John 11:1-45 "Together (And Only Together)"

         Death has never been a great conversation starter – or sermon illustration either, for that matter.  I mean, just the other week, I told you about the caterpillar in the chrysalis facing death by digestion.  Some of you thought it was a disgusting fact to share from the pulpit.  However, in spite of our discomfort with the subject of death, we have this unending curiosity about it and how it all works. 

         Take the field of astrophysics, for example.  Those scientists write all sorts of PhD theses on how the universe will end, how it will die.  Will it turn back in on itself, or will it just keep on expanding until it can expand no longer and simply breaks apart, dissolving into nothingness?

         And then there are the English majors.  Will TS Eliot eventually be right? "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."

         And what about the weekly news magazines?  When they are not talking about the latest tweet from Washington, they are publishing articles like one in ”Time” magazine that concluded that, trillions of years from now, the day will come when "the universe, once ablaze with the light of uncountable stars, [will] become an unimaginably vast, cold, dark, and profoundly lonely place." Nothing, another article said, will "save our descendants. . . from [the universe's] last, dying gasp."

         Most of us listen to all that science stuff and literary jargon while maintaining a suitably academic distance coupled with a vague sense of relief that, when it comes to the universe, no matter how it all ends, it will not be in our lifetime – so who cares what TS Eliot says anyway.  For the most part, we focus on more down to earth (no pun intended) concerns – like how to avoid our own death.

         And so, at one end of our socioeconomic spectrum, we find an anecdote in Kathleen Norris’ book entitled Dakota:  A Spiritual Geography.  The book is about living in the desolate, disintegrating, dying rural towns of South Dakota, and Norris relates a brief story about a visiting poet working with a third grade class in one such place. A child’s comment certainly provided one answer to this most perplexing question.

        "'When my third snail died,' the little girl writes, sitting halfway in, halfway out of her desk, one leg swinging in air, 'I said, I'm through with snails.'” She might just as well have said, “I’m through with life being sucked out of everything around me.  I’m through with death.” 

         And at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum is a story I heard on public radio a couple of months ago.  Apparently, a few young CEOs of some of our tech industry giants are closely following some intriguing studies. 

         These Gen X’ers and Millenials have so much money they scarcely know what to do with it all.  However, they are pretty sure that, even with profligate spending, their fortunes will last far longer than they are likely to live.  That being said, they are encouraging – and financing - research about not so much how to extend life to Biblical proportions, but how to extend life indefinitely and become immortal. 

         They might just as well have said, “I’m through with the thought of not being able to take it with me.  I’m through with death.”

         And yet, no matter how much we might wish differently, there is really only one endpoint here on earth – and that is the cemetery. That is certainly what Martha and Mary and all the mourners and wailers and hangers on in the Town of Bethany intuitively knew as Lazarus teetered on the brink of death.  And so, when faced with this stark reality, the sisters sent for Jesus, family friend and best all-around healer.  If anyone could save their darling, dying brother, Jesus could. 

         And so the Bethany messengers set out running to find Jesus and to tell him to come, come quickly.  “Lord, your dear friend is sick.  Lazarus is on his deathbed.  There is no time to lose.”

         However, Jesus, who had never been much of a procrastinator before, chose this time to dally.  The messengers had to return to Martha and Mary and tell them, “He is coming.  He is coming.  Surely he is on his way – but not yet.”

         But even then, it was too late.  By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus was dead – and had been dead and buried for four days – a significant detail, by the way.  You see, according to Presbyterian pastor Russell Smith, “Jewish documents from that time indicate that there was a common belief that after death, the soul hovered over the body for a period of time until decomposition set in. The climate of Israel encourages rapid decomposition, so within three days, a corpse will start to decompose. At that point, it was believed that the soul of the departed would recognize there was no hope of going back and would depart. So when John says it’s been four days, he’s making the point that Lazarus is totally dead.”

         The sisters, of course, are devastated.  Mary retreats to the living room followed by all the Judean mourners who had made their way into town.  Martha, who had always been the more impetuous and outspoken one, sets out to meet Jesus. 

         Before he even has a chance to enter the village, she rips into him, accusing him of not coming soon enough, thereby thrusting more than a little of the blame for Lazarus’ death onto his shoulders.  She wants to believe in all the resurrection and new life business he is talking about, but she is no dummy.  She knows enough Jewish theology to understand that nothing will happen until the end  - the real end – that day is surely far away and, chances are, will not occur in her lifetime.  Death has claimed him. She has lost her brother.

        Mary, in her turn, heads out to meet Jesus too with a bevy of mourners surrounding her.  As you would expect, there is great weeping and wailing and keening and gnashing of teeth over the death of one so young and promising as Lazarus. 

         By this time, the encounter with death has become a community event.  “He gave sight to a blind man.  Couldn’t he have saved Lazarus from death?  Woe is me!  Woe is Martha and Mary!”

         Faced with a sobbing Mary and all those keening comforters, Jesus’ eyes filled with tears.  It is a touching moment that, if nothing else, reminds us so profoundly of his humanity.  Tears ran unchecked down his cheeks and disappeared into his beard.  Still sniffling and wiping his eyes moments later, Jesus approached the tomb.  Nearly the entire community of Bethany followed him.

         Jesus calls first on the gawkers and mourners and comforters and hangers on.  He directs them.  “Take the stone away.”

         Martha, ever the practical one, (and with a wonderful little detail on the part of the Gospel writer, to boot) reminds Jesus that Lazarus had been dead and gone for four days now, and consequently there will be a bad smell.  As the King James Version of the Bible says it, “But Lord, he stinketh.”

         However, Jesus ignores her, seeming to know better, and shouts into the tomb.  His words echo off the walls of its farthest recesses. “Lazarus, (Lazarus, Lazarus, Lazarus) come out (come out, come out, come out)!” 

         There is a long moment of silence when the whole community holds its collective breath, pondering what will happen next.  Some fear that the smell will be too much to bear. Others hope that death is not the end.  Still others pray that life can somehow be infused into the lifeless.  All hope that the chrysalis will release a butterfly – in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

         “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus commands.  And, lo and behold, Lazarus does.  He stumbles into the light, tripping over the grave wrappings that bind him from his head to his hands to his feet.  His face is still covered with a bleached white cloth. 

         Lazarus sees the silhouette of Jesus before him and surely wonders just where he is.  It is like that marvelous line in the film, “Field of Dreams”:  “Is this heaven?  No – it’s Iowa.”  “Is this heaven?  No – it’s Bethany.”

         Jesus turns to the community standing around.  They are dumbfounded, and he simply says,  “Untie him, and let him go.”

         This story is so ripe for a sermon because a preacher can go off in so many directions.  Some pastors will focus on Jesus’ famous line that we often hear in memorial services:  “I am the resurrection and the life.”  Other pastors will zero in on the single verse:  “Jesus wept.”  Still others will use this tale for a conversation on death and dying.

         However, I would like to focus on the community that found itself in the midst of this tale – the nameless men and women who stood by and watched and hoped and trusted and comforted and supported first the sisters, Martha and Mary, and then Lazarus himself.

         We have the messengers who offered to run a race against time to reach Jesus’ with the news of Lazarus’ impending death – and who returned panting and out-of-breath to assure the sisters that the healer would come, only to find that their race had been in vain.

         As the word spread, there were the mourners who showed up not only from Bethany but also from other Judean towns and villages.  From far and near, they made their way to this home of despair to comfort the sisters. In between their assigned periods of wailing and keening, they made pots of chamomile tea and small sandwiches cut in the shape of triangles with the crusts sliced off.  They held hands and gave hugs and handed out hankies and made small talk in whispers.

         And how about the burley men who rolled the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?  They had left their sheep on the hillsides under the protection of young shepherd boys.  They had put down their shovels and hoes and closed up their shops early in order to be part of the social fabric that wove itself around Martha and Mary. 

         And don’t forget the really brave ones who stepped up when Jesus asked them to unwrap Lazarus and free him for whatever remained now of his life.  Not sure what they would find, they pulled the cloth off his face and were the first to see Lazarus’ eyes squint in the bright sunlight and then watch as his mouth formed the slightest of smiles, his first response to what had happened.  They walked round and round the once dead man now standing, bunching up the grave wrappings along the way.

         And finally there were the ones who did not seem to have any particular role.  However, simply their presence seemed to make a difference – strength, courage, and support in numbers, I suppose.  They were the ones who took the grave wrappings and neatly folded them.  They were the ones who misted the air around Lazarus with Fabreze.  After all, he did “stinketh.”

         Within the embrace of that community, Lazarus came out – and lived again.  Within the embrace of that community, Martha and Mary also came out – of their despair, their anguish, and their anger – and lived again. 

         One hopes that the community continued to embrace and nurture these three in all the years that followed.  After all, the community had made a gigantic difference and played an important role in this story – and I do wonder whether Martha, Mary, and Lazarus would have fared as well in isolation.  I believe they needed the community to survive and prosper.

         Kind of like us, you know.  We too are stronger as a church community than we are as individual church members.  We too need each other if we are to come out of our comfortable places and embrace the ministry and teachings of Jesus.  We too need each other if we are going to be the church in the world today. 

        We need the messengers who are going to spread the word about who we are and what we do here.  We need the comforters and mourners with their sandwiches and pots of tea to be there for us when the going gets tough and to mourn with us when our dreams die not with a bang but a whimper.  We need the heavy lifters who can help us roll away the stones of our hearts.  We need the ones who will unbind the world’s people and free them from their grave clothes. We need the ones who seem to have no particular task other than to be present, offering strength and courage and a helping hand every now and then - the Fabreze misters and the grave cloth folders.

         You and I, of course, are all of those people – sometimes one and sometimes another – constantly shifting roles as our energy and gifts demand.  Like the community in Bethany long ago, we each have a role to play in our church today as we seek to live the Gospel message, as we seek to make a difference in people’s lives, as we seek to call others out of death and into life again.

         In the end, lasting transformation is impossible in isolation.  Real change – real making a difference - is community-based, church-based, grounded in congregations that are not entombed in the past but rather are filled with people who understand that it takes the participation of all of us to make God’s dream for the world a reality. 

         Each role – from messenger to Fabreze mister - needs to be filled.  Together (and only together) will we come out of our comfortable places and follow Jesus.  Together (and only together) will we turn back the night, wake up, and greet the new day.  Together (and only together) will we roll away the stone and unwrap what will be.  Together (and only together) will we know what it is like to be that butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.