Sermon: March 9, 2008

One has to admit that the prophet Ezekiel was a pretty savvy guy.  He says that in his vision, “the Lord set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry.  [The Lord] said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’  I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’”  …Not certain how to respond to God’s question, he smoothly tosses it back to the Almighty.  “…can these bones live?...O, Lord…you know.” 

However, “savvy” is not a word that applies to everyone, and I wonder if most of us would have just blurted out the obvious, standing there in the dry and dusty boneyard.  “Mortal, can these bones live?”  “In a word, Lord, no.”

And had there been a chance to wager on whether or not Lazarus was going to walk out of that tomb when Jesus shouted, “Lazarus!  Come out!”, we most likely would have bet the farm – not to mention the kids’ college funds and the retirement account – on death.  Dead men, dead women, don’t get up and climb out of the grave, no matter how deeply we wish that they would.

And why would we have said, “No,” to the Lord in the boneyard?  Why would we have wagered everything on death?  Because we know those places, we have lived in them – sometimes for weeks, seasons, years.  They are the boneyards of sin & hopelessness, the tombs of doubt & despair.  And there is no air in those places, no sound of life.  It is all dust and echoing emptiness.

We have certainly found ourselves in these desolate boneyards, these airless tombs, as individuals – sin & suffering having drained all of the faith and life out of us.

• Some of us died of fear.
• Some of us died of anger.
• Some of us died of grief.
• And some of us cannot say what we died of, we just know we have been residents of the boneyard, tenants of the tomb, for a long time!

And, likewise, the community of faith, the church, has certainly been reduced to a pile of bones, an echoing shell of a tomb, again and again, by the powers of sin & death.

• Tradition binds the community of faith so tightly that it finally can not move or breathe.
• Bickering and fighting use up all of our energy and all of our strength.
• And fear, fear of change – fear that God just might still be re-forming and renewing God’s church – paralyzes the community, rendering our hands and feet useless and our voices silent.

For awhile, of course, we try to get ourselves up and out of the tomb, pull ourselves together in the boneyard.  We cling to the hope that there is a magic self-help book somewhere that will tell us what to do…But no “40 days of purpose” is going to make everything okay.  No evangelism strategy or long-range plan will give the church the shot of adrenaline it needs to get up and moving.  No…Bruised and beaten by the powers of sin and death, we all end up – individually and collectively – in that dry valley, in that airless tomb.  And if we were left utterly to ourselves, our answers to the questions would be correct.  Can these bones live?  No.  Do dead men, dead women, walk out of their tombs?  No.

 But we have not been abandoned in the boneyard or in the tomb!  We have not been left to our dry, dusty, stinky selves.  For love of even our dry bones, our smelly corpses, God’s power-full Word, God’s life-giving Word, God’s own Son, crucified and risen, enters our lifeless bodies – our lifeless corporate body – and breathes the breath of life into us, just as God did at the creation of the world!

·        The Word of the Lord gets the bones rattling, Ezekiel says, and they start coming together, gaining new muscle and skin and, finally, breath.

·        Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, cries out, “Lazarus!  Come out!” and first the crowd sees a shadow, then a death-wrapped figure staggering toward the light!

God does not leave us in the dry valley!  God does not leave us in the stale, airless tomb!  God does not leave us to ourselves.  Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has wrestled us from the grip of death and given us new life!

·        With the words of forgiveness, our hearts start to beat!

·        With the gift of faith, air fills our lungs!

·        With the healing power of the Holy Spirit, we are strengthened for service and given to the world!

It may be two weeks before Easter, but God knows we are well-acquainted with the valley of dry bones, the cold dampness of the tomb.  God knows that some of us dwell in those places right now.  And God will not wait around to raise us up to new life in another two weeks!  No, where the Word is proclaimed, where the Sacraments are shared, where the community gathers in faith, God is at work, knitting our bones back together, calling us out of death to life!

Sometimes it happens like the clashing of cymbals – we are suddenly awakened, bathed in the presence of the Living God in a way that words cannot describe…And sometimes it happens over time, and we only realize that we have been raised to life in hindsight.  The rattling of the bones coming together proved to be quiet, the dead man staggered out of the tomb when  we weren’t looking.  And then, one day, we realize that there is a lushness to the landscape of our lives.  We are no longer standing in a dry and dusty valley.  Then we look up to see a community that was “very many” dry bones standing on its feet, breathing and moving to give itself away for joy and love in Jesus.

But either way, it does happen.  Our God is a God who desires life for God’s children.  The questions that, left to ourselves, must be answered with a “no,” God answers with a life-giving “yes.” 

Can these bones live?  By the power of the Risen Living Christ, YES!

Do dead men and dead women get up and walk toward the light?  By the power of the Risen and Living Christ, YES!

Even your bones, even mine.  And even the bones of God’s whole church.

Thanks be to God.                   AMEN