<html><body>Here's Part 1<div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY ALL SAINTS’ DAY, 2015</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON 3:1-9 1<sup>st</sup> NOVEMBER, 2015</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">REVELATION 21:1-6a PSALM 24</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">JOHN 11:32-44</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><p> </p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> On just about any other occasion, to read such a list of names as we will in a few minutes would be depressing.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> This is not to say that we take the death of our family members and friends lightly. Far from it. But to read it in the context of the weekly celebration of the Eucharist o which is and will always be the Liturgy of Resurrection – to read it in the context of this Liturgy is to emhasise how important is the earthy life and death of those we love.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Certainly our eyes may tear up at one or more of the names. But there’s probably a hint of triumph to it, a hint of enormous relief, based on the opening words of of the first reading: “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God.” There’s nothing more than we can ask, really. Well, yes, we can ask that we can be with our loved one. But that will come. It <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">WILL</span></b> come, we needn’t have any fear about that.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Everyone reacts differently to the news of someone’s death, and the discussion of it. When the death is unexpected, perhaps when we’ve lost track of someone or been estranged or separated from her or him, it can hit us hard. Conversely, we can be rocked equally severely after someone with whom we’ve had a very close relationship of trust and affection dies.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s not as if we expect that we and everyone else will live for ever. It’s just that we’d like life to be long, to be relatively pain and stress free, and to be peppered with laughter, and appreciative satisfaction, and at least a few deep relationships with those on whom we know we can depend, no questions asked.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And this is exactly what the old and new covenants offer us. “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God.” Nt just for some point way down the road, but always. God is there; God is here, right now, and never leaves our side.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Mary didn’t see it quite that fully. It’s funny how their household has been described by the Gospel commentators in terms of Mary and Martha. That says a lot about them. They must have been very strong and active in the village. They must have been known at least in the surrounding neighbourhoods. But why was their name coupled with Lazarus’ name only from the point of his illness and death? It makes us wonder who he was.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Did he travel? Was he gone from Bethany most of the time? Was he good to his sister and neighbours, or was ne obnoxious? Was it that, of the three of them, only Mary and Martha responded to Jesus’ teaching and invitations?</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We know nothing about Lazarus, beyond his address and sisters’ names. He may have been unimpressed by Jesus. He may have ridiculed what he thought was his sisters’ gullibility. He may have been a member of the scribal or pharisaic groups, or been working as their spy. We simply don’t know. But it would seem a safe assumption that he didn’t accept or trust Jesus since his name didn’t come up before this.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> But none of that mattered to Jesus. Of course, He cared for Mary and Martha. It seems that He’d put Himself out for them just as they would for Him. So Jesus responded to the death of their brother. Yet it wasn’t a, “Well, I’m really sorry, but you know that he was really such a snot.” Jesus didn’t say, “It’s a pity. If only he’d shown even the tiniest spark of interest.. But he didn’t, so there’s nothing I can do about it.” No. Jesus simply went to the tomb. He walked with Mary and Martha. He walked into all the dark and cruel pain to meet Lazarus where he was, whether or not he was surrounded by stench.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> It’s interesting that, at least in certain parts points in history, religious artists depicted gravesites as being in an area of rocky, jagged, threatening cliffs. Look, for instance, at the ikon of Jesus confronting Lazarus, as shown in today’s bulletin. <sup>1 </sup>There’s nothing inviting about that area. Yet Jesus went – He went into the place where He would become ritually unclean, thus unable to participate with others in any of their religious or secular events. He went, and isolated Himself from others, so that He and Lazarus could be together.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Actually, I find cemeteries peaceful. Certainly, they’re usually quiet! They can be great places for contemplation about what’s going on in one’s life. Unlike in other societies and other ages, I and many others have no problem walking through them, last night notwithstanding. However, they <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">DO</span></b> serve as reminders of the temporary nature of this life, adding to the discomfort people used to feel there, and leading to their being off-limits except in case of a burial.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Perhaps it’s the idea of the frailty of this life, of the painful separation from others; perhaps it’s the whole idea of the disruption of relationships that convinces artists and ikon writers to depict death and burial with such jagged darkness and discomfort. And perhaps the artists <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">DO</span></b> search out the deepest parts of our hearts and souls so that they can show the pain, the dis-ease, the whole mixture of emotions we fee; at separation – and possibly our fears about what’s going to happen to us.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Yet Jesus had no hesitation about going there. Jesus had no thought of skipping His <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">OWN</span></b> pain. He wept at what He saw in the faces and voices of Mary and Martha, as they couldn’t quite grasp that “the souls of the righteous <b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">ARE</span></b> in the hand of God.”</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Even Lazarus – even us – no matter how much we may resist making commitments, no matter how tissue-paper-thin our faith may seem sometimes.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Jesus comes to us, no matter where we are, no matter how faithless, how frightened, how flummoxed we may be. Jesus makes His way over every imaginable rock and crevasse until He stands in front of us, and says, “Come out! Let me unbind you. Help one another to unbind each other, cutting away absolutely everything which keeps you and e from understanding what life’s about, and from enjoying life fully.”</span></p><p></p><p></p><div><br></div></div></body></html>