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Sermon for Sunday, March 9, 2008
Pastor Sara Kay Olson-Smith
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Texts: Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8: 6-11; John 11:1-45
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and from Christ Jesus, who revives us.
It is an incredible image, isn’t it? The prophet Ezekiel comes down into a valley where there are piles and piles of dry, dead bones. It reflects the truth of the people of that community, for Ezekiel was preaching to an exiled people, people who had been forced out of their homes, abandoned, and truly “clean cut off” from their home, their places of worship, and from life itself. As Ezekiel looks at these bones, God asks him, “Mortal, can these bones live?” As the Lord speaks, these bones are being put together, bone to bone. Flesh gets put on them, and the Spirit of God breathes through these bones. God revives these bones. It is a messy and confusing business. I sort of imagine a patchwork of bones put together to bear witness to God’s power, a patchwork being of revived, old dead bones, put together, dancing, breathing, alive.
Then we have this story of Lazarus, called out from his tomb by the voice of Jesus, revived, bearing witness to the power of God. This dead man is unbound by God, freed to continue to live to speak and tell of the the glory of God. “Unbind him! ”Jesus says...
I thought about these dry bones and of Lazarus this week as I drove down the mountain into this valley. I thought of them as I drove by rows of weary and poor men, waiting each day along the side of the street for a day’s work, with the hope not just for work, but for an employer who will pay them – and pay them fairly. I thought about those bones as I drove through Plainfield, seeing the empty building of Messiah Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I thought about Lazarus as I saw sign after sign of homes for sale in the area, and having heard that Plainfield has more homes in foreclosure than all of Union County. I thought about those dry bones as I made a visit at the soon to be closed Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield. There are days when it seems this community is being abandoned. It is a place of dry bones, a place left to die. This community could very well say, as it says in Ezekiel: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost and we are cut off completely.”
In the midst of this, I, with Jesus, and each of us together weep in compassion for this community, this community of strength and hope, a community with so much promise and life, a community with deep roots, a community that could give so much. As I weep and wonder, I hear these words of promise from our readings today, of our God who brings life from death. We hear that it is in valleys of dry bones, in tombs, and in places that seem to be abandoned, left behind and hopeless that God’s glory is most deeply and powerfully revealed. It is here that we see Jesus’ great compassion and love for God’s people. It is in these places - places that might look a lot like the cross - where God is made known. It is here that we see God’s deep love for God’s people, and God’s power to bring life from death, hope from despair, courage from fear and newness from sure ends.
Our God is a God who revives community, who brings the exiles back, who breaks open tombs, who conquers the power of death. We know that new life will come on that last day. We can trust in the resurrection of the dead. We can trust that for those we’ve loved, they are living, eternally held in the loving arms of God. But it is even bigger than that. The promise we hear in today’s readings is that God is making things new – now, for us here, still in the valley. We hear of a God who not only resurrects, but of a God who revives, here and now.
How does this happen? How might this come to be in this community where it seems hopeless, where so much is being lost and has been lost, where there is such poverty and brokenness? God revives in much the same ways as God did in those days. God revives our communities by calling us out of our tombs. God revives us by breaking open the doors of our churches and our homes and our hearts. There is no hope for us or for our communities when we are are holed up in fear, when we are too afraid of dying to risk living. God revives us and our communities when we, with Lazarus, follow courageously when God calls us out of our tombs into the world.
God revives us by unbinding us. In our confession each week we say, “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” One definition for sin is being curved in on ourselves, caring only about our own future, our own livelihood, taking care of our own needs. It is as if we, in our sin, are so wrapped up like a mummy, so bound up by sinfulness which is just part of our humanity, that we can hardly see our neighbors, cannot move our arms to reach out, cannot step to walk alongside them. But God unbinds, releases us from this sin, liberates us, forgives us so that we can see, reach out and move. And it is not just from sin that God unbinds us. God unbinds us from all those things that hold us captive - the grief, the weariness, the loneliness, the despair - the powers of the world that hold us. God unbinds us from all that holds us captive, all that prohibits us from fully loving, fully living.
God revives us by putting people together, just like those bones that were put together. God revives us in community. We are given new life as we connect with other people, as we gather here in community to pray together, to laugh with each other, to weep with each other, to hold one another and walk with one another. We are revived, bone by bone, with each other and with those in this community. When we see that we are part of a large patchwork body with all those of this community, that our livelihood is dependent on their thriving, we live into the vision of Ezekiel. God revives this community of broken bones by putting us all together. God revives us as we understand each other as part of this same body - all of us - the stranger, our neighbor, the folks waiting on the street corner, the families who are losing their homes, the nurses and aids and patients who depend on Muhlenberg. We here who love this community and long for its vitality, we are all put together, bone to bone with the breath of the Spirit. God revives us by putting us together, breathing life into us, piecing us together as a sort of patchwork.
God revives us by giving us courage to face the realities of death and sin in our lives and communities, and leads us through them into life. Our path toward Easter depends on us walking through some cemeteries, but Jesus walks with us, weeping, leading, and feeding us on this meal of bread and wine which reminds us of his deep love for us and for all people. In this meal, God revives us as the tombs of our hearts are broken open. In this meal, God revives us as we are unbound from all that holds us captive. In this meal, God revives us as we are put together, made into the body of Christ, scattered people made one, dead bones brought into life in one body.
God revives us and all our world - creating life in the midst of grief, creating love in the midst of loss, creating faith in the midst of despair, creating courage in the midst of fear. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He does not say, “I will be the the resurrection and the life,” but “I AM” – right now, right here – for each one of us and for St. Peter’s and for North Plainfield and for all the world! Like those dry bones, God revives us, a patchwork of people together, to bear witness to Gods power, dancing, breathing, alive!
Thanks be to God.
Amen
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