The Valley of the Dry Bones

April 2, 2017

Helen Jacobi

Lent 5     Ezekiel 37:1-14     Psalm 130     Romans 8:6-11     John 11:1-45

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Cast your minds back to 2003, the last Lord of the Rings film – the Return of the King. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are forced to travel the Dimholt Road, known as the paths of the dead. Inside the caverns under the mountains they find skulls and skeletons and then are confronted by the spirits of the dead who cannot rest until they have fulfilled their oath to the heir of Gondor. Aragorn is the heir and he commands them to fight for him, which they do, and they are then released from their torment and rest in peace. Some of the best scenes of the movie! Can’t believe it was 2003 – although of course true believer fans such as myself have watched it many times since!

Just last week during the Arts Festival there was a show with a similar theme, but this time not a fantasy movie but real life. The Bone Feeder, is a new opera by Gareth Farr. It tells the story of the early Chinese community in NZ. In 1902 Chinese families had arranged to send the bodies of their loved ones home for burial and as the show programme recounts “on October 26, 1902, the steamship SS Ventnor left Wellington bound for China with 499 coffins. The Chinese families believed that if they did not return their loved ones home, they would become hungry ghosts, unable to care for their families nor be cared for in turn. Tragically the ship struck a rock at Cape Egmont, sinking as it limped towards Hokianga Harbour. 13 lives were lost. Over time, the distinctive coffins floated ashore, to be found by Te Roroa and Te Rarawa iwi. Local oral history tells the secret of bones found and kept safe until their families came for them. In 2013, this at last came true when a delegation of Chinese, the descendants and kin of those lost, travelled North to thank the iwi for their guardianship. The Baisan ceremony was performed in order to ‘feed the bones’ and finally satisfy those hungry ghosts.” [1]

The opera tells this story in a very moving and also at times humorous way. The “ghosts” are restless until they find peace when their descendant arrives to pay due honour to the ancestors.

I think the prophet Ezekiel would have liked both The Return of the King and The Bone Feeder. Ezekiel was a pretty dramatic guy.

Ezekiel was exiled with the children of Israel in 597, they lived in Babylon. Ezekiel starts out his life as a prophet of doom pretty much – declaring that the people have got what they deserve. He would go into a trance and then relate the visions he saw. Often he would act them out – he ate a scroll of the words of God and declared them sweet to taste (Ezek 3); he took bricks and built a model of the siege of Jerusalem (Ezek 4); he lay down on one side for 390 days, the number of years of punishment God was going to give the people (Ezek 4); then he shaved his head – burning some of his hair and scattering the rest to the wind (Ezek 5) to show what was happening to the people of Israel. All rather dramatic and actually pretty crazy.

As time goes on Ezekiel teaches the people new ideas. They have had to deal with exile from their homeland which is bad enough, but also exile from the Temple, their place of worship which has been destroyed. The people believed God resided in the Temple and if they worshipped there then all would be well. They have to find a new way to relate to God, away from the Temple and away from the places God was said to reside. Ezekiel teaches them that God resides in their hearts

I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezek 36:24-28)

The idea that God could be found within people, instead of an external Temple was radical and new.

When Ezekiel has his vision of the valley of the dry bones, it is in this new more hopeful time. God has punished the people in exile but God will also breathe new life into them. At the beginning of his vision Ezekiel can only see devastation, a whole valley of dry bones. Like Aragorn entering the valley of the dead, or the tragedy of 499 coffins being lost at sea. There can only be sorrow and loss and fear. Ezekiel is told to “prophesy” to the bones; to cry out to them, in sorrow maybe, but also in hope. To speak life to them; the power of the word of God being so strong. And so in his vision the bones are recreated into humans and the breath, the spirit, the ruach of God fills them.

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil (Ezek 37:14). The people can begin to have hope that one day they or their descendants will return home – and 70 years later in 520 they will return and the Temple will indeed be rebuilt.

Ezekiel’s way of communicating is very physical. And yet he integrates the physical and the spiritual. Our modern world has separated the physical and the spiritual – in Ezekiel we see them come together. The breath, the spirit is within the bodies, not separate from them.

When we look at our world and ourselves where do we see valleys of dry bones? In the famine in the Sudan, in places of drought, in people struggling with poverty in our own land. Maybe your own life at the moment feels like a valley of dry bones – because of loss or grief, or plain boredom at work. Ezekiel invites us to prophesy, to speak, to claim the spirit of God. Ezekiel invites us breathe in a life giving breath and to seek to transform our experience or that of others. Our Christian life and prayer is not a magic wand for change, but we can bring change and hope for ourselves and each other when we seek a new spirit, and a heart of flesh, not stone.

This passage from Ezekiel is one we will read again on Holy Saturday at the Easter Vigil service. As we gather in the darkened church we imagine the darkness of the tomb of Jesus, or the tomb of Lazarus. We gather and listen and wait. We hear read the story of creation, the story of the people passing through the Red Sea to freedom, then the valley of the dry bones. Each reading sets the scene, reminds us of God’s actions though the ages, and prepares us to welcome Jesus, who like Lazarus, walks from the tomb. This year we are going to open up the baptismal pool and we are going to be invited to walk down into it (without the water, you don’t have to wear your bathing suit); and to walk up the other side. As we have been walking to the font each Sunday in Lent to lay down our burdens symbolized in the stones, so we will walk down into the valley, or the tomb, and up and out to the other side, with God’s ruach breathed into us.

Prophesy mortal, speak, proclaim hope, proclaim life, be ready for spirit to be alive with you.

Ezekiel’s vision can become real for us if we claim it, if we choose to speak and to act.

[1] http://www.aucklandfestival.co.nz/assets/2017-Documents/Show-Programmes/Bone-Feeder-FINAL.pdf