Can These Bones Live?
May 31, 2009
Ezekiel 37:1-14
It is in this spirit this morning that we approach Ezekiel’s dream. Ezekiel, a prophet, a messenger of God’s thoughts about how things are going and what is going to come based on those actions. A prophet someone who opens up the possibilities of what is happening and what could come of it. Ezekiel has a dream this morning about a valley of dry bones. God takes Ezekiel to a valley and puts him right down in the middle of it. Right smack dab in the middle of a valley of dry bones. God takes Ezekiel to a place where you just couldn’t smell death, taste death, it lay in ruins all around him. And, just to make sure Ezekiel was taking it all in, God toured him around the bones and Ezekiel was astonished at the plethora of bones…
Have you been there Pentecostal seekers? Have you been there smack dab in the middle of death? Have you been there where death seemed to suck at the very marrow of your living? Have you been there where no matter where you look it seems like you are being buried alive in the midst of death? God takes Ezekiel to this place and puts him down right smack dab in the middle of it…God knows this place of death. God knows this valley of bones. God knows what made this valley, what stripped these people down to their very bones. God knows the future of who will be born in this place next. God sees what can be born in the midst of all this death. God is with the bones. God brings Ezekiel to this place and plops him right down in the midst of it. Part of being with God is having the willingness to see exactly where we are and to name it.
And yet, after the tour, God asks Ezekiel what he sees and if these bones could live? Ezekiel who has repeatedly said, the bones were very dry…beyond salvation…beyond hope, he only says in response to God, “you know”. God can see the possibility even in the driest of bones. God can see the possibility and hope even in a valley filled with death. God can see the wider picture even in the midst of what we say, too late, too burned up, beyond hope or even recognition…God can see something beginning again even here in the midst of death. God says, yes, yes these bones can live, it only requires you, dear Ezekiel, to listen to me and repeat after me. So, Ezekiel cries out to the bones and in fact, the flesh comes back upon them, life is created in the midst of them. And, yet even though the bones were alive at this point, now bodies with bone, muscle and flesh…they weren’t living. They could go through the motions but they weren’t living. They needed the Spirit…The life breath…God called the winds to come from the 4 corners and breathe the Spirit into these bodies. The wind from the four corners came, the wind from all over the earth came and the Spirit breathes life into these bodies, that they might live again.
I’ve been thinking and praying so much this week for Judy Augustine. She’s one of our members, she has been running the soundboard and occasionally playing the drums over the past few months. 3 years ago she was diagnosed with one of these man eating tumors. It was in the tibia. The bone right below the knee. And it feasted on that bone turning it from a thriving creator of spongy bone to a fragile, egg shell, depleted of nutrients and the possibility of thriving. Its days were numbered. They took out as much of the tumor as they could, however, it was only a matter of time before it came back because they of course, could never get all of it. That tumor sucked the life out of that bone. It invaded spaces that weren’t created for it destroying everything in its path. Three years later, after Judy walked when they said she wouldn’t. She pushed past the pain, the rehab all of it, three years later they finally operated to fix the problem. Using titanium and cadaver bone Judy has a partial new femur the bone above the knee, a bionic knee, and a new tibia. The metal will sustain good walking, hopefully pain free walking for the first time in years. The cadaver bone will allow the muscles and tendons to reattach and the knee to function again, range of motion will be restored for the first time in years…Emotionally, it is like being dropped into that valley of the bones…Smack dab in the middle. When we hear the word tumor…it’s never good. Immediately we go there, to this valley and all we see is death. We can’t imagine having to live here, we can only see how it is we will die here. It takes a resiliency, a persistence, a stubbornness, a life force to fight to live in the midst of this place. To cry out to be refleshed, to cry out to have life, to cry out to have Spirit within you that you might just live. I think when God said to Ezekiel, can these bones live, he was thinking Hell no! No, no, no…these things are nothing! Un uh. No way, no how. But instead, wisely he said, God knows…
And, just to be clear I’m not talking literally here, I’m clear that this was a dream on purpose. I’m not saying that we can just pray Trudy’s cancer away or heal Howard’s muscles. I’m not saying that Chuck should have had more spirit so that he could beat that other kind of man eating tumor, cancer. It’s this idea of being plopped right smack down in the middle of the valley of bones, the valley of death…When we’re thrown into that pit, how do we relate to God, what Spirit do we hold? Judy could have stayed at home, never walked again, wasted away alone. Chuck could have gotten on a plane, gone back to Utica and left us to die in private. Hoagie could have said the disease of alcoholism is bigger than me and I just can’t overcome it. Phil and Johnny Ray after horrible head injury accidents could have said, It’s too hard to learn again, this tragedy has happened and this is what life dealt me, this is all I got. Stacy’s heart and Howard’s legs could have kept them home and isolated and alone, paralyzed from the difficulty of genetic faults from the beginning. But, instead, Spirit entered…Spirit entered and enticed…there is more to living than just breathing. There is more to living that just life and death. There is more to living that just flesh and bone. And the four winds came from every direction and the Spirit blew through these people and they began again…
It is not easy, miracles mostly come hard. This story is for the Israelites who are still in exile and feel like they will die before getting to the promised land. God sends this story to say, you are the promised land! You are the promised land, don’t give up! I see within you the capacity to change this death dealing living and bring something new. To begin again in the midst of all this bone.
So, the Pentecostal story today is one of rebirth. It’s a challenge really. This church. This faith. This practice of being a child of God, it isn’t for the faint of heart. Because often times, life throws us into the pit. We feel surrounded by bone, ash, the death of us. And our story tells us that God can meet us even there. God can be with us even there. God can remind us, your soul, your spirit is nothing but jerkey and yet I can infuse it. I can make it fill with life force again. Even here, even now. Are you willing, even from this location to begin again, to allow the spirit to enter your fight? Are you willing even here and now to do more than survive, are you ready to live?
What about us? We constantly look around and see bones…not enough people in worship, not enough money in tithes, not enough hands for the tasks…Can we instead, plopped right down here, exactly where we are, say Come Spirit Come, we are your disciples…We believe you will give us the Spirit to reflesh, to be born again, to thrive in your world. This Pentecost I pray, let it be so! Let it be so! Let it be so!