Can these bones live?

 

Sunday 10^th April 2011

Reading: Ezekiel 37 v 1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ²He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” ⁴Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ⁶I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” ⁷So 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. ⁸I 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. ⁹Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, 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.” ¹⁰I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. ¹¹Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Can these bones live?

A timely question for churches in our world today.

Can these bones live?

I was introduced by a friend this week, to a man I had never met before. On being told that I was a Church of Scotland minister, he said: “Oh, what about the church, then, it’s in decline, isn’t it?”

He was surprised by my answer: “Only in some places”.

Unfortunately we didn’t get time to pursue the conversation but I get tired of folk, many of them in leadership in the church, even here, who already have the church dead and buried.

It’s no wonder that folk pick up on that gloom and doom and are already preparing for the funeral.

THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD IS NOT DEAD.

THIS PART OF THE CHURCH, HERE IN CASTLEHILL IS NOT DEAD.

"I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.”

THUS SAYS THE LORD.

Why?

Because God never gives up and encourages us to do likewise.

And in this season of Lent, when we look forward to emerging from the wilderness to celebrate the resurrection, we have every reason to be hopeful.

Even, from the darkness of death, we are redeemed by hope.

God didn’t give up on the people of Israel, even after they’d strayed so far that they were captured and exiled.

Even when the people thought they were already dead and buried.

God didn’t give up on them.

Ezekiel’s ministry could be considered a ministry of two halves:

At the beginning of Ezekiel’s ministry God called him to call the people of Israel to change their ways so that they would not be captured by their enemies and forced into exile.

But the people would not listen.

So Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed.

Ezekiel’s preaching fell on deaf ears.

In the second half of Ezekiel’s ministry, God called Ezekiel to reassure the people, now in exile, that God was still their God and still with them.

.

In a vision Ezekiel saw a field of dried, strewn out bones. This is how the Jews saw themselves.

Dried bones.

They were in captivity, and their land was gone.

They had lost all hope.

But God gave Ezekiel a vision, an incredible vision.

Those bones that had been lying in this valley for so long they’ve dried up are commanded to life.

And it’s not a case of God simply performing a miracle.

Instead, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy and tell these bones to come together, for flesh to form and muscles to develop.

God worked through the prophet.

For though God is perfectly capable of changing things, we know only too well, that that’s not the way God works.

God, who created us in love, waits for our response in love.

God trusts us.

And more, God relies on us – to make things different.

God wants to involve us in the work of resurrection.

After the bones have bodies, they are still not living.

So, once again, God works through the prophet.

God tells Ezekiel to command the wind–God’s Spirit–to come and breathe life into the bodies.

So, through a prophet’s word. God’s Spirit comes and breathes life into the bodies that have been formed from the dry bones.

Then God asks Ezekiel to spell it out to the people -  to tell the exiles that just as God can raise a living army from these dry bones, so God will restore the people of Israel to their land.

They will once again be a nation, in their own land.

They will, once again, know hope.

Why?

Because, in spite of all their turning away, still they are loved by God who IS love.

That was such a hard thing for the people of Israel to hear.

In the depths of despair, it’s hard to hear good news.

When you’ve already written off the future, it’s hard to emerge from the darkness.

And that’s why Ezekiel was given such a powerful vision to share.

Because that vision needed to get beyond the hopelessness in which the people he spoke to were living.

That vision was required to breathe new life and new hope in to a lifeless and hopeless people.

If God can breathe life and hope back into a captured and exiled people, we, the people of God today have cause for hope.

That is why I refuted my new friend’s claim that the church was in decline.

That is why I believe that we, the people of God today, however flawed, yet will live.

Because God is not finished with us.

God is still working – from the inside out.

Working on our hearts.

Restoring our faith.

Restoring our hope.

Breathing new life into us.

I found these words on the Church of Scotland website –  I found them – of all places – in the history section of the website:

In a millennium and a half, the Church (of Scotland) has been at different times a tiny, radical outside force, a revolutionary movement, a strand of government and a partner in civil society.

It has been supportive and critical, protective and destructive.

Today the Church of Scotland lives in the creative tension of serving a nation, offering the ordinances of religion and also providing a prophetic Gospel voice through parish ministry and national engagement of many kinds.

“A prophetic Gospel voice”

Is that how we see ourselves today?

Or have we, as critics would claim, been left behind in that valley of dry bones?

Are we still nursing old hurts that have never quite healed up?

Or lamenting past traditions that have fallen out of use?

Or cherishing former leaders whose word and style was different?

Or are we just cussed enough to want to wallow in the valley of the dry bones?

Even if we are guilty of all these things, we will be annoyed to be reminded that God never gives up on us.

God still considers us worth redeeming.

God still waits.

Waits to breathe life and hope into us.

So that we, in turn can breathe new life into a world that needs to hear that prophetic gospel.

A world that needs healing from hurt.

A world that needs help to move on.

A world that needs encouragement to once more experience love and hope.

Even and especially in the face of despair.

Where else can healing be found?

Where else encouragement?

Where else hope and love?

But from the people of God, whom God has never given up on.

So can we too, be raised up by that ancient vision?

Can we be filled with life and with hope?

Can we still be that prophetic gospel voice kindling hope in our world today?

If we will allow it, God breathes new life into us.

God never gives up on us.

God calls us to be prophetic voices, bringing good news.

There IS life in the church – believe it – and live it.

Can these bones live?

that depends

on whether there is the will

for resurrection

the will to bring together

creaking, groaning,

can’t be bothered spirits

and transform them

with a whoosh of life

a whoosh that is infectious

that starts off as a wee rumble

but gathers pace and momentum

disrupting all in its wake

even in the dryness

there IS potential

sometimes visible only

to the God of life

the God who revives tired spirits

and lifts up weary souls

and brings revival

when all seems lost.

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.”

THUS SAYS THE LORD.

Thanks be to God.

Half the Church - a book review

As I read Half the Church - Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women by Carolyn Custis James, I experienced a growing sense of  unease.
I knew that I didn't have any problem with the author's abhorrence of the inhuman treatment of women throughout the world - especially the likes of those accounts shared in Half the Sky and particularly with the notion of selective reproduction or abortion.
I agree that in the face of such injustice and oppression, those in the church should be among the first to stand up and speak out.
But, it seemed to me, when the author brings her thesis into play in the nitty gritty and often petty politics of the church it somehow reduces a huge issue to bad housekeeping and internal squabbles over Biblical interpretation.
This may well be the result of growing up in a seemingly "enlightened" Presbyterian Church of Scotland where one rarely has to grapple with the egalitarian versus complementarian debate that James lays out in her book: the Great Debate of which she writes is not a debate with which I have had to grapple in this culture.
But my discomfort in reading also had a lot to do with the fact that the author failed to reveal her position on the debate, particularly surrounding the ordination of women. Towards the end of the book, James admits that she does not want to alienate potential readership, especially among her counterparts in her church tradition. I suspect that I do not properly grasp the fear that maintains her reticence and her inability to be open on this. But that lack of understanding on my part in turn led to my growing discomfort as I read through the book.


Although this book may be helpful in the culture in which it is written I am not convinced that it has the global emphasis that it might have had if written outwith the confines of that culture and, indeed, portrays the church as a huge contributor to the injustice afflicting women globally while, in reality, much of the injustice in the church that the author cites, while plainly wrong, has little impact on the world around it but remains an in house squabble. That is not to deny the atrocities that have been perpetrated in the name of the church all through history. But, in James's context, the issue is much more confined to church governance and polity that simply baffles the world at large if it even captures attention in the first place.

I had difficulty with James's terminology, particularly her use of the term ezer to describe "God's female image bearers". But perhaps this is because James describes her "first serious encounter" with her "calling as an ezer" as a time when she was "smuggling books out of her husband's study" in order to find some answers. James asserts that:
"God deploys his daughters - all of us - to be ezer-warriors for his kingdom all the days of our lives. As a daughter, I love the idea that we are to follow in our Father's strong ezer footsteps by soldiering alongside our brothers for his kingdom. A name like ezer gives women and girls a lot to live up to no matter who we are or where we live"


I hope that "Half the Church" will prove helpful in liberating the gifts of women in the context in which James exercises ministry but, for other church cultures her experience seems alien.
Of course the issues of women being exploited and trafficked and oppressed and viewed as dispensable commodities is a whole other book.


Thanks to Zondervan for the opportunity to review this text.

An unlikely king

Chosen

I’ve been chosen

can you believe it?

not the strongest,

not the sharpest

and certainly not

the oldest

But I’m the one who has been chosen

seems like a dream

but maybe not a pleasant one

more like the stuff of nightmares

And it’s down to those soft, melting, brown eyes

they land me in it every time

People just look – even prophets

and decide – there’s a boy with soul

But this time, those eyes might be my downfall

How am I going to fulfil God’s calling

for me to be king?

There’s a perfectly good king already

Maybe a tyrant

Maybe a bit unhinged

But that’s the way of kings

And this crazy prophet thinks I’ll be next?

I don’t think so.

I’m off to lie low

and hope that, in time

they’ll forget all about

the prophet’s visit today

with his talk of God’s will

I’ll head back to my sheep

and, hopefully,

they’ll carry on without me.

This is a reflection, published in Spill the Beans, on the anointing of David by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 16:1-13)

Grumbling on

Exodus 17 v 1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ²The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” ³But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” ⁴So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” ⁵The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. ⁶I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. ⁷He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

I love the stories of Moses and the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. It’s definitely a case of 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

Every time they seem to be getting somewhere, something else goes wrong, The people forget all about the times that God, through Moses their leader has rescued them, seen them through. They lose faith and so end up going backwards again.

Here, we find them complaining to Moses that they have no water.

It feels so bad to them that they long to be back in Egypt.

Back in Egypt where, although they were slaves, they had water to drink.

Back in Egypt where, although they were abominably treated, at least they were never short of water.

Moses rescued them from slavery in Egypt.

Moses led them across the Red Sea,

But the people seem to have very short memories.

Because now, that there’s no water, they just want to be back in Egypt, back in the oppression that they knew there.

Why did you bring us out here to die, they ask Moses?

And then we get a sense of Moses’ frustration as he turns his eyes heavenward and asks God – “What am I to do with these people?”

Alls well that ends well – until the next time.

God provides water from a rock and the people are satisfied.

For now.

That story of Moses the leader and the people grumbling against him is a story we see repeated in so many guises in Scripture.

No matter how much God is revealed, memories are always short.

And it seems that a leader is only as good as the last miracle.

It’s a story that we see repeated time again today –

In business, in education, in politics.

Leaders are constantly being expected to improve on their previous performance – no matter how wonderful that performance – and folk are not satisfied but are always upping the stakes.

And it’s a picture we see even in the church.

Still eyes are raised heavenward as leaders ask: God, what am I to do with these people?

It’s called scapegoating.

As long as folk have someone to blame for all that is wrong, they are absolved of responsibility.

And if we can place all that seems wrong on the shoulders of leaders, then we ourselves don’t have to do anything to change.

It’s much easier just to stay in the wilderness and grumble than step up to the mark and try to make things different.

Stepping up might mean putting ourselves in the firing line.

It’s very tiring sitting in groups listening to folk complain that the church, as an institution has got it all wrong when there is no real will to work to make things different.

Grumbling may well do wonders for stress levels.

Grumbling helps to get things off our chest.

But, unless the grumbling is accompanied by action that ensures change, it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Grumbling really wears you down, doesn’t it?

Think of the folk you know who always have something to grumble about.

Even when things are good.

You know, if it’s a lovely spring day – like the days we’ve had this past week – the sun shows up the dirty windows.

(They do in my house anyway)

Or, if there’s a bit of warmth in the air, the grumblers will bemoan the fact that it’s too early to start shedding clothes, or start putting in new plants – because there’s bound to be another cold snap to spoil everything.

We all know people like that – perhaps we even recognize ourselves – looking for something to grumble about.

So what did the children of Israel have to grumble about?

Well, quite a lot it seems.

They’d been rescued from slavery.

Seems a good thing.

But they missed that slavery that had become a way of life for them.

Moses dragged them out of Egypt and took them on a journey to a land that God had promised.

The journey shouldn’t have taken the 40 years that it did.

But, perhaps the reason that it took so long is that God wanted to teach the people a thing or two before they entered that promised land.

One of my favourite T shirts – one that I wore last month when I met up with my American friends says:

You can take the girl out of Scotland but you can’t take Scotland out of the girl.

IT seems that, though God had enabled Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt, it would take a lot longer to take Egypt out of the people.

They kept harking back to their old ways.

They wanted to hold on to the ways – the foreign ways they had adopted in Egypt.

Why?

Because those were the ways they knew.

The customs that had begun to feel safe.

And so, in spite of everything. in spite of the slavery and oppression they had endured in Egypt, when they left Egypt, they yearned for it.

Human nature is just perverse at times.

It seems we’re never happy unless we have something to grumble about.

We, who are God’s people today are no different from the Israeiites.

Called by God into discipleship, instead of going forward, led by God, we keep looking back.

Instead of looking forward to the wonderful opportunities that God has in store for us, we complain that nothing ever stays the same.

Instead of opening ourselves up to new experiences and new horizons that God sets before us, we close ourselves down, we want to play safe.

The plight - or blight of the Israelites is our blight too.

We cannot let go of the past and look forward to the future that God has planned for us.

But – there is hope.

There is hope for us.

Because God persevered with the Israelites.

God stuck with them.

Though often it seemed as though they just didn’t get it.

Though they often rebelled against the leaders that God placed before them.

They were God’s chosen people.

These people who argued.

These people who constantly complained.

These people who seemed to be very slow learners.

Were the people that God chose.

Surely, then there is hope for us.

Let me share with you two reflections of the fickleness of folk:

(Before)

Water

lovely clean water

dripping down our beards

cooling off our dusty, weary feet

purifying us before we worship.

The very stuff of life.

But now it’s just the stuff of dreams

in this place that reeks of death.

Day after day

we long for what we knew

even though it wasn’t perfect

at least it was life

not this slow slide into death

Reduced to remembering what was

we cannot see what will be

our senses are dulled

by want and longing.

We followed the leader

expecting miracles

expecting freedom

But we backed the wrong camel

and now we’re paying the price.

Better the devil you know

than a promised land you’ve only heard about.

(After)

I knew it

I knew Moses (and God) wouldn’t let us down

They didn’t drag us all the way here

to let us collapse in a heap in the wilderness

I knew that, together, they’d have something up their sleeve

But water – from a rock?

amazing!

I didn’t see that one coming

I suppose that’s why they left it

to the last gasp

I suppose it would have been

just another miracle

if we hadn’t been so desperate

but now we have a special place

that will always feature in the lives

of our people

the place where God produced water

from a rock

Just in the nick of time.

People are fickle – even – and maybe especially – in the church.

and leaders are easy targets.

If things are not going as we’d like – or as we’d expect, we blame the leader.

But what if, instead of grumbling at our leaders, we spent some time working out how to change things, how to get involved and make things different.

Rather than wait on someone else fixing things, what if We were to lend a hand and make a difference.

That’s the hard part.

It’s so much easier to complain about others than to pitch in ourselves.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently working with a number of different congregations, helping them to formulate a vision for the future.

It has been the trend over the years, for churches to undertake envisioning, spending considerable time and energy in the exercise.

But then, once plans are formulated, folk often take a back seat and leave things to just a few people – and then grumble when plans do not come to fruition.

What I’ve been encouraging folk to do is not just come up with plans for the future but also to work out how those plans come to be.

As a friend put it recently: imagine the future, not as a sketch or even a plan but as a video – moving along to completion.

In the story we read from Exodus today, God produced water from a rock – flowing water – that made all the difference.

As God’s people today, where are we?

Are we still roaming in the wilderness, thirsty and grumbling at our leaders on whom we blame our predicament?

Or are we seeing a video rolling – a movie in which we can play a part?

God calls us out of Egypt, out of our standing on the sidelines, out of our propensity to grumble – out of our thirst and offers us flowing water.

May we be prepared to act and change and move forward beyond all that is comfortable and familiar.

May we drink of that water of life and be drenched in life giving spirit.

For the glory of God.

Amen

And what next...?

When the war planes have finished

wreaking their peculiar blend of destruction

and the civilians who still had some fight left in them

have been ground into submission

- those that survived, that is -

what next?

When the bodies of the innocent

have been gathered

and disposed of tidily

what next?

When one dictator has been deposed

making room for who knows what

in his place

what next?

What next for ordinary people

who love their home

and their country

whose surroundings have been decimated

by allies ganging up

claiming just cause,

choosing one cause, strangely

out of so many others.

what next?

Leave them to pick up the pieces?

to rely on their own devices

and their well developed

strategies for coping

in the midst of carnage

perpetrated by whoever chooses

to intervene

and make things worse?

What next?

Impose an alien regime

that they neither asked for

or wanted?

What next?

Clearly, those who take decisions

to go blithely to war

even for so called just causes

failed miserably

to plan that far ahead.