In
1990, I was an associate pastor in Plainfield. A group from that congregation
went to a pre-conference briefing at Zionsville United Methodist Church. Larry Rudy, a member of the congregation, led
the opening portion of the meeting. Part
of it was a reflection on Ezekiel 37:1-14, the well-known vision of a valley of
dry bones. There was time for reflection,
private, small group, and the whole group.
During the whole group discussion, there were several comments about how
the valley of dry bones is a time of judgment.
Thus, one is in this valley because one has sinned, and God is
judging. From the viewpoint of exegesis,
this interpretation is correct. In the view of the Old Testament, the exile of
the Jewish people from their homeland was the result of their disobedience to
God. They broke covenant, and the response from God was one of judgment. One pastor,
obviously frustrated with the United Methodist Church, said that he believed
that is where our denomination as a whole is right now. I imagine that today, even more people might
make that statement. That is the context in which I have often heard this text
used. It is a word of judgment to those
who have disobeyed God.
The
Pew Research Center released a study in which the number of people who
self-identify as Christian declined by 7% from 2007-2014. The number of those
who self-identify as none increased by the same percent to 23%. Those who
self-identify as Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant have declined by the
same percent. Those who self-identify as evangelical have increased by one
percent. In fact, some people will suggest that half of those who identify as
Christian will self-identify as evangelical. Over the past decade the emergent
church movement provided some hope for some of us (yes, I include myself in
this) that the trend would change. Some people looked upon this movement as the
next great awakening. However, Elizabeth
Drescher says the awakening has simply not happened. What are we to think?
It
may be that people who were nominally Christian no longer feel the need to
self-identify as Christian any longer. What used to be socially unacceptable
has become acceptable. This may not be a bad thing. In addition, those who
self-identify as Christian may increasingly be relatively serious in their
discipleship. They may really want to identify, not so much with a denomination
(many evangelicals are not in traditionally evangelical denominations, for
example), but with Jesus.
At
the meeting mentioned above, one woman raised her hand and said, "I
believe this text reminds us that God takes us where we are." For me, it turned the whole atmosphere
around. The text was no longer simply a
word of judgment. It became a word of
hope. Exile, regardless of the reason,
does not mean God has forgotten or abandoned. The vision of Ezekiel reminds us
that the Spirit of God is a life-giving Spirit, and is in fact the source of
life.
God took the dust at creation
and gave it life it never had before. In this vision, God gave bones that once
had life the opportunity for new life. That is redemption, God redeeming the
people of God, restoring to them the life-giving Spirit.
I found Bishop Hodapp's sermon at Annual Conference 1990 very
challenging. He spoke on Ezekiel
47. In that text, Ezekiel records another
vision. This time, a river flows from
the altar in the Temple outward to the desert.
That river gives life to all it touches.
The Bishop then said that is what the church can be. The church can be a faithful conduit of the
life-giving Spirit, so that as we go forth to a world very broken and dry, we
can offer life and bring that life to others.
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