Sermon for Sunday, April 10, 2011 Ezekiel 37:1-14 “Rebuilding a Tree”

The tree guys have been here at church this week. They took down three dead or dying trees in the back, by the kitchen. In my office, I’ve been able to watch and hear their work.

It was necessary work, of course. Had those trees fallen down in a storm, they might have damaged the roof or broken windows or crushed the railing to the back staircase.

The workers were masterful. They climbed the trees with cleats on their boots that looked like rooster talons and had safety belts that secured them to the trees. They carefully roped the branches before they sawed them off, so the limbs wouldn’t fall wildly and take down a power line. Then, after all the branches were removed and either tossed into the back of the truck or sawed into smaller lengths, they began to slice off pieces of the tree, working their way down its length, until the tree was utterly deconstructed. Then they neatly stacked the pieces of sawn wood with geometric precision beside the shed out back.

There was a certain beauty to that wood. Cut, stacked, different diameters but somehow fitting together into a rough rectangle, cords of wood. In each circle of wood one could see the rings marking the years. Now all the years of the trees’ life were visible, but there was no life left in them.

Over the next few months the wood will dry out, making it useful for our fireplaces or woodstoves. For now, though, it simply sits, a pile of dead wood.

It dawned on me as I was looking at the woodpile how different that process was from the old Joyce Kilmer poem I had to memorize as a child: “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.”

Only God can make a tree, although some good workmen can certainly deconstruct one.

We’re much better at the deconstructing than the reconstructing, aren’t we?

We take things apart, like the men sawing apart the trees. But what if we wanted to rebuild a tree? Could we do it?

Could we take the beautifully stacked wood out the back door, figure out the jigsaw puzzle of the various pieces, restack them as they had come down? Could we glue them together again? Would that tree come back to life?

It might stand, but it would be a dead thing, a pale imitation of a living tree. The breaks made by the saws are now beyond repair, beyond regrowth. The relationship between the roots and the trunk and the branches and the buds – that pathway is severed. The sap will not flow next spring, even if we glue the pieces together masterfully.

Only God can make a tree. ..

…and only God can repair a relationship.

In a way, this is what we learn as the prophet Ezekiel talks about the meticulous work of reviving those dry dead bones.

Can these bones live? Can this tree be put back together?

It’s the same question.

The mystery of what brings life to something that is broken, seemingly beyond repair, is at the heart of Ezekiel’s vision. He finds himself in a field full of death, of broken bones. Are they the dead of Israel, the people who have gone before? Remember that the Babylonian exile was not a total one. Some of the people of Israel had been in exile in Babylon, God’s punishment for their waywardness. Some remained in Israel. The nation of God’s chosen people was torn, politically and spiritually. Could it be put back together?

This was the scene at the start of Ezekiel’s vision. A post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nothing living in sight. A vast expanse of desert, with the whole littered by bones that were out under the hot sun so long that they were bleached and utterly parched. The bones of a nation destroyed by its own hubris, the bones of Israel.

And then God’s voice, speaking to the prophet…

“Mortal, can these bones live?”

Ezekiel might have given the obvious answer, “No, they are beyond repair.”

But Ezekiel knows that God is powerful, and he does not know why he has been brought here, so he simply hands it back to God. God’s people have been humbled by their adversity, and Ezekiel has been humbled, too.

“Only you know the answer to that question.”

So God sets him at a task that on its face is an impossible one. Ezekiel is to bring these bones back to life, to call them back together into human form. With what? With words, with prophecy.

God commands the prophet to tell them that they are brought out of their graves and brought back to life by the breath and command of God, and thus too the house of Israel will be restored to life. They will return to their land. Even more important, they will know that it is God who loves them who has done this for them.

A broken relationship, like a sawn tree, like shattered bodies, put back together again like a broken watch. If you wind it, will it run?

And such strange words: “Prophesy to the bones,” as if they could hear the words Ezekiel says.

But Ezekiel, a humble prophet, does precisely what God commands. He prophesies to the bones. He tells them to knit together, to re-form into the bodies of the people of God…and like mad skeletons at Halloween they do as he proclaims. They come together. They are knit, and then they are covered with sinew, with flesh, but they are still dead things. There is no life in them. Their bodies are restored with the words Ezekiel has proclaimed, but no sap runs, there is no spark of life or soul.

Has Ezekiel failed? Or have these dead things failed to fully hear the words? Will this command fail, or will they once again live, as God has said?

So God gives Ezekiel additional instructions. “Prophesy to the breath! Call the four winds to breathe life into these creatures.” Was their sin so great, their faithlessness so deep, that it requires greater effort to repair the damage?

And Ezekiel once again cries out, proclaiming to the dead and to the winds, commanding them in God’s name. And the wind blows, winds from the four corners of the earth, wind from God’s great lungs, revivifying them, just as God’s breath into Adam’s newly formed lungs brought the first man to life. They stand. They live. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, all those who had been dead to God, dead to relationship with their creator. Given a second chance at life and at relationship because God wanted to salvage their poor desiccated bones, their sad broken souls. God wanted to restack the wood that had made up the House of Israel and cause the sap to flow again, the relationship to bloom again. God wanted them to know how great was the love he felt for them, that he would do this impossible thing…bring them back to life, back to relationship.

And six hundred years later, God did another thing to bring his wayward people back into relationship with him.

This time, it was no prophet having a mystical vision. It was something harsher by far. A man nailed to a cross, not a visionary calling to the bones and the winds. A hard price to pay, the gift of a son, for eternal life for the rest of us.

God made a choice to rebuild a relationship that was broken, broken because of our own sins, our own cupidity and hubris and desire. He could have left our bones out under the hot sun, our souls resigned to the chill of his absence. But his love was so very great that he reached out for yet another time, to repair that which was broken.

Only God can make a tree, and only God can repair a relationship.

We may think in our worst moments that we are no more than a stack of dry wood out back by the shed. We may think that there is no life in us. We may think that our own brokenness is so great that we have chain-sawed apart our relationship with the one who created us.

But I tell you this is not so. There is no brokenness that cannot be repaired. There is no chain saw that can separate us from God. God loves us too much to let us stay apart from him. The whole story of God and God’s people is a love story, of God continually reaching out to repair the damage when we in our foolishness cause a rift. God wants us to live, and to live in love with him as he is in love with us. In Lent, we remember the efforts that God has made to fix what we have broken. We remind ourselves of how God extends the hand of love over and over and over again, and Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice to ransom us from our brokenness.

And can we not learn from this, and repair the broken relationships in our own lives? Can we not reach out, as God kept reaching out for us? Can we not ask for God to breathe the breath of healing and life into that which we ourselves have injured?

God heals. God brings back to life that which seems beyond repair. God forgives. We should, too.

Amen.

Friday Five: Moving Towards Resurrection

At RevGalsBlogPals, Dorcas gives us a lovely Friday Five:

"Though I am from a non-liturgical denomination, I find myself longing for some of the expressins others of you may experience at this time of year. The same thing happens to me during Advent. At both times I am drawn to the symbolism of darkness becoming light, of longing turning to joy. One of my favorite thngs at this time of year used to be draping the wooden cross at the rear of our sanctuary with a dark purple velvet cloth and adding a crown of (ouch!) thorns--and what a lovely thing it was to see that same cross on Easter Sunday morning, draped in glowing white with a golden, jewel-studded crown added. Not being a pastor this year, I am missing some of the symnbolism I always tried to employ. I may find a nearby Episcopalian or Lutheran congregation to visit at some point, actually.

Meanwhile, today I am asking for your thoughts on that movement from darkness to light. Tell us five ways in which you are anticipating, or your life is moving towards light, joy, hope--new things: new ideas, new hobbies, new people...and so on."

I will soon celebrate a one-year anniversary at the parish that called me last year. I could not have anticipated the joys and challenges of this call, and all the ways I needed to grow to grow into it. My family, too, is moving and changing and growing.

1) toward the light of a new ministry for those youngsters who are intellectually disabled, and their families: we are starting a Christian Ed/Worship program for them, called St Giles' Gate. The exploratory committee met last night and I am so jazzed about what these folks will do for God's special children. We will do a soft launch in the summertime, then open it up to the larger community in the fall, we hope.

2) toward the celebration of my last child graduating from college. StrongOpinions will walk on May 18th at Columbia University, with a degree in Creative Writing. The world awaits her.

3) toward the addition of a new daughter in the family as son StoneMason prepares to marry the lovely Shauna sometime next year.

4) toward the stretch and creak and ache of trying to get a new free clinic off the ground in our area, a project of our interfaith clergy group in partnership with the Islamic Center. Learning curve on this project is just about vertical.

5) toward some open air and open time to play in the garden. Doug has just brought home two dogwoods and two boxwoods, plus container potting soil for herbs. Sometimes getting your hands dirty is the best way to feel resurrection in the quotidian!

Chewing on Dry Bones: Looking ahead to Sunday

We've got one of my favorite and most mysterious passages from the Hebrew Bible coming up on Sunday, Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14). Here's the text:

Ezekiel 37:1-14

37The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ²He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” ⁴Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” ⁷So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. ⁹Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” ¹⁰I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. ¹¹Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

For those of you who want to gnaw on those bones a little bit, here's some research and writing I did on them a few years back:

We saw it perhaps a hundred times in the days following September 11, 2001: two enormous towers of steel, glass and concrete, collapsing in slow motion, to a pile of debris. Twisted metal, shards of glass, a blizzard of paper blown down the blasted streetscapes of lower New York, pieces of humanity, dust, and more dust. As the World Trade Center, a symbol of American economic dominance, lay shattered like a broken Erector set that day, so did the nation of Israel lay shattered, its military, political and spiritual strength sapped, when Ezekiel had his vision of a valley of dry bones.

This text takes a picture of utter desolation and turns it into a promise of hope as a result of divine intervention. I will look at this quasi-apocalyptic vision, analyze its symbolic elements and structure, and see what it may say to us today.

This vision is placed two-thirds the way through the Book of Ezekiel, paired with another vision that expands a hopeful view of the future at a time when hope seemed snuffed out in Israel. Although it immediately precedes and is related to the vision of the two bound sticks, with its sense of a nation reunited under a Davidic covenant, it can stand alone as a picture of God’s power to restore the nation.

Historically, it is placed in the post-exilic period, with “the defunct nation”[1] struggling in Babylon to find reason for hope. Ezekiel was a part of the central priesthood during a tumultuous period in the history of Israel. His call took place in Babylon during the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile. Because of the historical events mentioned in the oracles, Ezekiel’s oracular work can be placed between 593 and 571 BCE. His time overlaps that of Jeremiah. It was a time of religious as well as political turmoil because the people were split; some had gone to Babylon and some remained in the now-shattered Jerusalem. Theological as well as political consensus were impossible, and the community was in tatters.

Structurally, the Book of Ezekiel appears to be a single collection of generally chronologically-ordered oracles, composed in written form by a single author. Boadt[2] cites Zimmerli’s analysis which lays down a significant Grundtext of Ezekiel’s own words, with later additions by sympathetic redactors. Later commentators support an even greater inclusion into the Grundtext. Zimmerli also notes a structure in this particular oracle: “…two main sections, vv 1-10 and vv11-14, stand in a relationship of image and interpretation, where the interpretation contains at the same time the real proclamation to the people.”[3] This two-stage structure is found elsewhere in Ezekiel, notably in the call story (2:8-3:3).

The story is an ecstatic vision in which God takes Ezekiel to a remote valley (Wilson believes it is the one where Ezekiel begins his book and where he has his first vision of God[4]) filled with thousands of bones, bones that had been there so long under the hot sun that they are bleached and sere. There is hardly the remembrance of life in them.[5] There commences a dialogue between God and the prophet. Can these bones live? The prophet does not respond with the obvious answer: of course not! He replies that God knows the answer. God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and to tell them that God shall breath into them and give them life, putting sinews and flesh back on them, and they will live. The prophet does as God commands, and the bones find their mates and knit together, and are covered with sinew and flesh, but they are lifeless cadavers. So God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath and to command breath to come from the four winds and bring life to these bodies. He does so, and a vast multitude of the formerly dead arise from the valley. God explains to Ezekiel that these are the nation of Israel, that they represent the hopelessness of the house of Israel. Their bones are sere; their souls are sere as well.

God commands the prophet to tell them that they are brought out of their graves and brought back to life by the breath and command of God, and thus too the house of Israel will be restored to life. They will return to their land. Even more important, they will know that it is God who has done this for them.

The shattered Erector Set will be reconstructed, the house will be rebuilt, by God’s hand.

The power of the allegory is brought home by certain key words upon which I chose to focus: bone, dry, prophesy, and breath/wind/spirit (all from the Hebrew x;Wr). Bone, from the Hebrew ~c,[, has a meaning that is as poetic as it is physiological. It can also be translated as substance (in the sense of a component) or self (that which is at the core of who one is). If one applies the analogy of the World Trade Center, the bones are the steel superstructure which supports the building. When they fail, the building collapses. The thousands of disjointed, sun and wind-bleached bones in the valley are the collapsed beams of the House of Israel. In its failure to keep the covenant - worshipping foreign idols and committing crimes against each other – the essential component that has held the nation together and strong - has failed, and God has left the land. The people of Israel have lost their substance, their self, by losing their focus on their covenant. [6]

These bones are dry (Heb.: vbey"). This word, used primarily in Numbers and in Ezekiel, is infrequently attested, and its use is evenly divided between literal descriptor and metaphorical lack of nurturance/sustenance/life. The House of Israel, in exile in Babylon, is bereft of spiritual sustenance and in need of God’s breath of life during this time, as it was in the time of Numbers, in the wanderings in the wilderness.

The variety of applications of the word x;Wr raises some interesting possibilities. It is alternately translated as wind, breath, spirit. Use of the same word in so many different meanings in such close proximity may imply the multifaceted nature of God, and the many forms of His power. It can also reinforce the mystery of God, so difficult to define in mere words.

The word “prophesy” also is an interesting choice. First, the writer uses a word that represents a trance-like, ecstatic state rather than one that is more measured, such as “call” or “speak” or even “announce”. The sense of the mystical nature of the event is emphasized. Second, this verb is in the Niphal imperative form, but it does not seem to carry the usual import of a Niphal-form verb[7]. Even more intriguing is the use of this word seven times in this brief passage. Seven is a highly symbolic number, believed to be sacred among Egyptians, Mesopotamians and other Semitic peoples[8]. The number holds implications of completeness, from a cosmic (planetary), temporal (week) and liturgical (sabbath) perspective. [9] Are the seven calls to prophesy necessary to complete the rebuilding of the house of Israel?

This leads to another thorny question: Ezekiel’s first attempt to prophesy to the bones, which God has said will bring them back to life, in fact does not. It assembles the bones and lays on the sinews and flesh. He has to prophesy again, by calling to the breath carried by the four winds to inhabit these still bodies. One would presume that the first call would accomplish the deed, since God has told Ezekiel that it would. And yet it does not. Is the additional call required to bring the number of usages of “prophesy” to seven, indicating completeness? Is it required to emphasize God’s power, corralling winds from the four cardinal points to infuse the bodies with life?

And what of the four winds? Yarbro Collins makes the point that the four winds represent an ordered, structured world (as do the seven heavens) in her analysis of the Book of the Watchers (I Enoch 1-26):

“The theme of order is quite explicit here…On his first journey, Enoch saw the ‘storehouses of all the winds’ (18.1)…In chapter 18 reference is made to the four winds which stretch out the height of heaven. These four winds are called the pillars of heaven (18.3).” [10]

Further in her analysis, Yarbro Collins describes a variation on this theme, the twelve winds that are associated with the four quarters of the earth in Enoch’s Book of the Heavenly Luminaries (I Enoch 72-82), which focuses on cosmological/astronomical laws.[11] In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, M.H. Pope also stresses the sacredness of the number four, “deriving its significance primarily from the four cardinal directions.”[12]

The idea of a completed task, a whole unit of work, is given great emphasis in a way that would resonate with the post-exilic Jewish listener by the use of emphasis and numerical symbolism. Only with God’s help, and God’s power, can the task be brought to completion. Only when the whole of God’s spirit infuses the whole enterprise can the House of Israel be rebuilt.

Zimmerli sees the image of this valley as “the great death”[13] to be followed by a great resurrection. This is a resonant image for Christians. It takes us from a temporal and political space (re-establishment of Israel once again in its own land) to a cosmic and spiritual one that suggests the eschaton. It is an extraordinarily powerful one, but it begs the question: how can this speak to us today, in this place and time? Blenkinsopp echoes Zimmerli’s view, but cautions that “it would probably be mistaken to exclude systematically any hint of the postmortem destiny of the individual.”[14]

Thus, I find myself thinking not of the end-times, but of the necessary reuniting of the fallen soul of the individual – each of those shattered piles of bones – restored to spiritual health as part of the Body of Christ. This is congruent with Blenkinsopp’s view: individuals are repaired (vv. 7-10) and then they are repaired as a community (vv. 11-14).[15]

This, then is the work that God calls Ezekiel to do: he is the conduit for the power and divine sustenance that will bring the House of Israel back to life. In our modern world, where the shattered towers in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty remind us of our vulnerability, and of the lack of conviction we show in our God, who gives us all, we are reminded, once again, that we are broken and in need of the gift of rebirth/rebuilding. We can also be built up again into a strong community of the faithful, if we are mindful of Who is the builder and to Whom we owe all honor and praise.

Bibliography

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Ezekiel: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press. 1990)

Botterweck, G. Johannes, et al, editors. Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1998)

Bright, John. A History of Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 2000)

Cook, Stephen L. The Apocalyptic Literature (Nashville: Abingdon Press.2003)

Cooper, Lamar Eugene, Sr. The New American Commentary, Vol. 17: Ezekiel (United States: Broadman & Holman Publishers. 1994)

Freedman, David Noel, editor-in-chief. The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday. 1992)

Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. 1962)

Mays, James L., general editor. Harper Collins Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco. 2000)

Seow, C.L. A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1995)

Stuart, Douglas. The Communicator’s Commentary: Ezekiel (Dallas: Word Books. 1989)

VanGemeren, Willem A., general editor. New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House. 1997)

Yarbro Collins, Adela. Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism (Leiden: EJ Brill. 1996)

Zimmerli, Walther. Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Chapters 25-48 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press. 1983)

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End Notes

[1] Bright: 339

[2] Boadt in Anchor, vol. II: 715-716

[3] Zimmerli: 257

[4] Wilson in Mays: 619

[5] There is no mention in the text of the fact that such a place would be ritually unclean, but Cooper (323) notes that Ezekiel walks around the place and does not seem to touch anything. Cook (95-96) describes the emphasis on cultic purity just two chapters later in the passage on the slaying of the army of Gog, and elsewhere in Ezekiel. It is odd that the issue does not come up in this passage. This is, of course, a vision, not history, but given the preoccupation with ritual purity around gravesites it is striking in its absence.

[6] Stuart devotes much space to burial practices in ancient Israel, and describes the valley as a kind of giant ossuary. Pace Mr. Stuart, I think that the emphasis on the burial practice is ill-placed: this is a metaphorical ossuary.

[7] Seow (288-299) delineates four possible meanings for Niphal forms: reflexive, reciprocal, passive, and resultative (indicating a resulting state). None of these appears to truly apply here. Heschel (518), however, has a long discourse on the somewhat confused etymology of the word, which he links to an Old Arabic word nba meaning “’to inform’…inform[ing] in the name of God what is revealed secretly,” which would suggest the act of informing is one of a passive conduit of information generated actively by God. It seems somewhat tortuous, but Semitic etymology is rarely straightforward in this writer’s limited experience.

[8] Pope in Interpreter’s Dictionary Vol. IV: 294-295

[9] Friberg in Anchor, vol. IV: 1144-1145

Yarbro Collins: 122-123

[10] Yarbro Collins: 100

[11] Ibid.: 103

[12] Pope in Interpreter’s Dictionary Vol. III: 565

[13] Zimmerli: 260

[14] Blenkinsopp: 172-173

[15] Ibid.: 173

Copyright 2007 Mary Brennan Thorpe

In my next life...

...I will not get overweight in the first place so I don't have to work so danged hard to lose what I gained.

The older I get, the harder it is.

Bah.

Random Dots of Monday

• My dear parishioner died on Sunday evening. Bless him, he was ready to be done with the unbearable pain of metastatic cancer. His wife is dealing with metastatic lung cancer. Heaven help her....and the good parishioners of the parish will help her, too, doing as much as she will let them.

• Finally (FINALLY! after four months) got the meds that the insurance company was fighting me on. Here's the difference: on Saturday, in between trips to the hospital, I could do nothing but take a nap. Today, having had the meds, I've been rocking and rolling and getting things done. Take that, MS fatigue!

• Book group today was wonderful. We were talking about the January chapter of "The Year of Living Biblically," and it segued into a fascinating discussion of Biblical translation. I pulled the concordances off the shelf as well as pulling up my BibleWorks software, so we could explore whether the 10 Commandments say "kill" or "murder" in that commandment.
  

• It is 86 degrees here in Richmond, and we also have very high winds. I expect we'll have storms later tonight. This is very warm for this time of year, after a week of cool dampness. It feels sort of good, getting the chill out of the bones, but I'm not a hot weather person, so be prepared for me to whine about it in three months or so.

• Doug is back from his conference - it went well, despite several opportunities for it to go flop-bot*. Good to have him home again.

• Went for my annual physical early this morning. Like Monty Python's parrot, I am not dead yet. Not pining for the fjords, either. Numbers aren't bad, although triglycerides are a bit high. I get to wait another year for my colonoscopy since I had one at 50. That's just fine, thank you very much. I did have to make another appointment for my "well woman" checkup (read:Pap and breast exam). Why this couldn't be done as part of the regular physical heaven only knows. I should have asked if the guys get a separate "well man" checkup with the prostate palpation and the testicular exam. Somehow, I doubt it.

• I may try to get some more writing done tonight - I've got a couple of projects that need attention - or I may fade early. I went to the Advanced Weight Circuit Training Class for the first time this afternoon - I've been going to the intermediate one - and I am proud to say that I got through today's workout without puking or otherwise embarrassing myself. Average heart rate for the entire 45 minutes was around 152. That should generate some calorie burn. It may also generate an early bedtime.
  

• Time for the annual eye exam, too. Should I re-up on the contact lenses (expensive, a pain in the @rse but more attractive than specs) or just admit that I am une femme d'une certain age and just wear eyeglasses?
  

That's plenty enough dots for one day. Talk to you later.

*ref James Herriot's "All Creatures Great and Small" and the infamous Pekingese Tricki-Woo, whose owner, Mrs. Pumphrey, described his malady as "gone flop-bot." Use your imagination, friends.

Sermon for Sunday, April 3, 2011 Lent IV "Blind But Now I See"

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound to save a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.

Seeing. Sometimes it’s hard to see clearly. Sometimes it feels dark and misty and chilly, and we crave light and warmth. We feel like moles who live underground, no light or warmth in us, just feeling around blindly for the next turn of the underground tunnel. Cold. Dark. Worrisome.

It was gray and cold here much of this fourth week of Lent, and the warmth and light of Easter Sunday felt very distant, indeed.

In our first reading this morning, it sounds like the prophet Samuel was feeling the same chilly loss and loneliness. King Saul, the fair one whom Samuel anointed, had been dismissed by God as a failed king. Samuel felt that failure personally, but God prodded him to seek Saul’s replacement. It was a depressing moment and a frightening one. If Saul found out, he would kill the prophet. But God insisted, so Saul headed out.

It’s as if Samuel had proposed to a beautiful woman, the one whom he thought was the perfect match, and Samuel’s father said, “No, even though you’ve already proposed, she’s not right for you. Go over to that other family and check out their daughters – I’m sure the right one is waiting for you there.”

Now remember, Samuel was a prophet, a seer. He was someone who was supposed to be able to see things from God’s perspective, to see things that the rest of us cannot see, but in that moment, he must have wondered how weak his gift of seeing really was. He had anointed someone king who was not whom God really wanted. His vision had grayed somehow, and he had picked someone who failed. Thus his own ability to see was questionable, at least in his own eyes. It was all gray and chilly and dim.

Heeding God’s instruction, he went out to find another king, even though Saul was still on the throne. This was risky business – as I said, if Saul found out, he was likely to kill Samuel as a betrayer. But God’s call was more important, so Samuel went to visit the shepherd Jesse and examine Jesse’s sons, to find another king-to-be. Jesse paraded the boys before him, starting with the eldest. Samuel saw that boy, tall and handsome and strong, and thought this must be the one. But his eyes were still dim – the Lord told him it was not this one. One by one, he looked at the boys, and for each of the seven, he did not hear God’s voice saying “anoint him!” So he asked Jesse, “Is there another?”

Yes, there was another, David. The youngest, out with the herd. And Samuel asked that David be brought to him. And then Samuel heard the Lord’s voice, saying that this was the one to anoint. Samuel could not trust his own vision but he trusted the Lord’s voice.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound to save a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.

How do we fix our vision not on the immediate grayness, but on the distant light? How do we recognize what we see? How do we wake up our "inner eye" as our Hindu and Buddhist brothers and sisters call it, or the eye that sees as the Lord sees, as we read in Samuel? That warmth and light may not be immediately apparent (just as David's destiny was not immediately apparent to Samuel) but somehow we sense the warmth, the presence of God, and we are unfolded into the light. We can see, when before we had not been able to.

So it was for the blind man whom Jesus met on the road. Blind from birth, it was assumed that he was stricken with this terrible thing because his parents or grandparents had sinned. Did the ancient scripture not say, “Let the sins of the father be visited upon the son even to the third or fourth generation?” Jesus said no. This man was blind for another purpose, to show what God could do. So he quickly cured the man of his blindness. How was he cured? By mud and spit and a quick wash-up in the pool, by the one who is the Light of the World. Light, the Light of the World, curing blindness, curing darkness, overcoming something thought to be beyond overcoming. That divine warmth and light and power….

…and what was the response of the people who witnessed this? Confusion. They could not see it, could they? They were more blind than the poor fellow whom Jesus had cured. The Pharisees, the people, not one of them got it. Their dialogue with the formerly blind man and his family and friends would be comical if it weren’t so very sad. He could see. It was simple. He hadn’t been able to see before. Now he could. But they kept asking him ridiculous questions: “Is he a sinner? Do you think you have something to teach us?” And all the healed man could say was the truth: “He cured me. I want to be his disciple.”

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound to save a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.

So they drove him out of the village, where Jesus found him. Remember, Jesus had covered his eyes with mud and sent him to the pool to wash – the fellow had never actually seen Jesus. But when Jesus spoke to him, he recognized him, and said, “Lord, I believe!”

Sometimes it’s the voice of the Lord whispering in our ear rather than seeing him right in front of us that finally helps us understand who he is and what is going on. Jesus said “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Sometimes the light is not brightness but a warm voice.

Such an interesting sentence, and it is echoed in Paul’s words to the Ephesians: “once you were in darkness, but now…you are light. Live as children of the light!”

Again I ask: how do we fix our vision not on the immediate grayness, but on the distant light? How do we recognize what we see? How do we have the clarity of vision that the formerly blind man discovered when he washed the mud off his face, rather than the obtuse stupidity of the so-called wise men, the Pharisees? They are threatened by Jesus’ power, by the light that shines from him (because he is the light), because it doesn’t equate with their narrow and rule-bound view of relationship with God. He is everything they are not, first and foremost love and light, and it frightens them, so they ask Jesus a pointed question: “Surely we are not blind, are we?” They are so certain they know the answer…wise men who are faithful followers of the law must not be blind! They must be beacons of righteousness, and in their pride that is how they would describe themselves. But Jesus turns them and their world and their rules upside down. After all those question about whether the blind man had been sinful, all those challenges as to whether Jesus was sinful for healing him, they are made the fools. Jesus says, “if you were merely blind – stupid and not knowing what is true – I’d judge you without sin. It is not a sin to be wrongheaded because no one ever taught you. But you should know better. You yourselves say ‘we see.’ If you’re so smart that you can see, and you refuse to recognize who I am – the Son of God – yes, you are in a state of sin, and that state of sin is worse than blindness. It is knowingly denying God With You, for your own small and selfish reasons.”

That’s the thing: knowing God comes from living in the warmth of the Light. Knowing God means we see, more clearly, who it is we serve and worship. Knowing God means we were blind, but now we see.

When we see clearly, as Samuel suddenly did when David was brought before him and the Lord whispered, “This is the one,” as the blind man did when he rinsed off the mud and answered clearly and simply that he wanted to be Jesus’ disciple, we have no choice but to live in the light. We have no excuse for hiding or trying to avoid the work of being Jesus’ disciple, even though it sometimes puts us at risk, as the blind man discovered. We can do nothing but serve and love and praise and pray and worship.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound to save a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.

That song…so familiar to us. Do you know its story? It was written by a man who had served as a seaman on a ship bringing poor souls in chains from Africa to be slaves. During a terrible storm he realized that his former life as a brawler and one of the most foul-mouthed sailors who ever lived – quite a title, to be sure – was one he wished to leave behind. In the darkness of the storm, he sensed the light, a clarity of vision that had never touched him before. He wrote this song in response to that moment of light. Over time, the light strengthened in him, and he left the slave trade and studied for ministry. He became a child of the light.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound to save a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.

Most of us live our lives on the edge of darkness. We cannot see clearly. We sense the warmth, and like seedlings turn our faces toward the light. If we but open our eyes, we will see that light, and know how we are to live our lives in response to it. We were once lost. Now we are found, or on the way to being found. We were blind. We still see dimly. But Easter is coming, and with it the Light. We were blind, but soon, with his help, we shall see.

Amen.

Friday Sabbath

It was a good day. I got up, spent much of the morning in my jammies (had intended to work out early but decided to hang out at home), met a friend for lunch at an excellent new Italian place, and went with her to the Bizarre Bazaar, a craft show on steroids at the Richmond Raceway. We wandered around, a tad overwhelmed by the high percentage of shocking pink decorations (target audience: Richmond women 40-60 with money to buy silly tchochkes - apparently we are supposed to think that shocking pink and black are stylish), but found some fun stuff, including a spring colored pashmina, a nice little wreath for the front door, and gifties for a few upcoming birthdays. We avoided the various pralines, peanuts, chocolate, wine, pimiento cheese for sampling and sale.

I got home, had a little snack, and went off to work out. I decided to brave the line-dancing class.

I know what you're thinking. "Line dancing? What the heck kind of workout is THAT?"

However, it has a reputation of being a fierce workout, and the reputation was deserved. I came out of the class dripping with sweat, craving some ibuprofen, and discovered a message on my cellphone.

One of our dear older parishioners who has been sick is close to death. I knew he had been ill, but I thought his wife's condition was more precarious. I haven't had a memorial service to do since right before the Con Ed cruise, and I was hoping for a bit longer reprieve, but folks go to God when God calls, not when it is a more relaxed time for the pastor. Lesson learned, Lord.

So I've run the laundry and cancelled my participation in a road trip/training session in Durham NC tomorrow so I can spend the day in the holy work of sitting by the bedside of this dear man, holding the hand of his sweet wife, praying and talking and sitting in silence while they decide if he should be moved to the hospice facility or just stay put, whatever will make him most comfortable.

The sermon for Sunday is done. The Adult Forum is not. I will probably spend another hour on it tonight, but if it doesn't get completed, so be it. I'll do what most needs to be done, and am grateful to do it. Some sense of Good Friday has come a bit early, it seems. We watch and pray.