reflection by Rev. Dr. John Prochaska for April 10, 2011 – Lent 5

April 10, 5th Sunday Lent, 2011

           TEXT: John 11:1-45


Beloved in Christ, may the peace of Christ be with you as we open ourselves to the gospel according to John. Jayne was asking me just before the service started " how long it had been" since I preached. After considerable thought I realized that my last sermon was preached in June, 2008. So it's been a while since " I was in the saddle" but they say it's like riding a bicycle. We'll see.

If you love metaphors – stories about one thing to help us understand another thing – then you already love the gospel of John. John's gospel is packed with truth, light and wisdom many times over worth its weight in gold. All of chapter 11 is a story-metaphor.

In my first life I was a petroleum geologist and one of things we used to do to try and understand what lay beneath the surface of the earth in terms of oil and gas was to construct a cross-section based on what we already knew. What I want to do help you picture a cross-section – a slice – of this story which begins with an event a few days earlier in Jerusalem – then to something the character Martha says a few days later – then John's remarkable description of Jesus upset by what he's realizing about Martha and her sister Mary – and then to a story illustration.

First, the back story to chapter 11: A few days earlier, according to John, Jesus and his disciples had been in Jerusalem in a heated argument with some of the religious leaders in the temple who were incensed by the suggestion that God might to be found co-mingling with human beings. They were so convinced that God wouldn't come anywhere near most human beings that saying something to the contrary was enough to make them nutty...maniacal. Jesus argued politely that scripture allows for different thinking...that it's impossible for us to contaminate God...it's God who improves on human beings.

They were still deeply offended; much like Muslims who hear of someone burning the Koran...just as ready to behead someone preaching God-Human compatibility. They began accumulating stones for stoning Jesus and his disciples to death for blasphemy.

So Jesus and his disciples left the city, going north on the road that took them up thru the village of Bethany where apparently they stopped long enough to tell Martha and Mary where they were going, because later when their brother Lazarus gets sick they know where to send a messenger. From Bethany the road drops steeply to a river crossing at Jericho. From there they could proceed to some hideaway.

Next we slice across the story to a scene several days later where Martha reopens the subject in talking to Jesus after the death of Lazarus. Martha is the one who says, I know that you are the Messiah/Son of God...I know you are a conduit for God coming into our world. Words that could get her and Jesus killed in Jerusalem. Notice the Greek word behind the word Messiah which is Cristos...whose usage in our time has made Messiah/Christian/Portals of God seem interchange-able.
I have always liked the idea myself that Jesus could be a conduit for God, but for a long time I couldn't apply it to myself. I could not think of myself as a conduit for Jesus Christ or God. Now I have learned that my imperfections and impurities do not diminish God or Jesus Christ...I too can be a conduit for Jesus Christ...God through Jesus Christ can live in me and in everyone else.

Here's some more left-brain information about the next part of the cross-section which shows Jesus remarkably displeased with the way things are turning out...not that Lazarus has died but that Martha and Mary and others see him only was a teacher and healer, not a tool for God's deliverance. God for them was a God only in life or the resurrection but NOT in death itself. That they didn't believe is extremely unsettling for Jesus. Look at what the Greek language reveals...the language in which scripture was originally written. A special Greek vocabulary reveals him snorting audibly, expelling air from his nose when he realizes that Martha and Mary don't see him as he sees himself - enebrimaysato.

The word tarrasso reveals Jesus’ inner turmoil… through a picture a wildly vibrating hand plunging a bucket of water, water flying everywhere! Enebrimaysato (embrimaomai) – to snort...noisily exhale through the nose Etaraxan (tarrasso) – agitated or troubled emotions as a wildly vibrating hand inserted into a bucket of water. Look what happens next as Mary and the professional wailers move into noisy grief while Jesus begins to weep silently.
Mary et al (Klaiousan/klaio) – weep & wail loudly (noisy grief)

Jesus (edakrusen/dakruo)–shedding tears (quiet grief) They don't see Jesus as Jesus saw himself...a conduit for God...a portal for God...through whom God could do many things. What happens through Lazarus will NOT be a healing. It will be deliverance by God using Jesus and Jesus' words..."remove the stone, unbind him, come forth".

My life had ended. My marriage of 20 years had died. Suddenly I was a single parent with 3 children. Walking into the Bay department store to buy back-to-school clothes I realized I didn't know my own children's clothing sizes. All the evidence of how bad a husband I had been seemed daily before me. I had resigned as minister of Campbell-Stone United Church in Calgary where I had served 5 years following seminary...taken a job as pastoral counselor and psychotherapist with the Pastoral Institute of Calgary.

My Conference Minister in Guelph, Ontario, had recently resigned too, so there was a vacuum of leadership at the top of our conference...no one to provide the kind of support I needed. It was then that another Ontario minister named Fred came out of retirement...He was 85 at the time...very feeble...walked with a cane...it scared me to see how fragile he was. I didn't know Fred. When he called to say he was coming I couldn't get enthused because I never heard of him. On behalf of the national church he flew from Ontario to Calgary to be with me in my death. I scarcely noticed that this must have been important to someone!

Fred took a cab from the airport to the Pastoral Institute which was located then at St. Paul United Church in Calgary's inner-urban core. He climbed the stairs one at a time to be in my tomb, pulling himself up the stairs one at a time...about 15 steps, similar to the 17 which many climb every Sunday morning in order to be here for worship services. The receptionist guided him to my counseling office. He entered and we greeted each other. He removed his coat, draped it over a chair, removed his cap and scarf and sat down, hooking his cane over the arm of the chair. We talked about the death place I was in. He asked how the children were doing. In the course of the conversation he had the audacity to suggest that I might want to remarry some day. He praised me for my work in the church...which I couldn't hear because I saw only failure. He suggested that someday I might want to return to parish ministry. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

No more than 20 minutes passed in my cave before he started putting on his scarf and cap and coat. I walked him to the stairs and stepped beside him as he let himself down the stairs again one at a time. A cab was waiting for him at the curb which took him back to the airport for the return to Ontario. I walked back to my office with his images and words beginning to take up residence in my mind. Slowly the question began to form in my mind... " Who was that really? What just happened??

That was over 30 years ago and Fred, then 85, has long since continued on his journey as a man of faith, but he detoured briefly to arrive at my tomb and enter.

Now, I look back and see similarities between Fred and Jesus. I have grown fond of the possibility that a very old God/Jesus came by that day to say, " I am going to open your grave, and bring you up from your grave..." At times I think of Fred as the prophet Ezekiel standing in the valley of the dry bones. I smile at the sound of the old song...I think of my own bones connected to the foot bone...foot bone connected to the ankle bone... Over the years Fred's memory has spurred me to enter the deaths of others...just getting these bones of mine to where they might do some good! YES! This be a portal that I'm wearing...This be a conduit...This mouth is for speaking of new life beyond this one.

My favorite picture morphing out of my experience with Fred is a picture of the congregation coming to the end of a worship service, rising up en masse to go out and into the tombs of their neighbors and colleagues and friends and strangers...to be conduits...portals...cristos...God's Messiah...if only for a few moments at a time.

I love the teaching-Jesus. I love the healing-Jesus. I also love the delivering Jesus who put himself at risk by going to be with others in their loss, their imprisonment, their disappointment, their disgrace, their shame, their failure, their death in whatever form it had taken in order to (1) provide a conduit for God and (2) speak words of new life when the time was right.