Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | May 19, 2024

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Today we ponder the mystery of the Spirit – the Spirit of God. The story is told about when the followers of Jesus were together in one place and “the Holy Spirit” arrived like a rushing wind and hovered around them like tongues of fire. It was during a Jewish festival called Pentecost. It was a celebration of when Moses brought the Law down from Mt. Sinai. And with the experience of the followers of Jesus, it became a day to remember the beginning of the Church.

We ponder the mystery of the Spirit, because spirit in all its forms is elusive. And Spirit is mystery more than certainty, which seems to be a good thing. It allows God to be God, which God will be anyway.

I was part of the chaplaincy team at our local high school in Glasgow – Ross Hall Academy. We sponsored monthly coffee mornings for the teachers and staff. They would come in during their breaks and we chaplains were there to offer support and encouragement.

One time we were there at the start of the school year. As the women were setting up the tea table in the hallway, a teacher was walking by with a student, a boy and by the size of him, he was in his first year. He was also crying. Something had gone wrong; it was all just too much and the teacher was leading him to a quiet space.

As he walked by the women from our church who setting up for the coffee morning, it was as if a kind of “grandmother radar” went off. The spirit of sympathy that poured out toward the young lad in all the grandmotherly ways of saying, “Och aye, oh dear, ah the poor wee lad,” was nearly like a physical wave. No doubt he felt it. Maybe it was just what he needed.

That’s how it is sometimes with the spirit of things. There is nothing physical that touches us, but we feel something deeply and for lack of a better term we say, “I was moved by it.”

When we tell stories about spirit it’s as if we are reaching for something that is difficult to get a hold on. The bible contains many stories of spirit. These stories reveal things about the nature of God. Some stories are fairly amazing, to the point that they are written off as fairy tales. Many stories in the bible are not meant to be taken as literal fact, but as illustrations or reflections of the way God works.

There’s the story in the Old Testament book of numbers about a man called Balaam. One day he was riding his donkey down the road, only he was going somewhere he wasn’t supposed to go. God sent an angel to stand in the road and prevent Balaam from going on. Balaam didn’t see the angel, but the donkey did.

The donkey saw the angel in the road and walked into the ditch. Balaam hit the donkey and got it back on the road. Then the donkey scraped by a wall and tried to get off the road because the angel was standing there with a flaming sword. Balaam got of the donkey and started hitting it some more, but it would not go forward.

Finally, the donkey turned to Balaam and said, “Balaam, why do you keep hitting me?!”

Most people would say, “Whoa, a donkey that talks?!” Not Balaam. He answered the donkey. “Because you wouldn’t go down the road, that’s why! You made a fool of me. If I had a sword right now I’d kill you!”

And the donkey said, “And all these years I’ve been your faithful donkey. Have I ever done anything like this before?”

Balaam said, “No, not that I recall.”

Then the donkey looked down the road again and Balaam saw what the donkey saw.

Moses saw the bush that looked like it was on fire, only it was not being burned up. When he went for a closer look, a voice spoke from within the flames. Moses wanted to know who was doing the talking, but the voice said, “I am who I am and I will be who I will be.” It was a way of God saying that there is no name or handle we can use to control or possess the Almighty. Our names for God are descriptions that draw us near; they are not handles by which we own.

Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind and it blows where it will. We hear it, we see it, we feel it, but we cannot control it.

At any given time we can look at the things people do or the events of nature and wonder why if God is supposed to love people, God doesn’t do something to prevent suffering. This is a problem that goes back to the beginning of time. We may as well ask why God doesn’t stop us from doing what we do.

The people of Israel were taken captive by Babylon. They were carted up and shipped back to the homeland with all their worldly possessions. Only, what they owned was no longer theirs; it belonged to the Babylonians now.

There was a prophet named Ezekiel. He was a man of strange visions. He described one of his visions by saying, “The hand of the Lord came upon me and I was taken in spirit and set down in the middle of a valley. The valley was filled with bones, bleached white in the sun. They were very dry and ancient.”

No life, no breath, no hope. A place of endings, not beginnings; the only signs were of what had once been.

And then the prophet heard a voice, the voice of God, asking him a question, “Can these bones live?”

There’s a question to ponder. It’s not an easy question to answer. If it were a loaded question God would have asked, “Do you not agree that these bones should live?”

God was not asking whether the glass was half empty or half full. There was no glass and there was no water to fill it from either perspective.

If it were a rhetorical question then the answer would be, “It really doesn’t matter whether these bones can live or not. What difference does it make?”

But the question God is asking is really a faith question. The answer depends upon what one believes God makes possible. The prophet realized this and answered, “You know the answer to that question, Lord.”

As the vision continued God said, “Tell these bones to live. Tell these bones to take on flesh and blood. Tell them I will breathe life into them and they will live.”

And there was a great rush of sound and activity as bones started flying together and forming into bodies and taking of the shape and form of flesh and blood human beings. And then the valley was as still as it had been before. Before Ezekiel laid countless bodies; body upon body, still and lifeless as the bones had been before.

Then God said, “Tell the breath of life to come and fill these bodies that they may have life and breath.” And the prophet cried out to the four winds and there came a rushing wind from all directions and the bodies rose up one after another, living and breathing beings. And now the valley was filled with a great host of people, filled with the vitality of life and wellness.

Then God said to the prophet, “Listen man, these bones that now stand before you as flesh and blood realities are the house of Israel. I hear them crying, ‘our bones are dried up; our hope is lost; we are completely cut off.’ Tell them this from me, the Lord your God – I am going to open your graves; I am going to bring you up from your graves; I am going to bring you back to the land of Israel. You will know I am the Lord your God when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves. I am going to put my Spirit within you. You are going to live. You are going to know that as I have spoken, so shall I act.”

The world changes. Life does not remain the same. What does not change is the fact that we always live with what God makes possible. In the situations of change and loss and even death, God will always inquire of us, “Can these bones live?” The outcome does not depend on how accurately we predict what God will do. The outcome rests on accepting God’s offer of partnership in making it happen.

God could have said to Ezekiel, “Stand back, I have work to do.” Instead, God enlisted the prophet to work through the prophet. God enlists us to work God’s possibilities through us.

We might be tempted to compare church today to times past and think that it was better in the old days because there were more people back then. It was different certainly. I look at the church today and think what a great time it is to be here.  Because here today are the people who have not given up; who haven’t walked away; people who still believe there is something here worth showing up for.

God says to the church today, “Can these bones live?”

We say, “You know the answer to that, Lord. Of course they can.”

And maybe if we listen carefully we can hear God asking, “Will these bones live?” We know the answer to that question. Of course they will. Amen.