Sermon: Passing through graveyards on our way to life (Apr. 2, 2017)

Lent 5A

April 2, 2017

John 11, Ezekiel 37

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            When I lived in a Slovak village for a year, I lived in a house just outside of town. Every day, when I walked to the school to teach English, I had to walk by the village cemetery. It was a beautiful little cemetery, holding in it the history of the village. Generations of Vrbovce residence were buried there, and I could often see people in there with a bucket and a brush, cleaning their loved ones’ gravestones. I came to love that cemetery, but I admit when I first moved there, I was really uneasy about the fact that, to get into town, to work, to church… I had to pass through a graveyard.

Vrbovce Cemetery on a winter morning

We also have to pass through the graveyard on our way to Easter. In fact, a few different graveyards. The obvious one is that hill called Golgatha, which we’ll hear about next week on Palm Sunday when we hear the story of Jesus’ passion, and we’ll reflect upon what happened on that hill for the week following. This year, we also pass through two other graveyards: the Valley of Dry Bones, and the tomb of Lazarus.

            Graveyards are interesting places, aren’t they? Thinking of that one I mentioned in my Slovak village, I have several memories associated with it: I remember being in it on a beautiful, sunny day in November, All Saints Day, even as I was deeply mourning the recent loss of a dear friend. I remember it, a couple months later, being quietly covered in snow. And, I remember, that it was on the sidewalk in front of that graveyard that I first discerned a call to ministry – walking down that sidewalk is when I first put all the pieces together and realized that God was pushing me to be a pastor. There is something about graveyards, isn’t there, that strip us of our usual protections, that allow us truly to see how God is working in and through us.

            The two graveyards we encounter today are no exception. The Valley of Dry Bones is such a vivid description of this potential. As if a valley full of bones wasn’t dismal enough, Ezekiel elaborates, “They were very dry.” There was no hope left here. There was no life. To any mortal eye, nothing could be done here. And yet, as God leads Ezekiel through this vision, commanding him to “prophecy to the bones” – these very dry, dead, hopeless bones – we see that with God, hope is never lost. Even when death had never been clearer, lo and behold, bones start to come together, sinews and skin begin to form. And then, then, the breath: as Ezekiel prophesies to that breath, sure enough God’s holy breath enters those bones, no longer dry, no longer hopeless. Now, what had been dead is very much alive. And God assures Ezekiel that this is the promise of God at work: God will reach into the places of our hearts that are dry, despairing and dejected, reach into our very graves, and breathe hope into our hopelessness, sustenance into our dryness, and life into our death. “And you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.” If the breath of God can bring life to a bunch of very dry, hopeless bones in a valley, what dry, hopeless bones in our own lives can God breathe life into once again? Into the bones of a broken family? Into the bones of an aching church? Into the bones of a divided country? Where and how can God’s Holy Breath once again bring life and wholeness?

            The scene at Lazarus’ tomb is no less dramatic. By now, Lazarus’ bones may not be dry, but they are certainly hopeless – four days already he has been dead! Many are weeping. Sisters Mary and Martha are dejected, and it seems, even a bit

Raising of Lazarus, Giotto
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46567

resentful at Jesus – both of them say, with what I imagine to be a bitter tone, “If you had been here, Jesus, he wouldn’t have died!” How could Jesus let this happen?? Hadn’t they been faithful? Was Jesus not their dear friend? Oh, these are questions we all ask at some point in our lives. Why did God let this happen? We are dead, broken, hopeless, dejected, we are a pile of dry bones, and where was God?

            Like we heard last week with the healing of the man born blind, Jesus responds that this happened this way so that God’s glory would be revealed. Of course we know how this story ends up – in a loud voice, Jesus calls Lazarus out of his grave, and into life. It is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, known, at least conceptually, even by most of the secular world. But with this particular miracle, this particular instance of bringing life out of death, there is this additional component worth mentioning: Jesus includes the community in the work of bringing about that new life.

            “Unbind him and let him go,” he says. Because life – that is, breathing and walking and a beating heart – is not the same as freedom. Lazarus, as he stumbles out of the grave, may be alive, but he is still bound… just as you and I are still bound. “We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves,” we confessed this morning, as we do each week. And what is life, anyway, if we are still bound? What is life without freedom – freedom from the albatross of sin, freedom from our past mistakes that still hang over us, freedom from our fears about the future, freedom from whatever resentments we may hold? Really, it is no life at all.

            It is not until we are unbound, stripped and relieved of all these bindings, that we can move on into the newness of life that God promises. “Unbind him and let him go,” Jesus says to those gathered around Lazarus’ grave, inviting them to be active participants in that redemptive work.

But let’s also admit this – the unbinding process is not without its own struggles. As sister Martha points out, “There is already a stench!” Or as the King James Version puts it, “By this time, he stinketh!” Because when we are bound, when our skin and our hearts have not had the chance to feel the refreshment of air and movement, it really starts to stink and ache. Anyone who has spent time in a cast knows this – when you remove the cast, it stinketh! When you move that body part for the first time, it aches a little. And yet, both of these are required for complete healing to occur. Putting back on the cast or binding won’t help the stink or the healing any more than Lazarus hobbling back into the grave will help him to enter the new life Christ has called him into.

            And so Jesus urges those gathered to “unbind him and let him go.” And presumably, they do – with what I imagine must have been some level of fear and trepidation. What a tender job Jesus has called them into. Each binding must be removed with great care, and each one likely unveiled a new level of stench. And just imagine how it must have felt for Lazarus – what a confusing and disorienting experience this must have been for him! In this most vulnerable and disorienting moment he has placed his heart and well-being completely in the care of that gathered community, reliant on their willingness to be gentle and tender with him as they unbind him from his death.

            How remarkable it is, then, that Jesus would call that community into this tender, important job, this essential piece of God’s redemptive work. I wonder if, as they gently and carefully unbound Lazarus, one binding at a time, if the figurative bindings also fell from their own hearts, as the truth of who Christ is became so viscerally clear. Christ is one who calls us into life. Christ is one who, even as he weeps with us, also breathes hope into our hopelessness. Christ is one who frees and forgives, even as he invites us into the community work of seeking freedom and forgiveness – gently and tenderly working together to bring about healing, bearing together the stench and ache of the process… but also promising us throughout it that God can bring new life even to the hopelessness of dry bones, the desperation of a lost people, the resentfulness of two sisters who felt things should have happened differently, even to the stinky death of a dear friend.

            The graveyard can be a lot of things. It can be a place to mourn and lament, to be sure. But it can also be a place to receive God’s promise – a new call, renewed hope, and the promise of life everlasting.

            Let us pray… God of hope and life, you enter into our hopelessness, the dryness of our bones, and bring new life. Even more, you call us to participate in that redemptive work. That new life is not always easy for us, Lord, but we ask you also to bring us patience with each other, a willingness to be both vulnerable and trusting, and confidence that your hand guides us and your love supports us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Explaining things that can't be explained (Mar. 26, 2017)

Lent 4A

March 26, 2017

John 9

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Some things in faith cannot be explained; they can only be experienced.

            The man who was formerly blind could tell you that. Here is a man who was really just minding his own business. He wasn’t seeking out Jesus, or any sort of healing, for that matter. He was, if not content, at least accepting of his lot in life: he had been born blind. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was his parents’ fault, or maybe it just was. Whatever the case, there he was: a man born blind, who sat by the road hoping for handouts from strangers. One thing he knew: there was no use complaining about it.

            Then along comes Jesus. He happens upon this man-born-blind, and his disciples immediately try to find an explanation for this man’s experience. Surely his state had been caused by something. Surely there was a nice, neat, understandable, theological explanation for his situation: either this man sinned or his parents did, and that is why he was born blind.

            I think we can appreciate where the disciples are coming from. Don’t we want to understand “why”? Who among us has not shaken his or her proverbial fist at God and asked, “Why this, God? Why now??” Even if the question is not anguished, we still would really like to understand why this world works the way it does.

This past week, we finished our confirmation lesson a bit early, so we spent the last half hour doing what I like to do at least once a year: a little game of “stump the pastor.” I allow them to ask whatever questions they want about God and faith, and I do my best to answer them. I am always fascinated to hear what their questions are. Sometimes I have very clear answers for them. But often I resort to some version of my dad’s favorite answer for unanswerable God-questions: “It’s a mystery.” Whenever I gave them that answer, all those teen and pre-teen faces looked back at me with a mix of frustration, resignation, and a touch of wonder, as they tried to wrap their heads around the reality that when it comes down to it, God and God’s ways cannot be explained.

            Whether you are a 1^st century Jew or a 21^st century middle-schooler, it feels much more satisfying to have a real, concrete answer to help you make sense of the world and its brokenness. We desperately want to see, to know, to understand. We don’t want to be kept in the dark, in our spiritual blindness.

            In the story of the man born blind, those seeking answers don’t receive the sort of answers they want – the sort that match up with their understanding of the world – but they do receive some answers. Let’s look at three ways this story makes sense of things that don’t make any sense.

            The first way is actually Jesus’ first answer to the disciples’ question about who sinned that this man was born blind. Jesus answers simply, “No one sinned. He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed through him.” What a gorgeous light this possibility shines on our brokenness! Like a vase that is cracked, but because of that brokenness, we can see the light of a candle flickering inside, and filling the cracks and the room with its light.

I remember sitting in my living room after being diagnosed with cancer just one year into my call here. I was incredibly frustrated, and lamenting to my dad, “Why, when I have such a promising ministry before me, doing what God called me to do, would God slap me with cancer right now?” In his wisdom, my dad responded, “So that you can have such a promising ministry before you.” In other words, God would use even that to make me stronger, wiser, and more equipped to serve. That’s what we see in the story of the blind man: the brokenness of this guy who is judged and looked down on by passers-by meets up with the love of Christ, and suddenly, his brokenness is transformed into an opportunity to witness and to share his story.

            The second way Jesus helps the disciples and us to make sense of what cannot be explained is in his enigmatic closing line, offered in response to the Pharisees asking, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus answers, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” At first glance, this is a real head scratcher. But I think it is well explained by this little bit of scripture that starts off our confession each week: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” In other words, Jesus is using blindness as a metaphor for an inability or an unwillingness to see our own sin. If we say we can see just fine, that we know exactly what is going on (and, too often, that whatever problem you are facing is definitely someone else’s fault), then “we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Because there is always more to see than what is on the surface. There is always more to understand. Like when we see a man born blind and assume either he or his parents sinned. Or, we look at someone living in poverty and assume it is a consequence of their own bad choices. Or, someone says or does something we don’t like, and we assume they are in the wrong, without considering why they might have said or done what they did.

            On the other hand, Jesus says, if we acknowledge that we don’t always see everything clearly, that indeed sometimes we are blind, and confess that blindness to God, then, we might regain our sight. That’s what Lent is all about, right? It is a time of examining those places in our hearts that are not quite clean, times we have fallen short of the Christian call to love and serve God and our neighbor – and then confessing them, praying that God would create in us clean hearts. Lent is a time of recognizing our own spiritual blindness, and asking that God would give us sight.

            The third way to make sense of things we cannot understand is to recognize that sometimes experience is far more valuable than explanations. I just love the simplicity of the formerly blind man’s testimony. Everyone wants from him an explanation of who did this and how it happened, and he responds, “I don’t know who he is. One thing I do know is that though I was blind, now I see.” Plain and simple. He has experienced the life-giving love and grace of God. He doesn’t know why or how, just that he experienced it, and it is absolutely true.

            Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about such an experience she had in seminary. She writes, “Suddenly, in that moment, all I could think was: What I am doing? Seminary? Seriously? With a universe this vast and unknowable, what are the odds that this story of Jesus is true? Come on, Nadia. It’s a fairy tale. And then the very next moment I thought this: Except that throughout my life, I’ve experienced it to be true.” She goes on, “I cannot pretend, as much as I sometimes would like to, that I have not throughout my life experienced the redeeming, destabilizing love of a surprising God. Even when my mind protests, I still can’t deny my experiences. This thing is real to me. Sometimes I experience God when someone speaks the truth to me, sometimes in the moment when I admit I am wrong, sometimes in the loving of someone unlovable, sometimes in the reconciliation that feels like it comes from somewhere outside of myself, but almost always when I experience God it comes in the form of some kind of death and resurrection.” She concludes, “I have only my confession – confession of my own real brokenness and confession of my own real faith.”[1]

            Sometimes it is those experiences that are the only way to understand the mysterious ways of God. Words and reason only go so far. But at its core, faith is a series of stories, of experiences we have in which we were blind, but now we see, when we were lost but now are found, when we were in the darkness of death, but now we are alive. That is the story of Jesus. And it is a story of which we all are a part.

            I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

            Let us pray… Mysterious God, we crave certainty and answers. Help us to find certainty in the story of your love, and answers in the profound ways we experience your life-giving love in our lives. Grant us the courage to share those stories with the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Photo credit: Jesus heals a man born blind by JESUS MAFA

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48383, accessed 3/28/17

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[1] Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Sermon: Talking with "Others" (March 19, 2017)

Lent 3A

March 19, 2017

John 4:3-42

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            I belong to a group on Facebook of ELCA clergy. It is sometimes very helpful and enlightening, and other times very frustrating. This week I experienced the latter: a pastor who I know from previous posts to be very opinionated (and a bit abrasive), said that some Gideons had come to her office, wanting to speak to the congregation. You know the Gideons – they are the ones who work to get Bibles in hotel rooms and elsewhere. Well, after some reading I also learned that the Gideons are an evangelical Christian group of “business and professional men and their wives.” In other words, blue collar workers and women (except wives of members) are excluded from this group. So, in this woman’s post, she wrote, “I told a couple of sexist, classist men that as long as I am pastor here, Gideons will never be welcome to speak.”

            Though I can appreciate her gumption, this also rubbed me the wrong way. I suggested in the comments that perhaps instead of telling them wholesale that they were unwelcome, perhaps she could have invited them into a conversation about it, asked what in the gospel supported the group’s rules about membership, and then express her concerns about it. Let’s just say… she didn’t think that was a good idea. “Who has time or energy for that?” she asked. “When has politeness ever changed the system or gotten us any closer to justice? They wouldn’t have been receptive to the idea, anyway.” And then she assured me that she did not regret what she said. Well. Okay then.

            It was right after this encounter that I started studying today’s Gospel text. This is such a rich and stunning encounter, for so many reasons. First of all, it follows after the story of Nicodemus, from whom the woman at the well could not be more different. Nicodemus is a powerful and influential Jewish man. She is a woman, a Samaritan (which means she was racially, religiously, and politically despised by Jews), she is poor, and, we come to find out, she has had five husbands – likely because of some combination of being widowed and divorced.

She is as “other” to Jesus as she can possibly be. Which makes it all the more remarkable that Jesus is talking to her at all, let alone in the bright noonday light. Everyone knows he has no business doing that. Yet, we also know that he is speaking to her very intentionally. The text tells us, “But he had to go through Samaria.” A look at a map will show you Samaria was really not on the way to Galilee. When John tells us Jesus “had to” go there, he means, because it was essential to Jesus’ mission to cross this border, into a place full of racial, political, and religious others. It was essential to have this conversation with this woman, right now.

There is so much for us to learn from this conversation, especially at our particular time in history. We all lament the divisive state of our country right now, and especially the ways this divisiveness has made its way even into our personal relationships. That’s why it is so important to witness this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, because, very practically, it shows us how to have conversations with people different from us, but in which God is present, and because it shows us that when we do that, we get a glimpse of the very nature of God, and are transformed for mission.

JESUS MAFA. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.
 http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48282
(Accessed 3/24/17)

The first thing to notice about this conversation between Jesus and the unnamed Samaritan woman is that it begins in a place of mutual vulnerability. We know that she is vulnerable – she is a widowed or divorced Samaritan woman talking to a Jewish male. But Jesus begins the conversation by expressing his own need: he is thirsty. Furthermore, it is a need that he needs her help to fill. It’s not very often that our conversations with others start this way. Generally, I think we go into a conversation with someone who differs from us with the intention of proving we are right, not by confessing that we have a need that can only be satisfied by being in relationship with the other. Yet this is the way God chooses to start a conversation with this woman, and with us. Mutual vulnerability.

The next thing to notice about the conversation is the centrality of questions – not rhetorical questions, or questions that will ultimately prove that you are right, or to catch someone in a logical fallacy. Instead, questions that are genuinely curious about the other, that reflect an interest in the other and a longing for information. The woman is full of questions for Jesus, and Jesus makes space for them. Rather than requiring her to keep quiet, as would be customary for a woman in the first century, she becomes a conversation partner with Jesus, asking him pressing theological questions – about proper worship, and the nature of God. By engaging in these questions, the relationship between God and the woman is strengthened.

The third thing to notice is that conversations like this, that are genuinely interested in the other, take time. I was interested, thinking back to my exchange with my colleague on Facebook, that her response was, “Do you have the time and energy to develop relationships with every sexist, classist person who comes across your path?” And, well, I suppose the answer is no, because developing relationships, especially with people who are different from you, or with whom you adamantly disagree, takes a lot of time and energy. But does that mean we shouldn’t try? Does it mean we shut it down before it has even started, or after the very first bump in the road? Jesus surely doesn’t. The woman knows she has no business talking to this man; nevertheless, she persists, and Jesus give her all the time in the world to do so, and because of that, when she finally does leave she goes straight to the city to tell everyone about her encounter with God. She has been changed by the encounter.

Which brings us to the fourth point: when you have a conversation with or about Jesus, expect to be surprised, and expect to be changed. Expect that through conversation with one of God’s children, God will reveal something important to you, something about God that you had never noticed before. The last thing Jesus says to this woman before she goes into the city, is to reveal to her exactly who he is: “I am he,” he says. It is the first of Jesus’ many “I am” statements in the Gospel of John – the statements that elaborate on God’s revelation to Moses at the burning bush, when God describes Godself as, “I am who I am.” And in this way Jesus revealed himself to the Samaritan woman – and so also is God revealed to us, when we genuinely, humbly, and thoughtfully engage with the other.

            The work of conversation, especially with those who differ from us racially, religiously, ethnically, or ideologically, is terribly difficult work. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable with one another and to let ourselves be truly seen by one another. It requires asking a lot of questions and then really listening to the answers with the intention to learn, not to debunk or refute. It takes a lot of time and energy and practice – we often fail at it (I know I do!). And even when we do succeed, it often results in our being changed – and we all know that change is rarely easy or smooth. But when we listen to one another this way, we also open ourselves to the possibility of listening to and hearing God, and then, to being transformed by God.

            Just look at what happened to the woman. She comes to him as a shamed and ashamed person in her society. After her genuine, vulnerable, thoughtful conversation with Jesus, she goes back into the city and witnesses to her experience with God. She tells others how she has been touched and changed by the encounter. And because of her witness, many others come to believe in Christ. Could that happen also with us? Might we find that when we engage with one another in this way, and they with us, we also experience more deeply the love of a God who came into the world to save the world?

            My hope and prayer is that when we follow the example of this remarkable conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we will not only know more deeply the love of God and be changed, but that by our being changed, God might also change those whom we encounter. God’s love has the power to transform this broken world; let us go out to share that love with the world.

            Let us pray… God on the margins, you love and engage with even those we have no interest in. Embolden us, and open our hearts to be touched and moved by our encounters with those who are different from us in race, gender, or creed, so that we would be empowered to share your love with the world you came to save. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.