I’ve been looking forward to this morning for awhile now. You see, today is the last day before my upcoming three-month sabbatical. Today I finish off all the bits and pieces and walk out of my office, free and clear for three whole blissful months.
It would be lovely if it worked that way! Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we have had a busy spring. My desk is covered with several inches of paper, mostly NOT in neat stacks. I have a shelf full of “pending” folders, each containing some important bit of business that needs to be accomplished sooner rather than later.
So, as I read the lessons appointed for this morning, I was captured by God’s question to Ezekiel. God gave the prophet a vision of a valley filled with heaps of dry, useless bones. Pointing to the mess, God asked, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
The question resonates in my soul with a slightly different perspective. As I face my dwindling reserves of energy, the upcoming “deadline” of my sabbatical, and the stacks of unfinished business, I want to ask God: Can these bones live? Can I hold it together long enough to do what I need to do?
In Ezekiel’s case, surely the obvious answer to the question is a negative. The desiccated remains of human beings have no life in them. Of course, God’s questions almost never have obvious answers.
At the time of Ezekiel’s vision, the nation of Israel was in exile. Their beloved Jerusalem had been destroyed. The stress of living in a foreign culture eroded the people’s values and habits, making their religious practice virtually non-existent. They had not only turned their backs on God, they were so miserable that they blamed God for the whole situation. “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”
Gathering up his prophet, God produced the vision, which Ezekiel then explained to the people. These dry bones are God’s judgment, the end result of their rebellion, their lack of faithfulness. But the ultimate message of the vision is not a message of judgment. It is instead about what happens when human failure meets divine possibility. It is about what happens when God’s people do not give up on God, even when they believe God has abandoned them. This vision is a promise of another exodus. Just as God led the people out of slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the promised land, so now, once more, God will bring the people up from the grave of their exile to the joy of their salvation. The vision is a message of hope, and a promise of better things to come.
The most important part of the message is God’s intent that human beings should be and will be filled with God’s own Holy Spirit. “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil,” said the Lord.
God’s extraordinary answer to the question was yes. Yes, these bones can live. Yes, these bones will live, because I, your God will fill them with my own living Spirit.
It was neither the first nor the last time that God promised and delivered the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning God breathed over the waters, and a universe was formed. God created the first human beings and placed his own breath in their bodies. Our scriptures are filled with stories of how God has always made good on this promise of the presence and work of the Spirit.
Today we remember and celebrate the coming of the Spirit to the disciples in Jerusalem, the event we call Pentecost. This day is recognized as the birth-day of the Church, although no one present in the moment would have named it that way.
By the time they reached this particular day Jesus’ disciples must have been exhausted. The emotional roller coaster had operated for days, if not weeks. Their leader was arrested and tried. Their hopes for a new kingdom, their vision of a land without the hated Roman rulers – all these were ended. The crucifixion, the fear that they too would be arrested surely took them to the pits of despair. Then there was the miracle of the resurrection, and the wonder of having their risen Lord in their midst. But no sooner had they begun to make plans when he left them again, vanishing into the clouds, returning to his Father. “Wait,” he told them, “wait, and I will send my Spirit to you. I will not leave you alone.”
However long that wait was in actual days and hours, for the bedraggled, confused disciples it must have seemed endless. I can imagine them gathered in that upper room, looking wearily at one another, perhaps even remembering God’s question to the prophet so long ago: Mortal, can these bones live? Can we possibly get it together and do what Jesus called us to do?
And in a rush of wind, embellished with tongues of fire, God said “yes.” And it was so. You can go home and read about it in the Book of Acts. Do that and be amazed at Peter’s preaching. Be astounded when healings occur. See the fledgling Christian church begin to form, in small groups, in communities. Consider two thousand years of Christian history. It is truly stunning.
And yet, the two thousand years since Pentecost are filled with the same repeating pattern of human failure as were the two thousand years preceding Pentecost.
As we look with horror at the human waste that accompanied such events as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Reformation, and the Holocaust, surely we must ask the question: Can these bones live? Consider our own Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Darfur, the Sudan – the list goes on and on. Can these bones live? Our precious resources – financial, environmental, even the human resources of leadership all seem to be dwindling. Can these bones live?
The question is in our hearts on a personal level as well. Can these bones live? We are all of us struggling. Trying to be caring, loving friends and partners with each other leaves us living with disappointment, heartache, and hurt. We are compromised by a variety of illnesses, and wounded by the systems of our world. Weary and heartsick, baffled by the strange turns of events from one day to the next, is it any wonder that we look at each other and ask: Can these bones live? Can we carry on? Can we get it together and do what we promised at our baptism we would do? Can we be Christ’s body in the world today? Can these bones live?
The problem of course, is the silly notion we human beings cherish. We think our breath is our own. We think that breathing is something WE do, that we control. After all, as long as we are more or less in our right minds, it IS something we control. That is, I can hold my breath….and I choose to breathe again. Now, being biologically educated folks, we know that control is an illusion. We know that if we stop breathing for too long, the body’s automatic responses will grab hold, and whether we plan it or not – we will inhale.
But that doesn’t happen often, and most of the time, we assume we are in charge of our lives, our behavior, and the results of our behavior.
All of that is exactly the opposite of what Jesus taught. Remember? If you were here last Sunday, Tim reminded us of this same truth: Jesus said you must lose your life to save it. Followers of Christ must die to self. The path of discipleship begins at the cross, that ultimate intersection of human failure and divine possibility.
Can these bones live? Can we get it together and do what God has called us to do? Can we bring healing and hope to a world that seems to be careening out of control? God’s answer is yes. But God’s answer won’t come until we have relinquished our hold on OUR answers. We have to be willing to stop running in all directions seeking our human solutions. In order for God’s answer to unfold, we must get out of the way. God spoke through the words of the psalmist: “Be still and know that I am God.” When Jesus ascended into heaven, leaving the disciples wondering what to do next, he told them to WAIT. Go to Jerusalem, stick together, and WAIT.
Centuries ago, in an essay on prayer, a Russian orthodox monastic said: “The most important thing to do is let your mind be in your heart and then stand before God. Go on standing before God unceasingly, day and night, until the end of life.”
“Let your mind be in your heart…” We can’t think our way through this. Depending on our own thoughts, our own plans, our own ideas, is not going to solve the problems lying before us. We cannot be the Body of Christ without having the mind of Christ. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself, humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death, death on the cross.” We must take on the mind of Christ. Then: “Let your mind be in your heart, then stand before God…” Wait. Be still and wait. Breathe. Let go of your body and focus on your breath. Your breath is not your own possession. It comes from God. It goes to God. Be still, breathe. Go with your breath and you will go to God.
Can these bones live? Oh yes. They can live. They will live. God has promised, and God’s promises never fail. The Spirit has ALWAYS come to those who wait before God with open hearts.
I have always enjoyed the celebration of Pentecost. To me it is a festival full of motion. There are whirlwinds, flames of energy, great noise, much talk, lots of enthusiasm. In years past I have helped produce birthday celebrations with huge cakes and dozens of candles. I’ve filled balloons with helium and sent them soaring into the skies. So I was a bit surprised to find this message of stillness and quiet in the Pentecost scriptures this week. But there it is. God intends to fill us, to enliven us, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, but it will not happen while we are racing around, doing our own things. The result of all that activity will, in the end, be nothing but a valley of dry, useless bones.
Can these bones live? Ezekiel answered God: “O Lord, you know.” And God replied: “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord…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 God.”