A life fully inhabited

Ezekiel 37: 1-14
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 2, 2017

             
         About a year ago or so, David and I were walking on a path beside White Clay Creek. Somewhere along the way I came across a bone, a vertebra, from an animal whose spine would’ve been not much smaller than that of a human. It had some dirt on it but for the most part, it had been scrubbed clean by the weather and that same dirt. Fascinated by this find, I took the bone home and rinsed it under hot water until it was that off-white color called you-know-what. It now sits on the window sill above the kitchen sink.

            Since then I’ve added other items to this macabre gallery:  three dead but fully intact insects:  a bumblebee, a wasp, and a dragonfly.  Plus a dried, faded rose bloom.  Why, you may ask?  There’s something spiritually grounding about looking at death.  It reminds me that one day that will be me, you, all of us.  It’s a natural part of life.  As Hank Williams so eloquently put it, no matter how I struggle and strive/I’ll never get out of this world alive.

            We’ve separated ourselves so far from the reality of death that, on one hand we’re shocked, surprised when someone famous dies and on the other, we’re desensitized to it in movies and video games, let alone when we hear of death tolls in places like Syria or South Sudan.  Or predictions about the effects of climate change:  for example, there are four nations that are currently on the brink of famine, with 20 million lives at stake—South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen.

            Family members used to die at home, and it was there that the body was washed and prepared for burial, with the visitation and wake occurring a day or two later in the same space, usually in the midst of community.  When we used to raise and grow our own food, death was as close at hand as birth.

            There is a legend about St. Francis that whenever he had a decision to make, he would consult Sister Death, who occupied a space on his left shoulder.  To call death “Sister” meant that there was kinship between Francis and death—they were family to each other.  Imagine with every decision, every choice we made, we consulted our death beforehand.  And not just individual choices and decisions, but decisions we make as a church, as a community, a city, a state, a nation, the very earth itself.

            When Ezekiel looked upon that valley of dead dry bones, he saw not only his own death but that of the house of Israel.  They were a people without hope, in exile in Babylon, and despairing that the exile would be the end of them.  And there were others who were in denial that indeed they were living in the midst of a catastrophe.  Sound familiar?  It was easier for them to believe that God had left them for dead, that even God herself was dead, than to believe that God was at work at the heart of all that pain and ruin and even death.  God makes the outrageous promise to make of them a new people of God.

            God breathes life back into God’s people, even when all seems lost and hopeless, when life doesn’t seem worth living.  This breath of life is what the Church calls the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  We make much of the baptism of water, but Jesus baptizes with fire and with the Holy Spirit.  How many of us would volunteer for such a baptism as that?  We would never be the same again.  And yet life has a way of singeing us with its searing heat and nevertheless we persist, we breathe.  But do we have life or are we still in despair, still in our graves, ready to die?

            The Church as a whole is in exile.  Mainstream denominations are in denial that we are in the midst of a decline that could lead to catastrophe.  Many local churches are in despair that we cannot return to the days of growth, of families with children in Sunday School, of sacrosanct Sunday mornings, and the social requirement of church attendance.  It won’t be long before we will have a generation of people not raised in the church, not baptized when they were young, with no knowledge of what church life is about.

            And yet the deep need for the mission of the Church, the Way of Jesus continues: to not only welcome but restore justice to the stranger and the outcast, to feed the hungry and provide clean water to those who are thirsty, to shelter the homeless, give clothing to those who need it, comfort the sick, visit those who are in prison, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  This is how we share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table.  This how we die to ourselves and rise in new life.  This is how God works in the midst of pain and heartache and even death and makes of us a new people of God.

            I know, way to hit the bomb out of the park when we have people joining the church.  But Church is not about institutional survival.  It never has been.  Jesus was less interested in what people believed and more concerned with how they lived and treated others.  The body of Christ lives so long we live a life fully inhabited.  

            The life fully inhabited is the one that fearlessly acknowledges death as a natural part of life.  It’s the one that when faced with decision and choice, looks at death and asks, does this add not only to my life and our life together but to all life everywhere, if we’re taking that body imagery seriously. It’s the one that is joyful though we have considered all the facts.  It’s the one that welcomes the baptism of fire and of the Holy Spirit and says breathe on me, bring me up out of my grave, and make me new.  It’s the life that not only eats at Christ’s table but also picks up Christ’s cross.  It’s the life that is not coerced into this living but invited, welcomed, embraced, affirmed, that is loved unconditionally.

            Friends, we are an altar of bones.  So put on that fragile flesh and wear it well.  Breathe deeply.  For Love invites a life fully inhabited.

            Amen.