MARCH 9, 2008 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 23; Romans 5:1-11; John 11:1-45
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
How would you describe a sense of disappointment?
-What would it be if it were a taste? Bitter, sour, biting…
-If it were a sound, how might you describe it? Wail, cry, sob, groan…
-What if disappointment were a color? Gray, dark, muddy…
-And how would you describe it as a feeling? Empty, lost, regretful…
Disappointment is a universal sentiment that all of us start experiencing early in life. It doesn’t mean we have to like it, but we do have to learn how to deal with it, or life will be intolerable. Years ago I heard a statement attributed to some Japanese observers of how our culture deals with this issue. They said that we Americans teach our children…how to lose. As I understand it, the comment was not meant as criticism, for in the Japanese culture, the cost of failure carries with it a very high price.
And yet, even though we may learn how to wrestle with it early on, we’re never able to master disappointment. Life has a smorgasbord of suffering waiting for us to sample. From broken relationships to broken bones, lost possessions to lost opportunities, shattered windows to shattered dreams, disappointment is always close by and, it seems, eager for us to eat at its table of regret and remorse, anger and angst, distress and dismay.
There is a heavy dose of disappointment at the beginning of our Gospel lesson for today. Mary and Martha send word to Jesus that their dear brother, his beloved friend, is sick unto death. Yet, instead of rushing to Bethany to help, what does Jesus do? He kicks back…and waits around for a couple more days…until, it seems, that Lazarus is good and dead!
When he finally arrives to the sounds of sadness and grief, both sisters greet Jesus with the very same words, If only you’d been here, our brother would be alive! If only… Those two little words compose a symphony of sadness.
They are deeply ingrained in our psyche – from our everyday language to the ultimate icons of our culture: the movies. Listen to a few of these famous lines and tell me if you recognize the speaker and the film.
If I only had a brain…Scarecrow, The Wizard of Oz (1939).
No Scarlett, I tried everything. If you’d only met me half way…Rhett
Butler, Gone with the Wind (1939).
If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.
The wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, And cries to the moon, if only, if only…
Madame Zeroni, Holes (2003).
If only it was the picture who was to grow old, and I remain young. There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t give for that. Yes, I would even give my soul for it…Dorian Gray, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).
If only kids would play more video games about sharing…Marge Simpson,
The Simpsons (2003).
If only you had been born a man, what a Caesar you would have made…
Emperor Marcus Aurelius to his daughter, Gladiator (2000).
And here’s the bonus line for a million points:
Happiness can’t be pursued. It either comes to you or it don’t. You can always say, “If only this and if only that,” but if only is a state of mind that we get into when we feel deprived…
Jack Fate, Masked and Annonymous (2003)
I know nothing about this movie, but I think this Jack character is exactly right. An if only state of mind is toxic – it can corrode our spirits and eat at our hearts like a cancer… I’m not sure if Martha and Mary were angry with Jesus when they said those words… maybe yes, maybe no, in the end it doesn’t matter. Either way, they were feeling deprived: Jesus hadn’t been there, their brother died, and now their hearts were locked in that energy-enervating grinding grip of grief.
It’s natural to wonder about the what if’s in life. The danger comes when we let our lives be defined by those if only’s. The temptation is constant to satisfy our thirsty souls and sate our hungry hearts with unhealthy spiritual and emotional food. The truth is that there is only one thing that can change our taste for this dinner of despair – and that is God’s gift of hope that does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (Romans 5:5).
And how do we know this to be true? The words of the 23rd Psalm have been singing part of this sumptuous song for centuries. There’s nothing magical about it, nothing mysterious, no secret knowledge required to make it work…it simply sings of the loving relationship that has been established and is always maintained between Shepherd and sheep, Parent and child, Guide and wanderer, Comforter and friend.
Turn to the back of your bulletin and let’s read the Psalm together:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.
He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil;
For you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;
You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
And that table, spread by God in the midst of all our troubles, wonderful as it may, is still but a foretaste of the feast that is spread before us here at the altar of Christ. The bread, he says, take and eat; the wine, he says, take and drink; this is FOR YOU, and for me, and for all people, for all time.
This is the only meal that can truly help the hungry heart, that can satisfy the suffering spirit, that can fill our lives with hope that overflows with meaning and grace. It is, I assure you, a meal that will never leave us wondering how things might have been if only we’d ordered something different. Amen.