March 29, 2020

L5A 2020 (Third Sunday of Corona Quarantine): Ezekiel 37:1-14 A few months ago a friend and I had a discussion that was a little bit theology and a little bit linguistics about what we really mean when we talk about hope. We talked about hope being somewhere on the spectrum between expectation and fantasy. Expectations are what we can reasonably assume will happen based on history, experience, or the facts in front of us. Fantasy is what we doubt could ever happen, even if we really wish it would—something that, if not entirely impossible according to the laws of nature, is exceedingly implausible. Hope falls somewhere in between. It’s not based on facts or what we can plainly see—scripture reminds us that hope that is seen is not really hope.And we don’t truly place much hope in the things that are next to impossible—winning the lottery, that kind of thing. Hope is in the middle somewhere—a possibility that won’t be easy or might be a long shot but, if God is on our side, if the fates allow, if the stars align, if karma is kind—however you want to say it—it just might happen. I can’t remember exactly when we had that discussion, but I know it was when coronavirus was barely in the news; if you had told me then where we’d be now, I would have called that a complete fantasy—a dark and disturbing fantasy, but nothing like a realistic fear. Of course, over these last few weeks, we have moved all the way through the spectrum. We never expected it to get to our country, then we didn’t expect it to get to our part of the country; we hoped that we could stop it, then we hoped we could at least contain it. Now this once inconceivable threat is our expectation—if not for ourselves personally then for family, friends, co-workers, neighbors. I know that’s not what any of us want to hear this morning, but at my ordination they made me promise that I would, preserve the truth, giving no occasion for false security or illusory hope.Yet we come together desperate to find true hope in God’s word. And on this Sunday, which would still be almost the end of Lent even if it wasn’t barely the beginning of quarantine, we read the lament of people who themselves had lost all hope yet turned to God in desperation. Ezekiel prophesied to the people of ancient Israel in the worst period of their history, when they were in exile, cut off completely because they had been sent away from their land and could not worship God in the Temple, which was where they believed God dwelt. They say of themselves, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. So God shows Ezekiel a vision of dry bones and asks him, Mortal, can these bones live? Can this thing that is beyond impossible happen? Ezekiel gives God the right answer—the only answer there is to that question: O Lord God, You know. And in Ezekiel’s vision, God brings the bones back to life, promising the people that they willlive, they will return to their own land, and then they will know that the Lord is God. But that’s not the whole story: because it’s not those first exiles who see God’s promise fulfilled; the exile doesn’t end for generations. The hope that Ezekiel’s vision instills is for the nation, for the people as a whole, not one individual; no one to whom Ezekiel prophesied personally saw things work out the way they wanted them to. But Ezekiel’s valley of bones was just a vision. In John’s gospel, new hope is born when a real dead man comes back to life. Mary and Martha were somewhere between hope and expectation when they sent the message to Jesus that Lazarus was ill. You can hear the accusation when he finally arrives, four days after Lazarus was buried, when, as the old King James Version said it, he already stinketh: Mary says, If you had been here,my brother would not have died. They sent for Jesus because they hoped he could help. They expected he would, because history proved he could heal people and experience showed he loved their brother. But Jesus didn’t meet their expectations. Still, Martha says to Jesus, But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him. It’s not unlike Ezekiel’s answer—O Lord God, You’re the only one who knows what can happen now. And Jesus does what’s impossible and raises Lazarus, and then the people believed. Here’s the thing: we only get one, and we used up our one on Lazarus. And though Jesus brought him back to life, Lazarus died eventually, as all people do. So we are not supposed to hope that the dead will miraculously bounce back. And we’re not even supposed to hope only in resurrection at the last day…Martha tells Jesus she knows all about resurrection, but it didn’t do her any good right then. And we’re not supposed to hope God will do what we want because we ask. It wasn’t because Martha asked that Jesus raised Lazarus; Jesus announced to his disciples that he was going to go do that before they left for Bethany. This was Jesus’ last sign, and it showed not Mary and Martha’s faith in him, but Jesus’ faithfulness to God. So we are not supposed to hope that God will do the impossible because our faith is strong enough or we prayed hard enough,whatever that means. So today, don’t expect God to defy our reality, the facts that are in front of us.Ezekiel’s generation spent the whole rest of their lives in exile; those were their facts.Lazarus spent four days in the tomb after suffering an illness; that was his reality. And don’t pretend that our prayers can bend God to our will or that if we have enough faith God will break the rules of nature because we wish it could be so, as if God doesn’t already desire health and wholeness and grace and merciful goodness for us all. Today,face the unknowable future and say, O Lord God, you know…and then have hope,because the God who knows how this all will turn out is the same God who weeps with us at death then brings about new life, who promises to restore us and fills us with the Spirit, who lives and breathes and moves in us so we know God is there. Our hope comes from trusting that God is on our side, and God is so completely and eternally on our side, that no matter what happens, even if it’s not OK, it will be OK.