St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
November 1, 2015
Year B: All Saints’
Day
Wisdom of Solomon
3:1-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
Saints Remember that God is the God of New Life
On
Monday afternoon I drove out on Route 80 to Pennsylvania for our annual clergy
conference at a hotel on the Delaware River.
As
I got farther west I was treated to a beautiful display of fall foliage, rich
reds and bright yellows along with browns and even still some greens.
And,
actually, I didn’t have to travel too far to see beautiful foliage.
Trees
right here in Jersey City have been putting on quite a display, including the
three trees in front of the rectory which have given us the gift of bright
yellow leaves.
Some
of you may have seen the picture I took the other day of the church partially
hidden behind those yellow leaves.
But,
we know where this is going, right?
And,
if we didn’t, we got a windy, cold, and wet reminder on Tuesday night when a
storm blew through blowing many of those beautiful leaves to the ground, making
too much work for Vanessa as she spent hours sweeping them up.
Early
this morning, we (or most of us) moved our clocks back an hour – or, actually,
more and more of our devices just take care of that task for us. Anyway, we
know that it’ll be getting dark around 4:30 this afternoon and it’ll still be dark tomorrow morning when we
get up.
And,
soon enough it will be cold and it will be icy and it will snow and, who knows,
teachers and kids might even get a snow day every now and then.
And,
it’s not just the weather. Let’s be honest. The world is often a cold, hard,
dark place.
Our
own lives are often filled with shadows – the shadows of illness and
unemployment, the shadows of missed connections, broken relationships and lost
love, the shadows of fear and violence.
Our
lives can be so shadowy that sometimes it almost feels like that we are bound
like Lazarus in the tomb.
Our
city is so often a place of shadows.
Tomorrow
morning I have the sad duty and privilege of officiating at the funeral at
Church of the Incarnation of Nyheem McKinney, shot and killed last Sunday night
on Communipaw Avenue, at the Junction, just 20 years old, his whole life ahead
of him, leaving behind a heartbroken family and a two year old baby daughter.
And,
all you need to do is turn on the news to know that our world is so often a
place of shadows, too.
Winter
can be so cold, we can easily forget that spring is right around the corner.
Our
lives can be so hard, that we can easily forget that God is the God of new
life.
Which
brings us to today’s gospel lesson.
The
sisters Martha and Mary and the crowd of sad, grieving people think they know where this is going.
Their
brother Lazarus had gotten sick.
Maybe
if Jesus had arrived in time he might have been able to heal Lazarus. After
all, he had healed many people in many different places – even restored sight
to the blind!
But,
Jesus didn’t get to Lazarus in time. In fact, we’re told, he deliberately and
mysteriously delayed his departure.
And
now, Lazarus is dead.
He’s
not just dead but he’s been dead for four days. He’s very dead.
So,
Martha and Mary and the crowd perfectly sensibly think that they know where this is going.
But,
they were wrong.
They
were wrong because God is the God of new life.
“Lazarus,
come out!”
And,
“the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his
face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”
The
raising of Lazarus is the most awesome and dramatic display of Jesus’ power – a
foreshadowing of an even greater display of God’s power on Easter Day.
Lazarus
received the gift of new life that day.
It
turned out that the sisters Martha and Mary and the crowd didn’t know
where this was going at all.
God
is the God of New life.
Now,
we know that, but most of us forget.
We
forget because our world is shadowy and filled with real suffering and, yes,
all too real death.
But,
it seems to me, that the saints are those people who really do know where this is going.
The
saints don’t forget – or they remember more often than most of us – that God is
the God of new life.
Saints
are those who remember – even when all the leaves have fallen and the trees are
bare and it’s so, so cold – that God is the God of new life and spring and
rebirth are right around the corner.
Saints
are those people who remember, even when things are most shadowy, even when
Lazarus is dead, very dead, in the tomb, even when Jesus is hanging dead on the
cross, even when Nyheem is bleeding to death on Communipaw Avenue, that God is
the God of new life.
Now,
actually, since we’re baptized we’re saints already. It’s true. Look it up.
So,
I say, let’s really do it. Let’s really be saints!
Let’s
remember that God is the God of new life.
God
is the God of new life – new life that, if we look, we see sprouting up all
around us – in our church that a couple of years ago was on the ropes but is
now booming with wonderful saints both old and new, with new and exciting ministries
and more yet to come – in the Episcopal Church where in just a little while
installing the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry as our first African-American Presiding
Bishop, a man who’s unafraid to talk boldly about the power and love of Jesus,
a man who calls us all to be “crazy” (in a good way!) Christians!
So,
let’s be saints!
Let’s
remember that God is the God of new life.
God
is the God of new life – new life that, if we look, we see all around us – right
here in Jersey City where people of all different faiths and no faith at all,
including a bunch of us from St. Paul’s, are coming together in a powerful
community organizing effort to finally address homelessness, public safety, and
education in our city which so often is split between the haves and have-nots.
So,
let’s be saints!
Let’s
remember that God is the God of new life.
God
is the God of new life – new life that, if we look, we see all around us –
today most clearly in the faces of these two beautiful babies who are about to
be baptized, Ian and Kennedy, who are about to die with Christ and rise again
with Christ in the water of baptism right back there at the font – you don’t
want to miss this – these two beautiful children who are about to become our
newest saints.
Yes,
the world, our city, and our lives are often shadowy and we can forget that we
really do know where this is going.
“Lazarus,
come out!”
And,
“the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his
face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”
So,
yes, we know where this is going.
God
is the God of…new life!
So,
let’s be…saints!
Amen.
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