June 4, 2006 (Jimmie Johnson)

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: 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.” 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. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Psalm 104:24-34

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works--who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs--in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

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The fact there are so many different points of view regarding life, including religion and the Christian faith, is simply undeniable.
But this reality does not always make us happy, does it? Sometimes the incredible variety of agreements and disagreements makes us feel hopeless.

    Hopeless that we of the Presbyterian denomination won’t break apart     over homosexuality, reproductive choice or the uniqueness of Christ           among world religions.

    Hopeless that our elected officials can work together for the good of      our nation.

    Hopeless that a marriage or family can remain together due to severe differences.

And, in all honesty, I am as guilty as anyone in being frustrated by this variety, and guilty as well, at trying to convert people to my point of view. In other words, I struggle with the whole notion of unity without uniformity.

How can we practice tolerance, yet have our convictions? It is a lot harder to do than we might think. Liberals, conservatives and centrists struggle with how to be many, and yet one. Must we always have our own way, our point of view understood as the only godly way?

The Jewish story of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament is about the human family being confused with one another and unable to communicate and stay together.

Remember the story of how with arrogant pride human beings decided to build a tower all the way to God so they could claim to see God’s glory and know all that God knows?

We build our own Towers of Babel, don’t we? We do all we can to see that our point of view prevails and wins. Yet such towers of pride and control never work!

But that doesn’t stop us from trying to build another and another. Perhaps it is nothing more than our human fear of not being in control.
In contrast to this story of our being scattered by our differences and confused by our disagreements, the story in the book of Acts tells us the work of the Spirit of God is to create unity without requiring uniformity.
The unity is the gift of God’s Spirit that grants togetherness among people who share very little in common except the breath of God within them.
All these Jews from around the world gathered for the Jewish festival of Pentecost, which had originated as an agricultural celebration. By the time of Jesus, Pentecost had become a celebration of the giving of the law by Moses.

So here they are speaking so many different languages and representing so many different cultures experiencing the Breath of God so that in their new identity as Jesus followers---they miraculously understand one another and are made one people in Christ without having to be one people in language, customs or religious rules and laws.

Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones is an excellent partner story to the Church’s story of Pentecost and how the Breath of God can create new life and new relationship forms.

The Jewish people are in exile. The fearsome Babylonians have deported and scattered them. They have no hope. Everything is horrible.
Ezekiel and his fellow exiles are at a zero point. All is gone. Everything adds up to zero. They are as good as dead and without hope.

Being in exile from their homeland is like being in Death Valley, only it is filled with dry bleached out bones.

Each of us knows something of this experience. Even those who seemingly come from God hot-wired toward optimism experience a sense sometimes that life is adding up to zero. We can feel this way about our own life, our family, our marriage, our nation. We can feel this way about the whole world.

I got home the other day just in time to hear a world class infectious disease specialist declare with no doubt at all that a pandemic will strike the world soon. Egads! Thanks, Oprah, you made my day! A feeling that there is no real hope for any of us.

So, can the impossible happen? This is our great spiritual question.
Can the impossible happen?

   Can a relationship which seems so doomed and hopeless spring to life?
   Can a life ruined by destructive decisions breathe new possibilities again?
   Can life survive all that looms on the horizon to threaten it?
   Must meanness and cowardice and oppression always carry the day?
   Is there anyway we human beings can come together and stay together?
   Can impossible hope come to life?

Over and over the insistence of the Jewish/Christian tradition is a resounding “Yes.” An unflinching “Yes” in the face of all zero hope realities.

Yes, dead corpses can get up, receive God’s spirit and return home. Home to faith again. Home to love again. Home to hope again. Home from exile. Home to togetherness when we have been separated for so long that we forgot what it feels like to belong to one another.

Every now and then, we do get to see the impossible happen. We say, “I can’t believe my eyes.”

By looking at life through God’s eyes, we glimpse unimagined reasons to keep on hoping, though the desert be dry and dark, and the promised land far, far away.

This is the urging of Ezekiel.

The poet Amos Wilder has a poem too long to cite, but there are three lines that translate this hope of Ezekiel wonderfully.

      “Accept no mitigation,
            But be instructed at the null point.
                 The zero breeds new algebras.”(A)

At the point of hopelessness, look for new life being birthed! With God, zero becomes unanticipated algebras. This is the essence of our faith in God. After all, our belief is that God created out of nothing. Some of God’s best work begins with barrenness, including the zero point of your life or your greatest regret or concern this morning.

Ezekiel declares dead, dry bones can live. Easter proclaims the cross, the starkest zero for us Christians, becomes the instrument of hope, of life beyond death, of salvation.

Ezekiel’s vision, the Easter news, the story of the gift of God’s Spirit at Pentecost—all are unifying visions of one grand story:

   The love of God will not end in zero.

   The love of God will not end in death or in hopelessness,
   The love of God will not end in human brokenness and human hatred        or war.
   The love of God will not settle for zero.

And that my friends, is what got us out of bed this morning and brought us to this gathering of the people of hope. The gathering of the people who believe we cannot keep God’s love dead and buried.

Does this assembly believe that zero breeds new algebras, new possibilities because of human ingenuity or skill or deservedness? No.
We know something in God resists zero as the sum of life. God breathes the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Hope into all zeros.

One of the best signs of Pentecost’s hope for me is you, the congregation. Here at old First Pres, we all speak English, but we also all speak different languages of a sort.

   Some of us speak “Republican” and some of us speak “Democrat.”
   Some of us speak “liberal Bible interpretation and theology.” Some of      us speak “a conservative Bible interpretation and theology.”
   Some of us speak for our country’s involvement in Iraq, and some of       us don’t.
   Some of us speak the language of “pro-choice” and others “pro-life.”
   Some of us speak the language of “inclusion of gays,” and some don’t.

And on and on our differences go!

This congregation speaks so many languages---you might say.
We see things differently, we do things differently, we experience things differently and we disagree among ourselves theologically and politically. Yet, here we are! Miraculously together in the worship of God by God’s generous Holy Spirit of togetherness.

We ar seated around a table to share the one thing we have in common, which is more powerful than our disagreements: the grace of God, the Breath of Hope.

It is the way God means for us to be. (B)

That’s the kind of Pentecostal experience we seek here at old First Pres!

(A) Grace Confounding: Poems. 1972. pp. 26-27.
(B) This and a few previous paragraphs were inspired by a sermon preached by K. C. Ptomey, Jr., in 2004 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tenn.