Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth?
MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2008
Hamlet asked his friend if Alexander the Great became an ordinary skeleton.
The Hebrew Bible’s Stephen King, master of macabre, wizard of weird, pornographic, catatonic- Ezekiel is never dull. In chapter 37, the valley of dry bones, he questions God, “Can these bones live?”
Welcome to beautiful, downtown Death Valley
Sometimes preachers survey the congregation and see Death Valley; other times they feel Death Valley in the heart. You get tired of petty power games and fragile egos, not least your own. You grow impatient with myopic minds and dead devotion. You pray, “Let a tornado sweep away the walls that quarantine the church from the world.”
The year before I came as pastor to one church, it did. A tornado blasted away the building, leaving Easter sheet music on the chairs of the choir and the Alpha and Omega symbols on part of the front wall of the sanctuary still standing; the rest lay in rubble. Then, the young handsome pastor left his wife to marry a young girl with whom he was counseling.
Because of my own mild CP, I took great pride in our church providing space for a handicapped preschool, where children with cerebral palsy came for a few hours a day. Volunteers helped do motion exercises to create new brain patterns, and parents enjoyed brief periods of respite from the onerous responsibilities of caregiving. When I left after eight years, the first thing the church did was kick the preschoolers out. (All those diapers.)
Who are the least of these?
Paleontologist in the Pulpit
In regard to some people of the church I don’t know the answer to the question, “Can these bones live?” In regard to myself, at least on Mondays, I don’t either. And some weeks are all Mondays.
Can these bones live? Zeke had more faith than I do; he said, “You know.”
Then with a rattle and a bang there in the mind’s eye were bones, arranged in decency and order, an anatomist’s pride, plus sinews and flesh-a zombie army. Maybe he should stop while he’s ahead. Zombies like zealots are low maintenance, after all, if you don’t mind the smell.
CS Lewis was fond of saying, the gospel doesn’t make people nice, but new. (Something like that, anyway. It’s Monday.)
Nice Zombies
Most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, choose nice in the trice. New people have all those rough edges to rasp down smooth. They have to be trained in how we’ve always done things around here, the seven last words of the church. They ask embarrassing questions, besides “Where did Cain get his wife?” That one we can handle. Others, not so much: Why are the churches dying in urban neighborhoods being reborn? Where are the people who can’t read, who can’t speak English, who need jobs and clothes and dental work, who can’t get into a building at 11 a.m. on Sunday?
I recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of my ordination. Most of those years I was doing time in the church, so I get to ask such questions.
The incorrigible God says, “Preach to the ruah breath-wind-spirit, preach to these slain.” I’m with Martha, “Lord, they’ve been in the grave so long, they’ll stink!” God says, “Preach!”
The damn thing is, you have to preach with love-not love of preaching, not even love of God is enough. You gotta love the people God has put within earshot of your words. Love isn’t all sappy Hallmark moments. Sometimes it stings like a hypodermic, sometimes it stuns like a cancer diagnosis. Sometimes it’s safe enough for a kitten to cuddle close to, sometimes it’s too dangerous to say out loud.
Love is being the truth out loud. Ain’t EZ. The Lord warned Zeke:
They come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not obey them. For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain. To them you are like a singer of love songs, one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes–and come it will!–then they shall know that a prophet has been among them. Ezek 33:30-33 (NRSV)
Moon rise
I’ve learned to put my guard up when someone says, “I need to speak to you in Christian love.” That usually means brass knuckled spite or, worse, velvet malice.
No, the love I mean is agapé. You know, 100% giving love, try-it-on-your- own-and-be-spent-in-a-minute love. You learn it on moon days when God isn’t just a quick bright thing swallowed by the jaws of darkness, but a rising light reflected off a moonscape of desolation.
Tags: dry bones