Sunday Homily 4-10-11, 5th Lent
Readings: Ezekiel 37, 1-14 (1-11 not in lectionary); Psalm 130, With the Lord there is Mercy and Fullness of Redemption; Romans 8, 8-11; John 11, 1-45, The raising of Lazarus
Ezekiel 37, observations: (Author, When, Message)
Author: Ezekiel, for real. He is unique because he was not only one of the Big 3 Prophets (along with Isaiah & Jeremiah), but he was also a priest working in the temple.
When: before & during the Babylonian Captivity, therefore around 585 before Christ. His audience was these people.
Message: Like the classic prophet, he condemns, warns, and consoles. We pick up on the consolation end. I want to read the first verses which lead up to our selection, because it is the fun dry bones story, about which we have the Spiritual. It is a shame the richer story is not included. This is metaphor. The dry bones can stand for the people in captivity; they can stand for me. Get out of that tomb!
Sources: New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Good News Bible, St. Louis U. with Reginald Fuller, Daniel Westberg, Larry Gillick, Jesuits.
Get out of that tomb!
One of the blessings of travel for me is the deepening of gratitude in me for how fortunate I am right here. Another blessing comes with meeting special people along the way.
I met one of these special people in Normandy on our trip to France. When we arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, we immediately took the train to a little village called Bayeux in Normandy.
The next day we took a moving tour of the June 6, D Day landings on Omaha Beach, Gold Beach, three of the cemeteries, plus a handful of other memorials.
The following day we visited a place I was to discover was one of the four Middle Age pilgrimage sites. First off, I did not know of four. Know the other three? Jerusalem, Rome, & Santiago de Campostella in the NW province of Galicia in Spain.
The place we visited was called Mont San Michel and has been a Benedictine monastery for centuries, since around 900. It is built on a large rock off of the coast of France, reached only by a causeway because high tide surrounds the rock with water.
Visiting the monastery, which was actually used as a prison for about a century after the French Revolution in 1789, was moving. Equally moving for me was the woman who took us out there, the second point.
One of those special persons. She was simply driving a hotel van from Bayeux to Mont San Michel. She could have said nothing. Instead, she was full of personality and information about everything. I came to really admirer her, especially when she shared her story.
She said she had gone through a painful lay off and could not find work. So she went to plan B, as she called it, driving the van for the little Churchill Hotel in Bayeux.
She did not just drive. She described everything along the way and shared more about the history of Mont San Michel than I had even read. She became a friend to such an extent that we went out with her the next afternoon, after she did her morning drive, to a little town she told us we would love, Honfleur. We did.
Why talk about her? Because she exemplifies what is being talked about here, getting out of the tomb where we are half dead and coming to fuller life. She said getting laid off just about killed her, especially when she could not find any replacement. She was in the tomb, she was not alive.
The message is ‘get out of that tomb.’ Where am I stuck? We know the places, the addictions & the obsessions, the laziness and the over indulgence. The goal is simply to be a person more fully alive.
Where is your tomb?
Picture 1: The Community
Picture 2: Leo & his daddy, Ray
Picture 3: Maggie & her daddy, Tom
Picture 4: Mont San Michel, Normandy, France
Picture 5: Wedding of Jill Carleton & Stephen Egal