Sunday of the Living Dead

Okay, so I have been a tad busy with work and with raising the baby. Here is a sermon I gave today at church.

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This is one of those sermons. You know the one. The doom and gloom with the message of hope at the end. I know, it’s weird, the preacher telling you in advance what kind of sermon is coming. But it’s sometimes good to know what you are getting into. Every time I have the opportunity to preach to you, I find myself opening the door of my life a little wider to you all and to God. You have learned from past sermons that I am a Star Trek geek. You have learned my favorite bible passage is about jars of clay. You’ve learned that I think the Simpsons is the most religious show on network television. I have yet another confession to make. I really dig zombie movies. Dawn of the Dead, the original one, is probably one of my favorites. I am fascinated by the things that go bump in the night, but I am also fascinated at how deep a message zombie movies offer. Night of the Living Dead is a commentary on racism and racial unity. Dawn of the Dead is a commentary on consumerism and capitalism. Day of the Dead speaks to isolation of the human soul. 28 Days Later is a commentary on our own self-destructive behavior from playing God. Yep, zombie movies have a message.

One of the unique things about zombies, and I apologize for graphic imagery here, is that they usually must consume human flesh. There is never an explanation why, nor an understanding of the how. It just is. The zombies don't seem eat out of hunger, it is just an instinctual and ritualistic reaction. The food doesn't even appear necessary. It's just something to do. Now, as you sit in your pews, slightly uncomfortable as to how I might link zombies and a spiritual message, I have to lay out the plot of the zombie movie. Trust me, it will all come together in the end. First, there is a quiet, normalcy to the beginning of the zombie movie. Life is okay. Nothing strange is going on. Then, one or two odd occurrences pop up. People disappear, strange attacks happen. No one is quite certain what is going on. Then, the big reveal is that zombies are everywhere and they are multiplying. There is still no knowledge of how it happened. Was it a comet? A military experiment? A sign from God? No answers, and the zombies are getting closer to the heroes trapped in a building. Finally, one human takes a chance to change his or her fate and the zombies are vanquished (or so we think).

So where does the spiritual message come in? Well, there's a problem with our faith. Not just at St. Matthew. Not just in Wheaton. It's everywhere. We come to church every Sunday, well, most of us do. Some of us are still the kind of churchgoer I affectionately call a Chreaster - the Christmas and Easter churchgoer. Whatever the season or reason, we go to church because it is what you do on Sunday. We consume the message, as an instinctual and ritualistic reaction. But the message doesn't even appear necessary to us. It's just something to do. We find it hard to incorporate the Word into our lives. We find it hard even to incorporate the sermon into our lives. We go about our business, not quite spiritually dead, but certainly not spiritually alive. We are the spiritual undead. We are the spiritual zombies. Each one of us probably could pinpoint times in our lives when we clearly were spiritually alive, and the times when were spiritually dead. On the path to spiritual zombiehood, we are not quite sure how it happened. It just does. What we begin to realize with this spiritual zombieness is that we are everywhere. We just continue to get larger. We are the Sunday of the Living Dead. We grow apathetic in our faith because it is just there to be consumed every Sunday morning (or Saturday evening, in some churches, whose zombie groups have burst their seams). The Word doesn't nourish us, because it can't. We aren't letting it in. Our apathy and our selfishness in our faith and worship are infectious. In the movies, zombies spread through biting and blood. The spread of spiritual apathy comes much in the same way. We are biting at our fellow members for one reason or another. Blood, the blood of anger and self-focus, tends to flow in congregations from time to time. And that message does spread like an infection. The infected become one of the zombies. The insulated few hide out and wait for their moment to halt the spread of the undead. Or they turn to isolation and departure. This is not good either.

So there it is and now the question becomes "where is that one human who takes a chance to change the fate and vanquish the zombies?" Well, here's the best part, you need only look to today's readings. Talk about an awesome message from our gracious and loving God. In the Valley of Dry Bones, God asks, “Son of Man, can these bones live again?” And in response, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” And then God says that he will bring the bones together, attach flesh, cover them with skin, and breathe life into them. God takes long dead bones, which are just there, doing nothing. He breathes life into them. And they rise. But God says more on that. He calls the bones the whole House of Israel. He likens them to people who are hopeless and in despair. God promises to open up their graves and breathe life into them. He promises them home in Israel. God is calling out. I am here for you. I will breathe my spirit into you and you will live. I will make it better. I am the Lord and this has been prophesied to you.

Now there is something awesome about that. Imagine seeing a field of dead bones come back to life, to reform as humans. God’s Word is all it took. Now, imagine you are in that field today. The raising of the bones is a metaphor too, for God bring hope back into our lives. Don’t sit there and mindlessly consume the message but not hear it. Incorporate the breath of God into your very essence. God will bring your spirit back to life. He will give you that promised land. God can bring you back from the dead. As we draw nearer to Easter, this becomes more important to remember.

God is this river of life where we can truly be satisfied. Our dry bones are hydrated by God’s spirit. Our weary flesh is made young and vibrant again as the Word renews better than botox and collagen ever could.

You also heard today from the Gospel of John about the raising of Lazarus. It is fitting that the Ezekiel passage, which speaks to the resurrection is paired with the resurrection of Lazarus, which also speaks to the resurrection. But to understand this, you need a little background on the Lazarus event. Jesus was friends with Lazarus. But, Jesus is teaching with his disciples when he hears the news that Lazarus is sick. Jesus has just escaped a stoning event in Jerusalem. He is about 20 miles away from Bethany, where Lazarus is, so it is about a day’s journey. You would think with such a friendship with Lazarus, Jesus would have left that day. He did not. No, he waited for two days. By the time Jesus gets to Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Four days in the Middle Eastern heat. Even with the rush to bury the dead on the day of death, certainly, Lazarus would not have been a fresh-smelling body. Jesus goes to Lazarus’ family and Lazarus’ sisters are grieving. Others are grieving. And Jesus wept.

Not for long though. Shortly thereafter, Jesus calls out to Lazarus. His friend. Someone he cared greatly for. Lazaraus Come Out. And Lazarus does. Covered in grave linens, Lazarus exits his tomb, very much alive. Lazarus was his change of the fate. During Jesus' ministry, it was abundantly clear that the Pharisees and the scribes, and the priests had lost the message. Jesus was not their favorite. Follow the law was all the message the Pharisees could throw out to people. Blind following of Mosaic law. Not helping sick people on the Sabbath because it was against the law. Not eating or talking to certain people because they were unclean. Not handling the dead in any other way than prescribed by law. The resurrection of Lazarus was the final straw for them and they plot to kill Jesus. Talk about spiritual zombies.

I view Lazarus in some ways, as representing humans and their relationship to God in the early days. A close friendship. As I said earlier, Jesus had a close friendship with Lazarus, a human friendship. He was saddened by that loss; he cried. But he calls Lazarus back. Brings him back. Resurrects him. That is an awesome message. And Jesus weeps for us when we turn away or let things interfere with his reach toward us. But he calls us. He resurrects our connection to him. He brings us back to the faith and back to life.

Now you have God renewing our dry bones with the quenching spirit of life and Jesus calling us back to spiritual life. This is a wondrous thing. But this resurrection of faith and spirit is not a call to go back to the way it was. I watched a Nooma video this week with our Crazies. The message was about Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. Mary, upon realizing that it is Jesus standing next to her, calls out “Rabbouini” - teacher and moves to hold him. Jesus’ first words then are “Don’t hold on to me.” Upon seeing her teacher back from the dead, she should be overjoyed, but Jesus wants her to go forth and tell the others, not to sit there and hold on to him. Take that message to heart with the renewal of faith, this end to spiritual undeadness – Don’t hold on to things past. Go forth. Renewed. Faithful. Spiritually alive.

Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, you call us each day to be your faithful. We stray. We stagnate. We sidestep. Renew us again with your living spirit, that we may be hydrated with the Word and be called by Jesus to come by his side. In your name we pray, AMEN.