"Can These Bones Live?"
03-09-08
I want to first say, bear with me for any of you who may remember this opening story from a Jazz Vesper’s service last May. When I was in Seminary I use to go to a friend’s house every Thursday night to chat and watch television. While my friends were busy watching shows like "Friends" and "ER" on NBC we were watching a British show on cable called Time Team. Have any of you seen it? The Time Team was a team of Archaeologists. Whenever they found anything remotely exciting - anything at all – the host of the show would dash over to have a look. And someone would pick out some gnarled, dirty bit of twisted metal, or a chunk of pottery, or sometimes a bit of bone, and the host would say "What have you got here?" And the person who found it would say something like…
"This is really interesting, because it isn't what we expected. We were looking for iron age remains and this is definitely late Roman." And my friend and I would be sitting on the edge of our seats, in mid bite or swallow or sentence, and in unison with the host guy we would say together "But what is it?" And some expert standing there would say "Well this is a piece of Phoenician pottery, probably from a large cooking pot, and what's interesting about it is..." And while this expert would spout on, there'll be a picture of the thing they've found on the screen, and they would have superimposed a picture of what it was before it was broken and buried in some field for hundreds of years. And I remember thinking things like, "How did they know that was Phoenician pottery and not an old flowerpot? Looks like a chunk off an old flowerpot to me."
They were always extra careful with the bones. I remember once when they found bones very late in the day just as they were due to pack up and go home, but the bone’s person was going to keep working until they'd fully excavated these bones. She recognized that those bones were different than an old pot, this had been a person once. What is so amazing is that she was able to take a few old bones, and determine if that bone was from a man or woman, just from a few chips of bone, not even a whole body. From the skull they could even go as far as to digitally reconstruct the face, and have a glimpse of what that person looked like. Some of them didn’t look all that different from you or I.
And again I would think something like "How did they know when they were digging around that these were fragments of skull? They look like bits of chalk or old pot to me!" I guess I don’t have a very good eye for seeing things that aren’t there. For that matter I sometimes can’t see things which are there, like the pickle jar in the fridge. The blessing is some of you see differently than I do. We work together, as a Time team if you will.
An even greater blessing is knowing that God sees things differently than any of us. You see, God sees not just how things are, but how they could be. God sees not just how we are, but how we could be. God sees to the heart of the matter, and God asks important questions like, "Can these bones live?" Our God is a God of possibility. We as God’s followers are called to be a people of hope.
In the case of Ezekiel, I think his response is a pretty good one. "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know." When he is likely thinking something like, "O God, please don’t ask me to touch this unclean bones, not the bones, God. Not the bones! You know God welcomes honest answers. If you’re not sure about something, then an honest, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know" is better than "No way!" Even in our doubts and fears, we can leave open the possibility of hope.
I think it may be helpful to know that up until this point in Ezekiel’s story God has used him to do some pretty strange and radical things. And people are now starting to listen, if nothing else to see what crazy thing Ezekiel is going to do next in the name of God. Yet this time, God takes Ezekiel away from the people and in a vision, plucks him up and places him in a Valley strewn with old dry bones. The Time Team would have had a heyday with that Valley, but for Ezekiel, the devout Jew, it was a frightening and unclean space to be.
How foolish this must have looked. The Lord’s prophet, standing in the middle of a pile of dead bones, is telling them not to give up hope. If I was Ezekiel, I would have probably prayed that the Lord first bring these bones back to life, and then I’d maybe do a little meditation "See," I’d tell them, "See what God can do?" "But that is not the way of God, who calls us to believe without seeing. That is because the Lord’s words always make room for hope. And it is the hope that brings us back to life. Hope rises up from our bones, and chooses to believe in spite of how it is." 1
The more appropriate response would be to say, "Uh God, I’m not sure what you plan is, and how dry bones live, but you probably know something more than I do." And God does. God tells Ezekiel, to do one of those strange things, God often asks of God’s people. Luckily, as God often does, God asks of Ezekiel an action, that Ezekiel is capable of doing. God says, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord." Okay, easily enough said, so Ezekiel, standing in the middle of a pile of bones that used to be living men and women, prophesied as he was commanded.
And as he was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. As he stood there nervously, tendons and flesh appeared on the bones and connect joints, and skin started to covered them, a literally reconstruction of the body. I chuckle at this awesome image. Because as a devout Jew, the only worse than being surrounded by dry bones, is being surrounded by dead bodies. These bodies are dead, because there is no breath in them.
As these bones start to come back to life, they come together in the exact opposite order of decomposition. The core of the body forms then the more fragile skin covers the body, and it is only after the human body is formed does God enliven them with God’s breath. And Ezekiel must prophesy God doing that to this pile of dead bodies, before God enlivens them. You see there is an important distinction between the physical body, and the life force that animates it. And Ezekiel plays a key role in bringing that body back to life, back to action, back to meaning and existence. Ezekiel must speak out what God tells him to say.
Actually, it is quite hard, when you're starting with something as unpromising as a heap of bones. And for us, we sometimes doubt whether we've heard from God. "No, it can't be me you want to speak through, I'm not good enough. You'd use Pat or Larry, sooner than me. They're holy people, they're better than me." Are they? Ah, but I know God can't speak through me. Whatever you feel is a barrier to God using you, get over it because God wants to use you. Without someone to speak God’s Word, the body will never live; God’s breath can never enliven.
We often talk about the living body in context of the church. We are the body of Christ. And sometimes as I look at the church universal, I wonder if we are still waiting for the breath of God to enliven us. It seems that sometimes what we do is wait, rather than living as witness, as a functioning, breathing body.
Let me use an example of what I’m talking about. I have had several knee injuries and I have fairly significant arthritis in my right knee. The doctor tells me that the best thing I can do for my knee is to continue to use it, to exercise it. Not to jump and run and expose it to devastation, but to walk and bike and stretch often. The thing is, as it is with anything painful, or hindering, joint pain or extra weight, the last thing I want to be doing is exercising. This is the thing, if stop exercising and working through the challenge, then eventually I will be unable to all together. My muscles will begin to atrophy and my mind will become apathetic to what I need to do. I will be a body, but I will not be what I can be.
A similar thing will happen to the body of Christ, if we do not let God enliven us with God’s breath. It is not merely about waiting for something grand to happen. It is not merely about holding out and avoiding the challenges, and viewing our work as just one more obligation throughout the week to attend to. The body of Christ is a collection of dry bones if not for God’s breath. If we do not use our body, we will, over time, not want to use it. We have a natural tendency not to exercise. And then we merely exist. You see, if left without breath, our body will Atrophy.
I pray each and everyday, that we continue to love more and more fully, and let God’s breath continue to empower us to stand up and live for God not just in this place, but in this community, in this conference, in this world. God asks each generation of believers, "Can these bones live?" And God prefers honest answers and honest reflection. We must ask ourselves what is our work as the body of Christ in the world? If we are to love, love requires action and animation. Action and animation require brave Ezekiel’s who open themselves to God’s Word despite their own insecurities and faults; those Ezekiel figures to speak into existence God’s life-changing, life-giving Word of transformation and love.
My friends, God sees not just how things are, but how they could be. God sees not just how we are, but how we could be. God can raise anything, breath life into anybody, equip anyone to do God’s work. God sees to the heart of the matter, and God asks important questions like, "Can these bones live?" Let us have the courage to shout YES!. And if that is not an honest answer for us now let us at least have the faith to ask, "O gracious and loving and challenging God, you alone know. Show me the way to life." Can these bones live? Let’s make the commitment together to make sure that they do! Amen.
1 From Craig Barnes who is pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. These words appeared in an article in The Christian Century, February 27-March 6, 2002, p. 20.