Can these Bones Live?

It is 5:30 a.m. The dog is sleeping at my feet. The 8 year old is snoring away in my bed. My husband is working on the front lines advocating for the homeless in Toronto. I am scared for him, and I am frightened for our family if something happens to him. It is Sunday Morning and I am sitting in a familiar place and doing something that I have done countless times in the wee, small hours of Sunday morning: reading my Bible, typing on my computer, and racking my brain for something timely and compelling to say.

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.

This passage from Ezekial jumps off the page this morning. The image emblazoned on my mind comes from Italy where a priest is shown praying over row after row of wooden coffins. This pandemic is like a thousand terrorists attacks happening all at once in slow motion. If I had to preach this text this morning, I do not know what I would say. On the face of it this is a perfect text for this morning: a text of hope in the valley of death. Is there a promise here for us this morning?

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones...”

I still remember the first time I preached. I didn’t call it that at the time. I didn’t think women should be Preachers. I signed up to give the Bible Break at my dorm one evening. My hands sweated, I shook, I packed way too much into the allotment of 10 minutes, but when it was done something was clear to me, I had a gift. It took me a long time to discover a way to practice that gift. This morning I wake up early, but I am not the preacher and I wonder if I will ever preach again.

He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”

God asks: Can these bones live? What I would say in response to this query is: how should I know? Resurrection is your work, God.I cannot effect it. Ours is the life of a seed planted in the ground, the moth in the cocoon, the cherry fallen and rotting on the ground. 

Even Jesus did not raise himself. 

With apologies to Wendell Berry resurrection is not something we can practice. Indeed, even the examples that Berry gives are all examples of practicing the art of expecting resurrection....”Listen to carrion – put your ear/close, and hear the faint chattering/of the songs that are to come./ Expect the end of the world.”

Isn’t it the case that what Berry calls practicing resurrection is really learning how to die and to die well? --To die with hope still in place

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 

These are ancient words. Words given to the people of Israel at a particular time and place. Can it also be a words for me, you, the world? Are these words strong enough to hold up against the rows of coffins? My dark night? The exponentially growing curve? Are we kidding ourselves? I don’t know how to answer that question, but when I read:

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you... and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

My soul feels like an ember that has been blown upon. I feel and sense the Spirit moving off the page. So many translators, two and a half millennia, and yet these words come to me and they are for me.

Outside a rain storm has begun;my coffee grows cold in my cup. I think I will sneak back to bed and listen to Sam’s little boy snores. I will try to go back to sleep, I will try to rest in the knowledge that if God wills that these bones shall live that they will live. 

May we all come to feel the presence of the resurrecting God hovering over our valley of dry bones. Amen.