Unbinding
Unbinding
John 11:1-45
Rev. Dr. Christy
Newton
2 April 2017—5th
Sunday of Lent
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the
village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume
and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message
to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’
But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘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.’ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus, after
having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days
longer in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him,
‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there
again?’
Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk
during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night
stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend
Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’
The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has
fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death,
but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was
not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the
Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that
we may die with him.’
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two
miles away, and
many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their
brother. When
Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at
home. Martha said
to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God
will give you whatever you ask of him.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise
again.’
Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise
again in the resurrection on the last day.’
Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and
the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will
live, and everyone
who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’
She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that
you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one
coming into the world.’ When she had said this, she went back and called her
sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for
you.’ And when she
heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was
still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling
her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought
that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
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.’ 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.
So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could
not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
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 for 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. And Jesus looked
upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear
me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they
may believe that you sent me.’
When he had said this, he cried with a loud
voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The
dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face
wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ Many of
the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did,
believed in him.
Remember the questions from Adam’s class last
Sunday: What does it mean to be a
Christian? What are the qualities and
characteristics of Christians?
And then to flip it on its head: What
does American culture and society understand to be Christian? We came up with very different lists.
And I left that conversation feeling like, once
again, the Religious Right has coopted and grotesquely distorted popular
perceptions of my faith. And I left that
conversation feeling like we need to come out—as a community of faith. As
Christians. As progressives. As socially
liberal Christians who adamantly advocate for a social gospel that connects
economic, political, and social policies with the good news of Jesus Christ
here and now.
I left that conversation feeling like we need to
come out as a Christian people who respond to the vulnerable with
compassion; who create communities that welcome, include and care for all
people and all creation; who commit ourselves to defeating any and all deeply
entrenched systems that discriminate and oppress any of God’s beloved children.
I left that conversation feeling like we need to
spend a little time unbinding what we believe and what we stand for—as well as what
we need to repent and what we need to let go of.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski’s metaphor of the lobster
illustrates what I mean by coming out and unbinding. . . . The lobster is a soft mushy animal in a hard, rigid
shell. The shell doesn’t expand. How
does lobster grow? The shell is
quite confining. Under pressure. Uncomfortable. The lobster goes under rock formation to
protect it from predators, and casts off the old shell and produces a new
bigger one. . . . When that new shell becomes
uncomfortable, it repeats. Repeats… numerous
times. “The stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow is
that it feels uncomfortable.” Today it
is so easy to find a quick fix for our discomfort. Valium.
Percocet… we never need to cast off our shell. We must realize that times of stress are also times
that are signals for growth.
In other words, adversity can open us up, unbind
us, and lead us out.
But we must be willing to be authentic—even
when it feels uncomfortable and hard. We
must be willing to cast off what doesn’t fit, come out, and unbind our truth—
to
say what we believe and why it matters—especially in a world that seems to
think that truth is optional and fear is a legitimate tool to “keep people in
their places.” Which is really just
another way to oppress, neglect, and maintain the entrenched status quo.
So, even though it may make us feel
incredibly vulnerable, we must shed that hard, rigid, protective yet confining shell that we have outgrown. And when we do that, each one of us may feel
so very alone, but we’re not. Each one
of us has shells we’ve outgrown. We all
have closets we must come out of. We all
need to burst open the doors that confine us and our spirits in small
spaces.
We need to step out of our closets, unbind
our hearts, and live courageously and with authenticity. We can’t be
content to drift along, living shallowly in the shadows. We are called into life-giving transformation
and greater awareness of the power and possibilities of deeply living. We all need resurrection.
Now, during this Lenten season, we’ve heard
the story of Nicodemus. The Samaritan
Woman at the Well. The story of the Man Blind from Birth. And throughout these stories, Jesus is
talking on one level, and the people, accustomed to understanding things
simplistically and literally, often fail to grasp his deeper and wider
meanings.
Now, in today’s story, first it’s the
disciples—the good ol’ disciples. . . . They just never seem to get it, do they? Do they
really think Lazarus is asleep? And
then it’s Martha. She approaches Jesus
with a bold faith, which empowers her to speak directly to Jesus. But even Martha, in her faithfulness,
misunderstands Jesus’ talk of resurrection.
Jesus clearly tells Martha that Lazarus
will live again because of who he is: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those
who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and
believes in me will never die.” But
when she goes back to Mary, she simply tells her that the nice teacher Jesus is
here. Maybe she doesn’t realize Jesus’ immediate intention? Maybe in her grief, she can’t quite grasp the
enormity of his revelation?
But this resurrection is no futuristic
event. The resurrection Jesus is talking
about happens here and now. It is not
something far away. It is not some
divine bribe or cosmic reward. It is no
pie in the sky. Here, Jesus overhauls
traditional understandings of life and death.
Even people who live can be dead.
And even people who die can live.
As if explicitly preparing us for Holy Week and Good Friday, Jesus
is saying death is not final, and ultimately, it has no power. He teaches us that the life-giving power of
God is limitless—not just after we die—but NOW.
Lazarus
makes this tangible for us. His
illness—like the blind man’s blindness—reveal the glory of God. They remind us that resurrection is a
possibility for each of us right now.
They remind us of the power of stepping out of our closets, unbinding
our hearts, having those hard conversations, and shifting the focus of our
lives—from death, despair, fear, anger, and grief to life, grace, hope, and
joy. Even when we suffer agonizing
losses and we wrestle with intense grief, trauma, and pain. Even then, at some point, we will be visited
by questions about what new life waits for us.
And then, we will have a choice: Will
we cling to the grave clothes?
Or will we
respond to the voice of Christ who calls us to come out?
Unfortunately,
we live in a world where there is a profound focus on death. Shootings, genocide, terrorism, threat of
war, ongoing war. . . . When Jesus came
to Lazarus’s tomb and witnessed so many people consumed by death, he wept. Not just because he loved Lazarus, but
because of the power death wields in the world.
He wept because the destructive power of death was all around him. He wept because he felt its sharp opposition
to God’s generous, life-giving power of love.
He wept because the religious authorities were threatened by his gifts
of transformation. And he weeps still
because this same obsession with death continues to be at work in the world. .
. .
In
the scripture immediately following the one we just read in John, the
Sanhedrin—the highest Judean court and governing body—will meet to decide what to
do about Jesus. . . .
And heavily dependent on
violence to solve their problems, they will decide that Jesus must die. He’s too much of a threat to the
powers-that-be. Giving Lazarus his life will
result in the decision to put Jesus to death. . . .
The
stone was rolled back, Lazarus was unbound, and he left the tomb. But the price is that Jesus has to enter it.
. . . Life, you see, has enemies. Good news has enemies. And even resurrection has enemies.
But
this is not the final word. It is never
the final word. Grace, transformation,
hope, and love have more power, and they offer to unbind us. THIS is the Christian faith I know: Throughout his ministry, Jesus teaches us to
be a life-giving, gracious presence in a world that glorifies bullies, swoons
after violence, and marvels at the spectacle of death. And he stirs in us the power to rise up and
come out of our closets—to embody resurrection and life.
And
if we forget this—in our busyness or the in the commotion of the season—if we
find ourselves dwelling in the anger, fear, bitterness, or anything else that
denies life, let us remember and listen. . . .
It
is Jesus standing just beyond the edge of our tomb, crying out to us in a loud
voice, “You, beloved one, come out!”
Life is waiting.
Amen.
posted by First Christian Church on 10:00 AM
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