Homily
by The Rev. Marcia McRae
St.
Francis' Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC; 5 Lent, 2 April 2017
RCL
Year A: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130; Romans
8:6-11 ; John 11:1-45
I
lay awake last night asking,
“Where have I gone wrong?”
A
voice replied:
“This
is going to take more than one night.”1
I
enjoy the perspective of Charles Schultz’s quip about lying awake.
He points us to our work this final week of
our Lenten Forgiveness Forum when we explore how to forgive
ourselves. He points us to our scriptures about forgiveness, about
setting the mind on the Spirit instead of the flesh, which keeps us
stuck in the past. He points us to our Gospel when Jesus tells us to
let go what keeps us bound to the past.
Notice
the graphic description we hear in Ezekiel: Bones
rising up from a parched valley, sinews
coming together. What
sound like great sci-fi movie special effects are reality in
Ezekiel’s day & our day. Ezekiel speaks to people living in
exile whose hope is dried up – people living as if dead, dried up
with human worries, human guilt.
Notice:
God has Ezekiel prophesy to involve Ezekiel in the healing & new
life of the people, as
one Bible commentary notes.2
God calls us to breathe hope into others & to live again in hope
ourselves when we dry up.
Notice
what Jesus does in our Gospel when his friends grieve. His love
overflows literally. It is a blessing to know Jesus is
“greatly disturbed, deeply moved,” & sheds tears like we do.
When
we fail to forgive ourselves, we mourn our losses & stay stuck.
Forgiving ourselves can be hard. Jesus stands with us in this hard
work. Jesus stands with his friends in our Gospel to help them
through this hard time.
In
tough times we may easily forget our Psalm points us to hope &
the newness of life we hear God say clearly in Ezekiel:
“I
will put my spirit within you,
&
you shall live. . .
I,
the Lord, have spoken & will act…"
God
says this to Ezekiel, to you & me & all dry bones. God acts.
We respond. God gives us the honor to work with God. When
we prophesy, when we speak & do as God commands, life comes into
dried bones in our lives & in us when we are dried bones.
If
Jesus can weep at the grave & feel distress at death, we can too
without feeling we are wrong. Keep death in perspective. Keep
life in perspective. More important than, “Are you afraid
to die?” is the question “Are you afraid to live?”
Remember:
Ezekiel talks about people living as though they are dead. Bound up
in lost hope, they are dried up with human worries. In
Romans, Paul tells us about living now in the Spirit & not the
flesh. Flesh worries. Life filled with God’s Spirit has right
perspective on worries & knows God acts in our lives, we respond.
Jesus
calls Lazarus from the tomb. Lazarus responds, his hands & feet
bound & eyes covered. Jesus says: “Unbind him, & let him
go.” People respond.
Jesus
calls us to “unbind & let go." Unbind yourself, your
brother, your sister. Unbind & let go whatever you haven’t
forgiven yourself for doing or not doing.
Think
of what my friend says: “When life is so dark you can’t look
forward, the past too painful to look back, look beside you: Jesus is
there with you.”
Right
after hearing this insight, I saw Monastery Icons offering a new
icon, Christ the True Friend, based on a 7th
century Coptic icon in the Louvre in Paris. You can see the icon I bought here on this stand on your way to Communion. It shows Jesus
holding the Gospel in one arm & his other arm around a Coptic
saint. Below the figures the words say:
“I
call you my friends”.
Jesus
calls you his friend. With our friend Jesus beside us, we can live in
love through God’s capacity to love which is greater than our
capacity to mess up. We can forgive ourselves &
incorporate this learning as a resource to apply to future failings.
Know
this: There is a difference between guilt & shame. Guilt
self-assesses our behavior in light of our values. Shame
self-assesses our very being. Shame says: “I hate myself for what I
did.” Shame alienates us from the person we harmed AND our very
self God created us / you to be. I alienate me from me!
Counteract
shame by changing its demand quality into a preference: “I prefer
that I would have/would not have…done whatever.”
“Forgiving
does not erase a bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted
memory….[F]orgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way
to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our
future.”3
Forgiving ourselves is doing
what Jesus tells the people to do at the tomb when Lazarus comes out:
unbind & let go.
Let God’s Spirit dwelling
in you breathe life into your dried bones. God loves you so much that
Jesus dies on the cross for you & the Holy Spirit chooses to live
in you. Who are you to keep beating yourself up about the past?
Forgive yourself! Speak love to yourself!
Take
a moment & be aware of God’s Love. Despite whatever sin you
recall, remember we have made our confession today & been
forgiven by God. Let yourself be held by God’s Love & be at
peace with yourself & with God….
As
you rest in God’s vast Love, ponder this: “Our deepest fear is
not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure...We [are] born to make manifest the glory of God
[which] is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in [each of
us]. As you let your light shine, you unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.”4
Shine
your light!
Bibliography
Dios
Habla Hoy: La Biblia.
2nd
Ed. Nueva York: Sociedad Biblica Americana. 1983.
Harper’s
Bible Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers, 1988.
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary.
General Ed.: Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers. 1985.
Holy
Bible with the Apocrypha.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Jewish
Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation.
New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.
The
New American Bible for Catholics.
South Bend: Greenlawn Press. 1986.
New
Oxford Anontated Bible with Apocrypha.
Eds: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University
Press, Inc. 1977.
La
Sacra Bibbia: Versione Riveduta.
Societa’ Britannica & Forestiera. Roma: 1990.
Voyles,
Robert J. Restoring
Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. “Teaching Forgiveness”
www.appreciativeway.com.
2014.
1
Charles M. Schultz. Quoted P. 74 by Robert J. Voyles.
“Teaching Forgiveness” www.appreciativeway.com.
2014.
3
Ibid. Voyles quoting Louis B. Smedes. P. 69.
4
From “A Return to Love” by Marianne Williamson.
Quoted by Voyles. P. 71.
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