“Can These Bones Live?”

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Ezekiel 37:7-10: 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. 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. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, [O man], 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.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Joel 2:28-29: Then afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my Spirit.

John 3:8: The wind [the Spirit] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

Prayer: Come, Holy Spirit! Rain upon our dry and dusty lives. Wash away our sin and heal our wounded spirits. Kindle within us the fire of your love to burn away our apathy. With your warmth bend our rigidity, and guide our wandering feet. Amen.

Rarely do I come home from a conference without at least one book. This time it was two. Let share with you this quote from one of them: “In the fullness of God’s time, God breaks through and touches us today, just as God sent his Son according to an intentional and perfect timetable. We can only wait and hope and trust. On the one hand, we know that soul-stirring music, fervent prayer, bitter disappointments, and failures make us more ready for the visitation of God’s presence and power. These things make us ready, but they do not guarantee God’s visitation. On the other hand, whenever our music is tamed, our prayer is perfunctory, and our lives are comfortable and successful, the chances are increased that when the wind of God’s Spirit blows, we will not notice; and if we do notice, we may turn away.”

The exiled children of Israel were neither comfortable nor successful. As best they could understand it their nation was destroyed, their religion rendered powerless, and God himself dead. The dry bones in Ezekiel’s God-given vision were a perfect metaphor for their nation: dry, dead, scattered, and powerless. When the Lord asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” he was giving voice to his people’s cry. How, they wondered, could there be life for a nation as utterly destroyed as theirs had been?

In a recent editorial in The Presbyterian Outlook Jack Haberer asked this question about our denomination: “Can a disintegrating organization of Christian believers find a way to reverse its downward spiral?” In other words, can these bones live? Across our denomination there are many congregations caught up in this spiral. Membership is declining, the median age of the members is somewhere around sixty, church attendance is falling, finances are shaky, and buildings are crumbling. Can these bones live?

Maybe; maybe not. They will live if God so chooses. They will live if they are ready and willing to accept God’s invitation to join him in whatever new thing he is calling them to. They will live, if like those 120 followers of Jesus huddled together in that upper room on Pentecost, they will open their hearts and minds to whatever path the Holy Spirit uses to come to them. They will live if they will let go of any and all fantasies about the return of the good-old days. They will live if they will honestly sing and pray the words of today’s Communion Hymn: “Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.”

The Multicultural Church Conference was, for me, an experience of Pentecost. The music was anything but tame. The worship was anything but perfunctory. Gray heads like mine were in the minority. There were a multitude of languages and accents. White skin did not predominate. The meeting hall pulsed with the spiritual energy of our brothers and sisters from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere – that part of the globe where the church is exploding. There were liberals, moderates, and conservatives, getting along rather than fighting for a change. Can these bones live? You betcha they can!

My past experiences with such conferences have been bittersweet. I’ve gone to them, been spiritually fed, and have come home burning to share the experience only to have the fire burning in my belly smothered with a wet blanket of indifference. I would come home to the same old if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it, let’s keep doing it the way granddaddy did it mindset that is destroying the Presbyterian Church.

But this time it’s different. The congregation to which I returned is a microcosm of that conference. Every Sunday at Grace has a Pentecost feel to it. I look out over a coat-of-many-colors congregation. My ear is becoming attuned to variously accented forms of English. The names on the church roll go way beyond Smith and Jones. There are family names like Yousaf, Ramirez, Mbaw, Anong, Abah, and Tawah; and first names like Kum Suk, Aliyah, Anyen, and Miselta. There’s probably some dryness in these bones, but not nearly as much as there could be.

There are a variety of Pentecost experiences here. Church dinners are not boring. During Communion the biblical promise of people coming from north and south and east and west to sit at the Table of God is fulfilled before our very eyes. Leading a conga line down the aisle, out the door, and into the fellowship hall while singing “Thank You, Lord” at the end of our first African Harvest Thanksgiving Service last November was a magnificent symbol of Pentecost for this middle-aged white-bread preacher. Watching a young lady whose parents are Nigerian direct our very own multicultural Children’s Choir in the singing of African-American Gospel songs lets us know that there is a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place.

The Spirit is moving in, among, and through this part of Christ’s Body. But even here we need to be careful to not quench it. We’ve got to make sure that doing things decently and in order doesn’t become an excuse for closing ourselves off from the mind of Christ. When the wind of the Spirit blows we must take notice of it, and once we’ve noticed it, not turn away from it. Otherwise these bones cannot live.

Before his crucifixion Jesus promised his disciples that the Spirit would come. After his resurrection, and just prior to his ascension, he told them to prayerfully wait for the Spirit. He didn’t tell them exactly when and how the Spirit would arrive; he simply assured them that it would.

On that first Pentecost Sunday they did not run away when the Spirit made his fiery, stormy entrance. When their mouths were opened to speak in languages unknown to them, they didn't reject this marvelous gift from God. They accepted it. Then they put it to use. Nobody tried to tame the Spirit. Nobody tried to negotiate a different format. With hearts and minds prayerfully ready, they joyfully accepted the Spirit and his gifts – and, boy, did those bones live.

In the midst of his God-inspired vision Ezekiel didn’t argue when God told him to preach. Nor did he try to edit God’s words. He obediently spoke them, accepting whatever might happen. Those bones – those dead, dry bones – didn’t tell God how they wanted to be put back together. They didn’t try to custom order heights, weights, and complexions. They obeyed God’s Word as it came from Ezekiel, and when the Spirit breathed new life into them they did not reject it. Those bones could live. Those bones did live. And when God acted in history to take his people home - to breathe life back into their nation – they were ready. God said go. They went.

We modern disciples of Jesus must never forget that God doesn’t always act the way we expect him to. Rarely does he ask us to pre-approve his plans. The Spirit comes and goes as the Spirit will. While the Spirit may not give us the gift of tongues, he may move us to learn a new language or two. While the Spirit may not rain fiery tongues down upon us, he may move us to embrace warmer and more passionate forms of worship that will melt away all evidence of our ever having been God’s Frozen Chosen. While the will Spirit never, ever lead us into the chaos that occurs when things are not done decently and in order, he may move us farther and farther away from that sometimes indecently rigid imitation of Calvinism so often practiced in the past.

Can these bones live? Yes. Are they alive? Yes, but only because we are willing to accept the new life that the Spirit has chosen to breath into them. Can Grace Presbyterian Church more and more become the light of Christ shining in the world’s darkness and the salt of Christ injecting flavor into a world that is all too often dull and tasteless? Yes, we can, but only to the extent that we’re willing to carry out Christ’s mission on his terms. It is not our place to tell the Spirit how to do his work. Amen.