3/22, Rev. Sarah Smith, "Hope Amidst Desolation"

0:00Then you will know that I am the Lord and the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You may have a seat. This week I was able to attend a student production of a favorite of mine musical, Fiddler on the Ruth. It follows a family, particularly the father, Tevye, as he grapples with life and a changing world. The hardships keep coming. To begin with, he's poor. He lacks material power. Then his daughters make a decision that fly in the face of tradition, forcing him to reckon with the limits of his relational positional power.

1:00Finally, as discrimination threatens to become fatal in the fictional town of Anatevka, Tevye and his entire Jewish community, having no political power are forced to leave. And almost every sense Tevye wrestles with belonging. What is his role in the community, his trade and vocation? He has one. What is it when his horse isn't working? What's his role in his family? What is it when he's not honored as the papa? What is it in the world at large? We of course wrestle with the same questions. Do I belong in this job? Am I on the right career path? Am I with the right person? Have I made the right friends? Should I renew my lease? Am I in the right location or even the right city?

2:01What is Tevye's place? What is he to do as each moment unfolds? And how does this man who has received such profound messages of not belonging of alienation manage to have any softness, any humor at all? I'll tell you. Throughout the play, there are moments when time freezes. And Tevye prays. He talks to God. With a fair bit of cheek, he speaks to God in grief, in anger, in exasperation, in decision making. At one point, he famously says, dear God, I know we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can't you choose someone else?

3:06In the midst of rejection and alienation on multiple fronts, this character has one thing going for him. He is profoundly aware that he belongs to God. And our Old Testament passage, we may hear echoes of these experiences. Powerless bones. A man who is present to God. Yahweh affirming his promises, saying, my people, my people. The prophet Ezekiel ministered in the time of exile. Exile is a part of the human experience. We were created for life in a garden, a life in a world we've never known, we've never seen. In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve were exiled from that garden.

4:08They were loved by God. Because they failed to trust him, because they instead chose to try to become God, the garden was no longer a place for them. Similarly, as we enter into chapter 37, we are in the midst of a time of exile for the Israelites. The Israelites once in the Promised Land had failed as well, persistently, and despite warnings from prophets, they failed to love God and others as they were commanded. They become worse in their inhumanity than their surrounding nations. Now the Babylonian empire has conquered and scattered God's people. The priest and prophet Ezekiel among them. As we seek to understand who God is in the midst of exile, we'll consider our passage today under two perfectly lenten uplifting.

5:10First divine decilation and uttering the unutterable. and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord, and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, son of man, can these bones live? I said, sovereign Lord, you alone, no.

6:10The vision God gives Ezekiel. The one His hand leads him into is shocking. Ezekiel is in the midst of bones, full of bones. It has great many bones. There's repetition here. He is not eased into it. He has set in the middle of it, and God leads him back and forth, making sure that he really takes in this deeply disturbing landscape. And if we pull what we know from other parts of this passage, the scene painted here is of slain troops, conquered soldiers, that lost a battle. And then, in dishonor, we're left exposed to the elements, and to the wild animals, for quite some time. In Ezekiel's time when bodies were left like this, unburied,

7:10there was a sense that the people who died were forsaken. There is a word in our passage here for look or behold that isn't in our translation, but it comes before describing the very many bones, and that they were very dry. Look, very many. Look, they're dry. Ezekiel is called to see. And from whatever vantage point Ezekiel has in his tour around the valley, he looks upon a hopeless sight. We learn, later in the text that these bones represent Israel. This vast army is none other than the people of God. If we had read Ezekiel straight through, we would know that this is not some moment that caught God off guard.

8:12Rather, there is a part of this that is God's intention. In chapter five, the Lord gave these words to Ezekiel, behold, I, even I am against you. I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you, and in the sight of all who pass by, you shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and horror for the nations to the nations around you when I execute judgments on you. Woof! What can we make of this divine desolation? We may well join with Ezekiel in feeling unnerved. The people had assumed God's favor by inhabiting the land and used that as license to degrade and dishonor others in themselves.

9:17They considered themselves a bit untouchable because of God's covenants with Abraham and with David. Desolation as we experience it may not always be an outward loss and outward emptying an outward sense of abandonment. But desolation will always have some kind of inward felt experienced element of those things. Desolation can be painful and disorienting. St. Ignatius of Loyola, one of the founders of the Jesuits, is probably most well known for his spiritual exercises. In the 16th century, he wrote about a way of appraising, pending to the movements of God that continued to bear fruit for those who practice it today. He wrote rules, he wrote guides,

10:19for discerning within the soul, desolation, and consolation in turn. A fair number of the earlier rules around desolation and what to do in such spaces as they will come. Desolation is not a great place from which to make major changes. Ignatius counsels us. Don't ditch praying or meditating on Scripture. In fact, you probably need a little more in these seasons. Both the testimony of Scripture and the spiritual exercises agreeing on this though. Desolation was never meant to be the final word. If we forget that, it will be easy to see all desolation as unnecessary and cool. And forget that desolation

11:19can be the means by which God prepares His people for restoration. Desolation does, however, call on a particular kind of faith. In the midst of desolation, Yahweh has the gall to ask Ezekiel, can these bones live? He doesn't bring the prophet into this disturbing scene just to mess with him. He brings him with a purpose. Son of man, can these bones live? Ezekiel neither denies the reality of the bones nor the reality of God. Sovereign Lord, you alone, no. I think it's easy to see Ezekiel kind of like throwing up his hands at this, as he says it.

12:21And I think we have to give him way more credit than we do in this moment for not just saying, nope. That is a foregone conclusion. That'd be an easier answer. If someone made broth for you and then brought you the bones of the chicken and said, could these bones live? You might not laugh on the outside in their face. But on the inside, you know that is ridiculous. You wouldn't even consider the question to be serious. It's obvious. It's absurd. But as Ezekiel says to Yahweh, you alone, no. That is faith. Where are you experiencing desolation? Where is the earth shifted?

13:24Where has the promise thing or at least the assumed thing place, sense of self, relationships, future? Where have those things been put in jeopardy or laid to rest? In that place, what could it look like? What could it mean to receive desolation not as the final word? Not as being condemned to despair, but as a waypoint in the redemption of God, as a waypoint in knowing Him. To not pretend that the loss isn't real, but to have the faith, to put the question back to God,

14:26to put the finality back to Him, you alone, no. May we be a people who win desolate, have faith to turn to God and say, you alone, no. In our passage, we also consider uttering the unutterable. This phrase comes from the late Walter Bruegerman in his writing about the role of the Old Testament prophets. They were called to say the things no one else would say. No one else would dare to say. They would utter the unutterable in particular in two areas, one of which we've somewhat covered, but the first one is a little bit the position of Yahweh as adversary to God's own people. But also, the other unutterable thing

15:27is to imagine newness when all the other evidence tells otherwise. Then he said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones. Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones, I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord. Ezekiel is to imagine newness for God's desolate people when all other evidence tells otherwise.

16:29When the people's predictable patterns have been repeated, when exile has scattered and flattened the living, the reflection of the temple has been thorough. So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them but there was no breath in them. Once eerily quiet valley is now clacking, is rattling noisily. In an arguably even more disturbing site, Ezekiel sees a kind of reverse time lapse. The valley is no longer covered in dry bones but in bodies.

17:32He said to me, prophesied to the breath, prophesied son of man, and say to it, this is what the sovereign Lord says, come breath from the four winds and breathe into the slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me and breath entered them and they came to life and stood up on their feet, a vast army. In a twofold manner that mimics Genesis 2, the bodies are formed and the breath of God enters and gives life. God makes clear his plan is for recreation. He has not abandoned these people. He is preparing that recreative plan.

18:33We look, we take a glance at our gospel passage and we see Jesus doing something similar. Jesus uttering the unutterable. There is a kind of desolation Jesus allows. He waits. He could have left earlier his friend Lazarus from dying. But he didn't deliberately. Not only that in the face of grieving loved ones, he calls Martha in particular to imagine newness. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha answered, you will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her,

19:33I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this? Yes, she replied. Then later at Lazarus' tomb, Jesus said, take away the stone. But Lord Martha said, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor for he has been there four days. Then Jesus said, did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit

20:33of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me. Sometimes it can feel foolish or worse mean to utter the unutterable, to imagine newness at the tomb, to imagine newness in a valley of bones. The fact that our Savior weeps means that imagining newness need not be divorced from grief, from tenderness and care. But if our grief is one that can only hold space for death, then we have believed a lie. We have believed that death and all the powers that serve it is the ultimate authority.

21:33Jesus was resolute in the truth, resolute in reality, in the profound consolation of God who brings life. When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, take off the grave clothes and let him go. Turning again toward our main passage, God could have spoken to the bones himself. He could have had Ezekiel be a mere spectator. But he wasn't. God invited him in, commanded him

22:33to prophesy, to speak the words given him words of imagination over the bones. God, time and time again, calls his people to participate in bringing hope. That can be uncomfortable. That can be like speaking to bones or rolling away a tombstone when your brain is certain it is going to stink. And true, you want to continue praying into that when God gives you a word of hope for someone. Because you do want to offer it in the right time and in the right way as best as you are able that it should be comforting. But too often we shy away. We dig into the grief and we might leave out

23:33that word of comfort. There might God be inviting you to prophesy over bones. To bear words of his consolation. To imagine newness for yourself, for others. And what ways does that feel uncomfortable or costly? Maybe silly. Or mean. Or maybe you've kind of stepped out in that you've spoken the words you've been given. You've imagined allowed the recreative work of God. But all that happened was bones turned into bodies. Where might God be asking you to call again? To call to the breath. To call to the animating spirit of God. To bring life that we just cannot. May God embolden us

24:33with love and in humility. To bear the hope he gives us to the hurting and lifeless places. God's final words in this passage are ones of consolation. One's where he names again his intention to restore to revive his people. Throughout the book of Ezekiel, one phrase is used over 70 times. Then you will know that I am Yahweh. When we consider divine desolation and uttering the unutterable, we cannot do so without an eye toward the tell us, toward the ends that God has in mind. It is easy to mistake his words. Then you will know as a kind of neediness on God's part.

25:33But far from vanity or a desire for lip service, knowing God is a crucial part of our healing. A crucial part of our restoration. We are restored into his likeness, into his life, into communion with him. The goal isn't that by enduring desolation and saying the right words that we would be suddenly no longer exiles in this world. That we would no longer experience vocational or relational or existential friction. The goal is that we would know God through his rescuing presence. And in knowing being empowered to live in heaven, live into our belonging in his kingdom here and now. As one scholar of Ezekiel

26:33put it, Israel's only hope rests in her God. Who is at the same time sovereign Lord of history and the source of life. The restoration of his people will be his climactic moment of self-revelation. We stand in a different location than that of the Israelites of Ezekiel's time. We know in a way they could not and a way they could not foresee the lengths to which God will go for our rescue. We know Jesus. As we say, we know the love that sought me. We know the blood that bought me. We know the cross of Christ. As we turn toward the table,

27:33as we turn toward the revelation of God and Christ our restore, let us receive his ongoing rescue in the bread and wine. Let those of us who feel bone dry come and drink. Let those of us who feel like we've had the wind knocked out of us. Let us come and receive breath. The God who led Ezekiel into the valley. The God who stood at Lazarus' tomb. The God who gives life calls you near. May the God of all comfort revive us as we draw near today. And the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.