Preacher’s Study – Year A, Fifth Sunday of Lent, 2014

The Preacher’s Study

First thoughts on next Sunday’s sermon,

5^th Sunday of Lent

John W. B. Hill and Angela Emerson

Ezekiel 37: 1 - 14; Romans 8: 6 - 11; John 11: 1 - 45Lent 5: Ezekiel 37: 1 - 14; Romans 8: 6 - 11; John 11: 1 - 45

All the readings for this Sunday address the disastrous reality of our bondage to hopelessness.  St Paul names this reality succinctly: “the mind of the flesh is death” (Romans 8: 6, Revised Version).  Ours is a culture of death; the rich and powerful prepare for it by building monuments or legacies; the rest of us can do no more than forestall it (“Lord, if only you had been here...”), or banish it (ritual wailing, tombs sealed with heavy stones and shuddering revulsion).

  

Ezekiel’s prophecy was addressed to Jews in exile in Babylon.  Jerusalem and the temple lay in ruins. We know that their exile would eventually end; they did not know this.  Their perspective was dominated by the reality of death — of their community, their culture, and their faith in the God of promise.  That is why the word of the Lord through Ezekiel is so dramatic; it is a promise of communal resurrection, new creation.  In the beginning, God spoke, and dead matter took form; now God speaks again and his breath infuses life in the dead—in “the whole house of Israel”. This passage is a powerful testament to God’s ability to rebuild lives and community. God can redeem even the most evil moments and events.

The raising of Lazarus was a ‘sign’; Lazarus recognized the shepherd’s voice, and came back to life.  But what the world really needs to know about death is not that it can be reversed (through resuscitation) but that because of the death and resurrection of the Lord, death no longer has dominion.  And so, in all the details about the death and raising of Lazarus, what we are really hearing is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection: his anger, agitation, and weeping; a place near Jerusalem; a tomb closed with a rolling stone; crying out with a loud voice; graveclothes, even a head cloth.  For, as Jesus himself says, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies it bears rich fruit” (John 12: 24).

Three other details are noteworthy.  First, this episode plays the role in this gospel that the expulsion of the dealers from the temple played in the synoptics: it precipitates the plot on Jesus’ life, launching us into the passion narrative.  Second, most translators soften the references to Jesus’ reaction to the crowd of mourners (vss. 33, 38); a literal translation would refer to Jesus’ indignation and anger.  Third, the word for the crowd’s weeping and the word for Jesus’ weeping are different; in a literal translation, the crowd is wailing — a communal ritual signaling not only loss but also the impassible gulf between the living and the dead.  Paid mourners were often involved.

Why would Jesus be angry?  And why would resuscitating a dead man become a national crisis (vss. 48 - 50)?

A culture in which people think they can deal with death by forestalling it or banishing it is a culture dominated by death; its people are hostages to whoever wields the power of death.  So Jesus’ indignation and anger would appear to be his response to the spectacle of mourning in which the crowd expressed its bondage to hopelessness.  But to know Jesus is to know resurrection and life, for “through death he destroyed the one who has the power of death...and [freed] those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2: 14 - 15).  Anyone who can change our relationship with death in this way will be a threat to every power that relies on the threat of death — hence the plot to destroy Jesus. 

Martha saw this in the moments before Lazarus was raised: she confessed Jesus as Messiah, Son of God (vs. 27).  She came to believe in Jesus as the life that is greater than death, just as the woman at the well and the blind man did.  Indeed, as a result of witnessing the sign of Lazarus, many came to believe in Jesus (vs. 34).

Today we live under the power of a carbon-based economy that is taking us into a global disaster greater than anything in recorded history.  Those of us who are not in denial could easily find ourselves in bondage to hopelessness.  But we believe that God will redeem his creation and breathe new life into it, if we allow him to work through us.  There is much to be done.  We must respond to the shepherd’s call and be guided by his voice.

John W. B. Hill is an Anglican presbyter in Toronto, Canada, author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice, Council member of APLM, and chair of Liturgy Canada.

Angela Emerson was a litigation lawyer in Toronto for 31 years; she left the practice in June 2013 to have a saner lifestyle and pursue other interests.  Angela obtained her M.Div. from Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto in 2009.

“Raising of Lazarus 1” by Bruce Williams. Available at http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolio/for_sale/painting/Religious-3.html

“The Raising of Lazarus,” by Vincent van Gogh

Preacher's Study - Year A, Fourth Sunday of Lent, 2014

The Preacher’s Study

First thoughts on next Sunday’s sermon,

4^th Sunday of Lent

John W. B. Hill and Angela Emerson

1 Samuel 16: 1 - 13; Ephesians 5: 8 - 14; John 9: 1 - 41

This Sunday’s readings remind us that although we are called to be a people of peace, we must not make peace with the evils of power or remain passive (like the blind man’s parents who refused to get involved).  God’s people are called to expose the evil of those in power and resist their regimes.  This is what we see Samuel doing, relying on the subversive nature of sacrament and symbol (1 Samuel 16: 13).  Disciples of Christ are to “take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but expose them” (Ephesians 5: 11).

The darkness of the man born blind is considered a hopeless problem.  The disciples ask, “Lord, who sinned?  This man or his parents?”  They are as oblivious to the nature of evil as the locals who never considered the man a member of the community; they talk about him, not to him (John 9: 8-9).  But this kind of darkness is no problem to Jesus, merely another opportunity for “God's works” to be revealed.  His Sabbath mission consists in joining with the Creator whose work (Sabbath notwithstanding) is clearly unfinished (John 5: 17; cf. Genesis 2: 2).  So now again, as in the beginning, Jesus makes mud from “the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2: 7) to fashion eyes where there were none; then he sends the man off to wash in the pool called ‘sent’. 

This, then, is a story about baptismal illumination, about a relationship with Jesus that enables us to begin seeing the world the way God sees it (1 Samuel 16: 7).  Like the woman at the well, the man recognizes his healer only gradually — describing Jesus first as a man, then as a prophet, then as Lord. 

This story is also about the way that Jesus, ”the light of the world” (John 9: 5), exposes the evil of the world’s social mechanisms (Ephesians 5: 13).  When the man’s darkness has been cured he becomes a member of the community, only to discover that now he is an even greater problem to them — a man ‘healed on the Sabbath.’  Was this an act of God, or an outrage against God?

As the light slowly dawns for him about the problem he has become, the authorities are furiously painting themselves into a dark corner.  If they are going to sustain their version of the social order (and thus their power), they cannot accept this new creative action of God in their midst.  So they throw the man out of the synagogue.

When ‘John’ wrote this Gospel, his community was struggling with the reality that Jesus had not returned as promised.  Perhaps the story of the blind man is a reflection of the experience of that community, struggling in Jesus’ absence to answer questions about something they’ve  experienced but do not understand (“I was blind, now I see”).

Preachers try to apply scripture to the circumstances of those they address; so too, ‘John’ took into account the practice in his own day of Jews excluding from their synagogue anyone who confessed Jesus as the Christ (John 9: 34) — a practice probably unknown in the days of Jesus.  It was the painful calling of the congregation ‘John’ wrote for to “live as children of the light,” a light which exposes all that is hidden in darkness.  They would do this through sacrament and symbol, through “the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12: 11).

John W. B. Hill is an Anglican presbyter in Toronto, Canada, author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice, Council member of APLM, and chair of Liturgy Canada.

Angela Emerson was a litigation lawyer in Toronto for 31 years; she left the practice in June 2013 to have a saner lifestyle and pursue other interests.  Angela obtained her M.Div. from Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto in 2009.

Painting: Healing the blind man by Edy-Legrand.

Preacher's Study - Year A, Third Sunday of Lent, 2014

The Preacher’s Study

First thoughts on next Sunday’s sermon,

3^rd Sunday of Lent

John W. B. Hill and Angela Emerson

Lent 3: Exodus 17: 1 - 7; Romans 5: 1 - 11; John 4: 5 - 42

The journey of faith from Red Sea to Promised Land is mirrored by the journey of Lent.  There are many obstacles on the way, but lack of water is not the most serious one.  The people’s complaint against Moses arises out of their resentment of his leadership.  “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us … with thirst?”  Underlying that is their loss of trust in God: “Is the Lord among us or not?”  When our relationships are not anchored in our relationship to the Source of our being, they are prone to rivalry and resentment; this can lead to social instability and chaos.  That is what Moses fears, sensing that he could become the victim of his people.

In the Epistle reading, Paul describes the justification he learned in his encounter with the crucified and risen Christ. Prior to this encounter, Paul lived by self-justification– i.e. depending on his own righteousness while blaming others for his troubles (as the Israelites in the wilderness did). Paul now realizes this was a delusion, the kind of self-justification that had crucified Christ, and that real righteousness is simply Christ’s righteousness, through the grace of the Spirit dwelling in him.  In fact, Jesus became the victim of his people, in order to reveal this different kind of righteousness.  “While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  That’s God’s kind of righteousness — loving forgiveness which invites us into a new relationship of repentance and faith.

The encounter at Jacob’s well illustrates self-justification.  The Romans had victimized the Jews, who had victimized the Samaritans, who had victimized this woman.  In her culture a woman needed a man for survival, and only men could sue for divorce, yet she was considered the guilty one — thus her noon-day trip to the well, alone.  She had allowed herself to be defined by how her community saw her.  Yet, confronted by a Jew, she stands with her people, protesting his effrontery in asking her, a Samaritan, for a drink.  When he offers her living water, she sarcastically demands a drink from him so that she need never trudge out to the well again!  The banter between them is revealing; Jesus is offering ‘water’ that ends thirst forever; by contrast, thirst that does not find the fountain of God’s love can never be truly satisfied by any other kind, as she knows well.

Jesus reveals that he knows her secret.  She does not retreat in shame, for he — a Jewish man, no less — treats her with respect, implying that he knows the secrets of her community as well.  She begins to see herself through his eyes, is liberated from her self-justifying posture and broaches a topic that she would otherwise have considered closed.  Whose temple is the true one?  His answer is truly liberating.   She goes to her people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  This may have been a disturbing message for her people, because this stranger must know their secrets too.  But Jesus’ gracious respect has begun to undo the chain of victimization and resentment, and they too open their hearts to him. 

The nameless woman has moved from non-believer to apostle:  “Come and see” she says, the precise words which Jesus first spoke to his disciples (1:39).

Jesus will be for us all the source of living water, flowing from his pierced side (19: 32 - 37).  God promised water for the wandering Israelites if Moses would strike the rock at Horeb, on which God would be standing.  Is this a foreshadowing of God offering his son to be struck, in order to provide living water for his people?

John W. B. Hill is an Anglican presbyter in Toronto, Canada, author of one of the first Anglican sources for catechumenal practice, Council member of APLM, and chair of Liturgy Canada.

Angela Emerson was a litigation lawyer in Toronto for 31 years; she left the practice in June, 2013 to have a saner lifestyle and pursue other interests.  Angela obtained her M.Div. from Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto in 2009.

“Living Water, The Woman at The Well” (2008), by Judith Fritchman.

http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/j/jfritchman/