Lazarus Comes Out In a Big Way, Part 1

April 14, 2008

Lazarus came out of the grave, not out of the closet. He was dead, not gay. I, on the other hand, am gay and when I read and reflect on the words of Scripture it becomes the living, breathing, inspiring word of God to the extent I find meaning in its pages that speak to me in my wholeness as a Christian, a woman, a person of material resources, as a lesbian, and whatever else I bring to the mix. This is how it is that the story of Jesus calling Lazarus out from the grave has implications for me when reflecting on the experience of reconciling our faith and sexuality and coming out of the closet. Today and tomorrow I’ll share a few random reflections between the story narrated in John 11 and the story lived out in my coming out. I send these words with the prayer that somewhere in them you might find connections, comfort, and hope.

Jesus’ love for Lazarus is mentioned four times.

(vs. 3, 5, 11, 36)

When a word or a statement appears repeatedly in a text, its importance is being emphasized. There’s no question Lazarus was loved by Jesus. Jesus loved Lazarus when he would stay with while passing through Bethany, he loved him when Lazarus was sick and they were separated by miles, and Jesus loved him still when he was dead and sealed away in the grave. From the beginning of the story until the end, there’s no question Jesus loved Lazarus. Divine love is at the center of this story as it is throughout the Gospel of John.

And there’s no question of Jesus’ love for you. He loved you before you had any awareness of your sexual orientation, he’s loved you through all the questions, doubts, and struggle to reconcile your faith and sexuality, and he loves you whether you’re secured in the closet or standing outside of it. The Word has proclaimed far more than four times that God loves you but is saturated with God’s commitment of love to you.

Jesus states on four separate occasion that Lazarus’ death and what he was soon to do was for the glory of God and so that others would believe.

(vs. 4, 15, 40, 41)

Lazarus’ death and his raising from the dead wasn’t just about Lazarus alone but so God’s glory would be seen by the disciples, Mary and Martha, the mourners, and the crowds that had gathered. Lazarus died because people get sick and die. Death is simply a part of life, but resurrected life is a whole other matter and when Jesus called Lazarus out from the grave those who witnessed and heard came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and God’s glory resided within him.

We’re GBLTQ because diversity has always been present within human sexuality. There have always been gay people roaming on this round little ball and you and I are among them. But when we come out and proclaim who we are and we step out in our wholeness our lives become more than about us, but provide hope for others bumping around in their own closets, and offering a witness to the world that God calls all of us, GLBTQABCXYZ and straight to come out from whatever darkness it is that holds us into the light of new life as a whole and wholly loved people.

Jesus delays coming even though he knows Lazarus has died and his sisters are grieving.

(vs. 6)

Jesus waits. He doesn’t come right away. What’s up with that?! Read a dozen commentaries and you’ll notice that no one can really explain why he didn’t head to the village of Bethany the minute word came of his beloved friend’s sickness. Instead he waits to come until Lazarus is stone cold dead and buried.

“Why is this mess inside myself lasting so long? Why can’t I find peace? Why doesn’t God show up and tell me what I need to hear? How long do I have to wait to have this settled?” I don’t know the answers, but I know that when you’re shut away, isolated and uncertain, questioning and confused, the minutes seem like hours, the days like years. And I know this. I know that when Jesus calls you forth, the closet will lose it’s hold and you won’t step out clinging to the door frame but you’ll be given the peace and strength that despite any fear will move you forward boldly into the light of day.

Martha believes Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead on the day of resurrection.

(vs. 20-27)

This might well be my favorite part of the story. Martha believes Jesus is the Promised One and could have healed her brother saving him from death had he only come a little earlier, and when Jesus assures Martha that “Your brother will live again,” she agrees with Jesus but not in the way Jesus means. Instead she affirms her faith in the traditional understanding of life and death and the expectation of a day of resurrection at a set future time in the world to come. This was the orthodox view held by the Pharisees and opposed by the Sadducees. I have incredible empathy for Martha in this moment because even though she’s saying the right thing it seems as though she’s defaulting to what she’s suppose to believe and there’s something about her words that ring hollow, as though she’s simply reciting words she knows in her mind but doesn’t feel in her heart. But Jesus isn’t reminding Martha of what she already knows. Jesus wants Martha to believe for more. He wants her to dream beyond the conventional understandings of life and death, to imagine that before her stands the fulfillment of all her expectations, not only in the future but in the present. “Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. When you die you will be lifted up into resurrected life yet even while you live, everlasting life is already yours. I am the resurrection for the future and life for today. Can you believe that I’m enough for this moment Martha? Can you believe this?” And she says “Yes.” Do you see why I love this so much?

People look at our lives and say “Yes, I believe that Jesus can bring healing to the lives of gays and lesbians by giving them strength to refrain from acting on their same-sex attractions; by delivering them from the bondage of homosexuality, by revealing to them the sin of homosexuality…” The church holds onto their traditional views of homosexuality and presume that when God works in our lives it will be aligned squarely within those boundaries and yet God is saying to them and to us, “I’m working in the lives of my gay and lesbian children in a new way that doesn’t match up to your rules and ideas of how I should be doing things. Yes, I’m calling them into new life but not into a new life that fulfills your expectations but into lives that are whole and holy as GLBTQ people. Can you believe in my grace more than in your judgments? Can you believe I’m doing a new thing?” God is doing a new thing among us. GLBTQ people have always been invisible in the church but now God is calling us to come out and be seen within the church and within the Christian faith, and when we come out and are fully seen, Christ will be seen in us.

Jesus wept.

(vs. 33, 38)

Shortest scripture, we all know it. “Jesus wept.” Never have so few words said so much. On two occasions in one story Jesus was moved with emotion. The Greek word used suggests that Jesus was deeply troubled, or that he shuddered with sadness. The same word in classical Greek is used to refer to how the entire body of a horse shakes when the horse lets out a snort, a powerful image having grown up near my grandparents farm. Jesus did more than boo-hoo wah-wah weep. He broke down and sobbed, his body convulsing with emotion but it wasn’t sorrow alone, but anger’s held in the word that was used. Biblical scholars have spend considerable time wondering what it was that motivated Jesus to be angry. Perhaps he was angry at death itself. Death that took his friend. Death that silenced Lazarus and locked him away in the dark. Death that dared to steal life. Jesus knew Lazarus would be alive before the sun had time to shift in the sky (or put more accurately, for the earth to rotate) and yet in this in-between time between Lazarus’ former life and the new life about to burst out from the grave, Jesus felt sorrow and anger at death that held his friend.

God weeps in sorrow at the pain GLBTQ people experience whether the pain is located in the struggle that takes place within the heart or in the external rejection coming from the Body of Christ and the world, but then God the Creator of us all stands in compassion and tenderheartedness with any who suffer in this life. God doesn’t remain untouched by your sorrow. God weeps when your heart is broken just as God weeps for the one who’s caused your pain because in wounding you they’ve diminished a piece of themselves. And God is angry. Angry at human legalism and law that necessitates that anyone be hidden away in closets of secrecy and fear; angry that closets shut God’s beloved off from the walking in the light of His grace; angry at all the separates us from one another. God is deeply moved and intimately knows what you’re going through because God is there in the middle of it with you.

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Posted in Christian Lesbian Identity, Coming Out, Queering the Bible