I was reading about Blessed
Mother Teresa and how she had embraced Jesus saying, “I thirst” as the theme of
her ministry and all that she did with her life. I was thinking to myself, “I want a theme for
what I do” so I asked our Mother if I could have a theme that would be the center
of what I do as I work with the mentally ill homeless and all I have done as a
social worker.
Immediately I thought of Jesus
saying, “Lazarus, come forth!” I almost
laughed about the image of me being dead but then I was drawn to look at that
passage. I looked it up in John 11 and
it was what was said after he spoke those words that hit me like a ton of
bricks. After Lazarus comes out the
passage said that he was tied up and even had a napkin tied over his face. Jesus says, “Loosen his bonds and let him go
free.” That was it. My theme.
As I delved into this passage I
saw the call of the Church. Jesus had
been crying over the death of his friend.
He was very emotional and the passage says several times, he was deeply
hurting. Those who were gathered had
said that if he would have come sooner Lazarus would still be alive. They obviously had amazing faith in Jesus and
his power to heal. So these were people
of faith and they would soon be the Church that Jesus would establish.
He tells them to roll away the
stone. He could have moved that stone
with a wave of his hand. He asks the
Church to roll away the stones where people have died so they can see the
resurrection power of God. He wants the
Church to go the places where people have given up and are headed toward
death. Many people give up in this
life. They walk into their self-created
tombs and roll the stone into place behind themselves and die to society, love,
life, and God. Sometimes people, frustrated
and fed up, help them roll that stone into place. I’ve seen drug addicts, mentally ill people
who don’t stay on their meds, and people who live with family members and steal
from them, abuse their kindness, and basically burn them out. It’s not that families and caregivers who
give up are bad people. They just see
the person as going downhill and they subconsciously push the stone in front of
their loved one’s self-imposed tomb and walk away.
It’s lonely and dark in a tomb of
one’s own making and the feeling is one of deep loneliness and
self-hatred. Jesus knows this and asks
the Church to be the community of faith who never give up on people. In asking them to be the ones who roll away
the stone, He commissions the church to help the spiritually dead to hear the
voice of Jesus calling them to new life through His resurrection power. It is the duty of the Church to never give up
on the souls of the lost. The lost are
those who choose death and self-imposed exile.
Lazarus was the foreshadowing of Jesus’ call to the Church to help those
who have given up, see no hope, and are spiritually dead, to experience the
faith of the Church. Then they can hear
the voice of Jesus raising them from the dead.
It is our call, as the Church to roll away the stones of those who are
not alive to God and help them to hear Jesus calling them to come forth from
their tomb and experience the love and hope that will be given to them by Jesus
Christ through the Church.
The cry of Jesus, in this
passage, was very clear. “Lazarus, come
forth!” Notice he didn’t go in and bring
him out. He calls each person, spiritually
dead and without life, to get up and walk out of their tomb, and be resurrected
to new life. As I read this passage I
think that we, who already know the outcome, tend to not get into the setting
of the story. Jesus made the call and, I
imagine, that it took a few minutes for Lazarus to come out. What was the reaction? Did people come over and try to console Jesus
and tell him that he is out of his mind with grief and that Lazarus is
dead? Did they look at each other as if
Jesus had lost his mind but say nothing?
Can you imagine those tense seconds as they look at the opening to the
tomb? Did the strong faith exhibited
earlier still stand in the face of what was the unthinkable? How can anyone raise the dead?
It’s what we often see in social
work. “I know you want to help him but
he is not going to get better.” But the
Church of Jesus Christ is called to believe in the face of doubt, uncertainty, or
the many failures of the past. The
Church is called to have faith in the face of sin, death, and
hopelessness. With God all things are
possible. This was the angel’s message
to Mary, the Mother of the Church, and it’s our message in this story that
recalls and foreshadows the work of Christ on the cross and in the tomb. It also foreshadows the work of the
Church. Roll the stone away and stand
back and see the salvation of God.
It’s the final words that came to
me as my call in social work and in the lives of the poor, mentally ill,
discarded, and addicted. Lazarus had
quite a time trying to get out of the tomb.
No one ran in to help him. He had
to use what little power he had to come out.
He had cloth strips binding his arms, feet, and a napkin tied over his
face. This is the metaphor for all of
us, bound and blinded by our sins. Each
sin, each refusal to do the will of God binds us with another strip, making it
harder and harder to come out of our tomb of eternal death and into the arms of
Jesus and His Church. The Church cannot
force someone to leave their sin-filled life and tomb of eternal death. We have to take those steps on our own. Lazarus comes forth hobbling, bound by grave
clothes, and unable to see. He hears the
voice of Jesus calling him back to life and he comes, as best he can.
What Jesus says next is the call
of the Church and my call as a social worker.
“Loosen his bonds and let him go free.”
I can see Mary and Martha, tears running down their faces, running to
Lazarus and removing the bonds that they had wrapped him in as part of his
burial. This is the action of the Church
of Jesus Christ. It’s the steps of the
prodigal son, if you take one step of faith towards Jesus and leave your tomb
of death, He will run to you. His Church
is called to run forward and help the newly born remove the bonds of sin and
shame and celebrate the new life in Christ.
Jesus could have had those bonds drop away with the wave of a finger but
he calls the people of faith to remove them.
These represent our bonds to sin, vices we won’t surrender, and refusal
to follow God’s will. Many times I have
thought that the Church was “too hard”.
I found it easier to just do my own thing. I felt the Church had too many rules and I
had no freedom. Little did I know that true
freedom is in the Church. My way was a
life in bondage to addiction, sin, and rebellion. I become a slave to sin and it binds me one
strip at a time, until I can barely move. It’s like a frog in a pan of water that is
slowly being heated. You don’t realize
you are dying and moving towards eternal death until you are completely
captive. Adding bindings one a time is
so subtle that you don’t realize how you are in prison and you can’t remove
them yourself.
Lazarus was so tightly bound that
the faith community, those who believed in Jesus, had to help him. He couldn’t unbind himself. In our lives we can become so entangled in
our sin and misery that we need the help of the Church to free us from our
bonds.
When Jesus rose from the dead his
bonds were lying in the tomb. No binding
can hold him. No power can tie him
down. He who never sinned became our
sacrifice and His power than can lead us to freedom caused the grave clothes to
fall away at the moment of his resurrection.
Those of us who have been bound to sin understand that we as humans need
to help each other. We can be assured
that the one who can never sin and never be bound by sin and death will help us
if we but give out lives to him and come forth.
The Church should always stand waiting to free us from our bonds and
walk with us to a new life.
So that is what God gave me when
I asked about a theme for myself and what God has me doing at this time. I am to run forward and help remove the
bindings and let people go free. Where
will they go? We can only hope they stay
with Jesus. But like the 10 lepers, only
one returned to say thank you. We have
to be willing to release the bindings knowing people may or may not stay. I have been in and out of the church like a
revolving door but it took all those setbacks to get me to the place where I
finally decided to stay. Thankfully a
few friends stuck by me. The Church is
about rolling away stones and loosening the bindings that sin has tied and
setting people free. It is our
commission from Jesus himself. We can
encourage them and hope that they stay and help in our mission. The stronger our faith the more we are called
to help others. We can encourage others
to “borrow” our faith and belief in the truth that God loves them until they
can believe it for themselves. With each
binding that’s removed they will become stronger.
What about you? Have you asked Mary what is your “theme”
“mantra” or Bible story that exemplifies your call to serve? Ask in prayer and see what you find. It is knowing and experiencing our call that
we can best serve Jesus and His Church.
No comments:
Post a Comment