Progressive reflections on the lectionary #41 (Halloween spooky special!)

Monday 28th October 2024

John 11:32-44: Resurrecting zombie institutions

This week’s venture into the lectionary is suitably spooky for the time of year - as we hit ‘John’ telling the spoooooooky tale of the very dead ‘Lazarus’ being resuscitated.

It’s one of the few times I like to turn to the KJV because of the evocative language.

“Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days…”

Any verse with ‘he stinketh’ in is good in my book.

So yes there’s a bit of fun to be had, should you want it, in hamming up the zombie aspect of this story - Lazarus rises from the dead, his stinky rotting flesh still covered by bandages - and then once unbound proceeds (in the following verses) to follow Jesus while the authorities plot to kill him anew - presumably a stake through the heart ought to do it.

But we’re left with the abiding questions: ‘what is this passage about?’ There are, after all, no followers of Lazarus - no ‘Lazarenes’ - that we know of. Then or now. Shortly after this story the character just runs out of road.

The first question we should always ask when we read a story is: “What sort of story is this?” Sometimes the answer to that question seems relatively obvious, other times less so. One of the things people seem to struggle to come to terms with, generally, is that the answer to this question is rarely as straightforward as we might like to think.

As is so often the case with the gospels the meanings of the stories are less clear to us than they might once have been. Partly this is because it has been obscured by layers of translation, not to mention the fact that 2000 or so years have passed. Partly too it’s because the question of genre has become obscured.

So, some context: this particular story comes from John’s gospel, so it was probably written around the turn of the first century CE, after the fall of the temple and some distance then from the ‘events’ it purports to narrate. It was written, then, in the turbulent early years of the Jesus movement - although the idea of persecution of the early Christians has almost certainly been overstated, there were still big problems. There was conflict between groups of Christians and, particularly, between the new Christian sect and the rabbinic Judaism (basically a development of Phariseeism) which was strengthening its hold.

How to work out what’s going on here then. First of all, at the centre of this particular story is a character, Lazarus. Names are important in the Bible and they shouldn’t be overlooked.

There are lots of helpful tools available to help us understand, and in some cases decode, the stories we’re handed down. When it comes, as it does in this case, to thinking about names, one tool that I sometimes like to dip into is provided by Abarim publications. I will say first off that I know more or less nothing about them, but I’ve consistently found their guides helpful - including this one on Lazarus.

Abarim make the connection between Lazarus and Annas, the high priest of the time - another major Bible baddy. Annas seems to have acted like something of a mob boss. Abarim also point out that Lazarus is a Hellenised (Greek) version of the Hebrew name Eleazar, why might that be important? Because Eleazar was the son of Aaron and the ground zero of the Israelite priestly class.

In other words, the character of ‘Lazarus’ (there is another character called Lazarus in Luke, who has a similar role) seems to represent something to do with priesthood.

So, what sort of story was ‘John’ writing? Even people who look to the synoptic gospels for some sort of reportage tend to accept that this is not what we find in ‘John’.

Whoever wrote ‘John’ was writing theology, and he/they was/were doing it, largely, in the form of ‘parables.’ In other words, parables weren’t just told ‘by Jesus’ but ‘about Jesus’.

The Lazarus story is a parable. This is not a big shock when you come to think about it. It makes more sense than other approaches. Parables are deceptive, too, because they don’t read like other stories - their meanings are confusing, you have to pick away at them. We need to recognise, too, that in his writing ‘John’ was also deliberately using language that evoked characters and themes of Israelite antiquity.

“It seems very obvious that the literary character of Lazarus represents a historical figure or movement…” says the Abarim article on Annas, and I agree. I think that what the character of Lazarus represents is nothing less than Jewish priesthood itself.

That being the case a picture starts to form, and its one of a theme that is consistent in the ‘John’ writings, a conflict between the emergent Christian sect and the Jewish leaders of the time.

Just as a reminder - one of the key aspects of argument between the Sadducees and Pharisees (the winners ultimately being the latter) was about resurrection from the dead. We get bits about that elsewhere in the gospels too. But access to this is controlled by the extorters of the temple, the grasping people who (according to Mark and Luke) will take everything they can get, even the widow’s mite.

So what’s this story about? Jesus is told that the priesthood is dying - it’s corrupt, it’s on its way out. He says ‘it’s not fatal - this is their chance to glorify God. People point out that Jesus could make other people see, surely he could, too, save the priesthood from going the way of all flesh. But they don’t glorify God. And Jesus doesn’t cure them - so they die away. Eventually, in the grave, rotting, ‘stinking,’ lies the priesthood. As Jesus comes upon this sad situation he weeps, because he loves the institution, it is dear to him. So then, with the grave opened, he calls it forth again - giving it another chance. Renewed, revivified, and now re-aligned, up from the dead rose the priesthood and with a new lease of life, was ‘unbound’, left its corrupt ways and followed Jesus.

You see, the way ‘John’ told this story is better. And spookier.

It’s a good one to use to reflect on the state of our own institutions, many of which are so dead they ‘stinketh’. Do we have the faith that they too can live again? Or are we too frightened…?

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