Some thoughts for All Souls Day

Read John 11:1-44   

  

In two weeks’ time, my late father would have celebrated his 100th birthday. The youngest of six, he was born while his eldest brother was away fighting in WW1. Although he died when I was in my twenties, I think of him often.

When I was a child I used to think that he and I were completely different. Of course, our life experiences were radically different. Yet I see aspects of my father now in my reactions and my character and I also have the surprise of catching glimpses of him in my son, the grandson whom he never met, who has inherited his build, his character and his humour. I miss him.

“In the midst of life, we are in death” says Thomas Cranmer who took that ancient saying and included it in the burial service in the Book of Common Prayer. When comforting a friend who had lost her husband, the late Queen Mother was asked if grieving got any better with the passage of time. She replied "It doesn't get any better but you get better at it."  That is my experience. Perhaps it is the experience of some of you, for almost all of us have had to cope with loss and grief. For some people, as we will remember in a few days’ time at Remembrance Sunday, grief can carry on for a long time.

What helps does our faith offer us as we confront the reality of death in life?  The Old Testament supplies us many examples of how God’s people in ancient times coped with grief, loss and death. The psalms provide us with many laments, including those echoed by Jesus Himself: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Well, this event from the life of Jesus is about death and grief in the midst of life; and the place of faith and hope in such times. 

Lazarus, Martha and Mary lived close to Jerusalem. They were followers and close friends of Jesus. When Jesus came to Jerusalem he stayed with them. Apart from that we know little about them: they seem to have been independent, without parents in the picture; they must have been financially comfortable, since they had a house large enough to cater for a fairly big group of people.

In this story, while Jesus was absent Lazarus became gravely ill. Then he got worse, and the two women sent for Jesus. Come and cure our brother, they begged. Jesus received the message but he put off coming for two days. Why? Jesus clearly loved this man as a friend. Their home was just 2 miles from Jerusalem. Yet Jesus stays on in the city when an hour’s slow walk could have brought His miraculous healing. The disciples – bless them! – are typically slow to grasp the seriousness of Lazarus’ condition.

In the meantime, Lazarus dies of his illness. For all the miracles worked by Jesus, people still died in Judea in the years of His ministry. People still suffered disabilities; there was still poverty and injustice and the land remained under enemy occupation. The presence of the Son of God does not remove us from the ills of the human condition. For that reason I cannot sing the line from that worship song that says: “And in His presence our problems disappear.”  It is high-sounding nonsense, which disrespects the pain of grieving people.

When Jesus eventually arrived, Martha rushed out to meet him. She reproached him bitterly - if you'd only come sooner, he wouldn't have died, she said. She berates her friend for delaying and we cannot miss her tone of disappointment.

As a pastor, I have comforted grieving people. At such times, the questions all seem to begin with 

• ‘Why?’ 
• Why me?
• Why did this happen? 
• Why do such bad things happen, even to good people? 
• Why did God allow that to happen?

 We are at our most human when we ask why. ‘Why’ looks for meaning at times when there seems to be little meaning. Yet, after a while, if the grieving process works as it should, we find that little by little the ‘why’ questions are replaced by ‘How?’   How should I now live as a follower of Christ, in spite of all that has happened?  Sadly, some people stay trapped in ‘why?’

Having touched on the disciples, Martha and Mary, now we look at Jesus, who is weeping. Why? (There’s that word again). Why is Jesus weeping?

Some commentators suggest that surely, as the Son of God, He knew that for Lazarus things would turn out right in the end – so why weep? Yet this man, Jesus, was fully human. He did not know all things.

Others suggest that it only began to dawn on Jesus at that point – when confronted with the death of his friend – about the awful process of death and dying that awaited Him.  Don’t forget that John’s gospel is the gospel of significance – of meaning. Every act and story in this gospel is drenched in meaning. Yet I reject this idea also.

Jesus wept because He loved His friend, who is now dead.

Jesus wept because of His own grief and because his friends, Martha and Mary, were now experiencing the desperate loss and pain that comes when death robs us of those we love.

Jesus wept because grief is the price that we pay for having loved.

And what of poor Lazarus?  Let’s take a moment to place ourselves in his position. What might he have thought, as he became ill, then worsened?  His friend the healer is just an hour’s slow walk away, so why hasn’t he come?  His family have sent word, but no one arrives. Then the loss of hope as, for him, time runs out.

Then – what?  Nothingness?  Or a glimpse of paradise?!  Until, days after he died, the shock of resurrection and a Voice recalling him to earthly life. He is restored to family and friends and becomes the first to taste that even death cannot separate us from the love of God found in Christ.

Yet, for Lazarus, this was not the ultimate resurrection.  Lazarus died again. How long did he have? We are not told. I think his restored life might have been quite problematic. Supernatural seekers would have shown an unhealthy interest in him. Some would have thought him part of a conspiracy to deceive. He would have been a political and religious embarrassment. And how do you relate to your friend who has so publicly transformed your existence?

At the heart of this passage is this.  “Jesus says to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

The words that Jesus proclaims to Martha invite us not to be glib or to wear a shallow smile in the face of grief and pain. Maybe like me, in times of loss you have suffered from the bright cheerfulness of Christians who would do better to stand weeping, like our Master, rather than offering trite words pretending to be faith.

Jesus doesn’t offer us an easy way out.  Like Lazarus, one day we will all face death first-hand. Jesus does not tell us that we can avoid death or grief. But he offers us the solid hope that lies on the far side of that most human experience. And the One who stands and weeps at the grave of His friend is the One who stands beside us as we face all that life can throw at us. He came into the world, born as one of us, entering our condition – our frailty, our hopelessness and the apparent finality of the death that awaits us. He goes on standing beside us, sharing our tears and offering us hope.

What form might this hope take?  Sometimes we experience the presence of Christ in the touch of a hand or a hug or a meal cooked or someone looking at our treasured photographs with us, because grief has knocked us down. Christ can use the community of faith to show his care.

And when we meet together on a Sunday or in our home groups, with Christ at the centre of His disciples, do we make allowance for grief and loss in our worship?  For lament?  We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that we must leave our feelings and the reality of life at the church door when we come to worship. Or that we must be unremittingly cheerful. What unbiblical nonsense! The psalmists knew, better than us, that worship is bringing the whole of life before God.

Today is All Souls Day. Along with yesterday's All Saints Day, this is a feast that we Baptists have disregarded – perhaps with some suspicion. Yet I feel they are useful points in our church calendar to remember, to reflect and in quiet gratitude to give thanks for the lives now past that have touched ours and for our continuing lives.  To hand over, once again, those we have loved and who have died into God’s tender care. We do so knowing that there is no safer place than in the hands of the God who imagined them and called them into existence; the always-with-us God, who stands and shares our tears. He declares that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrates that in the gift of new life to Lazarus. As his people, let us share life together with its joys and its sorrows, bringing them both in our worship of God. Let that worship include thanksgiving and lament as we gather round the God of tears and solid hope, to whom we now pray:

Everlasting God, our maker and redeemer, give us, together with all those we remember with love and gratitude, the joy of Jesus' glorious resurrection, so that, in the last day when you gather up all things in Christ, we may enjoy with them your presence for ever. Through Jesus Christ your Son. Amen

So where is God when you need Him?

A talk given at Clementswood Baptist Church on Sunday 11 October 2015

If you’re one of those Christians who never has a doubt; has never wondered why their prayers just seem to hit the ceiling and bounce back; if your faith never feels challenged or you have a swift and spiritual solution to all of life’s brickbats, then today’s sermon is not for you.  Please just sit quietly – maybe read a few more chapters in your Bible.  Or you might pray quietly for the poor doubters, the strugglers with their faith or (as I usually call them) the ordinary Christians just like me.  I promise I won’t keep you for very long before we go for our tea and cake.

Why are we dipping in to Job this morning?

Well unless I am invited to speak on other topics or passages I usually preach from the lectionary:  the collection of Bible readings offered Sunday by Sunday. It means that many, many churches around the world will today be thinking about Job (if, that is, their preachers have not chosen the alternate passages in Mark 10 or Hebrews 4.) I fancy that most preachers will have ducked this passage – I cannot remember preaching on it before nor hearing another sermon.

The story of Job is one of the oldest we find in our Bibles. Job is a good guy who God allows to be tested to see how long he will go on trusting in in God, in spite of financial loss, the sudden death of loved ones, physical and emotional pain and finally depression. And, as if that wasn’t enough, Job has some so-called friends who turn up with the kind of cheery, uplifting spiritual comfort that makes you grit your teeth and reach for good, heavy, cast-iron skillet to whack them with.  Chapter 23 begins as a response by Job to advice from one of these friends.

This morning, I would like to draw our attention to 3 things.

1.      Oh if only

The hymn that we sung just now has an interesting verse 2: “From the fears that long have bound us, free our hearts to faith and praise.”

Job complains that while he suffers God is nowhere to be found, seen or heard. One of the complementary readings in the lectionary for today is in Psalm 22, which begins:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
  My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest."

These words, of course, have a particular resonance for us when we remember the crucifixion. 

If only things were different!   If only I didn’t have to struggle with the challenges I face.  With the pain or the loneliness or the lack of money or the bleakness. If only God was here. 

Note that Job has not lost faith in God (v6-7).

Have you had the experience of wondering where God has got to?  I have, many times.  It does not mean a loss of faith but a missing of the sense of God present with you. We pray and we try to do all the right things (as Job says he does here).  But if only God might show up now and again…

2.  Then, secondly, Job’s gloom continues in v8-12 as he says:

“But if I go to the east, he is not there;
    if I go to the west, I do not find him.
9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
    when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

The poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, wrote this line in one of his poems:  “I greet Him the days I meet Him and bless when I understand.”  It suggests that we only might only encounter God from time to time.  From time to time we may catch a distant glimpse of God in passing as we go about our daily lives.  Hopkins was a priest so he understood the journey of faith.  And he wrote those words in a poem about a terrible tragedy:  the death by drowning of some Christians when their boat sank in a snowstorm in the North Sea. In other words, the kind of situation where we might hope that God would show up.

Yet, once again, Job tempers the felt reality of his troubles with a bold declaration of faith in the God who he cannot see or hear [v10]

But he knows the way that I take;
    when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

This man takes some comfort in knowing that, even though he cannot discern the presence of God, he is convinced that God is watching over him:  all-seeing and all-knowing.

Sometimes, when God feel at arm’s length or even further away – we too can carry on, trusting that we are known and loved by the ever-watchful God.

Verses 11 and 12 tend to suggest that Job is rather keen on protesting his uprightness of living, as something therefore deserving of God’s love in return.  We see this quite often in the OT – a righteous life undertaken as a contract with God.  I live your way; you bless me with material possessions and keep the bad guys off my back.  Some Christians believe this today, though I find that this view is somewhat adjusted by the teaching and example of Jesus in the NT.

Yet we may still draw comfort from some of the great promises of the Bible. When dark times strike us and God seems distant, we lean on what God has said to people in the past as a sign that He is faithful despite the circumstances.

3.  Finally, we come to the heart of the matter – a theme that we find repeated again and again in the story of Job [v13]:

“But he stands alone, and who can oppose him?
    He does whatever he pleases.

Which does not mean that God is capricious or arbitrary.  It is simply that when we try to condense God, His motives and actions in to something that we can readily grasp or understand or even manage, our arms are too short, our eyes are too weak to see and our mind and understanding are too small to comprehend. That’s why Job says:

“That is why I am terrified before him”

This speaks not of cringing fearfully before a dictator or monster but that, suddenly, we glimpse that God is immeasurably bigger, higher and deeper than the simple, cardboard figure that we so often try and reduce him to be. We can say with the singer songwriter, Paul Simon:

“And God only knows and God makes His plans; the information is unavailable to the mortal man.”

At the end of this chapter, we are reminded again that the life that we love is so often clouded with darkness.  We are in the dark.  We are in the dark about why bad things happen to good people. We are in the dark why God just seems to clear-off and leave us on our own to face life’s challenges.  Life has its share of shadows and there are times when the shadows lengthen into thick darkness.

By the very end of Job’s story he is left simply having to let God be God. He says:

           “I know that you can do all things;

    no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me to know.

4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I humble myself
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

Here at Clementswood you live among neighbours who use the phrase “Insha’Allah” many times a day – the Muslim Arabic for ‘if God’s wills it.’  A meek acceptance that whatever happens is God’s will. Fate, if you like.

Well that isn’t the message of the story of Job. God doesn’t send misfortunes. God doesn’t cause cancer or arthritis, although (and I say this reverently) I do think that He might let on why He doesn’t step in more often to prevent bad things happening.

In this broken world, there is much pain as well as some joy. Not everyone gets to live happily ever after. It is not helped when Christians fixate on permanent ‘bliss.’  Sometimes it is right to ask why or, with a sigh, exclaim “If only.”

We may blunder around seeking answers or trying to impress God with the quality of our upright living.

Perhaps we are sometimes left silent with nothing to answer to the enormity of God.

Are you struggling with the absence of God this morning?  You know He is there but it would be super if He gave you just a hint that that He was around.

Have you tried so hard to live a ‘good’ life? You are not one of life’s major rule-breakers. Yet, instead of being rewarded, you seem to have been deserted?

Well the message for you today is one that countless saints of God have experienced these things.  It is often part of the journey of faith. To you I say this. There is a God of love. Job believed it; I believe it and you can believe it. I do not know why sometimes He is not more apparent.  But the story of Job – thousands of years old – resonates with us and comforts us today. For us, the journey of faith is one of acting even though we do not see; continuing faithfully when all human emotion tells us to pack it in. We trust in the God of Job. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The God of Moses.  Every one of these giants of faith faced, like us, the apparent absence of God. And yet they carried on trusting that one day, like Job, their distant hearing about God would be replaced once again by clarity and presence. 

Unlike all of these, of course, we have benefit of knowing of Jesus Christ.  As His followers, we have the edge on poor Job.  His relationship with God was based on rightful living alone – keeping the rules and then expecting God to keep His side of the bargain.  That way never works.  It cannot work.  And that is why Christ died.

In Christ, we are invited simply to follow, with trust, though we may not see the path ahead at all clearly. Because He has been through the darkness for us and is with us there all through it. 

An open letter to a friend

People have asked me about you in the last fortnight, mentioning that your name doesn’t crop up in conversation as it used to. But it’s hard to explain what has happened.

When we met a while back, after something of a gap, it was a meeting born not of business but of friendship. I wanted to find out how you were. This was not so surprising, I guess, as we enjoy many shared experiences, values and hopes.  The difference in age – which might have been significant when we were younger – is negligible now.  Unexpectedly (for me at least), from that reunion arose an opportunity for us to collaborate in a dream that mattered to us both and I am grateful for this.

Well, we stole some horses, as they say.  We hustled a little.  Perhaps we changed a few minds, where minds were open to the possibility of change, though (Goodness knows!) few are. From time to time we got to ask why the emperor was so scantily-clad. We dared to speak a little truth to minor ‘Power.’

It was fun!  And if our stumbling efforts may have occasionally served a higher purpose, the fun was no less important. But what has become of the friendship which was our first aim?  And how quickly we drop off someone’s priority list for returned calls.

There are too few good friends in the world. As I have blogged before friendship, once affirmed, is too precious to allow simply to wither through neglect.

Last of the summer reading

Just back from a quiet(ish) week away in Norfolk with some easy day-visits to historic sites, local beer and plenty of time to catch up with reading. I thought I’d share the highlights of my late summer reading with you.

At the suggestion of my good friend, Chris Winfield, I read What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael Sandel. I am glad I did, although it made for several audible sighs of incredulity.

A professor at Harvard University, Sandel analyses the impact of the free market on our lives. He builds up an impressive series of examples to suggest that unregulated markets inevitably tend to turn as much as possible into commodities. This leads to a kind of corruption which destroys some of the key values that makes us most human.  Here are described so many choices that money can buy, potentially rendering the democratic process, health, life and death and the most intimate of human activities subject to who pays the most. For the most extreme of free-marketeers, this is not only an acceptable situation but a desirable one.

This book appeals because of its anecdotal approach. The reader stands amazed at the kind of things which it is possible to buy and left with questions about how much of innate human value is being corrupted, seemingly without challenge. A worrying, persuasive and necessary read. 

The second of my top of this summer’s reading list is The Establishment: And how they get away with it by Owen Jones.  

The premise is this: our democracy is a façade behind which there is a powerful but unaccountable network of people who control and steer society to meet their ends. They hold the power and receive most of the rewards.  We journey with Jones through global boardrooms, Westminster, public schools, the news moguls and the City.  The author contends that there are well developed links between all these interests – The Establishment – that represent a clear and present danger to our democracy.  Indeed they use democracy as a shield to conceal their activities.

This is another highly accessible book, despite its length (it would have been just as persuasive at half the number of pages).  One of my early questions was to ask myself if this was going to end up as an entertaining set of conspiracy theories. But those who like to see conspiracies everywhere always overstate their case. Jones is a skillful writer who sets out his stall and then leaves the reader to join the dots: an approach which, in this case, successfully engages the reader.

This is another sobering read.  For myself, I found that there were simply too many instances highlighted by the author to dismiss as coincidence. I am not a fully-paid up convert to his convictions about the Establishment as he portrays it.  There are some rather old and threadbare arguments from the bogeyman collection of the Left brought out yet again.  But it seems to me that there is enough of a case to require some answers.

I also read Owen Jones’ Chavs: the demonization of the working class.  Once again, it makes some telling and worthy points but it could have done this much more succinctly. 

The living is easy?

In the last couple of weeks, we have had the usual mix of weather that goes to make up an English summer. Some days have seen blazing hot sunshine. On others, a whole lot of rain has fallen in a single day.
 
Wimbledon is now past for another year and the Ashes won back from some kind of scratch team from the southern hemisphere.

Days are full of the familiar summer scents of newly-mown grass and barbecue smoke. The jingle of the ice-cream van is heard on every street corner and which of us cannot remember the excitement we felt as school children in those long, lazy days of summer? In summertime, the living really does seem easy.

Yet, day by day, I meet people who – despite the glorious summer sunshine – face real pressures in their lives. Illness, bereavement, relationship issues, rises in the cost of living, sanctions and the bedroom tax. For those in jobs, there are long hours and ever-increasing demands by their employers.

If we carry a picture in our minds that the life that God invites us to lead is only made up of sunshine and roses, the chances are that our faith will be dented by hard times. Yet Jesus warned his followers that they should expect troubles; they should not think that they are protected from all the hardships of life. The bible asks (and then answers!) an interesting question:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship….No! In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”  

The writer goes on to say that in all creation there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God found in Jesus. Because of him, we can know that God loves us. Knowing this, we can face – with renewed hope - all that life may throw at us.

So, whether right now the sun is shining for you or the days seem dark, live today in the knowledge that God loves you. That before anyone had first thought of you or spoken your name, you were loved and always will be. 

And, if you get the chance, reach out and show that kind of love and acceptance to someone who is facing darker days.