"GOD'S EYES"

Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-44

I brought some show-and-tell for you this morning.

These are a couple of little things

that Alex and Meredith made at Mo-Ranch over Thanksgiving.

These were an invention of the Huitchol Indians

who lived in the Jalisco region ofMexico.

Actually, these are popsicle sticks,

but when they are woven together like this,

they represent the four corners of the earth.

I can't remember what all the colors stand for,

but they have significance. 

I guess this many colors covers all the bases!

Most of us call them "God's Eyes."

They were supposed to be placed on altars in the church

so that God's eyes would be watching over the people

while they were praying,

and protect them from whatever they needed protection from

during prayer.

You and I refer to them as "God's Eyes" today,

but the Huitchol people called them sikuli -

a word that means

"the power to see and understand things unknown."

So, if indeed God's eyes have

the power to see and understand things unknown,

what would it mean for us to look at the world,

and ourselves,

and maybe even our church,

through the eyes of God?

I don't mean that we should hold these up like glasses

and look through them like they're some kind of kaleidoscope.

I wonder what would happen

if we stopped looking at our lives objectively and analytically

and began to look at them from a different perspective.

--------------------------------------

Our scripture readings today

are both primo examples

of how you and I are given to look at life

in a literal, scientific,

somewhat flat-footed kind of way.

Try to imagine yourself as Ezekiel for a moment,

and think about what it must have been like

to see what he saw.

When he first looked over that valley full of dry bones,

indeed, he saw what he saw.

Those were bones, alright -

bones as far as the eye could see.

And not just dead bodies,

but weather-worn carcasses that had become skeletons -

so much so

that all of the skeletons had become, over time,

disconnected and jumbled together.

It was worse than any thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle

that you can imagine.

What was it that gave Ezekiel the presence of mind

to answer God in the way that he did?

Maybe God had asked him a trick question before.

Or maybe he had seen God pull off something marvelous

more than once.

Whatever it was,

when God asked him whether these obviously dead and dry bones

could ever live again,

Ezekiel answered, almost literally,

"God knows."

He knew the limits of his own vision and imagination.

He also knew that God's will

could override anything he thought that he knew to be true.

So when Ezekiel looked out over the valley of dry bones

through the eyes of God,

he began to see bones sorting themselves out

and sinew growing to glue them together.

He saw life

where any hope of life had long since died.

Then, hundreds of years later,

the death of Lazarus happened.

This time,

it was only one identifiable body,

well-known and well-loved by his family and friends,

and not some valley full of anonymous bones.

But the observable fact of the matter

was that he was dead.

And by the time Jesus got there,

he had been dead for a long enough time

that even the conventional medicine of our day,

not to mention two thousand years ago,

would say that there was no hope of resuscitation.

The process of decay

was obvious to anyone who had a nose,

and suffice it to say that in the case of Lazarus,

the decay was becoming obvious.

Religious icons are another type of God's eye.

They are paintings which try to depict the holy.

Most subjects of icons are wearing halos,

and usually there are doves descending

or hands raised in benediction.

If you look at a Greek or Russian icon

of the raising of Lazarus,

the first thing you notice

is that the bystanders are holding handkerchiefs to their noses!

This fellow was dead.

It was an observable, measurable, smellable fact,

at least for the analytical, unimaginative human eyes

who were not able to see beyond their limited experience.

But one of the most interesting things about this story

is that you can almost see Jesus grappling internally

with which of two visions he should accept.

His friend was dead.

He wept.

Jesus knew as well as you and I do

the limits of being fully human.

Would he accept what was objectively and tangibly in front of him,

or could he shake off what his senses were experiencing

in order to see what was there with God's eyes?

Maybe some of you remember the Martin Scorscese movie

The Last Temptation of Christ.

Say what you will about other parts of it,

but the death of Lazarus

was one of the most fascinating scenes in the movie.

Scorscese wanted to show Jesus taking on the power of death,

and so he had Jesus reach into the tomb

and pull at the hand of Lazarus.

In doing so,

Jesus is almost pulled into the tomb himself.

Only with great difficulty

is he able to almost literally pull the body of Lazarus

from death to life.

-----------------------------------------

So let's ask ourselves that question again.

What does it mean for us

to look at the world, and ourselves,

through God's eyes and not our own?

Can these bones live?

Of course not.

Can my brother,

who is so dead that the process of decay has set in,

begin to breathe again?

No way.

But look through the eyes of God,

and see what happens:

bones begin to rush to their appropriate partners

and life enters in again where none could have existed.

Loved ones that had been given up for lost

are irrationally snatched from the grip of death,

and they rise up and walk.

Friends, when you and I raise our vision

to look beyond what our earthbound eyes can see,

we watch the impossible happen

through the eyes of God.

"I can't believe my eyes," we say,

when we have witnessed something utterly unanticipated

or seemingly impossible

come to pass.

But even when we cannot believe our eyes,

we can believe God's eyes.

And as we look at life through them,

we can glimpse unimagined reasons to keep on hoping,

even though the desert is dry

and the promised land seems far away.

As the apostle Paul said to the church in Rome,

"God gives life to the dead,

and calls into existence the things that did not exist."  (Romans 4:17)

So, what do you think it means

for us to look at our church through God's eyes, and not our own?

I hear rumor that there's some change coming.

If you and I look at the current situation with our eyes,

we see a pastor that is being called elsewhere to serve,

and we can't see very much right now beyond that point.

Maybe some of you are wondering whether dry bones can live.

And some of you have even said to me verbatim

that "it stinks!"

I want to challenge you

to look at this time of transition through God's eyes.

Remember, even when we cannot believe our own eyes,

we can believe God's.

This is a time for us to take far less of a flat-footed,

analytical, halfway-pessimistic view of things

and instead live into a new vision.

What if we were to live

not as a community of inertia,

nor as a community of overfunctioning

in order to avoid thinking about what might be around the bend,

but instead,

what if we were to live

as a community of miraculous expectation?

Imagine it!

What if we were to say,

"Lord, you know whether life can come

where none seems to exist."

Even if we think we smell something fishy,

we can still live as men, women, boys and girls

who know that God is up to something wonderful,

even in such a time as this.

There are times when we may feel as good as dead,

or as bad as dead, you might say.

Today might be one of those times for you.

But if we can look at even those times

through God's eyes,

we can see realities broader and brighter

than anything we could ever hope to envision on our own.

God can do more than just sustain us in the wilderness;

through the gift of Jesus,

God can fill our barren experiences with lively hope.

That's what this season of Lent is all about.

Is it possible?

Absolutely not, flat-footers would say.

But look at it through God's eyes -

and watch it happen.

Amen.