(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)
Many things in this world smell bad, but I’m told there is no stench like that of a decomposing corpse. (I have no first-hand experience.) One reason we put our dead into graves and tombs is to insulate us from the smell of decay. So I can only imagine the shock to those gathered outside Lazarus’ tomb when Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone.
Martha, ever the housekeeper, so much more earth-bound than her spiritual sister Mary, has no trouble speaking what everyone was no doubt thinking. “The stench, Lord; did you forget the dead smell?” I can hear the subtext: “Are you so lost in the clouds in your holiness and preaching, you don’t know what a dead person can smell like?”
Martha, bless her, is naming reality. The world needs more people like her, who will just say what needs to be said. And yet, that very gift, of stating the unpleasant facts in a given situation, can also keep one from believing in an outcome better than anyone can imagine. And Jesus was promising an outcome that no one could ever have imagined.
We have a notion that holiness smells good. There are psalms about our prayers rising before God as incense. This story reminds us that, on the way to seeing the glory of God, we often pass through some pretty revolting messes. We want to be protected from the messes, but as Good Friday, not to mention our own experience, teaches us, that’s not how God works. Our Good News affirms that God walks with us through the muck and mud, enduring the reek of things dead and decaying, and shows us in ways we cannot imagine how life can break forth, even there.
Think of the way a rose bush might grow through, even because, of the dung used to fertilize it, its fragrance the sweeter for the fetid ground in which it was born.
Jesus knew life was breaking forth. Martha trusted Jesus.
So they took away the stone.
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(You can listen to this reflection here.)
There’s a whole lotta weepin’ goin’ on in the Lazarus story. Nowhere else in the Gospels is Jesus shown being this emotionally expressive. His response to the grief of Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, is not surprising, given his closeness to that family. But it stands in marked contrast to the coolness with which he talked to his disciples about delaying going to Lazarus after being summoned to help (here's the first part of the story). Now, we’re told, Jesus is “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep.
Whatever the reason for Jesus’ open weeping – and I suspect the reasons were multiple and complex –this scene reminds us that before we get to the Good News and life everlasting, we need to acknowledge our need to weep. Even Jesus. Our Episcopal funeral liturgy is so Easter-focused, and I am often in such a hurry to proclaim the life beyond death, the life we can experience even in the midst of death – “Even at the grave we make our song, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!” – that I wonder if I give people the freedom to rest in grief awhile.
This story we tell this week, and the Feast of All Saints in general, are very much about the Life that lies beyond death. Yet we need to take our time getting to that life. This Friday, on All Souls Day, I am having a eucharist and lunch at my church, intended particularly to make space for those who are carrying deep burdens of grief. It’s a reminder that when we need to, we can pause with Jesus, and weep.
In fact, when we weep, we might invite Jesus to pause with us, knowing he is no stranger to strong emotions. After all, he came into this life with a heart like ours, and he died and rose again that we might have a heart like his.
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(You can listen to this reflection here.)
Next Sunday we mark All Saints Day, which to me is more about celebrating the living saints we are than the ones who’ve gone before us into glory. At first glance, the gospel reading appointed has an “All Souls” feel, more focused on death than on sainthood. Or does it?
The story is about Jesus’ raising of Lazarus, who was very dead, and three days buried. Before we get to that big death-into-life moment, though, John brings us right into the very human emotions being experienced by those close to Lazarus – and by Jesus. We start with disappointment
When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
“If you had been here.” How often do we feel that when someone is hurt or dies? “Lord, where were you?” A theological answer, “Right here, standing with you in the pain and the mess,” doesn’t always satisfy. In the moment, we are with Martha and Mary: “You could have prevented this. Why didn’t you come right away when we called?”
Disappointment always accompanies death. Even when death brings relief, there is disappointment that the person we love came to the point where that was the best outcome. Disappointment comes because we always hope for a better outcome, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. That is faith, isn’t it? Mary and her sister knew that Jesus could have healed Lazarus from his illness if only he’d come sooner.
How can we better balance our faith in what God can do, with greater faith in what God is doing beyond where we can see or imagine? It takes that kind of faith to accept death, which St. Paul called “the final enemy.” We get there, I think, by putting our focus onto life, the life around us, and the Life to come. God-Life is the antidote to all our dashed hopes, broken dreams, unfulfilled expectations.
I once read an article about new approaches to breast cancer. One woman with some early indicators who decided to take a “wait and see” approach rather than medical interventions said, “What I am doing is not foolproof, I know that. I also know life is finite and that death is unavoidable. For me it came down to the quality of life I want to live… And come what may, I think we really hurt ourselves by trying to just not be dead.”
Jesus came that we might have Life, in abundance. God wants so much more for us than just not being dead. Accepting death's inevitability, and the Life with God beyond, can make us more aware of God with us in the times of loss. This side of the grave or the other, as Lazarus discovered, there is Life.
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(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)
Stories function in interesting ways. While we generally love to hear a story we haven’t encountered before, we are also very attached to the stories we already know. We don’t like people messing with our old stories – even their authors. “I love to tell the story,” goes the old-timey gospel hymn, “The old, old story of Jesus and his love.”
Yet that “old, old story” is ever becoming new in our lives. In order to really accept healing and freedom and renewal, we need to be able to believe a different narrative than the one that has defined our lives so far, a different story than the one our culture or our parents or our work has told us. We can get trapped by what we have experienced as “normal.” Jesus’ gift is to show us the new normal, to show us what can be in the midst of what is.
Bartimaeus believed this story he had heard about, and it gave him power to walk out of his old story into the new.
The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
Physical sight and following Jesus meant giving up a certain kind of identity, a degree of security. Walking into our new stories always does. That’s why we often stay stuck in situations that are less than what God might want for us.
What old stories have defined you for too long?
One way to get at that question is with this one: What are you pretending not to know?
What new story is calling you? Maybe it’s a vocation stirring in you, to use your time and gifts in some way other than how you have been. Maybe it’s a different place, a new person to love, a rediscovery of yourself. What is trying to be born in you?
Bartimaeus left his roadside and followed Jesus – right into Jerusalem, where Jesus was first lauded, and soon after condemned to a brutal death. That new story might not have been at all what Bartimaeus hoped for – and maybe it was more. For he got to witness firsthand the greatest love story the world has ever known. And he got to be around when that perfect man who had poured himself out for us, even to death, rose from the grave to usher all of us into the New, New Story God is writing.
And that story, like God’s mercies, is new every morning, as we allow it to claim us.
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(You can listen to this reflection here.)
“What do you want me to do for you?” What a beautiful question! How often does someone ask us that? Think about it; what would you answer if someone stood before you now and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”
I can think of a billion things, mostly having to do with my to-do list. Find me some time off. Bless my congregations with a deeper thirst for the Spirit. Increase my metabolism.
What if the person asking you that could do anything, even move heaven and earth? That’s what Bartimaeus experienced in this week’s story.
And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’
It might seem a ridiculous question – isn’t it obvious a blind man wants to see? Yet Jesus did Bartimaeus the honor of asking him to speak his desire. He didn’t assume, he didn’t impose. He asked, inviting relationship.
Jesus gives us the same honor, and the same freedom. Yes, God knows what we need, better than we do. And God wants us to ask, just as we want our children to ask for what they desire. Prayer is not about getting what we want, three wishes granted by a genie. Prayer is about drawing closer in relationship to the God who loves us. As we can ask in freedom, God responds in freedom.
Of course, we don’t always understand the response. Just as we don’t give our children everything they ask, for reasons that are mysterious to them, we sometimes experience a “no” from God. I assume that if Bartimaeus had said, “I want you to smite those who harass me,” Jesus would not have complied. We can be sure, though, that we worship a God who desires wholeness for us in body, mind and spirit.
I have preached on this story in nursing homes, to people in wheelchairs, some of them young, many quick of mind, trapped in a failing body. That tested my faith: “What do you want me to do for you?” Still I went about praying for God’s healing love to be released in each one as I shared the eucharist. Though I longed to see quickened limbs and straightened spines, I hold fast the conviction that Jesus’ power is undiminished and his presence real.
It's not always instant. Yet I will proclaim his goodness and love, and keep telling him what I would like him to do for me, and for this beautiful, hurting world.
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(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)
They tried to hush him, this blind man sitting by the road, shouting out for Jesus: Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’
It was too late. Jesus had heard the commotion and stopped:
Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
What wonderful energy is conveyed in that sentence, in Bartimaeus’ actions. He throws off his cloak. He springs up. He comes to Jesus.
Wait a minute, springing up and going to Jesus I get. But why did he throw off his cloak? What did that cloak signify? Perhaps it represented his identity as a beggar. It may have been more than protection against the elements – if he lived by that road, as some beggars did, it may have been his sleeping bag as well. It may have been his most prized possession as well as a symbol of his degradation.
Whatever that cloak represents, his throwing it away speaks volumes: Bartimaeus knew that he wasn’t going to need it anymore. Before he got to Jesus’ side, he was so sure about Jesus’ power to heal, that he cast it aside and came to Jesus exposed and vulnerable. Bartimaeus was ready to cast off the story that had defined him. Bartimaeus was ready for a new story. Bartimaeus was ready for healing.
What “cloaks” do we cling to that may inhibit our faith? What cloaks define our status in this world? For some, the cloak might represent security, like safe homes and bank accounts. For some, it may be patterns of addiction that are safe and familiar, no matter how deadly. For some, it’s carrying too much weight, or being busy all the time.
Do we continue to benefit from habits and patterns and wounds that may tell a truth about our lives, but not the whole truth, not God’s truth? Bartimaeus had a certain safety in his life as a beggar; little was asked of him; he was cared for, more or less. But he was ready to toss that away and move into a new life.
Is there a time when you have tossed away your cloak in faith, confident that God was up to something in your life – or at least ready to stand before God vulnerable and expectant? Did you ever take it back again? (It can be distressingly easy to find the cloaks we throw aside…).
Is there anything you cling to now, that may hold you back from putting your full trust in God? What if you talked with Jesus about it? What if, in imaginative prayer, you asked Bartimaeus what it felt like to throw away a garment that both protected and falsely defined him?
Bartimaeus was ready. He believed, and he sprang. Jesus is calling you and me to his side too. What need we throw away so we are free to spring up and go to him?
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