Ezekiel 37:1-14;
Psalm 130; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45
St
Stephen Lutheran Church
The
Rev. Maurice C. Frontz, STS
In
the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
At
this moment, imprisoned in the Allegheny County Jail,
is
someone just like me.
Unless
you have been living under a rock for the last week,
by
now you have heard the story of Laurel Schlemmer,
a
McCandless woman who is accused of and has admitted to
drowning
her three-year-old son
and
attempting to drown her six-year-old son
in
the family bathtub,
while
her husband was at work and her seven-year-old son was at school.
According
to her report, she heard ‘crazy voices’
telling
her she’d be a better mother to the older son
if
the other two were in heaven.
And
so, on Friday night I took my own ten-year-old son to the ball game,
without
a care except whether or not it would rain,
and
less than a thousand feet from where I parked my car
is someone just like me
who
is entombed in her guilt, entombed in prison,
entombed
in a life that is no doubt now a living death –
the
glassy-eyed stare of her arraignment photo now known worldwide.
Now
this is no pious preacher’s prattle
or
a mere theological construct.
When
I say that she is just like me,
I
mean exactly that:she is just like me.
I
can say that because I remember Laurel Schlemmer.
In
those days she went by her middle name, Michelle.
She
enrolled at Grove City when I was a junior…
…not
a close friend, but someone I talked to; I knew her by name.
In
fact, I feel somewhat guilty describing her
as
if she were just someone in the news that I can use in a sermon.
She
had hopes and dreams that were, I’m sure, very much like my own…
She
graduated, got a job, got married, had kids, and was active in her church,
a
believer in Jesus Christ,
just like me right up until last Tuesday
morning.
She
is so much like me that of course I am stunned by what she has been accused of
doing
and
the idea that this could happen to her.
What
is so different about her than me?
Why
does God so often come too late?
The
miracle-worker, who opened the eyes of the blind man,
comes
just in time to cry impotent tears at the grave of his friend.
Someone
falls into terrible sin,
someone
is overcome by addiction or illness
or
is possessed by demons material or spiritual,
and
God shows up just in time for the funeral.
There
is a pastor who comes to comfort the remaining family
as
the mother is led off to the prison cell
and
the boy is carted off to the hospital
and
the other to the morgue.
Too
late.
When
Jesus came to Lazarus’s tomb,
he
came too late.
It
had been four days since Lazarus had died.
In
Jewish thinking of the time,
the
soul hung around the body for three days,
maybe
giving Martha and Mary a little bit of pause
even
after Lazarus died.
Perhaps,
just perhaps, if Jesus had responded to their urgent summons immediately
there
was still time, still a little bit of hope.
Four
days. Lazarus was really dead. No hope. Too late.
It’s
the best argument for atheism there is.
God,
at least in the great monotheistic traditions,
is
seen as all-good and all-powerful.
Therefore,
if bad things happen, as we know they do,
God
is either not all-good, nor is he all-powerful.
Therefore
there is no God, so the argument goes.
And
so I don’t believe it’s the advances in science or technology
which
means that fewer and fewer people believe in God.
I
think it’s because people have decided that since God comes too late,
or
doesn’t come at all, he
doesn’t exist;
and the Church has lost faith in the answer that it has always given.
Where
was God when his ancient people Israel rebelled and were exiled?
Couldn’t
he have stopped them?
Where
was God when Lazarus, Jesus’ beloved friend, fell ill and died?
Where
was he when six million Jews were shot and gassed
and
their bodies burnt in the Holocaust?
Where
was God when his priests abused those young boys in their charge?
Where
is he when you and I try so hard and pray so hard and still fail,
when
our kids go astray or get hurt?
Where
was God when someone just like me enters into a living death;
someone
I knew by name
says
that she heard voices and killed one of her sons and tried to kill another?
Why
didn’t God stop her?
Is
he not good or is he not omnipotent?
This
is why we rush so quickly to blame and judge others,
for
the alternative is blaming and judging God.
She
is either lying or someone else is to blame for not noticing the signals of
mental illness.
That’s
how we try and let God off the hook.
And
yet this is ultimately unsatisfying and begging the question.
God
was too late, wasn't he?
And
if he was too late for her, he is too late for me,
for I am just like her in everything but the details.
Martha
comes to Jesus, and says, ‘It is too late.’
And
then she says something incredible, unbelievable:
‘But
even now.’
‘Even
now, it’s not too late.
Even
four days late, it’s not too late.
Just
say the word and it’s not too late.
God
will give you whatever you ask.’
Jesus
cannot take us back, none of us can go back,
but
as long as the God whom Jesus calls Father is present,
we
can go forward.
In
the face of sin and evil we can’t undo
and
death from which we can’t escape,
God
does not undo the past, but he makes a way forward.
If
this seems trite,
we
ought to understand that it is our only hope.
If
we think that there is no way forward for Laurel Schlemmer,
that
her sins are so grievous that neither God nor man could forgive her,
much
less could she herself accept God’s forgiveness,
then
we ought to be honest with ourselves
and
go home from here.
But
instead we are here.
We
are here doing what Martha and Mary did,
what
the church always does.
We
come to Jesus bearing our pain and the pain of the world,
we
hear in the Word of God the promises of Jesus, ‘I am the Resurrection and the
Life.’
With
Martha, we confess in the Creed,
‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the one coming into the world,’
‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the one coming into the world,’
and
then we pray.
We
pray that the Church which is broken may be made whole.
We
pray that the world which is broken may be made whole.
We
pray that we and all people may be made whole.
Like
Martha’s sister Mary, we throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet and we pray.
We
pray like those who hope without hope,
like
those who have nowhere to turn
but
to the one who seemingly has come too late.
And
then we feast.
Why
feast?
In
the darkness of the world,
we
feast because the light is coming.
In
the shadow of death,
we
feast because there is indeed a promise of resurrection,
despite
all that sin, death and evil throw at us,
whether
they work within or without.
We
feast because God opened the graves of ancient Israel,
because
he opened the grave of Lazarus,
and
on the third day, the one who was buried in the tomb
sprang
forth to new life.
And
so we feast, for this life is ours whether death likes it or not.
So
pray.
Pray
for Michelle, that she would be brought from her living death to life.
I
know her and she is just like me.
Pray
for her surviving child and for the ones who have gone on.
Pray
for her husband, her family and friends, her pastor and her church.
Pray
with the faith that says, ‘Lord, even now your Father will give you whatever
you ask.’
Always
pray, never giving up,
until
God at the last speaks the word that brings the dead to life.
