Lent 5, Year A, March 29, 2020 (full size gallery)
Sunday March 29 was our first online church at 10am, one hour before that of the National Cathedral. We had 24 people online through Zoom.
People could converse with one another before the service and there was a period of comments/questions about the sermon. Thus some real benefits from this platform!
Catherine also used the screen sharing feature to show photos of St. Peter’s in the spring and display the lectionary readings for the readers.
We conducted our mid-week ecumenical Bible study earlier in the week. Some documents used on Sunday
Over the last month in the Gospel readings, we have met a group of characters that brings out Jesus mission from Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind and now Lazarus. Here are this week’s readings.
Lazarus has been memorialized through art history from at least from the 14th century. Previously published are 8 Takeaways from the Lazarus story.
Jesus is the life who raises the dead. John places this miracle in a sequence of mighty works that aggravated the Sanhedrin to order Jesus’ killing. Raymond Brown writes in The Gospel and Epistles of John, “The net effect is the supreme irony that it was above all Jesus’ gift of life that immediately led people to put him to death.”
In his book Mystical Christianity, John Sanford points out more parallels. Lazarus was buried in a cave, the place of sacred events in the ancient world. Christian tradition holds that Jesus was born in a cave. Thus, a return to the cave at death symbolizes a return to God who gives life.
From Rev. Canon Ousley -“Stewardship seeks to give life in a world of dry bones. Our readings this week urge choosing that which gives life over life-taking choices void of the stewardship of life. Choosing to breath in the Holy Spirit allowing the Spirit to fills us with the Breath of Life and to exhale the Spirit into the world through our words and work and sharing of our selves and our resources gives live to us and to others around us.
The Old Testament reading from Ezekiel, the dry bones passage illustrates the transformation of life. The Lord will bring them out of the grave of Babylon to their home in Israel and put the Spirit in them.
From Rev. Canon Ousley -“God speaks to Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones posing the question, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekiel responds to the question faithfully making room for the Spirit of God to act in the world. And God chooses Ezekiel to be the agent to bring life into the dry bones through speaking God’s life-giving Spirit into them. Ezekiel offers himself to be God’s agent in this life-giving work in the world. God chooses us for this work, too. People all around us are like these “very dry” bones going through the valley of their days lifeless
This resurrection reality is true not only for Lazarus and for Jesus, but for us. God promises us in the words of Ezekiel that our graves will not stay shut. The letter to Romans assures us that God who raised Christ will also bring our mortal bodies to life. Today we celebrated new life for two children who came to be baptized. Their new life is entering the congregation and the kingdom; our work is to support them through their lives as they do so.
The passage illustrates that Jesus enters the life of those around him. Although they criticize him for not arriving earlier. He responds to both women with what they most need: words for Martha, tears for Mary. He does not avoid tragedy with denial or mindless optimism. He rejects easy detours because he knows that the only way out is through. He trusts that God who seems to take life away will give it back, restored.
From Canon Ousley – “Our Gospel lesson provides a refrain to God’s question of Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Jesus’ patience and his resistance to the tyranny of the urgent by being attentive in his present situation sets up an opportunity for him to call others into God’s life-giving agents through their witness of the razing of Lazarus. Jesus’ interchange with his disciples before the depart for Bethany reflects God’s question to Ezekiel. Likewise, Jesus’ response to Martha does the same. In both cases, Jesus essentially is asking them a faith question, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And in both cases his disciples and friends follow him and avail themselves to the Spirit of God, even when all cultural sensibilities tell them this smells of death. Jesus calls them into life-giving agency, first commanding them to remove the stone from Lazarus’ tomb. Then after Jesus calls out to Lazarus in his grave breathing life into him, Jesus further chooses his disciples to be stewards of life telling them, “Unbind him, and let him go!”
“Martha, Mary and his disciples could has chosen to be bound by their cultural reasoning leaving Jesus to move the stone on his own, which would have been at the very least less effective in their spiritual development, if not futile. But they chose to avail themselves to the Spirit and to be stewards of life in the world by assisting Jesus in this resurrection-of-life work. Likewise, God has chosen us through our baptisms to be Christ’s agents giving life to the world through our words and work and stewarding of ourselves and our resources to give life to others in daily lives.
“We all stand in a world that is a valley full of dry bones. God is asking us if we believe that Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life by asking us, “Mortal, can these bones live?” How will you choose to answer faithfully and be God’s agent as a life-giving steward, both for your bones and the dry bones of the world? “Unbind him, and let him go.”