Our work for each other

To state the obvious, it is, astonishingly, the fifth week in Lent. Once again (speaking for myself) it’s the week I get to remember that Lent is not time given in which I get to wrangle the unruly wills and affections to which I give houseroom, or forty days to make some kind of headway with the various interior and exterior self-improvement projects I envisioned for myself some weeks ago.

Lent is only about me and my projects to the extent that these enable me to see my true condition. What I am is a pile of Ezekiel’s bones and biomass that has no power in itself to animate itself. What I am is a species of Lazarus, bound tight by my own sins and weaknesses, helpless unless and until I can hear and respond to the voice of the one who speaks my name, and calls me back from the dead. 

Julian says, “And when we do fall from frailty or through blindness, then our courteous Lord touches us, stirring us, and he calls us by name; and so he wants us to see our wretchedness and meekly acknowledge it. But he does not wish us to linger there, nor does he want us to be busy accusing ourselves, neither does he wish us to remain full of self-loathing. Instead, he wants us to listen carefully to him; he all at the ready and waiting upon us sorrowful and mourning until we come, impatient to have us with him. For we are his joy and delight, and he is our salve and our life.” (79)

In John’s Gospel, Jesus calls Lazarus by name, out from the tomb, and turning to the people there tells them to “Unbind him and let him go.”

The extraordinary thing about this is that Jesus entrusts Lazarus back to his own community. He is brought to life again but he cannot unbind himself. We are given to each other to mind in love, to unbind, to pronounce the freedom to one another that Jesus has proclaimed for us, and that we re-enact here at the altar.

“Unbind him and let him go.” That is our work for and with each other for the rest of this time of Lent.