Favorite Crime Shows

Crime related shows have been popular for a long time. Something about this type of show has long attracted me. A good one for me usually invites me to put on my detective hat and see if I can figure out who did it.  

Sherlock is a good one. We enjoyed Criminal Minds and Numb3rs. We have not watched NCIS and CSI very much, but I have received many recommendations to try them.

Currently in its twelfth and final season, Bones is a top-30 TV. Over the years, it has helped keep Fox Broadcasting in the ratings conversation, along with American Idol and the NFL.

Bones differentiates itself from the cop crowd with its intelligent emphasis on forensic anthropology and archaeology. Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan, as attractive as she is brilliant, teams with hunky FBI special agent Seeley Booth to turn skeletal remains into murder-scene narratives. Bones is a logical empiricist, meaning she thinks there is a rational answer to everything in life. That is her charm in the show, making her character a forensically brilliant, not particularly faith-friendly and a bit socially awkward. If someone makes any kind of pop-culture reference, she interrupts the conversational flow with her signature line, “I don’t know what that means.”

Although she might not have a clue about slang, metaphors or movie quotes, Bones gets bones. Missing metacarpals point out a crime of marital passion. Half a rib cage is evidence of a tiger attack. A burned skeleton logically reveals the motives of eco-terrorists. We are talking a crazy, weird understanding of bones. However, some bones might stump even Bones.

In case you were wondering: There are 206 bones in the human body. They fall into four general categories: long bones, short bones, flat bones and irregular bones.

Imagine this potential opening scene.

An expansive valley is knee-deep with bones. Loads of human skeletons are mixed with one another, all of them wind-blown and brittle. Bones stands amid the bones, confused. There is no obvious rational explanation. How did they get here? What caused these deaths? Suddenly, the bones begin to tremble around her. Rattling and jostling, they begin to merge. They take on natural, human connections to one another. Bone piles become skeletons. “I don’t know what that means,” Bones utters. 

Well, Dr. Brennan, most of us agree with you entirely. That scene is weird. Irrational. No natural explanation. Moreover, it is the vision God gives Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37:1-14. Explaining the meaning of this vision for Israel can inform a theological narrative for the Christian life, as well.

Valley of Dry Bones and Hope

            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.