New Life for Dry Bones –– 5th Sunday in Lent, Year A –– 2 April 2017

Jesus has power over death. Jesus restores Lazarus to life just as YHWH promises through Ezekiel’s prophecy that the exiled, despairing people of Israel will once again be renewed as a nation.

So it is with those who feel dead to themselves and others when the Spirit of God breathes life into their withered lives. Where there is no animating spirit, even as a person is “alive,” there is no joy or shared energy, no creative giving to the needs of family and friends.

We might see Paul’s letter to the Romans as a summons to see the images of movement from death to life revolving around how we focus attention and intention. Do we live with hopelessness because we do not have everything we want? Or do we fail to see what we have been given?

With credit to Quaker insights, Jennifer Copeland recommends Parker Palmer’s fine book, Let Your Life Speak (Jossey-Bass, 2000) because he asserts that when Way ends, “Way will open.”

To live with hope does not mean I always get my way. It means that the way I get becomes my way. The way that is given to me becomes my way. –– Jennifer Copeland

John 11:1-45

The center of the account is Jesus' exchange with Martha. Martha identifies Jesus with significant titles that were already introduced in this gospel (11:27). While her identification is the strongest Christological profession on the part of any disciple in John's gospel, Jesus' claims that he is the resurrection and that belief in him insures that one will never die (11:25–26) constitute the message of this text.

However, other points can be noted. It is possible that Jesus' delay in going to Bethany after first hearing of Lazarus' illness is a way to acknowledge that early Christian expectations of imminent Parousia were unfounded; the Lord determines the time of his coming and is in fact already and always present among his followers. However, it is also true that the author of the fourth gospel uses delays elsewhere to enhance meaning.

. . . At first Jesus states that Lazarus was asleep. This was the way early Christians spoke of death—as sleep—to express their anticipation of resurrection. When Jesus then states that Lazarus was dead, he also recognizes that Christian life is not devoid of real suffering and death. Just as her sister, Mary's first word to Jesus states that had he been present their brother would not have died (v 11:33). It is after Jesus sees Mary weeping that he also weeps. It is here that the human Jesus affirms that the death of loved ones is a painful human experience. Thus, the story unfolds to indicate a Jesus angry at the reality of death.

Jesus' call to Lazarus is illustrative of the call to eternal life he indicated to Mary, that those who recognize that he is resurrection will live even should they die. At the same time, Lazarus's emergence from the tomb also speaks of the transformation of sinners in light of faith in Christ. –– Regina Boisclair

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The prophet Ezekiel is witness to the dry bones coming alive which serves as an image for Ezekiel that his prophetic word to Israel must assure them that even what seems dead and gone through exile and desiccation can, yet, be restored.

. . . God's restoration is imaged as being raised out of the grave and reanimated by the Spirit. It is a word of assurance: the people will be given God's spirit, resettled in their land, and enabled to know that their God is indeed God. . . . For Christians this story from the history of Israel becomes a metaphor for baptism and a paradigm for Christian life. –– Regina Boisclair

Romans 8:6-11

Paul claims those in the flesh are concerned with things that effect death while those who live according to the Spirit are concerned with things that effect life and peace. Those of the flesh are hostile to God and fail to please God. The Spirit dwells within those “in Christ” since they submit to God's law and are alive and righteous. –– Regina Boisclair

Jennifer Copeland, a United Methodist ordained minister, served for 16 years as chaplain at Duke University and as director of the Duke Wesley Fellowship. She is currently executive director at North Carolina Council of Churches in Raleigh-Durham.

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, teaches at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2008): 63-75.

The Name Above Every Name – 28 September 2014 – Lectionary 26

The question for this day is about the identity of the true authority. Jesus condemns the temple leadership; Ezekiel calls cultural prejudices into question. For our time, the authority of God is given so many faces, the responsible preacher will take this opportunity to revisit the question and take the matter into the generosity of God’s mercy.

Matthew 21:23-32 

The gospel text follows the theme of repentance introduced by Ezekiel. Because Jesus enacted a prophetic declaration of judgment against the temple and its leadership (21:12–13), the religious authorities demand that he explain who authorized him to speak and act this way. In this demand, there is also a trap. If Jesus claimed divine authorization for his actions, the religious authorities could accuse him of blasphemy. But if he were acting on his own, they could condemn him of disrespecting the temple and stone him to death.

Jesus answers with a question to his opponents. He leaves them unable to answer, giving him, as well, the justification for declining their question to him.

But then Jesus takes the matter further, asking his challengers whether obedience is the same as faith. (This is a question for any of us whose understanding of true Christian witness revolves around adherents’ behaviors or understandings of the faith.) The religious make a stab at answering according to the parable Jesus tells.

The authorities identify . . . the one who at first refused to do the father's command, but then changed his mind, as the one who did the will of his father. Jesus then condemns the authorities for acting like the second son, who [gave] lip service to his father, but failed to obey. Jesus contrasts [the authorities’] failure with the way in which the tax collectors and prostitutes have lived out the right answer because they heard John the Baptist's summons and responded with repentance.

This story provides a helpful corrective to the tendency to reduce Christianity to a matter of having the correct doctrine. Following Jesus is not so much a system of teaching as a way of living embodied in certain practices, such as hospitality, forgiveness, generosity, service, and compassion.

            – Aaron J. Couch

Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32

What Jesus asserts is also Ezekiel's point.

It is important for the preacher to demonstrate that Ezekiel is not providing a program for the exercise of God's judgment. The key is to observe the intended function of the prophetic announcement.

This passage is not an objective discourse on the topic of divine justice, but a personal address, summoning the listener to repent and turn his or her heart toward God. The problem with the proverb is that it permitted the people of Judah to persist in their wickedness and irresponsibility, while also maintaining the illusion of powerlessness and relative innocence. Ezekiel invites the people to see the truth of their conduct and to take responsibility for their lives while also trusting God's love and God's justice.

            – Aaron J. Couch

Philippians 2:1-13

If Christian witness is something deeper and more universal than the embrace of culturally acceptable behaviors and even biblically commanded actions or particular doctrinal assertions, what is it? Paul gives his answer.

Christian leaders and the Christian community who follow Christ's example must engage in patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting that facilitate the emptying of themselves of practices that are detrimental to the shalom of the community. These detrimental practices include but are not limited to self-seeking gratification, lack of demonstrable hospitality, deceitful financial gain, and many others. Paul encourages the community to engage in living lives “worthy of the gospel” (Phil 1:27).

Paul aspires for the Christian community to live in a way that holds up the excellence of Christ, an excellence shaped by kingdom principles and not the cultural malfeasance of a society tainted by self-interested ambition or complacency and mediocrity. The Christ hymn holds up the life of Jesus for everyone to see and says this kind of life is what the Lord of the universe honors. This is the example of a particular way of being, a way of living to which the Christian community is called.

            – Chris L. Brady

How a preacher might address these concerns in a culture such as ours in the United States involves carefully bringing the assembly to see all facile conclusions as warped. You can’t sloganize politics and be living up to the shalom of community-building. Self-emptying is a vision to behold, a plumb line for measurement, a way to make judgments about community and church direction. It is not a tool for condemnation but a hope for change.

Aaron J. Couch is co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Chris L. Brady is lead pastor of Wilson Temple, United Methodist Church, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Homily Service 41, no. 4 (21 July 2008): 37-48.