Two Preachers Walk In...

This is not going to be an easy sermon.

Preaching in general involves risk and difficulty for a couple of reasons. It involves risk because you are standing among people of God, claiming to have heard what God has told to you. And, as most people who claim that God told them something to share with others…you run a certain amount of risk. How many of us, if someone were to say to us that they had a message from God to tell us, would take them seriously?

It involves difficulty because God calls us to do difficult things. To say harsh words. To take stands where God is calling us, and sometimes that is against popular opinion, and sometimes it is again what people call normative.

Reinhold Neibuhr, the wonderful pastor and theologian said it best. He says that he used to think preachers who did not preach social justice were cowards…until he became a pastor. And then realized that it wasn’t a failure of nerve that caused them to fear, but a distorted sense of love. It is hard to say hard things to people you love.

And I love you, so this is not going to be an easy sermon.

It could have been. It could have been a, “believe in Jesus and everything will be okay” type of sermon. But you don’t deserve that, because you know it’s not true. It is EVENTUALLY true, but right now it is not. Because we are so entangled in our compromises and in our fears, and in everything else that the world throws at us, that things still happen. The call still comes at midnight, and your heart leaps into your throat as you pick up the telephone and sleepily say, hello, because a call coming that late means one thing…something happened.
Jesus receives that call at the very beginning of our story this morning.

“Your friend Lazarus is dying.” They say.

“Well, how much time does he have left?”

“Not long.”

“I’ll be there when I can.”

“Come as soon as possible, I don’t know how much longer it will be.”

And Jesus knows that he is about to enter possibly the hardest situation of his entire ministry. In the backdrop of this scene, Jesus knows what going to see Lazarus will mean. Because in the Gospel of John, Lazarus being alive is a problem for the religious establishment.

Jesus has already cured on the Sabbath, and claimed to be the Son of God…now something very real is going to prove it. This act that Jesus is about to do signs his own execution orders.

And Jesus knows that there is already another preacher there. A preacher that has been there a long time. And a preacher who is still with us today.

Because, in essence, Jesus is going to a funeral. A loved member of the community has died, and while he is already in the grave, the community has gathered to grieve alongside his sisters, Mary and Martha.

Tom Long, my preaching professor and friend wrote a book about funerals, and particularly preaching at funerals. And in it he says,

“The indispensability of shouting out the good news of Easter at a funeral gets highlighted when we realize that there are actually two preachers at every funeral. Death-capital-D-Death-loves to preach and never misses a funeral. Death’s sermon is powerful and always the same: “I win every time. I destroy all loving relationships. I shatter all community. I dash all hope. I have claimed another victim. Look at the corpse; look at the open grave. There is your evidence. I always win!”

I think death shows up and preaches that sermon at more than funerals. And Jesus knows this as he goes back to Bethany.
Death shows up and preaches that sermon every day. When the news stories flash across our screen of children living in squalor, animals being abused, and humans being trafficked. And we reach for the remote and flip the channel because we don’t want to hear that sermon right now.

And there are big problems in the world. Creation has been forever changed due to human activity, and we don’t know what other kinds of health problems and devastation it is going to bring as a result of our hands. We have already seen entire communities completely displaced physically or emotionally by mountain top removal. That is one of death’s sermon illustrations.

Atlanta is the largest city in the United States and possibly in the world for human trafficking. Death points that out too.
Homelessness wrecks lives, and right now our federal government is going to shut down because it cannot agree on which services to cut that benefit the poor, while our weapons of death will receive full funding.

And that is who Jesus knows he is going to meet when he goes down to Bethany. In all of its messy reality. Thomas sarcastically says that they will go too so that they may die with him…he didn’t realize how right he was.

And so Jesus stands before the tomb of his friend. With the grieving sisters and their community at his side. And he weeps. Because the flood of death will bring anyone to tears.

It is a moment to which people point and say, “wow, he must have loved him a whole lot!” Or they point this verse out because it is short and easy to memorize as the clearest evidence of Jesus’ full humanity. But I think he is weeping because he is face to face with Death. And with that, comes pain. Death is mocking him. What do you have to say to this, preacher? Your friend is dead.

And Jesus proclaims, maybe in a still, small voice, what we proclaim this and every morning, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

Death, you do not win, and you do not get the final say.

So while we take a look around and see the evidence of death all around us. Joblessness, homelessness, abuse…Jesus proclaims to them too, I am the Resurrection and the Life.

And he proclaims to all of us, who are so entangled in this world that we argue about whose lives are worth more. We argue about who is right and who is wrong. We argue over how one another is baptized…and Jesus stands in the face of this death, and proclaims, I am the Resurrection and the Life.

I have seen a t-shirt around here that bugs me. It is some tshirt that a church put together that has a mountain dew label on the front, but instead of saying Mountain Dew it says, “meant to die.” And every time I see that shirt I want to say them…no! That is not what we are meant for! We are meant for life! I want to say it because I believe it.

Which calls us to go into some pretty tough places. It calls me to speak honestly with a friend who has faced death, and it has left him shattered. It calls you to repair broken relationships you may have with your spouse, or your children, or your neighbors. It calls us to forgive one another. Of their faults, and their debts.

It calls us to be followers of Christ in everything that we do. Not being complicit in the destruction that death brings, but followers of Christ in the eternal life he has given to us by his own death and resurrection. Because we don’t do it alone. We have the Holy Spirit empowering and guiding us. We have Christ Redeeming us, and we have the community of faith supporting us. So all of the things I’ve already mentioned, are big things, but the power of Christ compels us to live into this new life.

So when he says, Lazarus, come out! Lazarus does come, but he is still surrounded by death. He smells, and he has to hop around blindly because he still has all of his wrappings on. So even when he is called forth to life once again, death still has a hold.

But compare that to Jesus’ Resurrection. The grave clothes are not still attached, they are neatly folded and put away. The stone doesn’t have to be removed, it is already gone. He doesn’t smell like death, but is instead mistaken for a gardener, a cultivator of life.

Death may have a powerful sermon. One that will make you quake and keep you up at night, but it is a sermon that has no backing. Jesus’ sermon is backed by God, the creator of the entire cosmos. And Jesus’ sermon is inviting us into eternal life now.

So I guess the question that faces us this morning is the same one Jesus asks Martha when he says, “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. Do you believe this?”

Well…do you?

That is what our entire faith is about…do you believe it? Do you believe in the redemption of the world? Do you believe that we will one day not learn war anymore? Do you believe that no one will go hungry or thirsty anymore? Do you believe we will all be welcomed into the Kingdom of God?

That is not an easy question to answer. Because Death’s sermon is very persuasive…but Jesus asks us, do you believe it?

So if you answered yes…what are we going to do about it?

Because God calls us to live into this reality as Jesus’ disciples.
Hatred, fear, and yes, even death itself do not define us. We do not burn copies of the Koran and call it our Christian duty. And we do not promise financial gain or a life of comfort by becoming a Christian, and we do not protest military funerals because of some distortion of what is right or not. And we do not flip the channel, but stare death right in the face. And there might be tears when that happens, but we stare and we say, because of Jesus Christ in my life, and with the power of the Holy Spirit; “death, where is your victory? Where is your sting?”

When you face death. And you will. Probably more than once. When you are asked to speak up for the poor, care for creation, loosen the chains of the slaves, and give shelter to those in the storm. Remember that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ…and he is the Resurrection and the life.