Introduction
A year ago the world witnessed the dreadful events of September 11th. We watched our TV screens hardly taking in what was happening and sat there with horror and disbelief in our hearts and minds. In response to the attacks John organised a vigil in Sackville Park and more than 500 people came along to sing, pray, grieve, light candles and sign books of condolence. Many more saw our vigil on television.
At the vigil 500 people of all ages came along. There were many teenagers and young adults; these were among the Lost Generation of the unchurched, the fastest growing segment of the population, who never darken the doors of a church unless in search of a wedding or funeral. With them in the vigil were older, middle aged people. These were among the church dropouts, the second fastest growing population segment, who only darken the doors of a church to weep at the funeral of a friend. Together, these are the people who never bother to watch the news anymore, because they believe the world is going to “hell in a handcart” anyway. Instead, they watch “Xena, Warrior Princess”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Enterprise". These people have made these programmes among the fastest growing advertising markets in Europe and North America.
Here they all were in the vigil. Eyes red, tears streaming, shoulders sobbing. And the congregation sang:
“Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens,
Lord, with me abide;
when other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
help of
the helpless, O abide with me.
I
need Thy presence every passing hour;
What but Thy grace can foil the
tempters power?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud
and sunshine, O abide with me.
I
fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no
bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave thy victory?
I triumph
still, if Thou abide with me
They were stunned. It was not the singing that surprised them. It was not even the lyrics that surprised them. It was the ferocity with which the song was sung.
Five hundred people had gathered at the memorial motivated by a profound, shared, misunderstanding. They thought that the dead in the planes and in the twin towers where the ones who were trapped. They thought that they were the ones who would be trapped in graves, bounded by cemeteries, and isolated by death. In fact, they discovered the unpleasant truth that it was they themselves who were trapped. They were the living dead. They were the ones trapped by their own self-centeredness and sentimentality. They were the ones bounded by the cemeteries of their addictions to control. They were the ones isolated from ultimate meaning by their own middle class rationalism, and isolated from God’s purpose by their own tombs of self-reliance.
With all due respect for Buffy, “The Vampire Slayer”, and her associates Conan, Xena, and Hercules, and Sinbad, and with even more respect to Star Trek, the great tragedies of life reveal different realities and different solutions than the ones these programmes advocate. Buffy would have us believe that the greatest risk in living is that a blood-sucking vampire will somehow prevent us from “partying on”. Xena would have us believe that the greatest risk in living is that a well-armoured enemy will stop us from “battling on”. Hercules would have us believe that the greatest risk of living is that somebody stronger than we are might keep us from controlling our own destiny. Jesus would call us to believe that the greatest risk in living is that a bleeding Saviour will be ignored ..... and all that we will be despairingly left with IS the party, the battle, and our misplaced trust in human strength and wiles.
Jesus Raises Us To New Life
Jesus constantly turns our perceptions of reality and its solutions upside down. Those we thought powerful are revealed to be powerless, and those we thought powerless are revealed to be powerful. The guilty are proven innocent, and the innocent are proven guilty. And the dead are revealed to be the fortunate ones, while the living are revealed to be dead.
The story of the raising of Lazarus is a case in point. The truth is that it is not really a story about the raising of Lazarus, as much as it is a story about the revitalization of those notorious church drop-outs and spiritual seekers, Mary and Martha.
The appearance of Lazarus raised from the dead is a minor miracle by comparison. The real miracle is the awestruck looks on the faces of Mary and Martha. One can imagine their stunned expressions. One can picture them rapidly reassessing their whole outlook on life, death, and God. They had religion and life all figured out. They had it tied into a nice rational bundle. Jesus was a great man, a wise teacher, a definitive guru, a “swell guy” ..... but after all he was still containable, controllable, understandable, and above all, only human like the rest of us. And then Jesus turns our perceptions of reality and its solutions upside down.
He rolls away the stone from the tombs. Not Lazarus’ tomb: Mary’s and Martha’s tombs -
Seeing the Glory of God
When Lazarus comes out, all their tidy rationalisms about Jesus vanish. The words of power are not “Unbind Lazarus and let him go free”, but rather the daring taunt of Christ: “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
For all Buffy’s supernaturalism, and for all Xena’s courage, and for all Hercules’s strength, and for all Sinbad’s wiles, the one thing none of them believed they would ever see was the glory of God.
While driving to a conference not long ago, I stopped along the way for dinner. It was late. This particular road had rows of restaurants to choose from. They seated me up by the windows in a cluster of other diners … presumably to create the illusion that they served good food. I found myself seated by two men dressed in black suits in earnest conversation with each other. Each had a black equipment bag beside them … I guessed they were photocopier repairmen finished after a long day. All during my dinner, the talked and talked, hardly looking up when the waitress renewed their coffee. What were they discussing so earnestly? I exercised my spiritual gift of eavesdropping. The older man was mentoring the younger man about why he should not commit suicide that evening. He was explaining with great intensity what it was about his own relationship with Jesus that gave him hope to live just one more day. And the younger man was drinking it all in.
The last thing in the world the younger man expected was the glory of God as the solution to his problems. If it had been Buffy, she would have told him to trust in crystals, wear Christian jewellery, eat garlic, and carry a large wooden stake to work every morning ... just in case. If it had been Xena, she would have told him to have courage, fight like hell, and die nobly. If it had been Hercules, he would have told him to be strong, endure hardship, keep a stiff upper lip, and hope that Zeus will stop by the planet in time to save you. If it had been Sinbad, he would have told the man to get smart, go back to school, obtain a Ph.D. in psychotherapy, and get good health insurance.
Fortunately for that young photocopier repairman, however, he was talking to none of these people. He was talking to a Christian, who in turn bore witness to a Jesus, who in turn shattered all the rationalisms of our time.
Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? This is not a Jesus who comes with a new social reform platform. This is not a Jesus who comes with a daring idea to transform the economy of the UK. He comes with an irrational power.
Jesus Christ is
healing,
healing in the streets,
curing those who suffer,
touching
those He greets.
Listen, Lord Jesus,
I have pity too,
let my care be
active,
healing just like You.
Jesus Christ is
calling,
calling on the streets,
"Come and walk faith's tightrope,
I
will guide your feet."
Listen, Lord Jesus,
let my fears be few,
walk
one step before me,
I will follow You.
That, really, is the divine solution to the predicament of gratuitous evil and meaningless living. The solution is not better education and more aerobics, but a God who comes like the dawning day .... a Jesus who comes with flaming truth ..... to keep us from committing suicide tonight.
What is Your Faith?
What is your delight? Your real delight? The delight that will motivate you to choose truth and fight bravely, and not even care about success or failure? What is your delight? The delight that will chase all glooms away, and motivate you to set aside the bottle and prescription drugs once and for all.
It is Jesus. To be in relationship with Jesus. To journey one day at a time with Him. Did I not tell you that if you believe you would see the glory of God?
It's all about Jesus
There has been a great deal of rationalism about Jesus going on today. Everyone wants Jesus to come in a nice, tidy, controllable, warm, intergenerational experience of the Holy. Even some of our great teachers, philanthropists, and church leaders want to contain Jesus in a tidy, understandable, rational package. In the church I grew up in I learned to look for the presence of the holy in a little gold safe called a tabernacle - as if God could be locked in a box. People want to think of Jesus as only human. Jesus is a wise teacher, a misunderstood social reformer, a pre-Freudian therapist who understands your peculiar neuroses, an historic example of good living. Buffy, Xena, Conan, Hercules, and Sinbad all nod their heads in solemn agreement.
But most people want to experience the Holy. Some of us experience the holy in beautiful song and wonderful gothic buildings. But that is not the only way to see the beauty and holiness of God at work.
How do you experience Jesus?
Do you experience Jesus as a wise teacher, a misunderstood social reformer, or a family therapist? Or do you experience Christ as if he were “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation .... in whom all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell?” Holy! Did I not tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?
In the Eucharist we remember Jesus's sufferings. We remember the world’s sufferings. We remember our sufferings. But everybody can speak out of their life struggles. What the spiritually hungry, institutionally alienated people of our communities need to hear is people who can speak out of their spiritual victories! They need mentors and midwives, laypeople, volunteers, who can hunker down over coffee in the motorway service stations and convince another human being that it really is worth living another day. They need Christian churches who can look gratuitous, meaningless evil in the face and stake their lives on the truth that GOD REIGNS!
The spiritually yearning, institutionally alienated public is the fastest growing segment of the population. They don’t need - and indeed they do not respect - Christians who will go to church at Easter, and then return to contented dinners. They need Christians who will go to church, and discover that the tomb that has been opened is not his, but ours. They need Christians who will become so excited by this irrational, uncontrollable, unexplainable inbreaking of God’s power, that they won’t even go home.
Instead, they will rush across the road to the donut shop, and talk about it, in loud voices, so that clientele of Starbucks cannot help but overhear. And once Holy Week is over, and the rest of God’s HOLY YEAR is under way, they will not be able to contain the joy they feel in relationship to Jesus, and their faith will be spontaneously shared with the friends, neighbours, relatives, and even with the complete strangers.
Buffy will not do this. Conan, Xena, Hercules, and Sinbad will not do this. You will do this. Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? You will want to tell people the Good news:
I
fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no
bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave thy victory?
I triumph
still, if Thou abide with me
A Key Question
Before you can do anything, you must answer the key question: What is it about your experience with Jesus that this community cannot live without? That your lover and friends cannot live without? That a work associate or stranger cannot live without. YOUR experience. Not Martin Luther’s or John Wesley’s. Your EXPERIENCE. Not what you learned in seminary or Sunday School, but what you have experienced in your gut and your lifestyle. Your experience of JESUS. Not just of a Creator God who visits the planet occasionally, or a Spirit that blows like smoke through the dim forest.
What is it that has been so powerful, joyous, and life transforming for you, that unless you share it with another their life will be impoverished. This is not evangelism. This is just, plain love.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.