All Saints Day Year B

"Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died." "Unbind him." These two lines surround the text for All Saints Day in Year B and provide fertile ground to think about suffering and hope.

All Saints Day Year B

Transcribed from a sermon given

November 4, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart at

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

John 11:32-44

Revelation 21:1-6a

In the Gospel today we hear the story of when Jesus brought Lazarus back to life. There were two lines that jumped out at me, the first one and the last. The first is when Mary said, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” And the last one where Jesus says to the people gathered around, and pointing to Lazarus, says, “Unbind him.”

“Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.” You can understand how Mary and Martha would have felt that. Jesus was their close friend. He stayed at their home. They had sent messengers to him saying, “Lazarus is very sick, come right away.” And he delayed. He delayed for quite some time, and he didn’t get there until after Lazarus was dead. And they knew that Jesus could have healed him! “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

We look on the TV and we hear about what has been happening with that horrible storm Sandy. Of the more than 100 people that have died. Of people walking along and branches randomly falling on their heads. Of the houses that are under water - some destroyed. Of the destruction of lives. And sometimes when thing like that happen we have this question, “Lord, where are you?”

And in our own lives I think all of us have at one time or another asked God, “Where were you?” “If you were here I wouldn’t be suffering so much.” “Why did you let my loved one die?” “Why is my friend suffering?” Those questions that we have are the same as question that we dealt with in Job that we read last week. That question of why is there suffering and where is God in it. And I am not going to pretend to be able to answer that. Why is a question that people have struggled with for thousands of years. But I will say that it is legitimate to ask that question. When we feel like we have been abandoned it is legitimate to say, “God where are you?” “It is okay to be angry at God,” I like to tell people. My God is big enough that God can handle my anger - and still love me. We all have times that echo those words of Mary, “Lord, if you had been here, then I wouldn’t be hurting so much.”

And the story continues where Jesus weeps. He feels the suffering and the struggle of Mary and Martha and those who are grieving. And he weeps. He weeps with us even now in our hard times.

Then they go to the grave and Jesus tells them to take away the stone. Mary doesn’t want to do that because as the King James version puts it so beautifully, “After four days, he stinketh.” But they roll away the stone and Jesus calls Lazarus out and we get to that line of, “Unbind him.” I imagine Lazarus kind of struggling to walk and he has these bandages around his head and on his arms and on his feet. And kind of confused, I would think, after four days and then being brought back to life. And Jesus says, “Unbind him.”

On Thursday, which was All Saints day, I went to visit a family of the parish. The choir knows them well. The father had died not too long ago and the wife lives with and their son who is dying from brain cancer. They have now called in hospice. So I went to visit. I spoke a little bit with the son who is confused, unable to stand, and suffering. Then I met with the family and we shared communion together. Since it was all saints day I read this Gospel passage, and as I read it I had a new sense of what that “unbind me” could mean, because at that point for Billy it felt as if his body was binding him. His mind didn’t work anymore, his body didn’t work anymore and maybe at some point, the prayer is “unbind him.” Because we know, and we believe, and we proclaim, especially today, on All Saints Day that all the believers when they are freed from this body are one with God. Or as it is so beautifully put in the Book of Revelation, “They will be his people and God himself will be with them.” There will be a closeness, a chance to see God face to face, which is what Job had longed for. To be surrounded by God’s love with nothing in the way.

Right now we are in these bodies. It limits us. They are wonderful. It is amazing. We can see great beauty but only can see a narrow band of energy. And if that is beautiful what does it look like if we could see all the energy around us? The scientists talk about all the universe being made up of energy. Imagine if we could be aware of and see that. And our ears are amazing because we can hear the beauty of a choir, or a bird chirping, or instruments, or a symphony, or the ocean. But it is limited in its range. Imagine if we could hear the sound of the celestial orchestra, if we could hear the angels sing, if we could experience that. We have glimpses of it. Little glimpses of it at a sunset when we see something, or sometimes we hear something, that transforms us. Where we feel that presence of God’s love. Little hints, promises, suggestions of what is there, of what is behind it all. Sometimes I feel like I am a prisoner who goes to visit with my loved one and there is a wall in between, and I can hear them on the other side, and maybe see their outline or a shadow, but I long to be closer. And sometimes that is how it feels with God’s love. Sometimes it feels like that day earlier this week when it was so foggy. There was this one morning when you got up and you could hardly see in front of you. And sometimes I feel like I am walking around in a fog and there is a world and an existence out there that is more beautiful than I can imagine. We have the opportunity to have tastes of God’s love, hints of the magnificent love that God has for each and every one of us, moments when that Kingdom of God that is described as coming in Revelation breaks in upon us and we know that we are loved.

Sometimes what keeps us from experiencing and knowing that love is bindings that we put on ourselves. I mean, think about it. Imagine that you are at work and you are coming home from work and you are really angry at one of the people you work with, or someone cut you off on the way home. For some reason you walk in and you are just angry. You are not angry at your family. You are just angry. But when you walk in the door and your family offers you love, you can’t experience it and share it because you are bound up by your anger. Or when we are afraid. When we are afraid we can’t open and be vulnerable with another person and it takes a certain amount of openness and vulnerability to feel their love. And when we are wracked with guilt and feel like we have done something terribly wrong, when our friends compliment us we can’t accept it because we can’t see ourselves as they do, but we see ourselves through the lens of our guilt. We bind ourselves up in ways that make it hard for us to receive the love that surrounds us and hard for us to share that love for others.

And so I would pray that God would unbind us. Free us from those things that keep us from knowing God’s love and sharing God’s love. That keep us from holding on to the knowledge and the hope that there is waiting for us a time when we will be truly free and know God face to face.