Lent
always gives us the happy, cheerful readings, doesn’t it? At least it’s the
last Sunday before the passion and Easter! But this Sunday, we sit with Jesus
talking about death. In a few days, the church calendar will commemorate the
deaths of many Salvadorans during their civil war, including the death of their
archbishop. There is a Spanish artist, very popular in Latin America, named
Cerrezo Barrado who draws line drawings for each of the gospel texts in the
lectionary. The picture for this Sunday is deeply provocative.
It is a
drawing of three bodies, lying under the ground. Above ground, the hills are
covered in crosses. But over the bodies, flowers and wheat and corn are growing
out of them. In typical Latin American art, it focuses on death—people die just
like Jesus did every day—they die of poverty, of starvation, they die because
they are killed by their governments or shot in the streets.
And yet, as
Oscar Romero said before he died; “If I die, I will rise again in the
Salvadoran people.”
“Unless a
corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a grain of wheat. But if
it dies, it brings much fruit.”
Unlike El
Salvador, perhaps, we in the U.S. don’t like to talk much about death in our
culture, do we?
Sometimes we don’t
even like to mourn, if we can help it. We grin and bear it. We try to hide
death away in sterile hospitals and pretty funeral homes and out of the way
homeless camps, but we avoid the topic if we can.
I have stood
at many deathbeds in my life, personally and in my ministry. Most of
us have lost people we love.
And death
is a terrifying, mysterious, devastating thing.
And it is
made all the harder because, in our culture, we never talk about death. Because
we all walk around with this hidden pain and cannot talk about it. Now, I know
that this sounds morbid, and I know that I am young and perhaps least qualified
to talk about death. But, after all the years that I’ve seen it, I’ve come to a
realization.
We never
want to believe that death is a part of life. We live in a constant denial of
death so often in our culture.
This Lent,
one of my practices has been to think about death as holy. This is a holy
thing. Death is a holy thing. It is not just terrifying, not just mysterious,
not just devastating. It is also holy.
Now, in
our text today, in John, Jesus talks about his death. These stories are unique
to John and in this text, Jesus compares his death to the natural processes of
seeds dying. Only after a seed is dead can it be planted and bring flowers and
corn and wheat.
If life is
sacred, then death is sacred too.
If we thought of death as sacred, perhaps we
would allow ourselves the time to mourn, because mourning is a sign of our
great love for the person who has died. It is how we honor the dead.
If we
thought of death as sacred, perhaps we would feel less guilt as our loved ones
leave us and we are powerless to stop it.
If we
thought of death as sacred, we could allow ourselves to be angry at the dead
too, especially at those who once wronged us, because God can hold the person
who is gone, and we don’t have to.
If we
thought of death as sacred, we could better remember that those we love who die
live on in the hearts of those who loved them and in the arms of the great
Creator.
If we
thought of death as sacred, we could one day welcome death ourselves and ask
what it means to die a good death. Maybe we would be less afraid to live.
There is
more to this too.
If we
thought of death as sacred in our world, we would work to insure that everyone
could die a good death. That is why Jesus’ death—an unjust death, a death by
execution at 33 years old, was a death that entered into judgment with the
powers of the world.
John
Steinbeck, in the Grapes of Wrath, tells the story of how poor and hungry
migrants, fleeing the dust bowl to work in California, watched all of this
food—potatoes and oranges and vegetables— food that could not be sold being
destroyed. He wrote; “In the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In
the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy,
growing heavy for the vintage.” God, through the poor, enters into judgment
with a society that allows people to die unjustly.
A society
that denies the sacredness of death does not prioritize that people live
abundantly and die well.
I think
about this in Grays Harbor—where, although we do not see death as close and
intimately as El Salvador did during that terrible war, we are still
struggling. Nearly 50% of our people in this county are poor by DSHS standards.
That is quite the crisis— We do struggle far too often with unjust death—
And, yet,
the people of this county still hope for and fight for a better life. Flowers
bloom from the bodies of our dead and those who have died alone speak to us
from beyond the grave. God counts their deaths as sacred even if the powers of
the world do not. And their deaths enter into judgment with greed and power and
apathy.
In the mountains of Chiapas in Southern
Mexico, one of the Zapatista leaders said; “In the mountains of Chiapas, death
was a part of daily life… Death becomes a daily fact. It loses its sacredness.
..Death, which is so close, so near, so possible, is less terrifying for us
than for others. So, going out and fighting and perhaps meeting death is not as
terrible as it seems. For us, at least. In fact, what surprises and amazes us
is life itself. The hope of a better life.”
I think about this right now in Aberdeen. Last
week, people who camp out by the river were given notice that they had until
March 31 to leave their camps. The city has nowhere for these folks to go. It is
one more step that displaces people even further. Now, for the growing number
of people homeless in this county and in this country, death is very near all
the time.
Displacing people like this adds one more
layer of complication, one more layer of danger.
The people
of the camps in Aberdeen have asked me, have asked us to stand with them. They
are struggling for life and for survival in a world that does not see their
bodies, their lives as sacred or as holy. This week, I am speaking to city
council—and we ask for prayers and even your presence—asking them to either
halt the eviction or give people somewhere to go. We are asking for people to
be treated as sacred, as human, as people. We are asking that this city, and
this county, prioritize the common good.
We want
unjust death to end in this county. We want all lives to be valued. We want
people have access to abundant life and a good death. We want our towns to come
alive again, even in death, and the prophet Isaiah tells us that the only way
that that happens is to care for the common good. To end injustice. To end
homelessness. To care for each other and rebuild together.
This Lent,
for ourselves and in our own lives, and for people struggling in this county….
we pray
that all bodies and all people, in life and in death, will be honored as
sacred, as holy.