Lent 5, April 5, 2014
Both Martha and
then Mary’s first words to Jesus are words of reproach and disappointment,
"Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Days before, the sisters had sent a message
to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But Jesus didn’t hurry to their side to heal
his friend Lazarus.
As
you probably know, the gospels sometimes have more than one layer of meaning,
and sometimes words attested to Jesus are put there only in hindsight of the
events as they occurred to help explain an otherwise potentially embarrassing
fact. So it is likely that the oddly
formal statement, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's
glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it," is there to
explain why Jesus didn’t immediately go to heal his dear friend but waited a
couple of days before finally deciding to go.
We get a hint about what else
might have behind the delay when the disciples say to him, “Rabbi, the Jews
were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?" Probably they were keeping their distance from
Jerusalem out of fear for their lives, which is also why Thomas, who was called
the Twin, courageously said to his fellow disciples, "We may as well go
too, and die along with him."
Of course, we know the rest of the
story. How ironic that Lazarus, who
was raised from the dead, is destined to outlive the one who raised him. Says Barbara Brown Taylor, “A trade has
occurred and Lazarus does not even know it”. Jesus was more or less safe as long as he stayed
across the Jordan, beyond
the reach of his enemies in Jerusalem.
But by returning to Bethany to save his friend, he has signed his
own death warrant. Practicing what he
preaches, he has traded his life
for the life of one he loved.
If you
will, please come back in time with me to Easter Sunday, April 1977. My younger brother, David--was in church with
me for the first and only time ever—in his 17 years, apart from his baptism as
an infant. If I was there for his
baptism, I was too young to remember.
David had been kicked out of my parents’ home and was living in Ohio
with a girlfriend. (pause) But for some
reason, in the weeks leading up to Easter, he’d been having God on his mind and wanted to
come to church with me for his first experience of Holy Communion ever.
We went to Mass and went out to lunch after, and
talked. He told me he’d been reading the
Bible, and that Jesus felt near and he’d
just decided he wanted to go to church and learn more. We had a great time for a day or two—he and I
had always been very close--and then he was gone, back to Ohio. It would be the last time I’d see him well
and alive. Three weeks later he was in
a devastating car accident and died at a large hospital in Cincinnati, with me
at his side. What had seemed like a
promising beginning with Christ and Church and God for David that Easter, ended
in tragedy. I was heart-broken. “Lord,
if you had been there,” I thought bitterly, “my brother would not have died.” Why hadn’t God protected, shielded, saved—my
brother from that accident, or saved him from the terrible abuses he suffered
at the hands of our parents as a child?
“Lord, if you had been there, maybe none of this would have happened at
all.”
But is that true? Isn’t it more nearly true that in life as we
know it, there is always a tragic gap between what we can imagine could be—but
is not yet—and our gritty, disappointing earthly reality?
This is not how we want it. We want life
and more life, not sickness, accidents and death. And why shouldn’t we? Didn’t Jesus promise us “abundant life?”
Isn’t that the reason we follow this one who is resurrection and life? But the truth is, even for the closest followers
of Jesus—death strikes close to home.
Martha, Mary and I’d guess you and I--want more from Jesus than, “Your
brother will rise again.” We want Jesus
to say, “Your brother did not die at all.”
We can hardly help what we want. And what we want is for Jesus to change not
only our present situation, but the past as well. As one writer puts it,
“Change our ‘now,’ Jesus, and then change our future, and while you are at it,
reach back and change all that has come before.” 1
Parker Palmer, Quaker scholar, educator,
and activist writing in the journal “Weavings,” describes the life of
discipleship as "standing in the
tragic gap." By "tragic
gap" he means the gap between what is and what could and should be; the
gap between the reality of a given situation and an alternative reality we know
to be possible because we have experienced even just a taste of it.
Jesus stood in that “tragic gap” at great
personal cost and risk. Time after time,
he not only risked ritual un-cleanliness for himself, but he risked the wrath
of the religious hierarchy who could not hear or learn from what he did or had
to say. Jesus stood in that “tragic gap”
through his entire ministry, and it finally cost him his life, and not by a
quick and easy death (if there is such a thing) – but of being made a public
spectacle for all to see—through hours of shameful, humiliating dying naked and
bleeding on a Roman cross.
Neither do we, Jesus’ friends and
followers, come to him by insisting on our own idea of how things should
be. We grieve. We come “to the knowledge of salvation by the
experience of forgiveness . . . .” We
grieve and we learn to forgive reality itself—of others and of ourselves—for
being so ordinary, imperfect and so often disappointing. Some of us may have to forgive God—not once
but many times--for not being who--or what--they wanted or expected.
Remember, Jesus didn’t scold Martha for her
foolish wanting. He doesn’t say, at
least not then—“take up your cross.”
No. He just loves her—as he loves
Mary and Lazarus and—his courageous and cowardly disciples--he grieves with
them--and weeps with them for what is/ and was/ and yet to come—even knowing
that death will not have the last word--that for all its’ terrible, crushing
weight—would be “rolled away by the fierce solidarity of his love.” 2
Let me close with a short poem.
Geese appear high over us--pass, and the sky closes. Abandon--
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye--
clear. What we need is here.
What We Need Is Here, by Wendell Berry
1 Kayla McClurg, “Passage by Passage: A gospel journey. Revised Common Lectionary Year A,” (Washington. D.C., inward outward press, 2014) p. 26
2 Ibid.
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