Lent 5A

(Links are to the passages on oremus, NRSV)
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:1-11
John 11:1-45

I’d like you to picture the scene with me, as if from a movie, but not a specific one: the young couple who have finally fallen in love are walking down a path under trees. The camera pans up through one green budding tree to the sky, and we see a formation of geese. The camera pans down and the leaves have changed and are falling. We follow one leaf on its downward journey, it lands on a snowman and we see the couple, older now, perhaps with children playing in the snow. It’s the classic was for movies to show passage of time: show change of seasons. Even if the time passing is much greater than just a few months of seasonal change.

There are other things besides weather and trees in our lives which signify change of seasons, the passage of time, even if we don't consciously register them: Candy moves from red and green wrapping, to red and pink, to pink and yellow; snow shovels and winter boots are traded for gardening tools and sandals; beach balls take up store fronts, then school supplies.

In the church, we have other signs: paraments change from green to blue to white to green to purple to white to red; our hymns focus differently depending on what season we are in. All these are signs of the passage of time, the fact that our lives are not stagnant pools of monotony.

In our readings today, we have examples of passage of time as well, but in more literary ways. In Ezekiel, there are dry bones. I picture the stereotypical desert scene: tumbleweeds, hot, dry wind, and the sun-bleached, dry bones, scattered across the valley. Dry bones are not freshly dead bones. In John, the passage of time is four days. Lazarus is not just “mostly dead,” but “all dead.” The crowd is even worry about the smell. He is, to quote, “really, most sincerely dead.”

But in both these stories, for all the passage of time leading to the bleakness and hopelessness of dry bones and a man dead for four days, hope abounds.

In the valley of dry bones, of long-lasting death, Ezekiel is brought. Ezekiel is brought here and told to prophesy. To prophesy, in the land of death, to prophesy the living God.
And there begins a rattling. And bone comes to bone and sinews, ligaments, tendons, and skin appear. And he is told to prophesy again, and breath comes into death and life blooms.

Then we hear again, of a man who has died, and the grief of friends and family, and though even Jesus weeps, there is hope here as well. Approaching the tomb, Jesus calls for the stone to be removed, and calls Lazarus to come out. And he comes out, and goes on his way.

There is more than just physical life and death at stake in these readings.
Ezekiel lived during the time of exile. The whole people of Israel, his nation, had been swept apart, taken from their homelands, taken from their communities, and scattered, like so many dry bones. The house of Israel is not physically dead, but their connections to each other, their sinews, have fallen off so long ago they are like dry bones, brittle, weak, dead.

We see this in our world today, too. In Libya, in Syria, in Egypt: people being wracked by the forces of life which tear them from each other, which put neighbors fighting against each other. On less international scales, we see it here: governments who are supposed to be working together becoming so divided that senators hide out in other states to avoid voting, or we see division so great that shutdown of the government is only avoided by moments. In our schools, in our workplaces, with our friends, our families, and ourselves, we are dry bones. We may not be in physical exile, but we separate ourselves from God, each other, and our own hearts.
And we do this to ourselves. As we confess in one form or another at the beginning of service each week, we “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” We human mortals, who age and will all eventually die, are not able to do any thing else. We cannot come out of the valley or out of the tomb ourselves.

But again, there is hope.

Because there is one who can and does bring us out. In a few moments we will encounter this one in the meal at the table: the Table where our bones are fed and watered, where we are joined as one body with all the other dry bones into the body of him who loves us even as we sin. At this Table, all are welcome, all are called out of the valley into relationship and life with Christ. We are not called because we deserve it, because we don’t. And none are turned away: there is nothing that you can do to be turned away. Here at this table we are one again, one whole body, ligaments, sinews, and all, in Christ.

We are human people. Time passes, we age, we make mistakes, we learn, or do not learn from those mistakes. Hey, we don't just make mistakes; we flat out make the exact wrong choices. Doesn't matter what the season, doesn't matter if it's summer or spring, or Lent, we mess up. We're human, there's no denying it. Doing won’t make it better. Praying won’t make it better. Going to church, giving up sweets for Lent, voting a certain way, acting a certain way… won’t make it better. We were told on Ash Wednesday at the start of this season that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We are dry bones.

And yet, we have the certainty that Christ grieves over our dead bodies, these merely bodies we have, which lead us into sin so plainly, these bodies which die. But Christ died for those bodies, for our sinful selves, and it is not anything that we do or do not do that raises us, but Christ's voice calling to us to “come out!” of our valleys and tombs. As Paul said in our reading from Romans, “though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life… he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” No strings attached. Amen