STUART’S REFLECTION: “Can These Bones Live?”

Well, we are settling into another week of social distancing, our communal response to this global public health emergency. I am sure that we will be feeling the many and varied impacts for a long time.

The economic repercussions alone are unimaginable. The retail market was already in a tailspin, long before stores had to reduce hours and limit the number of customers. We may wonder what “business as usual” might look like next year.

The same has been said of the Church. For several years, decades even, we have been hearing voices of doom warning of dark times ahead for the Church, at least for the Church as we have come to know it. Discouraging statistics like aging membership and declining attendance support that pessimism.

Such discouragement and pessimism can suck the life out of us. They can drain our enthusiasm and our courage, and deflate our vision for the future. Pessimism and despair can even kill our will to carry on.

That is what had happened to the people of Jerusalem, in the reading from Ezekiel 37. They had been uprooted from their Promised Land and led off, in shame and humiliation, into exile in Babylon.

The people were, quite naturally, pessimistic about their future. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed. They saw no reason to be hopeful. They were the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision,– dry, lifeless, hopeless, dead.

Perhaps the opening line of today’s Psalm catches their pessimism, their despair: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O God...”

Ezekiel spoke to this hopelessness, to this lifelessness. In his vision, God breathes life into dry, lifeless bones. God’s Spirit can and will restore the hope of the people of Israel. Their exile is not a permanent condition.

His vision reminded his people that they were in need of God’s breath of life, God’s Spirit. Nothing they could do for themselves could bring their bones back to life. By returning to a trusting relationship with God, they could be restored to life.

Ezekiel’s words offered the people of Israel in exile hope in the midst of their despair. As always happens, some people ignored his message. But others took his words seriously. They reclaimed their tradition, their teachings, their understanding of God, their identity as God’s chosen people. And these ones did return to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple.

They developed a deeper sense of what it meant to be God’s chosen people, because they held on to what was important and life-giving to them. Because of Ezekiel’s message of hope, they reclaimed a sense of who they were, and who God was.

We can learn from that experience. One way we can find new life is to hold on to what we hold valuable. Hold on to the vision we have received from God. Hold on to God’s Promise. Without that Promise, we are like dry bones, without life, without hope, without faith.

I suspect that what has happened to the church over the last twenty years or so is due in part to our approach to church in the 50’s. When churches were bursting at the seams, I think we adopted the attitude that, “if we build it, they will come.”

And perhaps by doing so, we neglected the reasons for the building. We overlooked the importance of nurturing the faith. We built some lovely greenhouses, but did a haphazard job of planting the seeds and encouraging the growth of healthy plants.

The good news in this is that there are many fertile fields waiting,– even longing,– for a good seed to take root. People today are yearning for meaning and purpose in their lives. As we learn to cope with social distancing, we are realising the importance of connecting to one another, and to God.

This is a time for teaching our children and our grandchildren and our neighbours that God’s Promise is important to us. This kind of teaching doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when we speak about our faith and our values. It happens when we tell others about the visions we have received from God. It happens when we stand up for what we believe. It happens when we face the powers that would destroy our hope.

The life of the Church is in God’s hands, or rather, God’s breath of life is in the Church. We need to trust that God will continue to work through, and breathe into, the Church of the future.

When we challenge the powers that would bring despair, we find hope. When we confront the powers of death, God breathes new life into our dry bones. Thanks be to the God of life.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION (No.928a Voices United)

Holy and gracious God, gathered as your people responding to your call, we confess

the self that is not aware of sinning;
the heart that is too hardened to repent;
the pride that dares not admit it is wrong;
the righteousness that knows no fault;
the callousness that has ceased to care;
the blindness that can see nothing but its own will.

God, in your healing love, forgive us; through our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

BLESSING (Voices United NO. 318; attributed to St. Patrick, 13th Century)

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

HYMN: “Now Thank We All Our God: (No. 236 Voices United)

Words: Martin Rinckart c. 1636, Translated: Catherine Winkworth 1858

(Martin Rinkart was a Lutheran minister in Saxony at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. The Rinkart home was a refuge for the victims, even though he was often hard-pressed to provide for his own family. During the height of a severe plague in 1637, Rinkart was the only surviving pastor in town, conducting as many as 50 funerals in a day. He performed more than 4000 funerals that year, including that of his wife. – Wikiipedia)

Now thank we all our God, with heart, and hands, and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,
And keep us strong in grace, and guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ill in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God for all that has been given,
The Son, and Spirit blest who dwell in highest heaven,
The one eternal God, whom heaven and earth adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

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