Ezekiel 37:1–14, NRSV
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.”
God's Initiative, Our Response
I am preparing for ordination in the Presbyterian church. And there’s really a lot to learn. One of the things I love about this denomination is that we care so much about having educated clergy. We’re the only denomination that requires candidates for ordination to learn both Greek and Hebrew, plus we have five exams to pass: Bible Content (both Old and New Testaments), Exegesis (biblical interpretation), Theology (including all of the classic Reformed traditions and confessions), Worship and Sacraments, and Polity (the structure of Presbyterian government). So I’ve been sort of immersed in the nitty-gritty of what makes a Presbyterian a Presbyterian.
It’s been pretty good, it’s actually really interesting stuff for the most part. One of the things that my advisor keeps drilling into our heads is what he calls “God’s initiative, our response.” It’s the classic idea of the Reformation, salvation by grace alone—there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, that’s up to God. That’s one of the big issues they were fighting over; corruption in the church had gotten so bad that often people were told they could buy their way into heaven. It was very profitable for the church, but a lot of people weren’t so sure that God worked that way. So from that argument we get the Protestant idea that all grace, all salvation comes from God, and our “works” have nothing to do with being saved. This is a pretty fundamental issue in Presbyterian theology, as with many of the other denominations that came out of the Reformation.
But, at the same time, what does that mean for us today? How is a doctrine from the 16th century, written to address a very particular situation, going to help me get through life? It can be pretty difficult, especially in America, to give up that initiative in terms of our salvation. Our culture drills into our heads that we’re supposed to be independent, self-motivated, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps sort of individuals! The idea of giving that up and relying on the agency of God is completely foreign.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people who have not been served well at all by that ideology of the majority culture. When the cards are stacked against you, independence does not get you very far. It can be easy to look at God’s almighty power, and just say, oh, there’s nothing I can do. Only God can save me. Or, as a Presbyterian friend of mine always jokes, “All we can do is respond!”
I think both of these perspectives miss the mark a little bit. God has the initiative, yes, but we have the ability to respond to the grace of God. Think about that: we’re being asked to respond to the almighty, all-knowing, all-loving grace of God! That’s actually a really big deal. What response could we give that would match the grace we are freely given? I guess the answer to that is, of course, “nothing,” because there’s really nothing we could do that’s equally great, but we’re certainly being called to try. Yes, “all we can do is respond,” but at the same time it is our responsibility to respond, and we need to step up and take that seriously.
*****
In Ezekiel’s story, God takes him out into the valleys and shows him the death and destruction of his people. What was once the glory of the people of Israel is now a pile of bones, as far as the eye can see. The Israelites have been taken into exile in Babylon, their temple destroyed, their community torn apart, they are prisoners in a foreign land. Their spirits are broken. Their “bones are dried up,” their “hope is lost.”
So God shows these bones to Ezekiel. And while Ezekiel is looking at them, mourning, feeling how dry and lifeless they are, God says, “Ezekiel, what are you going to do about this? Can these bones live?” Then as most of us would do when God asks a direct question, he bows his head away and says, “Oh Lord, only you know that.” God says, I have a job for you, Ezekiel. I can save these bones, all these people, but I need your help. You are a prophet, I gave you the gift of speech, I need you to speak to these bones. I will build their flesh back up and breathe my spirit into them, but you need to speak the words. You will make it happen.
When Ezekiel speaks to the bones, then the miracle happens. Only when Ezekiel speaks the love of God, only then does God raise up the bones of a fallen people and breathe their life back into them. It is only when Ezekiel gets involved saving his own people, only then will God save them. God doesn’t say the word, Ezekiel says the word.
God is still behind the miracle, and God takes the initiative of prodding Ezekiel into action. Like anyone faced with the complete and total destruction of their land and of their people, he probably feels sort of helpless. What can one person possibly do? After all, only God can pull these dry bones back together and cover them with flesh; no person could ever think of doing that by themselves. It is only God who can bring these bones back to life.
And yet, even God, with all divine power, enlists Ezekiel’s help. Ezekiel must stand up and speak before his people will be saved. Ezekiel has an essential role to play in God’s plan. He must snap out of the paralysis and helplessness that the people felt when they’d been exiled—out of their holy land—into Babylon. God is asking Ezekiel to get up and do something. But remember, God is not asking Ezekiel to save the people himself. God is not asking Ezekiel to rebuild the temple with his bare hands. Ezekiel is a prophet, and so God asks Ezekiel to prophesy. Ezekiel was already doing what he does best, God just says to him, “Go, Ezekiel, go! Stand up, and speak!”
God still has the power here, God still takes the initiative. But it is Ezekiel’s response that is the missing piece of that equation. When Ezekiel steps up to take action, then God will come in and do what God does best—God brings life and hope where there was none before.
*****
This January, I had the privilege to travel to the Mississippi Delta region with the Poverty Initiative at Union Seminary. The poverty and destruction and racism we saw there was devastating—and it’s still there after all these years. In the town of Tutwiler, it was no different. This was a town with no resources, no investment, and no prospects beyond the casinos in Tunica fifty miles north. We finally found our way down a small dirt road (with some help from the folks in the town’s only gas station) to a big pink building behind an old industrial building: the Tutwiler Center.
Some years back, there was a Catholic nun from the Sisters of the Holy Names who was called by God to go to medical school. When she got her certification, she started looking for a community to serve. She wanted to work in a poor rural area that didn’t have much access to medical care—and you know, there are plenty of those around these days. She sent letters all over the country, but got only one response.
The women of Tutwiler got that letter, and talked it over, and decided to do something about the empty medical center which had been built in their town and then abandoned. They responded to Sister Anne’s letter. These women, who’d lived in the midst of Tutwiler’s poverty and hopelessness all their lives, stood up and said, “We want you here! We have a clinic building and everything!”
So the sisters came, and with their help the women of the town built a clinic that was more than any clinic I’ve ever seen—they offered medical care, which was a big deal, but they also saw that their children needed a place to go after school, and their adults needed GED classes and literacy classes—they saw that their town had never been given street signs, so they threw a party and everyone painted the street signs themselves.
And that was just the start. They had raised enough money for another building, the community center where we were sitting, to which they were adding on a new gymnasium. These women were the lifeblood of the center, staffing it in every way from learning to be a nurse’s aid to driving the van to pick folks up for their appointments; and they also drew on their rich cultural heritage and kept making quilts. They took the scraps they found and sewed them into beautiful, colorful quilts, which they sold at the Center and on the internet to make money for themselves and for their community.
These Catholic sisters got the ball rolling, and offered their training and education, but the miracle I saw in Tutwiler would never have happened without the people of the community standing up and making change happen for themselves, led by the gang of tough-as-nails old women I met that day. None of them could have accomplished all of that by themselves. But when the time came, the community of Tutwiler stood up together and took their future in their own hands. And the power they had when they got together and set their minds on something, that was just awe-inspiring.
*****
God’s initiative, our response. As a culture we focus a lot on initiative. That particular debate in the Reformation was all about “whose initiative?”. And we can affirm that God is the only one who really has initiative, but we cannot forget the other half of that formula. God’s initiative, our response. Our response is also essential.
We see in the Bible, over and over again, models of people who respond to God’s grace and love by standing up and taking action to make God’s kingdom a reality on earth. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, women and men from every social class are driven by that divine fire, driven to stand up out of their pew and go out into the world and respond. Respond to God’s love with our own love, to God’s mercy with our own mercy, respond to God’s greatest gift in Jesus Christ by giving of our very selves to what we know is right.
God’s grace is given freely, but it doesn’t stop there. So what’s next? Where is God calling us from here? To what response is God calling us? ... Amen.
