Deep in the Old Testament there is piece of writing called Lamentations. It is traditionally thought to have been written by Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Lamentations is basically a funeral song written about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army. When Jerusalem was destroyed, the people were sent into exile where they stayed for more than 50 years. In his desperation and his devastation, Jeremiah cries out: "Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by?" Lam. 1:12
For those who have experienced death and deep grief, perhaps we can identify with Jeremiah who has seen his city, his temple destroyed, and his people sent away. In the midst of this kind of grief, sometimes our tears turn to anger. Sometimes it is hard for us to believe that the world can just go on. We need it to stop, to center ourselves on what has happened. We need time to process; to gather our thoughts and to catch our breath.
“In the slums of Calcutta, India, thousands live on the streets. If they own a ragged blanket to spread over the place where they sleep, they feel lucky. Early each morning trucks come by to pick up the bodies of those who die in the night. Babies are born on the sidewalk and left in cardboard boxes. In the midst of this abject poverty and unspeakable suffering a tiny, little woman can be seen moving among the sick, homeless, and hungry, giving help wherever and however she can. She is an Albanian nun who is lovingly called Mother Teresa. She walks among these homeless, hurting people. She bends low to touch many of them, whispering a word of comfort and encouragement to them. She lifts the dying in her arms to hold them as they die. She is not afraid of them. She weeps and works and walks and begs for them. She is a proper model for what to do beyond tears.” Rev. T.L. Butts
What is it that touches you and causes your tears to turn to anger? Perhaps you have lost a loved one. Perhaps you are dealing with an addiction or a situation that seems to have power over you. Perhaps your tears turn to anger when you think of all those in our world who die from hunger each day, and those with the means to feed them but do not. Perhaps war and violence turn your tears to anger. Or maybe it is it is the plight of those who have jobs, but still cannot support their families. Perhaps your heart cries for those whose hearts have been hardened. Do we cry along with Jeremiah, "Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by?" The message of Jeremiah and the message of Jesus to the people is that if we truly care we cannot remain dry-eyed and silent.
A little girl stayed out at play much longer than she was supposed to stay. When she got home her mother scolded her and asked where she had been. The child said that one of her playmates had broken her doll and she stopped and helped her fix it ~ for two hours. Her mother asked her how in the world she could help fix a broken doll. And, in all of the innocence of a child, she said, "I could not fix the doll, but I sat down with her and helped her cry." There are some things beyond our fixing. There is some brokenness we cannot repair no matter how much time, money, or talent we have. Still, we can weep with those who weep. But, when weeping is all that we do, can it ever be enough? Rev T. L. Butts
Scripture tells us that Jesus wept. He wept over the death of his friend, Lazarus. He wept over the hardened hearts of many of the people of Jerusalem. He wept with individual people and for individual people. Jesus has wept with many of us. Still, sometimes we wonder if anybody cares. Does anybody understand? The tears of Jesus remind us that God cares.
One day a child was running down the hall at church on the last day of Bible School. He had in his hand a little ceramic tray that he had made for his mother. He had worked on it all week. As he ran down the hall to give it to her, he dropped and broke it into a thousand pieces. The child began to cry. Everybody was trying to comfort him. They said, "It was just a tray." But the child was inconsolable. Finally, his mother came on the scene. She said to the child, "Let's pick up all of the pieces, and we’ll take them home and put it together and see what we can make out of it."
That is what Jesus is like! When our lives are shattered, Jesus helps us to pick up the pieces, and to make something out of what is left.
Picking up the pieces and making sense of what is left is why I think that we have the story of Lazarus as our text for All Saints Day. Jesus restores Lazarus. And the community participates. When we celebrate the lives of our saints, we affirm that the remembrances of their lives are stronger than death. And though their physical work has ended, their dream of God's love for the world, their mission in the world is still alive.
The Saints have left us to continue their mission, Christ’s mission. When Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, he tells the community to unbind him. We are that community, and it is our responsibility to do the unbinding. Jesus is calling us to unbind those who are bound by hunger, by poverty, by oppression, by systems of injustice.
The work of Jesus is to bring life; the work of the congregation is to unbind people and to set them free.
All too often, we do not unbind those who Christ has restored. Sometimes, we are more excited for them to fail then to change. Sometimes, we discourage them instead of encouraging them.
Our message from Jesus is that we must respond with acts of hope—even in the face of a pessimistic and sarcastic world. We must choose to unbind those that Christ has restored and not keep them bound in the clothing of death.
We bind people through our attitudes toward them. We bind them when we hold onto their faults instead of lifting up and encouraging their attempts to change. We bind people when we don’t forgive them. We bind them when we gossip to others about their faults. Whenever we treat people out of our smallness instead of the Lord’s abundance; we keep them bound.
And so we ask, how do we follow Christ as we unbind?
We unbind people when we are determined to see new life in them. We unbind them when we praise God. We unbind them when we forgive them. We unbind them when we smile and welcome them, saying; “I am so glad you are here; do you have anyone to sit with today?”
Whenever we treat someone out of Christ's greatness and not our smallness; we unbind them. This is not our nature; our nature is worldly, the pleasures of gossip and the flesh. Because it is not our nature we must call upon Christ to forgive us; to unbind us; and then we must act in a new way; based upon the Holy Spirit who helps us to love and praise God even when we don't feel like it!
It is in the process of unbinding others that we ourselves are unbound. When we free others, we are set free. When we forgive, we are forgiven.
And so we pray, Lord unbind us. Help us to hear you call us out of our tombs. Help us to be a community that unbinds others that we are then unbound by the glory of your presence. May it be so. Amen.
Queen Anne 
