Not in the Miracle Business

John 11:32-44

All Saints Sunday, 2009

There was once a man by the name of Mordechai, who lived in Bethany. He was an old man, a merchant who had passed on his business to his sons, and they had prospered. They took good care of their father, Mordechai, keeping him comfortable with good food and would light warm fires on cold nights for him. As he got older and more infirm, they hired young women who would cook and clean for him, and bathe him.


But the inevitable day came, and as all people do, Mordechai died. The proper prayers were said, the mourners hired and the crowd gathered to remember Mordechai. He was a righteous man, and while not sinless in the eyes of God, he was still a good man, full of compassion and charity, living modestly.

It was a close family, and there were many friends who gathered. One family who didn't however, was Lazarus'. His family did not attend Mordechai's funeral because they were conducting one of their own, for Lazarus himself. That is to be forgiven, so the sons did not think any more about it.

Then they began to hear the stories of Lazarus and Jesus, and then saw Lazarus himself when Lazarus came to pay his respects. And they were filled with confusion and anger.

"He was dead, and now he isn't? Why couldn't that happen to our father?" "If this Jesus person could have used Lazarus to make a point about the power of God, why couldn't he make a point with our father as well?"
"If he has this power, could he not come use it to raise our beloved father?"

And so it felt with every person, perhaps, who stood and watched as they opened the tomb, and smelled the stench of the dead, heard Jesus command Lazarus to come out, and saw him indeed do so. And unfortunately, they would miss the point.

Jesus is not in the miracle business. Jesus did not come to earth for us so that we can make requests. He is not our last defense against the consequences of our actions, and he is not here to interrupt the natural courses of our lives. He is not even here to save us from the damage we have perpetrated to our own bodies, the violence and neglect we commit on others, and the shortening of life that results.

Jesus is in the love business. The story of Lazarus shows us that Jesus loved Lazarus. Jesus loved Mary and Martha. And to show them how much he loved them, and therefore how much God loved them and all people of Bethany, he caused God to raise Lazarus from the dead, with the appropriate words spoken around the event. Indeed, if Jesus had come into town before, saying "if you believe, you will see the glory of God", and "I am the Resurrection and the Life, even those who die, they will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die, but live", some folks would have said something like , "Oh, gee isn't that nice", and others would have said something closer to "Yeah, right".

So the point of Lazarus being raised from the dead isn't to bring Lazarus back. It's to show that the power really is present in Jesus, and therefore in God. Resurrection is possible. And for Jesus to do it with tears in his eyes with love for this family is just as important I think; Jesus is the son of God, and while he was on earth, he was the embodiment of God's character. So if Jesus wept over Lazarus, so did God. He knew Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and realized, way back at the beginning of Chapter 11, that Lazarus' death was a good opportunity to show love and power to people. That's why he waits; go back and read it; he does!

Now, the story of Mordechai I told in the beginning is not from the Bible. But the questions the sons ask are the questions we all ask. When our loved ones die, we want to know why. If they have been ill a long time, or were very old, that is one thing, and for most, easier to digest. But we all know stories and people who have died that are not so easy, and we want Jesus to step in and perform the miracle that he performed on Lazarus. We may even want it to be for the same reasons, to show God's glory.

Well, God isn't in the miracle business. He's proved his power over death not once already, but twice. Lazarus, and then Jesus himself. Then Jesus ascended to heaven, and we were given the power of the Holy Spirit. He is in the love business, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, so are we.

Death comes to us all. When one of us dies, what happens? We gather, help out, make a meal, take covered dishes to the family, and other small and loving things that help get people through. We celebrate the lives that have gone. If someone dies in an untimely way, the cause of their death sometimes becomes something to fight against, to focus on defeating.

It is all loving witness.

The names we read this year for All Saints run the gamut, from a full life lived to one cut brutally short. Each one of their stories is known by someone here, and there are stories around their passing that give witness to the love and glory of God, if we have eyes to see.

If we have eyes to see God working in the love business.

A Quieter Glory

Mark 10: 35-45

JRR Tolkien wrote several books about a world of fantasy called Middle Earth, populated by various races, only one of whaich was human. There were talking trees called Ents, there were wizards, who were old men of uncertain race, buit seemed to be human; and there were Dwarves and Elves and a race of small people who loved to eat and were content with comfortable small lives called Hobbits.

Tolkien used this world to tell stories about strength, and ambition, and commitment, and integrity, and the power of friendship. The central story of the main set of books, called the Lord of the Rings, is about a young Hobbit named Frodo who is chosen or chooses to destroy a simple gold ring, which turns out to be the most powerful magic ring in the entire world of Middle Earth. It must be destroyed at the fire where it was created, so that an evil being cannot have the power to complete his ambition, which is to conquer the world and rule it all.

Frodo takes on the task, and is accompanied every step of the way by a loyal friend named Sam Gamgee, who, back in the area they are from, a place called the Shire, was his gardener.

The journey that Frodo takes is unbearably long and dangerous. Many things happen to him and to the people who are around him. He is stabbed by a sword that is poised by dark magic and almost dies; he is attacked and almost eaten by a giant evil spider; he is saved from the ghostly riders that chase him constantly for the ring by the race of elves; and he loses the finger that wears the ring because of someone else's obsessive greed. The trip is made in almost constant fear, in cold and hunger, and it changes him, physically and emotionally. There are times he is under the ring's power, becomes obsessed with it as well, and there are many moments when Sam must help him remember his task, and once even physically carries him when Frodo can't continue. It can surely be said that if he had known all that would happen to him and Sam, he would have refused to go.

Anything that is significant in our lives has the potential to change us in the same way. The job we choose to work can change us, can cause change to our bodies and to our minds. Sometimes that's for the good, sometimes it isn't positive at all.

Think of people who used to paint the little marks on watches that glowed in the dark. They would touch the paintbrush to their tongues to moisten it and make the paintbrush point sharper. The stuff that they were painting, the material that glowed in the dark, ended up being carcinogenic, and they all became sick.

Soldiers will often tell you that the choice they made to join the military was the best thing they ever did, because the experience of basic training and a regulated life in the military taught them the way to live their life in an ordered and controlled way.

When people get married, their lives are changed as well. For some, they see the changes as compromises and the loss of freedom in exchange for something dubiously valuable, and perhaps even unnamable. Those types of marriages seldom last.

A good marriage helps us understand the value of living for someone else, helps us understand that when we learn to live for others, our lives truly have meaning. This is the beginning of love, and even the beginning of understanding God's love in sending his Son to us.

There is a self-sacrifice in commitment to someone else. There is a faith in the other person, and a forgiveness when they do not measure up. There is an openness to pain, and a prayer that that pain may somehow be transformative. It's no accident that we say in our wedding service that the model of marriage is the relationship between Christ and the church. When it works, and each partner lives for the other, it is the closest we can come to understanding the love of Jesus for us.

So when James and John ask for the places to the right and the left of Jesus when glory comes, what Jesus means when he says they don't know what they are asking is that they don't get the pain that is coming. They don't know that they are asking to feel the pain of abandonment on the cross, and the pain of the cross itself. All they see are the "starlight and roses" part of the glory.
They don't see the glory that comes from having been open to being changed. They don't see the greatness that comes from being a servant to all, and to God, an allowing themselves to live according to God's will. It's a less visible glory, but at the end of the story, at the end of their lives, outside of our record in the gospels, we can assume that James and John, if they did take a drink from the cup that Jesus drank from, the cup of commitment and sacrificial love, they would see truly what glory is.

There are no parades. There is no confetti and the ceremonially being seated on a throne. There is instead a quiet moment when you look on the face of the person you have devoted your life to, in God's name, and realize that, deep down in your darkest parts, in the deepest recesses of your heart, that you have loved well, have loved as God would love, and that person knows the depth of God's love because you have been that face for them. You have shown them the love of God, and they believe, and they know.

That's true glory.