Our
text for today is from Ezekiel. And
while I’m guessing Ezekiel is probably not the top choice for meditative
bedtime reading, it actually is quite memorable and interesting.
The hand of the Lord came
upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and
set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very
many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He
said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God,
you know.”
First,
a quick history. The Babylonians marched
into Jerusalem and destroyed and decimated the temple (~587-538 BCE) and in the
years after, all the promising young Hebrews were dragged into exile in
Babylon. Probably they were not kept in
prisons or even camps. They were free to
marry, build homes, plant crops and exchange goods. There’s indication that they were also free
to assemble and worship. They had a hard
time worshipping, however, because they never got over the destruction of their
holy city and temple in Jerusalem. The Hebrew people were not where they wanted
to be, or where they were supposed to be.
So they lived with a sadness that ran down to their bones.
Our
story today from Ezekiel begins with God seizing Ezekiel and “bringing” him and
“setting him down” in the middle of a place.
If you read Ezekiel, you’ll find that this sort of thing happens to him
a lot. He’s forever being grabbed by God
and moved from place to place. This
time, God puts him down in a remote and barren valley full of “dry bones.” (I am reminded of the LaBrea tar pits in Los
Angeles, where ancient bones of long-dead and extinct animals have been
preserved in smelly tar and protrude from the ooze for people to see even
today. But unlike the bones at the
LaBrea pits, these bones are “very dry.”)
We will
soon learn that the dry bones are meant to be reminiscent of the ancient despairing
Hebrews who were captives in Babylon during that time. This valley of dry bones is a powerful and
memorable image that also brings to our minds those times in our lives that
seem utterly without hope. If you’ve
lived long enough, I’ll bet most of us have had a period in our lives that
feels like that. No life there, just a
pile of dried-out bones. Those dry bones
times are real and painful, when despair sets in and we see little hope that
anything can change.
To the
Hebrews “dry bones” meant their literal displacement and defeat. To us, dry bones might mean a long unhappy
marriage, a struggle with addiction, a physical condition that has left us
despairing. And the very last thing one
imagines when gazing on dry bones is their potential to be anything other than
signs of past life and present death.
Nevertheless, the question God asks Ezekiel is, “Mortal, can these bones
live?”
The
question is absurd on its face. Many
things may be thought about dry bones, but the possibility of their coming back
to life is hardly one. And Ezekiel’s
ambiguous response may be heard several ways, “O, Lord God, only you know,
since as far as I’m concerned dry bones are not going to pop back to life. Or, if they do, I would just as soon not be
around to see it.” Or maybe Ezekiel means, “If you, God, ask a foolish question
like that, then I’ll give you the opportunity to answer it yourself.” The bottom line – new life is inconsistent
with dry bones.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and
say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus
says the Lord God to
these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I
will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you
with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I
am the Lord.”
This is
a passage of promise. God tells Ezekiel
exactly what to do and what will happen when he does. Preach
to those bones and I will lay sinews and flesh on them and cover them with
skin. I will put breath into them and
they shall live. Things will come together. This is God’s promise.
When
you read the Hebrew Scriptures you learn that Israel did a lot of waiting. Abraham and Sarah were promised a son, only
they had to wait 25 years for him to show up.
When the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt they waited 400 years to be led to
freedom. They would wait 70 years for
their exile to Babylon to end. All
through scripture we see that God is faithful to fulfill God’s promise. And all through scripture, people wait for
that to happen, sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently.
Isn’t
that the way it is? Our culture doesn’t
understand waiting very well. We want it,
and we want it now, no matter what piece of our life we’re talking about. And if we don’t receive what we want when we
want it in life, we wonder why God doesn’t answer our prayer or why God is not
taking care of us. Even if you’re
someone who has had a lifelong walk with God, that might not have prevented you
from walking through that valley of dry bones and saying, God, hello! Remember me down
here? Are you seeing all these dry
bones? The promise of God is to
breathe into the rubble and create life.
Of course, the question God posed to Ezekiel is also posed to us during
those dry bones times in our lives – will we prophesy? Will we do our part? Will
we trust the promise of God or will we throw up our hands and give up? Here’s what Ezekiel did.
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I
prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came
together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on
them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no
breath in them. Then
God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the
breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the
four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I
prophesied as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived,
and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
The
breath of God breathes on those slain bones and they lived. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote about God’s
breath:
If you have studied earth science, then you
know that our gorgeous blue-green planet is wrapped in a protective veil that
we call the atmosphere, which separates the air we breathe from the cold vacuum
of outer space. Beneath this veil is all
the air that ever was. No cosmic
planet-cleaning company coms along every hundred years or so to suck out all
the old air and pump is some new. The
same ancient air just keeps recirculating.
Which means that every time any of us breathes, we breathe stardust left
over from the creation of the earth. We
breathe brontosaurus breath and pterodactyl breath. We breathe air that has circulated through
rain forests of Kenya, and air that has turned yellow with sulphur over Mexico
City. We breathe the same air that Plato
breathed, and Mozart and Michelangelo, not to mention Hitler and Lizzie
Borden. Every time we breathe, we take
in what was once some baby’s first breath, or some dying person’s last. We take it in, we use it to live, and when we
breathe out it carries some of us with it into the next person or tree or
blue-tailed skunk who uses it to live.
The
ancient Hebrews understood that things were all mixed up and connected much
better than we do. There’s a Hebrew word
that means wind, breath, and spirit – ruach. The same word is rich with all those
meanings. It was the ruach of God that hovered over the
waters at creation. It was the ruach of God that blew like a mighty
wind at Pentecost. It was the ruach of God that came into Adam and
gave that clay life. And it’s the ruach of God that Ezekiel asks to come
and breathe upon these bones that they may live.
For us,
wind and breath and spirit are terms of meteorology and biology and
theology. But we can learn from our
Hebrew forbears in the faith to think about it all together. When we breath, we are breathing the breath of God, the breath that’s given life across the ages to all who have ever
lived on our planet. When we go outside
and feel the wind on our faces, that’s the spirit of God reaching out to cool
us, to touch us. When we are able to
think in this way, we are connected to all that is; partners in the give and
take of creation.
Then God said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the
whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost;
we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them,
Thus says the Lord God:
I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people;
and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And
you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open
your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I
will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your
own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken
and will act,” says the Lord.
“I
will place you on your own soil.” Throughout
scripture, when God creates life and gives life, God doesn’t just leave people
out there on their own. God gives them a
home. When God breathes into Adam, God
gives him a garden in which to live.
Likewise, God says to these living bones, I will bring you to your own soil.
Imagine the power of these words to an exiled people. And so, God is not only the one who breathes
life, God gives a home; a place of nurture, love, safety, provision.
For
many of us all of those good things are associated with home. For others, home has meant other things and
perhaps we have painful associations with the word home. What kind of home does God have in mind for
them?
That's where we come in – for one of the primary callings of the church is to provide nurture, love,
and a sense of safety to all who come through those doors; to be the family,
the loving family that accepts you for who you are and where you are at the
moment. We should be the place where
people can come, whether they’re dry bones or showing signs of life or full of
the breath of God and full of life.
Church should be the place that God provides where anyone can come at
whatever place they are and receive the unconditional love of God through our
love. God doesn’t only raise dry bones
up and fill them with life. God provides
a home and it is our job to make sure that our church is that home.
As
we close today, let us breathe into our bodies the very breath of God, mindful
of those dry bones times in our lives, sharing that breath with each
other. As we breathe breath that’s gone
through the lungs of everyone else in this room, we become organically a part
of one another. That’s what we try to
symbolize when we share in communion’s bread and cup. It’s about all of us, being one body, the
body of Christ and providing a home for one another. This is the home, as least for now; the place
that God has brought each one of us.
Amen.
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