Homily for March 9, 2008 Fifth Sunday in Lent
Barbara Hayden to the Community of Christ

Readings: Ezekiel 37: 1 -14  Psalm 130  Romans 8: 6 – 11  John 11: 1 - 45
The Valley of Bones
Thank you my young Thespians (Kaisa and Lydia) for acting out the Ezekiel reading.  God really wanted  Ezekiel to remember this lesson  and give it to Israel with vivid imagery. This was before the days of Stephen Spielberg, mind you.    These are wonderful readings, and this is a very exciting time of our liturgical year – the drama is building – the drama that plays out the core truths of Christianity.  When I preach (a grand total of three times now! ) I read the lessons, and think, and pray, and read again. The Ezekiel reading was the only one to really grab me. The third time through, I saw something new.

When I got to the part about the wind getting into the bodies and the bodies beginning  to breath and come to life and stand on their feet,  I got a picture of the Community of Christ.  I don’t want to offend anybody, but I pictured US. I thought maybe we too, like the people of Israel in Ezekiel’s time, were becoming old dry bones that had run out of hope. At least, before the retreat we wondered:  are we over?  Is  this experiment in Christian living and worshiping  finished? Time for the curtain to come down on the play?  No, we decided at the retreat that we are in transition. There is no doubt that we are now  writing a new script, with new choreography,  for this ongoing inprovisational drama.  There is no question that the Holy Spirit is blowing into  us, helping us revive.

But Ezekiel grabbed me in another way, too.  In his book, Living Buddha, Living Christ,  the Vietnamese  monk Thich Nhat Hanh tells the following story:

A young Buddhist monk asks his mentor: “ Is the greatest religious question on earth ‘Is there life after death?”  The Mentor replies: “No, the greatest religious question is this ‘Is there  life before death?” 

In our individual lives, don’t we have periods of Dry Bones? Don’t each of us have periods of burn-out, if not depression, or at least exhaustion? All of us have said at one time or another: “Is this all there is to life?” or “I just can’t do this anymore?” It is human nature to run out of steam, and  short or medium periods of depression are pretty typical for most of us. There are times when  we feel dull and colorless. And  the main remedy for this living death is the same remedy used on the  old dry bones on the valley floor:  the enlivening  Spirit of God.

Ah. Easy to say. But, to quote the Sound of Music, How do you catch a moonbeam in your hand? How do we get the Spirit of God  into our hearts and minds ?

Well, if rookies like me can preach (in this bold experiment called the Community of Christ) then  I’m going to take a crack at this question, too. I don’t have a scholarly answer, I can only advise out of my own experience.  So here’s Barbara’s list of 4 and ½ remedies for burn-out and mild depression:

1. It’s on the wall behind me (on Hayley and Cai’s Lenten banner behind the altar)

 ”DO SOMETHING NEW”   Habit  deadens our spirits, even if it seems comfortable. There is nothing wrong with comfortable, it’s very nurturing, but you can get it with fewer habits, especially if they might be bad for you.  For example, if you need coffee in the afternoon for a pick-me-up,   go for a brisk walk outside instead. If you are serious, try being ridiculous.  If  you are usually tactful, try being blunt once in a while.   Drive a new way to work. Talk to someone you usually only say “hi” to.  God likes growth, and stretching, and she gets bored with your routine.  She says “Ho, hum, I’ll go talk to someone more interesting!”

1. Take care of your health. I wish we could ignore our bodies, but for some reason God set it up so that we have to take care of them. Think of your body as the only boat you are going to get to navigate the challenging seas of life. Any boat captain will tell you that boats require maintenance. If  you allow leaks to develop, if you carry more cargo than your skeleton can bear,  if you put sand in your carburetor…you catch my drift.  It’s bad enough that we get diseases that we did not cause, let’s at least avoid the ones that arise from poor diet, inadequate exercise, and inadequate sleep.  The 7th day Adventists are big on this, and you can see their point. Better boats last longer, giving you more time on earth to get God’s work done, and they are more fun to sail in.
2. Know your “yellow lights.” By this I mean, recognize when you have been going too fast and need to slow down.  I’m talking about modern busyness here. I observe that there is not a lazy person in this community. Just being a member here requires work – shoot, we even have to set up and take down our own chairs – no pews for us! Beyond our community of faith, we all do various kinds of volunteer work, raise children, take care of our families, some work full time – even our retirees are as busy as we working stiffs. My point here is: As your preacher-for-the-day, I exhort you: slow down.  I should say I exhort US: I am really in a period of discernment now about what is too much. I know this: when I am frantic with too much on my weekly calendar, I turn grumpy, I fail to see the beauty in people, I totally lose my sense of humor:  these are MY yellow lights. What are your yellow lights?  Know them, and slow down when you see them. Why? Because if you are like me,  God is a million miles away when I am in that state. God says: “Yikes! I’ll talk to her when she’s in a better mood!” So, to get God to come around more often, we gotta stop this over-busyness.  Maybe that’s why so many Christian groups recommend simplifying your life.
3.  Why on earth did I put this last on my list – maybe because piety is a new thing to me, a thing arrived at after modern psychology, the EST training and all its variations, careerism,  and many other false roads only  led me back to the valley of bones. So, # 4:  Pray! Talk to God. Talk to Jesus. Talk to any of the folks in heaven:  the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit, to St. Peter, to Paul – they are all in heaven on the prayer switchboard. I even think it’s good to pray to your dear ones who have died.  Once in a while, let’s all talk to Walt, Rudy, Valborg, or some other deceased loved one. I don’t know why, but I’ve been doing this lately, and it calms me down and then I can segue into talking with God.
4. And ½ : because this is part of prayer, I’m numbering it 4 and ½:

Remember what Confucius says: we have two ears and one mouth so we will listen twice as well as we talk, which means we have to include listening in our prayer time.  Cultivating the ability to listen for God is what Christian meditation is about. I believe that a great next step for me, and for this community, is to undertake the study and practice of Christian Meditation. But until we do that, let’s not wait.  Let’s try this: set aside 6 minutes daily and sit in a place where people have agreed not to disturb you. Using a clock or your watch to time yourself,  pray for 2 minutes only. Then be silent, sitting in the presence of God for 4 minutes. I promise to start this, perhaps you can try it too.

I want to close by reminding us of where we are on this Lenten pathway.  When Jesus raised Lazarus from the death, he threw down the Gauntlet in front of the Jewish authorities. When he gave Lazarus life, it was a trade: it meant he was on an irreversible course to be sacrificed. Next week, we will remember the triumphant and final re-entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We will remember Jesus’ last Seder with his disciples, the anguish of Gethsemane, and the agony of Good Friday. We do this together every year. I thank God for this, because I could not do it without you!

AMEN

Prayerfully submitted by Barbara Hayden, preacher for the day….