Claim the Spirit: March 26, 2023

Year A, Lent 5                              Ezekiel 37:1-14                                                            

           Some of you may know that our lectionary rotates on a cycle.  That means that our readings repeat every three years.  So the readings we heard today were last heard in March of 2020.  Now this will shock you, but I don’t usually remember what I preached three years ago.  Sometimes I don’t remember what I preached 2 weeks ago.  But when I looked at this reading from Ezekiel, I thought, I definitely preached this three years ago.  I didn’t remember it word for word, but I remembered those dry bones. 

            When I preached the Ezekiel sermon 3 years ago, it was to a mostly empty church and a video camera.  We were about 2 weeks into our national quarantine.  I think it was around the time we realized this was going to last more than 2 weeks, but we had no idea we would be dealing with this for years. I reread the sermon from 3 years ago as I was preparing today’s and I thought, man, that was kind of depressing.  In my defense, it was a depressing time.  It’s amazing how different these words from Ezekiel look three years later.

            Ezekiel was a priest and prophet who lived about 500 years before Jesus was born.  He lived in a critical time--- when the majority of the Hebrew people were forcibly exiled to Babylon.  He was one of the people exiled.  The primary audience for the reading we heard today were the people who were displaced, cut off from their homeland for generations.  They were people who would not live to see their homes.  They would die in a foreign land.  Some of their descendants might return, but many would not. The exile lasted approximately 70 years.   

            When I preached this text 3 years ago, I identified with those displaced people.  At the time, we all knew what it was to be cut off from family, friends and our faith community.  I identified with the bones who spoke near the end of our reading.  They said, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”  But here is the thing about this dramatic and vivid reading.  It’s not about the bones or even about what the bones represent—which is the Hebrew people who were displaced.  It’s not even about the prophet Ezekiel. It’s about what God can do for these bones. 

What God can do for these bones is the impossible, or at least the thing that should be impossible.  God can bring new life to these dried up, displaced, utterly hopeless bones.  God will not only give them new life, God will bring them back to Israel, back to their home.  This reading isn’t just about new life, it’s about homecoming and how closely homecoming and life is connected. 

            One of the things that initially drew me to St. John’s was the history, primality through the lens of one our historians Jim Tormey.  We know that this church was founded in 1610 and some assume that there was a fairly smooth trajectory from then to now. Of course that’s not true. There were some rocky times in the 1600s and 1700s, but I want to talk mostly about the period between 1780 and 1880. 

            After the American Revolution, the church faced significant financial hardship as the British were no longer supporting us financially.  We could not even afford a minister.  By the time the War of 1812 came, the church was in a free fall and the building had deteriorated.  Unfortunately the British then took up residence in the church during the Battle of Hampton and by the time they left, the church was intact, but barely.  It was virtually ruined. Fortunately the people of the church rallied and rebuilt.  By 1830 they were whole again.  By 1840, they had 30 communicants and that doubled by 1860. 

However, it was short reprieve because the Civil War had a huge impact on the church.  The rector reported in 1861, “Congregation broken up, some families are gone, we fear, to return no more.”  That was three months before the whole town was burned.  It would be 10 years before the church was habitable again.  Between 1780 and 1880, there were 3 periods of near hopelessness within and outside these walls, 3 periods of time that people were convinced the church would never survive—after the revolution, after the War of 1812, and after the Civil War.  3 times when the church was a pile of stones, dry bones. Yet each time, the people rallied and rebuilt.   They met in different buildings, often without a priest.  They never gave up.  In 1890, 20 years after they rebuilt the church for the 2^nd time, there were 230 communicants, which is pretty close to what we have now.   

            I could point you to about 100 articles on what COVID has done to our churches.  Many people have hypothesized that churches will never recover from this.  And there are moments, I feel this too.  But then I remember the story of St. John’s Church and the story of the whole Christian Church.  I remember what God told Ezekiel at the end of our reading: “you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.”

            I bet this story from Ezekiel would have worked just as well if there was just one skeleton rather than a valley of bones.  I mean, just brining one skeleton to life would have made the point that God can do whatever God wants.  So why a valley?  Was it purely for dramatic purposes?  No. There was a valley of bones because this story isn’t about how God breathes new life into individuals, it’s about how an entire community can be resurrected.

            Today the buildings and grounds of St. John’s are in great shape, thanks to volunteers, staff, the generosity of each of you, and our endowments.  However, that doesn’t mean that our community doesn’t need God’s spirit.  It doesn’t mean that we don’t have rebuilding to do.  And it’s not just because of the pandemic, it’s because the church as a whole has become complacent and comfortable.  The pandemic accelerated what was already happening.  The church has been declining since the 1970s. But it’s only become obvious in the last 10-20 years.  We can blame the decline on any number of things, but I think what it comes down to is that people who don’t know the church don’t perceive it as relevant.  To them, it’s just a bag of dead bones.  It’s dead.

It’s up to us, to convince them that it’s not dead—that we are still alive.  And we can’t do that by trying the latest greatest fad. I think it’s quite simple actually.  We need to start believing what we say on Sundays.  We need to believe that if God can resurrect a valley of dry bones, if Jesus Christ can rise from the dead after 3 days, if this church can live through three wars and still thrive…then we too can claim that the spirit of God lives in this place.  Because that spirit of God never left us, not once.  But the spirit of God needs the people of God to rise up and not just reclaim what we had, but claim what we have never had, bring new life into this beautiful old church.

If you are wondering how that happens, it’s all about participation, not just in worship, but it a lot of different parts of the church.  Soon we will be looking for volunteers for an initiative called Invite, Welcome and Connect—which is all about bringing new life into the church. If this church can recover from 3 wars in its church yard, surely we can rise up and claim the spirit once again.

 *All historical information about the church from How Firm a Foundation by Jim Tormey.

Keep Talking: March 12, 2023

Year A, Lent 3                                    John 4:5-42                                                                             

            Three strikes.  The woman in our Gospel reading for today had three strikes against her—three good reasons for Jesus to avoid her.  First, she was a woman.  Men and women who were not related didn’t interact, especially if they were alone. It would have been scandalous for a man, especially a rabbi to have an extended conversation with a woman he had just met.  Second, she was Samaritan.  The Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along—they hadn’t gotten along for centuries.   It was unusual for a Jew even to be in an area populated by Samaritans.  Third, she was not married and had 5 husbands in her past.  Some have described her as a harlot of even a prostitute, but let’s remember that women didn’t have the right to divorce their husbands at this time.  If she had 5 husbands, it was because they died or they divorced her, probably because she was barren.  Regardless of the reason she had gone through 5 husbands, she would still have been judged harshly by the people in her community. 

Any one of these reasons would have been a good enough reason for Jesus to avoid her. Instead, he engaged in a rather lengthy theological dialogue.  In all the Gospels, in all the recorded conversations that Jesus ever had with anyone, this was the longest.  Why? Was he just passing time until the disciples returned?  Of course not, if John felt this was important enough to include in the Gospel, then this conversation had a purpose.  It meant something—not just for the woman and Jesus, but for the people in the new Christian community, for whom the Gospel of John was written.

It starts with a simple request on the part of Jesus.  He’s sitting by a well in the heat of the day and he is thirsty.  So he asks the woman with the bucket if he could have some of her water. Seems like a perfectly natural and reasonable request.  She is shocked by this request because Jews and Samaritans didn’t share things and why in the world is this man sitting by a well without a bucket. (It’s not like there was a hose attached.)

And then, because this is the Gospel of John and John likes to use symbols as much as possible, Jesus starts talking to the woman about living water.  Now you might remember that just last week, in the chapter before this one, Jesus tried to have a similar conversation with a learned Pharisee named Nicodemus.  That conversation was much shorter because Nicodemus either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand what Jesus was saying.  However this woman, who would not have had the education of Nicodemus or the confidence that would be required to converse with a man like Jesus— this woman engages with Jesus.  When Jesus starts talking about living water she asks how she can get this water instead of dismissing the idea.  When she thinks she understands what it means, she asks him for the water.  This is an extraordinarily brave dialogue for a woman with little social standing and probably considerable shame to have with a man like Jesus.

Then Jesus asks something rather peculiar, at least to my ears.  He asks her to get her husband and then come back.  Now, if I was in her situation, I think I would have just said, “Sure, I will do just that.” Then I would have just not come back.  I mean really, what does she owe this stranger? He doesn’t need to know anything about her personal life.  Either she wasn’t as ashamed as most women in this period would have been or she could tell Jesus was special and she wanted to continue the conversation.  She responds with a statement of her own, one that spoke to the difference between the Samaritans and the Jews. She points out that they worshipped at different places.  Some people think that she was just trying to change the subject, that he had gotten a little too personal and it was better to delve into theological differences instead of her marital history.

But I think that when Jesus reveals what he knew of her she could tell that he wasn’t just any man…not only because he knew something he had no reason to know, but because it doesn’t seem to bother him.  It doesn’t end the conversation.  He doesn’t judge her the way others might have.. because perhaps he sees her for what she is, not a cast off wife of 5 husbands, but a child of God who wants to know more about God.  She does the thing that Nicodemus (a supposed man of God) could not do.  She continues the conversation.  She allows herself to be known by this holy man she didn’t quite understand.  And in return, Jesus revealed himself as the God he is.

He speaks the word that eventually gets him killed.  “I am he.”  Literally translated, “I am.”  This is how God refers to Godself in the Old Testament.  When Moses asks God to tell him his name, God responds with, “I am.”  This became the name of God, the name that cannot be pronounced.  At this time, to say the name of God would be blasphemy.  Thus Jesus reveals to this woman the greatest and most dangerous truth of all.  He bears his own soul, which is what allows her to open herself to him and to start believing in him.

How do we know she now believes? Remember this is the Gospel of John and symbols matter.  She leaves the well, but also leaves her water jar. Most people only had one water jar.  It was the only way to collect water. Without it, she would die of thirst.  So either she was coming back or she understood more about this living water thing than most give her credit for.  Or maybe it was both.

She returned to the town, to the people who probably had all judged her for going through 5 husbands and told them, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  She still isn’t sure.  You can tell by the way she asks the question.  She is expecting a negative response.  Yet she also knows that there is something there, something worth sharing. 

She is the first person in the Gospel of John to spread the news about Jesus.  She is the first evangelist. And guess what, many came to believe because of her message.  It wasn’t just her message.  Her message led them to Jesus and he ended up being the one who convinced them.  That’s how evangelism works. 

We introduce people to Jesus and Jesus does the rest of the work. Sometimes I think people assume that they have to be secure in their faith and be outstanding Christians before they can possibly pass on the good news of Jesus Christ.   Yet this woman, this very first evangelist, still had questions when she passed on the news.  She also had passion and excitement.  Maybe that is what we are missing more than assurance.  We have forgotten what it is to be excited about what Jesus has to tell us and teach us.  It’s possible we never had that excitement.

 I think it’s harder to get excited about your faith when you been in it most of your life. We also don’t have the benefit of a face to face conversation with Jesus. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost for those of us who can’t meet Jesus at a well. It just means that we have to try a little harder.  We have to keep having the conversations with God and also having the conversations with others about God.  This Samaritan woman came to know Jesus through questions and conversation.  It wasn’t a miracle or a revelation. 

Perhaps that is the exciting part—we don’t need to wait for miracles or revelations in our faith journey.  No, we just get in there and talk to God.  We talk to God, we worship God, we serve God’s people and we talk to God some more. It’s not always fun or exciting.  Sometimes it can even feel a little dull.  That’s ok.  They key is that you never stop talking to God, never stop asking the hard questions and never be afraid to show your true self to God.    The more of ourselves we can share with God, the more God will share with us.