Couldn't he have kept [them] from dying? (1st Sunday in Lent; John 11:1-7, 17-29, 32-44; February 18, 2018; Sunday following the Douglas High School Massacre)

Couldn't he have kept [them] from dying?

1st Sunday in Lent
John 11:1-7, 17-29, 32-44
February 18, 2018

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

Lazarus left behind two grieving sisters. Mary and Martha loved Lazarus. Not that he was so hard to love. Their home together was a place of peace. That Mary and Martha got along so well was partly his doing. He was a gentle man who gave a great deal of energy and, in his later years, wisdom to the community. It needed both in the days of Roman occupation. They were proud of him. He was what the later Jewish tradition would call a mensch.

Aside from all that, they needed Lazarus. In that day women who lacked a father, a son, or a brother were vulnerable to predatory relatives and envious neighbors. "How are we going to live without him" was an economic question as well as an emotional one.

Lazarus was dead. His quiet voice would never again fill their home. His strength would never again be their source of safety. His wisdom would never again be a part of the community's decisions. All that he had been or ever would be was lost to them.

Jesus strangely delayed his trip to Bethany for two days, so the burial had already taken place by the time Jesus and the disciples arrived. The word of his approach preceded him and Martha came to greet him on the way. She was not pleased. I suspect she skipped the expected courtesies. She went straight to the heart of the matter: "Lord, if you had been here my brother wouldn't have died." And then, giving him a way to save the situation she made this implicit demand: "Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you." (Hint, hint.)

Jesus replied that Lazarus would rise again.

That was all that she needed: theological platitudes. "It's for the best. He's in a better place. This is God's plan."

I hear sarcasm in her response: "I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day…[blah, blah, blah]." Of course, I hear sarcasm in a lot of places, so you can make up your own mind.

Jesus then made a short speech about being the resurrection and the life. You know it because it is a part of our funeral service. Then he asked Martha if she believed this. She dodged the question.

She dodged the question, but she went to their house, found Mary, and told her that Jesus was asking for her. Mary went to Jesus. You remember Mary, don't you? Gentle, quiet Mary, sitting at Jesus' feet, soaking up his every word. Meek Mary, nice Mary. She went to where Jesus was, fell to her knees and greeted him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died."

Jesus, Mary, and the crowd, including some of the city folk from Jerusalem went to the tomb at Jesus' request. Some of the city folk said to each other, "If he had been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died." Well, I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.

At the tomb Jesus ordered the stone to be removed over the objections of Martha who pointed out that after four days the smell would be awful. Lazarus has not fallen into a coma; Lazarus is dead.

Jesus prayed a short prayer and called for Lazarus to come out of the tomb. And out Lazarus came. With his feet and hands still bound and his face covered, we are not to imagine Lazarus walking out of the cave blinking at the bright light of day. Jesus speaks and Lazarus is alive and standing in the cave doorway. Jesus' speech has the same power to give life that God has in the creation story in Eden.

Then Jesus ordered the people there to untie Lazarus and let him go.

"I am the resurrection and the life," said Jesus. "Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

I am sure that these words of Jesus and this episode in John's gospel were an assurance to John's community that, whatever the outcome of their struggles, in the end they were safe within God's care. In their baptismal connection to Jesus they had already become a part of the resurrection. Nothing could change that. Being thrown out of the synagogue couldn't change that. Losing their friends and families couldn't change that. Even death couldn't change that. All's well that ends well.

But.

But I cannot help but find this a less than satisfying response to the outrage of death. Oh, I appreciate and I trust that those who have died are safely in the hands of a loving God. I appreciate and trust that I may commend the friends and family members to God's care.

But.

But a belief in the general resurrection of the dead somehow misses the point. It didn't soothe Martha when she confronted Jesus in her outrage and anger at her loss and at Jesus' absence when it really mattered. I doesn't soothe me either. The pain of grief cannot be eased by theological bumper stickers. Loss cannot be talked away. And, whatever may await our loved ones on the other side of death, our loss is permanent.

Lazarus was summoned back to life from the grave. Good for him and, of course, for his sisters. I don't begrudge his restoration to Mary and Martha.

But Mary and Martha are not the only ones in the world who grieve. Lazarus is not the only one in the world who has died and is waiting for a summoning call. We have suffered our own losses in our families and our communities. This week we suffered seventeen tragic deaths in our nation that did not have to happen. The lives of seventeen students and their teachers ended because one young white man believed that he was entitled to act out his rage through violence against people who never hurt him. Beautiful, loving, dedicated people, all of them young (by my reckoning) are mourned today in part because one organization that serves as the public face of the small arms industry has bribed the Congress into silence and inaction.

There were seventeen of them and they are irreplaceable:

• Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, played soccer.
• Scott Beigel, 35, was a geography teacher killed while trying to usher his students back into his classroom.
• Martin Duque Anguiano, 14, was sweet and caring and funny.
• Nicholas Dworet, 17, was a senior who was headed to the University of Indianapolis on a swimming scholarship.
• Aaron Feis, 37, assistant football coach, threw himself in front of his students to protect them. He had run toward the sound of the gunfire.
• Jaime Guttenberg, 14. His father says, "I am broken..trying to figure out how my family gets through this."
• Chris Hixon, 49, the school’s athletic director, had survived a 2007 deployment to Iraq.
• Luke Hoyer, 15, had friends and a family and a future.
• Cara Loughran, 14, was an Irish dancer.
• Gina Montalto, 14, carried her art book with her everywhere she went.
• Joaquin Oliver, 17, from Venezuela, became a US citizen January 2017.
• Alaina Petty, 14, was a Hurricane Irma volunteer.
• Meadow Pollack, 18, was headed to college next year.
• Helena Ramsay, 17, relentlessly pursued her studies and was brilliant and witty
• Alex Schachter, 14, played baritone and trombone in the marching band and orchestra
• Carmen Schentrup, 16, was a National Merit Scholar semifinalist
• Peter Wang, 15, worked in his parents’ Chinese restaurant

They are all dead and they are all waiting. Their families and friends and even we are waiting. Could not he who gave sight to the man born blind have prevented their deaths? I don’t know. But I do know that Jesus has not yet come for them.

This isn't the first time I've been forced by circumstances to try to make theological sense of a mass shooting, as we observe our dreary national ritual of avoidance and self-deception. A mass shooting occurs. Politicians send "thoughts and prayers." Some call for legislation. Others say no laws would help. In the meantime we are the only developed country in which this kind of slaughter occurs. It is the dark side of American exceptionalism. And then, of course, what is supposed to come next is that we move on to the next bit of news until this happens again. Which it will. Prayer will not stop the next massacre.

One thing I notice that is different this time is that the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School aren't taking this lying down. They are demanding meaningful action. They are calling out the politicians who have taken blood money. I don't know what they can accomplish, but if I were a anti-regulation politician I would be advised to take them seriously. If other high school students make common cause with them and bring their parents along, democracy might break out in the United States. One thing is certain:Our leaders will not lead us.

So I've tried to hear what this story might have to say to us, grieving and angry and frustrated and disillusioned and even hopeless as we are. Hearing what a story says always seems to involve placing ourselves in the story, usually unconsciously. I usually imagine myself as the narrator. It's easy enough and many times the narrator has invited us to do just that. But to hear this story in a liberating way, in a way that shakes us loose from the ways of thinking that bind us, in a way that leads to new life, I find that I often have to resist the text and place myself in some unexpected place.

So here's my suggestion for where to find ourselves: We are not the narrator, not Mary, not Martha, not even the city folk from Jerusalem. No, we are Lazarus. We are Lazarus, dead in the tomb, smelling something awful because it's been days since we died. We are in the tomb with our hands tied, our feet bound together, our faces covered with a cloth, and rolled up in our burial linens. We are there, unaware of the crowd, unaware of Mary and Martha's grief, unaware of pain or decay, unaware of anything except for the irritating, penetrating Voice that demands that we live and come out of the tomb.

And now, it seems to me, you and I have a choice to make. If we do not heed this bothersome interruption of our deathly slumber we can rest in peace. Well, not exactly peace, but more like rest. Okay, not rest either, but restless inactivity. On the other hand, if we heed this irritating voice and live and come out of our tomb, Jesus will command that we be untied and let loose. I have no idea what will happen then, but I'm pretty sure it won't involve shrugging our shoulders or sending "thoughts and prayers."

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