Up from the grave... John 11

             John 11 is a familiar story.  We hear it a lot at funerals.  Lazarus, Jesus’ friend has died unexpectedly and Jesus – perhaps fearing for his own life delays in traveling to Bethany for the funeral.  When he does finally arrive, Martha and then Mary come to meet him and all of those people who were there to console the sisters came with them.  Jesus was their teacher, their rabbi, their friend.  He was the one who they expected would make sense of all of this horrible grief that consumed them. 

Martha’s grief turns to rage and she accuses Jesus of being uncaring.  Jesus, in what is for me one of the most poignant revelations of God’s nature, is overcome by grief himself and begins to weep.  But he doesn’t make excuses for his tardiness.  Instead he turns the conversation into one that is grounded in faith.  He reassures Martha that in fact death is not the ultimate outcome of life and he gently and lovingly recalls the mystery of his relationship with God and the hope for salvation that comes from that mystery.  And then he instructs the crowd to roll away the stone.  Once again Martha chides him.  “But Lord it has been 4 days – there will be a stench.”  Jesus insists and then with the authority of one who knows that with God there is always the opportunity for renewal - he calls Lazarus forth out of the tomb.  

It is short-sighted to see this as just a story about Lazarus coming back to life.  Salvation is about transformation in this life.  Transformation of self and more expansively transformation of a very broken world in this life – not salvation as preparation for the next.  This lesson invites us to imagine the possibility of resurrected lives all around us – in ourselves, our families, our community and the world.  Resurrection for those who desperately need it right now. 

William Barclay, a 20^th century theologian from Scotland said that the miracle stories of the Bible are symbols of what God can do today.  He was severely criticized for his expansive understanding, but it certainly resonates with me.  How we live into these stories of God’s action in our world will determine whether or not the church becomes a 21^st century prophetic voice or whether it becomes tired and obsolete and simply fades away into oblivion.  We cannot sit back and wish that young people appreciated the music and liturgy that molded our childhood.  We who believe that with God all things are possible, including new life from dead and buried souls, must affirm our beliefs with our actions.

Today John invites us to stand at the tomb of Lazarus and to imagine a possibility beyond the stench of a decaying body.  To dream about the possibilities for transformation of our lives and the lives of those around us in unfettered and limitless dimensions.  To listen for the voice of Jesus calling us to come out of our blindness, our captivity, our lifelessness and to experience the joy of a resurrected life.

Let us pray:  Gracious and loving God, give us ears to hear you when you call to us, eyes to imagine the possibilities of a life lived in You, and the willingness to step up and unbind those whom you awaken this day.  Amen

I was blind, but now I see... Amazing Grace

          

The Gospel lesson for Year A Lent 4 is the story of Jesus healing a man who had been blind from birth.  It is told in such detail that I can just imagine it on stage - perhaps as a high school drama production.  It would serve that venue well because there are so many characters in it, arrogant church leaders, nosy neighbors, mis-informed disciples, petrified parents, a blind beggar, and two cameos by a traveling Rabbi who clearly has stepped outside the norm of church operations.  Before you read any further follow this link in order to read the passage from John. 

The story is ripe with paradox.  Things are just not as they seem to be.  A blind beggar who has the audacity to instruct the church hierarchy in their own law, healed by a disappearing Rabbi who likes to play in the mud, and on the Sabbath too.  Shame! Shame!   What is this world coming to?  It seems that the restoration of this beggar's sight reveals more than the landscape.  This enlightenment reveals the spiritual blindness of all of those around him who are so caught up in their own manufactured world that they fail to see God's light shining in Jesus.

Being able to see requires that we disclaim all that we hold dear in order to claim life in Christ. We must turn our backs on our own self-centered path and follow Jesus into an unknown place where we are forgiven and where we are to be beloved of God.  It will be a relationship that is kindled through healing, through forgiveness, and through restoration.  Jesus tells us that things will come about through God’s actions, not through our adherence to old worn-out pre-conceptions or through our manipulation of events.  God must be a facilitator if the relationship is to be whole and those who want to be able to see clearly will need a change of heart that allows us to respond appropriately and faithfully when God calls us. 

 Buen Camino

Mother Jane

Living Water - Troubled Water

  

John 4: 5-42

        Our bodies are made up of about 60% or so of water.  Without a doubt water is central to every aspect of our lives.  So it is not surprising to me our scripture uses images of water to describe such things as faith, eternal life, safety, provision, even power. 

This week we have the second of that series of stories from John that I mentioned on Sunday.  Each one of them is laced with profound images:  darkness and light, blindness and seeing, confinement and freedom, isolation and inclusion.  John’s gospel is at its core a gospel of love, telling us through signs, stories, and witness of the profound and expansive love of God that is revealed to us in Jesus.  And John uses the images of our everyday lives to describe that love.  Daytime and nighttime, water, eyesight, wells, burial…  these stories are poignant for us because we know them intimately.  We live them everyday.   

Jesus makes a profound statement to the Woman at the Well:   

"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, `Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

Living water….  Troubled water…  Water through which God’s gift is given.  The Living Water that Jesus gives transforms her life and in transforming her life, transforms the lives of others.

  We should not open our mouths to drink of the Living Water unless we are ready to be transformed.  This water that Jesus gives comes with a cross.  It comes with the cross of foregoing our own wants and desires in order to provide dignity, respect, and love to those who are in need.  It comes with the cross of pain and hurt of illness, poverty, or isolation.  It comes with the cross of responsibility to envision God’s hope for the world and to work for that end.  It comes with the cross of uncertainty that comes with living our lives with faith in God rather than in worldly power.

I’m good with that!  Buen Camino,

Mother Jane

Oh Nichodemus!

 

John 3:1-17 Reflection I read somewhere – have no idea now where I read it… the story of a newly minted convert who went to see the local Christian missionary. He asked the missionary this question. “If I did not know about God and about sin—would I go to hell?” “No”, said the missionary, “not if you had no knowledge of God’s commandments”. “Then for heaven’s sake”, said the convert… “Why did you tell me?” I can identify. It is often easier to shut out the ways in which God calls us to new life than it is to open ourselves to change and hopefully growth. And yet there is this yearning—this need—this desire to enter into a deeper knowledge and understanding of God and our relationship with God and each other. And isn’t that really why, year after year, we enter into this season of Lent hopeful that this year all of the fasting and penitence will lead us to some sort of corrective that will make us more worthy of God’s (and everyone else’s) love. That’s where I believe the missionary got it wrong. It’s not the lack of knowledge that relieves us of responsibility. It is the act of Love, bestowed upon us by God, in many and miraculous ways, that welcomes us into forgiveness and healing. This week in the SSJE email Br Geoffrey reflected on the feeling of shame that is a debilitating contributor to our life as Christians. He wrote, “I wonder if you have some action of which you are ashamed, which you keep remembering, replaying, again and again. Maybe God is longing to reassure you that God remembers your sin no more, and you should stop remembering it as well. You may not be able to forget, but you can stop remembering and trust God’s word.” The story of Nichodemus does not end with the encounter in our Sunday Gospel. This Sunday we will explore the other “Nichodemus encounters” But for now I think that we all yearn for some answer, some formula, that will lift our shame and our longing for love and acceptance and map out a plan for action. But life is not like that. We are not in control. That’s Jesus’ guidance for Nichodemus.  Jesus is telling him that there is no mitzvah (deed) or bracha (blessing) that offers God’s love. To be “born again” is to recognize our spiritual dependence on our relationship with God and to open ourselves to receive God’s love. Buen Camino, Mtr Jane Image attribution: Pittman, Lauren Wright. Born Again, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57087 [retrieved March 2, 2023]. Original source: Lauren Wright Pittman, http://www.lewpstudio.com/.