Text: Matthew 10: 5-10
During these four Sundays in July,
we’ll be exploring what it might mean for
us to be the Body of Christ here and now.
We’ll be taking our lead from the passage from Matthew’s gospel that
Colleen has just read for us …
where Jesus gives instructions to his twelve closest companions.
As he sends them out to the towns and villages
around the Sea of Galilee he tells them,
“As you go proclaim the good news.
The kingdom of God has come near.
“Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons,
…. feed the hungry, forgive as you have been forgiven.”
I thought we might begin this four week series by wrestling with what
he might have meant by sending us out to raise the dead.
Feeding, healing, even forgiving seem within the realm of the
possible, but raising the dead, really?
Did Jesus mean literally?
What does being the Body of Christ, embodying Jesus,
look like here and now; how can we in anyway be Jesus?
In planning for today I wondered if a story from John’s gospel-
the story of the raising of Lazarus might give us some clues.
Jesus was on his way to the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus –
Martha had gone out to meet him, and after some conversation Jesus
asked her to go and get Mary – he wanted some time with her too -
before going to the house where many were gathered.
When Mary saw Jesus she couldn’t contain her tears –
with tenderness he asked her, “where have you laid him?”
“Come and see”, she said.
“Come and see” those words take us back to the beginning.
In the very first chapter of John’s gospel we hear two of
Jesus’ disciples ask him where he is staying,
and his response to them was “come and see”.
The beginning was the easy part – it was easy to follow him then.
There was so much energy, so much promise.
It didn’t take a lot of persuasion when he asked them to
“come and see”.
For many of us, the beginning of our faith journey was the easy part.
Can you remember a conscious decision on your part
to follow in the way of Jesus?
Or was it something that you were born into,
something that over time became part of your identity?
When did following Jesus begin for you?
Beginning requires following Jesus to where he lives, where he is
staying, in order to discover who he is and what his dreams are,
in order to experience his compassion, to learn from him,
to enjoy his good company,
to join with him and his friends in plotting the revolution.
At the beginning come and see didn’t seem to be asking too much,
it didn’t seem too hard.
It’s the beginning again that’s the hard part.
That’s when the tables are turned and we must gather the courage
to ask Jesus to “come and see”.
Mary and Martha say, “come and see”,
and they lead Jesus to their brother’s tomb.
Lazarus has been dead for four days now, and they know that behind
the stone that closes the tomb the stench of death is overwhelming.
Still they ask him to come and see –
to witness their grief, to know their loss.
For followers of Jesus, beginning again requires asking Jesus to
come and see, to come with us behind the stone we can’t roll away.
Beginning again means asking Jesus to come and see
what’s happened to us, what’s befallen us, how we’ve lost our way.
It means letting him see our grief, our failures, our motivations,
our fears, our despair.
Beginning again means inviting Jesus into the most intimate,
unassuming and fragile places of our lives.
What would it mean for you to invite Jesus to come and see?
When Mary and Martha led Jesus to the place where Lazarus was
buried, he said, “Take away the stone”.
At first they resisted, “there’ll be a stench, he’s been dead four days”,
but Jesus insisted, and they took away the stone.
It was then that he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
That cry shattered the power of death.
“Lazarus, come out” he calls, and out walks a man known to be dead.
The dead man’s hands and feet are bound with strips of cloth.
Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
The dead man lives.
Despite Mary and Martha’s inability to fully grasp what
Jesus has to offer, he offers life anyway.
What is it that keeps you bound –
that keeps you from being fully alive?
If Jesus were to say to about you...
“Unbind him, and let him go.” “Unbind her, and let her go.”
what would freedom look like for you?
Inviting Jesus to come and see means life.
The new life he gives is world shattering.
Jesus breaks open all the death-dealing categories
by which we attempt to order our lives,
the life of our community, the life of our world.
Jesus breaks open all our death dealing categories.
Many of you, though not all of you, will know that Karen’s father is in
the Victoria General Hospital – he had a bad fall on Canada Day
breaking his arm and his pelvis, and he is not expected to recover.
Karen and her four siblings are keeping vigil with him around the
clock – reassuring him, in his confusion and pain,
that he will not be left alone.
The love that they share is palpable – to witness that love is to see
Jesus’ work of touching, feeding, healing, comforting –
not in some imaginary or theoretical way,
but physically, in order that resurrection happens.
To be in Dad’s hospital room, to witness him
being surrounded by the love and tenderness of his children,
is to hear Jesus calling “come out”,
come out into that new and unimagined life that awaits you.
It is to witness resurrection.
What death-dealing rules or perceptions or beliefs or history do you
need to have broken open in order to make room for new life for you?
Today marks the end of pride week in our city – members of our
congregation are already lining up for the march through the city
streets, some of us will join somewhere along the way.
Today is a day to call out of the tomb those
whom hatred and fear have kept bound.
Today is a day that we, and others with us, give voice to
Jesus’ invitation, his summons to come out into life.
This is what it is to be caught up in that holy work of raising the dead.
There are many ways to experience exclusion, fear, hatred …
what old categories, old divisions and patterns, old hatreds
that have defined our families, our communities –
what of these need to broken open in order to make room
for new life?
It is so clear – we are in the midst of a climate emergency.
And it is so easy for us to be convinced that it is too costly, too late,
too impossible for us to make the changes that are necessary
to save our planet from ourselves.
What old assumptions about what is desirable or possible
need to be broken open in order to make room for the new life
Jesus offers to the planet we call home?
Nothing remains outside his call to come out into life.
Nothing remains outside the sphere of his transforming power.
What need to be broken open in order to make room
for new life for Earth?
To those who are open, to those who grieve,
to those who know there is nowhere else to turn, to those who risk
the experience of being transformed by Jesus –
Jesus offers resurrection life.
Even when we cannot fully grasp what Jesus has to offer,
he offers life anyway.
Jesus is forever and always hauling us out of our tombs.
And there’s one more thing- Jesus keeps calling us to share in his
work of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, forgiving the sinner.
Not in some imaginary or theoretical way, but literally, physically,
in and through our bodily life, in order that resurrection can happen –
for ourselves, our communities, our world.
God has come to us in human flesh, in Jesus,
to love us and to free us from death into life.
We, in our human flesh, are simply called to go and do likewise.
Rev. Beverley Tracey July 7, 2019
