Two Sinkings, One Humanity

As I wrote this sermon, the Canadian Coast Guard and a growing fleet of ships were still trying find a missing submersible on a tourist trip to the Titanic, with the air inside running out. Experts were trying to figure out if a pattern of sounds might be a message from the survivors. “We still have to have hope,” a Coast Guard spokesperson said in a press conference.

The story of billionaires lost on a $250,000 trip to the Titanic in a submersible steered by a no-name game controller and of highly questionable safety, led the news this week and brought out all the worries and pathos and grossness of social media. It showed a side of us that should make us squirm: a willingness to mock and quip jokes while human beings are dying.

And also, a willingness to ignore when human beings are dying. The submersible was not the only tragedy playing out on the sea last week – it was just more novel. What about the other one? Off the coast of Greece, another ship met catastrophic misfortune. More than 500 people, many of them children, were on an overloaded fishing trawler when it began to sink. Many of these people had also – like those unfortunate billionaires - paid an unimaginably high amount for the voyage – likely their entire life savings – to travel somewhere many would not have seen before. In this case, they were not going to the burial site of another great tragedy, but to a new home for the chance at a better life. As the ship began to sink, a rescue operation was slow to respond. As of Wednesday, 300 people were reported dead, with many others missing. While the search for the wealthy in a mini-sub continued deep underwater, on the other side of the ocean, the poor were drowning on the surface for us all to see. And yet the world looked mostly in one direction.

Let’s all be honest: which story did you read the most about, talk to your friends about, scroll on the internet for updates? Let’s not be too hard on ourselves: one story was bizarre and unprecedented; the tragic fate of desperate migrants seeking a better life is so commonplace now its happening is less overwhelming; we are developing a tolerance for it.

Let’s not forget that the destination of that unfortunate submersible has its own class story. The Titanic struck the iceberg – another accident of willful negligence – the wealthy in first class made it to the lifeboats in far greater numbers than the passengers trapped in third class. Inequity of fortune – and of the world’s sympathy and attention – has a long history.

Our gospel this morning tries to reframe the either/or approach. Our responsibility is to everyone in need – the old news and the new news, the wealthy and the poor, the foolish and the wise. It just so happens that those in a position to give the most often need a bigger reminder of that fact.

God sets us an example for this in the first lesson. Hagar, who had born a child to Abraham when his wife could not conceive, finds herself in a tight jam. Sarah has given birth to Isaac and would rather that Hagar and Ishmael were out of the picture. Abraham, the father, is distressed by his wife’s demand. God steps in and tells Abraham to let Hagar go freely; God will take care of it, Abraham is assured. When Hagar finds herself struggling in the desert, fearing for her son’s life, God steps in a second time: Fear not, God tells Hagar just as God told Abraham, promising a better future if they will only believe in it. Both Isaac, the son of fortune, and Ishmael, the son who was cast out, will survive and thrive. It is not a choice; the world, God says, has room for both of them.

Now, we are not God. Our rescues and good works are more earth-bound; our resources have limits. To be pulled in so many directions is exhausting. Especially when the problem – like the fleeing migrants – is so complex and massive, and we feel helpless to solve it. But those fierce words from Jesus step in to set us straight: quit whining, Jesus says, and get to it. Stop worrying about who is where on what rank; you are all sparrows to be cherished by God. Go where the need exists. I have come, Jesus says, to set families apart from one another – not for nothing, or petty reasons, but because the gospel will require sacrifice; it means moving out of safe spaces and comforting embraces and into the cold to bring warmth. Jesus isn’t calling us to be estranged from our families, even when they are difficult; his own story is full of challenging friends and relatives. He is warning us not to align ourselves so closely with our family and our in-group that we fail to see the need beyond. We must look past our mother and our father and our own household, our own city, our own country, to truly serve. The gospel is hard; it is, in fact, exhausting. It is meant to be.

The fact is that on most days the needs of the world will be greatest in one direction: those who have the least, and suffer the most. The master, in the gospel, is being reminded that they are not above the slave because they often forget; the slave, in the gospel, is reminded they are not below the master, so that they know their value is equal in God’s eyes, and they should demand fair treatment in a human world.

As Jesus says, “Those who find their life will lose it; and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.” We are meant to give up pieces of ourselves for the sake of others, rather than to spend our days in service to ourselves.

How should this inform the events of this week, where our attention was focused largely on one place, and much less so on another? We are to work hard and energetically and with intelligence to pay attention to need as widely and broadly as we are able. We have to accept that complex problems will require the endurance of marathon runners. But we must always look beyond ourselves to serve.

That fact is that there is nothing any of us could do on Wednesday with human beings dying on the ocean. But there are things we can do every day. We can challenge our own appetite for celebrity. Our Western bias for sympathy. We might challenge the toxic tone of our internet discourse, or question our own priorities in the context of our own relative wealth.

And perhaps, when the world is looking one way, we turn to see – and yell and shout - about what everyone might be missing. For that is the gospel as Jesus saw it; to stand against society’s current and reach for the person no one else is catching. Amen.

Noise and Silence. Celebration and Contemplation.

The moment of silence has always been for me the most centering and powerful part of any memorial service I have attended. More than a speech, more even than music, it is that silent minute that brings our witness so clearly into focus. It is not that we are left to rattle our own thoughts around in our heads – after all that is just another kind of noise. Silence gets its power from what we don’t hear. It cues our brains that something has happened, or that something is happening.

As parents, we joke that when we can’t hear our kids in the playroom we know they are up to something. Think of how many times you have glanced up at from your screen or whatever you were doing because it suddenly went silent; clever advertisers know the power of 30 seconds without noise. When we stand at a grave or a monument, silence marks the voices we can’t hear anymore. Silence is final, and yet, in another way, infinite. It is elegant; it is the contrast to our banging, blaring, roaring days.

Amid the quiet contemplation of Lent, Palm Sunday is one of those banging, blaring days. It’s the crowd that gets all the attention. The entire scene is noisy; the people parading through the street, laying down their palms in the dust, chanting their hosannas. This was a party: the answer to their prayers was coming to town – they expected Jesus to topple the Roman power and make their earthly plight better. They were going to make a joyful noise. Suddenly they had reason to celebrate – and who could blame them? Life was tough, and they were honouring Jesus in the way they could.

But in the middle of that celebration, there is Jesus, riding humbly, as the gospel tells us, on a donkey. We hear nothing from him. We don’t imagine him working the crowd, firing them up with some rousing speech – indeed, it is often understood from the gospel that he never wanted this spectacle in the first place, that the disciples were behind it. Jesus slips through the parade, separate but surrounded by the crowd; in one way, he seems almost secondary to the celebration itself. He is the silence to their noise, the quiet to their rabble. Even if we didn’t know what was coming, even if we didn’t know how quickly the festive mob turns ugly, this silent Jesus is our cue that something is happening.

But that’s the thing about Jesus: he is often quiet when we would like him to be loud, when we would like him to use some of the power of God against his enemies, and against ours. But Jesus teaches us that there must be a balance between when and why we make noise, and when we respond with silence – in whatever struggle we find ourselves facing, at home or in the world. Noise and silence; in one way, that is the story of Palm Sunday – and of Holy Week - boiled down to its essence. The noise rings in our ears. But the silence is more powerful.

Throughout the gospel, as we have explored this Lent, we hear of Jesus’s responding to all manner of injustice, sometimes by being forceful, but more often by treading lightly. Shout too much, and even if your cause is just, you’ll begin to sound shrill. Keep silent for too long and your cause is dead. When you consider the ministry of Jesus, as recorded for us, it is remarkable how clever he was at walking that line.

When the merchants had turned the temple into a mall, where they could prey on the poor, Jesus made noise: he shook the walls with his shouts and crashed tables to the ground. He needed to be heard over the everyday din of the shopping and haggling; he wanted to stop people in their tracks.

But when he stepped up to stop the stoning of the woman who was accused of adultery, he did so quietly: “Let those without sin cast the first stone,” he said softly. He did not throw stones back at the men who had gathered, who had worked themselves into a frenzy; he did not try to intimidate them with a tongue-lashing. With a quiet word, he forced them to consider their deeds, and their motives; he stared them down with silence. And in fact, that’s how we are now advised to react should we ever encounter a domestic dispute: since interjecting more forcefully often inflames the situation, staring in silence forces the attacker hopefully to amend his own behaviour, knowing he has an audience.

But silence, especially when we feel wronged personally, is often the hardest response. We do it all the time: we refuse to back down in an argument, we rail on to our friends and coworkers when some driver cuts us off on the way to work. We are usually the most determined to make noise for our own cause; we shout that much harder when we have a personal stake. The noise we make on behalf of strangers lacks the same passion. You have only to look back to that Palm Sunday crowd; all fun and frivolity when they thought they had it made with Jesus. But when Jesus was handed over, and the mob had turned against him, where were his fans then? They were mute.

Think about it: when did Jesus ever make noise for his own sake? I can think of only one time. On most every occasion, when he spoke up, it was for others, and for us. Certainly, he does not come to his own defense, when confronted by Pontius Pilate, who is clearly unsettled by his silence; you get the feeling that if Jesus had fought back and tried to establish his identity, that Pilate would have had an easier time making the call to crucify him. Jesus remains silent bearing the weight of the cross and holds to that silence, later when one of the criminals hanging at his side, jeers at him to prove his power by saving himself. His one cry, for himself, is a prayer to God, a plea to feel God’s presence, and even that, only after enduring hours of agony.

Noise and Silence: as people of God, we must take care to find the balance between these two actions, thoughtfully to consider, as Jesus did, when one should give way to the other. We weaken God’s mission when we are silent in the act of injustice; but silence, as Jesus proved, is not always weak. It can make people see their own wrongs; just as silencing ourselves can make us see our own mistakes. And more than that, following the example of Jesus who stole moments alone to pray, silence makes room for the voice of God to be heard – especially when we are too distracted by noisiness to realize God is speaking.

After all, we are about to rejoice in God’s most powerful act – his response to the careless noise of Palm Sunday, and the angry noise of Good Friday - God’s response to all the shouting that frustrates our own lives. Is God’s answer more noise? No, God responds with the deepest silence of all, and gives us the gift of Joy: the silence of the empty tomb discovered by Mary on that third day.

But let’s get back to that crowd – who had every reason to celebrate – just as we do this Palm Sunday. Jesus’s riding on the donkey cautions us to notice the silent people among us, for whom few make noise. He teaches us that there is power when we are still, and listening for God. Noise and silence; celebration and contemplation. Let us wave the palms but focus our thoughts this week on the silent figure riding the donkey. Amen

Hope for Today and the End of Our Days

The miracle we hear in our gospel this morning is perhaps the most famous performed by Jesus. Certainly, Lazarus, is the most famous recipient of a miracle – he is given not only a name, but also a loving family, a friendship with Jesus, who risks his own safety to come and help.

One aspect of the story that always strikes me is how calm Jesus is when confronted with the news of Lazarus. Jesus never loses hope. All around him, people are panicking. They have already given up. They are angry Jesus came too late. They have decided nothing will work. But Jesus, in the face of that whirlwind, is calm. And from that state of calm and resolute hope, he raises Lazarus to life again.

When these kinds of miracles happen in the gospel, our scientific age is prone to skepticism. But science, in fact, has its own Lazarus syndrome – people whose hearts stop, who appear dead, for long, impossible minutes, and yet come back to life. Many years ago, there were controversial cases of resignation syndrome – or what in Sweden, they called “uppgivenhetssyndrom.” A small group of refugee children had taken to their beds, fallen asleep and would not wake up. The children had lived most of their lives in Sweden, but their families were facing deportation. In one case, the child was checked by doctors and given a feeding tube, but did not move. The doctors diagnosed that this was a case of hopelessness. For, who indeed, can live without hope?

Whatever condition ails Lazarus is equally perplexing. At first, it’s suggested that the illness that Lazarus suffers from does not typically cause death. Then we understand that Lazarus has died, and Jesus announces his intention to wake him. He travels to the tomb where Lazarus has been lying for four days now. The stone is rolled back. “Lazarus, come out,” Jesus calls. And Lazarus comes out, bound as one prepared for burial. It is surely a foreshadowing of another tomb to come, where there will be a rising from the dead. Perhaps it is also meant to inform our perception of the resurrection for us as individuals. (When Jesus says, Come out, come on, come see, come be at peace – do we listen?)

But as I always like to say, the details make for a good story, but they are not the substance of the tale. When we accept that Lazarus was sleeping, given up for dead and raised back to life by Jesus – however that happened – what else do we see? When we step back, and watch the story unfold, what do we learn?

We see all the places where hope is lost. The disciples don’t want Jesus to go to help his friend – it is too dangerous – they have no hope for his safety. Mary and Martha have lost hope that the brother can be saved. Mary, in fact, doesn’t even come out to meet Jesus. And Martha, when she does, is angry that he is so late.

(Just to pause here: another aspect of this story that is so remarkable is the clear friendship these people have with one another. Mary and Martha address Jesus almost as equals. They don’t question that Jesus will come to help their brother. Jesus answers their questions and comforts them. It is a particularly personal scene in the gospel.

And what does it reveal? That Jesus was also someone who would risk, on a personal level, for those he cared about. He wasn’t just preaching to a big, wide flock. He was also a friend himself who worried about people special to him. I mention this because we can always imagine Jesus at the right hand of God, or Jesus the rabbi, Jesus the teacher, even Jesus the maker of miracles. It’s often just a sidebar that Jesus was also a son, a brother to others, a dear and trusted friend. But of course, in between all these gospel scenes was the life he lived, and the people he cared about along the way. (If we think also of Jesus this way, does he not become fuller and clearer to us?)

It may be Jesus, the son of God, who calls Lazarus back to life. But what does Jesus, the friend and brother, accomplish? Where there is no hope, he brings it. To the disciples, he eases them: there is room in a day for good deeds to happen, even more than bad.

“Are there not twelve hours of daylight?” he says, as if to remind them - 12 hours! What can’t we do in 12 hours! “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.” Walk with hope in the day, and you will not stumble.

To grieving Martha, he offers comfort. I am here now, he tells her. It is not too late. In other words, he tells her: I have not given up on Lazarus. Lean on my hope until yours is restored.

What are we without hope? Without knowing that, whatever comes next, we will manage, we will be loved, we will be cared for? What happens to us if we stop believing that God walks with us? Or if we start believing that there is nothing to hold on to? Hope is the breath of life. And Jesus offers it to Mary and Martha with his first words of comfort. And then in two very specific ways – in the immediate, he resurrects Lazarus from the tomb, and in the long-term, he promises the resurrection at the end of our days. We need both of those to live on: the hope that we can carry forth in this day, and this moment, whatever pain we might be feeling, whatever trial we are facing. This lies behind so many of the life lessons from Jesus - to set aside our own troubles and serve others – for in doing so our own trouble is diminished. The lessons that tell us to forgive, so that we might have resilience in relationships. The lessons that tell us to love, so that we might have the healing medicine of joy. But Jesus also offers us hope now, and in the distant future – the hope of the resurrection – the hope that in the end, we matter, our lives matter, and that the journey along the way is worth the weight we carry. That is what Jesus tells Martha and Mary – he raises Lazarus from the tomb on that fourth day, but he promises Lazarus life at the end of days.

What healed those strange cases of sleeping children? – hope. What feeling would have kept the families praying over their seemingly lost loved ones going – hope. What did Jesus give to Martha and Mary – and Lazarus himself? Hope.

There are times when we all feel bereft of hope. What Jesus offers is not a perfect hope, or a golden hope, or a hope that is easy. Jesus offers real hope, that when we arrive at the end of our days, we will know God, who deems our lives worthy. To watch where we step, and to look ahead where our steps lead, this is the action of hope. Knowing that Jesus is there – our teacher, yes, but also our friend - not just to resurrect us at the end of days, but to lift us up each and every day. Amen