Lent 5A

Lent 5A April 2, 2017 This past week I read a poignant news story about UN Peacekeeper Michael Sharp whose bones were found in a shallow grave in the Democratic Republic of the Congo earlier this week. The writer of the news story reflected on a time when he had met Michael, and Michael had shared with him about the peacekeeping work that Michael and his colleagues were already doing in the Democratic Republic of Congo among the rebels there. Michael’s vocation was to engage in dialogue with the rebels—violent people who perceived the world so differently from how he did. He would sit down with them and listen to their stories, and then he would usually persuade them to surrender. And he believed that his approach could be applied to other violent groups—from ISIS to neo-Nazis—who rely on myths to recruit members and sustain themselves. In a conversation with the reporter back in 2015, Michael explained how he would approach these very violent rebels he worked with. “It starts, he said, with understanding their world view of the past as ‘the good old days and we need to go back to that. And that is the classic narrative of exile.’ The rebels, he said, were nostalgic for a mythical home and aimed to rewind history to a time that never really existed in the first place. For the Congolese rebels, their fantasy was an era when they—in their imagination—ruled neighboring Rwanda and killed their ethnic enemies with impunity.”i The article continues talking about Michael Sharp’s methodology and how he worked within the mythical narrative of the exiled rebels to provide them with reasons to surrender, which had been a very effective model. But this story struck me this week in the ways that it resonates with our reading from Ezekiel today (and even a little bit with the gospel reading). We see the prophet Ezekiel, who has been raised up by God to serve as a prophet to the Children of Israel who have been marched against their will into exile in Babylon, where they live as a conquered people among their conquers. They are longing for home, and they tell stories of the good old days, the way things used to be. Ezekiel continues this exile narrative with the vision of the valley of the dry bones. The people in exile are a people who have lost heart, who are suffering a death of the spirit, a living death in exile in a foreign land. And the explanation given at the end of the reading is that they are, in fact, the dry bones that will be reanimated and re-energized by the breath of the Lord, so that they may be placed once again on their own soil and so that they may once again know Yahweh as their Lord and God. This story of death and resurrection, wandering and displacement and return to home is a central one in the Old and New Testaments, and really, if we think about it, we can all relate at least a little bit. Each of us, if we are truthful, has our stories of exile and loss, wandering and disappointment. Each of us has our own narrative of “the good old days,” “the ways things used to be” before… Before he died. Before she got sick. Before he became addicted to drugs or alcohol. Before she lost her job. Before the divorce. Before all this change… And each of us has our dusty, frustrated hope of all that now will never be. These are our own Valleys of Dry Bones. On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, the last before we enter Holy Week with great fanfare, triumph and pageantry on Palm Sunday, we are offered the invitation to walk through a graveyard of our own lost hope and frustrated expectations. We are invited to acknowledge and recognize our own heartbreak. And we are given the gift of freedom when we stand, in the middle of our valley of dry bones, let go of the shreds of the false narratives we tell ourselves, and admit brokenly before our Creator: “This is not how I hoped things would be.” “Can these bones really live?” Because, my friends, in that admission of ours, we offer God space, an invitation—to breathe new life into those valleys of dry bones in our lives, to breath new hope and renewed purpose into our stories, and to restore us more fully in relationship with God and each other. For the breath that fills us with new life is the same breath that created us, claimed us, and marked us as God’s beloved, belonging to Christ forever. So, take a moment and reflect on these questions, and take them with you out into the world and your week beyond this place: 1. Name the valley of dry bones that you are being invited to walk around in during this season. The dry bones can be dead people, dead dreams, lost or hibernating hope, or the promises of God you have forgotten or set aside. 2. How had you hoped things would be different? Name your hurt and your disappointment to yourself and to God. 3. What can you learn about yourself and the world from this painful, difficult path that you have been called to walk? 4. Can you offer to God your valley of dry bones, and when God asks you, “Mortal, can these bones live?” can you answer with faith in the resurrecting breath of God—“O Lord God, you know.”? i. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/29/521962848/remembering-michael-sharp-he-risked-his-life-to-make-peace?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170330