[Propertalk] 5 Lent a 2017 - part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's the first part of my draft for Sunday.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT
a 

	EZEKIEL 37:1-14    2nd APRIL, 2017 

	ROMANS 8:6-11     PSALM 130 

	JOHN11:1-45 

	 “Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;” 

	 I remember when I first heard the opening line of that Psalm. I was
in the University Chapel Choir at St Andrews, in Scotland, and these
were the words of an anthem we were preparing for a concert. 

	 I was knocked back by the words. 

	 It’s strange to think that I’d reached that age and not come
across Psalm 130, but it had never been used in any liturgy in the
Presbyterian Church in which I grew up. I don’t know why, but I can
take a wild guess that it was thought too gloomy. Somehow, it may have
been thought that it wasn’t right to suggest that one would talk
about being in such a state that people would confess to God the
intense feelings of hopelessness, of despair, of a desire to give up.
Perhaps this shows how problems can arise when one doesn’t use a
lectionary, but simply picks and chooses which Bible passages one
hears in the Sunday liturgy. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful
one is, consciously or not, one’s prejudices come through. 

	 So here we are, once again facing the psalmist’s anguish. And this
is exactly as it should be. This Psalm, along with the other readings,
is absolutely right for this Sunday in the Church Kalendar. We’re
peering over towards the beginning of Holy Week, and all that strange
mixture of emotions. Perhaps we’re wishing that, somehow, we, never
mind Jesus, could be spared the anguish and pain. Yet we know that
this isn’t how things work. Choices made without a clear view of the
consequences; uncertainly and fear because we don’t know where
certain actions, certain talk will lead; all sorts of unnamed or
unrecognised difficulties; all of it is part of life. Jesus knew it.
We know it. There’s no question about that. 

	 Perhaps the reason why I’d never heard the psalm used in a liturgy
until I was college age was, first, because people don’t like to
admit that some parts of life ARE terrible. And, second, we don’t
want to share in the abyss, far less experience it. But sometimes it
takes being in such a place; sometimes it takes acknowledging the
pain, the loneliness, the darkness, before we can even begin to
imagine wanting to look for healing. Sometimes it takes hitting rock
bottom and admitting that we really DON’T have the power and ability
to get out of such a place, before we become silent, listening for a
voice outside of ourselves, to see the hands outstretched towards us,
waiting for us to grab a hold and to ascend out of everything that is
devoid of hope, and trust, and love. And I think that we’d find that
far more people that we might imagine have been in that terrible place
where they’ve felt so lost. 

	 I don’t know what images come to mind whenever you hear the verses
of our first reading – the famous Valley of Dry Bones. Somehow, what
has been in my thoughts in the past has been a collection of bones,
all separated from one another, no sinews or ligaments there, just
bleached bones lying haphazardly across a valley floor. That’s bad
enough, certainly. The bones, unconnected from one another, have lost
all sense of identity. We don’t have any idea whose they were and
how they came to be there. Somehow, this anonymity seems to add to the
bleakness, the purposelessness of it all. 

	 But what if what the prophet saw was different – like Benno
Elkin’s carving, for instance. You have that in your bulletin. 1 

	 What if, instead of isolated piles of bones, even if they stretched
as far as the eye could see; what if the countryside was covered with
countless skeletons? What if the skeletons, whole bodies, minus the
organs, the sinews, the muscles, and ligaments, and skin were all
there, hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon thousands? To me, what
the sculpture depicts is far more bleak, far more hopeless, far more
horrifying. These were whole people. These were families and
communities. Now they’re all gone. You can hear the wind blowing and
the remains of garbage are sailing through the streets and the
countryside. 

	 Somehow, isolated bones, no matter how many, don’t tell the whole
story as do bleached, but whole skeletons strewn all around. 

	 No one wants to see that. It suggests warfare. It suggests massacres
or some other incredible catastrophe. And it’s far too close to
home. 

	 Think of the photos we see on the TV news, or in the papers and
magazines. Think of the living men and women, and children, whose skin
is stretched tight across skeletal frames, their eyes staring at you
and me, wondering if there is a drop of water, a crumb of grain, an
ounce of compassion and sympathy left which you and I might offer. 

	 Of course, we can barely stand to look at such images. Think of the
armies which liberated the Nazi concentration camps. Think of all the
countries in which genocide was and is still practised. We steel
ourselves to look, because we need to know of the evil, but we look at
such scenes as often as we recite the opening verses of this psalm –
as little as we can possibly get away with. 

	 To look, for however short a time, today or any other day, is just
too disturbing. It represents failure – OUR failure of resolve to
pay attention to those threatened by famine and drought. It represents
our failure to reach out to try to counteract disease. It represents
our failure to do something, to do ANYthing, to press, and press, and
press again our various representatives and leaders to stop the
immoral concentration on amassing power and money by selling arms and
allowing their sale to people whose sole interests are to create
Ezekielian graveyards. 

	 THIS is what the prophet saw. THIS is why his blood ran cold. THIS
is why he felt so hopeless, this man of God. 


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