A Service of Healing 3/29/20 Lent t5A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

A Service of Healing

3/29/20    Lent 5A

Well, we’re a week before Holy Week begins in our church calendar.  Next week we’ll read again the story of how Jesus is welcomed like a Strong Deliverer and then in just a few days, turned on in anger and disappointment, and killed as an agitator against the government.  These lectionary texts for today are a reminder, before we go through those difficult stories, that from the beginning our God has been a God of life and new creation. The power of God to create life and restore life have been themes of the Jewish Scriptures in Job and the prophets, especially Ezekiel and Isaiah, from way back.  However, as Martha says in this reading from John’s gospel, the teaching was that this resurrection was for the last days, the end of times.  

I think it may be a good reminder for us as well - as we are in this time of mounting tension and fear of how this virus is going to spread and how bad things might get.  Numbers of new cases and serious cases are still going up in our county and other counties around the country. Perhaps these words are a timely reminder to us that our God is a God of new life and new creation - always has been, and always will be.  We can trust in God’s love and power and desire for life to thrive even as we wonder where this national crisis is going to take us.  

I was talking this week to a woman who remembers the rationing of butter and other foods, and the Victory Gardens homes were encouraged to have, from the World War 2 era. That certainly was a time of national fear, of changes that affected virtually every home.  I don’t think there’s been this kind of national response to a crisis in my lifetime - well, I remember lining up for gas on alternate days in a time when gas availability was tight…. And I was alive in the Cuban Missile Crisis, although I was in 1st grade & didn’t realize a lot of what was going on.  We lived in DC then, where it was a big worry for my parents. My parent’s generation had the Great Depression in their childhoods, a stark memory of national crisis.  

I talked to my daughter this week and she tentatively said, “This is going to be in the history books, isn’t it mom?” It hadn’t occurred to me yet, but she’s probably right.  And we will probably remember the year we had to celebrate Palm Sunday and Easter watching a service on facebook…. if not other parts yet to come. We need to hold on to God’s promises to always be with us, and that where God is, love and life are. Hold on to that - trust that God is with us, God loves us, and we are all ultimately okay.  

In my preparation of bulletins before my vacation, wanting to be ahead and to have time to think about things and plan with music and all, I had designed this service today to be a service of healing and wholeness, a service based around the promise of restoration and new life.  It seems that is still a good purpose, and in fact, even a better purpose now in this crisis time.  

The words from the prophet Ezekiel are about God restoring spiritual life and power to the Israelites, when their spirits were pretty much annihilated by all the things that had happened to them - being conquered by this nation and that nation, carried off into foreign lands, and much suffering.  Ezekiel has this great visionary experience where dry, long dead bones are reclothed in flesh, and then reanimated by the breath of God into living souls. It’s a powerful picture of how the Spirit can come back into us and rekindle that spark life, that spark of hope, that spark of joy. A whole organization, a whole people, a whole Church can be rejuvenated and stirred up by that bracing wind of God’s Spirit.  I’ve already heard people wondering about what the state of their congregation will be when this is over - fearing that many of our small congregations may be too broke or too decimated to continue. I want to hold on to this vision of Ezekiel’s, where the bones that are so old that they are dry and returning to dust - these bones are regathered, remade, and re-animated with the breath of God, to become again a great congregation praising God.  Keep this in front of our fearful eyes, and as an answer to our worrisome doubts. Our God is one who makes a way out of no way, who made all that is just by speaking. This is a great and inspirational vision.  

The encounter of Jesus with the family of Mary, Martha and Lazarus is a similar reminder that God is Life; and where God is, the very power of Life itself is.  Here one person is restored to life, and the loving family is restored again to wholeness. Mary and Martha are realists about their brother Lazarus’ death in regards to the practical details and knowledge of death; they also know their faith’s teachings about the last days. At the same time, they are immersed in and overwhelmed by the grief of their loss.  That seems paradoxical…. Martha knows what her faith teaches about resurrection at the end times, yet still grieves over her brother.  

An early and traumatic memory of mine from when my youngest sister died - I was newly 7, and I can remember standing at the church door as people came out from her funeral service to shake our hands, faces wet with tears, to assure us that Susie’s suffering was over, and she was with God, and in a better place.  I remember wondering, “Then why are they crying, if it’s better to be in heaven and her suffering is over?” I was pretty literal at 7 years old, and didn’t understand holding those 2 things together. I didn’t understand that one can know the teachings of faith yet still suffer human feelings of loss. I realized later that they were trying to find something comforting to say, and didn’t at all mean to take away our sadness, our loss or our grief - well, maybe they hoped these sayings would somewhat mitigate our sorrow, maybe it helped them at some point of loss in their life.  Those kinds of sayings don’t really do much when one is experiencing the loss and the sudden change of how our world was going. I don’t say them to grieving people when it’s so close to their loss - I say I’m so sorry and look for some way to offer practical help, or just be present, just listening to their stories. LAter on, people can remember those promises and perhaps find some solace. At the point of the loss, it just sort of goes in one ear and out the other.  

I mean, even Jesus cried over Lazarus’ death.  And certainly Jesus knew the power of God - he says to Martha,  “I, I am the resurrection and the life!” Yet he also wept. My New Revised Standard translation says that Jesus was greatly disturbed and deeply moved.  The actual Greek words refer anatomically to what are called “the bowels of compassion.” He felt it in his gut, we might say, knowing how we feel these deep losses in our bodies, can’t eat, or get nauseous.  Grief affects us physiologically, and that’s how Jesus felt, too. He felt in his own body the contradiction between the power of death and the Godly power of life, and he acted. That’s love, that’s compassion - com-passion - with passion, with emotion, with feeling.  God weeps with us, and works for restoration and life and healing.

The message that I hear from these Scriptures that have been preserved and come down to us from our faith ancestors, is not to forget that our God is a God of new life; God is always responding in each moment, responding to the events that happen and working to restore life again.  Yes, we have difficult times; yes, we have losses; yes, we have to cope with sudden changes and uncertainty and fear. Yet God does not abandon us in hard times; Jesus cries and mourns with us, the Spirit whispers assurance in our souls. I posted a hymn Friday that says “God is with us in the storm,” a good message for these times we’re in.   I posted His Eye Is on the Sparrow, too - “I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.” All truths we need to remember as we face whatever it is that is coming towards us and our world.  

There’s a Mr. Rogers quote that’s been going that indicates a way to manage our fears -  reminding us that in a crisis, look for the helpers. We are, after all, created in God’s image, and filled with God’s love.  If God can be present in trouble and be deeply moved, so are we. As God seeks healing and restoration, so can we. As God loves and cares for those going through hard times, so can we.  In fact, as the gathering believers, the church, the very Body of Christ, we can be God’s hands and feet and hearts and bowels of compassion to each other. The same caring we feel for our own immediate families, we can feel towards others as well.  Our hearts have room for much love and care, although since we’re not God, we have to do some self-care so we don’t burn out. God doesn’t burn out.  

Already we are seeing signs of good and caring people around us - take note of these, lift them up.  Lift up the courage of our health care people who are staying the course with the ill. Lift up the faithfulness and courage of those still stocking shelves at the markets, and filling prescriptions at the pharmacies.  Give thanks for those working in keeping our basic sanitation going, our power going, our mail going, our internet going. Give thanks that people have specialized in epidemics and the study of pandemics - it may have seemed unneeded before now, but now we’re glad for the forethought.  Give thanks for the researchers looking for vaccines and medicines. I know all of us are continuing to pray for all these people as well as for the future. Hold on to what we know in our hearts about God, the promises that God has kept through history, and will continue to keep now. AMEN.