Home: Worship: Samuel: Mar. 13


March 13, 2005 | Fifth Sunday in Lent
Liturgical color: Violet

Lectionary citations

Ezekiel 37:1-14 with Psalm 130 AND
Romans 8:6-11 AND
John 11:1-45

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Focus Scripture:
John 11:1-45

Weekly Theme:
Surprised by Life

Focus Statement:
“Unbind him, and let him go.”

Questions:

We are so near to Jerusalem. To Jerusalem, and Calvary, and the cross. In fact, the text says we are “two miles away,” in this place of death and mourning, at the grave and with those who gather nearby, troubled in spirit. And we are, in church time, only two weeks away from The Empty Tomb. How fitting, then – and how challenging – to read, on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, this text of the raising of Lazarus, set firmly within, even entangled with, the controversy and plots that swirl around Jesus. There are those who see in the words and the works of Jesus – even in the healings – a blasphemy that deserves death. But Jesus claims to be doing the works of “the Father,” so even the worries and warnings of his disciples do not keep him from making his way not only to Lazarus’ tomb, but to his own place of suffering, death, and, eventually, resurrection.

But first, there is his own grief over the death of his friend. In this story, there is so much of the human experience: receiving word of a loved one’s illness and need; decision-making, timing, and complications, even risks and dangers to be considered; frustrations, questioning, and lack of understanding on the part of those closest to us; grief and mourning by loved ones, and the community encircling them, perhaps not all with the purest of intentions; hope, and the profession of faith and “what might have been”; limited understanding of what we ourselves are saying, of the potential of what we are saying; courage, anger, and weeping; familiar, powerful echoes of other moments in the story we share: “Where have you laid him?” and “Come and see”; mixed motives and responses, for some saw how much Jesus loved his friend while others, in the face of physical evidence (the tomb), cynically questioned his power and its political effects; the trust of Mary and Martha, even in the face of physical reality (the stench); and finally, most powerfully, release, glory, and Jesus’ own gratitude to God.

We do not hear a word from Lazarus or know of his response to his extraordinary experience. But we are not surprised by the response of the “ordinary” people who witnessed the extraordinary that day: again, a range of reactions, from faith and following to fear and fretting. If we read just beyond today’s passage, we find the report of those who went to the religious authorities and speculated on the dangers of having such a powerful man “loose” in the midst of the people, who turned to him in hope. The raising of Lazarus is not just a nice little story of friendship or a random and amazing miracle; it is set in the context of the journey to the cross (and the empty tomb). This great work of raising Lazarus from the dead sets things in motion in the hearts and minds of those who feared Jesus, and these things led to his own death. There is a reason we read it today.

We hear the words of Jesus, “Unbind him, and let him go.” How many of us have known the feel of those strips of cloth, the grave’s apparel, the shroud that wraps us up in a leaden existence this side of physical death and makes us long for release, for the light of day and the feel of fresh air of freedom in our lungs? What are the “strips of cloth” that bind us, the addictions and fears, and the feelings of hopelessness and loss? What is the grief, the anxiety, the financial deprivation, the hatred, the resentment, or the lack of faith that has put us in our own tomb of despair? A long time ago, in a far-off land, Jesus stood outside that tomb and called out, “Lazarus, come out!” God is still speaking to us today, calling us out from our tombs of despair, denial, and death to new life, right now, right here. What are those tombs for you and your congregation? In what ways do you participate in what God is doing, today, in your midst, when God brings new life in the face of death? How are you “unbinding” and “letting go” those who have been put into such places of death? Are some in your congregation standing around and watching, forming their judgments and deciding what they’ll believe and how much they’ll believe it, or are they moving to the center of what is happening, pulling back the “stuff” of death, the things that surround death, and releasing the new life that God has granted, the new life that lies just beneath the surface of what appears bleak and beyond hope? Are there some among us who are calculating the costs and the possible unpleasantness of giving ourselves over to the power of God, even to healing and new life?

Martha’s great profession of faith – from a woman in the Gospel of John, certainly worth noting – is also an interesting moment in this beautiful and complex story. How do we move from just saying what we believe to giving our selves and our lives over to transformation and the new life that God brings? How often, in fact, we do say we believe but live as if we do not? Where does our religious imagination fail us, and we “stop dead,” refuse to move to places of new life and possibility? What does the world tell us about “real life” and how does that contrast with a gospel vision of being truly alive? How is God still speaking words of new life today, to your congregation? What do we think we need to do in order to “achieve” or “accomplish” new life, as if it were our doing, and not God’s?

“Jesus began to weep.” More often than not, we fail to experience Jesus’ humanity. These words strongly suggest that he knew anger, and grief, and deep spiritual pain, just as we do. He was moved to compassion and sadness even as he knew that all this had happened for the glory of God. Can we imagine the tears of Jesus, and do they transform our understanding, too? What is God speaking to us today, in the tears of Jesus?

How and when have we been Lazarus in this story? Perhaps just as important: how and when have we been part of the crowd, which moves around in the background, trying to figure out what’s going on, drawing conclusions, not wanting to miss anything, helping to release the dead man…and then going back to our lives. Are we transformed, believing, experiencing new life – or critical, suspicious, cynical?

The lectionary texts also include the familiar “dry bones” passage from the prophet Ezekiel, a powerful vision of communal hope in the face of utter despair and death. God delivers a message to the people through the prophet about just how impressively the Spirit animates our barren desolation and transforms apparent nothingness into vigor and vitality. Who are you “as a people”? When have you experienced setbacks, alienation, dislocation, and apparent scarcity to such a degree that you thought there was no hope? Have you ever witnessed such a scene that reminds you of the rattling of dry bones joining together, the sinews and flesh forming upon them, and the breath of the Spirit bringing movement and energy? Throughout history, there have been peoples and communities who have known such suffering and loss that they must have feared their own obliteration, and yet…and yet…walls come down, laws are carved not for oppression but to end it, elections are held and results can be trusted, and there is hope and new life once again. We know it can happen. There are churches that have been on the brink of closing that are restored to new vitality, neighborhoods painstakingly rebuilt and brought back to new life, relationships formed across fallen barriers and new possibilities brought into being.

What are your church’s memories or present experiences of barren existence, and how are you open to the movement, the breath of the Spirit, to bring this new life again? What has “new life” looked like to your congregation? In what ways do you hear God still speaking to you and your church today, as God spoke to the prophet on that seemingly hopeless plain so long ago? What is the call that you hear from this still-speaking God? What hospitality, what justice, what witness is the still-speaking God calling you to embody, in your bones, your flesh, your sinews, today, in your own setting of the church?

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Ezekiel 37:1-14

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. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 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.”

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. 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. 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.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

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.’ 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. 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 will act, says the LORD.”

and

Psalm 130

Refrain:
My soul waits for God.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O God.

O God, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of
my supplications!

If you, O God, should mark
iniquities, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with you, so
that you may be revered.

I wait for God, my soul waits, and
in God's word I hope;

my soul waits for God more than those
who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the
morning.

O Israel, hope in God!
For with God there is steadfast love.

With God is great power to redeem;
It is God who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.

and

Romans 8:6-11

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through£ his Spirit that dwells in you.

and

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 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.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 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. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

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.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 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. 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.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 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.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 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.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 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.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

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Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 13, 2005
John 11:1-45

AMISTAD SUNDAY

Each year, on this Sunday, we remember the heroic Africans who seized the slave ship Amistad, and the Connecticut Congregationalists who responded to the mutineers’ arrest by organizing in their defense. Altogether, what we celebrate today is a story so astonishing that it seems almost miraculous.

Among the extraordinary aspects of the Amistad affair, perhaps none is more remarkable than the identity of the man who pled the case of the captive Mendis before the U.S. Supreme Court, and won their freedom.

John Quincy Adams had served as President of the United States and Secretary of State. He was renowned as a diplomat and statesman--but not as a crusader for human rights. In an age when much of the fervor for the abolition of slavery was evangelical, Adams was sober, even Puritanical, in his temperament. It was his custom, even in the White House, to arise each morning at five or six o’clock and walk several miles until sunrise. Back at the executive mansion, he would read three chapters of the Bible with commentaries.

Those who know only that John Quincy Adams was the son of the second President, one of the “Founding Fathers” who signed the Declaration of Independence, may think of him as a man of privilege who experienced nothing but success and esteem. But John Quincy Adams suffered disappointment and defeat in public life, and he and his wife Louisa twice endured tragedy when two of their three grown sons died, one a suicide and the other from alcoholism.

Asked his rules for surviving the failures and tragedies of life, Adams later replied that they were three: regularity, regularity, regularity. The regular activity of body and mind guided by self-discipline and Christian prayer, he declared, helped him overcome depression and frustration, the unavoidable and inevitable components of life.

Not so bad a philosophy of life.

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In ecumenical liturgical practice, there are normally three readings and one psalm at each Sunday service, in this order:

First Reading: Hebrew Scripture
Response: Psalm (or Canticle) from the Bible
Second Reading: Epistle (or Acts or Revelation)
Third Reading: Gospel

The first two lessons are normally read by laypeople, the Gospel by a Minister of the Word or a layperson. In Roman Catholic, Anglican and liturgical Protestant churches, it is uncommon for an ordained minister to read all of the lessons.

The psalm is not a reading but a congregational response following the lesson from Hebrew Scripture: it is normally sung with a refrain or recited by the congregation as poetry. Occasionally, a canticle is appointed in place of a psalm; it is sung or recited in the same way. The New Century Hymnal provides a complete liturgical psalter with refrains and music.

A hymn may be sung as an introduction to the proclamation of the Gospel.

During Ordinary Time (seasons after Epiphany and Pentecost) two alternative sets of OT readings with responsorial psalms are provided. The first option is a semi-continuous reading through a book of Hebrew Scripture; the second is thematically related to the other readings.

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The Revised Common Lectionary is © Consultation on Common Texts. Texts are from the New Revised Standard Version of Holy Scripture, © 1989 by The Division of Christian Education, National Council of Churches. The psalm antiphon is from The New Century Hymnal, © 1995, The Pilgrim Press. Used with permission. Music for the psalm and antiphon are available in The New Century Hymnal, plus a complete index of hymns appropriate for each Sunday's lectionary readings. To purchase the Hymnal, call 1-800-325-7061.