In the novel ‘The Other Side of You’ by Salley Vickers, we hear the story of the relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient. The psychiatrist David describes the treatment he provides for Elizabeth-a woman who has tried to commit suicide. One afternoon she tells David the long and tragic story of how she reached a point of such utter hopelessness that she tried to take her own life. Somehow through telling her story- not only Elizabeth, but the psychiatrist David as well are liberated from a sense of hopelessness that they share.
David tries to explain how he has changed as a result of their encounter. He says to Elizabeth “I think when you believe something, I mean really believe it, it becomes real, or rather, it calls what is real into being.”
‘Calling what is real into being’ might be helpful as we think about the vision of the dry, dead bones becoming alive in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.
The Israelites to whom Ezekiel was prophesying were living in exile far away from Jerusalem. They are, like the characters Elizabeth and David, living without hope. The Israelites had always believed that the city of Jerusalem was God’s chosen dwelling place, that they were his chosen people and that God would defend them against all threats and dangers. When they are defeated by Babylon the Israelites have to figure out what it means that they are God’s chosen people. Perhaps their God isn’t the God they had always thought he was? If God isn’t their mighty protector on what can they hope?
The prophets at this time saw the situation very differently; God was the God he had always been; the problem wasn’t God but the people themselves. Time and again the prophets urge the people to be loyal to God and his covenant; it is because they have worshipped other gods that they have been conquered by the neighbouring powers. Their task now is to recognise their limitations and return to God and the way of life to which he calls his people.
In the passage we have heard today the hopelessness felt by the people is imagined as like a valley of dry, dead bones. The Lord God orders Ezekiel to prophesy to these dry bones and to call them back into life. The prophetic role is to declare to others what seems inconceivable, incredible, to call into being a hope which can transform and bring about a new reality.
This is exactly what happened for the Israelites in exile; many of these people were born in exile and had never seen the Holy Land or the temple. But Ezekiel has a vision of the future temple that together they will rebuild. By presenting this vision he creates an expectation and an anticipation of how things will be. The American theologian Walter Wink writes
“This is how history is made: by envisioning of new alternative possibilities and acting on them as if they were inevitable. That is how despair is overcome: …by prophesying a course of action God is conspiring to bring to pass” (From Christian Century: ‘These dry bones shall live-Living by the Word’).
Fundamental to Ezekiel’s prophecy is the spirit of God as the source of life:
“I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live,. And then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the LORD”.
The spirit of God as the source of life is crucial to Paul’s theology as well. In his letter to the Romans he presents the spirit of God as the basis for hope, life and peace. We are called, through baptism, to live in the Spirit and through this we share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul contrasts a life in the Spirit with a life in the flesh. He doesn’t mean by this an ethereal sort of existence contrasted with a more material one. Rather living in the flesh refers to an existence where we try to improve ourselves by our own efforts, where we rely on ourselves to live up to certain standards where we do not live by God’s strength and grace and so we are fundamentally turned away from God. This is why Paul sees life under the law- where God’s people sought to live under the law by their own efforts, as a fleshly way of existence. In contrast living by the Spirit means opening yourself up to the transforming reality of God’s love and being orientated towards God in every aspect of your life. This means we seek to follow Christ – not just in the obviously religious, spiritual or moral spheres. Our leisure time, our imagination, our everyday encounters are equally spiritual if we live as Christ did-turned towards the gaze of a loving Father.
What does this mean in practice? How can we live spiritual lives in the sense that Paul means? One of the ways we can begin to do this is through prayer. Specifically through being receptive, being still, listening in prayer; practices which we have been exploring in this year’s Lent course.
By sitting still in the presence of God, listening to the Spirit of God dwelling within us we learn to let go of ourselves, we learn to hand ourselves over to God and perhaps to our neighbours and the church community as well.
This Sunday is the beginning of Passion Week when we move towards the final week of Jesus’ life. Originally passion simply meant ‘suffering’ or ‘being acted upon’. It is in this original sense that the Church uses the word ‘passion’ to refer to the final period of Jesus’ life. In today’s gospel reading Jesus’ death and resurrection is anticipated in the dying and rising of Lazarus.
We are about to witness the ultimate act of vulnerability on the part of Jesus Christ when he allows himself to be ‘acted upon’ and given over to the Roman authorities for crucifixion. He will not try to stop this through force.
If we are to live in the Spirit, if our lives are to bear the hallmarks of life in Christ we, like him, have to allow ourselves to be acted upon, and we can do this at the most basic level in prayer. Rather than meeting God with our own opinions about how things should be we are called to be receptive to what God might be conspiring to bring about within us and in the world.
It is life in the spirit, a life orientated towards God, a life based on the contours of the life of Jesus Christ which is the ultimate source of hope. By opening ourselves up to God’s transforming love we align ourselves to God’s reality and his desire for peace and justice. This is what we mean when week by week we pray in the Lord’s Prayer ‘thy kingdom come’.
Praying in the spirit will change both how we view the world- (we will be more alert to signs of hope, of resurrection, of life) and how we act in the world. We are called to act with the expectation and the anticipation that God’s desires and purposes will come to pass. Which is why, with the fictional character David we can say:
“I think when you believe something, I mean really believe it, it becomes real, or rather, it calls what is real into being.” God’s reality of love, justice and peace is called into being through our prayer, our lives and our presence as a church community.
Amen