A Tale of Two Sisters
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedToday I want to share with you the tale of two sisters.
John 11 is one of the most familiar stories in the gospels,
and many people focus on the shortest verse in the Bible,
"Jesus wept."
Today I will answer the question
why did Jesus weep,
and also show why this story
is where the plot turns
toward the cross.
We have to look at the details,
and in John's gospel there are many details.
John
wrote his gospel somewhere around twenty years
after the other gospels.
And his gospel clearly references
those other gospels
and also "corrects the record."
And if you pay attention to the lectionary,
you will note
that John's gospel
is the one that takes precedent over the others,
it is the one we read at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.
This is the gospel that was held in higher esteem.
In the other gospels,
we get a sense
that the event that sent Jesus to the cross
was the cleansing of the temple.
That it was about money.
John
presents another view altogether,
a much more profound one.
This story opens
with Lazarus getting sick.
John tells the reader
that Lazarus is the brother of Mary,
the unnamed woman in the other gospels
who wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair.
This is a very important detail,
because John mentions this before the event
happens in his gospel.
This one sentence brings the blurry picture
of possibly several women
and focuses on one woman.
We can piece together fragments
and form a clear story,
that actually explains
why Mary is important,
why Martha and Lazarus matter
and why Jesus was so close to them.
Mary
once lived in Magdala,
and she once had seven demons,
and she may have once been a prostitute.
And Jesus restored her
to her own family.
And in this restoration,
the family essentially adopted Jesus,
out of gratitude.
In John, there is always a lot of information
in the details.
The next really important detail:
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister,
and Lazarus,
so when he found out Lazarus was ill
he stayed in the place where he was two days longer.
Wait.
What?
He loved them
so he delayed.
So
Lazarus gets sick
and they have to watch him die.
And then they have to go to the expense of burying him.
This doesn't sound like love.
Love
is not about your comfort
or you avoiding pain.
Love is not about you avoiding hard things.
Love
is about
walking into wholeness.
And sometimes
the path to wholeness
will take you through hard things.
Jesus
then tells his disciples
that Lazarus has fallen asleep,
so now it is okay to go to see him,
to wake him.
They don't get it,
so Jesus has to say it clearly.
And of course,
Jesus is in danger,
and they have been hiding out in the desert for three months.
At Hanukkah
the Jews tried to stone him twice,
and they have been out where John had been baptizing,
just north the dead sea.
They know
that if Jesus goes near Jerusalem
they are going to try to kill him again.
And the disciples decide
they are going to their deaths
with Jesus.
Now we come to the tale of two sisters.
If you are Jewish
it is customary if your father, mother,
siblings or grandparents die
to sit in shiva for seven days.
It is a period of ritual mourning.
You do nothing,
and people bring you food.
So a group of friends and relatives
who live in Jerusalem
have come to be with Mary and Martha.
This is a really big deal,
because Lazarus
is the man.
He owns the property,
he makes the money,
and without him
Mary and Martha
will have no future.
Whenever John uses the term
"Jews" in his gospel
he is referring to the relationship
between the first Christians and the
official rabbinic Jewish authorities.
By the time of John's gospel
the Christians had been put out of the synagogue.
The temple has been destroyed,
and the Jewish community is in the process
of regrouping
around a religious system
without a temple.
The "Jews" in this sense
were people
in the Jewish community
who rejected Jesus.
And John has a living memory of this.
It was his lived experience.
So the Jews from Jerusalem,
über-religious people,
had come out to console Mary and Martha.
There have been a lot of sermons
about the story of
Mary and Martha,
and they always end up saying "don't be a Martha."
I want to set the record straigth.
Be a Martha, not a Mary.
Martha,
the sensible one,
comes out to greet Jesus.
And Mary
sat in the house
with all the religious people
from Jerusalem
who were making her feel better.
And in the middle of this real life drama,
where people are asking
"Why did you let him die?"
"God where were you?"
"Why did we have to go through this?"
"Jesus, when we really needed you
you abandoned us."
In the midst of this noise
and disbelief,
Martha
says the boldest statement of faith in the New Testament.
"If you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
Even so,
I know that whatever you ask
God will give you."
And Jesus says,
"Your brother will live again."
And Martha speaks out the
belief of most Jews at the time of Jesus.
I believe in the resurrection of the dead.
And Jesus says.
"I am
the Resurrection."
And in this moment
Jesus takes this
from a discussion about theology
to a call to being in relationship.
The resurrection
is not a thing.
The Resurrection is a Person.
The Sabbath is not a day,
the Sabbath is a Person.
The truth is not a series of statements,
the Truth is a Person.
Jesus is the center.
Jesus is the resurrection.
He is the life.
He is the source,
and that source
is from the Holy Spirit in him.
And Jesus looks at Martha
in the face of all the noise,
all the company from out of town,
and a sealed tomb,
and he says:
"Martha,
Do you believe?"
And Martha proclaims:
"Yes, Lord
I believe that you are the Christ
the son of God,
who has come into the world."
Martha had faith.
It wasn't based in any feelings.
In fact her faith took a "back seat" to feelings.
And then Martha calls Mary.
Mary
is sitting in the living room
with the box of Kleenex,
and her cousins and aunts
are bringer her plates of food
and they are hugging her
and coddling her.
And Mary
is loving it.
Mary
who had experienced
the real miracle working power of Jesus
first hand,
has succumbed to her emotions,
to the comfort,
and the mindset
of the people around her.
She is listening to the voices
all around her
from Jerusalem.
These are the same people
three months earlier,
were ready to stone Jesus.
And she comes out,
and Jesus sees
that Mary
does not have any faith.
She is just like the others.
And the others
do not see him for who he is.
And she is weeping
and they are weeping.
Martha has just declared the reality of the Kingdom
is breaking into a world where sin and death have reigned.
Mary has made it all about her.
Mary was the lost sheep out on the mountain
and Jesus was the shepherd that went out and found her
and brought her home to her family
and restored them.
Mary has forgotten
and is aligning with the spiritual forces
set up to send him to the cross.
He has lost
the one he probably loved the best
of all the ones
he healed and delivered.
And he wept.
It wasn't about Lazarus.
It was about Mary.
And he is grieved
and moved,
not over a dead man.
He already said that Lazarus
is going to rise.
He is weeping
because the stage is being set
for the crucifixion.
Mary's state
was the first of the many betrayals
he was going to experience.
Those dear friends of Mary and Martha
run off with lots of news,
gossip,
about Jesus raising the dead.
And they go to the Pharisees,
and the Pharisees go to the high priest.
And Caiphas
says Jesus has to be stopped.
One man
must die for all the people.
Two sisters
one stands in the face of death
and declares bold faith.
One is lulled into comfort
by the people who will send Jesus
to the cross.
Be a Martha,
not a Mary.
In John's gospel
Jesus
is put to death
for giving a dead man
back his life.
And Jesus wept
for the unbelief he saw
not in the crowds,
but in one of his closest friends.
Thirty years ago
there was a wild move of God
called the Toronto Blessing.
In 1996
I went to New York City
to do my Alpha Course Training
with Nicky Gumbel.
His church,
Holy Trinity Brompton
in Knightsbridge
was one of the centers of this move of God
and people lined up down the street to get in.
We did the training at St. Bart's church in mid-Town
and I remember being slain in the spirit on the hard
tile floors of that old church.
Wild.
God is showing signs of his moving again.
God is starting to release his
weighty glory.
God is bringing the glory back to his church.
It's serious
and it's holy.
One of the themes of these Lent
readings from John
is the moment of visitation.
The reality is
you either go with what God is doing
or you oppose it.
It is a spiritual law.
You either keep saying yes,
keep stepping in faith,
keep surrendering to the Holy Spirit,
or you start to go back
decline
and oppose.
Having a religious experience
can make you an expert in how you think God works.
And in the end
that expertise
becomes pride.
And God resists the proud.
Every year
we are invited to a moment of visitation.
There is glory on what we are going to do
in the next two weeks.
Next Sunday we will be doing a "Palm Sunday Seder"
as we enter into the Passover of the Lord.
As it says in the Seder service
in every generation
we have to be like those who left Egypt.
In every generation
we have to stand at the cross with Jesus
and we have to look into the empty tomb.
This is not just an anniversary on the calendar,
this is a remembering:
a re-connecting to the saving acts of God
in Jesus Christ.
In the bigger sense,
there are indications
that there is a move of God
happening
that really doesn't look like anything
we have seen before.
It is already happening in the Catholic Church,
and in some other unexpected places.
It's quieter,
and more solid.
It's like Martha.
It is looking at the noise around
and it is saying,
Lord
I believe that you are the Christ.
It's about a long, steady,
healthy walking with Jesus.
It is about listening to God
and doing what he tells you.
It's not flashy.
Some of you listening
may need to make a decision for Jesus
and come to him this year
as we mark this season.
Some of you in our house have had major
healings and deliverance,
life change, and restoration.
This year at the Easter Vigil
we want to take time to renew our baptismal vows.
This year I want to make the opportunity
for those who want to renew their baptism
in a more official way to do that.
If you want to formally recommit
your life to Jesus
please let me know.
Jesus
loved two sisters.
Of course,
in the end
Mary's lack of faith
becomes faith.
She is at the cross,
and she is one
who meets Jesus
at the empty tomb.
The story is not over
and every moment of failure
makes a way
for a second chance.
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