Commentary on Lectionary for April 10, 2011

Lent 5A

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

The old saw has it that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” I looked in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to find out who said that, and , I might have known, it was Ben Franklin. Right under it in the book was his epitaph for himself, which reads: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (Like the cover of an old book, its contents worn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here, food for worms! Yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by its Author!”

These are appropriate quotes, this close to tax day, and this close to Good Friday. Death abounds in the readings and can be oppressive as we get closer and closer to the execution of the Son of Man. I used to hate Holy Week, with its many readings of the Passion, its somber mood, purple everywhere, silence or hushed whispers, guilt hanging from the rafters of my memory. Like a child whose parent has tragically died, I am sure I killed him.

As we age, things get stripped from us just as Ben Franklin said. Our careers, our memories, our other faculties, friends and relatives, our stamina and health. It takes great act of faith to believe that none of these things are the “real me.” Eckhard Tolle and other contemplatives insist that we can “practice dying,” by letting these little losses go, but also letting them increase our understanding that they were just “gilding and lettering.” Taxes may be a good way to practice dying. In one of his meditations from Everything Belongs, Rev. Richard Rohr writes: “Please don’t get caught in just ‘my’ story, my hurts, my agenda. It’s too small. It’s not the whole You, the Great You.”

And so the message to Ezekiel. What a terrible vision he was given—all of those bones! I wonder if he was so sick he could barely stand. And yet God made him understand they weren’t the whole story. They stood for Israel—seemingly dead, but not forgotten by a God who could put flesh back on them quicker than Ezekiel could make a prophecy.

A similar thing must be said of that strange Lazarus story in John’s Gospel. Jesus is told his friend is ill, yet he delays. He knows Lazarus is going to die and then DOES die. He knows he is going to call him forth from that grave, and yet Jesus weeps when he gets there. He keeps talking about faith, just as Paul does in Romans.

And it’s always troubled me that Lazarus doesn’t STAY raised from the dead. Eventually, he dies again and stays dead this time!

The conclusion has to be that none of this is about death; it’s about life. Faith is the way through—to believe that none of the gilding and lettering is really you; and the wearing out and dying of your body and its melting down to bones and eventually dust have nothing to do with your true essence and destiny. You, I, we, they have been touched by God. We are, as Paul notes, “not in the flesh. We are in the Spirit.” The Spirit cannot die.

Cry out from the scary depths when death and taxes approach, but wait. Bring your guilt down from the rafters, because forgiveness is here and steadfast love and great power to redeem (Ps. 50). We wait because we can’t earn this forgiveness and this love. We wait because we can’t make it happen on our own. We wait in prayer and openness. But we wait with confidence and hope because we know Someone has this foolhardy, undeserved, over-the-top LOVE for us!