Are we not all Lazaruses now?

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

‘Are we not all Lazaruses now?’

This morning I am faced with at least two challenges. The first is how to make sense of the gospel reading’s account of Lazarus’ dying and rising, a challenge not that often assumed by preachers. In fact, I cannot immediately recall ever having heard a sermon on the subject! The second challenge is how to deliver a short, but satisfactory interval talk between a lengthy gospel reading and your not-to-be delayed, and much anticipated post-service conversations over biscuits and cake. I feel squeezed by a long gospel reading and your post-service priorities.

Lazarus had died. There was no doubt about that in the minds of Jesus, or Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, or the many Jews who had come to console the two sisters. When Jesus eventually reached Bethany, Lazarus’ body had already been wrapped in grave cloths. It had been placed in a tomb, which had been sealed with a stone. The stench of death, four days old, hung heavily in the air. Indeed, as the King James Version, recording Martha’s remark, graphically puts it, ‘by this time, he stinketh.’  

The challenge of how to make sense of this morning’s gospel reading is issued through the conversation between Jesus and Martha. For, on arriving in Bethany, Jesus announced to Martha, Your brother will rise again,   to which Martha replied, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.  

The late godmother of our son was a feisty lady. I remember her being interviewed about a year before she died. Turning to her, the interviewer asked,
    Professor Loades, did Christ rise from the dead?  
For what seemed like an eternity, but was, in fact, probably only a second or two, the question hung in the air. Ann Loades said nothing. But she might as well have spoken volumes. For her thinking was crystal clear: crucified, dead men do not ‘rise’ from the dead as someone may rise from their bed. A corpse cannot get to its feet even as you and I may rise to our feet.
    Did Christ rise from the dead?
She repeated the question, paused, thought, and then replied,
‘Was Christ raised from the dead?’ is the correct way of doing this.

I suspect that had she been asked,
    Did Lazarus rise from the dead?,
she would have replied,
    ‘Was Lazarus raised from the dead?’, is the correct was of doing this.
For she, like us, would have noted the Johannine Jesus’ theologically loaded affirmation, I am the resurrection and the life.   Lazarus did not simply rise from the dead as previously he had risen from his bed. Four-days-old dead men do not simply unwrap their winding-sheets, roll back the stone guarding the entrance to their tombs, and step out to rejoin their families and friends. If anything, they are raised. Again to quote the evangelist John, they are raised from the dead by ‘the Father [who] raises the dead … , [and] the Son who gives life to whomsoever he wishes.’  

Whatever the constants in the Lazarus narrative and in our life-stories may be, one may be God’s initiative, God’s life-giving initiative which is more obvious in the Lazarus narrative than in our life-stories. For certain things are more obvious in certain situations than in others. The light of a torch, for example, is more obvious in the dark than in the daylight. Whether a candle is alight is more discernible in a darkened room than in bright sunlight. So too God’s life-giving initiative may be more discernible in the Lazarus myth than in our mundane lives. But that that is less noticeable in our humdrum lives does not mean that it is not to be noticed, not to be heeded, not to be formative for our living.

Consider, for example, this very service. Indeed, reflect upon our present service of God, our service, our worship which is prompted entirely by God, by the Father’s gracious initiative, by that of the one who said to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. When, only a few minutes ago, we confessed our manifold sins, and God’s forgave us, as though we were latter day Lazarus’s, God unbound us from what tied us in the grave of sin, that we might step forth into his life of resurrection. To his table God invites us. The initiative is not ours. For we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under it. Bread and wine, symbols of our lives, God will take and bless, and break and share with us, that what we receive we may become, namely, the body of Christ. But even that is not to exhaust God’s life-giving initiative. For now taken to be his body, now blessed and broken, now God would that we may be life-giving food and drink, shared and given to a hungry and thirsty world, hungry and thirsty for not only sufficient food and clean water but also justice and peace, mercy and forgiveness.

Clearly there is a task for us to do. For ours is not now simply to be passive. There is a task for us to do and it is to be done in the light of God’s gracious, life-giving initiative. It is to be done in the strength of the One who ever is, and never ceases to be ‘the resurrection and the life,’ for us, and in us, and, through us, for God’s world, that it too may be raised from death to life. It is to be done in imitation of those ancient bystanders of the evangelist John’s narrative who, God having raised Lazarus from the dead, then assisted the Lord of the resurrection and the life, by unbinding Lazarus, freeing him from the grave-clothes, and letting let him go, but always and only ‘for God’s glory.’  

So, even if we can make no more sense of the Lazarus myth than to see ourselves as those called to respond to God’s life-giving actions, as God’s associates, let us at least seek to support the Community Food Kitchen, in favour of which, Sunday by Sunday, in the de Broome chapel, any of us may donate gifts of food and toiletries; or let us side with this church’s commitment to Christian Aid’s Burkina Faso project; or, in this church where Oxfam first gathered, let us ponder what we should do in the light of last Thursday’s announced cuts to Foreign Aid spending over the next three years, cuts which, a Foreign Office report and impact assessment stated, will especially impact Africa, with less spent on women’s health and water sanitation, with increased risks of disease and death, cuts which come alongside the relatively recent devasting cuts of the US AID budget.

For, if Lazarus were our world, God would wish it to be raised; and, lifted from the corruption unto death, God would want us to be those who care for it.

Amen.