By: Julia Baker

John 11: 32-44

The last 10 years of my life I have been an apprentice to grief.

Most of it centered around losing people — through the end of relationships and
death.

Often one grief touches all other pain, the personal tender spills out

rubbing up against the grief when I see a tree budding in too warm temperatures in
February,

when I hear the number of dead in wars across the world,

when I feel the mire in the red-tape of the system,

when I feel the tension and division as we come to the election

and on and on.

_____

I invite you to take a moment, maybe put a hand on your heart,

what grief do you carry heavy with you today?

_____

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

What utter ache in Mary’s voice and body as she falls down in front of Jesus.

These questions — Where were you God? Why this?

I hear these questions daily in my chaplain work, and I have trembled with them
myself.

And how confusing for these early Jesus followers who were watching Jesus heal and
cast out.

Mary’s words “it didn’t have to be this way” were coming from a place of tangible
knowledge.

Jesus, you the Messiah, you are friend to Lazarus, you are miracle worker, you are Son
of God ____

you could have been here.

My brother did not have to die.

_____

This did not have to be this way…

This world burning up on itself due to our consumption.

This world of childhood cancer, COVID 19, mental health issues.

This generations long trauma and violence in Israel and Palestine.

This place our country has gotten to with blue and red lines.

Kyrie, Kyrie, Kyrie, — Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.

_____

And Mercy does break in…

Jesus began to weep.

And Jesus has kept weeping.

With each one of our agonies.

To trust and follow Jesus, to entrust ourselves unto Jesus

is to know that even thought it “it didn’t need to be this way”

there will be things on the far side of that experience that will be important.

“In him all things hold together.”

And that now Jesus is there, is here grieving and weeping over the same things
alongside us.

Alongside us in the literal stench of it.

The NT writers are showing us that

God isn’t distance and vague

This is the face of God – wet with tears –

a God alongside us in the joy and in the dismay, abandonment, let down, grief.

_____

Unbind him and let him go. Jesus says.

I am always so grateful every time I have a good cry.

Emotions (and wonderful chemicals of oxytocin and endorphins) that were building
up within me

like the electricity of a good midwestern thunderstorm, released in the deluge of tears.

Weeping signals to myself — it is okay to feel this.

I am feeling this, I am surviving.

In unbinding and raising Lazarus after first having wept I hear Jesus’s invitation to us
all —

part of your unbinding, how you also are raised, your freeing is through this feeling.

Literally unbinding your tightly wrapped held emotions.

And Jesus shows that another part of what allows you to be unbound is knowing

that you are profoundly accompanied by God in this.

Unbind yourself and let your — fear, anxiety, panic, worry go.

_____

I am so very aware this passage is coming this Sunday just days before the election.

When we might be feeling these things – fear, anxiety, panic, grief, worry, dread…

All Saint’s Day also serves to remind us how far from alone we are.

There is a beautiful Epsicopal church in San Francisco that along with the traditional
icons

has painted along the walls saints like MLK, Dorothy Day, John Lennon, Gandi. And
they are painted dancing!

When you are seated in the sanctuary you are literally encircled by these dancing cloud
of witnesses.

My prayer for us all this week is to feel ourselves held by the Jesus who weeps with us,

and who accompanies us so that we may be unbound

and feel ourselves encircled and bolstered by the great Cloud of Witnesses —

officially Sainted and the

many, beautiful ordinary lives who sought to live faithfully unbound, lives of courage

I feel them reminding us of the long deep view of time, the long arch bending
towards justice.

_____

I invite you to go back to that grief you touched into.
With your hand on your heart again can you allow Jesus to weep it with you, unbind
the pain just a little bit.

Stay with that as I read this poem…

OCTOBER

Filigree flame leaf
Golden snow
Dances down in
A dappled weeping.

The oldest song
Molten melody
Cools to crescendo.

Spine straight
Throat catches,
Opens to sing.

Letting go is the hardest thing

I cried in the fever
Of last December
Knowing someday
I would grieve you.

Today, face salty,
I press bulbs into the soil
Of last year’s fire.

The acorns have all dropped
And I have been asking
What kind of courage?

This kind
This.

_____

Benediction:

Last night I hosted a dress up All Saint’s Day party. Inviting guests to come dressed as
a poet, author, loved one who has crossed over. We then each shared a poem or
reading or story in the voice of that person.

It was a delight.

I dressed up as one of my beloveds, the author Madeleine L’Engle who wrote The
Wrinkle in Time series and many other books.

I read a passage from her book A Swiftly Tilting Planet. And I will close with this
poem, prayer, rune which is believed to be written by

At Tara to-day in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And fire with all the strength it hath,
And lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place,
By God’s almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.