I saw Death in the vestibule when I came in early for the service. As usual, he was well dressed, with the familiar leering malevolence. Death danced in another victory in the death of a young man.

This evening we must give the permission of the church to grieve. A good young life is rightly celebrated, so the grief of losing such a bright light to a foreshortened time is all the more painful. We cannot ease the pain by repressing it, or papering it over with words only of celebration. We find the courage to lean into the pain. At this point, our prayers are ones of lament. Once again, heaven is besieged by our words, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The communion of saints is a community of the grieving, in the wordless hugs and casseroles, in the choked sobs and condolences.

The questions linger in the air: why, what sense can we make of this, where is God in all of this? I do not have final answers, but I can offer one way, my current path, in the struggle. The healing God did not heal Charlie of cancer. Charlie was healed in the courage in facing death. Charlie found healing in all of the loving care he gave and received, from the flood of stories on the caringbridge site. Step by step, breath by breath, we rebuild our lives in the face of loss. Comforts will come, in time. We will live fully again, in time.

Bonhoeffer said that “only the suffering God can help.” A deep love that shares pain, celebrates a life that engages with us in our struggle is the power that animated all the good we heard of Charlie in these dark days. This creation is as good as this world gets, and it is filled with weakness and enemies to our health. Death stalks us all. God’s creation is filled with threats and blessings; the chaos of death makes forays in its battle with life. I cannot live with a God who reigns supreme over this hard life, who ‘takes” lives, detached from our struggles. I do believe in a responsive God, the God whose very Spirit, at this very moment, is interceding for us “with sighs too deep for words.” God too knows the full pain of having a beloved die too young. As Holy Week approaches, we hear the story again of Jesus, maybe around 6 years older than Charlie, faced his own foreshortened life.

God’s love is so deep that God could not bear to lose Charlie to Death. That young reader surely came across the Runaway Bunny at some time. No place is too far for love to reach. Hear Ps. 139 again. If I go to the depths of the pit of death, you are there. This evening the reach of that love extends into a new world, as love respects not time and infinite distance. Charlie’s life is transformed, but his life as it was lived, perdures. Not only does it continue in our frail memories, but it lives within the very memory, the very life of God. In that sense, Charlie receives ultimate healing.

When the words of Jesus were read to start the service, I saw Death slink away. The great clothes turned into rags. Once again, Death loses. Only God can make a tomb into a womb. After all, this service is one of witness to the resurrection, of new life shining out of the shadow of death. The living God is a God of the living, the God for Charlie.

Is. 50:4-9a First cut notes

1) What does a tongue that is not taught sound like?

2) How can we sustain the weary with a word?

3) How is the ear wakened?

4) Give examples of a face set like flint. Some other types of pictures, projected or copied, could be helpful here, even the church directory.

5) Is it courage or a brazen taunt that we see in v. 8?

6) v.9 who will declare me guilty? One answer is no one, but if we extend this to Jesus, he was declared guilty, although wrongly. How are our lives a demonstration of guilty or innocent?

7) How do we take care not to glorify suffering from this, or tell others that they deserve it, especially when we are not suffering when we do so?

It just hit me that the first time that I really thought about resurrection as new life was when we had our English assignment on Ethan Frome, and it hit me that the characters were more dead than alive. That lifelessness attack the virtues of life, especially hope. God will not allow it to win, but God continues to enliven and give birth to hope, corporate and personal. Death is not denied here in its awful impact, but highlighted.

Why does Jesus delay? Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Martha won’t have to wait until the end of all things for the resurrection. The last days are here or he re-imagines the end time resurrection into his own life. Lazarus would die again. Jesus would die but once, as will we all. Jesus takes the resurrection of the last days and personalizes it.

Jesus is deeply affected by the death of Lazarus and the grief that surrounds it. It is a glimpse into the heart of God, as much as humanity, to see that reaction. Is it a reaction to his own impending death, the sheer misery that death brings to so many, that death touches so many and he would raise so few? Maybe Jesus is sick of the shadow of death itself, its malevolent, leering presence.

Jesus asks that people roll away the stone of the tomb. Then door is wide open. We get used to death, and the stone on the tomb keeps it in its place. It also says that death can win over life. In rolling away the stone, they admit the entry of life into the abode of death. Then resurrection occurs in this story. Still it is not finished, Lazarus is still all wrapped up. Jesus was born with strips of cloth around his infant body, and Lazarus returns to the earth in the same way. For burial wrappings to become swaddling clothes, he must be unbound. Other people roll away the stone and unbind Lazarus. In other words, we help new life to flourish once God has worked the ever-present miracleof life itself.

The same applies in the vision of Ezekiel to an exiled people who must feel as if the door of hope has slammed shut on them. In Ezekiel, a pattern of recreation exists, one step at a time. All the eye can see in this lurid vision would be the bones of the slain, the detritus of a terrible defeat. Bit by bit they are put back together, but they are still lifeless, until the breath of life, the spirit of the living God enters into those bones. In other words, they can appear to be normal and alive on the outside, but inside they are lifeless. The tomb would be an open grave, unless the spirit of God brought new life to Lazarus or the valley of the dry bones.

“If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus hears that twice. God hears it in the midst of our troubles in one form or another constantly. Only God can make a womb out of a tomb. The Lord and Giver of Life can even make death the raw material for a new creation. Only God can make a final resting place a manger. Yes, we need to see heaven as that answer, when we live in the shadow of death. At the same time, we are made for more than waiting for heaven’s door. The valley of dry bones and the tomb of Lazarus show us that we do not need to live a half-life, a deadening life. When we get depressed, it seems as if life is a mere collection of dried bones, of lost dreams. A marriage whose life has wilted can flourish again. The God of heaven gives us eternal life, and the God of this earth opens doors to new life every single day.

2. First cut at Ps. 118This is part of the Egyptian Hallel material (113-118). It is possible that this was the last psalm sung after the Last Supper.

3. Some repetition in the psalm-when is repetition helpful or disconcerting?

4. When is God your song v.14? Is it blues, rock, insipid praise songs, classical? How does the song of god change for you?

5. Notice the verb in v.14 has become my salvation, when does salvation become a reality for you- how would you define salvation’s meaning in this martial psalm and how do you view its meaning today, especially during Holy Week?

6. What victory has God given you? V.15

7. Notice how context affects how we read v. 17, especially during times in Holy Week

8. How do you see the gate of the Lord today?

9. Vv 25-26 form the basis for quotation for Palm Sunday accounts. Save us=hosanna, though it had come to be part of a more general acclamation.

10. Its martial imagery works well for battle imagery for good and evil along with the surprising weapons God uses

Lenten Devotional Week of 3/9/08

Sunday March 9-I’ve been sick for a while. Some find illness to be a metaphor for our spiritual condition; others find it a way into deep thoughts. I have to fight feeling sorry for myself and napping, something I rarely do. I do get reminded how being physically sick saps emotional and mental energy and clarity, but at the same time, I don’t see it possible that one can use the will to force physical health either. Of course, as soon as I feel better, I will go about as if good health is my birthright.

Monday –Eugene Peterson wrote a book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, on the psalms of ascent. In a chapter on humility from Ps. 131, he writes that it is hard for us to even see pride as a sin “when it is held up on every side as a virtue, urged as profitable, and rewarded as an achievement.” (148) Where do you find your humility? Does pride ever become an issue for you?

Tuesday-in Zephaniah 3 we find a concern for “pure speech” and a future where no lies, no “deceitful tongues” will be found. Now there’s a vision of the golden Age. Immersed in lies on the newsstand and on the Internet, it’s hard to seek out the true. Campaigns can be a synonym for deceit. Maybe prayer is the one vehicle for pure speech that is available to us. Maybe that’s why liturgy should have beautifully composed prayers, as we strain to tell the truth well.

Wednesday- A Buechner quote: “In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.” (By the way, I forgot that handkerchief had a d in it) It’s an interesting image, as the saintly may repel as much as attract. Of course, the handkerchief is dropped, as the person knows that they are been observed in the first place. When you run into someone saintly what is it about them that you find attractive?

Thursday Ray Palmer wrote “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” as a devotional poem for his own weary soul. A young man on the rise, he was worn-out from too many jobs. Lowell Mason was interested in religious music and the exhausted Palmer gave him a then two-year old text, and Mason soon put it to music. Read it as a religious poem in your hymnbook. Imagine yourself as Mason putting it to music.

Friday-Bonhoeffer’s view of the love of Christ goes like this (March 18^th in the new W/JK devotional) “it surrounds us, as we are supposed to be eternal. It lets nothing stop it, for it is god’s eternal faithfulness to us. It is solely for our sake…Jesus accepts us as we are.” It is so important for many of us weighed down by shame, or damaged self-esteem

Saturday-I’m quite cultural of late. Last week Jocelyn and I went to the play in Greensburg and saw Charlie Rose at IU. This week I see Bye-Bye Birdie at NDHS and go see Jocelyn in the Music Man next week. I find a lot of spiritual power in plays, but I don’t find it so much in explicitly religious productions. I do know that when I see creative human endeavor, I am in the presence of the image of God being acted out in 2008.

March 2 Sermon John 9 and I Samuel 16

This week sight binds our passages together. Looks can be deceiving. We are told that God looks beyond appearances but into the heart, the depths of the self. Saul was picked for power due to his commanding height. Now Samuel immediately figures that the firstborn in David’s family should be the one. We have to go through every brother before we get to David, off in the fields as a shepherd. The image of shepherd will become a standard one for human and divine leadership in the days to come. Then, we are told how good-looking he is. Social psychology experiments indicate that we grant astonishing amounts of power to attractiveness: we see the attractive as poised, having good judgement, successful, well-adjusted and socially skilled. We attribute those characteristics on the basis of what our eyes tell us. So David’s look will tell people that he has what it takes to be a leader.

We are involved in a flurry of misperceptions in the story of the blind man. Jesus anoints his eyes, just as David was anointed to a new role in his life. Is the paste a sort of new creation, just as God had molded clay into the human being? The passers by argue if this sighted man was the blind man. Had they ever seen the blind man? We are surprised to see someone in a new circumstance. We know can be a danger sign. It can show that belief that our perceptions outweigh those of God. The more his eyes are opened the tighter shut the others get. Sometimes, we may not want the light, as we come to prefer the dark.

One important item is at the start. The disciples want to blame the man or his parents for his misfortune due to a sin. Jesus will not give that assumption the time of day. Instead he sees the infirmity as a start of God’s healing power. We are to get on with the work of healing, not in idle speculation about its source. In seeking to blame people for their plight, we blind ourselves to the help they need. We are blinded to the good that can come out of the situation, how God can weave this trouble into a better garment.

The misperception of taking something good as something bad is so harmful to the spiritual life. We get so embittered; our sight gets so skewed that we call a blessing a curse. For John sin is fundamentally misperception about Jesus, a failure or inability to see the truth about Jesus. Sometimes, when a hard truth is revealed, we say, “how could I have been so blind?” that can be a moment of growth or continued disappointment and bitterness.

So often we insist that people have to see things our way. We get so controlling that we think that we can force perceptions into our little mold. The religious leaders have a trial because they can’t believe their eyes at the healing in their midst. Part of our maturation as Christian is to begin to let go of that single vision. Part of our participation in Christ is to begin to see through the eyes of Christ. I realize that is a tall order, but we can at least make a start. First, pray for someone with whom you do not see eye to eye. Imagine how god looks at that person, especially how God searches out their point of view and their good points. Imagine that you’ve become blind to the person that they are and you are. Imagine the mudpack being lifted from your eyes. You wash them off in the waters of your baptism. The see your inner eye healed as you share the eyes of Jesus Christ.

Lenten Devotional Week of March 2

Sunday March 2-When March arrives, I become tired of winter weather. I console myself with the thought that March weather requires just a bit of patience, and we won’t be stuck in the house for very long. Lent always points to spring. Even when we are in the spiritual doldrums, we can look to new growth, the fresh green of hope.

Monday-The issue of God and human suffering recurs for me. The author of Saralyn’s textbook has a new book on it, God’s Problem. I’ve bee haunted by the cancer taking the young adult son of a member of presbytery. I have no patience with those who insist that suffering is somehow good for us. That seems to come from a position of not suffering oneself. That kind of natural evil in nature does not make any sense ot me as a punishment, or a teaching tool. For me its value lies in our compassion and abilities to help heal wounds.

Tuesday Jeremiah is the feature in the new Interpretation journal. Kathleen O’Connor’s piece reminds us of how much people suffered due to the exile. We respond to evil by crying out to God. That is not the same as complaining, but a heartfelt plea for help when we are overwhelmed. Jeremiah is not among the favorite Scripture list due to his honesty in baring pain before God. It’s a bit like overhearing an intimate conversation, a violation of spiritual privacy.

Wednesday- Why are you making such a big deal out of this? How many times have you heard that question? We tend to minimize our wrongs and blame overreaction on the part of the wronged one. How can we come to appreciate the perspective of someone, even when they do seem to be blowing something out of all proportion?

Thursday- Leviticus is routinely skipped. I must admit, I have little patience for close descriptions of sacrificial rituals. It has some vital points for us, even if the rituals seem far-removed from us. A life without rituals is impoverished, as we have no traditions to go by and make up too much on the spur of the moment. Its words on the Sabbath are important safeguards from becoming addicted to work.

Friday-Here’s another quote from the Bonhoeffer devotional, I Want to Live these Days with You. “God bears our burdens. “ If we cast off our burden of the suffering of others, we carry a heavier burden, the burden of ourselves. That is why Jesus says to take his yoke, the yoke of the cross, not misery and despair, but rest and refreshment for our souls.”

Saturday-Laughter can be a Lenten gift. It is noteworthy how often laughter is directed against someone. For those who like to give up something, maybe that would be a good workout. Fro those who prefer to do something positive, what would be a place where laughter would be encouraging and helpful? Where are places in your own life where laughter is the appropriate response?