24th Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins
The Gospel: John 11: 32-44
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 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 upward 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.”
In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen.
Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this 24th Sunday after Pentecost, and a weekend when we observe the Feast of All Souls. Today we hear a Gospel passage about life abundant. We are called to consider the choices that may lead to a theology of scarcity, or abundance. And let’s remember that we will revisit the Lazarus story again during Lent, because the context of the passages for today eventually causes the council and the high priest to plot Jesus’ death. Indeed, in the Palm Sunday story we hear these words: “So the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify…the Pharisees then said to one another, ‘You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” It is precisely this feeling of powerlessness in the face of a charismatic, potentially dangerous figure that impels the Pharisees to seek Jesus’ death. Indeed, it is the resurrection of Lazarus that leads to Jesus being killed. So, we find a theme that runs throughout these passages and the passion narrative from today, to Holy Week: the theme of ego, hubris, and pride versus self-denial and the death of ego.
This is the paradox that runs throughout the drama that unfolds this week. “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” This paradox is not limited to agricultural examples. In my work as a pastor and therapist I see this remarkable truth borne out again and again. Persons whose egoism, pride, and selfish desires so obscure their true selves that they are trapped in a cage of “I, me, and mine,”—and are thereby cut off from God and others. As my colleague Walter Brueggemann from Columbia Seminary has said, we tend to view the world from the perspective of a theology of scarcity—we live as if there is simply not enough of God’s abundant love to go around. And so, we grasp at those things at hand to secure us in our anxiety—to make us feel whole, to tell ourselves that we can do just fine without relationship to God and others. The ways we seek to do this can often take seemingly benign forms. Indeed, we can often use the very tools with which we are taught to construct our lives, even in wonderful educational institutions. Academic excellence, athletic glory, talents of one kind or another are all good things, to be sure. But it is precisely the nature of the human to be at risk for misusing them—for construing them as ultimate—as enough to ground us in sacred ways—when they cannot. We see this paradox at work in the narrative that unfolds this week. The world is fickle. As Walter Brueggemann has reminded us, the world is often an unreliable place, neither its hostility nor its adoration can be trusted. Those who shouted “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday will shout, “crucify him” on Friday. Jesus’ opponents will succeed in killing him, but their apparent victory will turn to dust as Jesus emerges from the tomb and begins to “draw all people to himself.” Death, in this story, paradoxically ends in relationship. The seed must die if it is to bear fruit. Those who rely too much on the trappings of the ego, and forego the path of servant-hood, are at risk. The paradox is this: to die to ourselves is to live fully, in relationship, with compassion. Indeed, arguably, compassion—a radically relational idea, is the cardinal virtue of the pastoral tradition, and it has a rich heritage in our Judeo-Christian tradition.
In Judaism compassion, or rachamin, is the first of thirteen attributes of God listed in Exodus 34:6. The Hebrew rachamin links compassion to the idea that all human beings are related, and connects compassion with justice and obligation in such a way as to emphasize action, rather than feelings. From the Latin, com-passio, means to suffer with the other. Thus, we accept God’s love for humanity and the intrinsic worth of every individual as a child of God. “Drawing all to himself,” then, God calls us into relationship, and compassion occurs precisely in the context of relationship. But we must get ourselves out of the way for this to happen. I am reminded of a wonderful short story, by Garrison Keillor, in which he recalls a game he played as a teenager, with his beloved Aunt Lois. “My favorite game was strangers,” he said, “pretending that we didn’t know each other. I’d get up and walk to the back of the bus and turn around and come back to the seat and say, “Do you mind if I sit here?” And she said, “No, I don’t mind,” and I’d sit. And she’d say: “A very pleasant day, isn’t it?” We didn’t really speak that way in our family, but she and I were strangers, and so we could talk as we pleased. “Are you going all the way to Minneapolis, then?” “As a matter of fact, ma’am, I’m going to New York City. I’m in a very successful hit play on Broadway, and I came back out here to Minnesota because my sweet old aunt died, and I’m going back to Broadway now on the evening plane. Then next week I go to Paris, France, where I reside on the Champs-Elysees. My name is Tom Flambeau, perhaps you’ve read about me?” “No,” she said, “I’ve never heard of you in my life, but I’m very sorry to hear about your aunt. She must have been a wonderful person.” “Oh, she was pretty old. She was all right, I guess.” “Are you very close to your family, then?” “No, not really. I’m adopted you see. My real parents were Broadway actors—they sent me out to the farm thinking I’d get more to eat, but I don’t think that people out here understand sophisticated people like me.” She looked away from me. She looked out the window for a long time. I’d hurt her feelings. Minutes passed, but I didn’t know her. Then I said, “Talk to me, please.” She said “Sir, if you bother me anymore, I’ll have the driver throw you off this bus.” “Say that you know me. Please.” And then, when I couldn’t bear it one more second, she touched me and smiled, and I was myself again.” Indeed. We become our true selves in the context of relationship. The Gospel of John reminds us of this truth. We must die to the messages of success that we receive so often in our culture—that the path to freedom lies in our self-motivated ambitions and accomplishments and that we are justified in doing whatever is necessary in achieving our goals. And alienation from self, other and God can result in many different forms of death. Jesus was a master at recognizing that relationships have the power to heal what is broken, even when we do not recognize it ourselves.
The story is told of the response of some in Denmark to the Nazi invasion of that country. I first heard this story in a history class at Rhodes College, but it bears repeating here for many reasons. Seems that in 1940, German tanks rumbled across the borders of the peaceful country of Denmark. The Nazi’s, already possessing control of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, encountered little resistance from the small northern nation. Soon, other countries fell to the German forces as well: Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France. Vicky and I have recently returned from Paris, where many reminders of the occupation of that city by Nazi Germany remain. As part of their systematic method of intimidation and oppression, the Germans announced that every Dane of Jewish descent would be required to wear a yellow Star of David. They had done the same thing in Germany and other countries. Any Jew who failed to comply would be put to death. The Star of David, a proud symbol of the Jewish faith and culture, would be used to mark them as undesirable members of society—to rob them of their dignity, their possessions, and even their lives. The Danish government and its people were in no position to do battle against the powerful German army. But their leader, King Christian the 10th, made a bold and courageous move. He called for all the Danish citizens to wear the Star of David, for every Danish household to stand in solidarity as partners with their Jewish neighbors. And remember, many leading theologians of the day used scripture to justify the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Tremendous fear must have gripped the hearts of those first Gentile citizens to venture forth from their homes the morning after the Kings’ announcement. Would they be the only ones to heed the Kings’ announcement? Would they be singled out, prosecuted and killed along with their Jewish brothers and sisters?
What they saw was nothing short of a miracle. There were Stars of David everywhere. The Jews among them wept when they love and support of their fellow Danish citizens. And because the people stood together, the Nazi’s full plan of persecution of Jews in that country was never carried out. God calls us into relationship. And these relationships of accountability and transparency have the power to heal what is broken, to make whole our tendency amid a theology of scarcity that we alone have what we need to secure ourselves. And the great paradoxical truth is that to be fully in relationship, we must die to ourselves and give ourselves over to compassion. This is the great common denominator of the great religions of the Abrahamic tradition. There is plenty of God’s love to go around, and it is passed one to another in relationships like those I have described this morning. Drawing all to himself, Jesus asks that we die to self. In so doing we do not die to excellence in academics, athletics, art and drama—all the wonderful qualities that make this school the remarkable place that it is. Rather, we are asked to keep these goals in perspective, and remain vigilant, lest we lose sight of that which is most deeply human—that it is more important to be in relationship, than to be right—more important to die to self, than to live in the belief that the self is all we need. Yeats reminded us that without relationships of accountability and compassion “things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” Without dying to self, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” This season of All Souls reminds us that these categories are not mutually exclusive. We can be persons of conviction, embodying the Divine spark of compassion that is our God-given gift. God calls us into relationship, where we can become our truest, best selves—precisely when we lose ourselves in service and compassion. In this season of stewardship let us remember to give ourselves away, with gratitude, in relationship. Amen.