March 9, 2008
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Pastor Anita C. Hill
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

Are We Called to Resurrect?

A bizarre thing happened on February 13.

Who remembers the name Raleane Kupferschmidt? She’s the woman from Lake Elmo whose family had said their final goodbyes and was planning her funeral, when she mysteriously awoke. The family had been told days before that she wouldn’t survive the brain hemorrhage she had experienced. Her daughter said, “There’s no medical explanation. It’s a miracle.” It was front-page news.

And who has not been fascinated with the work of forensic pathologists depicted in many television shows these days? They are the ones who are able to look at dried up bones and tell us about the lives and deaths of the people those bones once held upright. In our Western world, they are prophets. Wouldn’t they have a field day with the valley of dry bones?

Talk about a bizarre story. God asks Ezekiel: “Can these bones live?” And with God’s coaching, Ezekiel prophesies to the bones and they are pulled together from chaos into skeletons. Then the bones are covered with sinew, muscle, and flesh before the breath of life is returned to them. There is no logical explanation, but in this way the whole community of Israel was raised up to life again from being dried out and hopeless in exile. It’s a miracle.

The bizarre has a way of jolting us out of our complacency and bringing liveliness. Chalking up strange occurrences as miracles is often our way of dealing with the mysterious and the holy.

Ezekiel was a bizarre character. He is lively, strange, and puzzling. Most people have heard of the Valley of the dry bones, if nothing else, from the words of a spiritual “Dem Bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.” Never mind that the story never uses the imagery of “the thigh bone connected to the hip bone.”

In his book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,” Marcus Borg says:

Ezekiel was the star of prophetic street theater. Shortly before the Babylonian conquest and destruction of Jerusalem, he is told by God to make a model of Jerusalem surrounded by a siege wall, camps, and battering rams. In a public place, he is to lie on his left side for 390 days, then on his right side for 40 days, to symbolize the number of years that Israel and Judah are to spend in exile. During all this time, he is to eat starvation rations such as would be available in a city under prolonged siege, and he is to bake his bread using human dung as fuel. All of this would symbolize what was soon to happen to Jerusalem.

How bizarre is that? He’s lying on his side in a public square for more than a year? People probably thought he was a few olives short of a full plate. Read through Ezekiel in the Bible. Nearly every chapter includes some strange antics from the old prophet.

It’s a bit of an aside from where I’m headed this morning, but Borg’s comments about the lives of the prophets caught my attention and are worth sharing. Borg is “struck by the prophets' passion for social justice, their anti-establishment message, and their warnings of the consequences facing a society that did not take peace and justice seriously. Their combination of prophetic critique and street theater was perfect for the times. Especially to idealistic college students in the 1960s, the prophets seemed like powerful allies in the movements against racism, poverty, and the Vietnam War.”

Perhaps reading the Biblical prophets is a “must” in times like these when our country remains at war for years. Prophetic action seems called for in our own situation. Watch for lively street theater and strong voices as our current political drama unfolds in conventions.

The story of Lazarus being raised from the dead may be so familiar as to have lost its bizarre edge for us, but it is a miraculous tale, too. To review this morning’s very long reading from John 11:1-45, Jesus’ dear friend Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, has died. There is a sense of urgency with the message that Lazarus is seriously ill. Yet Jesus waits two days before going to Bethany. The sisters are sad and weeping. Jesus does not dismiss their grief. He weeps alongside those who have suffered a death even as he declares that he is the resurrection and the life.

Martha provides comic relief in speaking of the smell that must be in the tomb after four days. I think of what people sometimes say when they fear someone coming out of the closet: “It will cause a big stink!” Isn’t that the way it is when prophetic action happens? Someone always wants it to stop.

Jesus returns life to the dead. That’s good news for us. But there is more. As Jesus calls Lazarus out of the tomb, he assigns the community roles in giving life. First, they are to remove they are to remove the stone at the entrance. Then they are to unbind Lazarus and set him free. Our community is called to unbind and set people free. We’ve been doing just that for some time now and it has enlivened our church.

The story of Lazarus being raised from the dead is about the power of God, and the promise of new life. It’s about God’s power to transform our lives. Can we see what is beyond what is in our control? Can we get past the anger we feel toward God for seeming to be absent? This story reminds us that Jesus was in control of an uncontrollable situation. We claim from this story the power of God in Christ Jesus to call us out of where we are buried in our fears, our pain, grief, worries, or life’s pressures.

In some ways, our religion is based on many bizarre, or as we prefer it, miraculous events. Does it strike you as strange to have a resurrection story just two weeks before the main event of Easter, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. I think it is good to be reminded of the life God gives us not only into eternity, but in the here and now.

Just as Ezekiel called Israel out of the grave of exile into cultural life and liveliness, so Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. Through these stores, God invites us out of our denial and our beyond guilt, self-judgment and hatred. We are called to life and liveliness, which is to be called into authentic and passionate living as people of faith.

We are challenged to believe that it is never too late to allow our dreams and hopes to live again; to respond as Lazarus and to come forth and live. Do we disappoint God when we to not come out of our safe places in the face of death-dealing actions and attitudes of condemnation, discrimination, world hunger, global warming, and corporate greed? Who suffers when we wait for opportune times to respond? We cannot wait to assert the right of every human being and every nation to life and liveliness. The Creator is calling us out of valleys of despair and denial; out of closets and the safety of American soil.

The one died for many. Christ has made all the difference on earth and in heaven. It’s time we asked ourselves what grave clothes we are called to shed in order to live anew.

These stories tell us that the signs of God’s presence and power is precisely in the body coming back to life. God is calling us out of darkness and into light. God is calling us to roll away the stones of death and to unbind the things that keep humanity entombed.

It’s time for the whole community in Christ to assist in the resurrection. We are called to embrace life, not only for ourselves and our families, not only for our state and our country. What if you let yourself be led into the bizarre, the puzzling and strange, in response to God’s calling?

We look around us and everything about the circumstances may be overwhelming and death dealing. We are buried in our fears, in ourselves. But we remember the scriptures: Ezekiel’s prophesying brought forth life for people from dry bones. Lazarus, who was dead and gone, walked out of his tomb, was unbound and set free to live. God brings life when none can be expected, no matter how bizarre that seems. What are we called to resurrect?

Amen.