ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at Solemn Evensong and Benediction on the Third Sunday of Easter, 18th April 2010
Readings: Isaiah 38. 9-20; John 11. 27-44
This week has seen the publication of the manifestos by the political parties. On Monday the front cover of Labour's showed a nuclear family gazing at a non-nuclear horizon full of promise. Some styled it 'Soviet Chic'. If you'd put a cross on it, it would have passed for an Alpha Course. On Tuesday the Conservatives issued 'An Invitation ...' Its' blue cover with silver lettering looks like a slim volume on jurisprudence. And on Wednesday the Liberal Democrats published theirs: a set of devotions from the Blessed St Vince Cable.
The worrying thing is that when I went to buy these important documents (and I think that they are important) they were unavailable. I tried WH Smiths in the Oxford Street Plaza and was told "We aren't doing them this year." To which the cheery salesman added "Shouldn't bother if I were you, they're all the same." In Waterstones, they only got the Tory manifesto in yesterday; the others are yet to come. If the major parties want our votes they must do better than that.
We're in a serious situation. There's a power vacuum. The markets have failed us; politics seems sleazier than ever and the Church is mired in scandal. Apocalyptic is in the air - literally. A volcano hundreds of miles away is playing havoc with travel plans and food imports. It's making many people's lives seem very precarious. This is a happy hunting ground for the extremists who think that the answer is authoritarianism.
But you can breathe a sigh of relief. I'm not going to preach a party political sermon claiming that Jesus was really the Liberal candidate for Galilee South. But I do want to ask: How do we see the relationship between what we are doing here and now - worshipping God and proclaiming our faith - and where we're going to put our X (an interesting symbol that should give us pause for thought) on May 6th?
To answer this I'd like us to look at this evening's second lesson: that great story from John's Gospel of the Raising of Lazarus. If ever you want to have fun in Sunday School just do this story. All you need is a volunteer, a load of kitchen roll and you're away. But grappling with the text is more difficult. There are two problems.
The first is to do with the translation. When Jesus arrived at the tomb we are told that he was greatly disturbed. But the original Greek is much stronger. Literally, Jesus 'neighed like a horse'. He 'snorted'. Snorting is active. It involves our volition. Being 'disturbed' is passive. Imagine that you are at a political meeting and a cretin from another party makes a fatuous statement. What do you do? You snort. You snort with indignation. It's a response from the depths. All the things that you hold dear rise up from within. That's what's going on in Jesus. Facing the tomb of his friend Lazarus, Jesus snorts with anger.
We're also told that Jesus was deeply moved. The Greek here is related to what happens to water. Water gets stirred up. Water can become 'troubled'. Rivers in flood don't just move they 'rage'. So the Greek is strong stuff. Jesus isn't merely perturbed or having a swoon. 'Gentle Jesus meek and mild' he is not. He's in a lather. It's physical. Water pours out of him. He weeps.
The Christian approach to politics has to start from very deep down. Not for us the simple appeal to self-interest. We mustn't be seduced by those who just want to stroke our lifestyles. As Christians we look at our world and we say that it's very good but there is plenty that's wrong with it. And these ills are much deeper than the manifestos admit to. If I get to a hustings there're three questions that I'd like to ask.
Our world is mad, bad and sad and of course my questions are naive. And amazingly, in this mad, bad and sad world I'm having the most fantastic time. Perhaps you are, too. But we need to be alive to both truths. On the one hand there is death (death as in the deadening effects that money can have on our lives, death as in the stultifying shallowness of how we often pass our time and death as in the infant dying of thirst) and yet there's also life: life in all its glorious and dizzying fullness. Jesus faced with the tomb of his friend Lazarus shook. He shook with rage at death and he shook with earth-quaking, tomb-rending, resurrection life.
But why? Why did he react like that? That's the second big problem with the text. The answer isn't clear.
Is Jesus angry at the tears of Mary and the Jews weeping? Possibly, but shouldn't he have been sympathetic? If we go and visit friends who're bereaved the last thing they need is us snorting with indignation.
St John Chrysostom, (one of the most perceptive of the early Fathers whose Commentary on St John's Gospel is always worth a read) claims that Jesus' reaction is so strong because he sees in the tomb of Lazarus his own impending doom. Just as Jesus sweated blood in Gethsemane he's angry at Satan, the Author of Death with whom he must do battle. Nice try but it's a long way from the text.
Or this is another example of Jesus finding it hard to be dragged kicking and screaming into the light? Just as he was apparently reluctant to turn water into wine at Cana (he said to his mother My time has not yet come [Jn 2. 4]) so again he is overwhelmed by the power of such signs of transformation. The problem with this is that when Jesus was told that Lazarus was ill he hung back and didn't go to Bethany for two days. Jesus said "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." (11. 4).
My own reading of the text is that Jesus is generally angry at the lack of faith that surrounds him. Over and again throughout his ministry he's brought 'life' and 'good news' in the face of 'death': forgiveness for the sinner; sight to the blind; healing to the sick. Yet still people did not believe: not Mary of Bethany one of his closest friends; and not the Jews whose ethnicity, heritage and religion he shared.
Faith. Faith is not simply dogma. It's not words on the page. It's not creeds. Our faith is about what even the dead came become. John's Gospel is rooted in the Old Covenant, the old relationship between God and creation. John's Gospel evokes the beginning of Genesis by telling us In the beginning ... In the raising of Lazarus we hear the echo of another Old Testament shout: (Moses to Pharaoh) Let my people go. Now it's the turn not just of a people but of a person: Lazarus, come out! ... Unbind him, and let him go.'.
What kills our politics, what deadens our national life is cynicism. Whatever our party allegiance our faith summons us to believe in transformation and liberation: the process and the progress from death to life. Politicians use the word 'change'. It's up to us to make sure that as people of faith we aren't short-changed. Policy and practice must measure up to the fullness of life revealed in the risen Christ. Amen.