Pentecost Sunday, 27 May 2012
Ezekiel 37:1-14
This is the
day that the Spirit made—that creative, life-giving force that is
God-in-action. The Spirit moves. That is the most consistent quality of the
Spirit of God, it moved over the waters of the deep before the world was
created; it blew through the valley of dry bones and gave them life; it roared
through the room where the disciples were gathered on the day of Pentecost.
Wherever the Spirit moves, it upsets the stagnant order of the day. Wherever
the Spirit happens, life happens. The spirit overturns tables and makes the
dead rise up!
Ezekiel
looked around at the landscape of a conquered Israel, but it could have been
anywhere the innocent were slaughtered at any time. It could have been Bataan,
it could have been Wounded Knee, it could have been Auschwitz or El Mozote.
Anywhere mothers grieve over their lost children, anytime brutality overwhelms
humanity, we look upon the mass graves and ask, my God, my God, why have you
forsaken us?
And God
answers with a question. Mortal, can these bones live?
In
Ezekiel’s vision, the bones rattle, reassemble into skeletons, and the
skeletons grow flesh and the flesh is covered with skin, when the prophet spoke
in the name of the Lord. But there was no life in them without the Spirit. So
the prophet called out the Spirit—the spirit that moved over the waters of
creation and filled the first earth-creature with the breath of life (wind,
spirit, breath, it’s all the same word in Hebrew)—and the people lived, and
stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
These are
the people of Israel, God says, who say, “Our bones are dried up, and
our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” But the promise of God is that
new life will come. If you think you are dead, rest assured, I will give you
life. If you are lost, I will bring you back.
Pentecost
is the anniversary of the church. In case you haven’t noticed, the church is
smaller than it used to be. Not just this church, but all the churches. For
example, the number of congregations of the Minnesota Conference, and the total
number of members of churches of the Minnesota Conference, have decreased
steadily since the Conference was founded fifty years ago. But it’s not just
the Minnesota Conference, it’s all United Church of Christ congregations. But
it’s not just United Church of Christ congregations, it’s also Lutheran, and
United Methodist, and Episcopalian, and Presbyterian. But it’s not just the old
established churches, it’s also the newcomers. It’s not a matter of one kind of
Christianity vs. another, or Christianity vs. other religions. The only group
that has grown steadily is the group that answers “none of the above” to the
question “What faith do you practice?”
And the
churches are panicking. Bishops and executive ministers are quaking in their
wingtip shoes. Committees and task forces are forming, consultants are being
contracted, troops are being mustered to fight the decline of the mainline
church.
“Our bones
are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are cut off completely.”
As much as
we may try to reassemble the dry bones of the old church, there is no life
there. Not without the Spirit.
The thing
about the Spirit is, being of a creative temperament, it rarely creates the
same thing twice. When the Spirit created the church, it did not create
Synagogue 2.0. The spirit didn’t recreate the religion of the Pharisees, under
new management. The Spirit created something completely new. And the church, it
was not born fully formed, it was born an infant. The apostles struggled to
manage the growth, but they could not. Once the Spirit was loose, it created
church in unexpected places. In the homes of gentiles, and in the hearts of
aliens in the land. The Spirit went abroad and created churches all over the
world, and no two were alike, and it was disorderly, messy. In spite of the
Apostles desire to reign it in, the Spirit could not be bridled.
The thing
about church is, maybe it isn’t dying so much as being reborn in a new body—one
that we cannot recognize, unless we look with the eyes of a heart enlightened.
