A Fourth Church Sermon by Victoria G. Curtiss

September 13, 2009 | 4:00 p.m.

Calling Forth New Life

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

John 11:1–44 (selected verses)

A few months ago, John Buchanan preached, “I am convinced that we are uniquely strong today because of a decision my predecessor and the leaders of this congregation made forty-five years ago.” In the midst of the turbulent 1960s, when some churches were locking their doors or moving out of the city, Fourth Church stayed and responded by creating ways to serve others through Tutoring, bringing children from Cabrini-Green into the building, through the Social Service Center, and more. Dr. Buchanan said, “I have concluded that the decision to remain and open the doors, made in the midst of the stress and threat of the sixties, saved this church’s soul and quite possibly its life” (John Buchanan, “Into the World,” 24 May 2009).

“Saved this church’s soul and quite possibly its life”: life and death as it connects to mission. The story in John is a paradigm for how we are involved in mission to bring forth life from death (see Fred Taylor, Roll Away the Stone: Saving America’s Children, for this connection of John 11 with mission).

When Jesus first heard of the death of Lazarus, he was not moved to go to him right away. It’s not entirely clear why he waited two more days. But “when Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”

Isn’t that true for us as well? It is when we are close enough to the suffering of others that we are moved to respond. We may first get involved in mission because we are seeking to be faithful to God. We may first be motivated by seeking to obey Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. But then when we get close enough to hear another’s story, to experience a brother’s pain as well as hopes, to see in a sister’s eyes a yearning for life, our hearts go out to them.

Compassion is stirred within us. Com-passion literally means “to suffer with.” Another’s suffering becomes our own. When we are seeking to know what God is calling us to do with our lives, one important question to answer is, “What in the world grieves you the most?” What breaks open your heart reveals what you really care about. God created us precisely so that our hearts work this way. To be truly human is to love deeply. We most fully embody who we are—created in the image of God—as we love others. That loving often is unleashed through shared pain, just as in this gospel story: “Jesus wept.”

Then Jesus, “once more deeply moved,” comes to the tomb. He gives an unexpected command to the community gathered around. He says, “Roll away the stone.”

Jesus is an agent of a higher power, but he doesn’t use that power in a dramatic way, as a solo operator. He involves the community of friends, family, and onlookers in his work. He calls on them to help him free Lazarus from the grips of death.

At first they resist. What could he be thinking? What could possibly be done? Here is powerlessness to the extreme: to all human appearances, Lazarus is dead. He has been written off, with no more expectations, apparently no more usefulness or possibility.

Besides, there would be a stench. Lazarus has been in there for four days; opening the tomb would release bad odors. Better to keep things covered up. Jesus chides the crowd into action: “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? You’ll see things you never thought possible.” They finally do it. They use their collective strength to roll away the big boulder.

Sometimes we must immerse ourselves in the “stink” of the world before we discover how God will bring forth new life. Last week I was talking with Diana Anton, a teacher who is on the staff of Chicago Lights, our nonprofit community outreach organization. Diana works in the elementary schools in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood. Last year, as Diana worked with students to improve their reading ability, she befriended a twelve-year-old girl I will call Anita. Anita became so excited about reading during the past school year that she not only succeeded in reaching the proficiency of her grade level but earned the nickname “The Reading Machine.” She exuded joy in life. Then Diana noticed that joy dissipate this summer. After some gentle prodding, Anita finally told Diana what had happened: her father had lost his job at Starbucks, and then they couldn’t afford their apartment, so they began to live with different relatives, moving every few days. One of those relatives raped her, and she was afraid she was pregnant. We all know how teen pregnancy completely changes the trajectory of a life. It really stinks. Fortunately we have since learned that Anita is not pregnant, but we don’t know what this sexual abuse has done to her emotionally, and she still has no secure, safe place to live. There are 15,000 homeless youth in the city of Chicago. They cannot change their own situation by themselves. The boulders are too big. It requires the efforts of the larger community to take away the stone and break the cycle of poverty.

Back to Jesus. The community has removed the stone as Jesus commanded. Now he gives a command to Lazarus. In a loud voice, he says, “Lazarus, come out!” Lo and behold, the lifeless one hears. He from whom nothing further was expected comprehends and responds. Lazarus comes out. He is alive!

It is essential that those we seek to help are seeking and involved in their own transformation. Chicago’s own Jane Addams, the cofounder of Hull House, was “unusually mindful of what others had to teach her.” She reappraised her assumptions about poverty as she listened to the underprivileged women with whom she worked. Those women helped her to see that, as Stephen Preskill and Stephen Brookfield put it, “the leaders at Hull House could not patronizingly extend to the community an array of services they thought would be beneficial. Rather, ‘Hull House had to be ready to meet whatever needs its neighbors presented’” (Stephen Preskill and Stephen D. Brookfield, Learning as a Way of Leading: Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice, pp. 34, 37).

“Lazarus, come out!” Persons must be involved in the transformation of their own lives.

Lazarus comes out of the tomb. He is alive. But he is still all bound up. So Jesus tells the crowd to stay with the job they have begun. He gives the community a second command: “Unbind him, and let him go.” Lazarus couldn’t reclaim life by himself. He needed others to release him from the powerlessness of death so he could move freely in the world. The outside community must assist those overcoming the consequences of having been constrained by poverty and oppression or simply misfortune.

We are in the midst of a hot debate about health care reform. A couple weeks ago, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer featured an interview with Washington Post correspondent T. R. Reid. Reid wanted to understand how other industrialized countries around the world could provide health care systems that not only were better and less expensive than ours, but would cover nearly all or all their citizens. He studied countries that have advanced, free-market economies and similar challenges to ours. He discovered that they don’t all accomplish this in the same way. Some are government-run systems, and some rely on privately funded insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals. But Reid discovered that they all had one thing in common: they first decided that everyone who is sick is going to have access to a doctor. Once they made the fundamental decision that everyone in the country would have health care, then they had the political will to make the tough decisions related to costs. Our country has not made that decision. Reid said he learned a lot about how different countries make this work and why. But, he said, “What I wasn’t able to answer is, “Why does the richest country not do this?” (News Hour with Jim Lehrer, 26 August 2009).

This is where the church is called to play a significant role: working so that our country creates systems so that no one is overlooked—not the sick, not the injured, not the poor, not the unemployed. We may come from different political perspectives, but we are all called by Christ to work for the common good. Loving our neighbors requires us not only to show kindness and mercy to individual persons but also to establish structures of justice so that all people can thrive. We need a change of heart for the distribution of wealth in this country, so that in the name and compassion of Jesus Christ we decide to work against the trend whereby those who have, have more and those who have not, have less.

As we are called into mission let us remember these commands of Jesus—
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Roll away the stone.
Come out.
Unbind, and let go.
—so that we, too, may see the glory of God calling forth new life.