Sermon 16th May 2010
Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, continues our study of John 11: The raising of Lazarus:
A meditation
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 Where have you laid him? he asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. 35 Jesus wept.
1. I am an observer. I am not engaged. I am not involved. I am able to observe from far. I can remain detached. Just watching and listening. Right now I am watching those women over there – sisters they are. Look at them. Look at their drawn faces; see that tiredness in their shoulders. Days of watching: days and nights of waiting. For that one, yes that one, Mary she is, look at her cloak – creased with the days and nights of sitting by the bed wiping away the fever, washing away the filth, by her touch communicating their presence and their care. Her face tells her story now: is it over now? Has it really happened? Has he gone or is it just a dream? And the other one: look, still busy, burying her sadness in bossy, busyness. It’s how she is, bossy, busy, no time for emotion. And in their individual, different sadnesses see how they seem to be waiting for something – see the way they look round when they hear the sound of steps, the sound of voices. Have they been expecting that someone might come?
2. I am an observer. Through the car windows, I wait to see the things that I am used to seeing in this night-time drive north. First the red sky ablaze over Corby as the men from Scotland turn the ground of Northants into steel; then the bombers standing proudly at the gates of the airfields of Lincolnshire, and, tired now, looking straight up to see the top of the cathedral spire before, last of all, driving off the Wolds the sky, now black, is lit again by the furnaces of more steel-makers. Then passed into the arms of Auntie Emily – and now I just listen, listen to a conversation that will last a weekend, that will impress on a small child the mortality of man: “You remember Jean – you know Jean who married Eric – used to be a guide-leader? Yes? Well she’s dead. And Eric’s in hospital again with his ....Oh and George.from behind the fish shop? Yes? He dead...”
And back in a car, a little older now, life is exciting! I have inherited my sister’s old cagoule and I am the only one in the cottage who doesn’t care that it rains all the time in the Summer in North Wales, because I am a commando; day after day in wind and rain I am fighting off the enemy on the beach. But now in the car, I am listening and hear a stray comment, not meant for me: “So will your mum leave you dad?” My life has just changed. I have engaged
3. So this is who they have been expecting - that crew of men whose dust I have been watching getting closer for the last hour or more. Obviously someone ran ahead with the news ,as the busy one has left her jobs and has run down the track to meet the visitors; look she has met them before they have got into the village.. Get closer, let’s listen. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died…” – words that might be an accusation, a complaint for being late, for holding back - but are not. Rather, in the midst of her ever –active, mourning, her coping loss, they are words of trust: he would not have died, “God will give you whatever you ask.” I am observing trust even as the thing she would have asked for first in the world is taken from her. “I am the resurrection and the life….He who believes in me will never die.” Words that could just be words to a person in her place. “Do you believe this?” “Yes,” she replies.
4. I have found that the world can be blocked out from observing, if you lie deep in your bed with a pillow pressed hard over your ears. That way you can try not to hear whether or not the car comes home and when. That way you can pretend that the noises from downstairs are not another row between two people you love. That way everything might be perfect. That way my desperate prayers for it all to be sorted - for one to drink less, for the other to try to understand more, for some love to be restored - might seem to be answered. Jesus, please, help!
5. Now look, the gentle one is here. And her sadness has overcome her, her tears flow and he - he who is the resurrection and the life – he is angry. Yes, angry. Her sadness has moved him to anger. But not at her, not even at the mourners who weep with her, genuinely or formulaically. No it is aimed at something else, not a person, not a thing: it is as if he is angry at death itself: this state that comes to us all. The “life” is at odds with death. But look, now they are near the tomb and his mood is changed. Stood there with Mary, observing her grief, he weeps with her. The resurrection and the life shares the sadness .
6. I have been very aware of being an observer of much of what has happened in the parish in the last couple of years as we have been bounced around by the dramatic events in the Vicarage. And as others in the congregations and the community have been battling with illness or loss – these things being the trigger for these times of sharing on this passage from John’s gospel – I, like most of us, have been there watching. Watching - and praying – sometimes desperate prayers
7. In putting the experience of this time – as well as other experiences of life – alongside the story of Jesus and Lazarus, I find three particular points of contact with the Bible story: Jesus’ anger, Jesus’ tears and the outcome of trust or faith.
• I don’t dwell much on the anger – indeed we need to read the passage with a commentary perhaps to pick up that Jesus being “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” is an expression of anger rather than grief – but that is what it is. He shares that innate anger we have felt, we feel, at the destructiveness of illness, the waste of addiction, the futility of breaking relationships, the hopelessness of shattered dreams. He shares it.
• Jesus tears are much more obvious. The shortest verse in the Bible. Even though Jesus knew what was to happen, his love for his friends brought him to grieve for their sadness. He understood their sense of loss and was saddened. And, as others have testified in this series already, wherever we stand in times of trouble, in the midst or on the edge, we can testify to that love and empathy: of Jesus being part of our experience, sharing it with us. I knew it as a young Christian in the place I found myself: the anguish was not taken away but I knew I was loved.
• And the “faith bit” is perhaps curious: was the whole thing just a test to provide an opportunity for a faith-inducing miracle? Is that the case with the stresses of life generally? I don’t think so. But the fact is, that in those places we can be better attuned to be close to God, to learn, to be ready to experience a miracle. That was my experience – as it happens understanding and love did return; and in recent times I think only of the prayer meeting on the day of Joc’s operation - of a message sent round the parish in hours drawing a roomful from every corner of parish life to be there and to be close.
Amen
A meditation
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 Where have you laid him? he asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. 35 Jesus wept.
1. I am an observer. I am not engaged. I am not involved. I am able to observe from far. I can remain detached. Just watching and listening. Right now I am watching those women over there – sisters they are. Look at them. Look at their drawn faces; see that tiredness in their shoulders. Days of watching: days and nights of waiting. For that one, yes that one, Mary she is, look at her cloak – creased with the days and nights of sitting by the bed wiping away the fever, washing away the filth, by her touch communicating their presence and their care. Her face tells her story now: is it over now? Has it really happened? Has he gone or is it just a dream? And the other one: look, still busy, burying her sadness in bossy, busyness. It’s how she is, bossy, busy, no time for emotion. And in their individual, different sadnesses see how they seem to be waiting for something – see the way they look round when they hear the sound of steps, the sound of voices. Have they been expecting that someone might come?
2. I am an observer. Through the car windows, I wait to see the things that I am used to seeing in this night-time drive north. First the red sky ablaze over Corby as the men from Scotland turn the ground of Northants into steel; then the bombers standing proudly at the gates of the airfields of Lincolnshire, and, tired now, looking straight up to see the top of the cathedral spire before, last of all, driving off the Wolds the sky, now black, is lit again by the furnaces of more steel-makers. Then passed into the arms of Auntie Emily – and now I just listen, listen to a conversation that will last a weekend, that will impress on a small child the mortality of man: “You remember Jean – you know Jean who married Eric – used to be a guide-leader? Yes? Well she’s dead. And Eric’s in hospital again with his ....Oh and George.from behind the fish shop? Yes? He dead...”
And back in a car, a little older now, life is exciting! I have inherited my sister’s old cagoule and I am the only one in the cottage who doesn’t care that it rains all the time in the Summer in North Wales, because I am a commando; day after day in wind and rain I am fighting off the enemy on the beach. But now in the car, I am listening and hear a stray comment, not meant for me: “So will your mum leave you dad?” My life has just changed. I have engaged
3. So this is who they have been expecting - that crew of men whose dust I have been watching getting closer for the last hour or more. Obviously someone ran ahead with the news ,as the busy one has left her jobs and has run down the track to meet the visitors; look she has met them before they have got into the village.. Get closer, let’s listen. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died…” – words that might be an accusation, a complaint for being late, for holding back - but are not. Rather, in the midst of her ever –active, mourning, her coping loss, they are words of trust: he would not have died, “God will give you whatever you ask.” I am observing trust even as the thing she would have asked for first in the world is taken from her. “I am the resurrection and the life….He who believes in me will never die.” Words that could just be words to a person in her place. “Do you believe this?” “Yes,” she replies.
4. I have found that the world can be blocked out from observing, if you lie deep in your bed with a pillow pressed hard over your ears. That way you can try not to hear whether or not the car comes home and when. That way you can pretend that the noises from downstairs are not another row between two people you love. That way everything might be perfect. That way my desperate prayers for it all to be sorted - for one to drink less, for the other to try to understand more, for some love to be restored - might seem to be answered. Jesus, please, help!
5. Now look, the gentle one is here. And her sadness has overcome her, her tears flow and he - he who is the resurrection and the life – he is angry. Yes, angry. Her sadness has moved him to anger. But not at her, not even at the mourners who weep with her, genuinely or formulaically. No it is aimed at something else, not a person, not a thing: it is as if he is angry at death itself: this state that comes to us all. The “life” is at odds with death. But look, now they are near the tomb and his mood is changed. Stood there with Mary, observing her grief, he weeps with her. The resurrection and the life shares the sadness .
6. I have been very aware of being an observer of much of what has happened in the parish in the last couple of years as we have been bounced around by the dramatic events in the Vicarage. And as others in the congregations and the community have been battling with illness or loss – these things being the trigger for these times of sharing on this passage from John’s gospel – I, like most of us, have been there watching. Watching - and praying – sometimes desperate prayers
7. In putting the experience of this time – as well as other experiences of life – alongside the story of Jesus and Lazarus, I find three particular points of contact with the Bible story: Jesus’ anger, Jesus’ tears and the outcome of trust or faith.
• I don’t dwell much on the anger – indeed we need to read the passage with a commentary perhaps to pick up that Jesus being “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” is an expression of anger rather than grief – but that is what it is. He shares that innate anger we have felt, we feel, at the destructiveness of illness, the waste of addiction, the futility of breaking relationships, the hopelessness of shattered dreams. He shares it.
• Jesus tears are much more obvious. The shortest verse in the Bible. Even though Jesus knew what was to happen, his love for his friends brought him to grieve for their sadness. He understood their sense of loss and was saddened. And, as others have testified in this series already, wherever we stand in times of trouble, in the midst or on the edge, we can testify to that love and empathy: of Jesus being part of our experience, sharing it with us. I knew it as a young Christian in the place I found myself: the anguish was not taken away but I knew I was loved.
• And the “faith bit” is perhaps curious: was the whole thing just a test to provide an opportunity for a faith-inducing miracle? Is that the case with the stresses of life generally? I don’t think so. But the fact is, that in those places we can be better attuned to be close to God, to learn, to be ready to experience a miracle. That was my experience – as it happens understanding and love did return; and in recent times I think only of the prayer meeting on the day of Joc’s operation - of a message sent round the parish in hours drawing a roomful from every corner of parish life to be there and to be close.
Amen
posted by Parish Administrator at 12:47 pm
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