Ezekiel 37:1-14
April 10, 2011
Can These Bones Live?
Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa
Decorah, Iowa
It had been a rough patch for the clergy members of our Annual Conference. Within the space of a few months, one pastor had been put on leave of absence and admitted to an eating disorders treatment program, another had surrendered his credentials in the wake of the discovery of his gambling addiction during the course of which he had embezzled church funds to support his habit, and a third had committed suicide. The first two were among the finest preachers in the conference. The first was an excellent administrator. The third was newly ordained and showed great “promise of future usefulness” in the Wesleyan phrase.
By any measure these were tragedies. One came quickly on the heels of the other. The were left reeling. Whatever pains the rest of us were enduring, whatever secret suffering, suddenly seemed too real and too public to ignore. Our pastor, Bishop Palmer, called us together to reflect on these events and on their meaning for our own shared life and ministry. The mood that day was somber.
During the course of the meeting, one of my colleagues was among those who stood up to share with the whole group what was on his heart. He announced his belief that there was an “elephant in the room,” a reality that was driving our conversation and our life, an unnamed reality, he believed, we had carefully steered our way around, which reality he was going to name. He announced in trembling voice, with naked anxiety bordering on panic, “The reality is our church is dying and we have to do something!”
His observation is not groundless. The United Methodist Church and its predecessor denominations were a nearly insignificant presence in the years that led up to the 1784 founding the Methodist Episcopal Church.It grew from very small beginnings to its peak in the 1970s and 1980s of nearly 11,000,000 members. As a percentage of the population of the United States, we began at about a percent and a half in the 1790s and grew through the 1800s until we peaked between 6 and 7 percent. Since the 1950s we have suffered a steady decline, so that we now amount to about 3 percent of the U.S. population.
The Iowa Annual Conference has paralleled our national experience. We peaked in Iowa in the 1960s and have, with only a few exceptions, showed a decrease every year. A couple of years ago in his annual report to the Conference, Chuck Smith, our Conference statistician, told us, perhaps unhelpfully, that at the present rate, the last United Methodist in Iowa would turn out the lights in the last United Methodist church in 64 years and three months.
I believe that we are being pinched by several trends. The cultural context in which we do ministry has changed. It will keep changing. Our membership has changed, too, as we undergo a generational shift that is changing nearly everything about our shared life. It makes us anxious.
When our anxiety level is high, and we are fearful for things that matter deeply to us, it's very hard to think our way through a complex of factors. Late at night the voice of fear whispers, “Our church is dying and we have to do something.”
I imagine it was like that for Ezekiel, the prophet of this morning's reading. Like us, his community lived in pretty good times. Babylon was a successful empire and it was rich. Even the poor who live at the imperial center benefit from empire and Ezekiel's community of exiled Judeans were by no means poor. They had done well for themselves. They lived in nice houses. They drove nice cars. They could afford to take time off and spend time with their grandkids.
The trouble was, their grandkids were living in a world that their grandparents didn't really understand and certainly didn't embrace. Their music sang of and to different gods, the gods of the empire, and it expressed different values. “Aw, lighten up, grandpa,” their grandkids would say, “It's just music. It's what everyone's listening to nowadays.” But they weren't reassured, “Have you listened to lyrics?” “Whatever,” was the dismissive reply.
In some ways it made perfect sense. It's hard to live in exile, especially when the exile stretches over several generations. At what point do folks say, “This is our home, now. We're tired of being different, of sticking out. It's time to sink down our roots. It's time to stop pretending to be different, better.”
The leadership of the Judean community could see where that was headed. So they went to Ezekiel the prophet and told him, “Our life has been bleached out of us until we are like dried bones. Our community is dying and we have to do something.”
I wonder what Ezekiel thought. You see, he was a prophet. Prophets in the Israelite tradition knew that the measure of success is seldom what people think it is. When things are going well, that's when prophets get nervous, because they know that while everything on the surface may be fine, there can be deep structural problems in the life of the covenant people that are about to erupt. They know that faithfulness is the only genuine measure of the success of a people who live in covenant with God. Faithfulness cannot be measured by the empire's yardstick.
I'm not sure what Ezekiel thought. I know what I thought when I heard my brother and colleague give voice to his anxiety. My thought was this: “You're convinced, or at least very afraid, that our church is dying. Are you certain that this is a bad thing?” I know that this is a deeply disturbing question. Especially living as we do and as the exiled Judeans did in the heart of the empire, where everything is measured with the yardstick of growth. It's not the sort of question that conference statisticians usually ask, nor bishops,nor district superintendents.
But it is the sort of question that prophets struggle with. Oh, and Jesus, too, struggled with this. During the season of Lent we are reminded that at the moment of Jesus' greatest faithfulness, the membership count of his congregation had fallen to zero. Willing himself to follow God's call, willing to let his faithfulness cost him everything, willing at last in the garden to drink from the cup offered to him, his whole congregation had fled, leaving him alone. I can see him filling out his year-end statistical report: “Membership at the close of 2009. Members received by profession of faith, by transfer from other United Methodist churches, by transfer from churches of other denominations. Members lost by death, transfer, withdrawal and removal. Membership at the close of 2010.” His report didn't look very good. A day later and he himself was dead. And what became of his movement, his message? How can you be faithful if you're dead?
“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely,” the people complained to Ezekiel. “How can we be faithful if we're dead?”
Let's suppose that my colleague was right. Let's suppose our church is dying. Let's further suppose that this is a bad thing, even if it puts us in good company. Even supposing those things, is it true that “we must do something?”
God took Ezekiel “in the Spirit” or “by the Spirit” and placed him in the valley of the dead, with the dessicated bones of countless corpses scattered and jumbled and piled all around him. “Can these bones live?” “I have no idea,” Ezekiel answered.
“Well, preach to them,” was God's reply. I had an appointment like that once. Every week a handful of people would drag their bleached bones into church and defy God to make them alive again. But that didn't keep me from preaching. I'm a preacher and that's what preachers do. That's what Ezekiel did.
And you know the rest. Ezekiel preached and the bones rearranged themselves, joining the scattered bones. Ezekiel preached and the bones were clothed in flesh and skin. Ezekiel preached and the breath entered the corpses and they were alive again, Judah reconstituted, the people of God raised to new life.
Ezekiel did none of it himself, of course. Ezekiel preached and God acted. God was the one who did it all. But Ezekiel was faithful. He did what preachers do. He preached. And he preached honestly, too, I note. He testified to what he had been told and then he testified to what he had seen and what he believed about it.
The truth he told the bones was the truth that God had told him. The truth that he told the people was the truth that he had seen in this vision of resurrected bones. God is fully able to give new life to God's people. And more unlikely than that, God is willing to give new life to God's people.
It was just a vision, you know. And his preaching was just words. And this story of the resurrected bones was just a metaphor. Just a metaphor. Sometimes I suspect that the phrase “just a metaphor” is a contradiction in terms. This metaphor about new life was itself the source of the new life Ezekiel's hearers longed for. It held out hope, the hope of return, the hope of homecoming, and the hope of being sustained as a people until that day.
Ezekiel laid it all out for them, right down to the dimensions of the new temple that they would build when they returned. Of course, other people had different ideas of what it would be like. So a discussion began about the plans. And a funny thing happened. As they talked about the details, their assumptions changed. It was no longer a matter of whether they would come home. That was now assumed. A metaphor changed their future..
That's all I have to offer, too—a metaphor. All I can do is to tell the truth with images that are contrary to the facts. It's all I can do because I'm a preacher and that's what preachers do. So here's the truth, as I seen it in this text: There is no future for Judah that does not go through the valley of dry bones. There is no new life that does not require their death first, that does not require their dying thoroughly, thoroughly enough that their bones would be dried, scattered and piled in a heap.
The truth is that there is no Easter without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without death. Life is a gift from God, whether it's Jesus' life or Judah's life in exile or our life in Decorah. Life is a gift from God; there is nothing we can do to earn it or deserve it or force it to happen. But there is a condition. God gives new life only to those who are willing to lay down their old life. God raises from the dead only those who are willing to die. The resurrection happens in a tomb, in a valley of dried bones, in a church that is willing to give up its life for the sake of being faithful.
My colleague was right: the church is dying. And it's a good thing, too. Otherwise, it can never live.
©2011, John M. Caldwell. Permission is given by the author to reproduce and distribute the unaltered text of this sermon provided this notice is reproduced in full and provided that this sermon shall not be offered for sale, nor included in any collection or publication that is offered for sale, without the express written permission of the author.
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