An Ace Up God's Sleeve--March 27, 2023

An Ace Up God's Sleeve--March 27, 2023

"The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, 'Mortal, can these bones live?' I answered, 'O Lord God, you know.' [Ezekiel 37:1-3]

The longer I continue in this life's journey with God, the more I come to believe that faith starts, not with what we "know" about God, but with the humility to say, "I don't know, God--but you do."  Faith, in other words, doesn't start with our cocky certainty about how God works, but rather with giving God the room [or recognizing that God already has the room] to surprise us.

And honestly, I think faith doesn't only start there--mature faith has learned how to let God keep surprising us, too.  A growing and deepening faith doesn't look so much like a catechism of memorized answers, which confine God to stay inside the boundaries of theological theses and philosophical propositions, but rather looks like a relationship that knows the Divine well enough to know that there's always an ace up God's sleeve.

That is most certainly where the prophet is by the time we get to the vision here in Ezekiel 37, words that many of us heard yesterday in worship.  He has known the living God long enough not to put anything past the Almighty... and knowing that the moment you decree God "can't" do something, or isn't "allowed" to do something [you know, because of "the rules"], God tends to take it as a personal dare to do the very thing you said God couldn't or wouldn't do.  That's why Ezekiel has learned that when God asks a question, especially something that sounds like a loaded question, it's best not to pretend to have more answers or more certainty than you really can claim.

When God shows Ezekiel a valley full of chalky old dry bones and asks, "Can these bones live again?" the obvious answer would have been a resounding NO.  No, old bones cannot come to life again.  No there is no hope for scattered skeletons.  And by extension, the obvious answer should have been NO, there was no hope for the scattered fragments of the people of Judah, whose nation had been destroyed and whose citizens had been taken into exile in Babylon.  By all reasonable accounting, the nation was, to be blunt about it, dead.  

And that's really what's behind God's question and the imagery of dry bones.  They are a stand-in for the exiled people of Israel and Judah, and they were certain that there was no hope for them.  Their nation and all the things they built their identity on [their Temple, their capital city Jerusalem, their way of life, and their king] were gone, and they were certain that their covenant relationship with God was permanently and irreparably broken. The idea of a new beginning and a new relationship with God was as absurd as the idea of dead bones becoming living people again.  So when God asks Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?" Ezekiel and all of his fellow exiles would have heard it with the same force as, "Could there ever be a new beginning for us as a people?"  And the obvious common-sense, rational answer to both questions should have been, "No."

But of course, Ezekiel has known God for long enough not to fall for the obvious answer, even when anything else seems impossible.  He knows that God doesn't ask a question like that without a reason, and usually the reason involves up-ending our old assumptions.  So Ezekiel lets humility direct his answer:  "O Lord God, you know."  That is to say, "Everything else would have told me there was no hope, but you are the God who does impossible things, and you would move heaven and earth for the sake of your beloved, so I won't put anything past you any longer."  Ezekiel's faith is mature enough that he's ready--maybe even expectant--for God to surprise him, even if it means admitting he doesn't have all the answers.

That's really what God's people keep coming back to, isn't it?  Throughout the Scriptures, in the stories of ancient Israel through the gospel adventures of Jesus and the witness of the early church, we are most in closest [and most honest] relationship with God when we abandon all arrogance and pretense and let ourselves be surprised by the ways God's strong love does the impossible.  Or, as theologian Douglas John Hall puts it, "The disciple community believes that God reigns, all contrary evidence notwithstanding. But God, as God is depicted in the continuity of the Testaments, is never quite predictable—or rather, only this is predictable about God: that God will be faithful.”

It's the same humility in faith that leads Peter to call out to Jesus, "If it's you, Lord, call me to come to you out on the water." It's the same openness for God to do a new and impossible thing that leads the Ethiopian eunuch to ask, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" and Philip to go ahead and baptize him, even for all the long list of reasons that "the rules" say he can't.  And today we are again dared to let our love of God be humble enough to be open to God's surprising actions that push the boundaries of what we thought possible.

On this day, the living God just might pose some equally impossible sounding question to you, too:  "Mortal, will you love those you have written off as unacceptable and unworthy?"  "Disciple, could my grace give a new beginning for someone you have written off as beyond hope?"  "Child, could there be hope where you have given up, and new life for you right now?"  When it happens, may we have the maturity of faith to know how, like Ezekiel, to answer humbly:

"O Lord God, you know."

Surprise us, O God, as you will--and let these hearts of ours be ready for you to move in ways we did not expect, but which turn out to be completely faithful to your character.