Practice Resurrection
November 1, 2009 John 11: 32-44

As children my brothers and I never had store-bought costumes for Halloween. I don’t recall much about how they dressed up, but I remember well the leopard outfit my mother made for me. Out of fuzzy, spotted material she fashioned a jumpsuit with a cap that tied under my chin. It had round leopard ears and a long leopard tail that dragged the ground behind me. Then she drew whiskers on my cheeks and painted the end of my nose with pink lipstick.

In those days we kids felt perfectly safe to roam about the neighborhood with no adults trailing behind. We accepted cups of cocoa and little bags of popcorn without the slightest concern that someone would try to hurt us; in fact we thought those unwrapped homemade treats were the best of all.

Today, of course, no parent in their right mind would allow an eight year old with two younger siblings in tow to go from door to door after dark. Because there is danger at every turn. The person who opens the door might be handing out poisoned candy; the stranger in line next to you might be a terrorist; your retirement money could dwindle right on down to nothing; you could get swine flu. And what about mercury in fish, the air pollution index, dental x-rays? It’s not just the pint-sized goblins who are on the defensive. All of us are running scared, for we live in a culture of fear.

But if the gospel is true, we are afraid of all the wrong things.

Today’s gospel lesson is part of one of the most puzzling stories in the New Testament. The entire narrative takes all 57 verses of chapter eleven, and unfortunately we only get part of it. Were we to read the whole story we would learn that, after getting word that Lazarus is ill, Jesus puts off coming for two days. Why? Once he does show up, Jesus weeps along with all the other mourners. But if he already knows Lazarus will be raised, why would he be sad? And what is it about this whole scene that enrages Jesus’ enemies to the point that they will go away to plot his death?

To muddy the waters even more, this is the text appointed for All Saints’, a day of remembering those who have gone before us and one of the principal feast days of the Christian year. It’s pretty darned difficult, if you ask me, to connect all these dots.

It may help to recall that All Saints’ is only one part of a three day cycle which in the medieval church included All Hallows’ Eve on October 31 and All Souls on November 2. You won’t find a thing about All Hallows’ Eve in the Book of Common Prayer, but it is included in the Book of Occasional Services. (pp.106-108) The service begins with this prayer: “Almighty and everliving God, you have made all things in your wisdom and established the boundaries of life and death: Grant that we may obey your voice in this world, and in the world to come may enjoy that rest and peace which you have appointed for your people; through Jesus Christ who is Resurrection and Life, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

There are several things worth noticing about this prayer. First of all, it sounds like it was written for the assembly gathered around Lazarus’ tomb. The grieving sisters, the jumpy disciples, the crowd made up of both friends and enemies. Almighty and everliving God, you have made all things in your wisdom and established the boundaries of life and death. This means, among other things, that God was there with Lazarus in his living, and God was there with Lazarus in death.

The prayer continues: Grant that we may obey your voice in this world. In today’s lesson Jesus does something totally unexpected and, if you think about it, really bizarre. He calls out to a dead man: “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus, four days gone and in defiance of everything we know to be plausible, obeys that voice. We’ve heard the story a million times, so we don’t even raise an eyebrow. But can you imagine if you had been there? There’s Lazarus, stumbling from the tomb, eyes squinting, still bound up tight in his grave clothes: from the looks of him, you might say his was the original Halloween getup. Was he overjoyed to have another go at living? Filled with amazement? Or just confused?

Lazarus obeys the voice. But for some in the crowd this miracle is the very last straw. In the verses after our reading, the malcontents report this latest outrage to the religious authorities in Jerusalem. “What are we going to do?” they grumble. “This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” (vs. 47b-48) This may not sound like much, but what they mean is that this Jesus guy is a threat to national security.

The bad guys in this story are the ones, you might say, who are afraid of all the wrong things: afraid of the Romans, afraid of losing their positions of power and authority, afraid of what ordinary people might do if they listen to Jesus and actually begin to live accordingly, to obey his voice, in other words. They are running scared and there is only one solution.

But if the gospel is true they are afraid of all the wrong things.

Finally, and this is where the rubber really hits the road, comes the end of that collect for All Hallows’ Eve: through Jesus Christ who is Resurrection and Life, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. As Jesus approaches Bethany, Martha runs out to meet him, and they have an exchange that ends with the most astonishing of all Jesus’ claims. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Again, these familiar words are almost mind-numbing we’ve heard them so often. But what if we could imagine resurrection, not as a fact of Jesus’ life that we really should believe if we want to call ourselves Christian, but as a fact of our lives?

Writer and farmer Wendell Berry, in his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” recommends “every day do something that won’t compute.”

Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace the flag. . . .

Plant sequoias.

Say your main crop is the forest you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest. . . .

Expect the end of the world. . . .

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. . . .

As soon as the generals and politicos can predict the motions

of your mind, lose it.

Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go.

Be like a fox who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

How would our lives change, your life, my life, if we lived as if the gospel were true? Believing points of doctrine about Jesus’ life may get us in the church door and make us feel secure. Once there we can spend all our time trying to figure out how to get more people to come; we can stew over budgets and fight about who’s in and who’s out. We can be nice people and do all kinds of good deeds. But that is not the same as practicing resurrection.

When Francis of Assisi kissed the leper, he was practicing resurrection.

When Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus, she was practicing resurrection.

When Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, he was practicing resurrection.

When Ann Weatherholt began a brand new kind of worship service in the Great Hall of All Saints’ Church, she was practicing resurrection.

And when you dare to do something that won’t compute, that makes no sense according to the rules, that will get you into trouble even though it is the right thing, you are practicing resurrection too. That is what All Saints’ Day is about, and that is why the raising of Lazarus is the text given for today.

Jesus lived his entire life, as least the part of it we know anything about, as if there were nothing to be afraid of. And if his life has anything to say to us it is, I believe, this: we need not be afraid of any of the things held up to us as dangerous in our culture of fear. But what we should be mightily afraid of is that we will spend our whole lives without ever practicing resurrection, without living as if the gospel were true.

All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ and All Souls. This triad of days reminds us, year after year, that God is the God of life and death, and because this is true we can join the great throng of saints and be of good cheer. Despite the facts. Thanks be to God.

The Rev. Eyleen Farmer