Living Dead
First Presbyterian Church
Pittsford, NY 14534
April 2nd, 2017
5th Sunday in Lent
1. Are you ready for the Zombie Apocalypse?
a. Tonight is the 7th Season finale for
AMC’s wildly popular Walking Dead
series.
i. The Walking Dead has the highest
total viewership of any series in cable television
history.
ii. The show’s sixth-season premiere had around 20
million viewers – that’s one out of every sixteen people
in the United States!
iii. To give you some context, 111 million people watched
this year’s Super Bowl.
b. Zombies originated in Caribbean folk lore.
i. For the people of Haiti, the zombi was one who had
died and been buried, only to be revived and enslaved
by a sorcerer.
c. Films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the
1930s, with White Zombie (starring Bela Lugosi) being one
of the earliest examples.
d. In 1968, George A. Romero made Night of the Living Dead
for a mere $104,000.
i. The story follows characters Ben, Barbra, and five
others trapped in a rural farmhouse in
Western Pennsylvania, which is attacked by a large and
growing group of unnamed "living dead.”
e. Today, zombie films are released almost weekly.
i. At least 55 titles were released in 2014 alone.
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f. Zombies are a cultural supernova that has infiltrated
everything from comics and video games to literary
history and the CDC itself, which has dedicated part of
its website to “zombie preparedness.”
i. I kid you not.
ii. Check out the Office of Public Health Preparedness and
Response’s web page which says, “Wonder why
Zombies, Zombie Apocalypse, and Zombie
Preparedness continue to live or walk dead on a CDC
web site?
iii. As it turns out what first began as a tongue in cheek
campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness
messages has proven to be a very effective platform.
iv. We continue to reach and engage a wide variety of
audiences on all hazards preparedness via Zombie
Preparedness.”
g. Because zombies have become so ubiquitous in popular
culture, the living dead have become modern day myths
seeking to explain something we believe.
2. We have Zombies – or walking dead – in both this morning’s Old
Testament and Gospel lessons.
a. God tells Ezekiel in today’s reading from Chapter 37 to
prophesy to a field of dry bones.
i. When Ezekiel reluctantly does, God breathes God’s
Spirit into the bones which once again live and stand on
their feet.
b. Jesus similarly causes the dead to walk again when he
reaches the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus who had been
dead several days.
i. When Jesus said, “come out”, Lazarus walked out, his
hands and feet bound with strips of cloth.
c. Jesus then told the Jews, his disciples, Mary and Martha to
“Unbind him and let him go.”
3. Jesus employs a top-notch teaching technique with his disciples.
a. Anything that they could do, He encouraged them to do.
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i. He sent Peter and John to prepare the upper room for
the Last Supper.
ii. On a later occasion, we know that while they could not
go to Calvary and die for the sins of the world, He took
them to Gethsemane and told them to watch and pray
with Him.
iii. And while Peter could not still a storm with a single
word, he was invited to walk on the water.
4. As parents smile over our children imitating us, Jesus is pleased
when we try to imitate his life-giving actions.
a. We cannot melt sin-hardened hearts or humble proud spirits;
however, we are commissioned in our baptisms to proclaim
the Gospel message to a lost and dying world.
i. God invites our participation in more ways than we
accept or even acknowledge.
b. Only Christ has the authority to command the dead to "come
out".
i. But once that miracle has been accomplished, He turns
to His disciples and encourages them to join in the
blessing by instructing them to "Unbind him, and let
him go.”
ii. Lazarus was miraculously raised but he was not yet
completely free.
iii. Look closely at the picture here.
c. Lazarus is a living person still clothed in the garments of
death.
d. It would be an awful thing to see a living person wearing his
death shroud.
5. Yet that is what we see every day – not just on our movie and
television screens.
a. We who have been made alive by the grace of Jesus Christ
are tempted to continue to wear our grave-clothes and act like
the living dead.
b. How do we act like the living dead?
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i. Let us consider some of the characteristics of zombies
and the parallels in our own beliefs and behaviors.
c. Imagine Zombies walking.
i. They are not so much the walking dead as the shuffling
dead.
ii. Zombies walk around in a mindless stupor.
iii. Zombies don’t have seven deadly sins, they have seven
deadly words:
1. We have always done it this way.
2. Zombies are addicted to safe, comfortable
routines in which nothing is questioned and
everything is monotonously repetitious.
3. There is no room for change.
4. No room for surprises.
5. No room for innovation.
6. No room for creativity.
7. No room for compassion.
8. No room for miracles and no room for grace.
iv. When Jesus arrived in Bethany, but before he visited
the tomb of Lazarus, he saw Mary and the Jews who
were with her weeping.
1. Moved with compassion, Jesus wept.
2. Arriving at the tomb, Jesus commanded, “Take
away the stone”
3. Martha and the others argued there would be a
deathly smell, they could not imagine doing
anything other than what they have always done.
a. Why change now?
b. Why trust God’s providence?
c. Why believe God has that much compassion
for us that God in the flesh weeps when we
weep?
d. Why? Because God makes us alive, not the
living dead.
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i. We are alive when we trust God’s
providence during change and God’s
merciful compassion for us.
d. The second way we act like the living dead is our insistence
upon a zero-sum game.
i. Everything in this world is us versus them, right?
1. For me to be right, you must be wrong, right?
2. Do you remember these contrasting pictures of
heaven and hell as told in the allegory of the long
spoons?
3. One day a person said to God, “God, I would like
to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”
a. God showed the person two doors.
b. Inside the first one, in the middle of the
room, was a large round table with a large
pot of stew.
c. It smelled delicious and made the person’s
mouth water, but the people sitting around
the table were thin and sickly.
d. They appeared to be famished.
e. They were holding spoons with very long
handles and each found it possible to reach
into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but
because the handle was longer than their
arms, they could not get the spoons back
into their mouths.
4. The person shuddered at the sight of their misery
and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”
5. Behind the second door, the room appeared the
same.
6. There was the large round table with the large pot
of wonderful stew that made the person’s mouth
water.
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7. The people had the same long-handled spoons,
but they were well nourished and plump, laughing
and talking.
a. The person said, “I don’t understand.”
8. God smiled. It is simple, God said, living only
requires one skill.
9. The living learned early on to share and feed one
another.
10.
The living dead only think of themselves.
e. Imagine trying to buy a home in Manhattan.
i. Believe it or not, homes in Toronto have become just as
expensive, if not more so.
ii. Do you believe anybody would sell their Toronto home
for $150,000 less than the highest offer?
1. If we hold to a zero-sum game view of the world,
that graceful discount is impossible.
2. But that is exactly what happened to the Crofts
who sold their home to Joo-Meng and Rosannah
Soh, who had made the unusual decision to
downsize with their four children, ages 9-14.
a. They attached this letter to their offer:
Hello there, we wanted to write to tell you a little bit of our story and the
journey that brought us to your home. Last summer our family went on a
mission trip to Africa for 6 weeks. We enjoyed every moment together,
we shared the gospel and were able to witness the love of Christ to
many. We visited with widows, went to orphanages, slums, villages and
taught in schools. We also had the opportunity to train local pastors in a
leadership training course. We came home changed. When the nameless
faces that we hear about in the news become our friends and when their
stories now become a part of our story, we find ourselves looking at
things differently. It has redefined what we hold dear to our hearts and
what our children would consider a need vs. a want.
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Since we returned from our trip we hear ourselves saying, we can’t
forget…we need to do something and so in November one of the things
we felt led to do is sell our home. Our desire is to downsize and live
simply so others may simply live. The gift of your home would allow us
the freedom to do more mission trips and it would free up more of our
finances to take care of the poor and needy and build his kingdom. This
would also allow us to further build in our children what has been
planted in their hearts, to love those in need more than the things of this
world. Our prayer has always been that the Lord would use us and our
home for His glory, that he would plant us in a place that we may share
of his love and impact those around us. We love this community and
would continue to call it home. So we thank you for taking the time to
consider our offer. It was a wonderful feeling to walk into your home
and feel the presence and peace of God. We would love to make it our
forever home.
Many blessings, Joo-Meng, Rosanna, Jacob, Elianna, Nathaniel and
Abigail.1
iii. They chose to live simply so others may simply live.
1. They were not living dead.
2. The living dead assume scarcity; therefore, they
have an us versus them mentality.
a. The living have an assumption of
abundance; consequently, they rely upon
God’s providential grace.
f. The third way we act like the living dead is when we act as if
all the world is a stage.
i. Or particularly, all the world is MY stage.
ii. We are the living dead when we act as if our lives are
episodes for reality TV.
1. Everything we say and do contains great drama.
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https://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2017/03/30/their-bid-was-150k-less-thanthe-highest-offer-but-they-still-got-the-oakville-home-the-reason-why-will-leave-youheartened.html
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2. The world is all about ourselves and the hang
nails we have are the heart attacks everyone else
should be experiencing on our behalf.
a. Have you ever watched any of the Real
Housewives Series on Bravo?
i. I do not want to minimize how hard it
is to balance one’s life; however, the
do or die nature of the production
blinds us to real life and death matters
like global poverty, hunger and
disease.
3. When we are faced with adversity, we can be
tempted to consider it insurmountable and
bemoan our lot in life.
4. Even biblical characters are not immune from this
temptation for dramatization.
a. Consider Thomas’ rallying remark when
Jesus proposes returning to Bethany, “Let us
also go, that we may die with him.”
iii. Living with the expectation of drama obscures the
reality of God’s working miracles all around us.
iv. Do you remember last week’s sensational prelude by
Julie Lee Howe and her two children, Nathan and
Kendra?
1. After worship, Julie told me about her friend,
Leslie, who had just lost her mother and this
eulogy Leslie gave for her mother.
Thank you for coming this morning, as we remember and celebrate my
mom, Evelyn Adams. It would be easy to say that she was a typical little
old lady, but there wasn’t anything typical about her. Although, before I
talk about my mom, I feel strongly about passing along my respects to a
man named Tom McNamara.
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Without Tom, there wouldn’t have been an Evelyn. You see, my mom
came into this world exactly the way that she left this world. She was a
still birth, or at least it appeared so.
After a very difficult pregnancy, my grandma went into labor on
December 9th, 1924. Dr. McNamara came to the house to deliver the
baby, accompanied by his son, Tom, who was studying to be a doctor.
After 2 days in labor, the mother-to-be was exhausted and at the baby
wasn’t doing much better.
Baby Evelyn emerged with rending violence, but she was limp and
ominously silent. The doctor chose to save her mother, who was
bleeding badly. He handed the baby to his son. Young Tom administered
emergency baptism, and then attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a
rather new technique in those days. She took a shuddering breath, and
then just yelled. I’ve heard that yell mostly when I was a teenager. The
older doctor turned to his son, and said, “Well done Doc Mac.”
If you flash forward almost 30 years, my mom was diagnosed with
uterine cancer. Gut-wrenching news at any age. She knew what she had
to do. She traveled from Rochester, back to Corning, the city of her
birth, and had Dr. Tom McNamara, the young man who had saved her
life at birth, perform her surgery. Tom saved my mom twice, and for that
I’m forever grateful.
2. God works miracles every day.
a. We live when we assist in them, notice them
and tell about them.
b. We are the living dead when we overly
dramatize the life we have.
6. Here is our Good News: Resurrection is real.
a. God gives us a choice.
i. We can live or we can be the living dead.
b. We live when we trust God’s compassion for our resistance
to change.
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i. We are the living dead when we utter the seven deadly
words “we have always done it this way.”
c. We live when we trust God’s providence and live simply so
others may simply live.
i. We are the living dead when we insist life is a zero-sum
game in which we act as if everything is us versus
them.
d. We live when we trust God’s gifts to us and look for God’s
miracles.
i. We are the living dead when we overly dramatize the
life we have.
e. May we all behave as if there will be no Zombie Apocalypse!
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