Reviving the Bones

Sermon for March 9, 2008
Hyde Park United Church

Ez. 37:1-14, Ps. 130, Rm 8:6-11, Jn 11:1-45

[Introduction to a new congregation]
Good morning everyone,

You may be wondering, who is this new student we’ve ended up with? Where did she come from? What’s she going to be like? And how long is she here?

Well, my name is Le Anne, I’m turning 30 next week, I study at Chicago Theological Seminary, this is my fourth year in Hyde Park and on the South Side of Chicago. Places in the path to here included growing up in Iowa, heading to Israel and Palestine and Iraq; Syria and Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan, and a few places in Central America. You could say I saw a few wars in those years. I came back to start seminary and work in the church; some days, as you might know that feels like a “war zone” too. But not always J In as much as I am able, I try to work for peace. Sometimes peace work will put a person in jail; I will be spending some time there in a few weeks for civil disobedience at the U.S. Army School of the Americas this past fall. Then I’ll be back again. That’s me. If I haven’t met you yet, I look forward to meeting with you in the weeks to come.

--

Last week in the lectionary, we heard the words of the 23rd Psalm,
‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.’

And this week, here is that valley.

There is death in this valley, more than a shadow; here these people lie not just dead but slain.

Slain, like so many schoolchildren in Chicago and school campuses in our nation. You’ve seen the news and you know what I’m talking about. Slain, like Baghdad. Slain, like Rwanda.

Slain, like El Mozote, where SOA graduates slaughtered 900 people in one village, only one woman to survive….a woman who until her death this year, remembered at the SOA vigils ‘that was my daughter, that was my neighbor,’ as we read their names and called, "Presente! We remember'" them, these slain, like all the places and all the ones we hold with pain in our hearts.

Now let’s think about the claim, ‘I will fear no Evil, for you are with me.’ Huh? Is this for real?

This week in the Psalm [130], we hear what sounds like a more realistic response to the violence which we see and which we know: “Out of the depths I cry to you, o Lord, hear my voice!”

Skeptics would say that those bones were abandoned. They’re dead! What good does it do them to hope? What a silly story! Who comes back to life?

Who indeed. As Christians we wonder, who indeed comes back to life? In whom do we place our hope, even in the face of so much pain and death?

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I had not before in my life until this week thought of Ezekiel as a Resurrection story. And it is, it is. Here is death, but not just death; here also is the framework upon which the Holy Spirit is about to move. In this valley, and in Lazarus’ tomb, and only a few weeks later in our Savior’s tomb. We have these stories, and they comprise a history of a God who does not let death stand in God’s way.

And here comes Ezekiel, brought here to this lonely place by the Lord. Maybe they’re even people Ezekiel once knew, and misses, and mourns, and remembers. Maybe he is struck by despair. There were so very many in the valley. And they were so very dry.

Can these bones live?

Can’t you just hear him saying, crying, I don’t know Lord, only you know?”

--

How many times have you found yourself saying, 'I don't know, Lord?" Or even, “my bones are dried up?” How many times have you been too tired to go on? Whether it’s falling down into the chair at the end of too many too-long days of work, or waiting at the bedside of a loved one whose life barely lingers, or because you’ve been hurt one too many times. Maybe it's this winter that just won’t quit and your health hasn’t gotten any better, or you still can’t seem to get a job and you don’t know how you’ll make it. Maybe you want to say,

"Our hope is lost, we are cut off completely!"

I know that I have been to that dark place, many times, and it is lonely. It is a deep valley, and the shadows are heavy, and like the Psalmist, my soul cannot wait any longer for a sign of comfort that troubles will not last forever.

I hope that you have not been to that dark place, but if you have, or when you are, remember this: When you want to lie down in your grave and not get up, when even your friends are ready to let you stay in that grave because you stink like Lazarus, you're so far gone, this is where God comes to us, commands the stones to be rolled away, and calls us out:

"Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, 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 I will act,” says the Lord.

--

All this, and yet Mary and Martha grieved at least four days for their brother Lazarus.

And they had hard questions for the Lord. The families of these who lay slain, of course they grieved, and of course they had hard questions for God. None of this means we won’t have grief, or hard questions, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. It only means that grief and death will not win. If God has to go to ends of the earth, or even to the grave , to restore any one of these children that She loves so much, God will.

And in those moments, have you known them? There comes an inexplicable new strength in our bones, new breath to revive our souls, in those moments we are finally un-bound and let go, on that day we are reunited with those whom we have loved. Death and grief will not win. God has not yet quit.

May this hope rest firmly in you and with you, and may it give you strength to live your days and respond to God's calling to be prophetic in your lives. May it be with all of us. Amen.