Ezekiel 37: 1-14 Psalm 130
Romans 8: 6-11 John 11: 1-45
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
As our journey through Lent begins to wind down, as we have endured the lengthy Gospel readings from John, we come to this Sunday’s texts. They are among my favorites from which to preach and teach. They are filled with such rich imagery….entire valleys filled with dead and dry bones….Lazarus wrapped from head to toe stumbling out of the tomb….Mary and Martha whose relationships with Jesus was so intimate that they had no hesitation whatsoever about harassing him for not being where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. And Martha’s response to Jesus when he tells them to roll away the stone from Lazarus’ tomb, that famous response that is much more succinct in the King James version: “He stinketh”. There’s Thomas, whom we have called Doubting Thomas, but who in this Gospel story has no doubt at all, but is ready to follow Jesus into unknown places. There are the disciples, whom our Bishop refers to as the “dufai”, which is the plural form of dufus, who almost never get the point Jesus is trying to make. In the Gospel when Jesus wants to go back to Judea, the disciples say “Hold on, Jesus….they were just trying to stone you there and you want to go back?” And when Jesus speaks of Lazarus being asleep, which was a very common way to refer to the dead in ancient times, the disciples say “Well if he’s asleep he’ll be fine” and Jesus has to clarify “Lazarus is dead”. And Jesus, whose main actions aside from correcting the disciples and engaging with Mary and Martha in this text seems to be waiting and weeping. Waiting and weeping.
So, in the early hours of the day yesterday, as is often my habit on Saturday mornings, I sat down with these texts again….the texts that I had already studied and prayed through for the past week and a half …I sat down with the sermon I’d already started, with the intention of completing it. Some texts make for difficult sermon writing, but not these. The only difficulty is in choosing what rich nuggets to mine, because they are so abundant. So, I pulled the sermon I’d begun up on my laptop and opened my Bible to pray through our Psalm for the day as my morning began:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Lord hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
Just then my internet browser connected and my Facebook feed opened up. Multi tasking in the twenty first century is interesting stuff. And this message from a high school friend came up on Facebook. And I quote: “My son [] took his life this morning at 8:50am at my mother’s house. He used a .22 pistol we used for target practice. Pray for me.”
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died
Can these bones live?
And just that quickly the psalmists lament and the prophets vision of dead bones coming to life and the story of Lazarus coming out of the tomb meant something new in the face of the grief of this father. Just that quickly, in the time it took me to read that message and try to take it in, my mind’s eye flashed back to the many many faces of grief I have known and witnessed and walked with. And in each of those faces I could see the faces of Mary and Martha….watching for Jesus, certain that if he had only been there when their brother Lazarus had died, things would have turned out differently. I saw the faces of the parents in the Emergency Room who were certain that if only they had checked on their infant daughter more often during the night, SIDS would not have taken her while she slept. I saw the face of the man who was sure that if only he had paid more attention to his marriage instead of to his job his wife might not have left him alone in the empty house. I saw the face of my friend’s husband who wondered if they should have taken the more aggressive treatment options to her cancer. I saw the stunned faces of the neighbors of the military family near Tacoma as they tried to absorb the idea that this husband and father had killed his wife and son. If only they had gotten to know them better, been better neighbors.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
So I returned to the texts with a heavy heart. I contemplated what I could say and how the Spirit was moving in the world and in my life and whether I could even write this sermon without including the events of the day…but how could I not? How could I not mention the hard, grief laden, tear strewn paths that all of us have walked? How could I deny that there have been those times that we have, like Mary and Martha, watched for Jesus to come and it seemed that he was just biding his time somewhere else?
Of course, what is central to this story is that Jesus in not waiting because he does not care for Mary and Martha and Lazarus. On the contrary, these are his beloved friends and he weeps at Lazarus’ grave. Jesus was greatly disturbed by the grief of his friends and deeply moved by Mary’s tears. And Jesus acts. Jesus resuscitates Lazarus, even though according to Jewish law, he was well past dead. Three days is the accepted time for death and here was Lazarus, already on day 4.
Of course, Jesus does not raise all of our loved ones from their literal tombs. But Jesus does bring life in the midst of great sorrow. It is so tempting to take this story and wonder why we don’t have our loved ones back with us…to demand, like Mary and Martha, that if only Jesus had been there, they would not have died. But we forget that certainly Lazarus died a second time. He did not live forever, nor did Mary and Martha. And if, in our times of turmoil, we only look for the spectacular events that seem like the preferred answers to our prayers, we are very likely missing what Jesus is bringing to us as balm for our wounded and weary selves.
The reading from Ezekiel asks if dried bones can live. In this case, the question is literally about the nation of Israel. Can Israel as a people live again, and the answer is yes. Of course. And if we take this word, this vision, this story, and consider it for our lives, and ask if when we are parched and dried up and feel that there is no possible way we can ever move forward and live after what has happened….we know that there is a way. Yes. Of course. It involves hearing the word of God, and receiving the Holy breath of God. Then, says the prophet, then flesh will come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live. Then, we shall live. When we hear the word of God and allow that life to be breathed back into us.
The prophet Ezekiel knew that with God anything was possible. Mary and Martha knew it too. And we know it. In the depths of our beings we know it. Even when it is from those depths we are crying out, we know it. Sometimes it is hard to remember or see and sometimes, like the Mary and Martha , and like the women who waited in the garden and the disciples who waited behind closed doors, and like the Psalmist, we find ourselves waiting…
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
0 Comments