A Sermon by the Rev. Elice Higginbotham
For the First Congregational United Church of Christ, Chappaqua, New York
I have a feeling that the hopeful visions given to us in our biblical texts for this morning... have the potential to make us a little uncomfortable. Think about it... breathing new life into a whole nation's worth of dead, dry bones (maybe a whole congregation's worth?)... raising from the tomb a dead man, whom the whole family and community had gathered around to grieve... Think about it, as a congregation undergoing a transition and facing a not-yet well-defined future. O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Lazarus, come out!
Ezekiel prophesied to a nation in exile -- whose national, cultural, religious life had been taken from them. John wrote a Gospel to a tiny Christian community, struggling to identify its sources of meaning and resources of hope in a time when Jews and Gentiles were still struggling over the parameters of Christian identity, and the possibility of persecution loomed large. These are people in transition. These are people of faith, looking for a word of the Lord that will make sense, and give life.
These stories are hopeful ones, let's start with that affirmation! But I think they may also be a little close for comfort. We identify with a lot of different points of view in these stories, and the stories are just a bit spooky, even as they are hopeful. They are not stories of nice, comfortable, finished miracles that end with "happily ever after." They make a lot of demands on the faithful.
Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord...' So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
Do you know the spiritual?
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
I hear de word of d'Lord.
The bones rattled. They were dry and crackly. They could be connected into human shapes, but lacked the elements of human substance -- purpose, a reason for being, a sense of belonging, a worship life that affirmed where they had come from and where they were going, a future for which to hope, a future toward which to work. They rattled. They had lost flexibility. Things had changed too much, too fast. The old ways did not work, the joints were rusty. They could not perceive their new time and place as God's time and place for them. They were too far from home to hear the word of the Lord.
OK, get to the point... is the First Congregational Church in Chappaqua, New York, a boxful of rattling dry bones? We are connected into the shape of a church. We have a building, block set upon block, that holds up the roof, with a carillon tower, an office and an education wing. There seem to be a fair number of maintenance tasks, but we're in respectable shape. We have a history that gives us a sense of our past, and a set of by-laws that give order to how we conduct our lives. We have a denominational affiliation, that sometimes causes us to be aware that we are a part of the larger church family; and a local interfaith affiliation, that reminds us of what challenges us as a part of the community and world. We celebrate the major religious holidays, provide Sunday school for our children, engage in service -- and we're known to get together and have fun. We look like a church, and we act like a church.
But there are those moments when we don't always feel like a church, aren't there? Too many of us feel like we have to take on too many jobs. We keep asking each other for money. Too many gatherings feel too sparse, or there are those aspects of church life that used to seem so vital that now have become only fond memories, bittersweet. The church just isn't the center of attention that it once was.
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,
I hear de word of d'Lord.
So... what's the word that is waiting for our ears to hear, the prophetic word that will blow breath into our dry bones? Years ago, when I worked full time in ministry among the Latin American exile and undocumented immigrant community in New York City, one of my closest colleagues, a Lutheran pastor, spoke about the exiles and refugees among whom we ministered as "a new class of prophets." He understood prophecy in the biblical sense: that is, not as predicting the future, like a fortune teller; but, rather, as a call to our consciences, a vision of what would be the consequences of our attitudes and acts. The poorest and least welcome people in New York City, he defined as "prophets" -- the ones whose very presence in our midst had the capacity to tell us something about ourselves that we might not want to face, but that represents a call to repentance, an opportunity for renewal. I would like to challenge us to see what, or who, right here in Northern Westchester County, are obliging First Congregational Church to face who and what it really is, and what it might need to change -- in mission, or in spiritual nurture, -- as it moves forward into this new century of ministry.
Well -- the dry bones aren't only point of view in Ezekiel's vision. Dry bones are only one image with which we might identify (and probably the most depressing one). But do you remember what the next verse of the spiritual is?
Ezekiel, connect dem dry bones,
Ezekiel, connect dem dry bones,
Ezekiel, connect dem dry bones,
I hear de word of d'Lord.
God asks the prophet to speak both to the bones and to the breath, to the dead and to the force of life, to the body and to the spirit.
Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.... you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.... Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: ....Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
It's important for us to know, by the way, that all three words -- wind, breath and spirit -- are the same word in Hebrew. The breath of life is the spirit that gives purpose and meaning and direction. And it is the prophet that must get the dead, dry, rattling bones on their feet, and then put them together with the wind that reconnects them with the full dimension of life.
Can we, the church -- our church, our congregation -- identify with the prophet? I think we can. I think a congregation is a human entity uniquely equipped to prophesy, in the Old Testament sense. Because the Old Testament prophet was never a "nya, nya, toldya so" outsider. On the contrary, the prophet was of the people -- the people's sins were the prophet's sins; judgment was visited on the prophet, as it was visited on everyone else. The hope of forgiveness and restoration was the prophet's own hope. As a community of faith, we are uniquely positioned to make connections (Ezekiel, connect dem dry bones!) because we know, first and foremost -- it is the ground of our faith -- that we are redeemed sinners. We know the depth of human weakness, and the power God's forgiveness. And so we are called upon to connect the dead with the resources and the possibilities that restore life.
Our long Gospel text for this morning is from the 11th chapter of John, and I edited it deliberately for length, for the purpose of hearing it from the lectern. But if you go back and read the whole section, John 11:1-53, you'll discover that there really are two stories going on here: one is the more familiar and beloved one of the raising of Lazarus, from the dead. It's a powerful miracle story, of Jesus bringing back from the grave a dearly beloved friend. That's the majority of what we heard this morning. But what we didn't hear so much about because of the editing, is that the miracle is performed in the setting of Jesus moving toward Jerusalem, where his enemies await him, and where he will be arrested and executed. This is what happens on the way to Palm Sunday... and we know what happens afterward. Going to Lazarus means Jesus is going toward his own death, and threatening his enemies with a sign of his power, thus sealing his own fate. The way the two stories are intertwined, you discover, one can't be told without the other.
Our story of faith can't be told without both sides either. Our faith witness is a testimony that acknowledges that our lives are filled with deadly forces that can maim and kill us, physically and spiritually. In this place, in this time, do we name the powers of death? And do we proclaim, by our existence as a community of believers, that that death is not triumphant?
You know what the last verse is? It's the best:
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around!
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around!
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around!
I hear de word of d'Lord!
Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal.... Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.
OK, we've looked at ourselves as the bones; we've looked at ourselves as the prophet. Can we identify ourselves as the breath? What is our life-giving, hope-extending witness to this very community around us? Can the emotionally bruised and physically exhausted and spiritually dry walk through these doors and know that this is home? Can we summon the breath of life into the dry bones of hunger, and homelessness, and fear, and addiction, and prejudice and estrangement? ... breathe upon these slain, that they may live? WHOOSH!
Wind, breath, spirit -- all the same word in Hebrew, all life forces. Lazarus' grieving sister, Martha acknowledges Jesus as ...the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. And Jesus' restoring of life to Martha's dead brother is a living sign of what Martha has acknowledged in words -- that God's presence is not for some distant time, some end of time, some apocalypse. It is now. God is here. That sign leads to Jesus' arrest and death, in the way John tells the story. And that death is not the end. God's presence cannot be killed.
So... What does the noise, the rattling, and the bone coming to bone sound like here at First Congregational Church? (And that can be a disconcerting sound sometimes, but its the sound of life happening!) Who have been the Ezekiels in our life‹those who have been bold enough to prophesy life and promise in the midst of graves of death? Who are the saints of the church who have been voices of resurrection power among the bones of death? When resurrection comes, is it possible for a whole people a whole church, a whole congregation adults, children in Sunday School, Women's Fellowship, Christmas, Easter and every week, Confirmation Class, Trustees -- to rise up and put on life? What will it take?
A new time and new circumstances for an historic church is not the end. God is here. God's presence cannot be killed. Our dry bones live. Our living word can connect our past with our future, and our bodies with our spirits. Our breath/wind/spirit can restore life: Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around!
Amen.
