"You shall live"-Sermon for Lent 5, Ezekiel 7:1-14
Our Old Testament lesson today lays before us a haunting and hopeful vision, which is often referred to as the “Valley of Dry Bones”. Its author, Ezekiel, was an Israelite, priest and prophet living as an exile in Babylon during the Babylonia Captivity that began around 597 BC. Over the course of the following decade or so the Babylonian Empire would force into mass deportation many, many of the people living in Jerusalem and Judah, which comprised the Southern Kingdom of Israel…and many others were just killed…families ripped apart…homes destroyed…even the Temple in Jerusalem would not be spared. It too would be reduced to rubble during this time…a profoundly sacred space considered God’s own home, that sat at the center of Jewish life, spiritually and culturally. And all this destruction, this profound loss, this deep dislocation and exile is the historical background for Ezekiel’s God-given vision. God’s people, like these dry bones, are left scattered far and wide…homesick…spiritually and physically dislocated from the places and people they love…and for those whose lives have been lost…well their bones have been literally left to dry out in or on the earth. Ezekiel and his fellow captive and deported Israelites living in exile are a people traumatized, lost, and deeply grieving…very much like this vision…living some sort of half-life wandering through a valley of dry bones.
And, I want to acknowledge that for many in our world…for many in our own community…the trauma, death and dislocation of warfare, violence, captivity and deportation remains a very present darkness…the bones in the valley just seem to pile up…to grow in number. Though I am not trying to draw an equivalence between those literally living in the direct line of fire…the fire of displacement, deportation or death and those of us who live lives of relative comfort and safety, but still, as people who deeply care and are paying close attention to those suffering, we all carry the soul crushing psychological weight of a profoundly divided and death-dealing world. I stand with you and have heard you, as many of you have shared with me, the sadness and sense of powerlessness that we carry with us almost constantly…both consciously and subconsciously. And, such external suffering is only exacerbated by our own challenges much closer to home when a job is lost, or a loved one is struggling physically or emotionally, or a close relationship is ruptured, or the unwanted diagnosis comes, or the budget is so tight it feels hard to breath. Indeed, the ancient vision shared by God with our very distant spiritual ancestor Ezekiel of wandering through the waste of a valley of dry bones, at least in certain seasons of every human life, including each of our own, remains a relevant and haunting vision.
But…that great theological word…but, as I noted this vision, though haunting, is also hopeful. For in the midst of all the death and decay, Ezekiel finds he is not alone. The God who breathes life into creation…the God who made all things out of love and for love’s sake alone…meets Ezekiel in the middle of the valley and asks, “Mortal, can these bones live?” And, Ezekiel answers somewhat ambivalently, “O Lord God, you know.” And, this response feels to me both honest a raw. He doesn’t say in a heroic moment of great faith, “Of course they can!” …or “You can make it so!” …or, even, the opposite, perhaps closer to how he actually felt, “How can they…our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Ezekiel is, indeed, lost and confused and uncertain. I don’t think he knows what he thinks. I think he is understandably traumatized by his own profound experience of grief and exile…his faith is teetering on the edge of unbelief…and he really doesn’t know if God will or, even, can act…can bring dried bones back to life. And, like Ezekiel, I think we, at times, experience the same sense of ambivalence…the same unknowing…our own faith teetering on the edge of unbelief when we feel like the weight of the world’s pain and our own is tearing us to pieces. And, I don’t think that’s weakness. And, I do think that’s an entirely normal response to the experience of human suffering. But, most especially, I also think that’s when God shows up…in the very midst of our questions, our struggles, our deep doubts…in the middle of the valley of dry bones.
And, I think what it particularly powerful is what God does next. Rather than acting alone to restore creation…to bring life out of death…to return flesh to bone…to breathe new life into the lost and brokenhearted…rather than acting alone…God invites Ezekiel into companionship…into a shared life-giving, life-restoring ministry of resurrection. God says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” God, in a sense, says…you, Ezekiel, you are my voice…you are my heart beating in the world…you speak to the bones…and tell them…you shall live. And, I think in doing so…in taking action…his own sense of powerless begins to diminish. He begins to heal and he begins to speak…offering hope and healing to others, even as, he carries his own pain.
A couple of weeks ago, as 80 or so of us gathered in The Woodlands at Diocesan Council for St. Julian’s to be made the newest parish in the Episcopal Church, I will admit I was feeling a bit out of sorts…both in the days leading up to it and even after first arriving. My excitement at what God has and continues to accomplish through our collective efforts to breath and bring life into this life-giving, life-restoring family of faith was tempered by the weight of what it all took to get to this point. I was feeling the weight of all of the work over the past 16 plus years it took to get to where we are today, and, though I had much help, more immediately, just the weight of getting everyone organized and to The Woodlands. I was struggling to let all of that worry and weariness go…for truly the blessing and the wonder has been in the work…but still to let all of that go and just breath in the moment…just celebrate what God has brought to life through all of our wonderful collective, living bones. But, I am grateful to say, on Friday night and Saturday and really the days that followed, I felt something begin to come alive in me…stress and worry replaced by gratitude and joy. And, the source of my transformation was born from the prophetic words of God’s people…like many of you…who pulled me aside to be sure I was paying attention…to prophesy to these weary and worried bones…saying things like: Thank you…it is a blessing to be here…this is an important moment, I hope you can feel it and enjoy it…St. Julian’s is more important to me than you could ever know…you are a gift to me…you work matters. Friends, this is important, prophetic words are not future telling words…they are truth telling words…and I was being told the truth…about me and about our life-giving shared ministry.
Though the prophetic words of life and love I received are too many to say aloud and came from too many people to name. One email I received upon coming home that summed up many of the sweet sentiments that were offered read, “Rector (my new title), I am so deeply joyful for and with you! I am so deeply grateful to be a part of this piece of the St. Julian’s journey. When I first visited you all on your last Sunday in the previous building, I knew my family and I would find a home here. Thank you for creating a home for us and for all of our fellow pilgrims on this discipleship path.” And, another text that I received the morning of council from someone traveling with us read, “Hey man. Just want to say I’m excited about today for St. Julian’s and for you. This has been your life’s work so far, this and making a home for your family. It has been an honor to work at your side these 12 or so years of it. I hope you can feel a good measure of the joy here on earth that they are feeling up in heaven today.” Friends, your truth-telling prophetic words brought me to life, and, as we rang the Great Commission Bell together my joy was complete. Thank you. We are only at the beginning…and I am fully alive and ready for what comes next.
God says to Ezekiel, “[P]rophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord…. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.’” And, in the chapters that follow today’s Old Testament lesson, Ezekiel will prophesy further about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. And, God does act in time and space…historically speaking…the exile does come to an end…many return home to the Promised Land, once again, and the temple is, indeed, rebuilt. Them some 600 years later, while gazing upon that very same rebuilt Temple with his disciples at his side, another Jewish Prophet will proclaim that God has the power to destroy the Temple and rebuild it again in three days. That man, Jesus, was more than a prophet, he was and is the Son of God, and the temple he was referring to was not the one standing before them…but his own body…that would, indeed, be destroyed on the hard would of the cross, his bones placed in a borrowed tomb, to be resurrected by the power of God’s eternal life and love three days later…just as he said. And, through Jesus’ resurrection, all…all are brought up from our graves…our bones will be reconstituted and we shall stand again…fully alive, healed and whole, as the very people God created us to be from the beginning and forever. God has put his spirit within us and we shall live…in this present darkness, now, and in the life to come…on the other side of glory.
And, like Ezekiel, God calls us, in the midst of our own suffering, confusion, unknowing and sense of powerless over the darkness that presses in on all sides, to prophesy…to speak the truth of our great and good news…to find our voice…to speak courageously from our hearts exposed for all to see…to be wounded healers speaking to the bones…to those entrusted to our care…to those walking in a valley of the shadow of death…you shall live…you shall overcome…you are not forgotten…you matter and are loved from forever to forever…your life makes a difference and I am grateful for you…God will and has already acted…all tombs shall be emptied…you shall live. Amen.