The Question of Hope: Can These Bones Live?
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Ezekiel 37: 1-14, Rev. Marianne Niesen, March 9, 2008
Ezekiel was a prophet of the Exile. For years, Israel had lived under what they believed was a God-given monarchy. But, in the 6th century BC, Judah had fallen to the invading Babylonian army. The priests and religious leaders, the wealthy and powerful, the skilled workers and the educated were all taken away to Babylon where they lived in exile from their beloved homeland. Ezekiel, a priest, was one of those exiled.
We really don’t know what life was like for the captives - but we know it must have been painful and heart wrenching. And among their last memories of home would have been seeing the temple and the cultural centers of their former life destroyed. Even if they could have gone home, what would they have gone home to? Like all exiles, they would have felt hopeless at that deepest level of the human spirit - that place where we ask questions like why? Where are you, God? Was our sin so bad, our betrayal so terrible, that we are punished with this? They knew the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ that can paralyze us all. They wondered if God could ever love them again. And they wondered if they could ever forgive themselves for what had happened. Hope is a powerful emotion in the human heart and is sorely needed at such times. But when we see our temples destroyed, our ‘promised lands’ laid waste, our loved ones torn from us, hope becomes an elusive commodity. When the exiles remembered the distance between themselves and home, hope was a blessing they could ill afford.
Ezekiel’s job as a prophet was to restore that hope. And, one day, he had a most unusual vision. You just heard tell of it a moment ago. Consider the irony. Ezekiel, a priest, found himself in a valley of dry bones. It was by definition a hopeless and lifeless place. When God asked Ezekiel if the bones could live, his natural response should have been no way - no how! Instead, prophet that he was, he proclaimed with faith . . . I haven’t got a clue . . .but I know you do! And then the vision unfolded with that unbelievable, incredible bone rattling promise that hope was not lost. God was in the restoration business. God’s spirit would do for them what they could not do for themselves - and it was promised them in spite of their sin and unfaithfulness, in spite of the seemingly hopeless situation in which they found themselves. God could be trusted.
Some 500 years later, a group of Jewish Zealots took refuge in a Judean desert fortress called Masada built by none other than Herod the Great - a guy who had good reason to build it. He was mean, ruthless, violent and paranoid. Masada was one of many such fortresses he built. It provided a good place to hide and the Jews who fled there were people who had reason to hide. They had seen the Romans destroy Jerusalem. They had witnessed the violent deaths of their families and friends. They knew firsthand the overwhelming power of Rome and the lengths to which Rome would go to destroy all things Jewish. They likely thought they were the only Jews left alive. The entire future of the Jewish people depended on them. So they holed up at Masada, taking advantage of the stores of food and water. For a while, they were left alone. But, when they became the last pocket of Jewish resistance, the Romans surrounded the rebels and attacked, expecting an easy victory. It wasn’t. The Zealots held them off for months. The story is fascinating and when you visit Masada, you can still see the outlines of the Roman encampments around the base of the rock. Finally, Roman determination won out. But, when the Romans finally breached the wall, everything was silent. There was no sign of the 900+ people who lived there. Finally two women and five children emerged from hiding. They were the only survivors and they told the story of the final hours.
Under the leadership of a man named Eleazar, the Zealots decided to deny the Romans the joy of victory. They would not be taken captive. Their women would not be raped. Their children would not be taken into slavery. The decision was made that each man would do the unthinkable. He would kill his own family. Afterwards, they men drew lots which determined who would kill each of them. As each man prepared for death, he lay down with the bodies of his family, embracing them. The last one alive, killed himself. The storehouse of food was left to proclaim that they did not do this out of desperation but by choice. The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the Romans arrived "and so met with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution and the immovable contempt of death, which so great a number of them had shown . . . "
You have probably heard about all of that. You might not know this - that archeologists uncovered a scroll buried in the floor of the building that served as the synagogue. The text? Ezekiel’s vision. Some believe that on the night before making their awful choice, the Zealots gathered and heard Ezekiel’s promise - these bones shall live! Perhaps the choice they made was, in the end, an act of faith. We’ll never know for sure.
However, we do understand the kind of hopelessness and fear that those living in Masada must have felt. And we know the questions that plagued them in their final hours. Can these bones live? From Friday’s newspaper . . .
"The University of North Carolina student body president was found shot to death on a city street in what police said Thursday appeared to be a random crime, stunning the campus community who knew her well.
Thousands of students gathered silently on campus to mourn Eve Marie Carson, whose body was discovered about a mile away early Wednesday. The 22 year old senior from Athens, Georgia, had been shot several times including at least once in the head, police said. Officials said there are no suspects and no arrests have been made."
Another stunned and shocked school community asking those questions for which there are no answers. And, even when the perpetrator is found, the questions will remain. How do we stop the increasing violence that is around us? How do we keep the people we love safe? Ezekiel’s words echo through the years - no less needed today than in his day. Can these bones live? God knows - and God can be trusted.
Two bombs went off within minutes of each other in a crowded shopping district in the capital (Baghdad) Thursday, killing at least 53 people and wounding 130 - a reminder that deadly attacks are a daily threat even though violence is down. . . .
Can these bones live? God knows - and God can be trusted.
A gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session Thursday, killing eight people and wounding nine before he was slain, police and rescue workers said. It was the first major attack in Jerusalem in more than four years. Can these bones live? God knows - and God can be trusted.
All three of these articles were in our local newspaper on Friday morning. And the sad thing is that these stories are not unusual. They could all have been lifted from our newspaper almost any day over the past several years. The war goes on. Violence continues. We have grown all too accustomed to the valley of bones. Can these bones live?
If there was ever a prophecy from the Hebrew Scriptures to which we need to pay heed it is this one about the valley of dry bones. We brush up against hopelessness and fear every day. We know it in our world and we know it in our lives. We experience our own valleys of dry bones in the death of a friend or a spouse or a child or a parent. We experience it in the betrayal or end of a relationship. We experience it any time we grapple with the reality of our own mortality, realizing that we will not live forever. Or when we come face to face with the sobering truth that we cannot please everyone. Or when we confront once again personal weakness or sin. The fact is that we are human and it is impossible to escape the valley of dry bones. Sooner or later we all find ourselves, much like Ezekiel, in a place we don’t want to be and God asks the same question of us that God asked of Ezekiel. Can these bones live? God knows and God can be trusted.
Unlike Ezekiel, we, in our questionable wisdom, usually try to answer. We work harder. We get busy. We get angry - or passive. We get into therapy - chemotherapy or aroma therapy or physical therapy or psychotherapy. Or we start retail therapy - we go shopping. We sleep more - or less - depending on where we are with the working harder business. We start going to church if we haven’t been or we quit going to church because it didn’t help. Or we find a new church and blame the old pastor. We go back to school. We take a trip. We take more time off - or less. We start AA or Alanon or Alateen or Alatot. We lost weight. We gain weight. We start smoking or drinking. We read self-help books. Or write them. Hear me - in the above list, there are some good things. Some appropriate things to do. And there is a time and a place to do them. But Ezekiel reminds us that the best place to start on the journey toward new hope is to remember that we don’t have a clue. But God does. God knows - and God can be trusted.
We are dependent on God. And God will breathe life into even these driest of bones. Sure we need to do our work. But sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is simply open ourselves to the power and presence of God who longs to save us. This weekend, we host the Men’s Walk to Emmaus. The team of people involved has worked very hard to be ready. They have met weekly and sometimes more since early January. Even before that, small groups were meeting. Talks have been given and critiqued. Rooms have been readied. Food was bought. Cooks were signed up. All that preparation was important. But, in the end, that is not what makes the weekend a success. That’s not what brings life to the thirteen men who are in attendance. In the end, the thing that makes the weekend work is the spirit of God. We do our part - but God gives the muscles and the flesh and the breath that bring the life. When we forget that, we fall into the illusion that the world depends on us and us alone. And that is a very dry place indeed!
Just six years ago, I preached a sermon on this scripture text. Listen to an excerpt from that sermon:
"Outside this sanctuary - right over there - we have the shell of a building. (I pointed to this place) Barney Brandt was working on the switching box over there this past week. When I asked him how it was going, he said it was cold over there. It is. No heat. No lights. In Ezekiel’s terminology, it is dry. Very dry. We have built what we could afford to build with the money we had . . . So how will we get to the point where those bones live? God knows. . . God has a plan and we must trust that. Sure, we must do our work and we are . . . . We are working with an expert. We are developing a plan not just for repaying our debt but for how we can do that and move forward.
However, I believe that the thing we need more than anything else right now is to stand with open hearts before the Master Builder and to say with absolute confidence God knows. God knows us and our mission and our hearts and our dreams and we place it all in God’s hands. In other words, we must pray. It sounds simple, I know. But, fundamentally, St. Paul’s is God’s church. . . .It is God’s spirit that will provide the sinews and the flesh and the breath of life as God has always done. When we look at the task ahead of us, it is easy to feel hopeless. But we are not the first ones who have ever experienced such a thing. It is the human experience. And we must remember that the work of building a church is, in the end, God’s work. . . If our dream of building a church in the heart of Helena is God’s dream, it will happen. Nothing will stop it - not even our mistakes and inadequacy. If our vision - to continue to be a Christian community grounded in hospitality, growing in faith, giving in service (we hadn’t yet added ‘going in mission’) is of God it will happen. Which means our job, first of all, is to put it and us in God’s hands. . . We still must do our work - but the hardest work of all for us humans is always remembering to stand humbly before God and pray."
I preached those very words six years ago. Look around, folks. Sometimes it is good, when faced with the dry bone moments of everyday life to remember how far we have come. In just six years, we have done something that seemed overwhelming and it happened through hard work - yes - and through the blessing of God. Dry bones are real - and so is God’s power. So prophesy to those bones and to one another. Encourage each other. Pray. And, step forward knowing that God knows what we need. God knows what you need. God knows. And God can be trusted. Thank God!
