Quotes That Make Me Think
"The epiphany is that we are to see ourselves in Lazarus and see the miracle of his restoration of physical life as the beginning of our entry into eternal life that begins the moment we accept Jesus' offer of relationship with us."
"Lazarus Is Us," Reflections on John 11:1-45, Alyce McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, Patheos, 2011.
"This story about Lazarus shares much in common with that of the Samaritan woman at the well. With the Samaritan woman the issue was seeing Jesus as the source of living water as compared to ordinary water. Here the issue is to see Jesus as the source of living life as compared to ordinary life."
Holy Textures, Understanding the Bible in its own time and in ours, John 11:1-45, David Ewart, 2011.
General Resources for Sunday's Lessons
Prayer
is the multitude, God of all holiness, countless the throng you have assembled from the rich diversity of all earth's children. With your church in glory, your church in this on lifts up our hands in prayer, our hearts in thanksgiving and praise. Pattern our lives on the blessedness Jesus taught, and gather us with all the saints into your kingdom's harvest, that we may stand with them and, clothed in glory, join our voices to their hymn of thanksgiving and praise. We ask this through Christ, with whom you have raised us up in baptism, the Lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Some Thoughts on John 11:32-44
O my all-merciful God and Lord,
Jesus Christ, full of pity:
Through Your great love You came down
and became incarnate in order to save everyone.
O Savior, I ask You to save me by Your grace!
If You save anyone because of their works,
that would not be grace but only reward of duty,
but You are compassionate and full of mercy!
You said, O my Christ,
"Whoever believes in Me shall live and never die."
If then, faith in You saves the lost, then save me,
O my God and Creator, for I believe.
Let faith and not my unworthy works be counted to me, O my God,
for You will find no works which could account me righteous.
O Lord, from now on let me love You as intensely as I have loved sin,
and work for You as hard as I once worked for the evil one.
I promise that I will work to do Your will,
my Lord and God, Jesus Christ, all the days of my life and forever more.
Prayer of St. John Chrysostom
John's Gospel is a wonderful proclamation of the power, divinity, and transformation that is available to every person through Jesus Christ. The author has written, among the four Gospels, a compelling witness to Jesus as Lord and Savior, as the giver of light, breath, and life from the very creation of the earth.
The story of the raising of Lazarus has never ceased to inspire and enliven both my imagination and my heart for the work of the Gospel. Our Gospel this week is the highest of revelationary narratives in the Gospel in both form and in content.
Jesus' raising of Lazarus is a reason why so many follow him and is clear in 12:17-18. He is as we know and have been experiencing throughout the Lenten readings the giver of life. (see 5:25-29), and precipitating his death (see 11:53). If we were reading along we would see that this is the last of a second set of miracle stories in John's Gospel that follow and highlight Jesus' teaching and conversation with his followers.
The passage begins with Jesus away and teaching, he is not present for his friend or his friends family. They come to get him and tell him that Lazarus has died. The words used to describe Jesus reaction to this are words that tell us he was affected greatly by the news. Again Jesus speaks of the work that must be done while he is with them, and that the work must be done in the light. Certainly these are like the other sayings that we have seen apocalyptic forecasts. Nevertheless, the very real human loss and desire for life is ever present as Jesus leaves to go to where Lazarus is buried.
He is of course returning to a place where he has shown power before and a place of danger. You might remember that he was almost stoned though he passed through them. 10:31, 39.
Jesus states that Lazarus has fallen asleep. This is a common reference to death in the time of Jesus and after. Chris Haslaam has done some very good research and provides links for other parts of the New Testament that say the same thing: "A common New Testament description of death: see Matthew 9:24; Mark 5:39; Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:6; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 5:10. (In several of these verses, the NRSV has died; however, the Greek can also be translated fell asleep.) [NOAB]"
Jesus words of peace and comfort are kind and simple....things will be better...they will be all right. Yet we must also realize that the word used here is one that means "to be saved." Sosthesetai is translated into "be saved." It is the word for salvation. Our witness to the raising of Lazarus is not simply a witness then to healing story, or an act of kindness, or a hopeful act, but a transformational act of restoration of health - of true salvation. It is a miracle, which like the other miracles in John's Gospel, clearly represent the work of glorifying God through the ministry of Jesus.
We are told that Lazarus had been in the grave for three days. There is a lot written around the idea of the Jewish burial services and the timeliness of such activities once the person has died. But I do not wish to get into this though it is interesting. I believe that the real meat of the text is in the conversation about salvation and resurrection.
As we continue the discourse on the resurrection we note that the Pharisees believed, along with other popular movements of the day, that all the Jews would be raised. Gentiles too if their integrity was judged by God to be suitable. I like how Chris Haslaam has written about these next two verses.
Verse 25: Jesus modifies Pharisaic doctrine. His words are not only about resurrection but also about the fate of those faithful to him. Jesus is not only the agent of final resurrection but also gives life now: see also Romans 6:4-5; Colossians 2:12; 3:1. Mere physical death can have no hold over the believer. [NOAB]Jesus then gives life now and in the age to come. Immediately Martha offers the same statement as the blind man in last weeks lesson. Her words, while a question refer to previous affirmations in the Gospel. She is convinced...convinced that the proclamation of Andrew on the Galilean shore was true 1:41. She is convinced that Nathanael's proclamation is true. 1:49. She is convinced that the good news revealed int he feeding of the 5 thousand is true. 6:14.
Verse 26: The believer has passed from the death of sin into life: see also Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8. [BlkJn]
Jesus approaches the tomb and calls Lazarus forth. It is not a resurrection story. But we cannot miss the connections as Jesus calls forth the dead from the tomb as he will most certainly do in the Easter miracle bringing all of the saints into light.
I also am struck by the reality that Lazarus must be unbound and that many participate with Jesus in this work of freeing him from death into life, from darkness into light.
The Gospel tells us that this miracle of reviving Lazarus is for the glory of God. It is also brings many more into the Jesus movement. We cannot see the disturbing events that lay ahead of Jesus without seeing the impact of this great miracle on the movement itself. For surely, as the Gospel testifies, the leaders of the day were worried and concerned.
This is a great miracle story. It is one that is rich with inter-textual meaning and connections. It highlights Jesus' as the one who gives life and breath. As Jesus says in the beginning of the text day is becoming night, and yet as we read we see that it will be Jesus who brings us out of the shadow of the darkness of the tomb into the light of day.
The witness of this passage is an evangelical one pointing us to the truth of the person of Jesus Christ so that we might believe and then raise the dead ourselves!
We are here at the precipice of our readings of Jesus' ministry. On this day we remember the saints of God who have gone before us, we are mindful then of our own tomb and our own death yet to come. We hope in God and Christ Jesus that this death will not be an end but a passing. We hoep with sure and certain faith that God has raised Lazarus and in his work to bridge the kingdom of God with the world that we shall be scooped up into his harms, unbound from our eathly ego and all that binds us.
Some Thoughts on Revelation 21:1-6
"In Revelation 21, people do not go to heaven as most people have been taught but rather God comes down to earth to dwell with mortals -- "the new Jerusalem descends from heaven," and God makes a home among mortals (21:2-3)."
Commentary, Revelation 21:1-6, Israel Kamudzandu, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.
"Contrary to popular apocalyptic thinking, there is no 'rapture' or a future snatching of Christians up from the earth in Revelation. Instead, it is God who is 'raptured' down to earth to take up residence among us."
Commentary, Revelation 21:1-6, Barbara Rossing, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"Revelation envisions a renewal, not an escape."
Commentary, Revelation 21:1-6, Greg Carey, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
Commentary, Revelation 21:1-6, Greg Carey, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
We continue the longest series of readings from the book of Revelation this week. In today's passage the vision is of a new heaven and new earth. The first things have passed away.
As a number of theologians point out the book of Revelation squarely places the kingdom of God's work on earth. Rather than the heavens consuming the earth as in many other apocalyptic tradition the image and theme of Revelation is that heaven comes to earth; the fulfillment of the incarnation and the work of Jesus.
At the wedding at Cana of Galilee one can imagine the bride and groom and the many attendees gathered around enjoying the company of one another. The image though of the bride of Christ given in the previous chapter is not a wedding feast where earth is brought into heaven and all rejoice. It is instead an image of a beautiful and wondrous earthly city. It is a place of hospitality to the stranger and a place of rest for the weary pilgrim, and peace for God's people. Tears are wiped away in this place and the world itself is transformed.
Such a city has been on the hearts and minds of Christians from Augustine to the slave, from the missionary to the persecuted. It is found in the writings of William Blake and is present in the abolitionist and civil rights leader's voice.
In revelation we are not offered a future hope of heavenly bliss but a transformed earth. The resurrection happens on earth and so to will the reign of God. We can all think of the Armageddon images and films which promise some form of escapism from the world. This is not quite the image we find in Revelation. The earth is made new. Not unlike the Christ after resurrection where he is more present, more real, than he was before the same may be said for the new earth. The reign of God on earth will be more present and more real. What has been seen only in part will be revealed in an even greater way.
The earth which has been sowed for power and ruled by authorities other than God will be changed. It isn't so much that the earth or seas will be no more as they will no longer be used and corrupted by powers outside of the reign of God. The earth that is made new is sustainable and God will provide for his people. This will be a new world, remade, and reordered such that the power of Rome or Babylon cannot keep the waters of life from those who seek it. This vision is transformative and promises a different world which will provide all that is needed for its population. The hungry and thirsty will receive good things to eat and drink. The powers that have ruled the world and corrupted the creation and the creatures will no longer have dominion.
The city which John envisions comes down from heaven to earth is a sight for us all. It is a revelation of a new earth; and the promise of a creation which supports bounteous life under the reign of a loving and providing God.
Some Thoughts on Isaiah 25:6-9
"The theological tension in Isaiah 25:1-9 means that while we aren't given an earthly means for overcoming all disasters and tragedies, we are given a glimpse of a world in which death is swallowed up forever and 'God will wipe away the tears from all faces' (v. 8)."
Commentary, Isaiah 25:1-9, James K. Mead, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.
"The theological tension in Isaiah 25:1-9 means that while we aren't given an earthly means for overcoming all disasters and tragedies, we are given a glimpse of a world in which death is swallowed up forever and 'God will wipe away the tears from all faces' (v. 8)."
Commentary, Isaiah 25:1-9, James K. Mead, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.
"In this remarkable passage, the Lord prepares a lavish feast at the Lord's own sacred mountain."
Commentary, Isaiah 25:6-9, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
Commentary, Isaiah 25:6-9, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
"Lofty poetry does matter. It may even change the world. For instance, the words of the American Declaration of Independence, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, have been reutilized several times to envision equalities that lay well beyond the imagination of its original writers."
Commentary, Isaiah 25:1-9, Patricia Tull, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.
Commentary, Isaiah 25:1-9, Patricia Tull, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.
This passage is an Easter passage and also comes up in year A as an option around this time of year.
It is of course the great banquet on Mount Zion.
Isaiah prophesies to the people in Babylon a message of hope. He has prophesied that God cares about his people who are dispersed, enslaved, and treated as instruments of the victor. He writes:
Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat.Isaiah prophesies that God will remove the shroud that covers the people and they will return home. God will not only feed them good food as promised, rich food, but fat and well-aged wine. God will even defeat death. These next words are the words we recall at Easter:
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.The prophet then speaks of religious violence and how the feast of the table will be set on the backs of the defeat of the Moabites.
Richard Hays, in Echoes of the Scripture in the New Testament, believes that this is part of the divine narrative of ingathering that is picked up by Matthew in his apocalyptic understanding. (137) God will blow a great trumpet, each person will be gathered up, into the divine heavens and sit at the table of the most high God. Matthew sees very much God's restoration of Israel through the Incarnation as a mimetic repetition of God's overarching story of gathering God's people. See also Isaiah 27:13, Psalms of Solomon 17:26, and Matthew 19. (Ibid.)
Many Christians without the benefit of reading the whole text will miss the intertextual role of judgment in these passages. We get blinders on and make this about an apocalyptic/eschatalogical final judgment. However, judgment is more often used through the whole text to mean governing. In other words this final gathering of people at God's table will be to bring to fruition God's garden social imaginary where in all people are living together. God is governing and not the powers and authorities of the world.
Now...what about those Moabites. We would say that Isaiah is listening to God, to the Christ, the Living Word, and pronouncing the vision of God's coming reign. However, that does not mean that he benefits from the full revelation of the God in Christ Jesus. He cannot imagine the table being set without religious violence being enacted to bring about peace. Jesus however reveals that his death upon the cross, Christ's death upon the cross is in fact payment for all. Like a great black hole, when death swallows up God in Christ Jesus, death swallows up all religious violence along with it. When Jesus is resurrected the world begins its next stage of the journey wherein religious violence, and all violence is no longer of value in the faith of man.
What we have in the Text is God revealing a living word that will gather all people at the table of fellowship. Here it is none other than the suffering servant of Isaiah that has set the table. Jesus' message to love God and love neighbor, his presence with all sorts and conditions of people, and his eating with sinners reveals that we have only a partial revelation in this passage. We must read the text with the hermeneutic of a missional Jesus. We read it with the hermeneutic of Christ crucified, of very God upon the cross, putting an end to all religious scapegoating and violence. We can no longer read Isaiah's prophesy as a mandate to kill the oppressor, the Moabite, the Ammonite, of our day. We are not given license to kill.
As my friend Stanley Hauerwas likes to quip, the Israelites are trying to get over their need for religious violence. We see this in the contradictions in Job (we just read) and in the story of Abraham and Jonah in Nineveh.
Here is what St. Ireneaus has to say about reading scripture without God in Christ Jesus and his cross:
If anyone, therefore, reads the Scriptures this way, he will find in them the Word concerning Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling. For Christ is the “treasure which was hidden in the field” [Matt 13:44], that is, in this world – for “the field is the world” [Matt 13:38] – [a treasure] hidden in the Scriptures, for he was indicated by means of types and parables, which could not be understood by men prior to the consummation of those things which had been predicted, that is, the advent of the Lord. And therefore it was said to Daniel the prophet, “Shut up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the consummation, until many learn and knowledge abounds. For, when the dispersion shall be accomplished, they shall know all these things” [Dan 12:4, 7]. And Jeremiah also says, “In the last days they shall understand these things” [Jer 23:20]. For every prophecy, before its fulfillment, is nothing but an enigma and ambiguity to men; but when the time has arrived, and the prediction has come to pass, then it has an exact exposition (ἐξήγησις). And for this reason, when at this present time the Law is read by the Jews, it is like a myth, for they do not possess the explanation (ἐξήγησις) of all things which pertain to the human advent of the Son of God; but when it is read by Christians, it is a treasure, hid in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ, and explained, both enriching the understanding of men, and showing forth the wisdom of God, and making known his dispensations with regard to man, and prefiguring the kingdom of Christ, and preaching in anticipation the good news of the inheritance of the holy Jerusalem, and proclaiming beforehand that the man who loves God shall advance so far as even to see God, and hear his Word, and be glorified, from hearing his speech, to such an extent, that others will not be able to behold his glorious countenance [cf. 2 Cor 3:7], as was said by Daniel, “Those who understand shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and many of the righteous as the stars for ever and ever” [Dan 12:3]. In this manner, then, I have shown it to be, if anyone read the Scriptures. (Against the Heresies 4.26.1)Stanley Hauerwas, commenting on this passage here in a short essay on how to read the bible, writes:
But once the Messiah is raised from the dead and the Spirit is poured out, the Old Testament becomes a luminous testimony to the Savior and Creator of the universe. As Fr Andrew Greeley once remarked: “Christ turned the world upside down; and when the world was viewed from such a remarkable perspective, it suddenly made sense.”
Contemporary theology and biblical studies, with its privileging of the historical-critical method, inevitably finds the apostolic hermeneutic an embarrassment. Neither the Apostles nor the Church Fathers treated the biblical writings as documents whose meaning lies exclusively in the text itself. If they had, there would have been neither gospel nor Church. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the canon of faith.Why am I saying all this? Because when we preach on a passage such as this and let the Moabite prophesy go unanswered we allow people to make up their own mind. People like the idea of religious violence, scapegoating, and repeating ancient habits of violence in judgement because we naturally multiply the sin of Cain. We must, perhaps only in a few words, answer the Moabite question for it is the answer needed when it comes to our modern day fears and enemies (pretend and real).
This is indeed a passage about how God will bring all people, all the faithful departed, together. How God will make all the sinners saints by the handiwork of God's cross. This is a prophesy that speaks of hope for all people. A hope of sitting at table in this world with Jesus - as both giver and guest. And...sitting at table with God and all people at the coming of the reign of God who shall govern such that even the lion and lamb shall lay down together.
No comments:
Post a Comment