The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for September 21, 2008 (reprise of March 17, 2002

Texts: Ezekiel 37:1-14/John 11:1-44

Title: “Coming Unbound”

                Did any of you ever envision the day when you would be carrying your own personal phone with you wherever you went?  Did any of you ever envision the day when your viewing options on the television would number in the hundreds?  Did any of you ever envision a day when you would own a piece of equipment in your home that could furnish you access to the resources of the Library of Congress as easily as the local library branch down the street?  Did any of you ever envision a day when you would sit down at that same piece of equipment and order direct from the factory an automobile custom made, from the wheel covers up, exactly to your specifications? 

              We have learned to accept rapid changes as the normal order of things.  Though often stressful, the inevitability of change forces us to adapt, like it or not. Last weekend I was at our local airport.

              Travel can be stressful in its own right, but just about every time I fly these days the airlines have done something new to which the passenger is forced to adapt. Furthermore, with airlines hemorrhaging money, there are seldom any personnel around to explain things. Will I have to pay for the bag I am carrying?  I notice that some bags are being weighed.  What if mine is too heavy?  Will someone walk me through the automatic check in computer? 

              It is anxiety producing to be thrust into unfamiliar situations like the one I described.  It’s almost like learning dance steps to the latest music, only the latest music in this case becomes dated in about a month.

              I recently did some reading on the subject of the Age of Enlightenment that swept Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  It was a period in history when humanity’s perspective on life was fundamentally altered.  Breakthroughs in science, medicine, philosophy, and architecture.  Persons alive then were left with no other option but to adapt or be left behind.  The same applies today. We can step out and buy the “Blackberry,” the “iphone,” the latest computer software, but it will require adapting if we ever intend to use them in a manner consistent with their design. We can adapt or be left behind.

              The lesson I just read puts adaptation squarely in our sights.  I guess it’s reasonable to suppose that when you’re hanging out with Jesus, you might have a good bit of adapting to do.  Jesus was saying and doing some things that sent tremors through the culture.  At one point in the Book of Acts the followers of Jesus are referred to as “[those] people who have been turning the world upside down.”  Romans and Jews looked at these followers of Jesus warily.  Yet before the Christian movement got on its feet in earnest it was the Lord’s followers themselves who did most of the adapting.  It was Jesus’ followers who experienced the tremors as they faced a succession of challenges in his company.

              It all started innocently enough, I guess.  It began with an appeal for help.  Concerned for the health of their brother Lazarus, the two sisters, Martha and Mary, sent word via a messenger to Jesus stating that Lazarus was ill.  Pack his bag and head out.  That was one option Jesus had, but he didn’t take it.  And that is where the adapting part comes in.  Instead of hastening to the bedside as his disciples might have expected him to do, Jesus sat tight, declaring “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory.”  A compassion deficit perhaps, or part of some bigger plan?  It would be another two days before that question was answered.  Wait and adapt, the only options available to the disciples.

              Fast forward two days and we find Jesus where the messenger had found him two days earlier.  Jesus is ready to move.  His disciples are forced to adapt once again.  You see the itinerary Jesus is proposing will take them into Judea, the very territory where the bad buys so recently threatened to stone him.  Not only that, but the errand he is proposing to undertake strained the imagination.  Lazarus, he announced, was dead.               Might Jesus have been able to save him had he gone to his side two days earlier?  The disciples may well have asked themselves that question, but even before they had an opportunity to do that Jesus declared to them, “for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”  You will agree with me, I think, that Jesus was proposing quite an elaborate object lesson.  “I’ve let the guy die so that you may believe.”

              As I said, adapt or be left behind.  “Lazarus, my friend, died and I’m glad because I’m going to use his death to teach you something.”  I ask you, do the ends---the disciples’ faith---justify the means, the death of Lazarus? 

              Jesus was working his plan at every step of the way.  His disciples, however, are portrayed throughout as being out of step, and being rational people we can certainly understand their dilemma.  They were part of his team, but, to draw on a basketball illustration, Jesus was, ala Michael Jordan,” playing above the rim,” while their feet never left the floor.  What he was dong was quite literally over their heads.

              Jesus was working his plan when he met Martha, the sister of Lazarus, on the road.

And what were her first words on seeing him? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Was she angry that Jesus had taken his own sweet time to get to Lazarus’ bedside?  Angry or not, she is bold in declaring her faith.  “Lazarus is dead, but even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

              “I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”  What evidence did she have to back up that statement?  We don’t know.  But we have to believe that Jesus’ disciples had background greater than she on the subject of Jesus and what he could do.  Yet Scripture consistently portrays them as timid and reluctant to trust that Jesus was on the first name basis with God, a fact, friends, that Martha simply assumed.

              Despite all that Jesus did in his teaching, healing and preaching it was not always clear to those who witnessed his acts, even to the occupants of the orchestra seats, that the Lord was working God’s plan.  The burden of proof Jesus was expected to meet was very high, so high that he was forced to go the extra mile to meet it, but then, as his crucifixion reveals in bloody detail, Jesus was an extra mile giver.

              “Lord, he’s dead, but even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”  That statement earns the response from Jesus.  “Your brother will rise again.”  Martha, well schooled in the teaching of the synagogue responds, “I know he will rise in the resurrection at the last day.”  But the resurrection that Jesus had in mind wasn’t a “last day” proposition, was it?  Jesus stood before her to demonstrate that the “last day,” was a “present day,” an “in time,” reality.  “I am the resurrection and the life.”  Jesus declared.  The miracle of Lazarus’ rising would come later, but Jesus was declaring to Martha that THE resurrection was present right there at her side.  “I bring to life that which is dead.”

              We say to ourselves “Someday it will all be made clear, someday salvation will come.”  The Jews spent generations waiting for that “someday” to arrive.  Trouble is when that “someday” showed up in the flesh they missed it.  Jesus was rejected.  “I am the resurrection and the life.”  Not, “I will be the resurrection and the life.”  Not, “I’m preparing the way for the one who is the resurrection and the life.”  Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  That statement is an invitation for us to come unbound.

              Lazarus came out of the tomb wrapped in cloth.  “Unbind him [Jesus ordered], and let him go.”  Would that it were that easy to unbind a mind bound up by conventions and prejudices; a mind riddled with misinformation.  Before he physically unbound Lazarus, he spiritually unbound his sister, Martha.  “I am the resurrection and the life.”  Martha believed in the resurrection, but her belief was secured in a future promise yet to be disclosed.  Jesus, however, had another message.  “Everything your faith taught you to long for and anticipate is present right now.  I am the resurrection and the life.”

              Martha stood before Jesus and she became unbound.  “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

              Do we want to become unbound?  That is the question Jesus puts to each of us. It is a question of adaptation. Are we willing to approach life from a new perspective? He puts that question in real time, real time as in today.  Are you really satisfied with the life you are leading, or do you hunger for more?  That question asserts itself in virtually every sermon people like me preach.  But Jesus made it explicit in every single action he took, for through each of his actions Jesus wanted people to understand that he was the “resurrection and the life.”  Unbound, that is the status Jesus wants for us.  That is the singular goal to which the gospels point.

              Has the age of miracles past?  The Gospel of John records six pretty incredible miracles.  But the seventh, the seventh, was the showstopper; Lazarus, alive and unbound.  Jesus is used miracles, not to inspire awe or fascinate, he used them that the witnesses to those miracles might become unbound, that through that means they might accept the truth claims he was making.

              Has the age of miracles past?  On that subject I am no authority.  But I believe that we can come unbound without them.  I believe that Jesus is in our midst right now, using the Scriptures, using the reasoning powers he has granted us, using the deposit of faith he has placed in each of our hearts, to one end, that you and I might personally accept him for who he is; the resurrection and the life, our current and our future hope. 

PRAYER

              God, ever gracious, merciful, and mighty, who is out of these passing hours and days creating new things beyond all human fathoming, grant onto us whose lives are lived within the bounds of your holy providence, the steadfast assurance that you are the Lord of love and hope.  Through your Spirit awaken us to the opportunities you daily present to each of us that we might model that love and hope which is of all the good gifts you have given us our most cherished legacy.  Through the counsel of your Word inspire us to act lovingly and hopefully, befriending all neighbors to whom you send us.  And when in times that love and hope are difficult to summon, O God, grant us confidence to believe that your grace is ever sufficient to our need.

              O Jesus, in your earthly life you answered to many titles.  For many you were the long-anticipated Messiah of Israel, the one who would complete what Israel’s greatest king, David, started.  People wanted you to follow a script of their own creating, to be that king of kings who would settle scores and vanquish enemies.  O Jesus, we are always tempted to embrace you on our terms, as our ally, our advocate, our defender, one who is totally sympathetic to our values and points of view, while at the same time conveniently overlooking those parts of your message that disturb us.  Lord, remove the blinders that we may see, see not merely the familiar and the attractive, but grant us courage to take a second and third look at your word and your witness we may learn new things and be led to those new places where you are calling us to be.

              Loving creator, though you created us in your image that we might responsibly tend your creation, we seem most intent on destroying it.  Wars and rumors of war occupy the headlines, while bigger and more deadly weapons come into production.  The folly of our ways is evident, but we have neither the will nor the courage to change.  Lord, be merciful on us.  Unify world leaders in a common ambition to reason and work together for the common good.

              Lord whose compassion is as bountiful as your love, we pray for the wounded and suffering masses of this world, those who reside on the margins of society subsisting on the barest rations of the world’s goods.  We pray for those unjustly imprisoned.  We pray for those ostracized because of race, skin color, or religion.  We pray for those who give birth to children who will never see the inside of a classroom, who will never enjoy the satisfaction of a full stomach, who will never experience the joy of birthday party, picnic, or a day at the zoo.  Lord Jesus, who bore the burden of the world on the cross, let us not forsake our responsibilities in they kingdom’s work.  May the generosity you have shown us inspire us to serve you through our generosity, our efforts magnified as others join us in your service.

              O Christ, giver of eternal hope, help us to come unbound and live into the new day you are even now creating.  Your resurrection from the dead defeated death, but our faith struggles to embrace such a glorious reality.  We accept as truth the false claims that sin and death so strenuously make, unwilling to trust your liberating word.  We admire the cross as little more than a bold gesture having no impact on the lives we are living today.  Lord Christ make us bold to proclaim the faith of the cross, the faith into which we were baptized.  And may our witness challenge others to join us in ministry.

              Eternal Lord, our strong redeemer we ask your blessing on those with special needs.  We continue to pray for those battling cancer….