23 May 2021
Pastor Joe Britton
St. Michael’s Church
Pentecost
“Thus says the Lord God: ‘Prophesy to the breath, and say to it:
Come from the four winds, and breath upon these slain, that they may live.’” (Ez. 37)
We have, all of us, been in the Valley of Dry Bones for a very long time.
Shut in at home, separated and isolated from one another: we have been like dry bones.
Threatened with illness, afraid to be together: we have feared becoming dry bones.
We have seen our children struggle to learn, while we have felt their deep yearning to be with teachers and friends. Dry bones.
And despite our caution, some did catch the virus, and so know firsthand what it’s like to feel the horrible shortness of breath. Some have done their best against all odds to care for the ill. Some—many—have died. Dry bones.
And by now countless numbers, 7, 8, 9, maybe even 10 million have died around the world, struggling painfully in their last moments just to breathe. Dry bones.
Then, we have seen the multiple caskets, the funeral pyres, the mass graves, filled with the bodies of the dead. More dry bones.
And not only that, but we have seen black men and women laid down in the street by the police, the breath literally forced out of them by a sharp knee to their neck. Still more dry bones.
And as if all this were not enough, we have seen the very foundations of our democracy attacked by some who use their breath to speak falsehoods and demonize their opponents. Things we thought could never happen, not in this country, have happened. Very dry bones.
We have truly been in a deep and desolate Valley of Dry Bones for a very long time. A spiritual desert of fatigue, death, and loneliness—each dwelling there in our own way.
And I wonder, if we have not been more traumatized by it all than we even realize: there is, I think, a latent grief deep inside of us, that may be hidden and unacknowledged, we may not even be quite sure where it is, but does not for all that go away. A grief that get touched in unexpected moments and ways. A grief for a year lost—of work, of music, of flying, of learning, of gathering, of singing. It is a low-grade grief that makes us weary, heavy, and irritable and scratchy toward one another—as if we have forgotten what it means to be in civil society. More dry bones.
Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones came to him at a time when his own people were similarly languishing, having been forcibly taken into exile: the people of Israel had been dragged out of their homes in Jerusalem and made to journey to the strange and foreign land of Babylon, there to be quarantined like prisoners of war. And the life had gone out of them; they became as if they were nothing more than dry bones. They had no hope of return, no clear way out of the desperation into which they had been brought. They were lifeless, spiritless, despondent.
But then, when all seemed lost, out of the wind the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel: “Prophesy to these bones! And say to them, ‘I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live!’ … And from the four winds came the breath, and the breath came into the bones, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” How striking that the word used here for breath, ruah, the wind that brings these bones to life, is the very same word God first spoke to Adam when God gave him breath in the beginning: as it is written, “The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (the ruah), and the man [Adam] became a living being” (Gen. 2:7)
And so here we are on this day, gathered in a church where we have purposefully opened up the doors and windows to let the breeze blow through. Yet how poignant, that it turns out that the breeze is not just for safety’s sake, but that it is a vivid metaphor for everything we hope for and need right now. Breath. Fresh air. Life. The refreshing winds of the Spirit passing over us and through us.
This year, when Pentecost is also the day when we first regather in the church, this feast day is about so much more than the biblical story of the gift of the Spirit to Jesus’ expectant disciples. Pentecost becomes for us in this moment a reminder—no, that’s too weak a word—a declaration of the power of life to renew itself even in the driest and most desperate times, when God rises up and infuses that which was without breath with the Spirit of new life.
We are in a moment when we feel ourselves to be those lifeless forms in the Valley of Dry Bones—trapped in an aridness of spirit that has held us captive these many months. Yet just when we were afraid that the life had gone out of us, like the exiles in Babylon, God’s spirit has begun to stir again over the dry bones, and the breath we have so craved is now beginning to rise up inside of us as if we are a new creation—which, if the resurrection of Jesus has anything to do with it, actually we are.
In her poem, “Where the Breath Begins,” the poet Jan Richardson describes it like this:
Dry
and dry
and dry
in each direction.
Dust dry.
Desert dry.
Bone dry.
And here
in your own heart:
dry,
the center of your chest
a bare valley
stretching out
every way you turn.
Did you think
this was where
you had come to die?
It’s true that
you may need
to do some crumbling,
yes.
That some things
you have protected
may want to be
laid bare,
yes.
That you will be asked
to let go
and let go,
yes.
But listen.
This is what
a desert is for.
If you have come here
desolate,
if you have come here
deflated,
then thank your lucky stars
the desert is where
you have landed--
here where it is hard
to hide,
here where it is unwise
to rely on your own devices,
here where you will
have to look
and look again
and look close
to find what refreshment waits
to reveal itself to you.
I tell you,
though it may be hard
to see it now,
this is where
your greatest blessing
will find you.
I tell you,
this is where
you will receive
your life again.
I tell you,
this is where
the breath begins.
©Jan Richardson, janrichardson.com
Pastor Joe Britton
St. Michael’s Church
Pentecost
“Thus says the Lord God: ‘Prophesy to the breath, and say to it:
Come from the four winds, and breath upon these slain, that they may live.’” (Ez. 37)
We have, all of us, been in the Valley of Dry Bones for a very long time.
Shut in at home, separated and isolated from one another: we have been like dry bones.
Threatened with illness, afraid to be together: we have feared becoming dry bones.
We have seen our children struggle to learn, while we have felt their deep yearning to be with teachers and friends. Dry bones.
And despite our caution, some did catch the virus, and so know firsthand what it’s like to feel the horrible shortness of breath. Some have done their best against all odds to care for the ill. Some—many—have died. Dry bones.
And by now countless numbers, 7, 8, 9, maybe even 10 million have died around the world, struggling painfully in their last moments just to breathe. Dry bones.
Then, we have seen the multiple caskets, the funeral pyres, the mass graves, filled with the bodies of the dead. More dry bones.
And not only that, but we have seen black men and women laid down in the street by the police, the breath literally forced out of them by a sharp knee to their neck. Still more dry bones.
And as if all this were not enough, we have seen the very foundations of our democracy attacked by some who use their breath to speak falsehoods and demonize their opponents. Things we thought could never happen, not in this country, have happened. Very dry bones.
We have truly been in a deep and desolate Valley of Dry Bones for a very long time. A spiritual desert of fatigue, death, and loneliness—each dwelling there in our own way.
And I wonder, if we have not been more traumatized by it all than we even realize: there is, I think, a latent grief deep inside of us, that may be hidden and unacknowledged, we may not even be quite sure where it is, but does not for all that go away. A grief that get touched in unexpected moments and ways. A grief for a year lost—of work, of music, of flying, of learning, of gathering, of singing. It is a low-grade grief that makes us weary, heavy, and irritable and scratchy toward one another—as if we have forgotten what it means to be in civil society. More dry bones.
Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones came to him at a time when his own people were similarly languishing, having been forcibly taken into exile: the people of Israel had been dragged out of their homes in Jerusalem and made to journey to the strange and foreign land of Babylon, there to be quarantined like prisoners of war. And the life had gone out of them; they became as if they were nothing more than dry bones. They had no hope of return, no clear way out of the desperation into which they had been brought. They were lifeless, spiritless, despondent.
But then, when all seemed lost, out of the wind the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel: “Prophesy to these bones! And say to them, ‘I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live!’ … And from the four winds came the breath, and the breath came into the bones, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” How striking that the word used here for breath, ruah, the wind that brings these bones to life, is the very same word God first spoke to Adam when God gave him breath in the beginning: as it is written, “The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (the ruah), and the man [Adam] became a living being” (Gen. 2:7)
And so here we are on this day, gathered in a church where we have purposefully opened up the doors and windows to let the breeze blow through. Yet how poignant, that it turns out that the breeze is not just for safety’s sake, but that it is a vivid metaphor for everything we hope for and need right now. Breath. Fresh air. Life. The refreshing winds of the Spirit passing over us and through us.
This year, when Pentecost is also the day when we first regather in the church, this feast day is about so much more than the biblical story of the gift of the Spirit to Jesus’ expectant disciples. Pentecost becomes for us in this moment a reminder—no, that’s too weak a word—a declaration of the power of life to renew itself even in the driest and most desperate times, when God rises up and infuses that which was without breath with the Spirit of new life.
We are in a moment when we feel ourselves to be those lifeless forms in the Valley of Dry Bones—trapped in an aridness of spirit that has held us captive these many months. Yet just when we were afraid that the life had gone out of us, like the exiles in Babylon, God’s spirit has begun to stir again over the dry bones, and the breath we have so craved is now beginning to rise up inside of us as if we are a new creation—which, if the resurrection of Jesus has anything to do with it, actually we are.
In her poem, “Where the Breath Begins,” the poet Jan Richardson describes it like this:
Dry
and dry
and dry
in each direction.
Dust dry.
Desert dry.
Bone dry.
And here
in your own heart:
dry,
the center of your chest
a bare valley
stretching out
every way you turn.
Did you think
this was where
you had come to die?
It’s true that
you may need
to do some crumbling,
yes.
That some things
you have protected
may want to be
laid bare,
yes.
That you will be asked
to let go
and let go,
yes.
But listen.
This is what
a desert is for.
If you have come here
desolate,
if you have come here
deflated,
then thank your lucky stars
the desert is where
you have landed--
here where it is hard
to hide,
here where it is unwise
to rely on your own devices,
here where you will
have to look
and look again
and look close
to find what refreshment waits
to reveal itself to you.
I tell you,
though it may be hard
to see it now,
this is where
your greatest blessing
will find you.
I tell you,
this is where
you will receive
your life again.
I tell you,
this is where
the breath begins.
©Jan Richardson, janrichardson.com
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