Participating in Resurrection

Sermon delivered Sunday, April 6, 2014 (Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45)

Our readings for today seem to be getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re all about resurrection! God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to bring them back to life, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and Paul tells us that “he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also” (Romans 8:11).

Resurrection, bringing life from death, is everywhere in these readings. With the exception of the psalm, there’s hardly a word anywhere about our Lenten themes of sin and repentance. What’s going on here? If Easter is still two weeks away, why all this talk about resurrection in the middle of Lent?

Perhaps it is because we most need to remember the promise of resurrection during times of repentance. Whenever we stop to take a cold, hard look at the ways we are dead in our sins, we need to simultaneously remember the promise that we can and will be made alive through the Spirit of God working in us. The 40 days of Lent metaphorically recall Jesus’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, and it is during our own wilderness periods that we are most aware of our need for resurrection. When we come face to face with our shortcomings and our mortality, we are most open to the gift of grace and new life that God offers to us. By anticipating the resurrection two weeks before we make it to Easter, our readings today remind us that God’s offer of new life is available even in the midst of the wilderness.

And these readings also remind us of something about resurrection that we don’t hear as clearly in the Easter passages – they remind us that God invites us to participate in the process of resurrection. In today’s passages, the people are not passive bystanders to God’s miraculous power to bring life from death; they actually join with God in bringing about resurrection.

Ezekiel joins with God in bringing new life to the dry bones by speaking the words God has given him to speak, and the bystanders in the Gospel join with Jesus in restoring Lazarus to life by moving away the stone from the grave and removing Lazarus’s burial clothes. [1] Clearly, the power to bring life from death is entirely God’s, but at least in these stories, God does not do so without involving others in the process. God could have showed Ezekiel a vision of the dry bones coming back to life without any required words or actions on Ezekiel’s part, and God could have moved the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb miraculously, without human involvement, and Lazarus could have walked out already free from his burial shroud. But for whatever reason, God didn’t do it that way. God chose to leave parts of the process for us to do.

It has become somewhat of a catch-phrase in modern theology to talk about people as being “co-creators with God.” This idea proposes that human beings partner with God in the maintenance of the created world and in bringing about God’s purposes in it. In contrast to a view that sees human beings as entirely passive because “God’s in control,” this theology insists that human beings are active partners with God in God’s activity in the world.

Although a common critique of this theology is that it ascribes too much power to humans, coming close to saying human beings are equal to God, the theologian who first coined the term, Phillip Hefner, actually used the phrase “created co-creator.” We are not just co-creators – as if we were fellow gods in the heavenly court – we are created co-creators. We are, in fact, creatures, and the creature is not greater than the creator.

But, because we are created in the image of God who is a creator, we are made to be creators as well. Our creative abilities – in the arts, in science and technology, in problem-solving – are seen as a stamp of the divine nature in us. This theology also emphasizes human freedom, because it says that God does not direct every little action that happens on earth, but gives us the freedom of self-determination. No, God does not need us to do anything, but rather than exert total and utter control over us, God chooses to leave parts of the process for us to do. To the extent that we do those things, we become a partner with God in the great work of the divine redemption of the world. It is an unequal partnership, to be sure, but it is a partnership all the same.

The people in our readings for today are examples of the created co-creator. They are partners – however unequal – with God in making resurrection happen. Ezekiel delivers the words, the bystanders in the Gospel roll away the stone and remove Lazarus’s burial clothes. They remind us that although God is fully capable of bringing about transformation without us, God often asks for our help in doing so. God gives us a role to play. God invites us to participate in the work of resurrection.

The actions that Jesus tells the people to perform in today’s Gospel reading are rather symbolic. His specific instructions to them are, “Take away the stone,” and “Unbind him and let him go.” Although we can assume the people were invited to do these things in a literal sense for very practical reasons, the stories in John’s Gospel always have a deeper symbolic meaning.

Jesus invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by taking away the stones – the obstacles in our lives and in the lives of others that prevent the power of God from reaching us. I’m sure we’ve all known people who have constructed such emotional walls around themselves that they shut out everyone around them, and even shut out God. We might have even done this in our own lives at some point. There is a saying of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who relates that God said to him, “O Son of Being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee.” We must give love in order to be open to receiving love. If we do not take away the stones from the entrance to our hearts, the power of resurrection can in no way reach us.

Unbinding Lazarus

Jesus also invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by doing the difficult work of unbinding the shroud of death – the painful memories, the negative self-talk, the grudges and resentments – whatever it is that keeps us bound to the ways of sin and death – he invites us to cut loose those cords so that we can experience and appreciate the full power of the liberation given to us in the resurrection. Even though he had been restored to life, Lazarus’s freedom was still restricted until the people unbound him and let him go. Likewise, even if we have received the gift of new life through the resurrection in our baptism, we too can remain bound by our old burial shroud of sin and death, unless we do our part in the resurrection process and work to loosen those bonds.

This partnering with God in the process of resurrection is not easy business. And we can’t do it alone. Just as Lazarus could not untie himself, and certainly could not have moved the stone away from his grave while he was still dead, so we too sometimes must rely on others to help us move the stones and unbind the shrouds in our lives. This is not to say that others can do it all for us, but that we need companions and guides as we do this work. And while others have a part to play in our liberation, we also have a part to play in theirs – in fact, the two are inextricably linked. As we strive to do this difficult work, this spiritual work of opening ourselves to God and others, of rolling away the stones and unbinding the shroud of death, we find that our best guides and companions on the way are those people who know something about rolling away stones and unbinding shrouds – those people who have been there and have found a way through.

So maybe it’s not so out of character to think about resurrection during Lent after all. For it is only when we have experienced resurrection in the midst of our own wilderness that we are able to joyfully claim our role as created co-creators in God’s great work of redemption in the world.

[1] Insight into the participatory nature of the Gospel passage came from Richard Rohr, Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2011): 101. I must give him credit for the inspiration behind the direction of and theme of this sermon.