Mortal, can these dry bones live?
So the Lord God asks the prophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. [see Ezekiel 37:1-14 NRSV] The story continues:
I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then the Lord said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on 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.”
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then the Lord God said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as I had been commanded, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Note the nature of prophesy here. Often in contemporary English a prophesy is a prediction that something will happen in the future. But Ezekiel was doing something far more powerful than that. In speaking the words the Lord God prompted him to speak he restored life to a slain army.
We can all aspire to just that kind of prophesy. We are broken people, from broken families, living in a broken civilization, in a broken world. Species are dying out, languages are dying out, cultures are dying out. Wars are raging, refugees are fleeing, people are living on our streets.
Can our broken world live?
I take inspiration and hope from the indigenous peoples who are reviving their languages, from those who are restoring our watersheds, from those who are renewing the soil, from those who are taking in the displaced, from those seeking food and shelter for the hungry and homeless, from those engaged in personal and familial healing.
Join us this Sunday as we strive first to hear and then to speak the words that restore life.
Keep on growing,
Rev. Jonathan
Sunday Rhythm
3pm Work Together
4pm Worship
5pm Eat together grab and go style format
All Are Welcome
Come as you are, stay as you are able.