PROPHESY TO THE BONES

When I was a kid, my youth group used to go hiking several times a year in the Great Smokey Mountains in the state of Tennessee. We were supposed to stick to the marked path, but you know how that goes. We were kids and, as the trail wound back and forth across the face of the mountain, some of us were bound to cut into the brush and try to find a short cut.

The philosopher Aristotle gave us the basic building block of logic called a syllogism in this way:

“All men are mortal.”
(Notice he didn’t say anything about women—wise Aristotle)
“Socrates is a man.”
“Therefore Socrates is mortal.”

Now Socrates in fact had been dead for years and Aristotle knew it, but the important thing for Aristotle was that Socrates was logically dead. The fact that Socrates was actually dead wasn’t important to Aristotle, though it may have been important to Socrates.

It is no accident that the basic building block of logic, the fundamental framework of what is certain, has as its content our mortality. This is absolutely clear and nothing can be more clear: we’re temporary.

“Son of Man,” or “Mortal Man,” God said to Ezekiel. “Look at these bones.” God addresses the prophet in all of his frailness, all of his fragileness. “You, the one I am calling to be a prophet, I speak to you in your mortality, your temporariness. And you shall prophesy out of the same.”

In ancient times armies would clash on one day and bodies would cover the landscape. And then declare a truce the next day in order to come out and reclaim their dead, enemies often working side by side in order to bury or burn their fallen comrades. Not to do so would be to risk spiritual pollution and the anger of the gods.

There was hardly anybody left of Israel to do the burying. The Assyrians had taken care of the North and the Babylonians had taken care of the South, enslaving the able bodied, slaying the rest. The land once called the “promised land” must have looked like a bone field that the victor forgot to cover.

Those few who survived would have only the final memory of desolation as they huddled in a strange land, bereft of hope. Could such a people, confused and angry and humiliated and survivor-guilty see any future at all?

No…unless it was an illogical future, an unreasonable future, a future that would not conform to any pattern or any certainty ever known. To get a future out of that, you can’t construct an argument. You can’t hire a consultant. You can’t adopt a program. You can’t generate a strategic plan. You can’t staff it out. To see a future beyond a field of bones, you’ve got to have a prophet.

God’s prophet. A mortal man or mortal woman (or boy or girl). Who will speak to us not because she is the smartest person in the room or the richest man on the block or the best connected in the town. Not because he is credentialed or she is ordained. Not because she’s in the hall of fame or he is licensed to drive.

The prophet would have to be a mere mortal. And would have to speak out of mortality and fragileness and with a history of being often wrong.

Where could we find such a prophet? Well, nowhere, because it’s not our job to find prophets? Where could God find such a prophet? Well, anywhere, because that’s what God does.

When Moses heard of people prophesying in the camp and was encouraged to shut them down because they might challenge his authority, he responded: “Would that all God’s people prophets!” And when Pentecost came around, that possibility opened up as wide as the known languages of the world.

So let’s not be gathering here today listening to scripture and thinking: not my thing. Because everyday the Spirit of God takes us out to the bone field. It’s called work, it’s called school, it’s called the community coffee shop. And the Spirit doesn’t say: I’m going to speak to this. The Spirit says: you are going to speak to this.

Prophesy to the bones of the middle class, and say: exactly why did you want to get to where you are? So you could slide off into old age and leave the world worse than you found it?

Prophesy to the bones of public education and say: exactly why did you create the best proven path to excellence and then provide fewer programs than when you were kids? Do you see no link between less physical education and rising obesity? Do you really want your children pan handling to fund sports programs?

Prophesy to the bones of the health care system and say: do you believe that any of us is safer from disease when the sick walk among us without treatment?

Prophesy to the bones of the main line church and say: exactly why did you struggle so hard to get your congregations on every cross roads in America? So that those with half a gospel could eat your lunch?

Prophesy to the bones of the United States of America and say: have we not learned from the suffering of Christ on the cross that torture may not be carried on in our name?

But it’s not enough to pull the bones back together. It’s not enough to have an idea, an outline, a skeleton, a plan. The breath of life has got to come back into the bones. Would that all of God’s people were prophets with a breath of life to breathe into this boney world.

Skeletal reconstruction may be abstract. Let’s see: the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone. But mouth to mouth resuscitation is personal. Let’s don’t think we can announce a program and life will flow back into this boney world. A memo won’t get it done.

The message of hope in God has not been delivered until we get close enough to people to conspire with them. To conspire is to respire together. People will live again in God when they sense that those around them have some spirit/wind/breath and are not just blowing smoke.

I close with this story: A woman came to church one day, accompanying her kids who had been invited by other kids. You could tell just by looking at her that she had a pretty rough life and no time for niceties, and I came to know later on that she had been routinely abused by her husband who was now in jail.

That particular Sunday by the grace of God the lesson was about Ruth and Naomi, and I watched the woman’s face open up in amazement as the story was read. You see, her name was Naomi, and she had never heard of its ancient context. She had a name that meant something! All of her life the world had been telling her that she was nobody, and she discovered that day that she was somebody.

And when people invited her home for lunch, she was somebody. And when she floated the idea of getting her general education diploma, the church affirmed her and she was somebody. And when she tested out the idea that she might go to college and the church affirmed her, she was somebody. She got an associate degree in criminal justice. She said she had been in court so much with her ex-husband that she was an expert anyway.

Last I heard, she was working in the court, her kids were in school, her heart was in the church, and she was somebody. Because some people got close enough to conspire with her about life and hope and meaning and grace and purpose.

Mortal man and mortal woman, go breathe life into the bones. Would that all God’s people were prophets.