Power
1995 Sermon 1995-01-01THE SACRED JOURNEY
4, Power
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Scripture
Ezekiel 37:1-6, 14
John 11:1, 17-27
“And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall Tive...."
~Ezekiel 37:14a (RSV)
At the top of her career as a popu lar
a story Uses,
comedienne,fsomeone asked Phyllis Diller to what
—— ee ee ne
she attributed her ability to make people laugh.
She thought for a moment and said,\ "When you have
the matter of death resolved, the rest is easy." |
The distinguished psychologist Abraham
ger vou ™ s+
Maslow, was recuperating from i en attack when
he wrote to a friend
"The confrontation with death - and the reprieve
from it -makes everything look so precious, so
sacred, so beautiful that I feel more strongly than
ever the impulse to | love it, to embrace it, to let
myself be overwhelmed by it| My river has never
H- |
Jooked so beautiful... Death, and its ever present
possibility, makes love, passionate love, more
possible. | I wonder if we could Jove passionately,
if ecstasy would be possible at all if we knew we'd
never die.” [Rollo May, Love and Will, p. 99]
ANC SO, S#eaWetarenetere-aeke!:, Cmpretace
we come to the question that lies
SL Sy
the presence of the reality of death?
Ti te the cl.
beneath all our questions: \ how shall we live in
ha Were [FRAT .
tam, ee e leeeent than Macbeth... pha anes
: grack § F — Updrke Yd
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow lnk ~ +
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, a ¢
To the last syllable of recorded time: ciate
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools Goes Wp
The way to dusty death... Cysactes
Along the way, this matter of death,| death in An wid FOK
er ont i aed ce sees ink terete. ta aceon ale
ro le \\ general and our death in particular, is something
, ‘ — ,
an “a aS ik _ * with which we must contend. It is not easy to do + +e
s dase’ _ messin — < is Soresk
+ yo so, \ It is a topic easily and conveniently ignored.
: ¥ —_
‘8 gh ¥ pws, \ in a culture whose values are success, powen,
ye a ional
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bie sabe 4. )Dm CUA 48
: Leeing is |ike dec”
S0GA Youce LowaYaar di whs Kew
a \o cdo Winner ,
winning — death is the ultima
mii = irony \ the
i ultimate, and ineyits loss. [“the one who dies
c\aan> wcle et ~~ ; —
oe * with the most toys wins."| Perhaps, but the bottom
pet =.
gn — line is not much of a victory. U
kr, Our way of life insultates us from dying. bic & el,
ye ve ae” ‘cael Bir Sieh , Cntiesteeeeiy UA. \ recenr ot 3 &\
At weet wires, 5 titan iy inthe sterile isolation of a Reese
20 ay oe us ‘ee
at ctr \ ew Spital room. / the new pornography, ee
é Soc. We ted = _ Doch i Mey 08 WAM of Nu Aee.
= some : 7
yaw aa ey one note otsman George erty used to (pe wm Wey
Fatt ay & say that in his native land sex_was_upmentignab le
Mag Se
\
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ne fe
f Ye. ° a *
ow ob Bo
far 4d
py ph. Ue
\p* Ait 7
wo we
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omanns
- prea tN
and all the jokes were about death.\ Today, in this
country, it's the other way around. | Death is
Pe aaa Be ae
unmentionable and most of the jokes are about sex.
And then one day you bump into jit: (2 dear
ce ed es
friend dies.\or you find you are Took ing at the
ee ee —
obituaries with more personal attentiveness than
Si
usual,\or suddenly, out of the blue, you are
Gita
reminded of your own mortality. Cave you noticed
Ce tm
that you will die?"/Annie Dillard asks innocently.
It is the most profound question with which the
ea,
artist contends, {the source either of a maddening
eT Te =
despair, \or perhaps the loveliest creativity. \ but
confront it we must, \and you can either deal with
eee
this matter or push it away \ back into the recesses
—_ ei
of your mind where it will not stay for long. \ The
famous existentialists Jean Paul Sartre and Albert
Camus agreed that there is a sense in which you are
a, —
not_alive until you embrace your own death... wtyich
is surely part of what Abraham Maslow meant. And
Mi OT ee
it is surely what happened to a peculiar prophet of
Israel] by the name of Ezekiel one day, but that
does get us ahead of ourselves.
sng tess talks \
T have been proposing that Grea QA qYood Wan
thesis to look at our own Tiyges is as as journeys of
faith, ey ourneys... that we are called to
eee See ete,
this journey by our creator, \oiven provisions along
the way, including the confidence we need. | have
been proposing that the story of God's people in
oe
the scripture of the Old Testament, is, in a sense,
fie | — see
a metaphor for the story of everyone of us; \rnat we
, aiaiated ay
can see our own lives and experiences in the mirror
ers a =
of the Bible... \the lives and experience of the
a oS
individuals in the story; but also in the whole, —
y- 4
sweeping panorama.
—EEEE
So we thought about Abraham and Sarah:
settled, mature, established, and how God called
ee ——— ——<$——=—s
them to pack up and move and made an unlikely
—_—
promise that they stil] had quite a future to live;
sh,
and how it is the nature of God to call us to the
adventure of living faithfully.
—T Se a
And we thought about the children of Israel
foes ee ey
after their unlikely liberation from Egyptian
Rene TE Tate
stavery (‘murmuring ‘in the wi Tderness,")complaining
to Moses because there was no food and no water,
| ae | ae
and how good the security of slavery looks when you
are in the wilderness: \and how when you know how
fee
hungry and empty and vulnerable you are, God
ale
provides for your deepest needs.
And we thought about how when God needs a
dete
King for Israet,\ the choice falls on someone who
eee atch ok Se AT
does not appear to be qualified, {a wisp of a lad by
the name of David, \and we thought about God's love
ey [ae
for and faithfulness to David even though David
does some terrible chins: and we considered the
a =,
U- 5
mystery that there is nothing we can do to cause
SESE
God to stop loving us. God sees possibility in
— Ey fm ee
allof us, and seeing our potential, has
confidence ‘in us.
Today, as we continue the story of God's
He’;
people, Journey
comes to a difficult time, a time of loss and
grief;{a time when it does not seem plausible that
meaningful life can go on. \ that, too, isa
ey
metaphor for a stage in life's journey for each of
Pini
us. \ But first the story.
It is about the exile, a very important
period in Biblical history. \ In the year 598 B.C.
the small Jewish state had become a nuisance to the
ascendant Babylonian Empire: \so the Babylonians
carried off a small group of Jewish leaders from
Jerusalem into Babytonian exile. \A temple priest
os = =. |
by the name of Ezekiel was among them. \ The
(ie
Jerusalem government entered an unwise military
pact with Egypt;\the Babylonians became very angry,
sent their army back in\ this time leveling the
Sed ees
city. executing the royal family.\and exiling the
L- 6
)
cyyloriaus were
pur Yous
Lae Cmaps
oy Cua pather -
\pu Wav ed a
hy setle m+
— QBeb. ove
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entire ruling class — the upper crust of Jerusalem
ee | Ee om,
society\ It would appear to be the end of the
ie ty Me NT
Tine. \ After their escape from Egypt, wandering in
Sa eS ow
the wilderness, { the conquest and settling of the
land, the unification of the people under a
monarchy... it would appear that Israel was
Soom,
confronting the fate of every earthly kingdom —-
extinction. YAfter years in Babylonian exile, the
Jewish community would simply disappear, melt into
wa ie T a
the prevailing culture of Babylon. Ezekiel,
Ce ee
without a temple to be a priest in, becomes a
prophet and begins to interpret the events he is
Eo
watching unfold, putting them in the larger gontext __ spud a
of God's will. and so it is that Ezekiel has a WAWA'S
vision of a valley strewn with bones, an eloquent Ove fe
Pave ive \s
symbol of aeet’=ef his nation's prospects. | Some
a is a
historians suggest that there actually was such a shee --
valley\\a battlefield where the armies of Israel
ee
lost to the Babylonian forces, that all those bones
were what remained of Israel's fighting force, \and
i A te,
that the exiles saw that sight on the long march
Bec oh
Lf- 7
into captivity.
In any event, it is a grim, but powerful
image. \ But, in his vision Ezekiel receives an
We a
Mimatgegr
will breathe breath into them and they will live.
ws ie
In the midst of death — life. \ In the midst of the
ee
astonishing promise. \ the bones will Tive. \ God
most eloquent image of human mortality - God's
= ee, a ae,
dearest promise of power to go on living.
The promise of faith is that God's love is
rr (eee.
more powerful than death and that therefore,
a
doesn't say much more than that on the subject. e)
aoe a_i
Rn ah
ultimately, there is no reason to fear. \ The Bible
—» The church, of course, has speculated endlessly on
ay
who gets in and who doesn't; religion has been
¥ ‘Lort vA entranced with the topic... f‘the guest list and the
“The fons Xn decor of eternity.")someone asec { The Bible
are wre ut doesn't. \ What the Bible focuses on is the promise
en oa
“ee - | Vife:\\ despair into jay, [and turns into over jor
living in the present for those who know it and
et ee
nae of God's eternal love which transforms death into
trust it.
een
Ove Sutter owrek Ne Bille sayy, “whiter
wa \it Or Ulute wa der, WH ae the Lord's.”
- Dorind. {the wid is (nwaert slay oclofyy ce
—
"IT will put my spirit in you and you will
tee
live,'| God says to the dry bones in Ezekiel's
dream‘\ and to anyone else who happens to feel like
those bones.\ ike death warmed over — which means
eed a
all of us, sooner or later.
——s —a ie
The simple truth is that on this journey
pe eit
there are going to be bad days.| It is not possible
yar ere Itimately to insu’ Fel It 3
ra ultimately to insulate yourself. | It is not
lee
possible to love very long without sustaining a
| eee
loss. \sigmund Freud taught that it is a primal and
basic fear and that every small separation in life
reminds us of final and ultimate separation.
ed
qe
It comes at us in different ways, of course.
ee _— as
The death of a loved one, |the death of our _own
grandparents and parents: \the random death of dear
oe Eee es,
friends.
People who measure stress say it is the most
traumatic thing that will ever happen to us.
deepal a Sometimes it comes in the form of the little losses
—.
See Tiale that occur along the way; Jon the day when we must
of lower our expectations, and let go of a dream, (and
mun C5 Leuns 5 Ged. rear Het lb en pears libres
Avr Xho rest of “the Laie
—z,
eileont | MAEEM ae -
slp om LW Mp
i pact ~ Yo} ocews Ww tou kappows
1 cw Se setts, meddle eqrd Becluler -
= 0. cM > ?
a
fact is that al twenty-five you don't know many of the “company of heaven"
excepl by reputution. Several decades Jater you know a lot of them: many
of then. The same thing happens with the hymn: ‘For all the Saints Who
from their Labors Rest.” You sing it. mostly unconsciously for twenty or
thirly years, enjoying Ralph Vough Williams' robust tune — and either
cringing at the imayes or else not thinking about them... “And when the
fight is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumph
song, And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong, Alteluia!
Alleluia!" And then someone yon Jove dies — and the hymn becomes a very
personal and powerful affirmation of something your intellect, your reason,
cannot express or quite comprehend. [ stil] think archangels sound like
samething the Episcopalians thought up, but the “whole company of heaven"
is an idea T find I like more and more.
There is ne more important life task than coming to terms with less -
finding some means to cope with the fact of loss and diminishment. Annie
Dillar alls it “the extraordinary reul you have to pay as Jong as you
: “Eaton an columnist Judith LOTS has written a fine best seiler, sever (
NeceésstPy LOSSES, ‘Lewerrndajebedsnmenheompebieds decherreemshenmebeesLy.apanopppatad, Her a
thesis is that we not only have to endure an uningerrupted. sequence of
losses as Jong as we live, | we grow as human beings into our fullness only
to the degree that we cope with itbose Jesses: \ loss of loved ones, but also
loss of{("romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of f power, and
the Joss ‘of our own younger self.” ) [p. 2]
We grow by Jetting go, she says and her illustrations are both funny
and also very poignant.
| "What am I doing with a mid-life crisis?" she asks.
“This morning J] was seventeen. |
I have barely begun the beguine and its |
goud-night ladies already.
While I've been wondering whe to be
whe I graw up someday,
my acne has vanished away and it's
sagging kneecaps already." [p. 298]
Fined
can make a gender translation when she describes fletting go of one e thing
after another:} our waistlines, our vigor, our’ § sense of adventure, our
T ini ove. = a Ltt osama
Viorst writes from a feminine perspective ‘Gisteie men, I believe,
20700 vision, Gur trust fice, our earnestness, our pla fulness, our
dream of being a tennis ste er a TV star, }or a senator, or the woman for
it . . ey .
whom Paul Newman finally leaves JoAnne. e give up hoping to read all the
ei, Serratia
books “we once Were bound to read, land to go to all the places we'd once
. ' ‘. ens eet beeen meena onal ne
vowét to visit. \We give up hoping ‘we'll save the warld from eancer{or fri from
. Pee Stil Daas al "
wal, {We even give up hoping that we']] succeed in becoming underweight.” 2
[h.. 301) , —
The loss of a family member produces the highest stress and the most
pain, but there are many losses along the way: the loss of children as
they grow and move away; the loss of job by retirement or by being laid
off; the loss of home and Friends when we move to a new city: the loss of
GC AVEC Acs\-o40¢ Ws
GC War chp Whe -
Wom, + felec - Wa, \ - be sed
the
d in this culture at this time it comes in
See Cees Y
the form of our obsession with youth and absolute
refusal to acknowledge a
ete
aS Ae oS Jessica Tandy
ma We OF
struck a blow for all of us... . but you notice
that the Health and Fitness ashesct ae the
newspaper 1
ace
, not
for ways to stay fit and healthy as you get older
and the task becomes more dif fic. difficult, \but acs 1 ads for "Ded
ee
——— a
Tiposuction and face rites et at 1. ways to deny ¥
the reality of aging and ad eon
eee
Mw 3S= YA! 4
How to live remains the question. | How to lovee. fl
find power to live in light of life's losses and ane ©
ee, RS ae f assiieddliine so 7 ps
the diminishments_of aging and the personal insult “A 4
f tality? \H hall I 174 a
of our mortality? \How shall Israel live in exile?
How shall we Tive through and beyond our losses? |W. oe
——— & nbs | Weolt clo +
The ancient promise is that death is part of ewe
's economy, jan it is not em not yA
God onomy \ana that it is ies an enemy ant
because it isn't real and tragic, which it is, \put *
because God's love creates life in its midst.\ Hard gph),
b- 10
— Se
}
to believe? \ you bet it is. \ and yet. there is a
eee OEE
gentle wisdom in God's economy; | peop Je who have
— as — Sy
thought about it for very long and with any depth,
ok
seem always to conclude that there is a wisdom ‘in
Le iieeell
this mortality of ours.
Maslow knew that without death there would be
no love, no passion, no ecstasy.
or [inane
John Updike i -
NY ot ae ;
We» YW") Self Consciousness, closes with an essay in which
he reflects on his own journey in maturing.
— oe, —
“Aging,” he savs, ("calls us outdoors, after the
es", qe ee
adult indoors of work and love-life and keeping
stylish, into the lovely simplicities that we
thought we had out-grown as children. \We come
again to love the plain world, \its stone and wood,
ee
its air and water...\ The act of seeing is itself
glorious, and of hearing, and feeling and tasting."
tp, 7X2
——
_
Frederick Buechner wrote that as a young man
a ies
he would have jumped at the chance to remain young
a
forever, but that he has changed his mind. Gi love
i 11
qraud sy
\nave sadn st mk, au WL wera
Osa raw, M isgvobh, coe qraud-b. hia oo, cs
&
——_
‘ ; ue We : Mee \ Ae Love —~ th
Mere ma Otay eT lou | Aad Ulte ?
pesgmsiny CIb is 8 fee lw )) lis ALG Tue see
AY> forget - G Worle didi t see Hows absolut ere)
—
eo is} Ww tou a crx somds -| how qed a heb, fees,
Witz7l, ay mld lta Se acho sees - 1? oes Wan
my life as much. as I ever did and will cling to it
for as long as | can\ but life without death has
become as unthinkable to me as day without night or
ee
waking without steep." ,\
ee
There is a sense in which we are given the
==
grace to love fully insofar as we acknowledge our
ee dal el
mortality, \ And there is a sense in which we are
en ST
given power to live fully_insofar as we can trust
God with our own death.
Cael ite Re
That_is what is going on in the 11th chapter
of the Gospel of John - in a New Testament story
a,
every bit as powerful and terrible and mysterious
ARR a my
SOMES TT,
as Ezekiel's vision - the raising of Lazarus.
It is the event that immediately precedes
eee ey
Jesus’ decision to go to Jerusalem. \r is the
ei te, meee eo
event that so frightens everybody that the process
is set in motion that will result in his arrest and
crucifixion. \ Ihe author ities understand with
perfect clarity, that one who has power over death
po. cceeieiienaiiaemeed oe
will threaten every other authority and power.\ So
SS .- =
they determine, as soon as they hear about Lazarus,
—— — i ee
u- = =12
to do away with him.
=—=The exiled community must look at the reality
of dry bones in order to know God's power of life.
eae Jesus must confront the death of his dear
ome ee were
eet
friend Lazarus - maybe his best and oldest
friend... must go to the tomb on a blazing hot Ho
Sere wei Sy
afternoon and there with the stench of death al] _ awe ee
around confront j sce
ecukkarthirs ¢ Stee os
When ‘the hears about Lazarus'
bag tne tage oh a .' dem aw
ews -
anything for several da £ PCat sta you
‘ing al days. : 5
are thirty-three and your best friend dies and vurw Dut
there’s a rumor that your life is in danger... you a ae"!
| bes swmthy
simp ly don't want to have anything to do with it.|
And when he finally arrives at Baer he weeps
a ww
AW freer
had
for his dear dead friend | for friendship gone,\ but
(een aie eee eg ao,
also for himsett.| Jesus, our brother, weeps tears
eel aus oe
of grief... for his own mortality.
What happened next will not be reduced to
words and perhaps should not be...
But faith knows that God created life_in the
es =
midst of death...
ee
Y-—~ 13
And that for Jesus, this drama will become
Wee a i oe
personal, as personal as it can possible become;
————4 eprint ee
that he will know the end of his thirty-three year
mee
old life and will have to either give it yp to
despair and cynicism and rage - or trust it to God.
— ——— —
That is a metaphor for what comes to all of
—— el
us and each of us on this journev..\ that day | or
<a e
string of days \ when we know our mortality and
must decide who we will trust and how we will live;
ese, a F ae Se
that dawwhen we must open our hands and let go of
those we dearly love and give them up to God, [and
then noticing how empty our hands are - give our
ee Rem fe
own death to God and in that giving, receive power
ieee, een fe ae
to live.
aed
The promise of the Gospel is this... in Jesus
Christ God has loved us. { That love gives us the
a a ee a
gift life...\ calls us to the adventure of living
faithfully.\ provides for our deepest needs...
———_ Seo eee
gives us confidence that we are adequate for the
chal lenges anc( how, that love promises there is
nothing ultimately to fear...\ There is no tragedy
H- 14
out. of which God cannot call new life.
I do not know how Ezekiel saw what he saw and
| eee
I do not know what happened that day when Jesus
ee
strode up to a tomb holding the dead body of his
friend Lazarus,\ but I believe what he said there is
ee ee
for you and_me:
—
[ "Take away the stqne, come out, unbind him
and let him |
That's for you and me.
‘coma the Mae ct EGee deve or Lant:\ dee for
te via lave Gadhdory,
the remembering of triumph) turned into tragedy
1 cosmos, betrayal and | and_ dene. [huni tiation and suffering...
er
and figally - the tragic, beautiful mystery of Good
Friday... epood Bourn ee now —
nous Age iba Sete ote
arduous Ait isa ouch eo tah
ec
because of the one who said,
(“1 am the resurrection and the Tife:\ he who
ee
believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he
ve”
Y~ 15
\ ow are Gn cla \d ft Gua
G.& Cieet? yw - Calla you © An re
Gowen e qow VE \ GI wpm --,
Gia ac yoy “We i, You- Bigxe