Prophesy to the Bones

Lent 5-A
March 9, 2008
St. Paul’s

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

The people were in trouble, big trouble.

The lived in exile, in Babylon, far from home, far from traditions, far from their past, far from all the landmarks of what made them a people – and even far from the God who called them “my people.” The powers of this empire had won, their gods had won, their armies had won, this empire of Babylon. The people who were once the people of Israel, with a temple in Jerusalem, a proud heritage, a powerful God, mighty to save, were there, stuck in this foreign place, crying to God from the depths of their soul – unsure if there even was a God anymore who would listen.

Before this passage from Ezekiel is a story of hope and resurrection, it is a story of despair. It is the story of the valley of dry bones, the story of the desert, of desolation. The empire – the powers of the human worst – had won; what more could the people formerly known as Israel do?

You know that place, we all know that place. That deserted, desert place, where we do not expect hope to come, that place we will put up with until we die.

For the people of Israel, though, there is another dimension to this place of exile. Their prophets, like Ezekiel, of today’s reading, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and Amos and Hosea, have told the people that they have had a hand in this exile. The people of Israel have strayed from what God wants – and what God wants is not just attention, or worship, or obeisance. What God wants is what the people of Israel forgot: justice. I’m not making this up just because we have a soup kitchen in the basement – but what God wanted from the people of Israel that they forgot was justice: care for the poor, compassion for the orphan, food for the hungry, hospitality to the stranger, homes for the widows. God’s world was not to be one where some lived well and some languished. The people of Israel had gotten the equation out of whack, prophets like Ezekiel reminded them. Too many rich people, too many poor ones. Prophets like Ezekiel interpreted the political events of the time – the Babylonian empire invading Israel and carrying away the captives – as God’s judgment on his disobedient people. So imagine this: sent into the desert of exile, by one’s own God.

Ezekiel knows this. These people are mere bones, dried up, scattered, with no memory of what it meant to have flesh, no memory of what it meant to rise and walk as free people.

So imagine Ezekiel’s surprise to get the word from God: Mortal! Can these bones live? Ezekiel gives the only answer he knows: no.

And then God turns the whole thing around: get these bones up, breathe breath into them, bring them new life.

That is what a prophet does: brings the hope of God into a place that is desolate and bone-ridden and dried up, and says, you may not see anything here right now, but you will. God is in this place. God will do the impossible. What Ezekiel breathed into those dry bones was imagination – those bones could not have imagined anything but death, and then they were imagining what it would be like to be back in Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple, once again to be the people of God, the people of justice. They could imagine what it was like to be restored not only to life but to God’s favor.

That’s what the prophet does: offer a vision of hope where there is none. Where there is none. Nothing. Nada. Then God comes along and says, prophesy to the bones. Prophesy to the breath. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.

Lazarus is dead. His sisters plead with Jesus, when he finally appears: Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died.

For Jesus, Lazarus’ death is deeply disturbing, yes, but it is also something else. It is an opportunity for the glory of God to shine – it is an opportunity to show the whole world that God is doing a new thing – that God is still saying to those hopeless, hapless bones to get up and walk. You can hear Martha saying, yes, Lord, I have that faith. I know that Lazarus will rise in the resurrection on the last day.

WILL rise. The future. The last day.

Jesus changes the tense. That resurrection is here, and now, Jesus says. I AM the resurrection. Here. Now. Among you. These bones walk. If Lazarus can come back from exile, so can you. Your time in the desert is over. Your four days in the tomb are done. Lazarus, come out.

Of course, there are lot of powerful people who want Lazarus to stay dead. They want their slaves to stay in captivity. They want the poor to stay poor. The hungry should never have enough. There are people who will never deserve a decent home, there are children never entitled to a good education. It’s OK if the wells dry up for some people, if glaucoma robs others of their sight, if somebody’s house gets cold because they cannot afford $4 a gallon heating oil. There are a lot of people who will be a lot better off if Lazarus would just stay dead.

In the Gospel of John, this raising of Lazarus from the dead is the last straw. The powers that be begin to gather their forces for the final showdown with Jesus, the entrapment, the trial on trumped-up charges, the death-march to the cross, to the hill-top of dry bones. Over the next few weeks we’ll walk that way with Jesus, fearing the worst and seeing it come true. We’ll do it with these words echoing in our ears: I am the resurrection and I am the life. When we’ve retreated to our own tombs, to our own desert places of all fear and no hope, we’ll hear Jesus again: Lazarus, come out. Unbind him, and let him go.