Make the Dry Bones Dance

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley;[a] it was full of bones. 2 And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath[b] to enter you, and you shall live. 6 And I will lay sinews upon 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.”

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling,[c] and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

11 Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

                                                                                                                            --Ezekiel 37:1-14

This text seemed more than a little appropriate following a meeting of folks interested in developing new ways of being the church. The inescapable truth of being a Presbyterian at the moment is that we are an embodiment of the dry bones. Our way of being church is no longer relevant or meaningful to the vast majority of our neighbors. The Pew Foundation research has made that clear. We are in dire need of the hovering Spirit, breathing new life into us. 

The issue for us is finding the source of the new life that can come to our dry bones. A further issue is what that new life will look like. We cannot simply practice church as church has been, but we have no clear sense of what the next church will look like, even with programs such as Next Church appearing within our denomination. Walter Brueggemann seems dead on when he interprets the times as indication that what is church is passing away, and what will replace it is yet to be determined. He goes on to note that every human institution is finite. Nothing we create is eternal no matter how great our self-aggrandizement to the contrary is. But this terrifies us. Self-preservation becomes a natural response. We don’t want to lose our jobs, our place, our work, or our presence. Out of fear, we also face a constant tendency to retreat into “the mighty fortress,” trying to stave off the inevitable, defensively reacting to questioning, skepticism, and outright challenge from the world to what and how we speak and do. We respond with rigid definitions of what is to be a follower of Christ, replacing his own open welcome and love with moralism and legalism. If new life is to come, then we need to be open enough to receive it—a blocked airway prevents resuscitation!

Yet, the proclamation of this text is that God never ceases the work of creation. God wills life for all that God creates. God never gives up on the human children God brings into being.

This point is strong hope for us dry bones. Their very dryness in no way thwarts God’s ability to bring life to them. That was Ezekiel’s conclusion. Dry bones are not simply dead; they’ve been dead for a long time. They are the bleached white remains of what once lived, stony in their lifelessness. Yet if God wills them to live, live they will. 

What our faith calls us to do is to trust that power of God. We can hope in God breathing life into us as we center our being on Christ and Christ’s way within the world. That means really delving deeply into the vision of Christ in the Gospels, seeing what is actually there, not simply parroting what others tell us is there. We come to see the radical welcome of Jesus. We come to see his compassionate walk with anyone before him. We come to see the transformation Christ works within those around him through his embodiment of grace. In other words, what faith compels us to do is not simply develop doctrine, but to live what we believe.

As we engage in such a life of discipleship, the field becomes wide open as to what communities of faith can be. Each context—i.e., neighborhood—is different, with its own story, own outlook, and own sense of meaning. As we walk within and with our neighbors, we learn what a communion of grace needs to be. We learn what structure and form will best suit that context. Instead of imposing a predetermined model onto what is met, we allow the Spirit to form and shape that structure as it comes as we walk with one another, where we are, and as we are.

These dry bones can live! They will live as we open fully to the presence of God, challenging us and calling us to whatever is next. We can make these dry bones dance if we align ourselves with infinite imagination of God's creative Spirit.