Lent V

The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Ezekiel 37:12–14; Psalm 130; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

Cut from heavy round iron plates, there are more than 10,000 faces with open silent mouths. They are strew and piled along the floor as an art installation in the Jewish Museum, Berlin.* You are invited, as I did, to walk into the space upon the layered “faces”. As metal face hits metal face, the sound resembles that of dry, crackling bones. It is as if you are walking on the dead. It is an eerie feeling and sound. I could not stay long.

Ten thousand gaping, shouting mouths which emit – only silence. How similar are they to the gaping holes in the windows and roofs of Saint Joseph, Arbor Hill and Saint John in the South End. The silent sentinels of Saint Anthony at Grand and Madison or Our Lady, Help of Christians overlooking the Mansion Hill District. Now the still rising smoke and barrenness of the burnt out Doane Stuart School _{[formerly Kenwood Academy of the Sacred Heart].}

There are the silent gaping holes in the hearts of people who are in deep sadness for their dead; a void that will not be filled. The silence in the hearts of priests who do not trust their bishops and feel the people do not care about them. The priests who suffer intolerable situations in silence with no assist from diocesan chanceries. The quiet desperation of parishioners wondering what will happen to their parishes; many of whom without being noticed slip away from the living community of believers to watch the Mass lived-streamed, if that. The unvoiced questions echoing in our hearts of how we will proceed forward through the sexual scandal, the filing of Chapter 11 and its consequent impingement on our parish finances and futures. For years now I feel like I’ve been presiding over a vast funeral.

We live in a valley of dry bones. From war and famine to mass shootings and COVID. But there is death far more destructive than that of the body. It is the death of spirit. We live in a time of a lack of imagination and the seeming inability to dream and be creative. We live as hope slips through our fingers like sand. Unlike the sciences, technology, and the arts which are teeming with imagination and creativity, we believers find ourselves walking in a deserted, foreign, and unfamiliar land.

Yet we are invited to look about us as Ezekiel looked over the valley of bones and consider the question posed, “Can these bones live?”  Like Martha looking at the grave that encased her dead brother we too must ponder who is Jesus, “Do you believe this…do you believe I am resurrection and life?”

Today, the same questions are posed to us. And how will we answer?

The raising of Lazarus and the renewal of the House of Israel are not about eternal life or the resurrection of the dead but rather about God’s determination to make his people live no matter what our circumstances might be. And what are our circumstances? Have we ever considered that our buildings and institutions, our prestige and power have betrayed us to the detriment of being a living people proclaiming by word and action the Gospel? It seems to be all collapsing around us. And God says to us as God said to the prophet Ezekiel, “Even if you are dead and buried like heaps of dry bones, I will open your graves and make you live again. And I will do this not because you are good and holy, not because you are obedient and deserving but just because I am God, and this is what I have decided to do”.

The theologian Hans Küng wrote: “The Church is the pilgrim community of believers, not of those who already see and know. If we could already see and know, there would be no place for trust and faith. If we could already see and know, we would be God. Rather, we are a people led by God as Ezekiel was to look over a valley of dry bones and reflect in hope. We are a people led by Jesus to confront the grave and for our sake witness God act. Küng continues, The Church must ever and again wander through the desert. It must always be prepared to seek out a new path, a way that might be just as difficult to find as a desert track, or a path through darkness.**

This valley of dry bones is not a secure and comfortable place to be but here we are. There is within us the same sadness, frustration and anger as we hear in the words of Mary and Martha, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died”. For the Christian, death and graves are opportunities; opportunities that invite us into a deep trust and faith in God as Martha voiced, “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you”. But in this trust, God will not raise the Church to a renewed life or have her come forth from her grave as we remember or as we want her to be.  When God acts, God makes all things new! _{[Revelation 21:5]}

Are you and I willing to be open to the imagination of God?

Are we willing to let God take us by the hand and walk together into an unknown future?

Will we attempt with trust to answer the questions, “Can these bones live?” and “Do you believe…I am resurrection and life?”

_{*Shalehet – Fallen Leaves by Israeli artist Menashe Kadishman}

_{** From the preface of Hans Küng’s The Church}