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.

Responding to Salvation – 10 July 2016 – 8th Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 15/ Proper 10

Consider that we who will come to hear the word of God on Sunday are both in the ditch and lifting up the one in need. What does that give the preacher to say? Here are some thoughts from commentaries in Homily Service from 2007. Wise words retain their help for preachers who want to dig deeply into these rich stories.

Luke 10:25-37

I'd be surprised if the Samaritan were the next traveler to pass by. There may have been a caravan of hard-working traders, just starting on their voyage home to the Far East. . . When they saw the man in the ditch, they shook their heads, wondering who would have been so unwise as to travel this road alone: he only got what he deserved for being so foolish.

There could have been a group who laughed at him, and said, if he would only stay sober, he wouldn't find himself lying in ditches. . . Or another who stopped and mumbled that helping this man would just encourage him to depend on others. There are always people getting themselves into some kind of predicament and expecting someone else to get them out. He just needs to crawl out of that ditch and help himself. . . .

Most of us haven't been beaten up and left for dead. Our ditch might be defined in broader terms: deep business troubles, lost marriages, nose-diving children; drugs, alcohol, gambling; anger, hatred. . .

Finally, a traveler stopped. Did the beaten man recognize the Samaritan by the hem of his garment? Did the man give up hope at that recognition, or fleetingly think it would be better to be left to die? What could the man have thought as this hated Samaritan cared for him with oils and bandages, helped him onto his animals, found an inn? Who in this world would you least expect to stop and help you? That's who the Samaritan was to this man. . . .  

Can we remember, or imagine, what it is like to be in a ditch? Who was it who soothed our wounds and provided a place of healing? Then we can begin to understand Jesus' description of our neighbors. Can we imagine, when we are the Good Samaritans, what it feels like for the one in the ditch to be so in need of help—how difficult it can be to ask for help? Then we can understand why charity is not always graciously accepted. – Hilda A. Parks

How difficult it is to ask for help. Maybe we can imagine that as the beaten one by the side of the road, we do not readily accept the gifts of healing and nurture we receive from the Good Samaritan who came to us as God-with-us full of mercy and compassion.  

Deuteronomy 30:9-14

Some Christians may feel uneasy about Deuteronomy's straightforward assertion that the law is not too difficult to obey, and that God delights to bless the people who are obedient. They may wonder whether these affirmations conflict with Paul's claim that the law is unable to give life (e.g., Galatians 3:21) and that it is not possible for any person to so fully obey the law so as to gain favor with God.

The preacher will want to make it clear that Deuteronomy is not concerned with the question of gaining salvation, but of how to live within the salvation God has already given. Deuteronomy does not state that Israel will earn covenant relationship with God by obedience to the law. Instead, Israel receives the covenant as a gift. The law is given as a further gift to guide Israel in faithful living with God. – Aaron Couch

Colossians 1:1-14

The theme of this sermon might well be words from Paul: “God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the dominion of the beloved Son of God, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (vss. 13-14)

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

Hilda A. Parks, ordained in the United Methodist Church, holds a PhD in Liturgical Studies from Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.

Homily Service 40, no. 8 (2007): 21-30.