A sermon for All Saints Sunday

We all know about Lazarus, don’t we? Lazarus has become a byword for those who return from the dead. In paleontology, Lazarus names those species that disappear from the fossil record as though extinct, only to reappear maybe even millions of years later in the same form. Even in contemporary biology, the name Lazarus adheres to those we thought were lost, but that we find again. Everybody knows about Lazarus, but paradoxically, we know next to nothing about Lazarus.

We know from the biblical record that Lazarus lived in Bethany. We know that he had two sisters, but we don’t know if he was older, younger, or in between them. While his sisters give voice in the gospels, none of their brother’s words are recorded. Despite later legend, we really know nothing of his parents, whether he was ever married, had children, took lovers. We don’t know if he was a particularly good man, or a particularly grumpy man, or a particularly ordinary man. We don’t know what he did, what he said, how he lived.

The thing that everyone knows about Lazarus, though, is that he spent four days in the tomb before Jesus called him out. That is what he is famous for. That is why everyone knows Lazarus’ name.

Lazarus is a saint of the church not for anything that he did, but for what the love of God, whom we know as Jesus, did for him.

It’s quite a thought, isn’t it? We call the church as it is gathered together the saints of God. We are the saints of God, but not because of anything that we have done. Not because we got up and showed up and sat in church on a Sunday morning. Not even because we let the other person go through the door ahead of us, or resisted the temptation to honk our horn at the person sitting two seconds too long at the green light in front of us. Not because of what we believe, or fail to believe, or hold in tension, neither believing nor disbelieving, but because of what the love of God, whom we know as Jesus, has done for us.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that we are free to slam the door in the face of another, or succumb to road rage. On the contrary, it means that we are called to live as saints in the world, but not for fear of punishment or death, but because of love, because of gratitude, because of mercy.

We are called to live as saints in the world because, after he had regained control of his emotions – for he was deeply and gravely disturbed by the grief of those around him, and the grief he had on their behalf, and the troubling and tumultuous effects of love – after he had regained his composure and his voice, Jesus looked up to heaven and spoke aloud. He said, “I know you always hear me, but I need these witnesses also to know that you and I are one in love and in life.” He spoke his prayer aloud for the sake of those listening, to bear witness to the power of the mercy of God.

So it is that what the love of God, whom we know as Jesus, what Jesus has done for us is not for our sakes alone, but so that others may see and hear and know what it is to experience the mercy of God, to feel the power of the life-giving Creator, the liberation of the Saviour, the fire of the Spirit. Our new Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in his sermon yesterday that Jesus left the miracle unfinished, telling the crowd to step forward and unbind Lazarus, and set him free, finish setting him free from death and the tomb. This is the work of the saints, isn’t it, to bear witness to the love of God in the world, and to make it manifest. To make it real. To make it human. To bring it near, as though the very kingdom of heaven were at hand.

And we do not need to be especially good nor especially wise nor especially gifted nor especially anything in order to bear witness to what the love of God, what Jesus has done for us. Lazarus – what did he do? What could he do? Only hear the voice of Jesus from beyond the door of the tomb, and shuffle his way toward it. So we have only hear the love of God, and make our unwieldy way toward it.

My friends, we live in untrusting, unyielding, unforgiving times. We are weighed down with many worries and bound by many ties. But Jesus is calling to us, to bear witness with Lazarus, to bear witness by our very lives to the unstoppable, unconquerable justice, which is the mercy, which is the love of God. Jesus is calling to us, and if we will hear him,

It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for God, so that God might save us.
This is the Love of God for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in Love’s salvation. (Isaiah 25:9, amended)