"Mortal, can these bones live?" How many of you have experience joint repair or joint replacement? Our dog, Sadie, is currently recovering from such surgery, so we have been experiencing the canine equivalent of such recovery … coping with the impatient patient who wants to venture out on her new back leg. The journey to getting to the place where one needs such surgery is usually quite long. Some are more stubborn than others about acknowledging the need for such surgery … others cope with the pain, and limiting mobility for quite some time … putting off the inevitable … until the point is reached where the joints are so deteriorated there isn't anything left to cushion the bones and literally it is bone against bone rubbing up against each other. Go home and look up pictures of deteriorating joints … they're not pretty. Bone against bone … nothing left to keep things moving the way they were designed.

"Mortal, can these bones live?" People get that way, don't they? A single mother with no support except what she brings in from her full time job, juggling all the demand of children, and work … feeling as if by the end of the day there is nothing left but to get herself to bed so she can start the whole thing over again the next day … feeling as if she is slowly drying up until she will finally wither away to a whisper of a human being. Dry bones. A husband caring for his dying wife … day after day, night after night … all on his own going through the grinding routine of her needs; wondering what will be left of him when she is gone. Dry bones. Sometimes people … sometimes we, just get to feeling dry … the daily routines, the crazy demands of college life, of too much homework at too young an age … of relationships gone sour … or just simply wondering 'what's the point?' Dry bones. And just like our joints, when we are dry, we deteriorate away and have a tough time moving. We get cranky, cantankerous, we rub up against one another in not so nice ways.

"Mortal, can these bones live?" It's the question posed by God to the prophet Ezekiel when all seemed lost for the people of Israel. Babylon had conquered them, the temple in Jerusalem lay in ruins and all seemed lost. Was there any hope for them … could anything possibly be restored in the midst of such loss and destruction? "Mortal, can these bones live?" Very smartly … as the prophet dreamed in the valley of dry bones … he didn't try to answer except to say, "O Lord, God, you know."

We leave Ezekiel in the land of dry bones to venture to another place of dry bones. Sit with the disciples for a moment in the Upper Room. If ever there was a place of dryness and despair, this is it. For three years they'd left everything they knew … friends, families, jobs … to follow Jesus. Now what? He was gone … in spite of his resurrection appearances, they didn't really know what to do. And so, they sat in this room and waited for instructions … was there any hope for them? "Mortal, can these bones live?"

"And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." There is the answer to the question – "Mortal, can these bones live?" The Spirit infusing life and power and possibility into us … giving sinews, ligaments, tendons, muscles to the people of God as they are bound into the church … the presence and body of Jesus Christ in the world.

There are times when the church seems to have retreated back into that Upper Room place of waiting and fear and uncertainty … back to the dreary landscape of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones. We heard some sobering statistics at Annual Conference about where the United Methodist Church will be if we choose to stay huddled in the Upper Room. At the current rate of decline we have about 44 years left in us. "Mortal, can these bones live?"

I firmly believe the answer is a more than resounding yes! I believe that the Holy Spirit still fills us, binds us together, empowers us and sends us out to the world to reach out in the name of Jesus Christ to bring life and hope and healing. We bring the love of Jesus to that struggling single woman. We stand with that husband as he cares for his dying wife. We are the place where people come when the grind of life drags them into dryness. We are the safety net for those weighed down with the pressures of school … a place to laugh and cry and simply be. We are the ones called to speak for the voiceless … the immigrant, the poor, the invisible … to find in each of them the face of Jesus Christ.

I believe that the answer is yes because I have experienced the reality of the church's power when they truly step out as the body of Christ. I have seen it as the church gathered in a hospital to sing a man into heaven as he lay dying. Music so beautiful it caused those who heard to become awestruck, and to ask in hushed tones: "Who are these people that would do this beautiful thing?" I believe that the answer is yes because I have seen what being the loving, touching presence of Christ means to a person with HIV/AIDS who has been shunned by others. How, the loving touch of one who follows the example of Jesus Christ in reaching out to the sick means all the world.

I believe that the answer is yes because I see the hope and possibility in the two young people that will be confirmed on this day of Pentecost. It was a journey their parents began for them … bringing them to church, teaching them … deciding that somehow this church thing was a good thing, an important thing. For the past two years Tyler and Samantha have been figuring this out for themselves. Learning the history of our church from Kathy Hackler last year; and this year working on spiritual development with me … figuring out what it all means for them to be part of the body of Jesus Christ. While their voices this morning … their "yes" may not be so loud … know that their two voices join with young people all over the land of United Methodism today as confirmation is celebrated in many of our churches. We got to hear the power of those voices joined in late April when we attended the bishop's confirmation celebration. More than three hundred voices said yes, and today when Tyler and Samantha say yes to the questions we ask, I hope they will remember that moment and feel the power of those many voices joined together.

We have received the empowering of the Holy Spirit … binding us together, giving life to our dry bones … we are sent to be the presence of Jesus Christ to all we meet. "Mortal, can these bones live?" Do you believe the answer is yes? Mortal, can these bones live? Say it with me: YES!

Go back to the 2009 Sermons page.
Go back to the UMC Red Bank home page.