dry bones
SERMON (Chadbourn Community Church, sometime in 2017)
I do not know if I have the words today, the wisdom, the strength.
You see it has been a bad week.
Or I should say it has been a bad few days.
Earlier this week was amazing. I was in DC on vacation with my family.
But when I came back, I got word that a friend and colleague, who doesn’t live
anywhere close to here,
was arrested on terrible, horrible charges.
He was living a double life.
We who knew him as colleague knew a person of compassion and kindness
who loved God
and followed the way of Jesus in remarkable ways.
But he either had a mental break or has been living a cruel double life.
Either way, it doesn’t matter,
my heart is shattered,
my heart is broken.
I am in deep sorrow and sadness
for my friend and the community he served.
We’ve seen this before — in the Catholic church, with priests who misbehave,
and at New Life Church, and in every tradition, this kind of thing happens.
It is not so unique.
But when it is your friend, and your tradition,
it stings.
So I am up here aware of the brokenness of the world,
the sorrow of the world.
And I reminded that I am not perfect either, we are all in deep need of grace
and forgiveness.
And in my brokenness, and humility, and compassion,
isn’t it amazing how this happens? Here comes a word that I desperately need:
From Ezekiel: Oh mortal, you in your brokenness, with your broken bones and your broken heart, can these old crazy broken worn out dead bones live?
Speak to them, God says, in our reading: speak to them of my way of love and renewal and grace, and you’ll see, they will come to life. And, in the vision, bone attaches to bone, sinew attaches to tissue and life emerges, hope emerges, where before it was a valley of dead brittle valley of bones.
This brokenness, the beat downness that you feel, God says, do you think this could possibly be the end of the story? No. No. It is one more chance to experience resurrection, renewal, commitment.
Death, where is your victory, death where is your sting? No, we are in the realm of grace here, we are in God’s kingdom and one thing we know about God’s kingdom is that it is precisely in the broken places that the light comes through.
Now, I want to pause here, and remind you of how this is working in our reading.
Ezekiel has this vision. We heard the vision earlier in the service. It is a powerful image of death, a whole valley of bones.
God appears to breathe a new life into this scene. But God doesn’t say: well, gather up all the souls, gather up all the spirits of these bones. I will renew their souls. Their souls will be restored.
No, it is flesh, flesh and bone and tissue that God finds worth renewing.
Often, we hear about this dichotomy, this battle between the spirit and the flesh.
Not here, if spirit is going to be engaged, spirit needs flesh.
I can hear the Psalmist: I discovered that I could experience the love of God in the land of the living. I can hear those powerful words of the lord’s prayer: our father who art in heaven hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, they will be done, ON EARTH, as it is in heaven. On earth. This is crucially important to the message of the psalmist and jesus: that it is on earth that we can experience the kingdom of god, it is in our crazy old bones that we can find grace and love and renewal and new life. these bones, right now.
So, just what I need this word of renewal, of strength, it comes in the form of this crazy vision from Ezekiel.
In the hospital where I work, I saw on a wall, taped up in a room only visited by a few folks, written on old typewriter ink: Those who call upon the lord will renew their strength.
Where is your broken place today? Is your heart heavy? Is your mind overtaxed? Are you about to succumb to despair or cynicism? Has someone violated your trust, as my friend and colleague violated so many who trusted him, who loved him?
What is your address in the well traveled city known as the valley of dead bones? Have you taken up residence there? Have you settled in?
Our reading reminds us today that this is not the end of the story?
You too can be a witness to God’s glorious ability to bring life where there was no life, like Mary and Martha and all of those who loved Jesus and Lazarus.
This reading from John is particularly interesting.
We are right smack dab in the middle of the book of John. There are ten books before this chapter where Lazarus is raised and there are ten books following.
Up until now, Jesus has been especially concerned with the public. He has been doing many public things to help illustrate who he is and what he is about. The words that you will read a lot in the first ten chapters of John are Light and Life.
Light and Life are terrific images and they fit perfectly what he is trying to do, to reform and renew and challenge those who are withering away, drying up, dying at the hands of the roman empire and those in his own jewish community who are just kind of going through the motions.
In particularly difficult times, light and life are the messages about the kingdom of god that will preach.
It is all coming to a head here in the 11th chapter, in the raising of Lazarus. We are at the central point of the book of John and it is this central moment when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead that his public ministry basically takes a back seat. Once he has done this, he is going to turn his attention almost fully to the disciples. And now, once his attention in on the disciples, now we are going to hear less about light and life and the word that comes up again and again: Love.
I asked my wife, Marta, who was supposed to be preaching today at Broadmoor Community Church but she’s not today because of the fire. I said, why is he focused on disciples and why is the message love? And she said to me: he’s delegating. He’s handing them the keys to the car, the keys to the kingdom.
As so he begins to see that his life is going to come to an end, he wants to empower and delegate, empower and delegate.
Now, as his disciples in this time, in this place, we are empwoered to find the dead parts of ourselves and with God’s help, bring them back to life.
Lazarus name, after all, means God helps.
(a prayer from the uu christian fellowship)
Merciful God, when we see the brokenness and violence of our world, it is tempting to point a finger of blame at others. Yet we know that we are not blameless: we also contribute to the brokenness and pain of our world.
In your mercy, hear our prayer of confession.
When we harbour anger and impatience in our own hearts…
…forgive us, O God.
When we allow grievances and jealousies to destroy our relationships with others…
…forgive us, O God.
When we fail to act with love toward one another, even those within our own church community…
…forgive us, O God.
When we harbour hidden prejudices against those who are different from us…
…forgive us, O God.
When we hesitate to act or speak out against violence and injustice…
…forgive us, O God.
When we hold tight to what we have, even though so many in our world do not have enough…
…forgive us, O God.
You have called us to be peacemakers, to continue the reconciling ministry of Jesus Christ. Remove from us all those things which would prevent us from being true agents of reconciliation in our broken world.
Through our lives, and by our prayers,may your kingdom come,and your will be done,on earth, as it is in heaven. Amen.
Ezekiel 37:1–14
37:1 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.
37:2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.
37:3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.”
37:4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
37:5 Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
37:6 I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
37:7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
37:8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.
37:9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
37:10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
37:11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’
37:12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
37:13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people.
37:14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD.
John 11:1–45
11:1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
11:2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.
11:3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
11:4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
11:5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,
11:6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
11:7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”
11:8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?”
11:9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.
11:10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.”
11:11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”
11:12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.”
11:13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
11:14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.
11:15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
11:16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
11:17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
11:18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away,
11:19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
11:20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.
11:21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
11:22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”
11:23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
11:24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
11:26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
11:27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
11:28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
11:29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
11:30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
11:31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
11:32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
11:34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”
11:35 Jesus began to weep.
11:36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
11:37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
11:38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
11:40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
11:41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me.
11:42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
11:43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
11:44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
