A SERMON FROM ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH,
Greenville, South Carolina
5th Sunday in Lent – 17 March 2002 Year A
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130
Romans 6:16-23; John 11:17-44
Texts of today's lessons
“Now, Lord, what will you have me do?”Our journey of Lent to this point has been filled with the wind and water of the Spirit, and a glimpse of the true light that has come into the world. It is as if—no, not “as if”—it is plain and simple: God is wooing us. Like a lover that pursues the beloved, so, too, God pursues us. God desires that each of us come home to true life in him. The story of Lazarus this week is but another attempt at wooing us back into God’s love. “Who told you that you were dead? Who said you had no life within you?” says the lover God to each of us. Jesus stands at the mouths of our self-made tombs of despair, self-loathing, guilt and regret, and cries out to all of us, “Come out! Come out of your grave of hopelessness. Be loosed from your sins and wrongdoings. Be loosed from the memory of them, the pain of them, the guilt about them—come out and enjoy new life! Let your old life go and embrace this new life that I give to you, because I love you so much. Come out, all of you.” A cartoon in a recent issue of The New Yorker shows a preacher standing at the door of a church, greeting worshipers as they depart after the service. While shaking the preacher’s hand, one parishioner asks, “So I’ll have to believe it to see it?” Sounds preposterous doesn’t it? We live in a world grounded on the notion that seeing is believing. Yet Jesus asks us to only believe, then we shall see. “In the sure and certain hope” says the Book of Common Prayer; faith by definition calls for believing without seeing. But, looking around with the eyes of faith, what do we see? We see a world of unmatched, exquisite beauty, hurtling along a path of mathematical certainty around a star that bathes us in its warmth and light from a source of unfathomable energy. We see a universe of infinite size, and innumerable galaxies, stars, planets, and quite possibly, worlds like our own. We see a planet brimming with life and countless varieties of it. We see animals and organisms of every size, shape, and color which fill this world that we call our home. We see the human animal in various hues and shades of hair and skin, living on all continents, in all conditions, each a slight variation of the genetic material that all of us share in common. We see that Life is a gift, an interdependent, interconnected web of grace. And one can see a lot of grace by looking. Grace is everywhere, because God is everywhere, and, indeed, we have to believe it to see it. When we realize that grace is everywhere, then we know that we cannot possibly run out of it. We then become more gracious ourselves. We look at our family members differently. We look at other people, our neighbors, differently. We look at our money and our so-called possessions differently; for we realize that everything in this life is on loan to us. We are asked to take care of what we have received by grace and generously share it, before one day passing it all on to others. The church is a school of grace, a community of people wooed by God who see the world as grace filled. It is a life-long school, with the world’s most patient and gracious teacher. In the school of grace we learn that true success involves enriching other people’s lives by our being God’s grace to another at their point of need. In the school of grace we realize that loving our neighbor is how we truly love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and that when we serve our neighbor, we serve Christ himself. For nearly one hundred years, St. James Episcopal Church has functioned as a school of grace. Thousands of people have come through these doors, seeking God, seeking grace, seeking the way to live a grace filled life, seeking how to share more of the graces that God has given them. As we prepare to walk the path of Holy Week together, let us never forget those hundreds and thousands who have walked it before us so that we might walk it today. Let us think of, pray for and learn the names of those who walk alongside each one of us. And let us remember those who will come behind us, as well. God expects us to pass along to others much fruit of the many graces that we have received. In Christ, God is calling us out of our lives of pain and disbelief and into the life of grace—abundant and overwhelming as it may seem. When we realize how truly filled our lives are with grace, the only logical thing that follows then is, “What return can I make?” And the return that we make in thanksgiving for God’s amazing grace is everything that we do, with everything that we have, after we have said, “Yes, Lord, I believe.” I pray that each of us might have the courage to say like Martha, “Yes, Lord, I believe.” Yes, Lord, I believe that you have come into the world. Yes, Lord, I believe that you have called me to new life, and have called me to love you by loving my neighbor as myself. Yes, Lord, I believe that all that I am, and all that I have, comes from your hand. Such courage will lead us to one final, life-changing question this last week of Lent and for the rest of our lives: “Now, Lord, what will you have me do?” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Timothy M. Dombek Copyright © 2002 Timothy M. Dombek All Rights Reserved.
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