What’s behind your
stone? What’s in your cave, shut up
behind a stone? What are you afraid to
smell? What can you think of… something
you wouldn’t want to tell the whole congregation? What is there that you don’t want to carry,
because you know how terribly it would weigh you down? Dead weight… weigh that leads the death. Roll the stone over it, try to forget. Because most of us have something that threatens
to weigh us down. A memory, a fear, an
injustice suffered or inflicted, an incompetence or a deception. Something which threatens to reek of the
absence of God. But to try to live our
lives with part of us siloed off and shut up behind a rock is not to live, it’s
to tacitly consent to a slow-fade to death.
And Jesus commands Life.
Jesus
came to Bethany to command life and that command still re-echoes today. Of course, he comforts the sisters first,
just as he’ll strengthen us to begin to roll our stones away, but he came to
Bethany to command life and he comes into our lives to do the same. Maybe we’re like Martha, confident in
approaching Jesus, completely correct and orthodox in what we say about him
(and, for Martha, this is no small feat – to come to the faith she has before the benefit of Easter), she’s
even bold enough to challenge Jesus, to enter into a prayer of “real fight” as
Pope Francis said approvingly of Moses in a homily this past week. There’s so much for us to admire in Martha,
to pray that we might emulate, but she doesn’t have it all. Her faith doesn’t give her full
understanding. She limits the horizon of
Jesus’ saving power by putting it far off, inaccessible, waiting till the end
times. “We will rise again,” she confesses,
but now… now we wait in gloom. Don’t you
dare roll my stone away… I’m terrified of the stench!
Jesus
commands life. Jesus who is resurrection
and life, proclaims himself, gives his very self with his powerful and
effective word. But before we rush
there, let us dwell a while with Mary.
Scared, timid Mary, who waits to be invited, to be called to Jesus. Maybe that’s where some of us are. We daren’t rush to Jesus like Martha because
we’re sobbing too loud to hear the call; our eyes too misty with tears to see
his loving arms outstretched, longing for embrace. Do we dare to see that? Or can we see Martha, coming towards us,
bringing us to Jesus? Maybe we need to
be Martha for some tear-filled Mary, risk making that invitation, because at
times we all need to let ourselves fall to Jesus’ feet and weep. And he’ll meet our sorrow. Joy incarnate will weep with us, for us, if
that’s what we need. But then, he’ll
command life.
Against
all objection, all reason, he’ll be blunt and brusque and commanding: roll away
the stone and, Lazarus: Come out! Life
wins. Life conquers death. Jesus risked his life to come to Bethany that
Lazarus would be restored to his life, for a while. Jesus gave his life on Calvary that we would
gain our lives, forever!
 |
| (This is a class at SQ, but not the inmate I'm talking about.) |
Back when I taught in San Quentin prison, I got
to know an inmate Tran who was living with the pain that he had not breathed free air
since two months before his daughter was born.
He had failed her as a father; he was as good as a dead father. God couldn’t take that away. He did command life. Tran dared to roll away his stone, and God
inspired him to take the meager wage he earned working in the metal shop and
use it to sponsor two children in Haiti.
Tran’s
Haitian children died in the 2011 earthquake.
There’s so much in our world to weep about. Like so many in Bethany that day whose dead
were not raised, I don’t know what to do with that. But Jesus does. Jesus commands life.
No comments:
Post a Comment