Sermon: As a Bridger, What Will We Catalyze? (John 11), Nov 24, 2024

Sermon: 

As a Bridger, What Will We Catalyze? 

In cold November, I am already thinking about the spring that will come. One of my favourite signs of early spring in Victoria is the emergence of camellia blossoms on their sturdy, evergreen bushes. Can you see them in your imagination? Unlike many other flowers, they don’t fall apart, petal by petal scattering on the wind. When a camellia flower dies, it all falls together, brother and sister flowers, still beautiful even as they lie underfoot.

In April, when the camellias were just past their peak, blossoms lying scattered on the asphalt and grass, two United Church ministers in Toronto reached out to me and Min-Goo. They asked if we would be interested in leading the Day of Gathering for ministers on November 6th. We were asked to explore ways to inspire a new vision of “empowered and invigorated ministry with leaders”—particularly lay leaders—centred on the best C word: Collaboration. We were asked if I could offer an “Anatomy of Inspiration.” What is our shared understanding of what inspires people to lean into their spiritual gifts?

Traditionally, we have thought of the church as being defined by activities and relationships within the boundaries of the church itself. It’s as if the church is a soccer field, and we see ourselves as a collection of relationships that exist only within the boundary lines of that field. For a long time, many churches have approached ministry with this boundary-focused mindset. 

We start by thinking about what our church can offer: what programs, what activities, services, outreach, or opportunities we can provide (and, of course, how great our community is!). But rethinking boundaries requires a paradigm shift. Instead of starting with ourselves, we begin with those outside of our boundaries - especially the needs, interests, visions, and languages of the groups and communities we hope to support and engage. I tend to focus on traditionally underrepresented individuals and communities. If the church is like a soccer field, we often start with the rules and movement within the playing field—I referred to the leaders inside the church boundary lines, within the fence, as green personas—rather than starting with those who are outside the boundary lines, whom I referred to as Camellia personas (the pink). The shift in perspective must begin with the visions of those outside our boundaries—if possible, expressed in the exact language these Camellia individuals use—their communication styles, unique cultures, engagement practices, emerging philosophies, critical theories, and worldviews.

In today’s scripture, Jesus says to the disciples “Let’s go back to Judea.” (V. 7). 

When Mary and Martha, the two sisters of Lazarus, the man who was ill, sent an urgent message, saying “Lord, the one you love is sick”, Jesus lingered for two days before finally saying to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” This two-day delay is significant, given that the message from the two women almost certainly conveyed the gravity of their brother’s condition and the possibility of his death. Immediately, his disciples objected. Bethany was just two miles away from Jerusalem, where the high priests and others were waiting for the right moment to seize and kill him. The disciples—the green, inside-the-boundaries folk—essentially said, “Let’s stay out!” Yet later, recognizing Jesus’ unwavering resolve, they decided to go with him—back to Judea, to the home of Lazarus and his two sisters in Bethany. 

By crossing the boundary, Jesus and the disciples entered a new space, one that unfolded as a memorial and a profound recognition of Lazarus’ death. 

Understanding today’s scripture hinges on grasping what death means when memorial mourning transforms into a “new space” for the community. What is death to us?

We know the harsh reality of actual death. The Transgender Day of Remembrance honours lives lost to anti-transgender bigotry and violence, often through the most brutal forms of erasure imaginable. On December 6, we commemorate and name victims of violence against women. On International Overdose Awareness Day, it becomes a memorial for families mourning the loss of their children, friends, and loved ones to addiction. It’s hard for them to find a memorial, a public space to grieve, where they are surrounded by a community who will stand with them in their sorrow without judgement or stigma. With trembling hands, they place the framed photo of their loved one beside the flickering little tea lights on the chancel of the sanctuary. It’s their memorial.

In this context, it is entirely understandable—and deeply justified—that when Jesus arrived in Bethany, regardless of any theological explanation for the delay, both Mary and Martha met him separately, crying out in anguish: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Their lament, their protest, and their plea resonate as a call for solidarity—a call to fight against terror, social injustice, and apathy. Are Mary and Martha, these two Camellia people, not asking the right question? Are they not calling upon Jesus to respond with the immediacy of his humanity?

There is another Lazarus mentioned in the Gospels—this one appears in Luke 16. The Bible says he was a beggar, covered in sores, ignored by a rich man, yet remembered by God. Drawing inspiration from that Lazarus, Kelvin Sauls, a pastor in the United Methodist tradition, wrote the poem “I Am Lazarus”, shared during a vigil on World AIDS day.

I am Lazarus.

Can you see me, sores and all?

Can you hear me, callin’ at all?

Can you be with me, beggin’ and all?

I am Lazarus. I live with HIV/AIDS.

 

I am not invisible.

I am not unapproachable.

I am Lazarus.

 

I am lovable.

I am acceptable.

I am Lazarus.

 

I am possible.

I am available.

I am reachable.

I am Lazarus.

 

I can see you now.

I can hear you now.

I can be with you now.

I am Lazarus.

I live with HIV/AIDS.

 

The poem raises some critical questions for us to reflect on: Isn’t being silenced a form of death in its own way? “Quarantining” the afflicted, “Outing” them… Isn’t fear—a fear that isolates and stigmatizes—a kind of death in itself?

The state, or any power of dominance and oppression, often weaponizes death as if it were the “only moral and practical action” it can take. Death becomes a tool to threaten, to instill fear, and to paralyze movements for justice—freezing people in place, halting their collective mobilization for change.

Jesus, “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” to the point of tears, goes to the tomb where Lazarus’ body lies. Mary and Martha invite Jesus to “come and see” not only the tomb but also the profound impact their brother’s death has had—not just on them, but on the entire community. It’s a collective grief.

In reflecting on this scripture alongside the theme of rethinking church boundaries, I’ve found myself ruminating on the realities of illness and death. Those who dwell outside the “green fenced place”—the pink, the Camellias—often experience the profound and disproportionate weight of death.

It is heart-wrenching to witness Indigenous community members and Elders sharing on social media about the deaths of their nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren—many of whom are heartbreakingly young. I knew one died from the Elder’s family last year, but the following year, more of her beloved ones died. And because their communities are bound together by love, blood, and the Creator’s heart and Spirit, the loss of one is felt deeply by all; the loss of many is a crushing blow.

Yet even as we acknowledge this reality, we must also remember this: though death may cast its shadow over the Camellia people, their fallen blossoms remain richly beautiful. Just as camellias stand out with their vibrant beauty against the dark green leaves of the tree, so too are these lives precious and breathtaking in their fullness—even in loss. Essentially, everyone, Queer, Transgender and 2 Spirit in the world, and others, whether lost to death or surviving, sustaining, creating the present and the future of the resilient, resistant community, are gifts from God. Gathered in the hands of the Creator, they remain radiant, beloved, and holy.

When Jesus and the disciples entered the new space—the memorial of Lazarus, the memorial of the Camellias—they did not come to meet death itself but the power of God. Jesus speaks into death; His word surpasses death, confronting it merely as the ultimate tool of oppression, the weapon used to freeze, control, and erase the mobilization and flourishing of the Camellia people, or even death as part of the powerful flow and the continuation of eternal life, calling on the One he intimately calls “Father” or “Abba.” Lazarus, beloved Camellia, come out!

Have you heard the poetry of the camellias? Their song? The song of spring painted with the vibrant pink and the fearlessness? Even as they fall, they remain themselves, undiminished. Their resurrection of spring surpasses death. Their resurrection of joy is a collective celebration, just as the rising of the summer stars in the sky mark the return of a warmer, kinder world. Have you listened to their dazzling language, expressing resilience in hundreds of ways? In memorials, vigils, protests, rallies…? Their voices are together. Solidarity. 

At the last Transgender Day of Remembrance Vigil at Broad View United on Nov 20, I heard it. I heard their language, which does not speak of death but instead seeks to surpass death—focusing instead on resilience, resistance, and gratitude: Radical gratitude for the self. 

Radical Gratitude Spell (By Adrienne Maree Brown)

you are a miracle walking

i greet you with wonder

in a world which seeks to own

your joy and your imagination

you have chosen to be free,

every day, as a practice.

i can never know

the struggles you went through to get here,

but i know you have swum upstream

and at times it has been lonely

 

i want you to know

i honour the choices you made in solitude

and i honour the work you have done to belong

i honour your commitment to that which is larger than yourself

and your journey

to love the particular container of life

that is you

 

you are enough

your work is enough

you are needed

your work is sacred

you are here 

and i am grateful

So, rethinking our church boundary through a paradigm shift means thinking about the church from the reverse of the dynamic: Camellias inspire and colour the church in their radical joy and hunger for inclusive justice. That’s the new space where Jesus and the green-folk disciples went in Bethany. And we must, too. No delay. Have you delayed? Please go now. To the streets. To the outside of the lines. To erase the fence, not the camellias. 

Now, this is my blessing, letting myself be inspired and tinted with the Camellias/Lazaruses among us. 

Those Who Have Lived 23 Springs,

Those Who Have Lived 25 Springs,

Those Who Have Lived 47 Springs…

 

How many springs one has lived through doesn’t really matter in the end.

What matters is being a rare and luminous presence, like a crescent moon.

 

Even if they have fallen asleep, wrapped in the faded white cloth society bound them in, it is not the end.

Even if society drove them to death, Christ transcends that death, bringing their existence, their radiance, their trauma, their beauty—bearing witness before God that they are the Creator’s beloved disciples and children.

For these souls, like camellias, dazzling even as they fall, rich and beautiful in their essence, we lift our prayers today.

To catalyze their beauty, their rarity, their “outsideness,” and their eternal life, we must persist to the very end—at the edge, beyond the boundaries—remembering the death in Bethany, two miles outside Jerusalem, and remembering the impossibility of death itself.

We must cry out, as the two women who wept, lamenting why Jesus did not come sooner:

Come out, Lazarus…

God’s beloved, children, lover, song.

Come out, Lazaruses, God’s beloved disciples.

 

Leave your trauma in the tomb, with its flung-open door. Today, step into the Creator’s light, where even unlit streets will be safe, and we can walk, drenched in the beauty of a spring evening, without stumbling…

 

So that we may all come out, outside of our carefully-drawn lines, into the streets of justice, peace, and flourishing for all.