Today's Sermon

 

“Reconnecting Us – Spirit Series"

            

Reconnecting Us – Spirit Series

            Let’s get right into today’s reading, from the prophet Ezekiel because I think many of you will know it, and those who don’t will quickly pick up on the imagery.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

            37 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 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 the Lord.”

            7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10 I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

            11 Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12 Therefore prophesy 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. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14 I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

            “Everybody in a line. In a line” he kept saying, as I watched from the edge of the field, “Come on, side by side.” It was the end of one of my son’s soccer practices, one of the first with his new coach. Now, I don’t like to exaggerate, but this coach is the greatest best guy who has ever lived—good, decent, kind, knows what he’s doing—so I was curious how he did things. Why was he so intent on keeping them in line as they ran? They weren’t training; they were cooling down. “In a line guys, in a line. Shake it out. Get it out of your system.” Okay, but why in a line? Then it hit me: he’s trying to get them connected: Move together. Stay together. Be a body. Not surprisingly, when they’ve played well, they’ve been the most connected.

            Our culture does not encourage staying connected, despite all the devices sold to us under that promise. To make it is to make enough money that you don’t need to rely on anyone for anything. For decades now we have become quite aware of our increasing fragmentation and isolation. We talk about the decline of social capital, the loneliness epidemic, or simply our deep divisions. I knew a rabbi back in Philadelphia who said, “Peace is possible only when diverse peoples feel a deep connection to and responsibility for each other, when people of every belief and background embrace each other as siblings.” How many people would report deep connections with friends much less “diverse peoples”? Are we increasingly finding ourselves overlooking a valley of dry bones, devoid of connective tissue?

            What do we do? When Sherri was serving at another church, our son would get up really early on Sundays and come with me here, since this was where he was already connected. He’d bring homework or watch TV. Inevitably, Jeff, our youth director, would pop in and say, “Liam, I need your help with something,” and off they’d go. One day I said to Jeff in the office, “When you ask Liam for help, you don’t really need help do you?” He was getting Liam connected not just to him, but to what they were doing as a group that day and, by extension, to all of you, his faith community.

            I recently heard a story on the BBC about a man named Dean Perryman from Essex in England. He had lost his best friend to suicide, and he never saw it coming. He wanted to do something to prevent others from feeling so hopeless as his friend must have, but do what? The first thing he did was to take a spiritual gifts assessment. Not really, at least formally, but he did know enough about himself to give him an idea. He was pretty good at chatting, making people feel comfortable, and he liked drinking beer, so Dean started showing up to the pub every night and positioning himself at a table surrounded with empty chairs. One by one people filled those seats and found connection. What started as an experiment evolved into “Empty Chairs” which now has meetups in 6 countries[1] Dean’s way may not be right for you, but you have a role to play connecting and fostering a sense of responsibility for one another. What is it?

            That could be the sermon, and often with this text it has been. This time when I studied passage, however, I found more. Let’s take a closer look. The dry bones of Ezekiel’s vision don’t belong to just anyone. They are the bones of the former elite of Jerusalem. It’s their unfaithfulness which has led to the exile of the whole people. Those who were supposed to hold society together—including the priests by the way—failed and everyone else had to pay the price too. The entire nation is cast into exile. Those with greater power have greater responsibility.

            Well, God brings Ezekiel over and asks if he thinks those bones can live again. Why would God need to ask Ezekiel? Maybe God wants to know what hope Ezekiel has left. Ezekiel’s response is cryptic, not “yes,” not “no,” but “O Lord, you know.” Is Ezekiel being sly or is he open to what seems impossible? God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, speak to dead parts. Tell them they will live. Tell them God says, “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 the Lord” (37:6). Remember, we are in a series on the Spirit. It is the breath of God that gives life individually and communally.

            Then God says to Ezekiel “Prophesy to the breath.” Direct the wind and Spirit of God, the subject of our series, “prophesy, mortal.” Tell God what to do, point it toward the need. What is going on? One the one hand, God is involving Ezekiel has a role to play in the raising up of his fallen people. As we will say throughout this series, the path of faith is about collaborating with God, with the Spirit. We need God for every breath, and God seems to choose us to be the sails for the Spirit, God’s wind. On the other hand, the Spirit is the primary agent, does the heavy lifting, “…and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet” (37:10). I wonder if this is the origin of the phrase “getting back onto your feet.”

            I know we want to fix everything. We want to have the power, be in control, but that’s also a tremendous amount of weight to carry. Do you ever feel as though you’re carrying more weight than you can handle? Thinking it’s all up to you, as much as that might come out of a good place, is also a kind of idolatry, God-forgetfulness. This passage dares us to recognize there is something bigger at work. That may be the hardest part for some people to accept, not that they have put forth some kind of herculean effort but that there is a god and they are not it. On that note, by the way, maybe we’re not Ezekiel in the story. In this culture in particular, we tend to put ourselves into the role of the hero in the story. Maybe we’re the dry bones. Maybe we’re dried up. Maybe we’ve lost our way. Maybe we’ve even let some people down because of our choices. Maybe we’re not looking down at the valley of dry bones, but up from it. Could it be the Spirit has come for us? Would we allow it?

            This is not an excuse to do nothing, but it is permission to hope. I know before I can even address it, someone in the room is already saying to themselves, “Hope is not a strategy.” I know that because I’m that person in the room. Hope is not a strategy, but it is a starting point, a powerful one, like a burst of wind in the sails. Being faithful does not mean always being optimistic, but it does mean not giving up on hope. The alternative, nihilism, gets us nothing, literally, and nowhere. Sometimes, when it feels like all is lost, and you feel yourself on the precipice, God comes along and says, “I want to show you something. What you thought was dead is just waiting to come back to life.”

            What does this mean for us? Well, interestingly, the work doesn’t necessarily change. We still have to be about the work of connecting and sowing/sewing a sense of deep responsibility for each other, only now we know that it’s God threading the needle. It’s the Spirit that gives, and is, the sinew. We just have to be the ones willing to let the Spirit flow through our hands. It’s the same work, but with different energy. We can find release from the anxiety and the fear, the suspicion that the problems are too great and we’re too small because something bigger is at work and waiting to partner with us. After the passage we read, in the verses that follow, God tells Ezekiel to take two sticks, representing the two kingdoms of the divided Israel. God says Ezekiel to take the two sticks and hold them together so God can turn them into one. If God could do that for them, who are we to say God cannot with us?

            Will we do our part, now with a little wind in our sails? If we’re weary, or we’re unsure, because we trust in the Spirit, we can start small. We can simply notice the need, do a spiritual gifts assessment, and start our version of empty chairs. If and when it starts to feel like it’s not enough, that there’s more to be done and more we can do, because we trust the Spirit, we can go bigger. We can figure out what’s behind the need and start to address it, make systemic changes to stem the tide of the loneliness epidemic. Because we trust in the Spirit, we can also wrestle back the rudder from anyone who wants to steer us away from connection and responsibility for each other. We can demand every leader at every level point in that direction or we will with withdraw our support. They derive their power from us. We can become Spirit-driven leaders ourselves. And, when we you start to burn out or feel the wind die down, because we trust the Spirit, we can feel permission to get small again. One chair. One soul, reconnected. Because we trust the Spirit, we can try absurd things. Could it be crazier than talking to the wind, raising the dead? The Spirit redefines possibility.

            Ezekiel doesn’t remove any responsibility from us; it just removes the onus, the weight. The Spirit takes the burden. The hard part is over, trying to do it all on your own. So come on, shake it out. Shake that trauma, that soreness, out of your body, cool down. Get together now, in a line, in a line. Get connected. In a line, in a line. You’re not doing this alone. In a line. In a line. You’re one body. In a line. In a line.  

            Amen.

[1] Featured on BBC radio program. For more information, see this print story: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge85gq0l78o and this web site: https://emptychairs.org.uk/about/