a deeper symbolic meaning.
Jesus invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by taking away the stones – the obstacles in our lives and in the lives of others that prevent the power of God from reaching us. I’m sure we’ve all known people who have constructed such emotional walls around themselves that they shut out everyone around them, and even shut out God. We might have even done this in our own lives at some point. There is a saying of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who relates that God said to him, “O Son of Being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee.” We must give love in order to be open to receiving love. If we do not take away the stones from the entrance to our hearts, the power of resurrection can in no way reach us.
Jesus also invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by doing the difficult work of unbinding the shroud of death. Even though he had been restored to life, Lazarus’s freedom was still restricted by the shroud tied around him until the people unbound him and let him go. Likewise, even if we have received the gift of new life through the resurrection in our baptism, we too can remain bound by our old burial shroud of sin and death, unless we do our part in the resurrection process and work to loosen those bonds. We must do the difficult internal work of unbinding the painful memories, the negative self-talk, the grudges and resentments – whatever keeps us bound to the ways of sin and death. We must cut loose those cords in order to experience the full power of the liberation given to us in the resurrection.
And often, that process requires the help of others. Just as Lazarus could not untie himself, and certainly could not have moved the stone away from his grave while he was still dead, so we too sometimes must rely on others to help us move the stones and unbind the shrouds in our lives – therapists, spiritual directors, friends, mentors. Those helpers cannot do the work for us, but we do need companions as we do this work.
And while others have a part to play in our liberation, we also have a part to play in theirs, because the two are inextricably linked. As we strive to do the difficult spiritual work of opening ourselves to God and others, of rolling away the stones and unbinding the shroud of death, we often find that our best guides and companions on the way are those people who know something about rolling away stones and unbinding shrouds because they have done so in their own lives, those people who have been there and have found a way through.
So maybe it’s not so out of character to think about resurrection during Lent after all. For it is only when we have experienced resurrection in the midst of our own wilderness that we are able to understand how to participate more fully in God’s redemptive work in the world and to help others in their quest for liberation.
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