John 11:1-45
The Gospel of John is known for its long stories, so when the lectionary list of scriptures puts us in John, our scripture lessons get longer on Sundays. John tells fewer stories than the other Gospels and tells them in more detail. Each story is a “sign” that Jesus is the Messiah and has changed the world. Those signs usually involve miracles - a sign that God’s power resides in Jesus for our benefit. Some of these miracles are about doing supernatural things - like today’s story of raising Lazarus after he dies. Others involve knowing things only God could know - like the story of the woman at the well we read earlier this month. She tells folks Jesus “told me everything I did.” John’s point is that Jesus has knowledge and power equal to God and will use it to bring God’s reign into reality among us.
Forty-five years ago when I was a new pastor, I would have explained to you how we can trust these miracle stories because Jesus did them with God’s power. Today I want to say I have no idea how Jesus did these things or if he literally accomplished them in the way they are reported. I don’t understand miracles any more than you do. Sometimes amazing things happen and sometimes they don’t.
I do want to affirm that the people who followed Jesus in his lifetime and in the generations after when the gospels were being written, believed that his life and his message were world changing. They told these stories to share with others how Jesus had impacted their lives for the better. As we receive these stories from our tradition, we can reflect on what Jesus means in our lives and how we may also be changed for the better by knowing him.
In order to do that we can ask ourselves, “Why do I think Jesus matters? What is special about him, his life, and his teaching that makes a difference to me?”
There are many answers to that question. Let’s name a few possible ones this morning.
Jesus speaks to us of unconditional love. He says to us, “God IS love.” In his actions and words he treated all people with love. He didn’t agree with everyone, but he was respectful and loving to everyone. Sometimes we think that God’s love is conditional: we will be loved if we believe the right things about God and Jesus, if we behave in the right ways and follow commandments, if we’re baptized. Jesus didn’t put conditions on God’s love. Because God is God, we are loved. It’s in God’s very essence to be loving toward all people and all creation. We tend to be hard on ourselves and others. We focus on faults and missteps. God, on the other hand, loves us. The LaGrave apartments are on a housing first model: give someone experiencing lack of shelter a home, and then deal with everything else impacting their lives. God is LOVE FIRST. We are foremost and always loved. After that we can talk about how we live in that love.
Jesus gives us hope for life beyond life. I have no first-hand knowledge of what happens to us after we die, but Jesus was convinced that there was something more and I trust him in this. This matters to us especially when we lose people we love - we want to believe that there is still a connection with those folks. We want to believe that their spirits continue in some way. I think we have all experienced a sense that our loved ones are still there for us beyond this life. We feel them close to us at times. We use their memory to continue our connection to them. We hear their voice in our ear. Jesus promised that he “goes to prepare a place for us.” We don’t have details about what that means, but I trust it to be true.
Jesus invited people to live in community in a new and intentional way. He said things like, “Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. God the extra mile. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Jesus welcomed folks whose illness or disability set them outside community and brought them back into the heart of their villages. The people of the first century lived in violent, difficult conditions. It was a temptation to respond with violence and anger. Jesus taught them instead to love each other, to respect each other. The Empire could treat them badly, but it couldn’t make them treat each other badly. Surrounded by hatred, they could live in love. They could bring the community of God’s reign into the heart of their living by following the guidelines Jesus gave them. When they did that, their lives improved, even if their circumstances didn’t change. This summer I’m going to share with you in the sermons research about how people in the first and second centuries lived out Jesus’ call to community. It will give us a chance to reflect on how we form community in our church and in our towns. How we live impacts the kind of people we become, and Jesus gives us a good model for living.
Finally, Jesus challenged the abuses of the Roman Empire and the Jewish religious leaders who served Empire. He called out those who used their power to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor. He criticized leaders who made life harder for those under them. Jesus lifted up the values God holds for society - justice, mercy, compassion, equity, sharing. This list is always long and I hope you add your favorites to it. The first century was based on violent power and control and people didn’t matter except as they enriched the empire. That’s no way to live. In our congregation, we are inspired by Jesus’ vision as we live in the twenty-first century. We aim to treat all people with the love and respect Jesus showed for them, and to use the influence we have to create a just world. We have a long way to go, but I’m inspired by the possibilities Jesus holds up for us. I think you are too, and so we keep going. We keep reminding the system that it’s supposed to work for everyone. We advocate for those who need allies so their voices can be heard. We work for justice. And we work to make the world better in the small ways we have the capacity to make change, as a sign of what could be. Jesus is the one who keeps me going on this justice journey.
These are just some of the ways we can understand who Jesus was and what he was up to. I suspect that at some moment in your life, each of these has been important to you. There may well be other ways Jesus is meaningful to your life journey and those are equally important. We are not the same people at each stage of our lives, and our faith and our connection to Jesus is meant to grow and change over time. Jesus and the God he represents are bigger than our living and our understanding of God adapts as we need it to adapt. It’s the way that God is always with us.
Our understanding of Jesus can put emphasis on many different things, and all of them are right at the right moment for us. We don’t have to all be in the same place at the same time. But we agree that Jesus matters for us. That’s something we hold in common, despite our differences. And something we celebrate.