“I Will Put My Spirit Within You” Ezekiel 37:1-14 May 27, 2012 Day of Pentecost The Rev. Dr. Gary W. Klingsporn First Congregational Church in Nantucket, MA

The words of Ezekiel: “The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out and set me down in the middle of a valley full of dry bones….The Lord said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, only thou knowest.’” As most of you know, part of the church parsonage where Debra and I live is being renovated this spring. The back of the house has been torn up and is being rebuilt. The kitchen is being remodeled, the dining room enlarged, and a bathroom relocated to the laundry room. During the last few weeks Debra and I have been living elsewhere, at the gracious invitation of Chuck and Elna Soule. When we moved, our builder Peter Boynton told us they would cover everything in the house to protect it from the dust, dirt, and grime that occur from this kind of construction. But Peter told us we could still go back and get things we might need. Well, let me tell you, they thoroughly covered everything and protected it well! You would not want to be in our house right now. There is no place to sit. There are only crowded little pathways through the rooms. The furniture is stacked in the middle of each room and covered with layers of plastic. Blue masking tape seals doors shut. Fine grit covers everything. Dust particles linger in the air. When we moved out we took with us only a few essentials. But you never know what you may need along the way. So occasionally we have gone back to the house to retrieve something. To get to her art and bead studio upstairs, Debra has to go through three doorways sealed with multiple layers of plastic and then dig under a couple of layers of plastic covering her worktables. One day recently Debra wanted to make snicker doodle cookies. But she didn’t have her mother’s recipe. She realized that the recipe is buried somewhere in our house beneath all those layers of plastic and household stuff. “Nah, we don’t need snicker doodles today,” she decided. Since we took only the minimal clothes we needed, Debra has been recycling her outfits more frequently than usual. One day she asked me how she looked, and I said to her, “You look great—just like you did day before yesterday!” That’s not what a woman wants to hear! One evening this week after the builders had left for the day, I stopped by the house to look for my sunglasses and pick up a couple of books from my library. I know my sunglasses are carefully tucked away in a drawer in my desk. But the desk is buried under piles of furniture, pillows, and plastic. “Forget the sunglasses, you don’t need them,” I said to myself. The workers left my main library bookshelves accessible. To find a book, 1

I have to work beneath two layers of plastic with a slit in the middle of one of them. It’s hard to browse the shelves with all that plastic everywhere. But it keeps the books fairly clean. You would not want to be in our house right now. The other evening I stood in our living room thinking about how different it is to be there now. It’s home, but it doesn’t feel like it. Rather than warm, cozy, and inviting, the house feels like a barren wasteland—cold, uninviting, inhospitable. There is no life. It is a sealed tomb. When I left the house that night the words of Ezekiel came to mind: “The hand of the Lord came upon me, and set me down in the middle of a valley full of dry bones….The Lord said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, only thou knowest.’” That’s what it’s like to be in our house. “Can these bones live?” Will this house ever be the same again? Will life ever return as it once was? That’s the way we feel sometimes, don’t we? “Can these bones live?” During conflict in relationships, or difficult times in a marriage…. When we have concerns for members of our family—parents, kids, or grandkids…. When we experience divorce or someone we love dies…. When we experience our own aging. When we go through stressful or lonely times…. When our spirits are low, and we don’t know why…. When we go through a dark night of the soul and struggle with doubt or hopelessness, depression or anxiety…. Or when we come to the end of a bad day, we’re worn out and crabby, and we sit in the darkness alone…. Those are times when we wonder whether the joy and vitality of life will return. Will life ever be the same again? Ezekiel’s famous vision of the valley of dry bones is one of the most vivid passages in the Bible. Ezekiel lived during a tragic time in Israel’s history. Enemy armies invaded Judah and carried many of the Jews into exile far away in Babylonia. Ezekiel, along with other prominent people, was taken into exile during one of the first deportations in 597 BCE. Ten years later Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The temple and much of Jerusalem were destroyed. The exile was a national tragedy. It brought a crisis of faith and identity for Israel. A displaced people, their future survival was at risk. The questions facing the exiles were, Where is God? Will we survive? Will life ever be the same again? “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel responds to those questions by telling the exile community about a vision he had. God took him to a valley filled with dry bones lying scattered in disarray as far as the eye could see. It was the image of a battlefield whose slain never received proper burial but were left to decay where they fell. Ezekiel says Yahweh led him around the valley. He was struck by the great number of bones and that they were very dry. They had been dead for a long time. As Ezekiel stood in the middle of the valley, the word of the Lord came to him saying, “Mortal, can these bones live?” That was the question the exiled people of Israel faced. That question often lies at the heart of our faith experience. Is there any hope? Ezekiel answers, “O Lord God, only thou knowest.” Sometimes all we can do is lift our hands to the heavens and say, “Only you know, God.”

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In the vision God then says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy, speak to these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, who says to you: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will cause sinews, flesh, skin to come upon you, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’” So Ezekiel spoke to the bones and suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. Flesh and skin covered them. The bones became bodies, but they were still without life. There was no breath in them. Now I know what’s probably going through some of your minds. Some of you are probably hearing the Mills Brothers, Fats Waller, Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, or The Lennon Sisters singing, “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones. Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones. Don’t you hear the word of the Lord?” If you can’t get that song out of your head later today, blame Ezekiel. “The toe bone connected to the foot bone. Foot bone connected to the leg bone. Leg bone connected to the knee bone. Don’t you hear the word of the Lord?” Seriously, that song is a well-known African-American spiritual right out of this passage in Ezekiel. Ezekiel’s vision has long been a favorite in the African-American faith community. Why? You can probably guess. During the period of slavery in this country black people were an exiled and oppressed people—like the exiles in ancient Israel. Slaves were torn from their homes and brought unwillingly to this country. A downtrodden people, many of them wondered whether they would ever have freedom and a new life. Even into the modern civil rights period, long after slavery ended, African-Americans have struggled with the question, “Can these bones live again?” And yes, they did live again. We left Ezekiel a moment ago with those bones that had become bodies with flesh but without life in them. Ezekiel then says the Lord told him to speak to the breath saying, “Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” Ezekiel did as commanded, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. There is a powerful word at the heart of this whole story. It is the Hebrew word ruach which means “breath,” “wind,” or “spirit.” Ezekiel wants us to know that the breath that came into these lifeless bodies was none other than the “breath” or “spirit” of God who alone has the power to bring life. In the final verses of this passage Ezekiel gives the interpretation of his vision. The dry bones in the valley represent “the whole house of Israel.” Ezekiel quotes the complaint the exiles had been voicing: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are cut off completely.” They felt that all hope was gone, that they were as good as dead. But the great promise in Ezekiel’s vision was that God would give them new life and return them to their homes in the land of Israel. “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live…and then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and will act.” “I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.” That is the powerful word of good news for all of us when we struggle or lose heart, when conflict or illness, death or

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tragedy strike. When we need a word of hope, the good news is that the God who created us promises us new life. That promise is what this Day of Pentecost is all about. Today the church around the world celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. In that story in Acts 2 “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts 2:4). It was the gift Jesus had promised them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). New Testament faith proclaims that this same gift is given to the church in every age and to us in our personal lives. The Holy Spirit is the active presence and work of the living God here and now in our individual lives, in the church, and in the world. The Spirit is not some impersonal power, but the Spirit of God who comes to dwell in and among us and give us life and the gifts we need to live.1 In one of the most beautiful phrases in all of Christian theology, the 4th c. Nicene Creed calls the Holy Spirit “the Lord and Giver of life.” The Holy Spirit is that same powerful life-giving presence of which Ezekiel spoke centuries earlier: “Thus says the Lord God: I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live….” The good news of Pentecost is that when we look to God with open and repentant hearts, God promises to come to us in those places where we feel like a valley of dry bones. In God’s own time and God’s own way, God will give us new life, new strength, and the hope we need. The witness of biblical faith is that even death itself is not the last word. God cares about what is broken and shattered in our lives. Writer, friend and mentor John Claypool tells the story of a friend of his whose son was five years old and started kindergarten. In October the teacher of the class asked the children, “Would you like to make something with your hands as a Christmas gift for your parents?” The little boy’s dad was a pipe smoker, so the boy said, “I’d like to make my father an ashtray.” That fall the teacher helped his little hands work clay into the shape of an ashtray, paint it blue, put his creation into the kiln, and watch it as what he had made hardened and turned shiny blue. At every step of the process the little boy’s excitement increased. He could see his father on Christmas morning opening his gift and realizing it was made by his son’s own hands. The last day before the Christmas holidays the school had the usual holiday program with all the parents in attendance. When it was over the little boy went to his schoolroom to get his carefully wrapped package. But in the excitement of getting his coat on and hurrying down the hall, the boy slipped and fell. The precious package he was carrying went up in the air and came crashing down on the floor with a terrible sound of breaking. The work of the autumn and the hopes of Christmas Day were dashed. The boy began to cry. His father said to him, “Don’t cry, son. Doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it’s okay, it doesn’t make any difference.” “Of course it matters!” his wife exclaimed, pushing her husband aside. “Of course it matters when something precious has been broken.” She caught up the child in her arms and comforted him. Claypool’s friend said he watched in wonder as that feminine image

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of God did two amazing things. She reached into her purse, got her handkerchief, and wiped the tears from the boys eyes. Then she said, “Come on, let’s pick up the pieces and take them home, and see what we can make of what is left.”2 That is the gift of new life, the gift of “next time” that God offers us. When life falls apart, or we’re hurting and going through a parched and dry place, and we turn to God for help, God bends down, wipes our tears, and says, “Let’s pick up the pieces and begin again.” The God of mercy, who created us, has the power to give life, to heal and restore. So as I stood in the living room of our house the other night thinking, “There is no life in this house right now,” those words Can these bones live? had new meaning for me. Yes, by the grace of God, life will return to our house. It will be completely restored, clean, better than ever. Debra and I look forward to the day when we can celebrate with an open house to thank all of you in this church who helped make it possible. But for now our house is a metaphor, a parable in process, reminding me of the larger, more serious issues and concerns in life. In large or small ways, even in matters of life and death, when we wonder whether these bones can live, the important question is, Can we, will we, trust God as the Lord and Giver of life? Yes, these bones can live. God has the power to make life happen. So on this Day of Pentecost we join the church around the world in the prayer the church prays, “Come, Holy Spirit! Come, O breath of holiness, O fire of love, O Lord and Giver of life!” Trust the gift. Trust the Giver. Amen.

Notes 1

Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, revised ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), p. 292. 2 John R. Claypool, “Next Time,” in The Library of Distinctive Sermons, Vol. II, gen. ed. Gary W. Klingsporn (Sisters, OR: Questar Publishers, 1996), pp. 93-94.

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