When Dry Bones Come To Life

I’m going to divert a little from my usual format of focusing on the readings of the day and instead spend a little time on yesterday’s readings. I do this for two reasons. One, the readings from the Pentecost Vigil mass are just dynamite! They are the kinds of texts that one might keep going back to again for renewed inspiration. And, two, I think that they offer us something very important in this historical moment where we find ourselves.

In case you weren’t aware, yesterday celebrated what is known as Pentecost Sunday, and it is a major feast in the church calendar. It occurs 50 days after Easter and celebrates the Spirit’s coming to the disciples in a new way. This burst of the Spirit led the followers of Jesus to go into the world in new and bold ways (as are chronicled in the Acts of the Apostles) that the world took notice of.

Pentecost Sunday is also celebrated as the feast of the birth of Spiritus Christi Church, and so it is only fitting that we pause here and celebrate this amazing community that was birthed by the Spirit that now carries its name.

Acts 2 describes what happened at Pentecost in this way, “And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…”

The Pentecost event marks a transition from a focus on Jesus (in the gospels) to how the followers took up his work and witness in the world. Following Pentecost, the disciples were able to speak different languages, take fearless action, confront authority that they once hid from, start community feeding programs, practice collective economics, etc. It was truly amazing what was unleashed!

As part of the readings of the Pentecost Sunday Vigil, we hear from the prophet Ezekiel (chapter 37) who also received a visitation/vision from the Spirit about 600 years earlier. Ezekiel says, “The hand of the God came upon me, and God led me out…and set me in the center of the plain, which was now filled with bones. God made me walk among the bones in every direction…How dry they were! God asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? I answered, “Lord GOD, you alone know that.” Then he said to me: Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!”

In our time, we seem surrounded by dry bones everywhere. When the bible speaks of dryness, they’re tallking about a state of spiritual separation and fragmentation. The land reflects it but so does the human soul. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century mystic and Benedictine abbess, considered “dryness” as a state of spiritual death and emptiness. She said that it emerged from what can be translated as “God forgetfulness” or a lack of meaningful connection both to the land beneath our feet and to the divine energy all around us. Hildegard actually emphasized the necessity of staying (in her words) “wet and green and moist and juicy.”

But back to our story…

Ezekiel does as he is told and, lo and behold, the bones begin to come to life before his very eyes! But the bones that are coming together say to Ezekiel, “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off.” So God empowers Ezekiel to say to these bones, “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them…I will put my spirit in you that you may live…”

The “warm, moist, salty God” (a book title from Edwina Gateley) brings life back to the dry bones. It makes them human again. It reconnects them to each other and to the land.

Let’s just pause there for a minute. I’d ask you to reflect on what stands out for you in this reading and what this might mean for our current moment (I’ll tell you what I think in a moment).

As if this reading is not dynamite enough, the lectionary includes a section from Romans 8 where Paul says that, “we know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves..also groan…the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit…intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

What does this passage bring up for you?

I’ll try to summarize why I think these are such good readings for our present moment – starting from the last to the first!

So here we find ourselves – groaning for the predicament that we find ourselves in (nationally and globally). Creation itself is groaning under the weight of the systems that we’ve created. It is unsustainable, and deep within us we know this. We know that collapse is coming. Fragmentation is everywhere, and the land is literally parched (as we are on track, yet again this year, for the “hottest year on record”).

It’s hard to know what to do. It’s hard to know where to turn. We may not even know what to pray for.

But the Spirit comes to our aid – offering us prayers that we do not even know how to say – ancient prayers that are given to us. Prayers that will raise the dead bones all around us. Prayers that will give hope where it has been lost. Prayers that will enable us to rise from our graves. Prayers that will enable us to live.

And with these prayers, our hearts will be set on fire to go into the world and unleash a new energy that people will notice.

What a vision!

Of course, it comes with some fine print…One caveat is, “Some assembly required.” Another is, “Results may vary.”

This past week, the amazing biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann passed away at the age of 92. Brueggemann’s scholarship has influenced generations of theologians and pastoral folks – especially in radical discipleship traditions. And his work pulled no punches.

A few years back he said, “Complete, unwavering discipleship to Jesus is costly, eventually leading to a risky contradiction with dominant culture. Most of us, surely, are not much inclined to that costliness that seems nothing short of heroic. Most of us will settle for a lesser discipleship. Even that lesser discipleship, however, inconveniences….The path of inconvenience just might be a first sip of the cup of discipleship that we may drink as participants in the new regime. It is clear, is it not, that the gods of convenience do not care for mercy, justice, righteousness, or neighborliness, that is, do not care for the realities of covenantal life. Inconvenience is not radical discipleship, and it must not be confused with that. It might, however, be a way whereby we become a bit more “woke” about our life of faith.”

In order for the vision we read of today to come to fruition, we will need to be inconvenienced. We will need discipline and fortitude to stay the course. We will need courage to publicly resist so many of the current policies that “do not care for mercy, justice, righteousness or neighborliness…” We will need to open our hearts and minds to the Spirit so that we can learn and unlearn. We will need to slow down and pay attention – to our hearts, to our emotions, to one another, to the created world, to one another – in ways that we have not been trained to do.

If we have not been trained, then how can we learn?

What I love in these readings is that the Spirit will come to our aid in this process – if we invite them (I have actually tried to start using the pronoun they/them for the Spirit, in part, because of the nature of the Spirit and to normalize the use of a plural pronoun for the divine). The Spirit will help us do what we, by ourselves, are not able to do.

So this week, I invite you to take some extra time in prayer and silence – indoors and outdoors (if you are able). Pray for guidance. Pray for wisdom. Invite the Spirit to settle upon you and help you to discern what is yours to do this week.

And help the dry bones come to life again.

Note: This week I received a link from my friend Kit Miller related to an hour-long video on what we need to do in this moment to resist authoritarianism. It offers 10 nonviolent things we can do to meet this moment. It is a great, practical video that I highly recommend we watch, circulate and discuss.