"The dead man came out"-A Sermon for All Saints, John 11:32-44
Through the words of the beloved, classic hymn by Lesbia Scott which we just sang together…and that we have sung together each and every All Saint’s Sunday at St. Julian’s for the past decade…I am reminded today, once again, that that the saints of God are just folk like you and me…for ‘they lived not only in ages past…there are [countless] thousands still…the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in the church, or in trains, or at shops, or at tea, for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.” And, indeed, I am and you are…we are saints…made so…formed and empowered by…the immeasurable love of God poured into our lives and our world through Jesus’ glorious resurrection. On that very first Easter, not only did Jesus’ body emerge from the tomb, fully alive and whole, but Jesus’ Spirit poured out of the empty tomb like an unstoppable flood…and has filled us…has been breathed into us…into our hearts and bones…the very same Spirit that God breathed into the universe in the act of creation…the making of all that is. That Spirit…Jesus’ own Spirit…again…has been breathed into our own hearts and bones making us fully alive and whole…not even death, our ancient foe, has any power over us. Though our bodies may indeed be broken by the violence and division and hatred that infects the hearts of so many in this sorely divided world, darkness cannot overcome us. The empty tomb proclaims for all with ears to hear that the power of love…God’s love…God’s Spirit that inhabits our lives and makes us saints…will never be overcome. Though our physical bodies are mortal, formed of the earth, our saint-ed souls, empowered by God’s own Spirit, are immortal…so as the burial office in our prayer book reads, “Even as we go down to the dust…we make our song…alleluia, alleluia, alleluia”.
And I think that this is in part why the faithful folk responsible for our scripture readings each Sunday have chosen the particular passage from the Gospel of John which we just heard together…chosen it…with great intentionality for this day…for the Feast of All the Saints. It begins as sorrowful a story as can possibly be…loss and grief…the death of a beloved one. Lazarus has died, friend of Jesus…friend of many. And those who loved Lazarus, Jesus among them, are sad…all the way down to their toes. John mentions that even Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus. For grief can be holy. It can remind us of how deep our capacity to love really is. But this is, of course, not the end of the story…but only the beginning. John tells us that Lazarus has been dead for 4 days. This is not just intended to be an interesting factoid…or to simply place us on some sort of timeline. Instead, in Jesus’ day, it was believed that the soul stayed with the body for three days. The point is, just in case anyone was wondering, that Lazarus is really dead…entirely dead. For 4 days his body, after being anointed for burial and wrapped in linens, lay deceased in a tomb, which was a cave with a large rock covering its entrance. So, as Jesus goes to the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he is going, make no mistake, to visit a dead person. But not, as most would logically think, to pay his respects…to say his good-byes…to grieve in close proximity to the deceased body of his friend…none of that. Instead, as he arrives at the tomb, he orders those present to remove the stone. Then Jesus cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man…no longer dead but fully alive and whole…walks out of the tomb still all wrapped up in his burial cloths. This is not a resuscitation of the half dead…the mortally wounded but still alive…the very sick but still barely hanging on…remember the 4 days…Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead.
This is indeed a foreshadowing of Easter…of Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. But it is not a foreshadowing of Jesus’ resurrection alone. For Lazarus is a human being just like you and me. Thus, his resurrection from the dead is a powerful, forward looking proclamation that the work of salvation of resurrection of restoration done by God, through love, at Easter is for all of us…for ordinary humans like Lazarus…for ordinary people like each of us…even you…even me. You see, we don’t worship a powerless god. We worship the God who created the heavens and the earth and breathed life into them. A God who made all that is out of nothing by the power of love and for love’s sake alone. A God who has defeated sin and death for each and for all. A God whose love remains an active and alive presence in our very midst…a love that works in our hearts even now…making us his saints whose glory shines bright…as we do Jesus’ will…extending that life-giving love into our own communities and families and schools and work places…most especially where our death-dealing and violent world seeks to destroy and dehumanize…all those, like us, fashioned in God’s own likeness and image.
Two weeks ago, I attended the Diocese of Texas’ annual Clergy Conference, and our keynote speaker was the Rev. Fleming Rutledge. Fleming is an Episcopal Priest and gifted writer, and, by all accounts, she is considered one of the most influential preachers that the Episcopal Church has produced in the last several decades. And her primary message to us, the clergy of this diocese, was that every sermon preached should lead those who listen to a moment of decision. Each sermon should confront us with a compelling choice…a choice between something as great as life and death itself. Each sermon should place squarely in front of us the reality of the world as it is…and as I have already described it…a world all full up with division and anger and hate and violence…a world that doesn’t just feel unsafe…but is often unsafe…even in the places, like schools and worshipping communities, where it should feel safe…a world that values a monochromatic and like-minded community over the beautiful diversity and variety that exists within the rainbow colored people of God…a world that grasps, often violently so, for a false sense of security through the hoarding of resources…rather than being absolutely certain everyone has enough to live with dignity…when, of course, our own dignity is actually all tied up in our willingness to share…to live with open hands and open hearts…for that is a dignified life…a life lived like Jesus.
Thus, Fleming argued that every sermon should place before us the choice to either choose to embrace the world’s death-dealing, cross like ways…or…or chose life…chose love…chose to follow Jesus. Or to use the language that today’s celebration places before us…to choose to embrace the challenge and glory that is our sainthood. The decision is ours to make…for God has blessed us with agency…with the ability to choose. And I, for one, believe, I am naïve enough to believe, I am optimistic enough to believe, that our saintly choices matter and make a difference…from the great to the small…from how we choose to participate in public and political spaces…to how spend and share our money…to how and with whom we spend our time…to the kindness we extend to those whose paths we cross in any given day. As God says through his prophet long before Jesus walked among us, “See, I am setting before you today the choice between life and death…chose life that you and your descendants may live.”
The world needs us now more than ever to choose life…to claim our own life-giving, life-affirming, life-promoting sainthood. And this can and does look like all sorts of things. Like standing in profound solidarity with those who are grieving tremendous loss…yes…in Pittsburgh and Kentucky, where racism and hate took the lives of those simply worshipping and just getting groceries. But, also, in our own community…grieving with those whose bodies are broken and hopes are diminished by the great divide between east and west that runs right through the literal and figurative heart of our metropolitan area. Choosing life looks like building relationships of substance with those who look, live, love and believe differently than we do, just as we continue to do with our Muslim friends in the area, and with our friends in Navajoland, and with the vulnerable folk in east Austin who live at Community First Village. Choosing life looks like arming ourselves with love alone in the face of a world that, instead, often resorts to violence as a dehumanizing tool of social engineering and grasping for power, which can only lead to greater division and tyranny.
Richard Rohr, the Franciscan Friar and author, writes, “We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity [that is] ‘hidden with Christ in God’. The Bible calls the state of separateness ‘sin’. God’s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship”. And in this Season of Giving Thanks at St. Julian’s, when we are thinking together about supporting our shared future and shared ministry, perhaps choosing life all begins by choosing one another, standing in unity, working in harmony to build this community of God’s own saints, up…into a profound place of reconciliation and healing, not for ourselves alone, but for all those who live…all around us.
History has taught us that choosing our sainthood, choosing life requires courage…requires perhaps placing our own lives in risky places and spaces. But, we do so remembering, that though the death-dealing world may brake our bodies…it can never extinguish our spirits. For we worship a powerful God…who is alive and active…the God of life and love…whose power is greater even than death…whose love will never be overcome.
So, once again, the choice is set before us today…the choice to claim our sainthood and in doing so to choose life….to choose love…to choose to follow Jesus…to follow Jesus to the many crosses erected all around us…that both seek to divide us and on which the vulnerable hang…and empowered with God’s own love participate with Jesus in their defeat…and then, in the fullness of time, bask with Lazarus and all the saints, fully alive and whole, in the bright light of love’s final and forever victory…for I mean to be one too. Amen.