Lent V                                                      The Rev'd David C. Cobb

Ezekiel 37                                                 Solemn High Mass

John 11                                                     March 9, 2008

It has been a Lent of conversations.  In the desert he talks down the temptations that would corrupt him.  In the night, he talks with Nicodemus, a teacher, with so very much to learn.  At the well in mid-day; and off in a side aisle of the Temple , with the man whose eye's he opened.  And now with Martha and Mary, in their grief and in their halting steps towards faith.  He talked with them all.

He even talks to Lazarus, four days buried and sealed behind a stone.

    

So, he talks to dead people.

 

That is perhaps the extreme end of pointless effort.  Its hard enough to talk across language or cultures—notice how some people, if a situation calls on them to talk to someone who doesn't speak English—they'll talk louder—as if the other person is hard of hearing—or just obstinate.  Its hard enough to talk to someone who's mind is already made up—though that has never shortened debate at Diocesan Conventions.  Its hard enough to talk, when each of us is so caught in our minds and so likely to misunderstand each other. 

Poets work with words to set them in patterns and build images- hoping we can hear something.  Musicians take words and build with sounds, with layers of sounds and with rhythm a structure that can stand against our apathy .  Politicians will play with perspectives, trying to catch the imagination, trying to make use of fears. 

 

But to talk to the dead?

You just did it—you took up Jesus' voice and said, “Come out”; and then to people struck stone still in astonishment- “unbind him and let him go”. He talks to dead people.

 

Well, he might as well, that's about the only kind there really are.  Remember, just more than a month ago—on Ash Wednesday—we all walked down this long aisle and someone smudged a cross on our foreheads and said—“Remember that thou art dust and unto dust shalt thou return”.

 

This is a hard message—hard for the one in strength of youth and with a future that beckons towards service, delights, and new horizons.  This is a hard message for one in middle age, beginning to see friends and contemporaries die.  “I know, you don't actually have to rub it into my forehead.”  And as years increase and strength declines—it seems even less a necessary warning.  And yet the Church repeats this action, year after year.   And at every requiem—these words—we are mortal formed of the earth and unto earth shall we return…”.  One of the things faith and church teach us—is who we are.  And as a college chaplain I loved always said—the death rate is pretty much 100%.

He talks to dead people—and that is hope for each one of us.

The prophet standing in the valley of dry bones—is standing in a place that is unclean and among things that would contaminate and make him unfit for religious duties.  Corpses and dried bones –things best shut away and forgotten.  The impulse to burry the dead is one of our most primitive impulses.  But we want to do more than bury the dead, we want them out of mind and thought.  We rush through a day, we grasp at everything that seems lively and fascinating, we convince ourselves that that valley has nothing to do with us; that it matters nothing, if God says, “Prophesy” in the midst of dry bones.  That's somewhere else, its not where we live.

If this life is only bounded by a sleep, dreamless and unbroken—that says one thing about our life—its purpose and how we should spend our days.  And it suggests there is no reason to prophesy to bones or speak to the dead. If beyond this life, in valleys choked with bones or in peaceful, well tended tombs—the dead hear the voice of God—then that says something else about how we live and what is worth our effort. 

If the one I disdain, if the one my cruelty burdens and my lack of charity starves—dies and is no more—judgment is far different that it would be if the “least of these” will stand for an eternity in the presence of God.  

I am the resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord.  He that believeth in me, thou he were dead, yet shall he live. 

Here Christianity makes its stand against anything that would reduce human life to the few short decades we spend here.  Here Christian faith argues against any political theory, any economic system, any theology that would make a single human being negligible.  This life, and each action we take, every interaction between us, and every moment when we turn towards- or away from God- leads to a life, stronger and of greater weight.  He talks to dead people—and in that God calls us into life in the first place—that voice holds us in life.  He talks to dead people—and in that voice- we will know ourselves—sinners, and too often the source of sorrow to each other—we will know ourselves—loved, and called to a better, holier and stronger life. 

He talks to dead people—today to Lazarus, soon to Pilate, to a penitent thief, then after the three days rest—to Mary Magdalene, to the two at table in Emmaus, he talks to us. 

Death does not shut us off from the God who gives life or from Jesus, in whom God has taken up our death as if it were his own.  Death does not shut us off from each other – as we face judgment, and as that voice that judges offers forgiveness and calls us to growth—from strength to strength in the life of perfect service as the prayer book says. 

He talks to dead people- and that means he talks to us.   May we hear, and may we learn to speak that gracious language, full of grace and truth.