{"id":3198,"date":"2021-08-22T11:00:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3198"},"modified":"2021-08-26T17:01:26","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T21:01:26","slug":"come-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2021\/08\/22\/come-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Come Out!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

John <\/span>11:1<\/span>7<\/span>\u2013<\/span>44<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Lazarus is dead.\u00a0 Four days dead in his tomb.\u00a0 His sisters Martha and Mary and many friends weep, and their greetings to Jesus when he finally arrives also hint of reproach.\u00a0 From Mary:\u00a0 \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died\u201d.\u00a0 From Martha: \u00a0\u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u00a0 But even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him\u201d.\u00a0 From their friends:\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cCould not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?\u201d\u00a0 Even Jesus is greatly disturbed \u2013 in the Greek he \u201csnorted in spirit\u201d.\u00a0 He is deeply moved, and himself begins to weep.\u00a0 Those standing by assume that his tears are because of the great love he bears Lazarus.\u00a0 But when he comes to the tomb, again deeply disturbed, he commands the stone to be taken away.\u00a0 When Martha objects because Lazarus is really dead and by now his body has begun to rot and stink, Jesus reminds her that if she believes she will see the glory of God.\u00a0 Then when the stone is rolled away, Jesus prays to God loudly enough so that the crowd can hear him. He thanks God that God always hears him, and thanks God now so that the crowd can hear and believe that God hears him.\u00a0 In a loud voice, Jesus cries \u201cLazarus, come out!\u201d.\u00a0 And the dead man, no longer dead but Lazarus, shuffles out of the tomb, still bound in gravecloths, and Jesus tells his family and friends to unbind Lazarus, and let him go.<\/p>\n

In John\u2019s Gospel the resurrection of Lazarus is the seventh and climactic sign of Jesus\u2019 life and teaching.\u00a0 In all seven signs \u2013 water into wine, curing of the sick over distance by word alone, living water as newness of life and as revelation of Jesus as sent by God, the multiplication of loaves of bread, walking on the water, and healing the blind man \u2013 in all these signs Jesus makes claims about his identity and relation to God, and proves these claims by the seven signs.<\/p>\n

But the resurrection of Lazarus is different.\u00a0 The other signs are relatively straightforward one-time events.\u00a0 People are healed, water changes into wine, people come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah sent from God, there are many loaves where before there were few, Jesus walks on the water.\u00a0 But in our text this morning, there are three kinds<\/em> of resurrection, all centered in Jesus.\u00a0 One is the resurrection on the last day, which will happen to everyone, because in John, on the last day believers in Jesus who have died will be raised up by Jesus into eternal life, and<\/em> Jesus\u2019 teachings will judge those who have rejected them.\u00a0 Another is Jesus himself, as Jesus declares himself to be the<\/em> resurrection and the <\/em>life, and states that \u201cThose who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.\u201d \u00a0In Lazarus\u2019 resurrection, however, resurrection is complicated.\u00a0 Jesus clearly resurrects Lazarus from the dead \u2013 Lazarus was dead and now he is alive and walking amongst his family and friends.\u00a0 Jesus is clearly the<\/em> resurrection and the<\/em> life here:\u00a0 Lazarus responds to Jesus\u2019 call to \u201cCome out!\u201d from death back into life, when he did not respond to the grief and bereavement of his loving family and friends.\u00a0 But Lazarus is not resurrected as he would be on the last day, into eternal life.\u00a0 While his death and resurrection prefigure Jesus\u2019 own, and stand as a witness to the power of God in Christ to bring life out of death, there is no sense of this being a resurrection into immortality, no sense that Lazarus will not come to an end of this earthly life for a final time.\u00a0 This is more like a healing, where the illness has been physical death, overridden for a time, but still in the wings.\u00a0 It is a witness to the power of Jesus to bring new life into the most dire and seemingly intractable circumstances, but once Lazarus responds to Jesus\u2019 call, his life remains physical, in a human body, subject to eventual and final earthly death like everyone else.<\/p>\n

And, if this is a healing story rather more dramatic than the others, it is still a healing story, and we are once again reminded by Sharon V. Betcher, theologian and disability activist, that the point of the healing stories is not just the healing itself — the point is even more so the point of Jesus\u2019 upending of the political and social realities of the time.<\/p>\n

So in our time it is always interesting to note what the compilers of the lectionary leave out.\u00a0 And this time, what they have left out is that while Lazarus is no longer dead, and is returned to his family and friends, his life now will never be the same, nor will the world around him.<\/p>\n

In the gospel prior to our text this morning, we are told that there is great controversy over whether Jesus should be believed or not, signs and teaching notwithstanding.\u00a0 His disciples question Jesus\u2019 decision to go to Martha and Mary in Bethany in Judea, because the religious authorities there have already tried to stone him.\u00a0 Thomas even rallies the others with the need to support Jesus with saying \u201cLet us also go to die with him.\u201d\u00a0 The events after Lazarus\u2019 resurrection are even more dire.\u00a0 Through the centuries a number of commentators have suggested that Jesus was greatly disturbed, and deeply moved, and wept, because he knew that to call Lazarus out from death into life again might not entirely turn out to be the favor it seems.<\/p>\n

Because as resurrected, Lazarus has become a celebrity, a living witness to the power that Jesus has through his relationship to God.\u00a0 Many come to see him, to hear his testimony, and then they believe in Jesus for themselves.\u00a0 So many believe that the religious authorities meet to decide what to do about it all.\u00a0 If Jesus and his signs continue, everyone will believe in him, and they will lose their power and ability to control.\u00a0 Not only that, but the Romans will come down on them and destroy their religion and holy places, and eventually their nation.\u00a0 So they decide to put Jesus to death.\u00a0 Of course the irony here is that the Romans did come down on them and did destroy the holy places and the nation, and Caiaphas\u2019 prophecy that Jesus would die for the people did come true, but the \u201cnation\u201d would be the dispersed believers gathered together through Jesus\u2019 death and unforeseen resurrection.<\/p>\n

After the plot against him became known, Jesus goes into hiding in Ephraim for a while, while Lazarus remains in Bethany.\u00a0 Then Passover arrives, and there is much speculation as people prepare for it in Jerusalem as to whether or not Jesus will actually come.\u00a0 The religious authorities order that anyone who learns of Jesus\u2019 whereabouts must tell them, so that they can arrest him.\u00a0 Meanwhile, just before the Passover, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary host a party for Jesus, a dinner, in which Lazarus sits with him at the table, Martha serves, and Mary anoints Jesus\u2019 feet with costly perfume and wipes his feet with her hair.\u00a0 When Judas Iscariot complains that the money should have been spent on the poor, Jesus tells him that the poor will always be with them, but they will not always have him, and he refers to his own burial.<\/p>\n

When the crowds find out that Jesus is at his friends\u2019 house in Bethany, they come not only to see Jesus, but to see Lazarus as well, the living witness to God\u2019s power through Jesus.\u00a0 Because of Lazarus\u2019 presence and testimony many come to believe in Jesus.\u00a0 So the religious authorities plan to kill Lazarus as well.\u00a0 Lazarus\u2019 resurrection is the last and climactic sign of who Jesus is and what he can do, a healing and joy and new life for many.\u00a0 And, it is the precipitating event toward Lazarus\u2019 renewed life coming under threat, and toward Jesus\u2019 own death at the collusion of religion and Empire, and toward the trauma of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary and the other disciples caused by Jesus\u2019 death.\u00a0 For while Lazarus\u2019 own life has been renewed and expanded, many of the circumstances and realities of his world have not changed.\u00a0 His resurrection is only to a renewed and earthly life, so that his resurrection to eternal life remains both present and coming.<\/p>\n

We can relate.\u00a0 We in a sense are like Lazarus.\u00a0 We are emerging into the call of life once<\/p>\n

again, we are alive,<\/em> and here together live and in person in Marsh Chapel at last. \u00a0But only some<\/p>\n

of us, because our circumstances and the realities of our<\/em> world have not changed.<\/p>\n

Just as there is more than one type of resurrection, so there is more than one kind of death.\u00a0 In the purely physical sense of death, so many have died and continue to die in this pandemic.\u00a0 Many of them have been our own family and friends, some beloved members of this community, and globally our most vulnerable continue to be at risk.\u00a0 Along with our grief there is reproach, and anger too, at the denial that postponed necessary practices and procedures and allowed variants to develop, at the lack of preparedness, at the inequities in public and private healthcare, and at the selfishness of ideology over scientific fact.\u00a0 The traumatizing physical deaths we have seen and learned about among marginalized people at the hands of law enforcement and the collusion of religion and Empire reveal as never before the results of injustice over centuries, and our history of conscious and unconscious complicity with evil.\u00a0 The deaths of our companion animals, plants, birds, and insects in creation, the loss of their gifts, beauty, and wonder due to the wildfires and floods of human-made climate change, call forth our grief and a frightening sense of overwhelm.<\/p>\n

There are metaphorical deaths as well.\u00a0 The short and long-term effects of the Covid and its variants, known and unknown.\u00a0 The loss of jobs, and the economic threats to food on the table and a roof over our heads.\u00a0 The challenge of the changes in work that has been or continues to be done remotely.\u00a0 The loss of privacy and space as we isolated together and made workplaces in our homes.\u00a0 The loss of physical contact, of making music and dance together, of community rituals and celebrations. The inability to observe the milestones and traditions of human life and death, the lockdowns, the uncertainty of trust \u2013 all the deprivations of beloved human and planetary presence and energy, all over too long a time.<\/p>\n

Our grief, our losses, our mourning have been great, and our healing calls us to remember them, learn from them, and honor them, so that they will not be forgotten or in vain.<\/p>\n

Not that forgetting is likely.\u00a0 Today is a day that so many of us have looked forward to, and experience as a coming out of isolation, a resurrection of sorts, to be together again, live and in person, to feel each other\u2019s presence and energy, to worship together, to sing together, to recognize God\u2019s face and voice as God and in each other, to feel God\u2019s presence in each other\u2019s presence.\u00a0 And today is all of that.\u00a0 And, today is also a day of challenge in dangerous weather, not seen here in thirty years and part of a climate cycle that has never been seen before, that has kept some of our company at home yet again and poses real threats to those of our community in other parts of Massachusetts and New England.\u00a0 Even as we are called back into earthly life by the love and power of God to bring life out of death through the miracle of the fastest-developed vaccine in history, as with Lazarus our resurrection back into earthly life \u2013 while a renewal and expansion of our lives \u2013 will still be shaped by the fact that many of the circumstances and realities of our world also have not changed.<\/p>\n

We do not know the end of Lazarus\u2019 personal story, or what became of the threats to his life.\u00a0 But we do know the end of Jesus\u2019s story, and so we know the end of Lazarus\u2019 story as a person of faith, and as we are people of faith we know the end of our stories too.\u00a0 The author or authors of John write at the end of the Gospel that the things written in it are written so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.\u00a0 And since this is the Gospel of John, this means that the Word of God has taken on human flesh and shares our human life, and has moved into our neighborhood.\u00a0 God so loved the world that God sent Jesus, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved and flourish through his life, ministry, teaching, death, and resurrection.\u00a0 Jesus enacts signs of healing, nurture, celebration, and power that prove his identity and his relationship to God.\u00a0 On the cross he invites his mother to see his beloved disciple as her son, and his beloved disciple to see Jesus\u2019 mother as his mother.\u00a0 They come to live together as a sign and promise that even in the midst of tribulation and loss, relationships of love, hope, and even joy are possible.\u00a0 Jesus and his friends have a party in the face of, in spite of, Jesus\u2019 journey to Jerusalem, to torture and death.\u00a0 And through Jesus, whose life of resurrection with us includes his wounds, God\u2019s power of resurrection is brought into the reality of earthly life and becomes available to everyone, resurrection both present and coming.<\/p>\n

The story of Lazarus invites us to consider that, in spite of the real physical and metaphorical deaths that we have experienced and grieve, and in spite of the fact that many of our circumstance and realities have not changed, we are alive<\/em>.\u00a0 The power of resurrection is loose in the world, and we are invited to join with God and with our companions in faith and with creation to recognize it.\u00a0 We are invited, as was Lazarus, to witness to its presence and activity in our own lives as we live them.\u00a0 We are invited to invite others to accept the gifts of hope that the power of resurrection offers.<\/p>\n

Even over the last year, we have seen the signs.\u00a0 The realization that the people we may have ignored in the past have actually been essential to our well-being as they cared for our health, provided food and other necessities, continued to teach our children, and worked quickly and effectively to keep and expand our safety through science and healing, often with great sacrifice and at great risk.\u00a0 While our lack of mobility was often frustrating, the planet, free from the overload of toxins from extractive industry, began to rejuvenate its air and water and earth. \u00a0Many people have used the last months to make changes in their lives, to embark on new work or to learn new skills.\u00a0 The creativity involved in keeping us connected virtually with people, with art, with music, with drama, and with humor has amazed, nourished, and inspired us.\u00a0 Movements have arisen all over the country to claim and act for justice for those so long silenced and oppressed.\u00a0 These are signs of what is possible through the power of resurrection at work in the world, even in the midst of trauma and loss.\u00a0 And, we are alive<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our earthly resurrection will be what we make it.\u00a0 We can start, each of us and all of us together, to recognize and claim God\u2019s resurrection power in our own lives.\u00a0 Where and with whom or with what has resurrection been specific to us in our own lives over these last months?\u00a0 Who or what, specifically, has inspired us, kept us going, brought us to laughter? \u00a0How do we most want to celebrate our earthly resurrection?\u00a0 And because, like Lazarus, we have vested interests around us that intend us to stay afraid and overwhelmed and intend things to stay the same and intend to maintain their power and control, what specific changes do we need to make, what specific new skills do we need to learn, what specific new work does God invite us to do toward new life and flourishing for ourselves and for all our neighbors in creation?<\/p>\n

Earthly resurrection is complicated.\u00a0 As he did with Lazarus, Jesus calls us to Come out! of this time with a loud voice, because the call comes surrounded by the swirls of challenge and danger, and often a tomb seems to seduce with its quiet and safety.\u00a0 But it is no place for us, people of faith.\u00a0 For willy-nilly, we are alive<\/em>.\u00a0 And as in faith we accept our earthly resurrection in this place and time, so we will continue to experience it until we too rise in the resurrection on the last day.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Minister for Visitation<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service John 11:17\u201344 Click here to hear just the sermon Lazarus is dead.\u00a0 Four days dead in his tomb.\u00a0 His sisters Martha and Mary and many friends weep, and their greetings to Jesus when he finally arrives also hint of reproach.\u00a0 From Mary:\u00a0 \u201cLord, if you had been here, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3198"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3203,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions\/3203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}