Immediate Word

Crime and punishment are in the news. Our lead writer, Carlos Wilton, refers to the case of the serial killer in Wichita; others might think of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to outlaw executions of juveniles. Although we Christians regularly confess our sins in public worship, we find it difficult or impossible to identify with the likes of Dennis Rader. There certainly are different levels of criminal behavior, and our law codes rightly try to fit the punishment to the crime. And yet we all need to wake up to the reality of the condition of sin and to the possibility of new life. Thus the lectionary's Gospel Reading, the story of the raising of Lazarus, speaks to us all.

The Immediate Word team members respond to Carlos' reflections with their own perspectives on sin, awakening, and redemption. Included also, are illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.


Awakenings
John 11:1-45
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11
By Carlos Wilton

The Message on a Postcard

To all appearances, he was an ordinary man, leading an ordinary life. He was a husband, a father, a municipal employee, and a Cub Scout leader. A professing Christian, he served as president of his local church council. He was also, if police allegations are to be believed, a serial killer.

Dennis L. Rader is a paradox. For seventeen years he eluded Wichita police, who spent untold human and financial resources searching for "the BTK Killer." ("BTK" stands for "bind, torture, kill.") What has surprised police is how ordinary and well-integrated into society this alleged mass murderer appeared to be. Mr. Rader was no shaggy-haired loner, subsisting in a backwoods shack. He gave no obvious indication of being mentally unbalanced. The clue that finally broke the case is a computer diskette he allegedly mailed to a television station -- a diskette bearing invisible electronic evidence that led police to a computer in his church. Rader had apparently re-used a diskette that contained the deleted remains of a church council meeting agenda. Ironically, his church involvement proved to be his undoing.

The psychological questions raised by this story are immense -- but then, so are the theological ones. How is it that such heinous could be committed by a person so well-integrated into society that the people who knew him best -- his wife, his children, his pastor -- had no idea? ("There's no such thing as reality for them," lamented the Rev. Michael Clark, after counseling with Rader's bewildered family.) It would be more comforting for us, somehow, if the person arrested had been a peculiar misfit rather than a church leader and upstanding citizen. Then we could persist in our mistaken belief that sin is an exceptional aberration rather than a universal feature of the human condition.

Today's Gospel Reading is the raising of Lazarus, of whom Jesus says, "[He] has fallen asleep." Perhaps no one fully understands what goes on in the mind of a serial killer, but many experts think an ability to "compartmentalize" lies at the heart of the pathology -- in other words, the putting-to-sleep of one compartment of life, to allow normal functioning in other areas. Sin can, in fact, be seen as a sort of perpetual slumber. It is not only the headline-grabbing sinners who think this way. We are all of us, in our own way, wrapped in the stinking grave clothes of sin. The image of the groggy, bandage-swathed Lazarus, staggering out of the tomb from darkness into light, is an invitation to all of us to awaken to Christ's call -- for it is only he who can guide us from death to life.

Some Words on the Word

It is a truism of New Testament studies that the Gospel of John is fundamentally different from the other three gospels. While John contains many narrative elements, its basic structure is not narrative but thematic. The narrative details are so fused together with John's theological proclamation about Jesus that it is hard to tease out the underlying historical facts. This is not to question John's veracity, or his apostolic authority; it is merely to observe that his document stands on its own and cannot be approached in quite the same way as we approach the other gospels.

The most fruitful approach to John's Gospel is to read it not as a matter-of-fact record of events that happened but rather as a witness to who Jesus is. (To some extent this can be said of all the gospels, but it is especially true of John.) John molds the details of his narrative so as to vividly portray his theology, particularly his Christology. He includes numerous theological discourses, many of which do not fit easily into the narrative, and that need to be seen as John's executive summary of both Jesus' own message and the Johannine church's message about him. One obvious example from today's text is Jesus' short prayer in verses 41-42, which comes across as an awkward dramatic aside to the reader. John's desire is not so much to recount events in a journalistic fashion, as it is to present a series of carefully chosen vignettes and speeches, in which we may encounter the living Christ.

The story of the raising of Lazarus is the greatest of the Johannine miracle-stories. Miracles, or signs, are to John the windows through which we see Christ. Consequently, in studying a story such as this, we need to be attentive to the underlying theological themes, for they -- more, even than the narrative itself -- are the message John wishes us to take home.

A leading theological theme in the Lazarus story is that of awakening. Although some see this passage as a proleptic resurrection story, others have questioned this interpretation, pointing out that Lazarus is not so much resurrected as he is resuscitated. He will live out a more-or-less natural span of human life, and then he will die, as all human beings must die. What is just as interesting to John is the fact that Lazarus has been awakened spiritually. As the disciples follow Jesus' command to "unbind him and let him go," peeling the bandages from his eyes, Lazarus looks out upon the world with new eyes. "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him" (v. 11). Lazarus has been awakened from the sleep of death. He will live differently from that day forward.

This theme of awakening is first hinted at in the Prologue: "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (1:3b-5). The awakening theme is carried forward into Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus (John 3:1-21), a passage that is bracketed by references to a journey from darkness into night. That pericope begins with Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night (3:1). It ends with these words of Jesus: "those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God" (3:21). In 5:25, John foreshadows the raising of Lazarus by reporting these words of Jesus: "Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." A little later he provides a further hint: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life" (8:12). This "light of the world" metaphor, so clearly associated with awakening, is also mentioned in the context of the healing of the man born blind: "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world" (9:5). The witness of everyone involved with this healing, from Pharisees to the man's parents to the man himself, is that Jesus "opened his eyes" -- clearly the theme of awakening, appearing once again.

Lazarus staggers forth from darkness into light, but he is not the only one who is awakened. His sister Martha is awakened as well, to a new appreciation of who Jesus is: "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world" (v. 27). Significantly, Martha has come to this conclusion even before witnessing the mighty sign Jesus will shortly perform. Her words provide a capsule description of John's christological proclamation.

Dramatically demonstrating the life-giving power of Jesus, John inserts a number of obstacles into the story. Jesus arrives late, after Lazarus has already been dead for four days (v. 17). A heavy stone blocks the tomb entrance (v. 38). There has been bodily decay, as demonstrated by Martha's objection concerning the stench (v. 39). Lazarus is hobbled by the bandages in which he was wrapped head to foot (v. 44). Yet, faced with the awesome power of Jesus Christ, these obstacles turn out to be as nothing. Like the water with which the prophet Elijah drenches his sacrificial pyre on Mount Carmel just before calling down fire from heaven, these obstacles serve to focus our gaze on the extent of Jesus' power. Not even a dead man is immune to Jesus' gift of spiritual awakening.

A Map of the Message

A news story like that of Dennis Rader, the alleged BTK killer, certainly stretches our understanding as to how far Jesus' offer of spiritual awakening may extend. If the police charges are correct, then surely this is a man who has been living in deep darkness -- even while displaying, on the surface, many of the characteristics of a faithful disciple.

Some links to news stories about Rader are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/national/06btk.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BTK-Killings.html

We are not, of course, in a position to know anything about Mr. Rader's mental state (although the last of the above-referenced articles describes him as "depressed"). Nor would it be fruitful to speculate extensively on his private, inner reality. It may be a useful gambit, however, to ask the theological question, early in the sermon, of whether or not someone like him can be redeemed -- whether there are any truly unforgivable sins. (In Mark 3:29, Jesus declares that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an "eternal" sin, for which a person can never receive forgiveness -- although it is unclear what, precisely, he means by this.)

Although John does not directly address the question of unforgivable sins, from the Lazarus story we can assume that he would not categorically exclude anyone from salvation: for if Jesus could raise even a dead man, can anyone still living be beyond the reach of his redeeming power?

There is something in us, however, that makes us want to establish a gradation of sins, with some acts being considered more heinous -- and therefore less forgivable -- than others. Some penitential traditions within Christianity in fact make a distinction between "venial" and "mortal" sins. Certainly, there are many today who, on a practical level, consider sins having to do with obsessive, unhealthy sexuality (such as child molestation) as being in a whole different category from other sins.

According to the Reformed theological tradition, of which I am a part, there really is no gradation among sins. Sin is sin: the malevolent thought distances us from God just as effectively as that thought translated into action. This in no way equates the effects of such sin, for on the ordinary human level I, of course, agree that the murderer is a much bigger problem than the person who curses out a fellow driver at a stoplight. By the same token, the cold premeditation of the serial killer is a more severe threat than the person who commits murder accidentally, in a sudden fit of anger or while under the influence of alcohol, and who repents immediately. Yet there really is no sinner who is qualitatively worse than any other sinner. Sin is spiritual death. A person cannot die more than once, and a little death is no different from a big death. All of us are in need of saving grace. All of us, to one degree or another, are spiritually asleep in the tomb, just as Lazarus was asleep in the tomb.

One Christian writer who has powerfully commented on the theme of awakening is Anthony de Mello. de Mello was a Jesuit priest from India. In his writings (actually, many of his published works are transcripts of lectures) he often adapts insights from eastern religions into Christianity. Coming from Asia, de Mello has more than a passing acquaintance with those religions, although he is clearly operating from within the Christian tradition. About spiritual awakening, de Mello has written,

"Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know -- all mystics -- Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion -- are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare....

Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It is irritating to be woken up. That's the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up. I hope I'm going to be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you are asleep. It is really none of my business, even though I say to you at times, "Wake up!" My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. If you profit from it fine; if you don't, too bad! As the Arabs say, "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens." (Anthony de Mello, Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality)


Team Comments

Chris Ewing responds: Carlos, you have properly emphasized that much of sin can be described as a state of slumber, of lack of awareness or attunement to the reality of God, the world, and our own functioning in it. This blindness may be willful or it may be inadvertent; the effect is invariably one of alienation, from which we must be roused and brought back into relationship.

The United Church of Canada is in the process of developing standards of practice and ethical standards for ministry personnel. A draft document that came out in January noted that one of the key components of ethical behaviour is self-awareness. Ministry personnel, states the document, "are called to maintain a level of self-awareness that enables them to conduct themselves for the greater good of others be accountable to themselves, to the church, and to the ministry in which they serve demonstrate authenticity, dependability, trustworthiness, compassion, understanding, patience, diplomacy, and integrity demonstrate the ability to keep confidences know their limitations and remain open to constructive criticism, guidance, and challenge be aware of the visibility of their position and consider how their conduct may be experienced and perceived by others" (United Church of Canada: "Standards of Practice and Ethical Standards for Ministry Personnel" -- DRAFT, January 2005, p. 13)

In other words, as Robbie Burns so succinctly put it, "Would some faerie the gift to gi'e us, to see ourselves as others see us."

To wake and see the impact that we have upon others, both individually and in community; to see the way that we are affecting our human and natural environment or even our own selves; to see ourselves as God sees us, in the fullness of our web of relationships within our souls and with the wider world, is to waken to the presence, guidance and indwelling of God persistently made available to us.

We rarely come to this point of wakefulness unassisted. Commonly we are prompted by pain, either our own or that of another that we are suddenly obliged to recognize we have caused. Sometimes we respond to a more positive inspiration, to some echo of the magisterial voice of Christ penetrating our wrappings of dulling daily concern with the promise of something more.

Our lections this week assure us that whether we are crying out ourselves de profundis (Psalm 130) or whether we suddenly hear another crying out to us (John) or over us (Ezekiel), the moment of awakening is rich with the hope of new life. The transformation may proceed in discouraging and even frightening fits and starts, like Ezekiel's half-reconstituted corpses; or it may outpace the readiness of our environment, like Lazarus wholly alive yet still bound; but the promise of the sovereign Lord of life is that when God wakes us with the breath of life, we are alive indeed.

George Murphy responds: If humanity has come into being through an evolutionary process for which natural selection is the major driving force, it's not surprising that we have a lot of competitive and violent behavior built into us. Some people then go on to argue that ideas about human sinfulness and moral responsibility are just religious stories about phenomena that are better accounted for by scientific explanations of human development. We act like animals because we are animals and behave the way a lot of other animals do.

It sounds plausible until we look more closely at the behaviors of humans and other animals. In the rest of the animal kingdom we do find violence and, in some cases, deception. "Nature red in tooth and claw" is a familiar phrase. These behaviors are employed to get food and breeding opportunities and for defense -- and that's pretty much it. We generally don't find animals killing simply for the sake of killing. For that matter, we don't see some animals piling up far more food than they can possibly eat while others go hungry.

But human behavior of that sort is all too familiar. Our problem is not that we're "bestial" but that, in significant ways, we're worse than beasts. That problem is not that we're a product of evolution, for that apparently is how God chose to create us. The problem is rather that in crucial ways we've evolved in the wrong way. In theological terms we've gotten off the evolutionary track that God intended for us. There is something radically wrong with the human condition, something of which serial killers like the BTK murderer are just the most pathological examples.

One reason -- I don't say the only reason -- that we're fascinated by figures like the BTK murderer or other psychopaths is that it's easy to compare ourselves favorably with them. "Sure I've done some bad things but I'm not capable of that!" It might be helpful to remember an old joke.

Man: "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"
Woman: "Well -- yes."
Man: How about for a hundred dollars?"
Woman: "What kind of woman do you think I am?"
Man: "We've already determined that. Now we're just trying to find out the price."

Hating someone, wishing that that person were out of the way or that he or she would suffer is taking the first small step toward actual murder. If we want to compare ourselves with someone we ought to pick the one who is in fact given to us as the pattern of what humanity should be, Christ (cf. Ephesians 4:13).

In some ways the condition of sleep, of unawareness, is a good metaphor for sin (cf. Hosea 4:6a: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge"). In turn, the rousing of someone from sleep can, in turn, be a picture of conversion. In the Second Lesson for this past Sunday (Ephesians 5:8-14) the writer may have been quoting from an early Christian baptismal hymn: "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." But that immediately points to a deeper metaphor: it is not just sleep but death that is a picture of sin. (This is consistent with the earlier statement in Ephesians 2:1-2, "You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.")

In the Johannine story of the raising of Lazarus then, the idea of sin and conversion does not depend on Jesus' use of language about sleep. It is pictured simply in the fact that Lazarus is dead and is brought back to life.

If we take that image seriously, we'll realize more fully the significance of the teaching that we are saved by grace alone, solely through God's saving work. For the dead cannot raise themselves. Lazarus comes out of the tomb only because he is called by the creative Word of God. ("The hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out" -- John 5:28-29.) He does, indeed, walk out under his own power, but only after he has been given new life. And we are called to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in our walk as Christians, but can only do that after we have been enlivened by the Spirit.

Finally, let me return to the comparison of human behavior with that of other animals. Years ago I came across a poem by "anonymous" that I quoted in a book on creation and evolution (The Trademark of God [Morehouse-Barlow, 1986], pp. 52-53). It's hardly great poetry but makes the necessary point.

Darwin's Mistake

Three monkeys sat in a coconut tree,
Discussing things as they're said to be.
Said one to the others, "Now listen, you two,
There's a certain rumor that can't be true,
That man descended from our noble race.
The very idea is a disgrace.

No monkey ever deserted his wife,
Starved her babies or ruined her life.
And another thing you will never see
A monkey build a fence around a coconut tree
And let the coconuts go to waste,
Forbidding all other monkeys to taste.

If I put a fence around this tree,
Starvation would force you to steal from me.
Here's another thing a monkey won't do,
Go out at night and get on a stew,
And use a gun or a club or a knife
To take some other monkey's life.
Yes, man descended, the ornery cuss --
But, brother, he didn't descend from us."

Mary Boyd Click responds: Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr would love the way you are defining sin here, Carlos! In essence he wrote that we are all sinners by degree and some of us even more so than others, depending on where we find ourselves in life. Niebuhr wrote that the opportunity to sin persistently presents itself to us on each and every level of human achievement. No one is immune, especially those who ascend to high office in the church!

Although the nineteenth-century philosopher Nietzsche did not speak of our human predicament as one of sinning against God, he did have a grasp of what can happen to the righteous who oppose evil. He wrote, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." Church folks like the BTK killer posture repeatedly, as do all Christians, struggling against the monsters of sin, greed, and self-interest. If Dennis Rader turns out to be the convicted BTK killer, it should put all of us churchgoers on notice not to become what we abhor. The body of Christ dares to look into the abyss of sin and death. As that abyss dares to look back at us, and longs to reside in us, we hope and pray that it will see, standing along side us, a holy advocate, Jesus Christ, who enters with us into every human relationship.

It is very important to each gospel writer to convey the person and work of Jesus in such a way that awakens awareness of human vulnerability as well as awareness of God's great compassion for us. So the central theme of John's Gospel is the person and work of Jesus. John's Jesus is a non-stop miracle worker. He progressively takes on a marathon of miracles beginning with the wedding in Cana and ending with this over-the-top miracle, the raising of Lazarus. To witnesses each miracle is more and more astounding than the last. One gets compared to the other in our passage, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" (11:37). Do these miracle stories reveal Jesus possessing some steroid-like, mysterious boost of power pressing his human limitations beyond the normal boundaries? Or do they reveal that he has that special spiritual connection with God which he prays for in verse 42, "that they may believe that you sent me"? Through all of these Olympic trial settings for miracle stories, John intends for us to see who this man Jesus really is -- a man in whom God is awakening the world from the many forms of sin and death which we encounter every day.

In the passage from Ezekiel there is a great awakening from the hopelessness of death to new life and vision. When Ezekiel looked over the crowd of Israelites in exile, he saw lots of dispirited, dull faces. They'd given up on ever returning to Jerusalem. And Ezekiel had just about given up on what to say to them, too. Then one day the Lord gave Ezekiel a vision of a valley full of dry bones, the dried, dispirited bones of the people of Israel. The Lord commanded Ezekiel to preach to them; blow the wind of his Spirit upon them. When he did, it was like a breath of new life. It must have been like that giant lightning bolt that struck primordial waters and set life moving and multiplying at cellular levels. Fibulas and tibias rattled. Ligaments, muscles, and tendons appeared, enfleshing lifeless bones and turning them into a living people once again. Ezekiel's vision awakened a dispirited, dead people in Exile giving them hope and a vision of new life.

When Mary and Martha dialed 911 to tell Jesus that their brother Lazarus was dying, they were immensely dispirited, and they expected Jesus to get on the stick and make fast tracks for their house. But he didn't. In fact he takes his time, saying that "this illness is not unto death but is here that the glory of God might be revealed." Jesus sounds awfully insensitive to us twenty-first-century touchy feelies, but it is typical of John's elevated, spiritual portrait of Jesus. Yet, in this story a highly spiritualized Jesus is soon moved to tears when he sees Mary and the others weeping. John's often, much-removed-sounding Jesus comes down to our human level and feels the pain of defeat and the abandonment of faithlessness which can haunt anyone who has ever arrived early at a gravesite and looked into the six foot deep hole. Death creates an abyss in us that threatens to separate us from God as radically as guilt and shame from heinous sins threatens to do the same.

Jesus came to be the bridge of hope for us when the abyss of death is all around. To become that bridge for us, he had to confront head-on the darkest places the human spirit can inhabit. By doing so he informs us that if we choose to confront the hurts and wounds of life that separate us from God, he will go with us, every step of the way.

People who attend Alcoholics Anonymous fellowships know better than anyone else that there is a way out with a "higher power" even when we think things are all locked up against us. They've learned this by being honest about who they are. AA is a place where people don't hide their brokenness with chitchat, like, "Hello, how are ya? Fine. How 'bout you?" At AA they don't mind pointing to their cracks and bruises in front of a group of others because they know we've all got them and the only way to life, beyond some dead end at the bottom of a bottle, is to voice the hurts that one cannot drink away, and voice them to the one who listens and stands by us. So how does Jesus help us beyond all of this? He confronts it head on and walks with us through it. He comes to Mary and Martha, weeps with them, and defies death to continue having power over Lazarus.

There's a good movie out now which illustrates how one awakens to health and wholeness by confronting the things we fear most. It's titled Winn Dixie and it is based on the award-winning children's novel, Because of Winn Dixie. The book follows the pain of Opal, the ten-year-old central character who tries to make new friends in a new town. Opal's minister father does his best to help her cope with the pain of an alcoholic mother who left him and Opal. He settles into a new town and a new church, Open Arms Baptist Church. One day Opal finds a brown stray dog at the Winn Dixie and names him appropriately. This dog that smiles at her and everyone else in town, helps Opal win friends and cope with her grief and dispirited nature. One of the friends she meets is an almost blind woman named Gloria Dump. As a recovering alcoholic, Gloria has a tree in her backyard hung with empty liquor bottles reminding her of "the ghosts of things I done wrong." Opal also meets a librarian, Miss Franny, who doles out candies called "litmus lozenges" that taste like sorrow. Then there's Otis the pet-store owner, whom Opal learns is an ex-convict with a love for music. When all of these people share with Opal their pain, their cracks and bruises from life, Opal is enabled to cope with her own and a breath of new life comes into her. She can stop blaming herself for her mother's departure. There is pain in life that can keep us believing and hoping for a new day. There are disappointments and unexpected losses, like the death of a dear, good friend and brother like Lazarus, that can cause us to question God's faithfulness. When the light shines through such dark pains, we see a truth that, when you grasp it, will make you cry. Perhaps, even as it did Jesus. God is faithful and in Jesus Christ he stands alongside us when sin and death threaten to separate us from the loving source of our spiritual being.

John's Gospel maintains that salvation is possible because of who Jesus Christ was and what he did. He was the unique one who, traveling along in our human world, participated 100 percent in all of our joy, pain, and sorrow. Living also in a spiritual world, in the heart of God, he also participated 100 percent in God's joy, pain, and sorrow. We encounter salvation as reconciliation only when the reality of human sin and pain intersects with divine compassion, only when human sin intersects with the reality of divine mercy and grace. This crossroads happened in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Sister Joan Sauro tells a tale called "The Color Lady." The Color Lady traveled from town to town with a large gunmetal gray basin brought to her homeland by ancestors from another country. People would bring her pieces of cloth and tell her what color they wanted her to make it and she would dye their cloth in the basin. It was as if the basin had a computer chip in it. It remembered every color that was requested of it from townspeople. Over the years it "stored up every color of its rich history, shades of laughter and tears, love and endurance, whatever color was asked of it the basin gave." One day a long line of people came to her. All had pieces of cloth in their hands. They had dreamed all winter of the beautiful color they would request from her. One pregnant woman defied pink and blue and requested green. An uninspired poet asked for the fiery, inspiring passionate red color and out it came, and he began to write again.

Toward evening, one day an old woman approached. "What color do you want?" asked the Color Lady. "I want whatever color is in the basin," the old woman said. "Then that is the color you shall have," replied the Color Lady. So she took the woman's cloth and put it in the basin and days passed giving the old woman every color that was in the basin. "Some days the color in the basin was yellow like the rising sun. Other days the old woman received flaming red, ocean blue, or soft gray like rolling fog. Sometimes the color of birdsong was given to her. Other times it was the color of storms or well-worn paths. Colors that the woman never dreamed of came to her, and she wore every one."

Like the old woman, Jesus Christ had the courage to ask God to entrust to him every color of humanity, that he might wear it and present it to God as an acceptable offering for the reconciliation of the world. This reconciliation would be like a breath of new life over the dry bones of every dispirited human life. It comes to us in Jesus like an outstretched hand lifting us from the grave when we put our trust in him. It is my prayer that the Dennis Rader, the alleged BTK killer, will someday know again the power that can heal and make him whole.


Related Illustrations

From Carlos Wilton:

The aim of Life is to Live, and to Live means to be Aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely, Aware.
-- Henry James

***

Remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? He fell asleep one day in a quiet spot on the banks of the Hudson River and he didn't wake up for twenty years. When he went to sleep, the sign above his favorite tavern read: "King George III, King of England." He was a subject of the British crown.

When he woke up, King George was replaced by George Washington and he was an American citizen. The tragic part was that he slept through a revolution.

While he snored, oblivious to his surroundings, fantastic, earth-shaking events had taken place. This is what happened to the disciples. They were oblivious to all that was taking place. Don't be too critical of the disciples at this point. Many times we have our heads in the clouds, enclosed in our own little world and losing sight of the larger world, and sleep through great events. How many times are we preoccupied with our own self-importance? We become the prisoners of our own little world of trivialities.
-- John A. Stroman, God's Downward Mobility (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing, 1996)

***

Listen to your life. I discovered that if you keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life as the one I was living on Rupert Mountain opened up to extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day's work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present in it, always hiddenly, always leaving you to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly.... If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.
-- Frederick Buechner, from "Listen to Your Life"

***

Episcopal preacher Barbara Brown Taylor, on the use of the sacraments as encouraging an open-eyed, sacramental approach to the world:

The same pattern of rebirth that I learned in baptism showed up in everything from bathing to watering plants. The same pattern of relationship that I learned in communion was available in every meal eaten mindfully. The laying-on of hands took place as I held a crying baby or rubbed the shoulders of a tired friend. With a little oil, I could even offer the sacrament of a pretty good massage. When I walked outside and looked at the smoking compost heap, I saw a sacrament of death turning into life. When I used my little bottle of Whiteout to correct a mistake, I remembered that my errors did not have to be permanent. Everywhere I turned, the most insignificant things in the world were preaching little sermons to me. Everywhere I turned, the world was leaking light. All that was required, apparently, was my willingness to be a priest -- to walk through the world aware of God's presence, ready to hold ordinary things up to heaven with my own hands so that I and anyone else who was interested could see the holiness in them -- even the soiled and broken things that were just waiting for someone to come along and love them (I learned this part from Jesus). Call it stage three.

Insofar as worship is the practice of reverence for that which is greater than my self, I have moved from the world through the church and back out into the world again. God is my name for the singular reality that has met me at every stage -- in tornadoes and tadpoles, in the community of believers, and above all in the Word made Flesh, who has invited me to join him in the celebration of everyday sacraments in this world.
-- Barbara Brown Taylor, "Worship: Everyday Sacraments," in The Living Pulpit

***

We don't know who discovered water, but it surely wasn't a fish.
-- Marshall McLuhan

***

We have to cross the infinite thickness of time and space -- and God has to do it first, because he comes to us first. Of the links between God and man, love is the greatest. It is as great as the distance to be crossed.

So that the love may be as great as possible, the distance is as great as possible. That is why evil can extend to the extreme limit beyond which the very possibility of good disappears. Evil is permitted to touch this limit. It sometimes seems as though it overpassed it.

In order that we should realize the distance between ourselves and God, it was necessary that God should be a crucified slave. For we do not realize distance except in the downward direction. It is much easier to imagine ourselves in the place of God the Creator than in the place of Christ crucified....

God wears himself out through the infinite thickness of time and space in order to reach the soul and to captivate it. If it allows a pure and utter consent (though brief as a lightning flash) to be torn from it, then God conquers that soul. And when it has become entirely his, he abandons it. He leaves it completely alone, and it has in its turn, but gropingly, to cross the infinite thickness of time and space in search of him whom it loves. It is thus that the soul, starting from the opposite end, makes the same journey that God made toward it. And that is the cross.
-- Simone Weil, "The Distance," from Waiting for God (New York: Putnam, 1951)

***

It is characteristic of the thinking of our time that the problem of guilt and forgiveness has been pushed into the background and seems to disappear more and more. Modern thought is impersonal. There are, even today, a great many people who understand that man needs salvation, but there are very few who are convinced that he needs forgiveness and redemption.... Sin is understood as imperfection, sensuality, worldliness -- but not as guilt.
-- Emil Brunner, The Word and the World

***

Referring to the story of the raising of Lazarus, Norman Vincent Peale retells a portion of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment -- a novel that is itself a meditation on sin, and specifically unforgivable sin. In this episode that Peale relates, Sonya, a spiritually earnest young woman who has become trapped in prostitution, reads the story of Lazarus to the angst-ridden murderer, Raskolnikov:

One night, he crept into Sonya's house. Sonya was herself trying to escape from a deep sin and the burden of guilt that rested in her soul. She sat on one side of the table, he on the other, with a candle in-between. They were talking, these two, haunted by society, haunted by themselves.

Suddenly, nearby, he saw a book.

He asked, "What is that?" "It is a Bible."

"Why, do you read the Bible?"

"Ah, yes," she replied, "I would die if I didn't."

"Read it to me."

"What shall I read?"

He said, "Read the story of the resurrection of Lazarus."

She had a racking cough, her body was thin and emaciated, her face was flushed and there was the light of fever in her eyes. Sonya read the beautiful words of this story until she came to the point where Jesus stood by the tomb. Then, her voice became stronger, seemingly with a new force, as it rang out in the silent room:

"Lazarus, come forth!" Slowly, deliberately, she continued, "And he who was dead, came forth."

And, says Dostoyevsky, the candle burned low as a harlot and an assassin sat under the spell of immortal words, words that said that if a man is dead, he shall live again -- words that said to a harlot and an assassin, "You can be changed. You can be cleansed. You can once again be strong and beautiful. You can be reborn in your souls."
-- Norman Vincent Peale, from "Christmas in Your Heart," in Plus magazine, 12/2002, pp. 7-9

From Chris Ewing:

What moves us to repentance? Why would anyone gladly make a "U-turn," eagerly turn around? One thing above everything else moves us to repent: the mercy and kindness of God. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, "Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"

John the Baptist spoke much of repentance. His motive for it was fear, sheer fear. "The axe is laid to the root of the tree. The chaff is being burned in the fire. Repentance is the only route to survival." It is the big threat....

Jesus differs from John the Baptist in one important regard: for Jesus the decisive motive for repentance is the overwhelming all-encompassing, incomprehensible mercy of God. We joyfully repent as God's mercy floods us. Jesus speaks three unforgettable parables in Luke 15 of the lost coin, lost sheep, and lost son. Each parable concludes with a repentance throbbing with joy....

Repentance, says Jesus, is coming to our senses, as the son in the far country came to his senses when he thought of the waiting father. Repentance, says Jesus, is to become a child again, because for a child everything is received as gift. Repentance, says Jesus, is so far from anything miserable that it calls for a party, for celebration, for dancing....

Mark tells us that Jesus came into Galilee with a very simple message: "The Kingdom of God, the reign of God's mercy, is on your doorstep. So why not repent, turn into it, and cast yourselves upon the best news you will ever hear?"

Why not?
-- Victor Shepherd, "Crucial Words in the Christian Vocabulary: 'Repentance,' " Theological Digest And Outlook, vol. 20 no. 2, September 2004, pp. 6-7

***

Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision that can change a life, or a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self-defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.
-- Dan Coats, in Imprimis

***

While eating out at a restaurant in the mid-1980s, I discovered that Chicken Little knew what he was talking about: The sky could fall suddenly -- and it landed on my head by way of a large ceiling panel, knocking me to the table. No one else in the restaurant was hit.

I didn't lose consciousness, but I sustained a head injury that left me bedridden, confused and disoriented for months and partially disabled for a year and a half. During the first few months of recuperation, my senses were all skewed. My vision was blurry, and I was very sensitive to light so the shades in my bedroom had to be drawn at all times.... There were days when the slightest touch was painful.... Other senses that I had taken for granted my entire life became strangers, and I sorely missed them.... I was also denied the consolation of some keen companions -- the written and spoken word -- not to mention my livelihood and sense of belonging.... I also lost my sense of identity. If I wasn't a wife, mother or writer, then who was I? ...

My downtime was a perfect opportunity for heaven to get my complete attention. Chief among my discoveries was this: Divinity is to be found where and when you least expect it. Moses found his God in a burning bush; I found mine in a pot of homemade spaghetti sauce. Months after my accident, it was the first thing I was able to smell distinctly....

I was practically beside myself with delight. I felt like I was standing on holy ground in my own house. I had discovered the miracle of the sacred in the ordinary; from that moment my life would forever be changed.... For the next few happy weeks, I rediscovered life with the same sense of wonder as my [two-year-old]....

I was astonished and ashamed at my appalling lack of appreciation for what had been right under my nose.... I swore I would never, ever forget.

And I haven't. All these years later, I strive to make each day a passionate, sensuous experience, one in which I take time to savour life's textures, tastes, sights, sounds, and aromas. Through the power and grace of gratitude, you, too, can do the same.
-- Sarah ban Breathnach, from "Romancing the Ordinary," quoted in Reader's Digest, February 2003, pp. 33-36

***

A friend of mine, who was a Jesuit priest, remembers hearing confession for the first time and listening to all these seven-year-olds confessing to the sin of adultery. Finally, Ron got up the nerve to ask one of these kids what they thought adultery was. "Well," said one, "Sister [who evidently couldn't face this issue head-on] said it was just greater than any sin we could imagine." And this little boy thought that peeing in the Pastor's flower garden pretty much fit that category.
-- Jim Gorman, to online meeting Eculaugh


Worship Resources
By George Reed

OPENING

N.B. All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.

Music

Hymns

"Awake, O Sleeper." WORDS: F. Bland Tucker, 1980; MUSIC: Max Miller, 1984. Words (c) Augsburg Publishing House; music (c) 1984, Max Miller. As found in UMH 551; Hymnal '82: 547.

"I Want To Walk As A Child Of The Light." WORDS: Kathleen Thomerson, 1966; MUSIC: Kathleen Thomerson, 1966. (c) 1970, 1975. As found in UMH 206; Hymnal '82: 490;

"When Jesus The Healer Passed Through Galilee." WORDS: Peter D. Smith, 1979; MUSIC: Peter D. Smith, 1979. (c) 1979 Stainer & Bell, Ltd. As found in UMH 263.

"Come, Sinners, To The Gospel Feast." WORDS: Charles Wesley, 1747; MUSIC: Katholisches Gesangbuch, ca 1774; adapt from Metrical Psalter, 1855. As found in UMH 339 (also 616 with Holy Communion verses); Hymnal '82.

"Spirit Song." WORDS: John Wimber, 1979; MUSIC: John Wimber, 1979. (c) 1979 Mercy Publishing. As found in UMH 347; AAHH 321; CH 352; CCB 51.

"Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed." WORDS: Isaac Watts, 1707; refrain by Ralph E. Hudson, 1885; MUSIC: Anon.; arr. Ralph E. Hudson, ca. 1885. Public domain. As found in UMH 359; LBOW 98; TPH 78; AAHH 263, 264; TNNBH 137; TNCH 199, 200; CH 204.

Songs

"If My People." WORDS: Based on 2 Chron. 7:14; MUSIC: Eddie Smith. (c) 1992 Maranatha! Music. As found in Renew 186.

"Come, Let Us Reason." WORDS: Ken Medema, 1971; MUSIC: Ken Medema, 1971; arr. David Allen, 1986. (c) 1972 Word Music. As found in Renew 190.

"Create In Me A Clean Heart." WORDS: Anon; MUSIC: Anon; arr. J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 54.

"People Need The Lord." WORDS: Greg Nelson and Phil McHugh; MUSIC: Greg Nelson and Phil McHugh; arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1963 Shepherd's Fold Music. As found in CCB 52.

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader: Out of the depths we cry to God.

People: Hear us, O Savior God!

Leader: We come seeking healing from our sin.

People: In you, O God, is our hope.

Leader: God is generous with redemption.

People: God redeems us from all our sin.

COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER

O God, who created us in your image and with your own breath: Awaken us from our sin that we may live fully in the light of your presence; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

or

We come to worship you, O God, for it is only in you that we find release from the sleep of sin and death. As you awaken us, receive our songs and prayers of praise and adoration so that we may serve you and your creation with all our hearts. Amen.

PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON

Leader: God calls us in love to confess the condition of our lives so that we may receive forgiveness and redemption.

People: We confess to you, O Holy One, that we have fallen asleep, lulled by the lure of sin. We have allowed that which you placed within us at our creation to be anesthetized so that we have sought our life in things that pass away. We have been entombed in our sin and bound by it grasp. Free us for joyful live that is eternal. Amen.

Leader: The One who created you is the One who loves you. The One who knows you best loves you best. In the Name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven and released from your bindings. Go in joy to serve God.

GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.

All praise and glory is yours, O God, for you are life and light and love. In you we live and move and have our being.

(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)

We confess that we have fallen asleep. We are unaware of your presence in the very center of our lives. We have allowed sin to anesthetize us and we have fallen in the sleep of spiritual death. Awake us once again to your presence that we may live for you and for others.

We give you thanks for all the blessings of this life. We are surrounded by your love painted in the beauty of this world and of all creation. From the budding of a small flower to stretching out of galaxies, we see your power and wonder.

(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)

We are aware of those around us who have not received the abundance that we have. In spite of all your creation yields, that have been denied their fair share. We lift them into your loving light and pray that we may be part of your care for them. Use us as you lift up the sick, raise the dying and visit the prisoners.

(Other petitions may be offered.)

All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father ...."

Hymnal & Songbook Abbreviations

UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
Renew: Renew! Songs and Hymns for Blended Worship


A Children's Sermon

The seed

Object: a seed

Based on John 11:1-45

When you look at a seed, it looks dead. It's all dried up and there appears to be no life in that seed. But if the seed is buried in the ground and receives the proper moisture, it sprouts. A tiny seed may become a giant tree over 100 feet tall. One tiny seed may produce thousands of other seeds as the plant matures. Sometimes seeds that are hundreds of years old are found. When they are planted, they spring to life. It seems like the seed was dead and then came to life. For this reason, a seed is a lot like the Christian's promise in death.

We die. The body is buried in the earth -- like a seed. Yet, even though we die, we live. Jesus rose from the dead. He was buried, like a seed, in the earth. Then he rose from the grave and because he rose, we also shall live.

I don't understand exactly how we live after we die, but I know that Jesus' promise is sure. Are there people you know who have died? (let them answer) Isn't it wonderful to know that we shall see loved ones again?

Dear Jesus: You are our hope of life. Thank you for dying and rising again. Amen.

Alternative: Using the shortest verse in the Bible ("Jesus began to weep" [v. 35]), talk about the reality of loss that death brings. Retell the story of Lazarus who died and then was raised to life again by the power of Jesus. Point out that death is real and loss hurts, but that the end of the story is a good one because God raises all who believe to eternal life.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Immediate Word, March 13, 2005, issue.

Copyright 2005 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.