Unbound and Set Free

Here is the sermon preached by our seminarian, Damen Heitman, on Mar. 9, 2008.

John 11:1-45
Ezekiel 37:1-14

Officially, this Sunday is known as the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Not a very exciting or exhilarating moniker. We are still a week away from Palm Sunday and two weeks away from Easter Sunday. See those title are intriguing, I want to know more about those. But the fifth Sunday of Lent? That sounds like just another Sunday. Boring, dry, etc. etc. So what can be done about that? More…Well, I don’t who is on the Commission on Sunday Titles Committee, but if they ever ask me to rename the fifth Sunday in Lent, I would recommend they call it coming attractions Sunday or perhaps sneak peak Sunday.

Why sneak peak Sunday? Well, I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but after reading this story from John no one should be surprised in two weeks. In the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John, we find a fascinating and compelling story. This is a story full of drama and tension. It begins with news reaching Jesus that Lazarus, a dear friend, has taken ill. Jesus insists that the illness will be used for God’s glory and so delays visiting his dear friend. Amid fear that those in Judea would seek to take Jesus’ life, Jesus and his disciples travel to visit Lazarus and his grieving sisters Mary and Martha. Jesus meets Martha on the edge of town. Jesus reassures Martha that Lazarus will rise again. Martha then goes and tells Mary that Jesus is there. After seeing Mary and those around her weeping, Jesus himself is deeply moved and weeps. He asks to be taken to where Lazarus had been laid. At the tomb Jesus insists that the stone covering the tomb be removed (sound familiar?) and then after giving thanks to God, instructs Lazarus to come out and sure enough out walks the dead man. And finally Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go.”

“Unbind him and let him go.” There is a lot that is fascinating about this passage. From Jesus delaying his visit to Mary and Martha insisting that Jesus could have prevented the death this story is deep and rich, but it is Jesus words, “unbind him and let him go” that I would like to focus on.

During the summer between my junior and senior years of college I worked as a counselor at a residential treatment facility for teenagers. Most of the kids had been placed there by the court system. Some arrived addicted to drugs but most arrived addicted to anger. Most had suffered some form of abuse. Some form of physical or emotional neglect. The kid’s needs hadn’t been met. Then not knowing how to handle or express their emotions, they had turned to violence. The violence in turn reinforced their already low self esteem and the low regard in which they were held by those around them. This, in turn, gave way to more violence until they were caught in a cycle from which they couldn’t escape. In many ways they became trapped, bound by their past. They became what they had done or what had been done to them.

I recall one resident in particular, whom I will call Sam although that is not her real name, who had leaned at an early age not to trust anyone. Because of abuses she had suffered, she defended herself by not getting close to anyone. The moment I thought I had established a certain level of trust and relationship with her, she instantly began to try and push me away. She had become bound by her past.

There is much that we all continually carry with us. I believe ‘Baggage’ is the pop-culture catch phrase for it. Those things from our past that continue to shape who we are and how we act. Perhaps it is the loss of a loved one or a betrayal by a trusted friend or partner. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, we are all bound to baggage. No matter how light we try to pack, our baggage travels with us.

These are times of immense heart-ache and pain that deserve our grief and morning. They are worthy of our weeping. They are not things that can be forgotten or simply wiped away. Sam will wake up every morning aware of the abuse she suffered just like I’m sure for the rest of his life Lazarus woke up knowing that he was once dead. After that day, Lazarus would always be known as the guy who was once dead for four days.

And yet, that is not the final word. The final word is, “unbind him and let him go.” Yes Lazarus is the guy who was dead, but that is not all he is. In that moment he is given the opportunity to be move beyond that which had bound him. The chance to become something else. Something new.

We can find a powerful parallel to this in the Ezekiel passage that was read as well. Ezekiel wrote from the heart of exile. He had been taken out of this homeland and forced to live in another country while Jerusalem was destroyed and the house of Israel fell under the Babylonian empire. While in exile, searching for hope and new possibilities, Ezekiel envisions the house of Israel as a nothing but dry bones in the dessert. There is no life left within these bones. Destroyed by Babylon, how could it be possible for Jerusalem to live again? This is an incredibly powerful statement about the finality of the past. Yet even amidst this, God tells Ezekiel that if he will prophesy to the bones, God will put God’s spirit within them and the bones shall live. What seemed to be the end was not. And, interestingly enough, in both cases humans had a role to play in realizing the new possibility. In the case of Lazarus those around him had to physically unbind him from the funeral garb and in the case of Ezekiel he had to speak the prophetic words to the bones.

We are shaped and influenced by our past, but we are not determined by it. Just like for Lazarus and Ezekiel, in every moment God gives us the chance to become something new, something different. We are not asked to forget the past or act like it didn’t happen. Rather we are given the chance to not be bound to it. We can define ourselves in new ways. The baggage that we lug around as individuals and as communities is not the final word.

I ended my formal affiliation with the treatment facility just before the start of my senior year, but I continued to volunteer there once a week throughout my senior year. I led a bible study there that was often attended as a way of getting out of whatever else was going on. Sam rarely attended but I always tried to find time to talk with her a little bit while I was there and each week I could see the change in her. She began to trust the staff, to trust the other residents. Slowly she started to realize that she didn’t have to be what her past told her she was. Sam started to define herself in new ways she started to become something else. She was unbound. She was set free.

One of the first questions that is asked after reading about Jesus raising Lazarus is whether or not resurrection is possible. Yes it is. I’ve seen it. I saw it in Sam, but you can see it in many other places as well. It can be seen in a world that renews itself every spring. In the neighborhood that commits to ending the cycle of violence. In the volunteer dedicated to alleviating poverty and homelessness. And yes, in the church willing to consider what it means to operate out of abundance.

The possibility of being unbound and set free surround us. Some would even say that it is built into the very fabric of the universe. Each moment becomes a new opportunity and God’s grace and mercy ensures that the possibility is there for us to become new and different. We truly can be unbound and set free.

Amen