Link: Bound by Toilet Paper, Lent 5 2014

Summary of what I was saying and why:
As so many others do, I love Ezekiel and the dry bones. And I can’t read it without hearing a story of (re)creation. And then with Lazarus the question of how bound we are appeared.

Theology: Salvation
Jesus Count: medium
Good News: Jesus breaks bindings to give life.

What did I change on my feet?
Not a lot.
What didn’t work/what did I miss?
At the earlier service I did a better job of ending on “are we wearing our bindings so that they are easy to break?”
What did work?
The camp story.

Other sermons I liked:

Priest Downs, Unbinding, Emptying the Tomb
“But the necessity of Lazarus’s death is based not on permanence of physical death, but the temporary and subjective nature of true death. Jesus’s power is found not in preventing death, but in bringing life. It is not in intervening in Lazarus’s death, but giving him new life.”

Deacon Bright, Lent 5
“Notice too it isn’t Jesus who unbinds Lazarus. Jesus calls on the community, on those who are gathered around, to unbind him. Are we busy helping our brothers and sisters with their burial cloths, are we at work unbinding them, or are we complicit in keeping them bound?”

Bishop Fisher, How I Met your Redeemer
“My name is Lazarus.
And when I thought I was a dead duck,
Jesus wept for me and he called me out of my tomb and he hugged my neck and he loved me.
And that, my friends, is
How I Met Your Redeemer.”

(Here’s the list of people I usually listen to. Am I missing someone?)
The Anglican Church of Canada uses the Roman Ordinary Time numbering system instead of numbering the Propers. Because all of this is new to me, I’m now indicating both numbering systems.