CAN THESE BONES LIVE?   REALLY LIVE?
A sermon by Rev. Dr. Jack E. Skiles

May 31, 2007

Acts 2:1-12; Ezekiel 37: 1-14

There are occasions when I will do something, out of habit, and my daughter will turn and look at me like I am an alien. She will say, with a high pitched tone of aggravation, “Why did you do that?”  She often follows that question with a statement, “Please, never do that in my presence again.  I saw an older cousin of mine at a funeral and when she saw me she said, “The older you get, the more like your father you look!” 

What both my daughter and cousin are reflecting, at their best moments of reflection, is the reality that I, as are they, as are all of us, creatures of habit and genetics more than we often pay attention to.

I pondered some of the more obvious things I was taught growing up on the farm. The first thing that popped into my mind is the rather familiar “pull yourself up by your own bootstrap” mentality. We were taught, as were all farm children, that our physical bodies were created to work hard, often, fast and forever. Saying, I'm not strong enough to do that job,” was never an entertain ed statement. If we weren't strong enough then it was because we hadn't worked hard enough to get stronger and there was only one remedy for that: more work.

Most of us understand the limitations of this philosophy. Today we know that not all people are physically able. In addition, we are aware that all over the world there are people who work hard every day of their lives, well into very old ages, and they never achieve success, they never really get ahead. Not everyone has access to the things that make for success in our world. Bigotry, racism, sexism, classism, elitism, homophobia, physical and mental disabilities, and glass ceilings do keep hard working, very talented people from being able to accomplish and rise up the ladders of success.

The second thing that we seemed to know out on the farm was something about the essence of Pentecost. But, we didn't know Pentecost. Our farm life did not revolve around a church calendar and lectionary readings. Our liturgies were marked by the seasons, sunshine, rain and wind, warmth and cold, birth and death. Underlying everything in our farming liturgies was an assumption that God, the Divine, some power much, much greater than us was present and active.

God moved the branches of the trees that gave us shade. And yes, we were certain that God was able to even break us, like the storms that would on occasion rumble across our land and topple trees and tear the roofs of our sheds and barns and houses.

The third thing that I remember that we were taught was that God's very real presence in our lives could cause us to rise and do things and accomplish things that we would never do on our own. We were taught that the willing servant of God could, with God's help, do things that others might well call miraculous, life changing, transformative and out of character with who we were. And, we had a lot of characters that needed some help, of that we were sure.

There are several things that I am, both good and bad and mediocre. But, one thing that I know that I am is that I am biblically grounded. We were weaned off our mother's milk as children directly onto the Bible, the only solid food that we would ever need we were told. In the Bible we were reminded of this reality of God's presence and God's very real action in the lives of characters. We were taught and read about absolutely normal, some even below average, men and women and children who rather suddenly went from being just their normal selves to being extraordinary, dare we say, folks who did miraculous things and gave the credit for the change in their lives TO GOD.

That is what we are here to ponder this Pentecost Sunday 2009: God's very real burning presence in our midst that is calling us to go out, go forward, and accomplish that which is God's aim, God's purpose.

It happened to Moses, remember? He had escaped Egypt, gotten married, had children and was happy, so it seems, leaving behind the administrative headaches of his former government job and, oh yes, the fact that he had murdered someone. Moses was out wandering the desert from oasis to oasis to water and feed his father-in-law's sheep and goats. He seems to have found some inner serenity while still living with the reality that his people, the Israelites were in grave condition back in Egypt.

I would dare say that Moses was very much like us. He was at peace with his life, his decisions, and yet, he had to live a lie at the same time. His nights were filled with dreams of anguish and crying from people who were begging him for little more than a cold drink as they suffered the heat of oppression under Pharaoh. Living in the Bloomington community is something of a wonderful oasis experience but, like Moses, while there is great solace and opportunity here to be at peace, there are so many folks who live around us here and around the world who remain captives to things that it is perhaps our duty to lead them out of.

Moses, it seems, did not listen to God easily from the inside so God arranged to speak from outside, a theophany, if you will. Why does God speak with such a still small voice? Perhaps so that we have to listen very carefully. You know how loud it can get inside ourselves when we don't want to do what we really know we should be doing. So finally one day, as Moses was out walking in the still quiet solace of his desert world, he came upon a startling sight, a burning bush that would not be consumed.

The bush seemed to have a special resonance for Moses alone. Others did not seem to see this bush that burned but would not be consumed. Perhaps the fact that Moses was burning up on the inside led him to pay special attention. Moses peered into the depths of this theophany and heard the voice of God calling him to return to his people and help them go free from their bondage.

There was no detailed plan given at that time, it was a moment of divine calling and human receptivity to risk. Moses knew that he ought to be about being an advocate of his people who needed someone of his caliber and expertise to be their leader. Moses tried to downplay how much he knew, how right he was for the task. surely someone else ought to be doing something. But, he knew in his heart that he had been denying the reality that he was the person for the job. And once he gave himself over to God's leadership, what miraculous things began to occur. A little person named Moses, who stuttered when he spoke in public, this little person rose up and led his people out from under the oppression of one of the most powerful empires in the world.

Remember Ezekiel? Most of us who know the story have the visual image that goes with Ezekiel, of him standing in the midst of a valley of the dead and dried skeletal remains of a vast number of people. In short, Ezekiel was a great prophet who stopped prophesying to his flock, to his congregation, because he declared them to be nothing but a bunch of dried up corpses who desired to be nothing more.

Oh, the hubris! God in a dream led Ezekiel to a valley filled with dry bones and asked Ezekiel, “Ezekiel, can these bones live again?” Ezekiel knew better it seems than to answer the question from his perspective and so he responds, “God you know, you tell me.”  And God blew God's breath across the valley and the bones began to rattle and the foot bone rose up and connected to the ankle bone and ankle bone to the shin bone as they experienced the Word of God.

Lest we get too high on the drama of the dream, Ezekiel was led to discover that the people to whom he was called to lead were not dead. They were quite simply in need of the fresh breath of God blowing through the dried up parts and pieces of their lives, their world, their jobs and their relationships. It was the job of Ezekiel to speak the Word of God, not declare how stupid, insufferable, and closed minded were his people. And Ezekiel did preach again and the Breath of God moved through the people and they rose up to be and do great things as God lured them toward a new future he had defined.

The Bible says, in the Book of Acts where the first Pentecost day is described, that the disciples were all huddled in one place. The place was that upper room where they had last eaten with Jesus. Huddled in one place. That is not exactly the most inspiring image of our spiritual mothers and fathers, now is it? The story reads that when the Spirit of God came upon them, if found them sitting -- sitting, huddled in one place.

During high school I worked for a fertilizer company and, after the rush of the busy season, the boss kept us on doing some very boring, mundane tasks. One day he came around the corner and found us hiding and just sitting doing nothing. We were all fired on the spot.

God is not like that boss. When God finds all the faithful future apostles sitting on their derrieres in one rather small room filled with dust and staleness, he does not fire them. That would have been a great relief to them. Rather than even chastise them, showing them the folly of their cowardice, their lack of initiative, their failure to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps, God breathes on them God's very own spirit. God gives more of God's self to them, empowers them with more of the essence of God's loving desire to bring justice, compassion and mercy to their lives and to this world. It was then those early spiritual parents of ours stood up and began to move out into the streets, out to the farms, the factories, the schools and neighborhoods -- into the quagmire of the world that they were being called to serve.

You might remember that the Romans were quite happy with themselves after killing Jesus. A most significant leader of a major opposition group had been killed and the group's movement forward had stopped. They knew where the disciples were hanging out, huddled together in one place, sitting quietly hoping not be discovered. The Romans did not need to kill more, no matter that a few whispered that this Jesus had risen from the dead. So what? You couldn't tell it by the way this group was all huddled in one place.

Don't you figure that is probably how the world today is often prone to viewing us? They know to where to find us. Every Sunday morning we are huddled here in this very nice church on Third Street. In fact you can find about 90% of the churches in Bloomington nearly on a line with what we call Third Street. But, that is all well and good. Recall that God did not berate anyone for being where they were at that first Pentecost. God just blew them right out into the streets to live the reality of God out there, in the world, where we live, where we work, on the highways, on Third Street, in the classrooms and laboratories, in our yards, in our grocery shopping, on our vacations, on the internet, on our cell phones, with our children, with our co-workers, neighbors and partners. The church, ultimately, is not a building, no matter that we call it that. The church of Jesus Christ is where it is that we love people, where we love this world and serve its varied needs that are ours to meet.

We are not here today to re-enact an event that Luke writes about in Acts. We are here to remember its happening and to claim its reality that God is with us and empowering us to act every moment of our days and nights. God's spirit is blowing and filling up the space we are in just as completely this morning as it was in Jerusalem in that upper room. God's spirit is filling dry dead bones with new life and God is still setting fires to get our attention and the fires of God do not consume and destroy, but they call us forward. The Fires of God never go out.

God's spirit empowers us to be the presence of God in our world to confront injustice, heal the sick, free the captives, feed the hungry, house the homeless, share our plenty, hold the hands of the dying and work to improve the welfare of all of God's creatures, loving the miserable, showing mercy to the unrepentant and offering hope where there appears to be only death and decay.

Friends, if you don't hear God calling today, I'm assuming that Moses is your patron saint. Moses was very good at avoiding God for the longest time. You may as well walk out of church with blinders on, because God will be igniting fires all around you. If you feel dried up and dead and deserted, that's no excuse either. Because, friends ,even if you fall apart, even if you get stoned and drunk out of your senses, God's spirit is present to faithfully help pull you back together again and again, just like God did in that Valley of Dry Bones.

God's sweet, sweet spirit is in this place and it is about ready not only to comfort us, but to kick us out to be the church of Jesus Christ in all the places in which we live our lives. Close your eyes and see the flame of God and feel the breath of God luring you to step out and be the disciples of today who will be remembered tomorrow because of the love we have shared with others.

Amen.