SPEAKER_00: The Lord be with you, and with thy spirit, let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Grant your people grace to love what you command and to 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 forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: A reading from the book of Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: The hand of the Lord came upon me, and God brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the middle of a valley.
SPEAKER_00: It was full of bones.
SPEAKER_00: He led me all around them.
SPEAKER_00: There were very many lying in the valley, and they were dry.
SPEAKER_00: And God said to me, Mortal, can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: I answered, O Lord God, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
SPEAKER_00: I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So I prophesied as I'd been commanded, and I prophesied.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
SPEAKER_00: I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said to me, Prophesy to the breath, Prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.
SPEAKER_00: I prophesied as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and they stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said to me, Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are cut off completely.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And you will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people.
SPEAKER_00: I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil.
SPEAKER_00: Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord, thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 130 is read responsively by half verse.
SPEAKER_00: Please join me if you're following online with your bulletin.
SPEAKER_00: Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, hear my voice.
SPEAKER_00: Let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
SPEAKER_00: If you, O Lord, were to denote what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand, but there is forgiveness with you, and therefore you are feared.
SPEAKER_00: I wait for you, O Lord, my soul waits for you, and your word is my hope.
SPEAKER_00: My soul waits for the Lord more than centuries for the morning, more than centuries for the morning.
SPEAKER_00: O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy.
SPEAKER_00: There is plentious redemption with the Lord who shall redeem Israel from all their sins.
SPEAKER_00: A reading from Paul's epistle to the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
SPEAKER_00: It does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.
SPEAKER_00: And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
SPEAKER_00: But you are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.
SPEAKER_00: Any one who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: If the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then God who raised Christ from the dead will give you life to your mortal bodies also through the spirit that dwells in you.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
SPEAKER_00: Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and her brother Lazarus was ill.
SPEAKER_00: So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, Lord, the one whom you love is ill.
SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus heard it, he said, This illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it.
SPEAKER_00: Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
SPEAKER_00: Then after this he said to the disciples, Let us go to Judea again.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going there again?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours of daylight?
SPEAKER_00: Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world, but those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.
SPEAKER_00: After saying this he told them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake awaken him.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will be all right.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
SPEAKER_00: For your sake I'm glad I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go to him.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas, who was called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go that we may die with him.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
SPEAKER_00: Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
SPEAKER_00: When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him while Mary stayed at home.
SPEAKER_00: Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_00: But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_00: Martha said to him, I know he'll rise again in the resurrection on the last day.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and every one who lives and believes in me will never die.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe this?
SPEAKER_00: She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.
SPEAKER_00: When she said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, The teacher is here and is calling for you.
SPEAKER_00: And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up and quickly go out.
SPEAKER_00: They followed her because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep there.
SPEAKER_00: When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Where have you laid him?
SPEAKER_00: They said to him, Lord, come and see.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus began to weep, so the Jews said, See how he loved him.
SPEAKER_00: But some of them said, Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus again, greatly disturbed, came to the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Take away the stone.
SPEAKER_00: Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, already there is a stench, because he has been dead four days.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?
SPEAKER_00: So they took away the stone, and Jesus looked upward and said, Father, I thank you for having heard me.
SPEAKER_00: I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_00: When he said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_00: The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let us go, and let him go.
SPEAKER_00: Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of the Lord, praise to thee, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Acknowledge we somebody beseech you a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: This story is rich and offers, I think, several things for us to think over, especially at this tumultuous time that we're living in.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to offer you at least three takeaways.
SPEAKER_00: The last one's going to seem like a bit of a stretch, but I hope you'll hang on with me.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is there is a lot of hope for us as we worry about our faith, or as we have our doubts or uncertainties.
SPEAKER_00: Please notice that the disciples really don't understand what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And they live with the guy for three years.
SPEAKER_00: They thought he was leading them to a premature death.
SPEAKER_00: They thought he was talking about Lazarus being asleep and getting his strength back that way.
SPEAKER_00: And that means that if there's ever points where we scratch our heads about what Jesus might mean for us, we're in pretty good company because it is, after all, the apostles who gave us our heritage.
SPEAKER_00: So don't be worried about not understanding the first time, or the fifth time, or the fifty-fifth time.
SPEAKER_00: I think this story tells us, assures us that Jesus does not get worn out with our lack of understanding, with our confusion, but rather he gives us all the more grace.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas is called the twin here.
SPEAKER_00: And Thomas is called the twin, interestingly enough, so the tradition goes, because he was so akin to Jesus that he was of the same spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And even his twin thinks Jesus is leading him to his death.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about Thomas is he's willing to follow him even unto death.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to come back to that in the next thing I think we have before us.
SPEAKER_00: The other bit there to say is that the prophet Ezekiel, who has seen images of God and heaven being pulled around by a psychedelic chariot, who has done prophetic acts and deeds, is asked by God, can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel says, Lord, only you know.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say probably, maybe, he says, God knows.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's hope for us, I think, in the middle of our doubts and uncertainties.
SPEAKER_00: The next bit of the story.
SPEAKER_00: Can dry bones live?
SPEAKER_00: And um can people who we know who have utterly disappointed us or been disappointed, who have been abused or injured, or wrapped around with mental illness, can those people live again in this world?
SPEAKER_00: Are there parts of ourselves, like our capacity to connect, to forgive, to live outside of fear, even though we live with anxiety?
SPEAKER_00: Can those parts of us live again when they're parched and dry?
SPEAKER_00: Can we regain what it means to hope?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes, he comes late.
SPEAKER_00: Now we hear in the story, he shows up four days late.
SPEAKER_00: If he'd gone right immediately, he would have only been two days late.
SPEAKER_00: That actually matters a little bit because, according to the thought of the time, your spirit hovered around your body for three days, but after three days it was gone.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus got there two days in, his work would have been miraculous, but it would not have been the miracle that it was, bringing back the completely departed spirit to Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: This is like the dry bone story.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus isn't just kind of dead, he's completely dead.
SPEAKER_00: He stinks.
SPEAKER_00: He's been put in a tomb.
SPEAKER_00: And he has this very interesting banter, it turns out, with Martha.
SPEAKER_00: Martha says, Jesus, if you'd been here, he wouldn't have died.
SPEAKER_00: But I know you can do whatever it is you ask.
SPEAKER_00: God will do.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like she doesn't even pause.
SPEAKER_00: She says this moment of disappointment, maybe even accusation, and just moves right on to some theology.
SPEAKER_00: Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know that.
SPEAKER_00: He'll do that later, though, in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We know he's dead now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, look, I'm the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me will have life.
SPEAKER_00: I know you're the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful to hear that in this theological banter, the Messiah had nothing to do with resurrection and Jewish anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: The Messiah was the military leader that was going to deliver the Jewish people from Rome, not somebody who was going to bring death, life, into places that were full of death.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Jesus goes to the tomb and he says, roll the rock away, Martha says, God, he stinks.
SPEAKER_00: Why would I do that?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does this very interesting thing.
SPEAKER_00: He calls Lazarus out.
SPEAKER_00: Lazarus gets his life back.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says to the people, unbind him and let him go.
SPEAKER_00: There's one other piece that's really important in the story.
SPEAKER_00: John in his gospel uses the phrase, come and see at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist's disciples see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They hear John the Baptist say, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_00: They come up to Jesus and they ask him, possibly a very innocuous question.
SPEAKER_00: They say, Where are you staying?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus replies, Come and see.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you read some of the morning devotions, I think this is a really, really significant phrase in John.
SPEAKER_00: I think what's happening in John, what's happening by Jesus here, is people are coming to size him up.
SPEAKER_00: Are you a Democrat or a Republican?
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in social distancing or not?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to the grocery store or you're just calling on deliveries?
SPEAKER_00: Tell me your position so I can understand you.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me your opinion so I can define you by it.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of Jesus giving them what they ask for, allowing them to reduce him to simply a box that he checks, he says, not going to tell you the flattening answer.
SPEAKER_00: You come and see.
SPEAKER_00: You come and see where I'm staying.
SPEAKER_00: You come and experience my context.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to fit it into your own.
SPEAKER_00: You come visit me.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this phrase gets used here again.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus asks, Where have you put the dead Lazarus?
SPEAKER_00: And the people say, Come and see.
SPEAKER_00: They don't say the town cemetery.
SPEAKER_00: They don't say in the family grave.
SPEAKER_00: They say, You come and see what we've done with this dead guy.
SPEAKER_00: And this is when Jesus weeps.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he could be weeping because Lazarus is his friend and he's dead.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably true.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to suggest to you that Jesus might also be weeping because he sees what people do with the dead among them.
SPEAKER_00: And that could be literal, but I want to suggest in John this is really about what do we do with people we're done with figuratively?
SPEAKER_00: People who we've forgiven six times that we can't forgive a seventh.
SPEAKER_00: People who have so much chaos going on in their life that we can't abide it.
SPEAKER_00: Parts of ourselves that are so injured and threadbare that we dare not put resources back into them and hope that they'll live because there's just too much disappointment and death.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of people do we wrap up?
SPEAKER_00: I think you have to fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_00: Socially, though, I'm pretty sure that we have a really hard time with people who commit crimes.
SPEAKER_00: We put them in prisons in which they're treated terribly and then expect them to come out and be model citizens, and of course, that rarely happens.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes to those places.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to people who are on Megan's list.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to those parts of ourselves that have reached out and been and loved and tried and hoped and been rebuffed and have been buried away, have been covered up, those parts of our heart that we have closed off all hope for and says, come out.
SPEAKER_00: Come out.
SPEAKER_00: And then he tells the people also, unbind them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't just bring Lazarus back from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: He tells the town that they have to approach him once again.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is the scariest thing.
SPEAKER_00: They have to live with him.
SPEAKER_00: The miracle's not over when he comes out of the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: That's the beginning of this miracle, of this real miracle of people who were hitherto for dead now having to live in community.
SPEAKER_00: For community to having to give life after their labels and their disappointments and their hurts.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that matters to us right now.
SPEAKER_00: Where are the dead places in your spirituality, in your faith, in your relationships?
SPEAKER_00: Who are the people that you are completely done with?
SPEAKER_00: Where have you put them?
SPEAKER_00: And might God be asking us to unbind them and let them go.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's something really, really lovely about this big idea.
SPEAKER_00: But they're still lifeless.
SPEAKER_00: All the flesh and tendons and blood is there, but the life isn't.
SPEAKER_00: They're just sort of there and not full of any depth or mystery.
SPEAKER_00: No breath of life that they can pass on.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if there isn't the opportunity for us to hear in this.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're allowed to approach God with our deepest, deepest doubts.
SPEAKER_00: Can these bones live?
SPEAKER_00: God only knows.
SPEAKER_00: Can alcoholics really, really recover?
SPEAKER_00: God only knows.
SPEAKER_00: Can that person who broke my heart, can I ever have a meaningful relationship with them again?
SPEAKER_00: God only knows.
SPEAKER_00: And then God says to Ezekiel, okay, you've got your uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: So speak my words to them.
SPEAKER_00: Give your uncertainty to me, and then speak my words to them.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if at a minimum we aren't being offered this model in which we can say, God, I'm hurt.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I've got hope left in me from reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I want that person out of the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I want to try to put the paddles on that piece of my heart I'd buried a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I want that.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I love about the Episcopal Church and the liturgy.
SPEAKER_00: Our feelings are very real.
SPEAKER_00: We make room to express them to God, but we don't leave with our feelings.
SPEAKER_00: We leave with God's truth.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, in the middle of all your unrest, speak my words to them.
SPEAKER_00: Hear my words in yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing I think I want to offer from this story has to do with how the two sisters interact.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to put Martha down as if she's inferior to Mary in any way.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is going to sound like a stretch to you.
SPEAKER_00: But as I read the story over and over and over again this week, I couldn't help but hear a lot of Martha and myself.
SPEAKER_00: She comes to Jesus in the middle of or just after a crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Times are really, really tough.
SPEAKER_00: She starts to say, I'm really disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really upset.
SPEAKER_00: I'm even mad that you're late.
SPEAKER_00: You could have done something and you didn't.
SPEAKER_00: But then she switches immediately to some theological platitude so that she doesn't have to feel those feelings she doesn't want to feel.
SPEAKER_00: She switches to saying things like, One glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away.
SPEAKER_00: Or hey, this side of heaven, it's all gonna be tough.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of her anxiety, she doesn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so she starts doing what I want to suggest to you.
SPEAKER_00: Is meaningless work.
SPEAKER_00: She starts getting on a treadmill of trying to hustle and make herself busy so that she can feel better at the end of the day about the deep-seated doubts that she'd rather just ignore.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this happens after any kind of major catastrophe.
SPEAKER_00: We want to know what we can do for somebody.
SPEAKER_00: And I've mentioned this before.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm calling you to see if there's anything you need.
SPEAKER_00: At that point, the call is either going to be, yes, I need something, here's what it is, can you do it?
SPEAKER_00: Or no, I don't need anything.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for calling, and it's over.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we get so quick about I need to help, I need to help, I need to do something that we don't stop for a moment and think about where we are.
SPEAKER_00: And when we're able to stop and think where we are, we're actually able to connect meaningfully with other people and do what's called meaningful work.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that the treadmill's been tough here at St.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: I had this expectation that I'm going to be working 40 hours a week at a minimum.
SPEAKER_00: And this has been really tough the last couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00: I've tried to do things like make videos and make drive-thru Eucharist available and make communion available for people of eight.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you, I have tried to fill my schedule like usual.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'll get a phone call after five o'clock and I think, listen, I've already worked.
SPEAKER_00: Leave me alone.
SPEAKER_00: And it's because, in some ways, out of my anxiety, I've looked to work and not always meaningfully.
SPEAKER_00: There's people who are doing things like collecting bottled water to be distributed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's great to build up a cachet of bottled water, except that's not apparently the need that we have right now.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine that we hear about bottled water collection and we think, oh, that's something I could do, and we spend hours and hours and hours of our time trying to collect water.
SPEAKER_00: And then the question is, where will it go?
SPEAKER_00: Is there an agency that has said it needs it, or is this just something we heard about that we can put our anxiety into so that we don't have to feel, well, uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's the temptation to create high-resolution, really slick-looking videos about the services I'm trying to offer like this one.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe though that's meaningful work, and I'm trying to avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: I think that offering drive-through communion, I think that offering the ability to come and receive communion in groups of eight has been meaningful work.
SPEAKER_00: I've tried to embrace it.
SPEAKER_00: The directives we're getting are that we can no longer do those things, and I want you to know I have a little bit of grief of that, about that.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the middle of making lots of podcasts and products and thinking about how to make a slicker video maker, the connection I found that's the deepest has been in those moments of offering parishioners communions and a drive-thru, or even here in the sanctuary in a group of two.
SPEAKER_00: I've been able to see people, which has been the most meaningful part.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't do it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Our directives are that we can't.
SPEAKER_00: And so now in front of me is this opportunity to wind myself up trying to do something that's slick and great, or just to be open in the middle right now, that we're all grieving something that we've come to love.
SPEAKER_00: The ability to take the Eucharist every Sunday, or even on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to have to grieve it.
SPEAKER_00: And what I think is really great about this story is that when Mary comes in no rush, like Martha was, she says, Lord, if you'd been here, he wouldn't have died.
SPEAKER_00: And then she just stops.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't get on any kind of treadmill of theology.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't try to escape the moment.
SPEAKER_00: She voices her disappointment.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's even accusation, and it's at this moment that Jesus weeps.
SPEAKER_00: God shares the grief we feel right now about not being able to do the things we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: God shares the grief we feel that community as normal is having to be rearranged.
SPEAKER_00: God is sharing, I am positive, the grief we have, and hey, this connective work we were doing that we thought we were doing really safely in small groups or in drive-throughs.
SPEAKER_00: Can't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where I think we get to hear Anne Lamotte say, God did not come to take our suffering away, but to fill it with God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: And we're offered, I think, this other option here from this story, one that I heard when I was a child, but was never really allowed to believe, which is that if God is truly all-powerful, God can handle any doubt or fear or concern or anger you may have.
SPEAKER_00: And Mary in the story speaks it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't defend himself and he doesn't defend God, he just sits with her.
SPEAKER_00: I think this story offers us a real opportunity right now in a time of uncertainty, and we don't know how long this is going to be.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's the hardest thing.
SPEAKER_00: If we knew how long the race was, we could train for it and portion for it, but we don't exactly know.
SPEAKER_00: So I think Jesus offers us this opportunity to say, in the middle of your anxiety and doubt, and disappointment, what kind of work are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, full work?
SPEAKER_00: Or work that just ratchets up your anxiety and gets you off of this feeling?
SPEAKER_00: And God is big enough to feel the feels with us and won't abandon us to them if we'll take the time to express that.
SPEAKER_00: My spiritual discipline from this story is not only including people or offering visions of hope for people I've written off, but how is it that I can sit in moments of vulnerability and despair and disappointment?
SPEAKER_00: How can I embrace those moments instead of trying to run away with them?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus ultimately promises in this story that even the deadest places are only tombs, are only binding if we make them so, but he offers us instead a hope of new life and resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Now, folks, I think two more thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: One is my theology has lately grown into the idea that God will take care of our toughest bits of reconciliation after we die.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus invites us to consider salvation happens when we embrace it now and that we don't have to wait.
SPEAKER_00: The other thought is, hey, I don't always know how to get off the treadmill of hustling in the middle of my anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe the reflection is just to think, why am I doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Is it because someone else can use the connection, or I've just got energy, I need to get out.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe, listen, it's not bad to just do things for ourselves when we're anxious, as long as we're just honest that that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I need to make cloth masks or whore bottled water to distribute to other people.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's a real connection.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if anybody's collecting those, so I'm just gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: I think if we can have that conversation right now, we can do like Mary does and be honest and just stop.
SPEAKER_00: And then I think when we're honest, hey, I'm acting out of my anxiety, the question is, do we want to continue to do it?
SPEAKER_00: Do we want to continue to hustle?
SPEAKER_00: And is there a moment where we can just rest and meet God in these places of disappointment and uncertainty, knowing that God is able to make new life precisely in those places?
SPEAKER_00: This is difficult and holy work, and um, I am here to virtually support you however I can for the indefinite future.
SPEAKER_00: But my prayer is that sometime this week or in the weeks to come, you will hear in your life, and in at least one of your relationships you've given up on long ago, you will hear Jesus say, Come out, Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll listen.
SPEAKER_00: Please join me as we pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.