unruly wills and affections

 

Lent 5 is always the final "regular" Sunday in Lent. We are in lectionary year A. The readings, including the gospel reading, vary from year to year, A, B, and C, but the collect, the prayer for the day, is always the same on Lent 5. The collect is printed below and I'm tempted to comment on it, but the gospel also is remarkable, the familiar story of Jesus raising Lazarus from death, "Lazarus, come out!" and the dead man rises and stumbles out of the tomb. Minding to keep it short, I'll try to comment briefly on each, first the collect and then the gospel.

As is our Episcopal way, this collect is ancient, dating perhaps to the seventh century AD. It contrasts what we want with what God wants us to want and prays God to help us change, with the idea that we will there find true joy. I don't mean to go on, but it always reminds me of a story I've told here several times: as a new Navy ensign the summer 1958 I was finishing my second Navy school and the "detailer" had come from Washington to discuss our "preference for duty" cards with each of us. Whereas most of us in the class had dutifully requested assignment to a destroyer, one officer in the class had put down that he wanted to be assigned either to shore duty or to a large ship. The detailer officer, a commander or lieutenant commander, counseled him, "Why don't you put down that you want a destroyer so you get your first choice?" The logic was militarily perfect and militarily ironic: you're going to a destroyer, so make yourself happy by asking for one.

The collect also reminds me of that oft-told restaurant story. In a restaurant in WInston-Salem, I ordered ostrich. "How would you like that cooked, sir?" asked the waiter. "Well done," says I. "Sir, the chef likes to cook it rare, why don't you order it rare?" Startled, I say, "Well, medium." I got it rare. The obvious logic is that the way to get what I wanted would have been to order it the way the chef was going to cook it anyway.

Just so with the collect: instead of what we want, make us want what God wants us to want and then we'll be happy. The logic doesn't quite fit, but, considering my cynicism about the notion of making myself happy by changing from what I want to what someone wants me to want, it's close enough.

Enough.

+++++++++

Another long gospel from Gospel John.

Just a couple of comments.

In the synoptics, Jesus "cleansing the Temple" is what finally causes the authorities to decide he should be killed. In the Gospel according to John, Jesus raising Lazarus from death and thereby getting people to respect him instead of the Temple authorities is what finally causes the authorities to decide he should be killed. 

There's an "I AM" saying here, Jesus shockingly speaking the Name of God, I AM, that was forbidden to be spoken, and thereby identifying himself with God.

In my mind, and in the minds of many scholars, this is the passage that names "the disciple Jesus loved" -> it was NOT  John, the beloved disciple was Lazarus.

Jesus saying "this illness does not lead to death" is confusing because Lazarus does die in the story (oh, he's dead alright, "already there's a stench"). But I think Gospel John intentionally tells it this way. Why? Figure that out for yourself.

One more thing? This story brings to mind the stricken verses in Secret Mark (which I have studied over the years with various Bible Study classes and in my Adult Sunday School class sessions), in which Jesus raises a dead young man in Bethany (it's obviously the same young man, whom Gospel John calls Lazarus). Secret Mark answers a couple of questions: it closes the gap in canonical Mark about what Jesus did in Bethany; it tentatively identifies the young man in the garden who ran away naked; and it identifies Salome, who otherwise appears unidentified with other women at Jesus' tomb. Secret Mark also shows that Gospel John's story of Jesus raising Lazarus has other, independent, testimony and was not just a story that Gospel John created. 

Again, enough.

Art: color Lazarus white, color the stone that was rolled away brown or gray, color the tomb behind Lazarus black, color Lazarus' feet pink.

RSF&PTL

T

   

The Collect

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John (11:1-45)

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I Am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 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.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.