Sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14

This sermon was preached at First United Lutheran Church in Hammond, Indiana on Sunday, May 20, 2018.

Good morning. My name is Wesley, and I was invited here by Pastor Chris to lead the family mission conference over the weekend. During the conference, we spent Friday evening and yesterday here at the church talking about the gospel and how to share it more comfortably in our relationships with others. It was a conference about being evangelists in the world.

The word “evangelism” has a lot of weight to it. For some of us, it brings a lot of pressure. We feel like God is keeping tabs on how many times we mention Jesus to people around us. We feel like it's an extra weight of obligation to meet a quota so we can keep our “Christian” membership card. Other times, we might feel a stigma toward the word “evangelism.” We can have the image of someone shouting at another person about their sin and be turned off by it. It makes us want to say, “I'm not that kind of Christian,” and so we become extra accommodating and apologetic about our faith. Even though we just spent a whole weekend essentially talking about becoming “better” evangelists, evangelism isn't about doing. Being an evangelist means living into the Gospel of Christ. It means knowing the Good News of who Jesus is and what he's done. It means allowing the knowledge of that truth to influence who you are.

We are in the midst of graduation season. Students from all levels of schooling will be finishing up degrees over this coming month. They will celebrate with one another, with their friends and families, at the prospects ahead of them. Some are going on to more learning. Others are entering the workforce. Still others, maybe don't know what the future holds, and are waiting in eager anticipation to find out what comes next. They invested years of their lives into this one transformative experience. I have many friends who are graduating from different levels of education. Some from seminary just received their master's degrees. High School students I know have their diplomas. My cousin just graduated from college with her bachelor's. Whatever level they are graduating from, there's one thing that is in common: rejoicing.

When I graduated from seminary, I sent invitations for friends and family to join me in celebrating the end of a lot of work I had to put in to my studies; all of the years of long nights, early mornings, and high-stress moments. I wanted to celebrate that my work was finished. Even so, with everything I put toward my degree, I only got a piece of paper. It didn't promise me anything for the future. It didn't change who I am. I definitely grew a lot in understanding of myself, those around me, and God. But, graduating isn't want provided that growth, and it certainly didn't signify the end of my growth. After my graduation, for all the celebration and rejoicing at a job, well, done, it only led me into continued work. I wasn't finished. I'm still not finished. The good news of graduation isn't the end. It's the beginning of more work to be done. There is always more work to be done.

In a way, Jesus submitted his final exam on the Cross. He completed the work that was set out for him to do. His task was extraordinary. He was given the assignment of saving the world. To do this, he never sinned, he suffered loss and betrayal, and ultimately, he was dishonored and tortured to death. Now, if that was my assignment going into seminary, I'd have probably decided to explore other vocations. The good news, though, is that the love of God was strong enough that Jesus willingly went through all of that for our sake.

When we talk about evangelism, we need to remember that it's literal meaning in the Greek is “good news.” We need to understand that this is the spreading of a good message to the world. It's good news because we now have access to the reward of salvation without having to put in the work that Jesus did to receive it. What Jesus did-- what we will never be able to do on our own-- is give life to the dead.

In our Old Testament reading, the prophet Ezekiel found himself caught up in the Spirit and brought to a valley. Looking around, he saw the bones of people long-dead scattered across the valley floor. God asked Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

With the advantage of hindsight, the answer to this question is obvious. First, we're reading the Bible, so this account wouldn't even be written if something incredible didn't happen. Secondly, not being in that place and at that time with Ezekiel, it's easier for us to suspend disbelief. But what I want us to do right now is stop here and think about this question. First, let's think about the context of what this valley might be. God describes these bones as those where were “slain” in verse nine. Likely, this means that the valley was the scene of a battle, and these bones belong to warriors who were killed while fighting. Also, the bones are dry, meaning they've been in this valley a very long time, so that there's no more flesh on them. In other words, to quote the Coroner in Wizard of Oz, these bones aren't only “merely dead,” they are “most sincerely dead.”

Next, I want to consider the question itself. Throughout the book of Ezekiel, in the Hebrew God addresses the prophet as “Son of Man.” The translation we have uses the term “mortal” for this title. This is important because the address itself is a reminder of where we stand before God. The title shows the stark contrast between Ezekiel, a human being, and God, the divine and immortal Lord. God asking Ezekiel if the bones can live by using the title, “Son of Man,” is an answer to itself. Ezekiel himself will die. He has no power to stop that from happening. He now stands in a valley surrounded by the evidence of this fact. None of the bones around him are marked with a name. No memory is attached to them. The Son of Man stand in the midst of death, powerless to stop it. Ezekiel knows this. He knows that the bones have no power to will themselves to life. He knows he also, being merely human, can do nothing to change the death surrounding them.

Now, we come to the answer. “O Lord GOD, you know.” Ezekiel doesn't presume that God would do the unthinkable. He only knows what he sees before him. Hearing God ask if these bones can live, Ezekiel may have assumed God is teaching him a lesson on the finality of life. He sees the bones around him and thinks they have reached their end. Maybe God is trying to remind Ezekiel that only he can live forever, and all of us lowly creatures are on a path toward death. Maybe God wants to remind Ezekiel of his place, or warn him about the impending judgment that God will bring on his people. What this question, and Ezekiel's answer, reveals is the harsh reality of human life. No matter how long and hard we work, we are still on a path toward death. These bones were once alive, with names and faces, but now are indistinct from one another.

We put in a lot of work in our lives. Some of us work multiple jobs at once, others work hard on artistic passions. We strive to move up the ladder in our vocations or to be able to provide the best for our families. Life is work. Life is constant striving. After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, God said to Adam, “by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It shouldn't be a surprise that our life is made up of work. The necessity of work is part of our burden in a sinful world. I do think that the drive to work hard is itself a gift from God. In its purest form, it's a reflection of the work he has done in the creation of the world, and caring for creation is part of his intended design for our lives. But the curse of sin is that our work has no end, and will not satisfy us or give life. The curse is that while we must work to survive, no matter how hard we work, it can't save us.

Ezekiel saw the end to which all the work of life leads. He stood in the midst of scattered dry bones in a nameless valley. But God gives hope, even in the face of such a bleak inevitability. “O Lord GOD, you know,” he says. God knows that these bones are dead. God knows that these bones have no names and no faces. God knows that all the work put into life by these bones has led them all to the same place. But God also knows something we often forget. Life itself is a gift given freely by him, when he breathed into the dust.

God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD, thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”

Ezekiel prophesies and the bones are covered once again with flesh. Their faces return, but they still don't live. There was no breath in them. And God told Ezekiel to prophesy for breath to enter them, and it did, and these bodies, these lost faces and empty memories came back to life. They stood and lived once more.

The source of all life, from the very beginning has been God. The Good News of Jesus is that he offers life beyond the one we know now. During this graduation season, it is a good time to reflect on our work, and how we work from one degree to another, but Paul writes that “the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

The Spirit brings freedom because we don't need to rely on the work we've done in our lives to truly live. In him, our memory will not be lost. Our faces will be known to him as we look upon his glory face-to-face. The closer we get to this knowledge of God, the more we are formed into his image.

This is where the Good News of Jesus is different from any other good news we've heard. When Jesus says, “it is finished,” he means it. And he promises when it is finished that there will be an end to all sin and all death. And he didn't finish the work only for himself. He did it for you, and for me, and for all the world. His work actually has an end. His work actually gives life. His Spirit is the way that we are able to share in that. The Spirit of God is the Breath of Life. Without the Spirit of God, no matter how hard we work, our end is the same. We are dry bones scattered across the nameless valley. But with the Spirit of God, we have the freedom to work toward his glory, knowing that our work is not in vain.

When we talk about evangelism, we are talking about Good News. We are talking about being invited into a graduation from the work of death to the gift of life. We can rejoice together in this life given to us and invite others to join as well. Evangelism is telling the world that they can take part in the reward of life that comes from the work of Christ. It's sharing the freedom that comes from the Spirit of God, to release us from our slavery to sin. It doesn't mean we don't have to work in this life anymore. But it does mean that this life isn't all there is. It means that there is a greater life ahead of us, where the work has already been completed.

Evangelism isn't about doing. Evangelism is about knowing that it's already been done. If the idea of evangelism feels like a burden, then we need to step back and understand these two word: Good News. This is Good News. The more we reflect on this Good News, and the more we consider why it's good news for our own lives, the more we will find that news worth sharing with others, and the more natural that sharing will become.

God's promise to Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones is that he will be the source of life to the people of Israel. His breath, which is his very Spirit, is what will bring his people to new life, standing before him on the last day. His Spirit is the source of life. If we are breathing in his Spirit, we have breath for all eternity. We can breathe easy knowing that he has already completed everything needed for us to have that gift of life. Sharing in his Spirit is an open invitation. And I think that's Good News.

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Wedding Sermon, Ephesians 5:1-2, 21-33

Wedding Sermon Audio

It's a great honor to be here to celebrate my friends Matt and Emily. I'm glad that we are all here to share in the witness of their union under God and the beginning of their ministry together as husband and wife. I want to be up front about the fact that I am not, myself, married. So, what might usually be shared from where I'm standing isn't necessarily what will be said today. I'm not going to presume that I can speak into the experience of married life, or hope to give advice with any sense of authority on the matter. After many conversations with Matt and Emily, we came to an understanding about what should be said today. What we want to walk away with is an understanding of their purpose as a married couple. We want to have a deeper grasp on the biblical foundation of their union, and how it will hopefully reflect the greater, mysterious union we have with God. To do this, we will turn to the passage from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

The passage starts off with a call to be “imitators of God, as beloved children.” This might be the most important part of the passage. Not because of its command to imitate God, but because it outlines the why behind our imitation of him. In his letter to the Romans, Paul goes deeper into this subject, saying that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father!'”

God does not give us his Spirit so we can do more good things or be a better person. He gives us his Spirit to adopt us into his family as heirs of his Kingdom alongside his First Son, Jesus Christ. Before we dig into what it means to follow Jesus or how to be imitators of God, we must understand what it means when we say “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Every act of love, every sacrifice of compassion, and every good thing in our hearts flows out of this love. Not the love that we have, but the love that God has for us. The love that he has poured out from his side over the whole world in the death of Jesus Christ so that we can share in the life of love that he gave as “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Without first resting in this love, the call to be imitators of God and followers of Christ becomes a burden of stress on our lives. If our walk with Christ brings more worry than joy, we need to re-examine our spirit to determine why. Jesus says, “come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

It's in response to God's love that the psalmist cries, “let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for [God judges] the peoples with equity and guide[s] the nations upon earth.” God's compassion in how he relates to us-- how he relates to the whole world-- and willingly guides us toward the truth of his love, brings forth joy and celebration. Reflecting on and resting in the love of God draws out worship. That draw to worship should be the driving force behind everything we do. God's love should be the centerpiece of our actions and relationships.

If we accept the Spirit of God, we are children of God. In that Spirit we can continue to walk alongside Jesus by the power of the Spirit to love as he has loved and “[submit] to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

I want to pause here and share two stories from Matt's life. These stories are both situations that happened in the last four months and are both stories that involve police officers. In November, Matt had agreed to pick me up from the airport. When I came out to the car, I saw a police officer standing beside it with his ticketing book out, but no Matt. After a very brief information gathering conversation, I pulled out my phone to find out where Matt had gone. He and Emily had recently rented a car at the airport and Emily thought she might have left her journal in the rental car. Matt had stopped at the gate to pick me up, and since my plane was just landing, he decided to run in and check if the rental company had found it. So Matt comes running out, and the police officer confronts him immediately, “You do know you're not supposed to park here. That's a hundred and fifty dollar ticket.” Matt explains his situation, which the officer dismissed, “I don't care why you parked here,” he says, “If you're going to park, you need to park in the garage.” Now, I should note, it's at this point, I notice the officer is no longer holding his pen to the ticketing book, but has the book closed. He says something to the effect of, “you better not do this again,” to which Matt replied, pointing to the line of cars behind his own, “well, people are essentially parked here for fifteen minutes, and you don't have a problem with them!” The officer gets defensive, “whoa, whoa, I'm letting you out of a ticket here, and you're going to attack me like that?” Before Matt could say anything else, I decided to jump in, “let's say thank you and get going,” and the conversation did end without a ticket being issue.

The second story actually happened very recently. Matt was out driving and got pulled over. This is a very odd thing, since Matt is probably the most law abiding driver I've ever met. But, it turns out, Matt's registration had expired, and the officer had noticed. Unlike the previous officer, this one did not threaten a ticket or to tow Matt's car away. He was very gracious and kind. Likewise, Matt responding with thankfulness, and even texted me afterward about how great his interaction was with this officer.

When we talk about responding to God's love, grace, and mercy, we need to be clear. Both officers were merciful to Matt. Matt deserved a ticket in both cases, but only one brought Matt to tell others about the good news of that officer's graciousness. The first, though he showed mercy, used his power to belittle Matt and tried to frighten him into obeying the rules. The second, acted in graciousness, giving Matt the chance to respond likewise. God's mercy comes with grace and love. And I think it is no mistake that Paul writes to “[submit] to one another out of reverence for Christ” before writing about the marriage relationship of husbands and wives. Without understanding the love of God in Jesus Christ, we can't really know what it means to submit to one another or why husbands and wives are called to relate to one another in this way:

“Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior … Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her … in the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.”

Marriage is a mysterious thing. It is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. It is an earthly representation of the heavenly truth regarding the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church. Marital submission shows the disposition we as Christians are to hold in our relationship with Christ, and because of that, how we should interact with one another, since we all are also part of his Body. There is a lot of important imagery here that needs to be broken down. First, because Christians have received the Spirit of God, we are connected by his Spirit to one another. Because it is one Spirit that unites us, we are one by sharing in that Spirit. Our one-ness unites us to form one body by the Spirit of God. So, in relation to the world, or those outside of the uniting Spirit, we are the Body of Christ, his real presence on earth.

The second image is the Church as the Bride of Christ. Sharing in the Spirit of God, which is also the Spirit of Christ, is a deep and intimate unity. The image of marriage is two becoming one flesh. The intimate spiritual bond which makes us the Body of Christ is the same intimate bond which unites us as one with him to be his Bride. In relation to the world, we are his body. In relation to Christ, we are his Bride. In the context of a marriage, these images are brought together.

Matt and Emily are to be bound together as one. There will be no one without the other. From this point on, for all of us here, they will be regarded as one. But there is also a new dynamic to their relationship with each other. As a heavenly image, their marriage represents Christ and his church. As fellow Christians, they are to submit to one another, but as husband and wife, they are to be as Christ and his Church. And while the Church is called to submit to Christ, Christ did not exalt himself, but “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

The call to submission for wives comes alongside the call to self-sacrifice for husbands. Submission for Christians should always be inspired by this kind of love. The reason we submit ourselves to Christ is because he has proven to love us to the extent that he would die in our place. We submit ourselves because we know he has our best interest, and because he knows our needs more than we do ourselves. I'm not going to claim that husbands have this same knowledge or this same understanding. But they are called to this same love. They are called to lay down their own interests, and even their own lives, for their wives. Submission means to appeal to the authority of another. The wife is called to submit to the husband as a representation of the Church. The husband is called to imitate Christ's love for the Church, who “emptied himself” of his Godly authority and humbled himself to be on the same level as those he loves. The husband's authority is given so that he can lay it down for the sake of his wife.

Jesus understood this call to sacrificial love, and said as much. In the Gospel of John, he says “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love … This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Again, the foundation for following his commandment is that we first abide in his love. Following the commandments of Jesus, loving one another, is really just a practice in learning what it means to be loved by Jesus. When Jesus says that keeping his commandments is abiding in his love, it's because following his commandments helps us to understand how he loves, and how difficult it is to love as purely and unconditionally as he does. In the song of Solomon, we get a reflection on love through the eyes of a young couple. The woman recites that “love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave.”

Just as we cannot escape the grip of death once it has taken hold, in the same way, the true and powerful love of God is inescapable and unavoidable. We spend our lives running from death, and many spend just as long fleeing from the love of God. The fierceness of God's love is frightening because it's radical nature calls us to similar levels of reckless abandon. Responding to God's love in his death is to accept that death as our own. Accepting that death means giving our lives over into his hands. To love another person is to give our lives over to that person. It is to lay down our lives for them because our lives are no longer our own.

But there is one thing we can trust when we give our lives over to God. His love doesn't end in his death. Love doesn't only die, but it brings new life. By giving over our lives to God in his death, we are also taking on the new life that he offers in its place by the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. Love, as strong as death, is the only power that overcomes the grave.

Matt and Emily are laying down their lives today. They are no longer their own, and their individual lives as they each know it will end. But there is a new life being formed right before our eyes. It is the new life of total union. A physical, visible, tangible manifestation of the spiritual truth that we cling to in Jesus as the Bride of Christ. This marriage is a sign pointing toward the hope that we lay down our lives to obtain every time that we turn our eyes to the love of God. And being the Bride, we still wait for the full manifestation of that love in the wedding celebration that will come on the day he returns to claim us as his own in the full redemption of the world. Today we get a glimpse of what that day will look like. We see the love of God in the love shared between Matt and Emily. The hope to live into that love can only be achieved by abiding in that love. Abide in that love. Find rest for your souls. Put on the seal of Christ, as his own, and find the love within you manifested through the Spirit into joy, made full in him.

The Philosophy of Disappointment

I meant to write this awhile ago. In fact, I'd meant to do a lot of things awhile ago. My last blog post came in the middle of July, when I was feeling helpless and unsure of my future. I wrote about giving up and giving over to what's meant to be. The day after posting that blog, I got an email from a Christian high school looking for someone to teach a course on cultural literacy. It would have been a course designed for students to engage with different social issues based on literature produced during a time within that cultural milieu. During the section on social justice, for example, I could have utilized the writings of Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. to engage with the topic. It seemed to be an answer to what I wanted at the time.

Part of my passion is to teach within the church context, and equip others with the Gospel. I also got my bachelor's degree in creative writing. Both of those seemed tied up neatly in a box at a job that would be a five minute drive from my house. I had an initial phone interview with the president of the school, which seemed to go well, and she said she would pass my information along to the principal. At the end of the conversation, she said, “once you meet with him, he and I will get together to discuss salary and putting together an offer.” It was a very encouraging moment for me, and one that renewed my faith in the path I was walking down. It was very hard for me to not put hope in this job opportunity.

Though the principal was supposed to get back to me the next week, many weeks passed, and I had yet to hear from him. I emailed the president multiple times, and she said she would tell him to reach out. About a week or two before the start of the school year, I emailed her again saying I assume they had decided to move on with another candidate. In fact, she said there were two other candidates the principal decided to go with based on experience.

Even before this happened, I knew that not getting this job would hurt a lot. I was still working as a barista at Starbucks, and being given unreasonable excuses for why I wasn't being promoted. I hadn't made much progress in the ordination process due to some outside circumstances, and had a general sense of being out of place. I dropped most of my passions and went into a bit of spiral for a few months. I shut a lot of people out, and came up with excuses to justify doing so. I felt alone, betrayed and ultimately, forsaken by God. I had accepted that my life was void, just a thing to slog through until I can reach the end.

I was working on some music projects at the time, and all of that came to a rather abrupt halt. If my life was meaningless, anything I had to say lacked meaning as well. I couldn't bring myself to care about much of anything, or anyone.

These past few months have been filled with these feelings of being outcast and forgotten, something not strange to my life. I have had very few friends in my life that I could trust truly cared about me. It's hard for me to trust that I'm worth caring about in others' eyes. This has caused me to neglect calling others for help, because I wonder inwardly why I should put the burden of me on their shoulders. Any slight was taken as rejection. And at my worst, I spent most of my time lying alone in my room. Any time I did force myself to go out with people, I remained mostly non-engaged and was gone within an hour.

Ultimately, feeling disappointed about missing out on this job opportunity isn't what happened. If I'm honest with myself, my disappointment was in my ever considering something good could happen to me. I have an emotional disposition to assume failure. I assume any good opportunities will fall through; that I will hurt or burden the people around me and miss my chance at finding any fulfillment. It's very hard to stay motivated in the midst of these disappointments.

I'm at a new job now. One that has consistent hours, good co-workers, and that encourages upward mobility. It's not a job I want long-term and is far from my passions. It does give me time to create a schedule around it for my goals. I recorded rough tracks for my music projects as a starting point. It can be hard for me to remember these positives aspects, though. I know where I'm at is not where I want to be, and it's upsetting that it's taken so long. I feel like I've lost ground in pursuing my passions the past few years more than I've gained it.

I still have moments (or days) of feeling that disappointment and apathy. I have in no way been cured. But, I don't want to believe myself. I don't want to be convinced that my life is empty, or that I can't find joy, peace, fulfillment, and love. I can't believe that God has given up on me. I'm broken, inside and out, and I'm reminded of it constantly. I'm not looking for an answer right now, and I'm not writing this for the sympathy posts that always follow things like this. I just know myself well enough that my tendency is toward disappointment. That disappointment can be self-fulfilling and cyclical, and I don't want to ruin myself. I do want to believe that good things can come. I do want to believe that I can have significant relationships. I do want to believe that I can find fulfillment.

But right now, what I really want to believe is that it's okay when I mess up or when these things don't happen.