God isn t even as coy as that boy. This story from Ezekiel is about God

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1 George A. Mason 5 th Sunday in Lent Wilshire Baptist Church 2 April 2017 Fifth in a series, A Way Other than Our Own Dallas, Texas Life After Death Ezekiel 37:1-14 We ve discovered a pattern as we ve hopscotched our way across Hebrew history during this season of Lent. It reveals itself again and again, and it s the very same pattern we find in the saving work of Jesus. So let s review. We began in the Garden of Eden. Everything was lush and promising. The first people couldn t resist the forbidden fruit, though. They chose a way of their own that led to death, and God had to find a way other than their own to restore life. Next we met Abram and his wife Sarai, who were unable to conceive according to a way of their own. God granted them a child when their family future seemed impossible. Then we saw the children of Israel in the wilderness dying of thirst. All they saw was a dry desert of death, but God provided life-giving water from a rock. Last week we noted God s choice of the unlikely eighth child of Jesse David to succeed Saul as king of Israel. Saul s self-absorbed leadership had left the nation fearful and anxious. But God s surprising pick of David gave them new hope. And today we come to the prophet Ezekiel, who sees a valley of dry bones come to life like a reverse horror movie. The valley of dry bones is the site where the people s own way has led, yet God gives them a vision of a way not their own that promises life after death. Every step of the way, the pattern has been the same: the brimming promise of life is thwarted by disobedience or failure or bad fortune or feckless leadership. The people despair. They feel the creep of death on their doorstep. They worry that the end is near and that there isn t anything they can do to change it. And just then, God steps in. A surprising word. An unexpected miracle. A vision that changes everything.

2 This is the way God works, because this is who God is. God is the relentless agent of life and hope and freedom in, with and under all things, keeping the world moving forward and quickening all our hearts when all the heart has gone out of us. Ezekiel s vision of the valley of dry bones is the most extreme burst of hope in this season of death. And don t we all need it? Aren t we ready for Easter? The Scripture passages on the fifth Sunday in Lent always bring a hint of resurrection to keep us hoping. God knows that even death can t stop what God intends for the world. We don t know that yet, but we need to know that. God will prove that to us once and for all with the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday. But while that s still two weeks away for us, it was still 600 years away for Ezekiel and Judah. They needed hope then. And it seems that God can t keep a secret. Reminds me of my predecessor, Bruce McIver. Bruce was a great storyteller, but you always knew when he was getting near the punchline. He couldn t conceal it. His shoulders would start to wiggle. His mouth would start to quiver. He looked like he was about to burst. It was as if he was tipping us off to get ready. There s a story about a mother who told her son to take some homemade butter house to house to sell. Get fifty cents a pound for it if you can, she said, but if you can t get fifty cents, then take twenty-five cents. The boy went to the first house, knocked on the door, and asked the man if he wanted to buy some butter. How much is it? the man inquired. The boy said, Mama said to get fifty cents if I could, but if not, to take twenty-five cents. The man said, Son, I m going to teach you a lesson. I ll take a pound of butter, and I ll pay you twenty-five cents for it, but you must learn not to tell everything you know. If you hadn t told me you d take a quarter, then I d have been glad to give you the half-dollar. Now, do you think you can remember that? The boy paused, and then replied, Yes, sir, but I didn t tell everything I know. I didn t say nothin about the cat fallin into the cream! 1 God isn t even as coy as that boy. This story from Ezekiel is about God 1 Barbara Brokoff, God Can t Keep a Good Secret! 2

3 dropping a clue ahead of what is to come. And this vision has long-range power beyond the fortunes of Judah. At the time when Jesus was raised from the dead, this story of Ezekiel s vision had been firmly planted in Israel s imagination for centuries, giving context for believing that maybe, just maybe, God was behind it after all, bringing life after death by bringing life to the dead. Let s follow the story in Ezekiel a little more closely to get that vision set inside of us, too. The hand of the Lord led the prophet out by the spirit of the Lord to the middle of a valley that was full of dry bones. Look how God is taking initiative. When we feel discouraged and stuck in place, God s hand brings us out. God s spirit moves us to see differently. Before we can see differently, though, we have to see clearly. We have to see things as they are, not as we wish they were. It means seeing things honestly no spin. Prophets don t spin a scene or twist the truth; they see things as they are and tell what they see. We never have hope by denying reality, and we never have help until we accept reality and turn from our own way to a way other than our own. Ezekiel sees through the eyes of God what the people of Judah already feel. Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely. They feel as if their graves are already dug, and when they lie down to sleep, it s the sleep of the dead. They have no reason to wake up because they have no life worth living to wake up to. The Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah in 587 BCE. About a third of the Judeans were killed, another third the important and powerful types were carted off to Babylon, and a no-threat third contingent was left behind. The exiles were humiliated. Once they ruled; now they were ruled. Have any of you ever felt that way? Your life has crumbled before your eyes; loving relationships are gone; pain is a constant companion; normality seems impossible; anxiety haunts your nights and days; the world is bathed in bloody violence, and peace seems elusive. You feel that hope is dried up and the future is a low black cloud. Anyone? God asks Ezekiel a question as he stares at these bleached 3

4 bones strewn across the green valley: Mortal, can these bones live? Now, there ought to be a long pause here in the story, because God has put the prophet in a pickle. If he answers no, he s being true to himself. Everyone knows, and history shows, only one thing: when you die, you re dead. Period. But if he says no that these bones can t live he shows no faith in God. Whichever way he answers, he will be true to one and betray the other. He cleverly replies, O Lord God, you know. Brilliant. But neither we nor Ezekiel will get off so easily with our agnosticism. The only way we will know will happen when we obey God and act in concert with him. God s power can and will raise the dead, but that power that doesn t come from us. It will come through us and with nature, not without us. Prophesy to these bones, God says. Speak to the dead. Tell them there is yet hope. So the prophet preaches, and suddenly there s a noise, a rattling sound of the bones coming together. They line up like the old spiritual, Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones, says: the toe bones connected to the foot bones, the foot bones connected to the ankle bone s and all the way up, until the skeleton is complete. Then sinew starts growing on them, and flesh after that. Finally, God tells the prophet to call on the four winds to join in. The word for wind and spirit and breath in the Hebrew is the same: ru ach the same word used at creation. At the command of the prophet, upon the command of God, the dead come to life. I have seen, it too. In my study. In the pew. On a retreat. In a coffee shop. Sometimes I get beyond myself and become bold enough to stop listening to the description of death, to the certainty in a person s voice that his or her life is over. Sometimes I speak beyond my sympathy for the person s pain and ask him or her to piggyback on my faith. Trust God. You are in just the right position now to experience the real power of the Spirit. God does God s best work in the cemetery. Don t give up. Get up, and live again. And you know what? Sometimes they do. There seem to be two ways that churches understand our role in the world: we either think of ourselves as a society for the propagation of saints, or a community for the resurrection of the dead. You can tell the difference easily. If most of the preaching from the pulpit and teaching 4

5 in Sunday school is about sin prevention or pointing out bad moral examples, all you end with is a valley of dry bones, since all the goodness in the world doesn t stop sin and evil from finding each of us and all of us sooner or later. We are all going to be dry bones. No good news there. You can recognize the latter kind of church when words like grace and salvation and hope and freedom dominate the vocabulary of pulpit and pew. In those churches churches like this one, don t you know?! people act as if life after death is simply a working principle of faith. The story is still told at William and Mary College of a former president, Benjamin Stoddart Ewell. The prestigious Virginia school had been a leader among American universities until its virtual destruction during the Civil War. In the hard days of Reconstruction that followed, William and Mary went bankrupt. Soon it had a deserted campus, decaying buildings, and no students. As with so many Southern schools after that tragic war, it was written off as dead by everyone. Everyone except its president. He had given his best years to advancing the liberal arts through that school. He refused to give up. His first move was to reopen the school in 1869 with his own money by mortgaging his own farm. Financial pressures caused the school to close again in President Ewell still wouldn t give up. Every morning, he went to the deserted campus, climbed the tower of its main building, and rang the bells, calling the students to their classes. He acted as if the school were still there. People thought he was crazy. But for seven years, every day, President Ewell rang the bells at William and Mary, in defiance of the despair and hopelessness that would destroy everything he held valuable. And eventually, miraculously, his plan worked. Others caught his vision. Students, teachers and money returned. Today America's second-oldest university thrives again because of the hope of a magnificent dreamer. Or should we call him a prophet. 2 What God taught Ezekiel that day in the valley of the dry bones is what God is still trying to get through to us. When our way leads only to death and despair, there is yet a way other than our own that leads to life and hope. 2 A Daffy, Magnificent Hope 5