If you remember the first Sunday after Easter we began with the story that is recommended for that Sunday every year, which is the story of Doubting Thomas, although as I said then it really should be called the story of the doubting disciples, because they all doubt. But Jesus finds them on the evening of the first Easter holed up in a room, which is locked because they are in fear. And it appears that there are just 10 people there, because Thomas is absent and Judas is dead. There are women somewhere, although we don’t know where, or exactly how many since the accounts differ. But that is the remnant of the followers, or, to put it another way, that is the beginning of what we become first known as the group who are followers of the way, and only later will be called Christians. And while we’ve sort of jumped around in stories over the past six weeks, in Acts we are told that after Jesus’ ascension which traditionally is celebrated 40 days after Easter, we are told that Peter gathers a group together that is about 120 people. Then ten days later, which is the Jewish holiday of Pentecost, which celebrates the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, as well as the summer grain harvest and takes place 50 days after Passover, the disciples are still gathered together when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they begin speaking in various languages to those in Jerusalem for the celebration. And so, we as Christians celebrate this day, the fifty days of Easter, which starts on day one with Easter, and then runs for seven weeks, or a week of weeks, concluding with the celebration of today which represents not just the gift of the Holy Spirit but also is seen to be the birth of the church, or at the very least it is the recognition that the good news is going to continue to spread and grow at a rapid rate. So, they go from a handful, to around 120 to 3000 converts on Pentecost, all in 50 days. And so, a movement that everyone thought was obliterated on the day of Christ’s crucifixion, is suddenly found to have new life, new breath, new opportunities and is being spread, as Jesus had said, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and even to the ends of the earth.
And with that we are completing our series dancing with God, by looking at, or thinking about, what it means to dance with life, or to dance with the breath with which God has breathed into us. But before we dig in a little deeper, just a quick aside. I was at an estate sale this week and looking through the albums and they not only had an album from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, to help you learn to dance at home, but, it also came with the footprints to put on the floor to help you learn the steps, and they were still in mint condition still attached to the full sheet. Probably still be there if you want to stop by after worship. But, the main story of today is about finding hope out of despair, life out of death, new possibilities out of endings and new challenges out of conclusions, and both the story of Pentecost found and Acts, and in Ezekiel’s vision, usually referred to as the valley of the dry bones give us this witness and the example of how we participate and dance with God in this journey, that we are co-creators in the dance of faith.
As we already stated, the death of Jesus represented the
death of hope for the disciples in the immediate aftermath. They did not have
any expectation that their movement was going to go anywhere. Even after the
resurrection I don’t know what they imagined was going to be possible,
certainly not that they could get 3000 converts in a day. And yet they also
knew something had happened, because rather than being a scattered group of
people, they are still together, still learning and growing, still teaching and
proclaiming the good news, and then it is the Spirit that drives them out like
flames into the world to burn with the good news. Out of death comes not just
resurrection, but comes life. And so too is it with Ezekiel’s prophecy. He is
giving this vision to the Israelites after the destruction of the Temple and
the people, or the leaders, have been driven into exile in Babylon. There were
still people left behind in Palestine, but everything they had believed in and
imagined of who they were has been destroyed, and the land itself in places has
also been destroyed. Ezekiel had warned them of this coming destruction, but
then, as often happens in the prophets, their message turns from one of
destruction and judgment, to one of forgiveness and restoration, which begins
in chapter 33.
But here, Ezekiel is taken somewhere by the Spirit, probably
as a vision, which is not unusual in Ezekiel, rather than being taken to a
literal location. But what he sees is a picture of utter destruction: a valley
filled with dried bones. More than likely this vision is that of a field after
a battle in which the winning side left the bodies of the opposing army in the
field to be devoured by animals and decompose naturally, rather than having
them buried. We know this was standard practice because we have records from
kings boasting of doing this same thing, or threatening others that if they
didn’t do what the king wanted, this is what would happen to them. It’s
possible that the people had witnessed this very thing themselves following the
destruction of Judah and the sacking of Jerusalem. And this desolation has
obviously happened a long time again because the bones are clean and dry. This
is a vision of utter destruction, with no sense of hope or of life being found
or even possible.
So, God’s question to Ezekiel is then sort of conspicuous,
as God asks “Mortal, can these bones live?” Now if anyone else is asking this
question, the obvious answer is no, but while we have Ezekiel’s answer we don’t
have the inflection he uses to know exactly what he’s saying, and so I sort of
imagine this as him saying “yesss?” not really sure, that is he doesn’t want to
limit God’s power in anyway but he’s not really willing to go whole hog saying
“absolutely, God, make it happen.” And that’s really at the crux of the matter,
because who is it that brings these bones back together? I mean ultimately,
it’s God, Ezekiel is not doing a magic trick here, but it is Ezekiel who is the
one who prophesies, who tells the bones that they are coming back together, and
they begin to do just that as Ezekiel is saying the words. That is that Ezekiel
and God are working together to make this happen. And while God might be
carrying the heaviest part of the load, Ezekiel does play a role in what
happens. Or to quote St. Augustine, “without us, God will not; without God, we
cannot.” Right? Ezekiel couldn’t do this by himself, but God also involved
Ezekiel in this vision. And some have even argued that what Ezekiel is seeing
here is not a vision through his own eyes, but instead that he is seeing this
vision through God’s eyes; he is seeing a vision of the possibilities, of hope
and life that he could not even imagine. It is bigger than he could ever dream
And so, the bones come together, at Ezekiel’s words, and
then he is called to prophesy one more time, and this time it is to bring
breath into the bodies so that they might live. The word translated as breath
here is the Hebrew word ruach, which can also be translated as spirit. It’s not
clear which is the better word, that Ezekiel is calling for breath or spirit to
occupy these bodies, which might not ultimately be important, except as it
relates to the story of Pentecost today. But what is crucial is that the verb
on imparting this spirit or breath into the bodies to give them life, is
exactly the same verb that’s used in Genesis chapter 2 when God breathes life
and gives life to humanity. These things are connected, except on one God is
doing it and in the other God is doing it in relationship with Ezekiel. Just as
God is working in relationship with the people in responding to their cries of
despair, because the reason why God is showing Ezekiel this vision is as a
metaphor to convey to the people because they have cried out to God, saying “
Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Have
you ever felt like that?
There are lots of things that can happen in life that can
leave us feeling dried up, worn out, cast off and set adrift. When we talked
about dancing in praise, I talked about the Psalms, which in Judaism is called
the book of praise, and yet a large number of psalms are also psalms of lament,
which then often turn to psalms of Praise after God has redeemed them, or the
problem has gone away. I quoted from the 22nd psalm, which is attributed to
David, in which he says “All my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and
my tongue sticks to my jaws;…. I can count all my bones.” That, perhaps,
is not too far from Israelites are crying out to God in their despair, and
maybe not even too far from what the disciples and the women had to be crying
out after the death of Jesus. And so, God says to Ezekiel, proclaim to the
people “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” Or we could hear
that as “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall have hope” or “I will
put my Spirit within you, and you shall dance with me in the dance of faith.”
And it is this dance, of working together with God, that God
is active and we are active, that it is the Spirit moving and working and
dwelling in us to do the work that God has called us to do, but it is also that
same Spirit telling us, or reminding us, that we are never alone. That even
when we are dried out, that God can give new life, new hope, new opportunities,
new possibilities, that God can redeem all things. And this is not about the
sort of extremes that get lifted up, one being that God helps those who help
themselves, which is not scriptural, and the other extreme is let God and let
God, that it’s either all up to us or all up to God. But that’s not how the
dance works. We partner with God and God brings us out of the darkness into the
light, God restores, renews and repairs, God breathes the Spirit into the world
and into our lives, but we, in receiving that Spirit, they bring that Spirit to
the world. That is what the story of Ezekiel shows us, that the people cry out,
and Ezekiel helps them because he is not dried out, and the people respond. And
the Spirit comes upon the disciples, and they cry out to the world and the
people respond to that movement because the Spirit moves them as well. And
these stories are also about new beginnings.
And so, on this day when we celebrate our graduates, we
recognize the life change that’s happening, that these are not just little
things, but a whole new future stands in front of our graduates. And for most
of them, this is an exciting time, with maybe some anxiety, but even the scary
parts of the unknowns bring some excitement of new possibilities. And then
there are other times in which our accomplishments bring us that sense of “uh
oh, what do I do know?” perhaps we’ve been working on it for a long time, and
it was our primary goal, and then it’s over and we stand on that same precipice
with the future expanding before us and we have no idea what to do. And this
too is when we have to turn, or return, or renew this dance, this dance with
the spirit, this dance with breath, this dance with life itself. It’s been
said, and attributed to lots of different people, that dying is easy, but
living is hard. And there’s some truth to that, because even when we feel in
step, in sync with God, it does not mean that all of our problems go away, or
that there won’t be issues in our lives, that we might even feel so burned out
that we feel like those dry bones. And yet, what we have to remember, is that
the Spirit is there. That the breath we breath in and breath out is the very
breath of God, and that God puts the Spirit within us so that we can live.
Today is a day of celebration. We celebrate our graduates and send them out into the world and remind them that they are never alone, that we are there with them through our thoughts and prayers, which is when that phrase is actually appropriate, and that God is with them through the Spirit, through the breath that we call out to them. And we celebrate this day as the gift of the Spirit poured out for the church, in birthing the church, by proclaiming the good news to the world, and being so excited in thrilled in that that people think they are drunk. But they’re not drunk because it’s only 9 am. But just weeks after having been in despair, lacking hope, not seeing a future, they now have a new reality, new possibilities a new future because of what God is doing for them, they begin to see dream God’s dreams and see God’s vision that are bigger than they can even begin to imagine themselves, and then they begin to live it out. God is doing a new thing, just as God has always done, and God is calling for us to join in this dance, in this act of co-creating the Kingdom of God here and now of being the good news to the world. And so, may we dance in this danc3e of peace and joy and love and guidance and praise and relationship and life. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment