Lent: Ezekiel 37 Valley of the Dry Bones

Meditation: 

          About nine years ago, I attended a three day training provided by Presbyterian Disaster assistance, to be trained in disaster response.  Many of us remember Hurricane Irene followed a year later by Super Storm Sandy.  Many of our communities and churches were damaged and or impacted by these storms.  Disasters come in many shapes and sizes.  We often think of them as natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and forest fires.  Throughout the training, it was emphasized, the best way to deal with a natural disaster is to be prepared.  Make sure you have what you need prior to the disaster hitting and make sure you have your own family plan.  Another thing that was emphasized is that there are various stages to disasters – the first is preparedness, the second is impact, and the third is immediate response and the next is long term recovery.  As I looked over some other resources, mitigation is also listed, which is the attempt to reduce the severity or seriousness of the disaster. 

          What is connecting with me is that we are, obviously, in the midst of a disaster, but this is, for most of us, a different.  It is different because this disaster is not like a hurricane that has a short period of time for impact.  When we prepare for a hurricane, we know we need to hunker down for a day or two, but once the storm passes, we can go outside and assess the damage and begin recover.  Our natural inclination is to move into recovery.  The goodness in human nature, in human hearts, in our souls, calls us to respond, to help, to get life back to normal. 

          So what happens when we are in a long term disaster?  What I am seeing is the phases of disaster or blurring.  In the midst of the impact, we are also trying to mitigate what could be an even worse disaster.  People are needing to prepare, and stay prepared, and replenish those resources as they are consumed.  And as people are getting better, there is a recovery phase still mixed in with the midst of chaos.  The thing that we cannot do, that we must wait on, is trying to return life back to normal. 

          So, what does that mean for us?  From a resource provided by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance – “Disaster disrupts people’s spiritual lives significantly.”   Our Lenten series as been on Spiritual Disciplines and we have been discussing what it means to be spiritual but not religious.  Spirituality connects us to life.  Spirituality is about community, it is about having a mission, it involves our well-being and joy.  All of this is being impacted right now. 

          In a normal form of disaster, it is important for people to gather together in community and share their stories.  This has been so hard as a people of faith, that we cannot gather together in the physical presence of each other.  But we can still gather.  At this time, more than ever, we need to use technology to stay connected.  Call each other.  There is an overwhelming sense of fear and that can impact our sense of mission and purpose, it can impact our well-being and joy.  The anxiety of this current disaster is impacting people’s ability to sleep.  All of this disrupts who we are as a spiritual being.  So, in the midst of this disaster, we must stay attuned to our spiritual well being. 

          Which brings us to the passage today in Ezekiel.  The people in the day and age of Ezekiel have been through a horrendous disaster.  The Babylonians have come in and ravaged their land, they have taken people into exile and to add insult to injury they have destroyed the city of Jerusalem including the Temple of God.  As exiles being forced to live in a foreign land, the Israelites underwent a deep spiritual loss.  Disasters disrupts people’s spiritual lives significantly.  They have lost their land, they have lost their holy place of worship, they have lost their culture, they are cut off from everything including their God.  There is a deep sense of Hopelessness for the Hebrew people in exile. 

          This passage in Ezekiel is descriptive, you should be able to visualize the sense of despair.  One commentator compared it to the scene of the Elephant Graveyard in the Lion King, while another used an image of a battle field during war.  Ezekiel is having this vision, a vision of a valley filled with bones, a vision of death.  A vision of death with the voice of God asking- Can these bones live?  For you see, with God, death never has the last word; hopelessness, despair, should never have the last word.  And it is with words that God tells Ezekiel to speak, to prophecy to these bones, tell them the word of God.  Hear the word of the Lord.  And as Ezekiel speaks, I will cause breath^[a] to enter you, and you shall live. If we gathered with us last week, this should make a connection.  When God created Adam, when God took the dust of the ground and formed it into a person, God breathed life into Adam.  And now, once again, the breath of God will bring life into these dry bones.  This is a story of re-creation, or renewal, of rebirth, of restoration. 

          The word of God is able to overcome a deep sense of hopelessness and despair, to is bringing a message of purpose to the people, that their lives have meaning even in exile.  God’s word brings a sense of belonging, it is life giving, even in exile, the word of God can connect them to what they feel they have been cut off from.  The word of God breathes life into dry bones.  Bones can be seen as the soul, as the deepest part of the self.  Ezekiel is God’s messenger, Ezekiel becomes God’s presence to the people in the midst of this disaster.  God sends him to God’s people because our God is a God of love and compassion and life.  God sees the people’s pain, loss, and despair and does not just leave them in this disaster alone.  God understands that disasters disrupt our spiritual selves and Ezekiel brings that pastoral care that the people so desperately needed.  Life was brought back into those dry bones and a promise was given:  and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 

          I am finding so many connections to our current situation to that of Ezekiel.  In a much smaller sense, we too are exiles.  We have been exiled from our social gatherings, from our extended families, from our loved ones and we must learn how to navigate these times.  If anyone does sense hopelessness or deep spiritual dryness, please reach out.  Being isolated is not normal, so we may have new feelings and struggles and thoughts of despair and perhaps a feeling of helplessness.  We want to be in the recovery stage where we can help.  And that is going to be trying on us.  Our natural tendencies may be limited right now.  Our deep sense of meaning and purpose might have limitations right now and that is what makes this current disaster different from others.  Riding out this storm is going to take time but there will be work to do when it is over.  And we will be able to leave our exile and return back to our communities and be reunited in person once again.  And in the meantime, God is with us.  God is breathing life into us. 

Lenten Worship service: March 29

Lent: The Blind Man

Genesis 2:4-8

John 9:1-11

Meditation: 

We start the season of Lent with ashes, ashes of last year’s palms, ashes of the past, ashes of things that have died, and we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  But over the past few years, when I mark the sign of the cross in ashes in other’s foreheads, I cannot say those words: to dust we shall return, instead, I use the words:  the old is gone, in Christ we are a new Creation. Lent is a spiritual spring, is a time of renewal, it is a time to name the old that we seek to shed and live into the promise  that in Christ we are a new creation.  Last week, we had the woman at the well, and in Christ, she became a new creation.  Today, we have a blind man and with his encounter with Jesus he too will encounter a new season in his own life. 

Words from Ash Wednesday involve:  Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth.   Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  These words take us all the way back to the story of creation, the story of God creating Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden.  God creates, then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,^[b] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. The name Adam comes from the Hebrew word Adamah which means dirt, ground, red clay. 

          The other day, as we were doing our school distance learning, my younger one read about an animal called a Pika.  She immediately decided she was madly in love with this little creature and wanted to make one of her own.  So what did we do?  We pulled out the clay and created a very unique little Pika.  Just as God creates out of the dust, we too create, and clay is just one medium for us to express our creative outlet.  This story, creating out of dust, creating out of clay, is one that the potter can relate to.  Throughout the world, people use the dust of the ground, the dirt, the natural clay, and make useful items out of it. 

          When we take the time to stop, to think about our connection to God and our connection to creation, we need to be reminded from time to time that we are the soil, we are the air, we are what we eat, which depends on the nutrients in the ground, the sun, and the rain. 

          So, not only does God create Adam out of the dust of the ground, God then breathes life into him.  God does not just create Adam and place him in the garden, there is this intimate connection – God’s breath into Adam creating life.  One of my college roommates would always say:  Breathe in the good, breathe out the bad.  I think this is a good mediation in the stress we are living in today.  A form of meditation to help us deal with anxiety.  But we should also remember that as we breathe in the good, we are breathing in the breath of God. 

          Dirt and breath bring life at the crack of creation, and Jesus parallels this very act of creation in his encounter with the blind man.  As Jesus and his disciples encounter this man, born blind since birth, the disciples ask Jesus a theological question – who sinned, this man or his parents.  They lived in a day and age where they connected everything to God.  If someone was born blind, deaf, or lame, it was connected to some sort of divine punishment.  But instead of divine punishment, Jesus is telling them that this man’s blindness is now going to be used for God’s glory.  Jesus takes what is currently seen as a negative from God and is teaching that it is actually a positive.  This man was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him. 

          Yesterday, George to the Rescue was on the TV and I was only partly listening.  But he was doing a room remodel for a young woman that was blind.  Apparently, there is also a youtube personality that is a young blind woman.  Blindness can create many stresses in a person’s life including depression.  The one woman, through her youtube channel had brought hope and renewal to the life of the other person.  It renewed her desire to focus on her passion which is swimming and her goal of participating in one of the upcoming Olympic games.  There was no mention of God in this story, at least none that I heard, but in the sharing of hope, in the sharing of life still has meaning despite being blind, in the encouragement of engaging in one’s passions, the Kingdom of God was at work.  God’s work was being revealed through them. 

          So, as Jesus approaches this man, he continues to teach his disciples and tells them:  I am the light of the world.  Last week, Jesus described himself as the Living water.  Water, light, two essential things that life needs to grow.  And then he spits on the ground and mixes it with the dirt, the dust, and creates mud.  Sound familiar?  The Light of the world takes the dust of the ground, infuses it with his salvia, and places it on the blind man’s eyes.  Could we be, just for this moment in time, back in the garden of Eden?  Then he tells the man to go and wash.  But Jesus does not seem to stick around for the conversation that entails afterwards.  When Jesus heals, sometimes we hear him say, your faith has made you well.  But not here.  There are no more words from Jesus to this man – just go and wash in the pool.  In a sense, Jesus passes the baton onto this man to tell the story.  And he will be questioned over and over again.  Miracles are hard to accept, even when they are right in front of you. 

          The religious authorities are having a fit.  They want to know how Jesus opened his eyes.  The very people that are suppose to be the most connected to God, that know the scripture inside and out, cannot connect the story of creation to this man’s healing.  We get ourselves into our own rigid set of beliefs and understandings that we can actually prevent ourselves from seeing God at work.  I like to open to the mystery of God.  Instead of trying to make sense of it all, I like to think that God can do new things, that the creation story is not a thing of the past but an on-going story.  For the blind man, in Christ, he became a new creation, the old was gone and he had been made new. 

We may not ever experience such an easy to define miracle of the blind man, but in Christ, in the ways God works in our lives and transforms us, we are living miracles and just like Jesus proclaimed the glory of God was to be shown through the healing of the blind man, our lives too should proclaim the glory of God through our own stories, our own healings whatever they may be, our own understanding of how, in Christ, we are a new creation.  Amen. 

Lenten Series: Prayer

March 15, 2020 - 3rd Sunday of Lent

Good morning and welcome to our first on-line worship service.  As we gather at this time, we remember that we are still community, whether we can be together in person, or if we are together in spirit.  Congregations all across the country are experimenting with this form of worship today because we believe we should gather and worship and take time to quiet ourselves and redirect our anxieties, stresses, concerns back towards our loving God.  So, this is the time to breathe and be assured that even though times feel anxious, the sacred is still around us and is still with us and we are still called to be the body of Christ in this time.  Welcome, welcome to this sacred time. 

Today’s scripture is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well: 

Two weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Lent, we had the story of Jesus in the Wilderness.  The wilderness  is often thought of as a harsh environment, dry, hot, depending on where you are.  When I think of this wilderness scene, I definitely envision a desert type of environment.   As Jesus fasts for these forty days, he must have had some sort of water source, I can’t imagine forty days without food, but just the thought of even one day without water makes my mouth feel dry.  I am sure we all know the feeling of being thirsty and fortunately, for the most part, we have easy access to water. 

Fourteen years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Kenya with the Presbytery Nairobi Partnership team.  During that time, we made sure we stayed hydrated but when I got home, I had a headache that would not go away.  After going to the doctor, I learned that I was dehydrated.  Even though I had been drinking what I thought was enough water, it was not.  So, we added some electrolytes into my system and I immediately began to feel better. 

So, here we have this transition, of Jesus being in the wilderness to a story of him, passing through Samaria, and encountering a woman at the well in the middle of the day.  This is one of those passages that has so many angels in which to tackle.  Jesus should not be in Samaria.  Jesus should not be speaking to a woman.  And this woman should not be at the well at mid day.  So, all these things that should not be happening – are happening. 

Jesus starts the conversation by asking for a drink of water.  He asks her to offer him hospitality.  As the conversation unfolds, and the breaking of social customs is named, Jesus uses the opportunity to teach her about who he is.  He uses the metaphor of water and connects it to himself.  Jesus, from the dryness of the wilderness, is describing himself as the living water. 

The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

This past Thursday evening at the Lenten dinner, we have been talking about what it means to be spiritually hungry.  Here is a woman, that is spiritually thirsty.  In a simple conversation of a man who sees her as a person, that has not labeled her as a Samaritan or a unclean woman or an outcaste, in the simple act of receiving water from her, Jesus changes her life.  She is so alone and this stranger saw her as something more than anyone else around has ever seen her.  And now she understands her thirst.  She is thirsty, thirsty to be seen, thirsty to be in a community that will accept her, thirsty to understand her purpose and worth, thirsty to know God.  And as all of this rises to the surface, in this one conversation, she runs from Jesus and goes back to the community that does not accept her and proclaims:   ²⁹ “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,^[e] can he?”

As we journey through this season of Lent, things are not unfolding the way I had planned for them to unfold.  But that is okay, the Holy Spirit is still with us and is still at work and is still guiding us.  We may feel for the next few weeks that we are in the wilderness.  The wilderness that I had wanted to use as the place where seeds and eggs are in the right environment to hatch or germinate.  And then, as the season of wilderness ends, and a new season begins, as the caterpillar hatches or the seed germinates, there is a hunger, and there is amazing growth.  When these caterpillars arrived on Monday, they were tiny.  In just one week, they have more then quadrupled in size.  The only way for them to grow like this is to eat.  This is the season to spiritually eat, or spiritually drink.  As the woman at the well breaks out of her shell, out of the bonds of the labels that have held her captive within her community, as her wilderness comes to an end, she thirsts.  She and the caterpillar are wired the same way.  Shed the egg, the shell, the hardness that holds us back, and drink in God’s love for us.   Chew on the word of God, find ways for your spiritual hunger to be fed.  We are called to growth, no matter what age we are, God has given us the living water.  If you thirst, if you hunger, that means the Holy Spirit is with you, is nudging you, is calling you into a new season of faith.  Just like the caterpillar cannot ever become an egg again, we too can only go forward.  And God provides the food and drink that we need to engage this season of life. 

In the wilderness of the next few weeks, stay hydrated.  We may not be able to meet together as a people in one place, but we can make phone calls to each other, we can email, send letters, pray, and spend time reading scripture and even engage in various spiritual practices.  I will do my best to send ideas out to you.  Amen.