Can you believe that Easter is almost here? This is the 5th Sunday in Lent; only one more Sunday before Palm Sunday and Holy Week followed by Easter. I hope it also means that Spring-like weather will soon be with us. Before we get to Easter there’s a lot of death to deal with. Some folks, probably most of us New England Congregationalist types, go straight from Palm Sunday with the Hosannas to the Easter cries of “He is Risen, Alleluia!” That week of Jesus’ betrayal, desertion, and crucifixion may only play in the background. Here at Deering we combine the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday with the Good Friday readings of Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion and death. I hope that many of you will plan to be with us for that evening of music, foot washing, communion, and readings, actually my favorite service of the year. In today’s scriptures and sermon we will get a preview of Jesus’ death and resurrection by looking at Lazarus’ death and resurrection, a rehearsal so to speak of what lies ahead for Jesus. In this story Jesus does for his friend what God does for Jesus, and paradoxically it is the incident that precipitates the escalation of Jesus’ own death.

In Ezekiel we are also told a story of death. Ezekiel, as prophets are prone to do, did a lot of talking about God and warning the people about the dreadful future if they did not change their sinful ways. At the point of today’s reading, it sounds like God was despairing. He was fed up with the people’s complaints, their dried up hope. So to illustrate God’s point, God sets Ezekiel down in the middle of the valley, filled with dry bones, and asks him, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel doesn’t put on a bright, shiny face of assurance, but is humble enough to turn the question back to God. It’s important for Ezekiel and for us not to have a pretense of well-being. What if the dryness of the bones goes unrecognized? What if the individuals or the church or the nation do not know they are dried up? Or maybe the dead ones know on some level but are afraid to admit it. But back to Ezekiel and God. What happens next? The Prophet hears a rattling as the bones start coming together into a body. Still there is no life in the body until God instructs Ezekiel to breathe the Spirit into them. He does and there appear a large multitude of live bodies. These hopeless folks were suddenly alive, resurrected from the dead. God says I will put my spirit into you, and YOU SHALL LIVE.

Also in our reading from Romans, Paul contrasts the mind set on flesh and the mind set on Spirit. He goes on to proclaim that even if you are dead if you have the Spirit of Christ in you, you will live. This is not an easy passage to understand. In our Lenten Discussion Series we have been looking at how much of our faith cannot be known through the rational mind but is mystery. At the same time, we have been discussing how God is known by Wesley’s 4 ways: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason. Most of the participants say they know God mostly through reason and experience. So we can see how hard it is to accept things that are so much mystery.

Let’s now go back to focus more on the story of Lazarus. I want to highlight a few things about this time and place. Shortly before this reading, Jesus had visited at the home of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus in Bethany. Bethany was a dangerous place for Jesus to be in those days. It was just two miles from Jerusalem, in easy reach of the people who had tried to stone Jesus a few days earlier. After visiting with his friends, Jesus safely escaped across the river Jordan. This is where he was when the word reached him that Lazarus was ill. Jesus doesn’t go to him immediately and by the time he gets there Lazarus has been in the tomb for 4 days. His sisters are understandably upset that Jesus did not come sooner. Martha complains, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus responds that her brother will rise again. Martha misunderstands the meaning, saying, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” But Jesus means life for the dead Lazarus right now. He says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus’ faithful love and his powerful God spirit allowed him to bring life back to a body 4 days in the tomb? Can we—as Jesus told his disciples—even do this and more, “greater works than these” through the love of God and God’s indwelling Spirit? Again this is not something that a rational mind would figure out. Are we dried up, despairing people or can we change despair to hope and death to a resurrected, spirit-filled life? Where is your hope? I want to share with you a quote that I really like from Craig Barnes in the Christian Century magazine, “ Why does the church keep pouring out its little cup of water into the West Bank, Sudan and other desperate places of the world where hope has run dry? Why do we keep visiting the shut-ins and those in hospitals when we have no miracle drug to take away their pain? Why do we commit ourselves to the political process when there is so much cynicism and a malaise of despair in politics today? Why? Because God is not done.” He goes on to say that we will take our stand beside Ezekiel and proclaim our hope even to dry bones. If you have given up hope for your individual lives, even if you haven’t fully acknowledged it, but have settled in to a routine of work, bills, dirty laundry, shoveling snow, thinking that it’s too late for any big changes, I would urge you to realize it is never too late to make changes in your life, to get involved in a more meaningful existence. To all of you that may be despairing or just plain bored with your life, I say “Arise! Come out! Let the Holy Spirit breathe life back into you.” We may want a God that protects us from all harm, including death, but what we have instead is a God who can ressurect us from the dead, create life in the midst of grief, create love in the midst of hurt and loss, create faith in the midst of doubt and despair. Hear those dry bones rattling!!

What about our church here in Deering? Does it need some resurrecting? One of the commentaries I was reading pointed out that the message of hope can only be heard when you realize you are in need of help. A couple of Sundays a go there were tops about 20 adults at the Sunday service. I felt pretty discouraged, wondering what was going on. Wondering if it were me? Shirley was even wondering if it were her? I talked to my husband, I talked to the Deacons, I talked to several other members. No one really knew what was going on although sickness and school vacations were mentioned. The deacons and I came up with a plan to reach out with phone calls to some of the people who had been missing for a long time. And then I remembered to put it in God’s hands. Last Sunday we had a good turnout, even to the point of being short one juice for Communion. Still our numbers don’t seem to be growing as we had hoped. I think it is good to acknowledge that fact, especially if our goal of having a full time pastor is to be realized. Besides asking God to help us discern what we must do, it’s important to realize that there are no quick fixes, no easy way to bring new life to an old congregation. David Beswick gives a metaphor I like of the church as a ship. If you don’t know the ship is close to the rocks, you probably won’t do anything to change direction. It takes a lot of time and effort to turn a big ship around, but harnessing our power with God’s power, it can be done. This church was down to 24 members in 1894 and possibly even a lower number at another time; I seem to remember a low of 8 mentioned in Don Johnson’s book. Today we have 100 members and in many ways are a vibrant church; however, we don’t seem to be attracting many new people to our services. I would be most happy to hear suggestions from any of you about how we can be more effective in sharing God’s love and letting others be part of this caring and serving congregation. I truly believe in the United Church of Christ’s slogan that God is Still Speaking. How can we better listen and share with others? What kind of a call can we hear coming from God? Is there a certain hospitality, justice or peace issue that is calling us? What does our God want the Deering Community Church to do and be? In closing I would like to read from a prayer by Walter Brueggemann in his book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth.

“Not the God we would have chosen”:

We would as soon you were stable and reliable.

We would as soon you were predictable and always the same toward us.

We would like to take the hammer of doctrine and take the nails of piety and nail your feet to the floor and have you stay in one place.

And then we find you moving, always surprising us, always coming at us from new directions.

Always planting us and uprooting us and tearing all things down and making all things new.

You are not the God we would have chosen had we done the choosing, but we are your people and you have chosen us in freedom . . .

Give us that gift of freedom that we may move in new places in obedience and in gratitude.

Thank you for Jesus who embodied your freedom for all of us. Amen.

Yes, sometimes it is difficult to have the uncertainty of a Still Speaking God. I pray that we will be able to listen in a way that will bring us hope and Spirit-filled individual lives as well as a Spirit-filled and a Spirit-led Church. Amen.