Oh, the Knee Bone Connected To

Transcription

1 Oh, the Knee Bone Connected To Ezekiel 37: 1-14 There once was an energetic young minister who took his preaching very seriously. There was a member of his church who did very little and seemed to care less. So this minister planned a series of sermons on Christian servanthood and commitment. At times, he looked square in the eyes of this member, but he never seemed to get the point. He knew that because after one fiery sermon, this member shook the minister s hand after worship and said: Preacher, you sure told em today. With the unspoken message: but not me! Which was the case on the following two Sundays. You sure told em today. On the next Sunday, there was a heavy rainstorm and no one came to church but the minister and this one member. So, the minister pulled out all the stops. He preached for thirty minutes on commitment to the Lord and even added an invitation hymn. Out of breath and sweating, the minister met this member at the door of the church. Well, preacher, this man said: You sure told em if they d have been here! Sounds like this guy ducked whenever the Word of God came his way! And if any of us ever declare that we ve never ducked, figuring that the Word was meant to fall into someone else s lap, well, I suggest we recite together the ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness unto our neighbor, and I ll add: or unto our God. Which leads us to this passage from Ezekiel, probably the only passage from Ezekiel we know. And not because we ve all read it regularly, but because it is the inspiration for one of the great spirituals about dry bones needing to hear the word of the Lord. And while the spiritual reminds us that the knee bone is connected to the leg bone, and so on, this is not a song written by an orthopedist. It s a song based on a passage from a prophet writing during the exile in Babylon, a prophet who rarely spoke literally, but used some powerful images. For, as we all know or should know the reason the people of the Kingdom of Judah which no longer existed in the time of Ezekiel were in Babylon was that they ducked. A lot! And Ezekiel sees in a vision a valley of dry bones. Sun-bleached. Lifeless. Dead! This image always calls to my mind the famous painting of a cow s skull, lying in the desert, painted by Georgia O Keefe. Actually, she painted several bleached-out, dry skulls. Maybe she knew this passage from Ezekiel and not just from singing that familiar spiritual. Either way, this valley of dry bones represented the people of Judah. Who were a lot like this fellow in that young minister s church. They ducked! It s a vision that reminds me of one of the saddest stories in the Bible. A story told in three verses. Each written by Paul.

2 Philemon 24: Salute Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow laborers. Colossians 4:14: Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you. II Timothy 4:10: For Demas has abandoned me, having loved this present world. From a fellow laborer to be saluted. To worth a generic mention. To a backslider who loved the way things were rather than the way things might be. I m glad I didn t preach his funeral meditation! Not much of a eulogy there. What happened to him? Specifically I mean? Tired? Frustrated? Did someone bully him? (Oh of course not there are no bullies in the church no one in the church EVER throws their weight around indiscriminately! You want to bet me on that?! Even Paul could be a bit of a bully at times much to his own regret as he expresses more than once! Whatever it was, Demas lost his passion. His excitement. His hunger to serve the Lord. Maybe he blamed someone else. I have the feeling that he did not blame himself. Most of us wouldn t. But was it just him? Was he unable to fully embrace the Word of God? Was he too busy? Too many strings attached to something else? Was he one of those who said (and boy have I heard this line plenty of times in forty-two years): I ve done my part; it s time for someone else to do it. To be honest, I ve tried that line myself a few times on God, and He isn t interested in it. And when He has replied, I ve tried to duck, but God s hand is quicker than my eye! I read something the other day: Because of the internet, you can get the Word of God around the world in one-seventh of a second. But it can take years to get the same message through the one half inch thick human skull. Ouch. Demas, I think, was the patron saint of all who duck when God s truth comes right at them. Which brings us back to those dry bones. Scattered all over the valley, and none of them connected. The very reason the people of Judah were in Babylon in the first place. For how many prophets had brought their message to God s people? How many prophets had spoken boldly and forcefully to God s people? How many prophets had warned them that they were in dire straits if they did not come back to the Lord? And how many times did they just duck? You sure told them, Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah and Hosea and all the others. Of course, you weren t talking to me! Ah, but there is good news for all who duck. Good news for all those dry bones. For there was a rattling in the valley. And the bones began to come together. The hip bones were connected to the leg bones and the leg bones to the knee bones, and well, you know the rest of the song.

3 And not only were the bones together they were covered with sinew and flesh and skin. The valley was filled with a human looking horde. Sort of sounds like a Halloween story in reverse. Although it is kind of scary. And not just in a Stephen King kind of way. There were the bodies of this army. Looking on the outside perfectly fine. But what was in the inside? Nothing. No spirit. No soul. No anything that mattered. And THAT tops anything we can see on Halloween. I once knew a man who did not believe in God. Or Jesus. Or the Holy Spirit. Or the Cross. Or the Bible. Or anything else that we regard as our faith. Yet he went to church nearly every Sunday. He was always impeccably dressed neat three piece suit, carefully tied tie, his Sunday shoes that he never wore any other day of the week. Hair combed, carefully shaved. He came because he enjoyed the fellowship of the church. He liked being around people. And church people, I expect he thought, were safer than others and would reach out to him. (Well, most would anyway.) Because he was lonely, desperately lonely. bones. Not to be judgmental, but I think he was a lot like this army of reconnected but lifeless dry He looked great on the outside, but he had a vacuum in his soul. The sad thing is he didn t have to be lonely. Sometime during his life, I think, he had ducked when the presence of God had come to him. Sometime in his life, he thought that the preacher was sure telling them. But not him. The exiles in Babylon had ducked one too many times when they hear the Word of the Lord. And they looked good. But.. And I wonder: how many of us are wearing our spiritual sinews and flesh and skin, but have a hole right where our soul should be? No, we re not as bad as this man I once knew I hope not! Or as bad as these newly connected dry bones. But aren t there days when we wake up and feel emptiness where our soul should be? Aren t there days when we wonder if the hole is so big that nothing can fill it? Maybe it s a fear. Or a doubt. Or a deep seated hunger for something we once ducked for when it came upon us because we were afraid it would change our lives. It would! It does! It will! And it s coming. And this army of spiritual manikins got it. For things really began to change. God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the winds. And there was now breath in these spiritual manikins. And the Spirit of God filled them.

4 Now you may remember that I have mentioned before that there is a Hebrew word ruach. Depending on the context, it can mean the wind. It can mean breath. It can mean spirit. Here Ezekiel is getting all three meanings in one fell swoop. The four winds created by God did a divine version of CPR and the lifeless bodies began to breathe. And not just inhale and exhale. But with the Spirit of God. Or as we Christians would say: The Holy Spirit. The living, powerful, always present, always transforming present God. The Spirit that burst into an Upper Room of scared, anxious, frustrated, doubting disciples of Jesus and sent them out into the streets of Jerusalem, praising God. I would say that that is one of the top three truths in the Bible. And while I know it well, well sometimes it takes a while to get through the half-inch thick skull of mine, which some days, spiritually at least, seems a lot thicker! And, no offense, but maybe the Holy Spirit has had a little difficulty getting through your halfinch thick skulls. Maybe you ve ducked too. We have friends who are frustrated with a very active maybe TOO active - member of their church. Sadly, they label her Chicken Little. Every Sunday, as she tells it and tells it to anyone in the congregation who will listen the sky is falling. We ll run out of money by October. The doors will close soon. And whenever anyone comes up with an idea to try something different to avoid that dire prediction, her response is: Don t bother. We ve tried it before; it didn t work. She might be a cousin to an elder I had in my last church who wanted everything to stay just the same as it was, because anything new just might shake things up a bit too much. At least for him. Not to judge either one, but I wonder if they ducked once too often. Too often heard the ruach blowing the ruach of the Holy ruach into their soul and avoided it. But you know, I understand why even good church people duck the Holy Spirit. Because when the Holy Spirit comes, He threatens our worship of the status quo. He undermines our reliance on the seven last words of both our spiritual life and the church: We ve never done it that way before. He tears down the walls we have built to protect ourselves from anything that might reorder our carefully ordered (well, that s what we tell ourselves) life. He changes us. Or as Paul reminds us in Romans, Chapter Twelve, He transforms us. If we don t duck. The reality is, He energizes us more than the Energizer Bunny! He resurrects us from our own Good Friday tombs. So we are not dry bones. We can be bleached out dry bones. But who wants to be? We can be spiritual manikins, moving through life, but not living. But who wants to be? Or we can be filled with the Holy Ruach of God the power that can send us out into the streets and proclaim the Word of the Lord.

5 I m going to close this sermon with a prayer. And it s printed in the bulletin. Because I want you to pray it with me. So.. Lord God, hear my prayer. Open my soul to Your Holy Spirit. May He make me into more than I already am. May He teach me how to be more like You. May He walk with me through any darkness. May He fill me with Your power that I might be alive. And, Lord.. Keep me from ducking. In Jesus Name, Amen.

6 Worship July 15, 2018 Call: Litany Assurance: Litany Prayer: Lord, you heard our prayer already for the inblowing of the Holy Spirit. If it is not too presumptuous to ask, please answer it. And not just once, but every day. And if it s also not too presumptuous, help us to ask for Him every day. Needs, etc. LORD S PRAYER