Ezekiel 37: 1-14 One day a woman was driving along an unfamiliar country road and she struck and killed a rabbit that was crossing the road. She pulled her car over and stood at the side of the road staring at the lifeless body of the little brown creature.
Just then a man in a cheap suit pulled over ans asked her what had happened. She told him hte sad tale but instead of
sympathizing with her he responded, “Don’t worry. I have just the thing!”
He went to his trunk and pulled out an aerosol can and walked over to the dead bunny, shook the can, and sprayed the furry little body liberally. Then he stood back. In a few seconds the bunny began to twitch and then jumped to its feet and hopped off. However, several times it stopped, turned to the man and appeared to wave. It was the strangest behaviour for a rabbit.
“What is that?” asked the incredulous
woman.
The man said nothing but simply showed her the can. Printed on the label were the words, “Acme Hair Restorer. Restores life to dead and lifeless hair and gives it a permanent wave”.
(Pause)
We may laugh at such a silly story, and so we should, but in real life we know that hope and new life and restoration and resurrection are no laughing matter; they take us to the foundations of our faith.
They are, as the expression goes, “where the rubber hits the road”.
We have come through the season of Easter and have arrived at the Day of Pentecost. In the Jewish calendar, which Jesus and his followers would have observed, Pentecost was a harvest festival. People from all the parts of the known world, where Jewish people had gone to live, were in Jerusalem for this festival. And it is, as they gathered, that they had an experience of the power of the Holy Spirit,
poured out upon the followers of this carpenter from Nazareth - the carpenter who would not even take death as a ‘final answer’.
We must keep in mind that the Holy Spirit did not come into being on this day, not was this the first time that God’s people had experienced the Spirit - but it was certainly a significant event in the life of what came to be known as the Church.
The Spirit had been speaking and guiding the people of Israel for generations.
In fact, the Spirit’s guidance is fundamental to the passage that we heard from the book of Ezekiel .
We probably know this passage best from the African American Spiritual , “Dem Dry Bones”. Yet this is one of the most powerful passage is the whole of scripture; it’s up there with the creation stories and the resurrection stories.
This is a passage about the power of God. It is a passage about God’s power and God’s willingness to bring life out od death
and hope out of despair.
You see, Ezekiel’s people were in deep despair. They had been in Babylon, as captives for many years. They could see no hope of returning to their land; their beloved land; a land flowing with milk and honey; the land promised to their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. .
Yet, this geographic isolation was not the most devastating; it was the theological isolation; it was the damage done to their faith that was the most devastating. You
see, when they were defeated in battle it was as if, in a very real way, their God had been defeated by the god of the Babylonians and as they were carried off as prisoners of war their God stayed behind in the ruins of their beloved city.
So the valley of dried bones was a powerful metaphor for the depression and spiritual isolation felt by individuals and by the community as a whole.
Into this desolation comes the power of god’s Spirit and the prophet is
commanded to preach the word of life. The
prophet is commanded to preach the impossible; that restoration is not only possible, but that it will happen.
And it did! Not for many years and not a complete restoration to exactly the way things were before, but back to their land and their city. Not only that, the people learned that their God was not waiting for them back in the ruined city, but that their God had come with them into captivity.
We’ve been there; some would say that
we are there now.
We may be there personally or in our own family. Changes may have occurred which have shattered our view of the world and life and our happiness has been shattered - a marriage breakup; a diagnosis of serious illness; a job loss; the sudden death of a friend or colleague.
Or it may be corporate; more like what the people of Israel were feeling. As we drive home today we may pass by the empty houses where we could once expect a warm
welcome and a cold drink on a hot day or a warm one on a cold day. We may come to church week after week and wonder why the pews are empty; why the back accounts are dwindling; why any news about the church and its leaders seems to be bad news. And it’s not just Kent County, it’s not just the United Church, not just Canada.
The prophet Ezekiel is speaking of resurrection; long before that first Easter he is proclaiming the power of God to bring life out of death. This is the prophetic task;
it has always been the prophetic task in a world that has lost its hope: to preach life and hope despite all evidence to the contrary.
Do you suppose that the people began to talk about the prophet’s message on the way home that day. I suspect that the people began to debate the meaning. At first it was likely a condemnation of it as am impossible pipe dream but eventually as the debate continued, impossibility became possibility; hope became reality. I am indebted to Walter
Wink for these ideas They were published online in a column from
the Christian Century. 1994/2004
400 years after these words were first spoken by Ezekiel, the power of the Spirit was felt by a group of people who had come to believe in what was simply called “the Good News of Jesus the Christ”. That power openned the doors of possibility, clarified vision, gave strength in adversity and has strengthened the descendants of those followers for almost 2000 years.
That is where the task passes from the preacher to the hearer: that is where
those who have ears to hear begin to act as if the words were true.
The thing is: we don’t know what the shape of the future will look like, in much detail. What we can proclaim, based on these texts and based on the experience of the people of God is that the Spirit of God will be with us; the Spirit will give us hope and life and vitality when we cannot come up with it on our own.
What will happen will be God’s doing, to be sure, but we will have to be
participants in that action; we will have to live that vision into reality.
Can you see the bones? I know you can. The real question is can you feel the wind of God moving among the desolation? Can you see the bones coming together and forming a new people with new life, vitality and hope?
Listen!
Look!
Act in faith and it will be!
Amen!
Sunday of Pentecost - Year B -- 2006
Psalm 104: 24-34
Acts 2: 1-21
Speak Life!