Unruly Wills, Belief, and Resurrection
“Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.””
“When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” ”
I’ve always had a bit of an unruly will, and it has been more difficult than usual to obey needed restrictions these past couple of weeks. During a period of self-isolation because of my brief lunch with a colleague who tested positive for Covid-19, and now due to the governor’s orders, I have been mostly in my house for seventeen days. We’ve been worshiping online each week, but I long to see all of you in person. I’ve been praying to receive “my daily bread” from God, but fasting from the “Bread of Life” as we have not been able to share the Eucharist on three Sundays. I am doing what the public health authorities say I must to help slow the spread of the coronavirus that causes covid-19, but I don’t have to like it. You don’t have to like it either. What we are going through this Lent is hard, but it is not unprecedented in our Christian history. I think we pray this prayer on the fifth Sunday in Lent because it is at about this time that our wills usually get more unruly, and our desire for the resurrection feast makes us want to skip over the important work of aligning ourselves with God’s desires for the world. We want the fast to be over and the feast to begin, and we certainly don’t want to find ourselves traveling alone in a wasteland.
Yet, alone in a valley filled with dry bones is where Ezekiel heard the voice of the Lord giving him purpose. He didn’t know what God was doing, his response to the question “Mortal, can these bones live?” was “O Lord God, you know.”, which I’ve always heard with a bit of annoyance attached. Before the Lord commanded him to prophesy, I’m sure he didn’t think he would be raising them to live himself, but he trusted the power of God working through him and did what he was told to do, strange as it was. Ezekiel had literally digested the word of God, having eaten the scroll of God’s word before going to speak to Israel (Ezekiel 3: 1-3). The word was so fully a part of him that he could not do other than what God commanded him to do. He was fully aligned with God’s desire, and life was breathed into the bones scattered around him. He didn’t respond to God incredulously or with resistance, but simply joined in the life-giving work.
We are able to join in God’s life-giving work too, but sometimes it involves waiting for the mystery to unfold and God’s desires to become clear. When Mary meets Jesus, she can’t understand why he didn’t come sooner, and neither can some of the friends gathered to mourn her brother Lazarus. They wonder why Jesus, who could heal a blind man, chose not to heal his friend? Martha sort of understands that resurrection happens in God’s time when she says “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (John 11:24), but even those closest to Jesus are not able to comprehend the way that God’s power will work to raise Lazarus from the dead.The power of Jesus over life and death is a mystery to them, and it remains a mystery to us. The hope of the resurrection seems far away to our practical, materialistic minds. It can happen only in some undefined future. We do not really believe that God desires our life and the life of the world even now. The only way to believe in the resurrection is to see it for ourselves, and the only way to see it is to look with the eyes God gives us. Ezekiel saw resurrection in the valley of dry bones because he knew and trusted the power of God’s word. Martha and Mary saw the resurrection of their brother Lazarus because they looked for Jesus in their deepest grief. They aligned themselves with the one they knew was the messiah, the healer, the savior of the world. They opened the tomb when Jesus asked, despite how long their brother was in there. They believed his presence and his words would change something about their situation.
I do have an “unruly will.” I am angry and sad that I am so far from the people I love and want to serve. I don’t have the temperament to sit in my monastic cell and follow my “rule of life.” In fact, when I was in seminary, I once confessed my guilt over not being able to make a personal rule of life to a trusted adviser. I’m not sure he thought it was as big of a deal as I did, but I remember it as a spiritual failing that others didn’t seem to have.
I have since realized that there are other ways to submit to the Lord, and I take other practices seriously to help me do that, but it remains hard to sit in my house breaking an invisible chain of infection when I want to be out doing things to help the poor, the sick and those who mourn. It’s heartbreaking to wait for the resurrection that will come after this time of death and fear. If it’s hard for you to do that too, pray for me, and pray for others in our community. Offer alms to the poor. Pray for the whole world, our church, our leaders and those who are in need. Pray for the dead. Let your prayers and your offering of your time to others on the phone, online and by written word be turned towards God’s life giving purpose for this short time. Read and digest the word of God. Meditate on what God promises and desires for the world. Then, when God commands you to go somewhere and do God’s work, you will be ready. Most of us right now are commanded to stay home, and that is hard, but it is a purpose that aligns with God’s desire (and Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world) that “all might have life, and have it abundantly” John 10:10. Hold on to that purpose, and pray for the life of the world.
The Raising of Lazarus, by DuccioDuccio di Buoninsegna, 1310
the Kimbell Art Museum