Rainbow Spirit: Violet, The Gift of Spirit
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Reverend Joe Cobb, MCC of the Blue Ridge
10.25.2015
The foot bone connected to the leg bone…
It is not too far fetched to imagine being
in exile…a migrant fleeing a terrifying
homeland, risking life and limb in boats
or on foot, through rough terrain, seeking a safe
place to live out life…
The leg bone connected to the knee bone…
Or to find ourselves fleeing a homeland
that no longer recognizes, or acknowledges
who we are, exiles in our own bodies,
seeking refuge in a land that honors our
stories, that eagerly awaits the gifts of our
bodies, and our minds…
The knee bone connected to the hip bone…
We don’t have to look back too far in our
collective, ancient history (well, 2700 years
might be a stretch) to 600 BCE, and by that
I mean “before the common era,” or in the
Christian calendar, “before Christ,” to find a
people named Israel, once delivered
out of bondage and into a liberated road
trip to the promised land, now on the road
again to Babylon, the land of exile, carrying with
them the scars of ancient battles,
fatigue of road weary bodies,
destruction of their beloved temple,
the desolation of their homeland,
and hopes for every returning home dashed.
The hip bone connected to the back bone…
Now, imagine being called by God to be a
prophet: one who is open and willing to the
murmurings and directives of God, never
certain of where you will be, or who you will
end up prophesying to, or if any of it will make
any difference.
Imagine being a messenger of the Divine:
given the extraordinary gift of seeing for a
brief moment what God sees, and knowing
for a brief moment that God wants you to
be a part of what God is doing.
If that doesn’t give our bones and spirit
a jolt, I’m not sure what will…
The back bone connected to the neck bone…
Now, imagine being whisked away from
the nice comfortable pose we’ve nestled
into here in this sanctuary, and out into
an arid, dry land, a huge valley, that looks
white and parched like a sea of sand.
Upon closer examination, (the kind where
we bend our knees and get close to the
ground), we see that this valley is not filled
with sand, but with the bones of countless
people, reaching as far as the eye can see.
It is hard to stomach.
Suddenly, we are not alone. Someone is
standing behind us, and when we stand up
and turn to look, we find a raggedy old
prophet staring straight ahead, looking,
straining, and listening.
We can hear what he hears, at first a whisper,
and then more clearly:
Ezekiel, can these bones live?
The neck bone connected to the head bone…
Can these bones live?
Now that’s a head scratcher.
We look around. These bones have been here
a long time, so long in fact, that they appear
bleached. And they are dry; dry as in brittle.
We look to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel looks to us,
and as if in sync about the answer to God’s
question, we say, “Nope, these bones are
dry and dead; but God, when it comes right
down to it, we suppose only you know.
Who are these bones? What’s their story?
These bones are ancient and they are present.
These bones are a people who have lost their
way and given up hope. These bones are
scattered and dry, aimless and lying around,
distant and worn down.
These bones are road weary,
battle weary,
and trauma weary.
But an odd thing begins to happen.
The same Spirit that whisked Ezekiel,
and I suppose us, to this valley of dry bones,
is now stirring within and around,
and out of this new breath comes God’s
beckoning voice:
Prophesy to these bones! And say, Dry bones
hear the word of the Lord!
And those of us who never thought we could
be prophets or give sermons are suddenly
inspired find ourselves singing:
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
now hear the word of the Lord.
And then God said, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I 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.
And the bones, well, they start to mount up,
and bone after bone starts to connect, and
jiggle, and clack and rattle, and before long
what was once a pile of bones is now a
shimmering sea of bodies laying around.
We think, okay God, we’ve done what you
asked: the bones are back together, they’ve
got skin. Can we go now?
God isn’t finished, with us or with them.
Now, prophet, say, Come from the four winds,
O breath, and breathe upon these lifeless, that they may live.’
For a moment, we feel a little bit like Jonah,
our neighbor prophet, who tried to flee from his call,
ended up in the belly of a great fish,
who then spit him out on the shore of city of dry bones
called Ninevah, and who very lacklusterly made his
way through the town saying, “live, dry bones, live.”
There ain’t no way, we think, that breath in these
bodies is going to do any good.
But then a mighty deep breath inhales our prophetic
voice, then a might exhale breathes the Spirit into
the bones and the bodies that were once life-less
are now full of breath and ready to breathe!
With breath in their bodies, we can hear
their collective whispers, “we are
the people of God: we are tired, worn down,
we’ve lost hope, and we feel cut off.
We want to be whole again.
God hears their cries, and ours.
And God gives us one last sermon:
Prophesy:
I am going to open your graves of worry,
despair, darkness and anxiety, and I am
going to bring you back to the land of
wholeness.
I will put my spirit within you,
and you will live!
And because God is up to something,
and because God wants us to be up to
something with God,
and because we can’t help but be up
to something that is part of God’s
Spirit alive within us,
we begin to rise up,
to stand up,
and to sing with the ancient ones:
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around,
dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around,
dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around,
now hear the word of the Lord.
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna dance around,
dem bones, dem bones, gonna dance around,
dem bones, dem bones, gonna dance around,
now LIVE the word of the Lord.!