John 11:1-45
Rev. Deborah Church Worley
March 29, 2020
5th Sunday of Lent/3rd Sunday of COVID-19
White Rock Presbyterian Church
In case you haven’t heard my sermons for the last few weeks, let me start by sharing that I’m doing a sermon series during Lent, called “Claiming Our Belovedness.” As I’ve said before, my intent is to offer each week, for our shared consideration, one thing that we can do that would help us move just a little closer to fully claiming our identity as God’s beloved children, at our core, and then live from that place…. And all of these sermons are available, by the way, on our church’s website: wrpchurch.com….
But just to quickly review, four weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Lent, I talked about “embracing our nakedness,” which, thankfully for all concerned, was not about not wearing clothes, but was about vulnerability, and the need for vulnerability and authenticity in our relationships with each other, with ourselves, and with God.
Three weeks ago the topic was “embracing our uncertainty,” and we explored the value of recognizing our questions and admitting our doubts, and the sweet relief that can be found in releasing the facade of having it all together, having it all figured out, all the time.
Two weeks I explored the idea of “embracing our thirst,” and I tried to encourage folks to not only recognize our thirst, and need, for water, but to also recognize our thirst, indeed our deep thirst, for belonging, and acceptance, and freedom from judgment, and forgiveness. Our thirst, ultimately, for God’s Love….
Last week’s suggestion for how we might move closer to claiming our belovedness was by embracing our inner blessedness, particularly in light of the many sudden and unexpected losses we are experiencing, individually and communally, in this season of the coronavirus, even including a loss of identity, to some degree….. If we can find our core identity in being God’s beloved, rather than in the things that we do or produce or achieve, then some of the losses we are experiencing now won’t be as devastating….
This morning I’d like to spend a few minutes considering, with Mary and Martha and Jesus and Lazarus, how we might more fully claim our identity as God’s beloved by, ironically, embracing our connectedness. Believe it or not, I actually chose this focus several weeks ago, before “COVID-19” and “pandemic” and “social distancing” had become part of our global everyday vocabulary. Suddenly talking about our connectedness, in the midst of what we are all experiencing as a lot of separateness, seems far more relevant than I ever could have imagined….
Because we’re struggling with that right now, aren’t we? As family members, as friends, as local communities, as faith communities….as a global community…. How do we embrace our connectedness when we have been forbidden from gathering in groups of more than five (at least that’s the mandate here in NM)? How do we embrace our connectedness when we have been so quickly and fully indoctrinated into the way of “social distancing,” meaning, when we are somehow near each other, we keep ourselves physically separated from one another by a distance of six feet or more? How can we embrace our connectedness when we, again, at least here in New Mexico, have been issued a “Stay-at-home” order, mandating that only essential employees can go to work, and the rest of us need to stay at home as much as possible, under threat of citation?? How can our children embrace connectedness when they will not be returning to school for the remainder of the school year? What the hell am I talking about, in this very season of extreme separation, saying we need to embrace our connectedness, to move closer to claiming our belovedness??
I’ve wondered if maybe I should have changed my topic for today? Could we somehow talk about how to claim our belovedness by embracing our disconnectedness?? Maybe we should, actually….because that’s what we’re doing, right? We’re showing our love for each other right now, by being fully committed to and engaged in the practices that keep us physically separate. But that’s not what I want to talk about. That’s a topic for another day, or another forum. I’m going to stick with my original thought and forge ahead, exploring how we might, indeed, even in these new and challenging and ever-changing circumstances, claim our belovedness by embracing our connectedness. I think Mary and Martha and Jesus have something to say to us about that….
First of all, I want to make sure we all recognize that this is a story of deep emotion. Right? So much raw human emotion. There’s confusion…there’s grief…there’s anger and frustration…there’s desperation… there’s weeping…and there’s more weeping…and there’s more confusion…and there’s rejoicing…. That’s not stated, but I have to believe that when Lazarus walked out of the tomb, four days dead and in the grave but now alive–I have to believe that there was rejoicing. 🙂 That’s a lot of emotion, a lot of deep, raw, human emotion in those 45 verses….
This isn’t a story so much about facts–of course, you might say, well, I might say, that none of the stories in the Bible are really about facts–but this one in particular, it seems to me, is a story of emotion, emotion that springs from human connectedness. It’s a story about relationships, about valuing the connections between people who love each other, about honoring the depth of these connections and their place in people’s lives.
Now I had not ever noticed this particularly before now, but I did this time, and want to lift up for you to notice that there’s no mention of any touching in this story. There are other stories where touching is a key element–when a woman was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’s robe, for example; or when Jesus healed a blind man by rubbing mud, which he’d made by spitting in the dirt, onto the man’s eyes; another example is when Jesus, after his resurrection, told Thomas to put his hand in the wound in his side so that he might believe. But in this story, this story of Jesus and Mary and Martha and the resurrection of Lazarus, there’s no touching. None specified, anyway. So this story, I believe, can speak to us today. In our current, crazy situation. Lack of touching, in our case brought on by mandated physical distancing, does not have to mean lack of human connection.
Because in spite of not being able to touch each other, we are still connected. As long as there is love between us and among us and within us, we will remain connected. In spite of our physical distancing, there is still love. Just like the love that existed between Lazarus and his sisters–a love that prompted them to summon Jesus when their brother was ill. In spite of the six-foot rule, there is still love. Just like the love that existed between the two sisters and Jesus–a love that prompted him to not only respond to their summons but that then prompted him to weep, when he saw their weeping, their grief, their heartache and distress. In spite of the mandate to stay apart from one another, there is still love. Just like the love that existed between Jesus and Lazarus–a love that prompted Jesus to go to him, even after he had died; a love that prompted Jesus to call Lazarus forth from the grave, offering him ultimate healing and renewed life. In spite of the fact that we cannot touch each other, cannot even get within six feet of one another, cannot connect with one another in so many of the ways that we’d grown accustomed to connecting–it spite of all of that, we are still connected. In spite of all of the craziness that surrounds us in these moments, craziness that can make our heads spin and our stomachs hurt and our spirits, at times, sink–in spite of all of that…there is still love.
The coronavirus has not changed that.
The closing of workplaces and schools and churches and synagogues and mosques and restaurants and bars and gyms and all kinds of retails businesses has not changed that.
The stay-at-home orders issued by almost half of the state’s governors, forcing more than half of our country’s population to do just that and stay at home, have not changed that.
There is still love.
And that love can call forth new life. Even now. Even in these crazy and uncertain times. Even in these times of physical distancing.
Perhaps that new life that love can call forth is especially needed in these crazy and uncertain times, as we are forced to think about how we are connected, and with whom we are connected, and how to stay connected…..
In these times of illness, our love for one another can offer healing–likely not physical healing, but healing in our spirits as we feel cared for by one another, as we remind one another that we are not alone.
In these times of confusion, our love for one another can offer clarity–not necessarily in terms of what’s happening around us, but in terms of what our priorities are, what’s most important, who’s most important.
In these times of anxiety, our love for one another can offer peace–not a peace that would come from knowing all the answers–because no one knows all the answers–but the peace that comes from knowing we are not alone, from knowing that we are not forgotten, from knowing that we have a tribe, a community, people to whom we matter and who matter to us.
In these times of despair, our love for another can offer hope–not a Pollyanna reassurance that everything will get better and be okay, but a gentle reminder of a deep hope, in the words of Henri Nouwen, that “God will fulfill God’s promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom…,” a reminder to live as people of hope, “with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.”
In these times when chaos has erupted and yet stillness has been thrust upon us, in these times when we cannot be together in the ways we’ve known how to be together, when our physical separateness has been mandated from above, we have to cling to our connectedness. We have to continue to express our love for one another. Like Mary and Martha and Jesus, we need to allow our love for each other to call forth our care of one another. Like Mary and Martha and Jesus, we need to allow our love for each other to not be discouraged in the face of illness. Like Mary and Martha and Jesus, we need to allow our love for each other to spur us to action on behalf of one another. Like Mary and Martha and Jesus, we need to allow our love for each other to call forth new life, in new ways, in this new time.
Like Mary and Martha and Jesus, we need to embrace our connectedness…and in the process, we might just move a little closer to claiming our belovedness.
Amen.
Rev. Deborah Beloved Church (aka "Pastor Deb") 