Can These Bones Live?

Can These Bones Live?

Ezekiel 37:1-14

February 10, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I don’t really have an official “bucket list,” and honestly a lot of the things that might be on there I’ve already had the opportunity to do. But if I had such a list, there is one thing that would be at the top. It’s always been a dream of mine to take part, in some small way, in an archaeological dig. I blame “Indiana Jones” for making archaeology fascinating to me, and visiting archaeological sites all over the Holy Land has only made my fascination stronger. I’ve always loved history, and to me, archaeology gets me that much closer to being able to see and imagine how people lived “way back then.” There was one time I got very close to being part of a dig; the Conference offered a continuing education trip to Israel that included working a few days on a couple of digs, and my friend and fellow pastor Chris Nunley was going on that trip. He and a couple of others invited me to come along, and I probably would have if I had not just returned from a trip to Israel. So I passed, and I’m still mad at Chris for getting to do that when I couldn’t! But don’t tell him; he’s a District Superintendent now!

I’m just fascinated by the past and would love to actually, physically dig into it, to see what I might find. A piece of pottery? Perhaps some ancient coins? Some big discovery like the Dead Sea Scrolls? There is one danger I can think of in being on an archaeological dig. I think I would probably freak out if I came across one of these guys (skeletons) while digging. Maybe not freak out, but it would be a little bit unsettling. Now, these guys are here for decoration this morning, but to come across a skeleton on a dig, knowing that at one time this had been a living, breathing human being—oh, sure, that’s the best connection to the past you can really have, but seriously—ugh! Maybe I wouldn’t freak out, but I would have to take a step or two back.

In this famous and strange passage we read this morning, skeletons are exactly what the prophet Ezekiel encounters—only he doesn’t happen upon them while on an archaeological dig. God takes him directly to a valley full of them. But, as with everything God does, there is a reason and a message that not only Ezekiel but the whole people of God need to hear. This morning, as we walk through a valley of dry bones, we’re continuing our series of questions God asks, a series we’ve called “Role Reversal.” Usually it’s us asking God questions. How many of us have said, “When I get to heaven, I’ve got a bunch of questions I’m going to ask God”? I’ve got a feeling those questions won’t matter all that much when we get there! But throughout the Bible, as we’ve seen, God has questions for us. We’ve only hit on a few of them, but God’s questions, whenever you find them, are meant to make us think deeply, perhaps change radically, and in this case, look forward with hope. The question God asks Ezekiel, as he stands in a valley of dry bones, is a strange one: “Can these bones live?”

Try to put yourself into the scene described in Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel is taken to a valley that is not named; whether he was literally taken somewhere or was given a vision we are not told. Either way, he experienced this in a profound way. He’s standing in a place where all around him are dry, bleached bones. In fact, he says the bones were “very dry.” This is, apparently, the remnants of an army that was defeated, killed, and whose bodies were never buried. They were just let to rot in the Middle Eastern sun. Most likely, the bones by now are all jumbled up so that it would be difficult for an ordinary person to tell which bones originally went with which body. In the Hebrew world, a person who died normally underwent what amounted to two burials. The body would be prepared and placed in a family tomb, laid in a chamber that had been dug into the wall of the tomb. This is what the followers of Jesus did with his body, by the way, though they didn’t have time to fully prepare it on that Friday evening. But, after a time, usually about a year, the family would come back to the tomb and collect the bones that, by now, were all that was left of their loved one. The bones were then put into an ossuary, a bone box, typically located in the middle of the tomb. They didn’t worry about laying out the skeleton in order; the goal was to get as many family members in the ossuary as possible. Sorry if you’ve just had breakfast, but this is important to understanding what is going on here. Here’s the key piece: the bones were kept so that, when the end of time came, God could put them back together in a resurrection. The Jews believed not in the immortality of the soul but in the resurrection of the body—the whole body (cf. Stuart, Communicator’s Commentary: Ezekiel, pgs. 342-343).

Here’s why all that is important: first of all, God has Ezekiel walk back and forth among the bones (37:2). He wants Ezekiel to certify, to know that these bodies really are dead. It’s sort of like when the magician says, “Can you verify that this is a real pitcher?” God’s making Ezekiel certain of the beginning state of these bones. They are dry, bleached by the sun, and there is no hope of these bones coming to life again on their own. As one author puts it, these bodies are “utterly and irredeemably dead” (Goldingay, Lamentations & Ezekiel for Everyone, pg. 183). There is no hope of life here. It’s a scene Ezekiel and his audience would have experienced before, in a couple of different ways. Of course, they would have experienced death up close in family settings, much more than we do today. We keep death at bay, and a lot of folks won’t even go to a funeral home because we have this “thing” about being around dead bodies. But in Ezekiel’s time, in the ancient world, death was just a part of life. Everyone knew what it looked like. But the people had also experienced death as a nation. As we talked about a little bit last week, the southern nation of Judah had been warned that they were going to be taken into exile, and sure enough, Babylon came and conquered them and resettled a big portion of the population, including a priest named Ezekiel. They were taken from their home and had no hope of returning. But the worst was yet to come. In the twelfth year of the exile, the city of Jerusalem fell and the Temple—God’s house—was destroyed.

It’s hard for us to truly understand the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple to the ancient Hebrews. Those who have been there with me, to Jerusalem, can sort of understand. It’s a special and unique city and the way you feel when you’re there is hard to describe. But today is nothing like then. No matter where you lived in the nation, Jerusalem and the Temple were the absolute center of life. Many people believed the Temple was the literal center of the earth. They believed the Temple could not be destroyed, and when it was, when Jerusalem was reduced to rubble, the faith of God’s people was destroyed as well. “To the average Hebrew, God had been defeated, his land conquered, and his people scattered. The foundation of faith had thus been shattered almost beyond repair” (qtd. in Larsen & Larsen, Questions God Asks, pg. 59). What do you see, Ezekiel? I see a valley of dry bones—and not just here. Our people are like a valley of dry bones. Son of Man, can these bones live?

Some of you have stood in the midst of a valley of dry bones. Something you hoped for, planned for, even prayed for, fell apart. That relative you loved and who had been your biggest supporter died suddenly. The cancer took him or her too soon. The marriage you had poured your whole life into is suddenly at an end. The job is over, the house has been repossessed, the market has fallen and the money you had saved is gone. You’ve stood in a valley of dry bones. Everything you thought you could depend on, everything you had hoped for is gone. You’ve stood in a valley of dry bones and heard the question: “Son of man, can these bones live?”

Just to look at the situation, maybe even at your situation, the obvious answer is, “No.” What’s dead is dead. What’s done is done. What’s gone is gone. No, these bones can’t live. It’s not possible. But that’s not how Ezekiel answers. In fact, he doesn’t really answer the question. He leaves it up to God to answer: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (37:3). And while that may sound like he’s putting off the answer, it’s really a statement of trust, because Ezekiel knows the only way for these bones to live is if God does something miraculous, something outside of our normal expectations, something only God can do. And that’s exactly what happens, but did you notice that God does not do it alone? He asks Ezekiel to participate with him, to do something, to cooperate with what God has planned. In fact, he asks Ezekiel to do two things. First, Ezekiel is to “prophesy to these bones” (37:7). Then, he is to “prophesy to the breath” (37:9). He does both of these things, and before you know it, there is a “vast army” standing in front of Ezekiel, ready to fight again. Whatever happened in this valley has been reversed. Life comes out of death. So what is it, exactly, that God asks Ezekiel to do?

We misunderstand this story sometimes because we misunderstand the word “prophesy.” Our typical thinking about prophecy is that it’s predicting the future—foretelling what will happen. And prophets did sometimes do that, but never just that. A prophet’s typical message was more like this: “These things will happen in the future if you don’t change your ways now.” There’s that big 2-letter word we talked about last week: IF. The prophets say, “Here’s where your life doesn’t match what God wants.” A Biblical prophet would be happy to be wrong about the destruction they predicted. Many of them wept as what they predicted came true because it meant the end of their nation, their people. But foretelling is not the prophet’s primary job. What is described as “prophecy” in the Bible is more like what we would call “preaching” today. It’s speaking the word of God for the people of God in the midst of the situation they find themselves in right now. Being “prophetic” means speaking for God. In this valley of dry bones, God is asking Ezekiel to speak the word of the Lord without fear. He’s not telling him to predict the future. Speak, preach! And the desired result of every prophecy in Scripture is always the same. It’s not that “you would know the future.” What God hopes for through the work of the prophets it this: “Then you will know that I am the Lord” (37:6). The purpose of prophecy is not to give us predictions or goose bumps; it is to declare to the world that our God is the Lord of all the earth.

So Ezekiel preaches to the bones, and they rise in a rattling sound, which is kind of creepy to think about. But the bones had to be sorted out; you don’t want John to end up with Bob’s leg bone! Am I right? So the bones rise, then muscles and tendons appear and finally skin covers it all. Death has been reversed—almost. There’s one thing missing: “There was no breath in them” (37:8).

So God tells Ezekiel to “prophesy to the breath” (37:9). Now, wait a minute, that makes no sense. There is no breath; that’s the whole point! This is one of those places where our English translation gets in the way; the original text is actually making a deeply profound point here. The Hebrew word there is ruach (if you don’t spit on the person in front of you, you’re not saying it right), which can mean “breath,” “spirit,” or “wind.” It’s the same word used in Genesis 2 when God creates Adam: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed [that’s ruach] into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (2:7). It’s the same word used even earlier in Genesis when God creates the entire world: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…and the Spirit [ruach] of God was hovering over the waters” (1:1-2). It’s the same word Jesus would have used in John 3 when he is talking to Nicodemus: “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit [ruach]…The wind blows wherever it pleases…so it is with everyone born of the Spirit [ruach]” (John 3:5-8). In Greek, which the New Testament is written in, the word is pneuma, and it has the same flexibility of meaning: wind, breath, Spirit. Here’s the point: nothing lives without the breath/wind/spirit of God filling it. When Ezekiel preaches to the wind and asks it to fill the bodies with the breath of God, life erupts in that valley of formerly dry bones. And all of that reminds us that without the breath of God, without the wind of God, without the Spirit of God, we are as good as dead. Can these bones live? Not without the Spirit of God (cf. Stuart 344; Goldingay 184).

As I said earlier, most if not all of us have from time to time stood in a valley of dry bones. In many of those situations, if you’re like me, you try to fix it on your own. I’m a slow learner, and it usually takes me a while to ask God to enter the situation. That’s different from praying, “God, fix it,” because I usually do pray those words, but what if “fixing it” is not what we need? What we are called to do is to trust the Spirit of God to do in us and around us and through us what we most need. I have learned the best lessons and experienced the most growth in character and faith when I have gone through the valley of dry bones and allowed the Spirit of God to walk with me, to fill me, to help me through it, not just to do what I think would be “fixing it.” The prayer I need to pray instead is, “God, fill me with your breath, so that in this valley I can become who you want me to be.” Can these bones live? Yes, they can, when the Spirit of God comes to dwell within us and within our situation. He is the one we most need.

One of the distinctives of our Methodist tradition is found in what scholar Albert Outler called the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” John Wesley himself never actually organized it this way, but Outler’s claim was that, for people in the Methodist tradition, there are really four sources for living and understanding our faith. The Scriptures are always primary, and the other three must be filtered through that. They are tradition, reason and experience. It’s the “experience” that sets us somewhat apart, because by that Wesley (and Outler) were not talking about any sort of “everyone’s experience is equally valid” idea. “Experience” refers to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives—experiencing God. Long before Henry Blackaby marketed that idea, Wesley was talking about in terms taken from Paul’s word to the Romans: “The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (8:16). In other words, our faith is not a dry, intellectual thought exercise. Wesley taught and we have always believed that the Christian faith is a relationship. We can know Jesus, and more than that, we can be filled with God’s Holy Spirit. His Spirit gives us direction, empowers our living, helps us do what is right, and so much more—but even more than that, his Spirit gives us life eternal. Right now. Not someday in the sweet by and by, but right now the Spirit enables us to live the life God wants us to live (cf. John 10:10). Relying only on our reason or on just tradition is like owning a picture of a fire; adding in experience, the presence of God’s Holy Spirit within us, allows us to feel the heat of the fire (cf. Larsen & Larsen 60). When Wesley understood this, he said his heart was strangely warmed. The Christian life is a dead faith without the presence of the Spirit.

And yet, today I look at our tradition, our denomination, and I want to ask the same question God asked Ezekiel: can these bones live? We are less than two weeks from the beginning of the special called General Conference that, some believe, will somehow finally resolve our 47-year-old debate over human sexuality. I’m not that optimistic, to tell you the truth. I think there will be a lot of noise, a lot of debates, a lot of tears and impassioned speeches, some negative press coverage, but I seriously doubt if, in four days, much if anything will be decided. But while we’re arguing with each other over such things, the mission of the church goes unaccomplished. Do you remember our mission? “To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” The world is not being transformed and disciples are not being made as we spend millions of dollars arguing with one another. It breaks my heart, because I love this church. I have been a United Methodist my entire life; I love my church. But today I look around and I wonder: can these bones live? Can God bring new life out of even this mess? Well, of course he can, but maybe the bigger question is: will we let him?

Four years ago, I had just been appointed as your incoming pastor, and though I was not due to arrive until July 1, I began to hear stories about this church and particularly about the building. I had a chance to speak with Pastor Aaron and Pastor Rick, with Herb Buwalda who was our consultant at the time, and with several of the leaders of this church. And I heard the story that many of you know well, though some of you have come in the time since we opened the new building. There were a lot of emotions around the roof of this building falling apart, some finger-pointing, and a lot of hurt and pain. There was frustration about having to basically build the building again, a building that wasn’t very old at the time, and there were folks who were upset that we had to worship for three years down in the fellowship center. It felt to some like a death of sorts, and some even wondered if Mount Pleasant could go on. There were people who just knew we could not raise the money to do what needed to be done. And so we asked: can these bones live? Many of you remember what happened. This church came together to pledge the money, to bring together new plans, and to begin to get a new vision for ministry in the days, months, and years to come. We began together to focus on the whole purpose of what we were doing: that it wasn’t for us but for the community. It was for people who were not yet here. What felt like a death became a defining moment. Can these bones live? Sovereign Lord, you alone know—and God said yes. If you allow yourselves to be put back together by my Spirit, if you allow yourselves to be filled with my Spirit, if you allow yourselves to move forward only in the power of my Spirit—then, yes, these bones will live. And the rattling sound we heard was the crash of beams coming down and new ones going up. And the tendons and flesh were the things inside that we remodeled and redesigned. And the skin was the outer covering on the bones.

But the building is just a building. The church is you and me and all of us who call Mount Pleasant home. The breath God has breathed into this place is you and me, God’s children filled with the Spirit of God doing the work of God in the world of God. Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And so we’ve sought to transform the world for those who find themselves addicted by continuing to grow Celebrate Recovery. We’ve expanded our ministry to those who often don’t have anyone or any other place that cares about them through Grace Unlimited and Night to Shine. Three hundred guests filled this place on Friday night just to hear that God loves them; it was awesome. You give to the food pantry at 14th & Chestnut and you support missionaries locally and around the world. You send blankets of comfort to those who are hurting and you educate preschoolers while sharing the love of Christ with them. You help children learn to play basketball, work as a team and develop Christian character through Upward Sports. You care for infants in the nursery, teach children in Small Wonders and small groups, share food and good news with youth and support college students. You welcome people, you care for the sick, you visit in the prison, you invite in the least of these, you love one another, you serve those in need, and the problem with listing things in this way is that I’ve probably forgotten a hundred other ways you’re allowing the Spirit of God to fill you and use you in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. My friends, can these bones live? You tell me!