The poet Scott Cairns begins one of his poems this way:
“Let’s pretend for now there is no such thing/as metaphor; you know, waking up will just/be waking up, darkness will no longer have to be anything but dark; this could all be happening/in Kansas.”
Reading 1: No Metaphors
Scott Cairns’ preface to his own poem has been echoing in my mind this week as I sat with this story from John’s Gospel.
And I think the reason is because it can be a helpful way to encounter the characters in this story. Before we say anything else about what happens here, it feels important to begin by saying, at least in the first reading, let’s pretend that there’s no such thing as metaphor. You know…
A stone can just be a stone.
Burial clothes don’t have to be anything other than burial clothes.
And a dead brother is just a dead brother.
When we encounter a story like the one John is telling us, it’s tempting to move a little too quickly to our own concerns or its applications to our lives. We want to ask, What does this story means for us?
And as much as John might intend for his readers and listeners to bring themselves into this story, it’s important to not start there. Especially when it comes to the kind of story that John is telling this morning…
In the first instance, this is a story about a family whose brother fell ill.
It’s a story about a family that prayed for his healing.
And, it’s a story about how Jesus did not show up or respond before he died.
In the first place, that’s the story John has to share with us. And it’s important not to rush past it, or to assign blame, or to turn the spotlight on our own grief. Just stay with this story a moment, John invites.
And when we do that, we’re invited to get to know a little bit more about the people who are experiencing all of this—this love, this loss, and this surprise.
When we don’t hurry past these characters, we begin to ask questions like, Who is this, really? Who is Lazarus? Who’s his community?
We know that he comes from Bethany, a village a little less than 2 miles from Jerusalem.
We know that he has two unmarried sisters, Mary and Martha.
His sister, John reminds us, is the same Mary who made a scene by kneeling at Jesus’ feet, anointing him with perfume, and wiping his feet with her hair (v.2a).
And here, in this story, Mary once again kneels at Jesus’ feet.
But this time, she kneels to grieve the fact that Jesus’ delay means her brother is now dead.
We know Lazarus’s body is laid in a tomb carved out of stone, which assumes a certain privilege and social standing.
And we also know that he was a close friend of Jesus.
At the start of this story, before we picked it up this morning, the two sisters send a message to Jesus, telling him that the one that he loves is ill (v.3).
Jesus responds to the news of Lazarus’ death by weeping (v.35).
Plenty of people have written about Jesus’ tears, attempting to explain what they mean if Jesus knows what was going to come next.
But those who were there to witness it don’t need an explanation. They simply say, “See how he loved him!” (v.36).
So we know some things about Lazarus. And we know some things about his community.
But that’s not the whole story.
Jesus’ Prayers & Invitation to Collaborate in Resurrection (vv.38-44)
When Jesus arrives, we’re told that enough time has passed that there’s concern that her brother’s dead body has begun to smell… It’s been four days since Lazarus died, we’re told.
Jewish custom taught that after two days the soul leaves the body. Lazarus was now dead dead. Any remaining hope was lost.
And that’s when Jesus shows up. And he prays for Lazarus, confident, we’re told, that God the Father hears his prayers (vv.41b-42).
In the face of grief, and especially the kind of settled grief that this story describes, I’m not sure how you pray.
I tend to pray for comfort. For pleasant memories of loved ones. I pray for connection. For reminders that as lonely as grief is, that it has a way of connecting us, reminding us we’re not as alone as we feel.
This prayer from Jesus sounds different than how I tend to pray.
His prayer is confident: “I know you hear me,” Jesus says.
His prayer speaks of gratitude.
And assurance that God the Father is up to something here, even here, beyond the horizon of reasonable hope.
Community of Solidarity
But Jesus doesn’t simply pray for God’s help; He invites Lazarus’ loved ones to get involved.
“Remove the stone,” Jesus tells Lazarus’s sister, Mary. And, John tells us, “they took away the stone” from the cave where Lazarus’ body has been laid. His community responds, they get involved.
The author Diana Butler Bass speaks to the communal nature of this scene:
“When someone dies,” she writes, “something of the larger world dies as well. We weep because we know this—we weep because we understand that our lives depend on other lives. And death cuts us off from familiar patterns of our existence. We miss the dead. We miss their presence, their voice, their laughter. And we must do the hard work of finding a new way for ourselves. And that, we fear, will be work we must do on our own.”
“And that is one of the deceptions of death,” Bass writes. “That it is solitary. But this story reveals something quite different—Lazarus’ death created a community of solidarity.”
Jesus Mafa Painting: Community of Solidarity & Faithful Response
There’s a 1973 painting of this scene called “Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life,” and it was commissioned by the Jesus Mafa project. The Jesus Mafa Project was an initiative in the 1970s to help teach the gospel in Northern Cameroon, through a series of paintings depicting the life of Jesus as an African man.
In the painting of this scene, Jesus is dressed in a red robe, his black hair is shorn close to his head. He is standing with his back to the viewer, and he has one arm outstretched, reaching toward an opening in a cave.
A community is gathered around him, dressed in bright blues, yellows, and pinks. Men and women, young and old, they’re all celebrating, all looking at the same hole in the rock wall…
From that exposed cave, a man is coming out of the dark. He is clothed in white bands of cloth. And a band of light is revealing the hint of a smile.
But it’s the last character in this painting, on the furthest right-hand side, that caught my eye. With his hand still on the stone that has been rolled away from the mouth of the cave, his face is unlike any of the others gathered around.
Whereas others are celebrating with smiles of joy and sheer delight, even dancing, this young man’s face reveals a look of utter disbelief.
His mouth is wide open; his eyes are wide.
Even though he has just rolled away the stone as Jesus commanded, he cannot believe what he is seeing. Which is to say, he was acting in faith, even against his own ability to imagine or hope for something other than grief and loss.
But there’s one last thing to say about this story as John tells it.
When “the dead man,” walks out of the tomb, as John puts it. Not “Lazarus,” but “the dead man,” almost as if John is concerned that we don’t miss what has happened.
What does Jesus tell the crowds to do?
“Unbind him…” (v.44b), Jesus tells Lazarus’ community. “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Whatever is happening in response to Jesus’ prayer and Lazarus’ resurrection… John takes the time and the care to elaborate that this resurrection work involves the co-laboring of Lazarus’ community.
Reading 2: Metaphors exist: What about us?
So what if we stop pretending that there is no such thing as metaphor? What might John’s story have to say to us then?
At least a couple of things.
First, when the time comes that we find ourselves grieving a family member who becomes ill, and if Jesus doesn’t arrive in time to help, we can know, we can know that we’re not alone.
John’s story reminds us that when we find ourselves past the horizon of hope, grieving the death of those we hold most dear, the Jesus who we call Christ weeps with us—no matter what comes next.
Second, one of the things that the gospel writers go to great lengths to show us is that death isn’t simply what happens after we die.
There are all sorts of life experiences that are more properly described as death.
Being removed from our community and living in isolation—that can be a type of death.
Being overwhelmed with shame and fear can be a type of death.
Being stuck in cycles of addiction and judgement is a type of death.
Suffering in silence, believing the lie that we’re the only one who feels this way, that no one understands us—that, too, can be a type of death.
And, in the face of all these experiences, John’s story has something to say: this is not the end of the story.
There is a type of healing, transformation, and liberation that is possible here.
And whatever that looks like, it is possible not by our own best efforts, but with a community of love, care, and solidarity.
The transformation experienced here is not merely about an individual. It’s communal, and it goes both ways. It’s not just Lazarus who’s restored to life in this story. His community experiences newness of life, too.
OPOP: Story of Domestic Abuse, Solidarity, and New Ministry
My fiancé, Austin, works with Underground Ministries and the One Parish One Prisoner program you all are getting involved in. And she has been so excited to help St. Luke’s get started, coming alongside your new friend Jazmine—getting to know her through old fashioned letter writing, sharing life back and forth, so that when she is released, she has a community of supportive friends to welcome her home, and to help unbind her from the weight of the very real systems that attempt to keep her in the underground.
While I was preparing for this sermon, Austin told me a story about another congregation involved with the One Parish One Prisoner program.
She shared that as they got to know their new friend, they found out that this particular neighbor had a history of domestic abuse.
And when one of the church members on the One Parish One Prisoner team found out, she began to slowly distance herself. She stopped going to meetings, stopped responding to emails. And she finally let her pastor know that she was no longer able to participate.
It was the first time she shared her experience of domestic abuse, and the pain it still caused her.
Her pastor listened carefully. Apologized for her experience, which never should have happened.
But then he gently asked her to reconsider. It was her choice, he insisted, but he asked if she might be willing to continue getting to know the church’s new friend.
It was a risky move, this pastor’s invite. But she considered it, and she chose to stay involved.
And what happened, as she continued to get to know this man’s story, is that she began to become more comfortable sharing her own story—because she took a risk to share her own story first with her OPOP team, and she found it was embraced with care and support.
For the first time, she began to feel freedom from the crushing weight of pain and alienation of her own experience. Suddenly, that terrible experience no longer had the same power over her.
As time went on, the two became good friends. They started a new ministry at the church, one where others who had experienced domestic abuse could be reminded: You’re not alone. There’s freedom for you here, too.
Fr. Greg Boyle puts it this way: “When we fail to embrace our own wounds, we will be tempted to despise the wounded.”
Or, to put it another way: When we welcome the wounded, we will be able to welcome our own wounds, too.
What experience reveals, and what John’s story reminds us, is that when we draw near to these places of death, grief, and alienation—these places where the Lord meets us with his own tears.
And when we allow ourselves to stay here, without hurrying past or creating a safe distance by assigning blame on others, what we find is that there is room for our own healing and our own transformation, too.
Thanks be to God.
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