“And they lived...and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”
So, here we are. Pentecost. The birth of the church. And I have to admit that this may be my new favorite liturgical holiday. It wasn't always like this. To me, Pentecost was sort of the New Year's Day of the church calendar. But not this year.
New Year's always seems like the exhausted, dying ember of a holiday fire that just won't give up, so you have to sit up, waiting and waiting until it fades away. The long holiday season, starting generally around Halloween (or in August if you are Walmart or Lowes or anyplace selling holiday candy)...that long holiday season takes so much energy and time, getting us from candy to turkey to carols and presents. And all the decorations that we put up and take down and put up and take down. Fresh smelling trees turning into piles of needles on the carpet. The freshness of the first snows turning quickly into annoyances as the temperatures that come with them plummet to near zero.
New Year's is like that party guest that just won't go after everyone else has. And you sit up with New Year's, checking your watch, loudly yawning, trying to get New Year's to take the hint and just let us go to bed.
Pentecost was always like that. Lent, I must admit, is kinda fun for most clergy. Easter is, of course, the central purpose for our religious being. But then, it goes on for fifty days, and sometimes we wonder if we should stop saying, “Alleluia, the Lord is risen,” and shift to “Alleluia, the Lord rose and may or may not pop up sometime soon in a location near you.” So by Pentecost, I'm ready to just throw the green hangings up and give celebrating a rest.
And usually, I go with the tried and true readings from Acts and Romans and talk about the Holy Spirit and tongues of fire and how, even from the beginning, Christians had to convince others that they aren't crazy...but that maybe it's good to be a little crazy, given the awesome news we have to share.
But, again, not this year.
This year, I got caught up in Ezekiel's vision. The vision of dry bones. A vision of dry structures, of dry lives, of dry souls. Because I expect we know what dry bones feel like by now.
Bones grown brittle by loneliness, isolation, alienation from the world. By the not knowing what is next, not knowing what is expected of us now. These bones which are broken by sadness and loss, by waining faith. A valley of bones where we see all that is broken among us, in our lives, our churches, our nation, our world. A valley of bones of lives and societies that stumbled and fell and slowly wasted away.
Over the last year or so, we have lived among the dry bones in what, for most of us were unwelcome ways. And we find ourselves yearning only for what we remember, leaving behind what we have found ourselves having to settle for these last many months.
And wouldn’t it be something if with only a breath, it could all return to what it was like remember? Back to when a face mask was unthinkable. Back to when we hugged without a batting an eye. Back to when lunch with a friend, or walking through the local farmers' market on a Saturday was a thing of joy and community and not one of hesitation and caution. Back to a time when a trip to the grocery store, to the post office, or for a doctor's visit didn’t have us thinking twice and checking our pocket or purse for those masks. Back to those times planning a baptism was a time for joy and not worry about people getting too close or there being too many. Back to the time when attending funerals for those we loved did not have to be put off way into the future, where public grieving was limited to only a few.
Back to when we could be ‘all together in one place’ on a Sunday morning, reaching across the aisle to greet a friend with open arms, singing with joyful gusto our favorite hymns, receiving the bread and the wine without much thinking about how we did it, sitting close at coffee hour afterwards.
Well, friends, I'm here to say, these days will come again, and they are already are on their way.
But when we return, we won't be the same as we were.
And we'll build a new life on those dry bones, a better life for us and for our churches. A re-birth of how we live together and worship God and love our neighbors. Because we know what dry bones are in a way we didn't before. At least I think I do. The dry bones are all those things we've been through, and been through together.
These dry bones of pandemic will shape our lives once the sinews are put on us and we're covered with skin and breathing and living again. Because those bones are the memories of what happened to us this last year. We will always remember this time. When we could not hug freely. When we could not see the expressions on the faces of friends and strangers. When we lived in terror that a loved one would wind up in the hospital and we wouldn't be able to be with them. When too many lived with the heartbreak of not being able to be there for a beloved one’s last breath?
And we will also do well to remember those who couldn't stay home out of harm's way because their jobs demanded such bravery. Those children left behind because they didn't have the opportunity of others. Those who lacked access to resources and are coming out of this nightmare further behind.
Now is the time to live into Ezekiel's vision. This is no longer a quaint Bible story or a kids camp song of “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.” Because we are where we need to be right now in God's Kingdom. Here, in the middle of the vision. Slowly standing back up. Bone joining with bone. Coming together, dry bones now standing on their feet once more. And we are changed for the better, we are stronger bones than we were because we know what we did not know before about all that can break us. And we know about all that God can do in these moments.
We're in the middle of a rebirth of our church today on this Pentecost and in the days to come. We'll add back some familiar, comfortable things, but keep some new things, and probably take on newer things as we struggle to learn to walk and live and breathe in our new bodies. There will be pains – birth always has pain. Because this is the in-between time, the liminal time of the birthing process. We won't be reborn fully formed, but now – now, today – we have the chance to determine what we want to be when we grow up and go out into this new world that has remained.
I don't know what it'll be, what all of this will mean for our life together or even for how we'll engage it in the days and months and years to come. I do know that now, when I read Ezekiel's promise of all that life coming to a place of death, my heart is happy.
And I know that this promise is and always will be at God’s hand. And the breath of God, the spirit of God, will be the cause of whatever good lies ahead. And that it is our role as this new church, in a new body, to bring it about.
So feel it...feel that wonderful creaking as those bones come together in you. On this Pentecost, let us live, let us stand on our feet, a vast multitude.
God is not done yet.