Hearing the Language of the Spirit

John 20:19-31

The following is excerpted from chapter 6 of Learning the Language of the Fields: Tilling and Keeping as Christian Vocation (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2006).

Readers of the New Testament might be led to believe that any discussion of the Holy Spirit must begin with the promise that Jesus gave to his disciples at his ascension, a hope that came to fulfillment on the day of Pentecost. As Luke describes the event, the disciples were all gathered in Jerusalem, praying in one place, when

suddenly from heaven came the sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability (Acts 2:2-4).

So begins the story of "the dispensation of the Spirit," as it has been referred to in some circles. And there is a certain appeal to the narrative, filled as it is with supernatural occurrences and the implied promise that this same power of God can still work in similar ways among the faithful today. But what is often overlooked in many discussions of the Holy Spirit is the fact that this sometimes neglected person of the Trinity is by no means a latecomer on the scene of salvation history. On the contrary, the Spirit (ruah) of God was present in the very beginning of time, hovering over the face of the waters, brooding, as it were, like a mother hen over her chicks. It was this divine breath that formed the command "let there be," calling forth order and light out of the murky depths of chaos.

Thus the advent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is merely a continuation of her creative and sustaining work as attested throughout the pages of the Hebrew Bible. There the Spirit is seen as divine power and authority coming to rest on the anointed kings of Israel, a sign of God’s good pleasure in God’s chosen. The prophets also describe occasions on which they are seized by this same spirit and compelled to bring the Creator’s will to presence through their poetic utterances and acts. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me," writes Third Isaiah, "because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed..." (Isaiah 61:1). But God’s immanence in the world is also affirmed in much less dramatic ways, particularly in those scriptural books and other writings that comprise the Wisdom Tradition. Here the creative and sustaining spirit of God is celebrated as working, even playing, in and through all things. The Psalmist makes it clear that there is indeed a language to be learned here, and words to be heard, as the spirit of the Holy One of Israel whispers, dances, and sings in every facet of the created world.

The heavens are telling the glory
of God;
and the firmament proclaims
his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there
words; their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through
all the earth,
And their words to the end of
the world (19:1-4a).

Let those who have ears to hear, the Psalmist seems to say, acknowledge the presence of God’s spirit in all things, whether human or nonhuman, animate or inanimate.

Having said this, it is important to recall Martin Buber’s assertion that the Eternal You can be encountered in every aspect of the natural world, but only in a way that is "beneath language." This does not mean, however, that what is being communicated by the nonhuman world – whether in the firmament, or much closer to home in the eyes of a dappled mare – is altogether beyond the pale of our comprehension. Rather, it is one of the fundamental responsibilities of each and every one of us to bring our admittedly rare encounters with the Eternal You to presence through our creative acts, and this for the good of the community yearning for a word of hope, for a sense of connectedness.

We are called, in other words, to give voice to the unheard voices. Our creations toward this end – our poetry, visual art, music – become the lenses through which our human community comes to recognize and understand value and meaning in its particular place, the means by which we acknowledge ourselves as characters in an ecologically enacted narrative.

What has been tragically forgotten over the millennia is that one of the most integral aspects of our human vocation is the careful listening required for perceiving these voices "going out through all the earth and to the end of the world." Simply put, the integrity of the body of Christ relies on the willingness and ability of its human members to affirm their most basic calling as tillers and keepers, imagers of God, by engaging in this new form of liberating "tongue-speaking." We must endeavor to know and proclaim faithfully the language of the fields coming to us from the depths our place.

Though much has been made of the "pouring out" of God’s Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it is instructive for us to consider a less conspicuous account of a similar event recorded in the Gospel of John. Here the Holy Spirit is bestowed on the followers of Jesus, not from the heavens above with surging winds and descending tongues of fire, but in a manner vaguely reminiscent of the Yahwist’s creation narrative (Gen. 2:4ff). Here the Spirit comes to the disciples intimately, from the very mouth of the risen Lord himself, who greets them face to face and offers a word of hope. As John relates the tradition,

When it was evening on... the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:19-22).

Read in the light of the Yahwist narrative, we cannot help but draw parallels here between the old Adam and this "new creation," these believers, the body of Christ, whose vocation in the world is exactly that of their primal predecessor. The difference, however, is that here God’s creative and redemptive presence – God's sustaining breath – awakens and inspires the disciples in a much more dynamic way. The same spirit (ruah) who hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning, who invigorated the prophets of old and for millennia set creation to dance, now also quickens the body of the faithful, broken and inadequate though they are, and provides a renewed understanding of their most fundamental calling. The curse of the garden is reversed and the connection with the earth is renewed. This is the very event for which the creation has been waiting with eager longing, groaning in travail until the children of God would once again be revealed (Rom. 8:19).

Before his ascension, Jesus, like Yahweh in the garden before him, creates the conditions for the possibility of a radically new Kingdom on earth: he breathes the breath of life into the "new Adam," the church, and grants them peace, not so much as a parting blessing, but as a charge to the commencement of their liberating work in the world.

It is this same breath of God, rising from the depths of the Eternal You through the body of Christ – that is, through the human community living in relationship with our ecological context – who continues to energize and inspire us today. The Eternal You, who is intimated in the darkness of every aspect of our place, can be encountered and communicated by and to those who share our life-world, and this through the creative movement of the Spirit herself. But the breath of God will not illuminate us in the same manner in every time and place, so our "tongue-speaking," the creations of our hearts and minds that bring the eternal to presence in this place, will also be as varied as the bioregions that make up our planet.

There is, then, no single language of the fields to be learned; to suggest as much, as some creation theologians seem to do, is to fall victim to the very global thinking that is one of the sources of our ecological embarrassments today. The spirit of the Eternal You, breathed through the body of Christ in its various ecological incarnations, creates a melody that can be heard in different tones and keys in each bioregion across the world. It is our calling as God’s "imagers" first to hear the music, and then to keep the song alive, to sustain the unique character – the integrity – of our biotic community, and thus affirm the liberating movement of the Spirit there.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. Marc Chagall's painting above, entitled I and the Village (1910), represents his experience of his boyhood community in Russia. If you were to paint an image of the way the Spirit lives and breathes in your own community, what would it look like? What would be some of the essential features of your painting?

2. Reflect on the juxtaposition in this pericope of the two "bodies of Christ," i.e., Jesus and the disciples who have just received the Spirit of God. What is the significance of Thomas -- a member of the latter body -- reaching out to touch Jesus' wounds?

3. I have often told my students that the Holy Spirit is "the red-headed step-child of the Holy Trinity," by which I mean that she has been sorely overlooked in the history of Christian theology, at least in comparison to the Father and the Son. How is the Holy Spirit represented and perceived in your theological tradition or in your church parish?

4. Does it offend you when pastors and theologians (like me) refer to the Holy Spirit as "she." Do you think this is justified?

And the Flesh Became Word

John 20:1-18

Hastings, Nebraska, doesn't offer much to the incidental traveler passing through on her way to Denver or Omaha, but if we have anything approaching a tourist season in this part of the country, the middle of March is it. It is usually around this time that the Sandhill Cranes are at the peak of their northward migration, and their presence on the landscape is enough to warrant a kind of ornithological holy week. There are thousands of them. They fly in such numbers that their flocks on the distant horizon can easily be mistaken for wispy clouds rolling in slowly from the south. They descend on the barren fields that border about a fifty-mile stretch of the Platte River and spend the next several weeks pecking at the stray kernels of grain left behind by September's combines. Soon they'll leave for the Alaskan tundra where nature will call them to attend to their procreative duties, but if certainty has any claim on the staggeringly capricious cycle of the Great Plains it lies in this: the cranes will return.

Theirs is a dance that has gone on for as many as nine million years, and for as often as I have witnessed the spectacle, it never fails to overwhelm me. But the sight of their vast numbers is not what captivates my imagination. Rather, it is their ancient guttural call, a woody trill whose slightest intimation in the skies above – not to mention a chorus of thousands below – reaches so deeply into my genetic memory that I am transported back in time to the barren grasslands of the early Pleistocene. That's why I feel a little sorry for the roadside ecologists who seem content simply to observe these beguiling creatures from the climate-controlled comfort of their mini-vans, because when it comes to cranes, hearing – not seeing – is what transforms your perspective and makes you a believer.

It is the need to remain attentive not only to what is seen but also to what is heard that lies at the heart of our lectionary text for Easter. Though it is not an especially evident motif in the gospel of John, it is nevertheless certain that the evangelist wants to make one point very clear with respect to Jesus: as the "Word become flesh" (John 1:4) his truth lay well hidden beneath his appearance, and those who choose to base their understanding of him solely upon what they see will surely miss the mark. Jesus' disciples need also to listen and respond in faith to the voice of the Good Shepherd who calls his own (10:2-4). For John, the aural rounds out the visual and gives it meaning. It takes apparently commonplace people and events and furnishes them with new dimensions. As Mary Magdalene discovers amidst her grief and bewilderment in the garden, recognition of "the Word become flesh" involves remaining open to the possibility that, through the grace of God, the flesh is equally capable of becoming Word, of reaching into our hearts and allowing our eyes to perceive with new understanding what had actually been there all along. When Word issues forth from flesh, Spirit from substance, all things are brought clearly into focus.

Mary's faithfulness to Jesus is accentuated in this account by the fact that she arrives at the tomb well before dawn. Since the body had already been prepared for burial (19:40), we can only conclude that she comes early on the first day to lament the loss of her beloved. Mourning is women's work; the men apparently have better things to do – that is, until they hear the awful news. "They have taken the Lord away from the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him" (John 20:4). Hereupon ensues an interesting little footrace between Peter and "the other disciple," complete with the kind of one-upmanship that we have now come to expect from this crew. But in this case, the first actually does become last – it is the fleet-footed apostle who allows the fisherman the honor of entering the tomb to confirm Mary's claim. What they both eventually discover is perplexing indeed. All the evidence suggests that the body has not been stolen, but they simply do not know what to make of the scene. For Peter and the beloved disciple, what they behold with their eyes is not sufficient to evoke in them any firm conviction about the resurrection of Jesus, "for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead" (20:9).

So they go home, simple as that.

But Mary stays. Her love is of a different sort. She yearns for the body of her beloved with a special devotion. Her lingering at the tomb recalls in many ways the erotic imagery of the Song of Solomon:

"I will rise now and go about the city,
In the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves."
I sought him, but I found him not (3:2).

Mary is a little less inclined it seems to jump to any quick conclusions. Perhaps in grief, or in hope, or bewilderment, or just sheer exhaustion – but certainly in love – she chooses to wait, to watch, and to listen. In such unusual and frightening circumstances her senses must have been completely heightened and attuned to her surroundings: the empty tomb, the discarded strips of cloth, and angels no less! It is all the more surprising then when she fails to recognize the one whom she seeks so earnestly, believing him to be the gardener. What her eyes behold is not sufficient to bring her fully into the presence of her Teacher, until the one who stands before her in the flesh calls her forth from her limited perception: "Mary."

I have always wondered why many commentators on this text generally ignore the one reference that nearly screams out for attention. I suppose it makes sense that Mary in her confusion could mistake Jesus, her Lord and Rabbi, for "the gardener." But the darkness had passed, the day had dawned. What was the problem? I think John is drawing on one of his customary devices in this pericope to make a theological point: as the shades of night begin to dissolve into morning, Mary, like so many who encountered Jesus before her, experiences a gradual awakening that blossoms into epiphany only when the Word is added to flesh, when Jesus calls her forth into new understanding and insight. It is only then that she can see clearly that the gardener and her rabbi are one and the same.

She sees everything else anew as well. The word produces in Mary an immediate realization that she had not been weeping in just any garden that morning, and the one who confronted her was not just any gardener. At the sound of her name, she experiences a touch of eternity in the present: kairos. She was in Eden, and a witness to God's ongoing creation. Here was the Gardener, the one whose spirit hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning and called forth creation: "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:2). Here was the one who had fashioned Adam from the earth itself, who had called Abram out of Chaldea, and instructed Moses from the burning bush. His was the still small voice that Elijah encountered on Horeb, as well as the source of new life for the woman at the well, and Lazarus at the tomb. And now he was calling her to break free from the fetters of appearances so that she might also perceive, in this single moment, the sound of the light that lies at the heart of all things. Then she could run and tell the others what her eyes had heard.

And so the church is fashioned from the dust of the ground, outside a tomb in Jerusalem, as the flesh of the Gardener is made Word in the sight and hearing of the one who waited, watched, and listened. Mary was the first to be "called out" (ecclesia) toward a new vision, a way of seeing with her ears, and hers is the example that we must also follow. Our task, more urgent now than ever, is to perceive in faith the Word that lies at the depths of all creation, to hear the heart that beats almost imperceptibly in what our eyes behold, and to make it known to those in our midst.

"The heavens are proclaiming the glory of God," the Psalmist assures us, "and the firmament his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). Yet their voice is not heard – until now. It pleased God in the fullness of time that the Word would become flesh and, literally, "pitch his tent" among us. Now, however, it is the vocation of the church – the offspring of Magdalene – to become itself the resurrected body of Christ and bear witness to the fact that the flesh might also become Word. This is the miracle of Easter, and it needs to be affirmed not only on this one Sunday that concludes the season of Lent, but every day throughout the year. For believing in the resurrection alone is not a sufficient mark of our Christian faith; we must also practice it.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. Have you had experiences, like Mary's, where the visual was "rounded out" by the aural, where new insight was attained by "seeing with your ears"?

2. Reflect on the following statement: "While we affirm that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos), we too often fail to recognize that Mary Magdalene is the mother of the church." Do you agree or disagree with this claim?

3. In the synoptic gospels, Mary Magdalene is accompanied in her visit to the tomb by several other women. Why do you suppose John has her arriving alone at the garden?

4. Is it significant, or just a throw-away reference, that Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener? Why do you think John included this apparently incidental comment?

God Save Us

Matthew 21:1-11

I will make this caveat before I begin so that many of you can move on to sweeter pastures: what I have to say about this Sunday's lectionary passage will not preach well, at least not from some pulpits in the United States. Many good Bible-believing Christians will not be at all happy with what has occupied my heart and mind over the last few days, despite the fact that I simply want to tell the "old, old story." But there were several recent events that conspired to pick me up by the lapels and give me a good shaking – and all, it seems, with an eye toward persuading me to write what needs to be written, now more than ever

As my week began I was alarmed to hear in an interview with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz projections for what the Iraq War will eventually cost American tax-payers. I say eventually because, unless I have my facts wrong, the majority of the funds that have already been spent on what was supposed to be just a little dust-up in the Middle East were borrowed, placed on the national credit card as it were. And this makes George W. Bush the first American president ever to pull this rabbit out of his top hat of tricks, leading the country into a very costly and protracted war while simultaneously cutting taxes. All told, if the research of Stiglitz and others is on the mark, we are looking at a three trillion-dollar price tag. I think it's pretty safe to say that, despite the president's triumphal assurance from the deck of a naval carrier on May 1, 2003, the mission has not been accomplished.

As if this news weren't bad enough, last night I watched a documentary film called No End in Sight. It basically picks up on the war story where the president left off, with the US army rolling into Baghdad, toppling the Saddam regime and then doing nothing for the next several months while looters of all kinds – men, women, and children -- took to the streets and destroyed the city. Perhaps most tragic of all were the priceless historical treasures, some as much as 7000 years old, that were removed from the Iraqi national museum. Then came a series of blunders that could only have issued from a cabal of men and women with little else on their minds than unbridled greed: de-Ba'athification, the dismantling of the Iraqi army (which left thousands of heavily armed men unemployed – not a good plan), the indiscriminate round-up and imprisonment of suspected terrorists (think Abu Ghraib), and the precipitous descent into violence between religious factions that has now left the country in ruins.

I was left to contemplate all these things while spending time meditating on the Lenten passage for the week: Matthew's account of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Here Jesus makes his way into the holy city in high prophetic fashion, offering a marked contrast to the Roman Empire whose chains could be heard rattling, whose soldiers could be heard jeering, whose crucified could be heard dying, as the Messiah came riding his little parable into town. "Look," says Zechariah in apparent anticipation of the event, "your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Matt. 21:5).

Actually, Zechariah doesn't say this exactly, but Matthew preferred his own redaction to the actual words of the prophet. What Matthew excises from Zechariah's text is what should give us pause for reflection: "…your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey…" (Zech. 9:9). Funny, isn't it – especially in light of Matthew's careful treatment of the original – how we still insist on calling this Jesus' "triumphal entry"? How easy it is to get it all wrong if we are the least bit careless in our interpretation.

To understand the import of Matthew's omission it is helpful to back up a bit and recall the events that directly precede this final phase in Jesus' messianic career. Remember that the mother of James and John had just come to Jesus with a very special request: "Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom" (Matt. 20:21). To this Jesus simply replied that she did not know what she was asking. The sons of Zebedee would have to drink from the same cup as he, and no mother would ever wish this upon her children. This woman – along with her two boys it seems – was on the wrong side of empire, unaware of the kind of kingdom that Jesus had come to proclaim. No doubt she was among those who shouted their Hosannas to the messiah on his way into town, placing palm branches at his feet, assured that her mighty deliverer had truly come. "God save us."

But two people did see the messiah for who he truly was, or so it would seem by Matthew's placement of their story just prior to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Leaving Jericho and followed by a large crowd, Jesus is hailed by two blind men who call out, "Son of David, have mercy on us" (Matt. 20:30). When Jesus asks what they would have him do, we are offered a telling preface to the events that are about to ensue. "Lord, let our eyes be opened." Filled with compassion, Jesus heals them, and in doing so seems to tell his followers, "your eyes too will be opened… like it or not." It would not be the so-called "sons of thunder" who would sit on his left and right in a new empire of triumph and victory. Rather, it would be the likes of these "sons of light," these two who could now see, who would accompany Jesus into a kingdom of humility and compassion. And Matthew does all he can to make sure that future readers of his narrative do not lose sight of this one essential point, misquoting the well-known text of the prophet and drawing attention to his glaring omission: "Look, your king is coming to you, [OK, let's leave this 'triumphant and victorious' part out], humble and riding on a donkey."

Apparently we in the 21st century didn't get this memo – and it appears that we missed it in practically every other century as well. Is it really so difficult to discern from Jesus' ministry what side of victory and triumph – as they are classically and militarily defined at least – he and his kingdom ultimately come down on? For all our careful reading of the text, and all our deep respect for the authority of scripture, how is it that we keep on missing this one? How many US soldiers who rumbled and bombed their way into Baghdad nearly five years ago sported crosses around their necks as they entered that city in triumph and victory? Who, at Abu Ghraib, photographed the cruciform shape of a hooded man without making any evident connection with the one who had been similarly humiliated nearly two thousand years before? And perhaps the most disturbing question of all: By what twist of logic did history's most notable victim of empire – Jesus of Nazareth – eventually become one of its most established icons?

I have to wonder how many sermons this Sunday will note the bitter irony of professing with our mouths a steadfast faith in Jesus and his peaceable kingdom, while at the same time declaring with our actions that our real trust lies in the very machinations of triumph and victory that drove this man finally to the cross.

Hosanna was the cry that greeted Jesus as he rode his way slowly into the holy city of Jerusalem: "God save us." Hosanna is also the word that we most need to hear at this lamentable point in our history. God save us, now more than ever. God save us, because we've certainly made a mess of things trying to do it ourselves.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. How many bake sales do you suppose it would take to raise three trillion dollars for our American public school system?

2. Some might say that addressing the issue of the Iraq War on Palm Sunday is entirely inappropriate -- politics doesn't belong in the pulpit. At the same time, however, we affirm that Jesus is making a very obvious political statement with his ride into Jerusalem. How do we reconcile this? Is the church a political entity? If so, what topics are appropriate or inappropriate for it to address?

3. What is the theological difference between "empire" and "kingdom."

Dead Man Walking

John 11:1-45

The sole surviving painting of the 15th-century German artist Albert Van Outwater is a depiction of this week's gospel lesson: the raising of Lazarus. Though set in the context of a Romanesque church with its distinctive arches and customary burials in the nave of the sanctuary, Outwater's painting is still able to capture the drama and conflict of John's story. The artist even adds a bit of his own interpretive nuance with the apostle Peter – here represented in the monastic garb of the Middle Ages – trying to negotiate some form of understanding between "the Jews" (as the text refers to them) on the right, and Jesus and his friends on the left. And there in the bottom center, looking perhaps a little pastier than usual but none worse for the wear, is Lazarus himself. He's ready to venture out into the world as a new man.

But "new man" is really misleading here because it is not an accurate reading of the text, and this is what has given me pause for reflection. The commentaries I have consulted seem not to have noticed what I have, or not to have cared. It's always a little disconcerting when the experts regard your personal interest as unworthy of their consideration. But what I want to know is this: Why, when Jesus calls his beloved friend Lazarus forth from the grave, does John insist that "the dead man (ho tethnekos) came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth…" (John 11:44a)? Though some translations try to smooth this over a bit – referring, for example, to "the one who had been dead" – the Greek text is quite clear on the matter. We're dealing here with a dead man walking.

Often when viewing works of art like Outwater's, I like to practice my own variation of lectio divina by engaging in a close and meditative reading of the image before me. As in traditional lectio, my objective is some sort of spiritual insight that I can take away from the experience. One of the questions I like to ask – and usually with less than admirable results – is where I find myself most at ease in the painting. With what group of people do I most identify and why? I wish I could report in this instance that I was right there with Martha or Mary as they professed their faith in Christ. I wish I could say that I resonated with both their frustration at Jesus' late arrival and the renewed hope that came with his presence among them. But I'm not there. If I had a flare for the sensational I'm sure I could report that the image of Lazarus is what most speaks to me – Lazarus who died, like many Christians after him, in the hopes that his savior would soon come and deliver him from his frightening predicament. But that's not me. I'm no Lazarus.

So here is my confession. I am ashamed to admit it for what it reveals about my deep-seeded psychological and physiological insecurities, but when I'm honest – really honest – I find myself among those nay-sayers and gawkers on the right side of this painting. In fact, I'm the guy in the funky hat holding a rag over his nose. I'm the one who in this situation would have exclaimed incredulously – and I like to think I would have done so in the King's most eloquent English – "Sir, by this time he stinketh!" (John 11:39, KJV).

This passage marks an important transition in John's gospel, for it is here that Jesus effectively trades his own life for that of his friend. In the pericope that follows, "the Jews" begin conspiring against him, plotting to kill him for "the good of the nation." Better to kill one man for his indiscretion, reasons Caiaphas, than to bring the wrath of the Romans down upon Jerusalem (John 11:50). So as Lazarus ventures forth into the unexpected hope of a longer life, Jesus turns his thoughts toward the place of the skull, Golgotha, and the realization that his time on earth is growing shorter with each passing hour. It is no wonder then that he weeps; the drama of his friend's passing, the sorrow of Mary and Martha, the stench of death in the air, and the certain knowledge that a darker road now lay ahead, must have been altogether overwhelming. Before his followers could know that he is indeed the resurrection and the life, Jesus would have to endure his own crucifixion and death.

And this brings me once again to the dead man walking, and the suspicion that when all is said and done, this passage is less about resurrection than about the need, even as life slips from our grasp, to affirm our experience as bodily beings. In first-century Palestine there were a number of beliefs concerning what happened to a person after he or she died. The older, more conservative view saw death merely as a separation from God, and Sheol as that place where everyone – the wicked and the just – persisted as mere shades of their former selves. Others, influenced most likely by Plato and the Greeks, hoped for the release of the soul from the tomb of the body and liberation into the eternal, spiritual realm. Many Jews, however, the Pharisees among them, believed that in the final days God would resurrect all who had died and judge them according to their deeds on earth. Christianity, of course, adopted the latter perspective, though you'd never know it to speak with many in the church today who profess that upon death their "souls will go to heaven" to live forever with God. Whatever happened to the Creeds: "I believe in the resurrection of the body"?

At the risk of exposing myself as a heretic I will make another confession: I have a very difficult time getting my head around the resurrection of the body. It just leaves me with so many unanswered questions. Paul says that on that day we will have "spiritual bodies," but this really doesn't tell me much. I guess I can look forward to not having to endure Crohn's Disease as I have my entire life, or my bad knee, or that annoying bald spot on the back of my head. But what kind of body will a spiritual body be? Will I eat? Will I drink? Go to the bathroom? What about sex?

The questions are overwhelming if I let myself get drawn down this path. But then I consider another possibility: perhaps our affirmation of the resurrection isn't so much about our mode of existence after death, but about the goodness of the body that accompanies and in some ways defines us throughout this earthly life. I do not inhabit a throw-away vessel, though there is much in our "culture of cleanliness" that encourages me to think this way. The illusion is that we can all live very neat, very ordered and fulfilling lives if we can only tap into our "true spiritual nature." Of course, this pursuit requires that we eliminate the unsightly distractions that challenge us along the way. So we hide away the anomalies. We place our elderly in assisted living facilities and pay other such undesirables a pittance to clean up after them and keep them company. We enable the disabled with the proper legislation hoping that their marginalization can at least be made a little easier for them, and a lot more efficient for us. With respect to end-of-life issues, our medical professionals pursue the ideal of life at all costs, but at the expense of a meaningful death welcomed ritually in the context of a caring human community. In such a somaphobic society it is no wonder that so many of us aspire to some unencumbered, purely spiritual existence in the great hereafter. It seems that in all we do we attest along with Plato that our bodies are just burdensome tombs for our souls.

But the blessed reality that lies at the heart of the gospel reading this week is this: though we do our best to deny it, we are all "dead men walking." We may not identify immediately with his image in the painting above, but we are all Lazarus. Our hoped-for culture of clean is just a pipe dream, for we all stinketh.

And yet Jesus still calls us forth.

We bear the marks of our immortality within us, and this is as it should be. We like to think that the work of Christ somehow saves us from our deaths, but this is not entirely true; it saves us only from the finality of death. We must then do what we can always to honor the earthly end to which we will one day come, as well as the often frustrating and sometimes repulsive bodies that will accompany us along the way. How easily we forget that it was into such a state that God became incarnate as a living being. "The Word became flesh," John tells us. "He took on the form of a slave," Paul elsewhere confesses -- a slave (dare I say it) who didst stinketh.

I do not know what my resurrected frame will look like in the life to come, and I'm not going to spend much time worrying about it. Thankfully, the story of Lazarus has helped me instead to focus my attention on the here and now. It is enough to know that the body I now bear – with all its smells and unsightly imperfections – is the very one that was baptized and welcomed into the church, the body of Christ, all those years ago. And it is Christ himself who is continually calling me forward, like Lazarus, to touch, to smell, to taste, to hear, to see – to serve – so many other bodily beings in my midst.

"Welcome all as Christ," St. Benedict admonished his fifth-century monks. I'd like to think that John might encourage us also to "welcome all as Lazarus," as "dead ones walking" as it were, and even to do so in gratitude, from the very core of our fragile and vulnerable humanity, as if stepping forth from the darkness of our own tombs into the light of the world. And don't be surprised if at some point along the way you, like Jesus, have occasion to weep, for it is in our empathy, our "suffering with," that Word touches flesh, and Christ is made manifest among us.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. With what person or group in Outwater's painting above do you most identify, and why?

2. Do you agree that we live in a somaphobic (body-fearing) society? What evidence can you offer in support of this? Are there instances that you can think of where bodies are glorified? If so, what kind of bodies do they often tend to be?

3. Does Paul help or hinder us by speaking of "setting the mind on the flesh (sarx)" in contrast to "setting the mind on the spirit (pneuma)" (Romans 8:6)? Do we tend to confuse his theological references to "the flesh" with our understanding of the body? Is there a difference between the two, sarx and soma? If so, what is it?

4. In what ways might the church be more body-affirming in its worship and ministry?