Calling the Blessing Into Being
a sermon based on Ezekiel 37:1-14
by Rev. Cindy Weber

When my friend Ken Casey preached at my ordination service back in 1984, he told a story about when he was a little boy. His father was a doctor, a very busy man, and he would come in at the end of a long day, and he would sit down and read the newspaper. It was his way of unwinding. And little Ken would come up and tap him on the arm, and say, “Daddy, do you want to feel my muscle?” And his Daddy had a choice, you see, to either say, “No, son, I’m too tired,” or to put down his paper, which is what he usually did, and reach out and feel Ken’s little arm muscle. And when he did, he would say, “My goodness! Look at that big muscle! You’re going to be a strong man someday, son.”

Ken’s daddy had a choice, to either ignore Ken or to bless him. And he usually chose to bless him. With his words, with his touch, he chose to bless him.

Once when I was in seminary, I went up to New York City with a group of students, got class credit for it, even. We visited a number of different churches and ministries, and one of the churches that we visited was Riverside Church, which is a nationally known congregation. The pastor of the church at the time was William Sloane Coffin. We got to talk to Rev. Coffin for about an hour, about 12 of us just sitting there asking him questions. I sat next to him, and never being one to keep quiet, I asked a fair amount of the questions.

When we got ready to leave, Rev. Coffin walked us to the door. Now, let me explain that I was a social work student. I had no intentions, no thoughts, no leadings whatsoever toward the pastoral ministry at the time. I was training to be a social worker, and had never even entertained the idea that one day I might be a pastor. So, back to the story, Rev. Coffin walked us to the front vestibule of the church, and as we stood there in the entrance of that huge, ornate, fancy room, he shook my hand, and he said, “Cindy, you’re going to be a great woman pastor someday.”

Now, I started to correct him, and tell him that I had no intentions of ever being a pastor, but because I rather enjoyed the discomfort of all of the my fellow men students who had been telling me all week long that women could never be pastors, I just smiled, and said, “Thank you.”

You know, I didn’t think of his words again for a very long time, but since I’ve become a pastor, I’ve often thought back to that time, to that gift of affirmation, to those words of blessing, and I’ve wondered if Rev. Coffin saw something in me that I could not see in myself, if he, in a sense, called something out of me that day, called some gifts, some awareness, some insight into being in that wonderful blessing that he bestowed upon me.

In this morning’s scripture reading, God takes Ezekiel to a valley where the ground is covered with dry bones. God leads him all around that valley, and Ezekiel can see that there are many, many bones, and that they are very, very dry.

Now, the bones that Ezekiel saw that day were the bones of the people of Israel, his beloved people, a people who had been conquered, captured, and carted off by the Babylonians. The nation of Israel was no more. And that’s what Ezekiel saw there in the desert that day, the death of the nation of Israel, the death of the people of Israel. And “there were many, many bones,” he said, “and they were very, very dry.”

You and I know all about dry bones, don’t we? We live in a world where dry bones are also plentiful, in a world, in fact, where dry bones abound. In a world where far too many people are crushed down, where far too many people are bruised and broken by oppressive systems, by physical and mental illnesses, by dysfunctional and abusive relationships, by homelessness, poverty, war. Why, some of us have been crushed down, haven’t we, crushed down, and bruised and broken. Crushed down by those who claim to know who God calls, and when, and where. Crushed down by those who use scripture, not to liberate, but to bind. Crushed down by a denomination that birthed us and fed us and grew us up in the faith, and then, when we continued to be faithful, cast us aside. Yes, we know all about dry bones.

And God said to Ezekiel, “Mortal human, can these bones come back to life?” And Ezekiel replied, “Sovereign Lord, only you can answer that!” Notice, even though the bones are “very, very dry,” Ezekiel held out hope, left the door open for God to move…Not a yes, but not a no, either. “Sovereign Lord, only you can answer that,” he said.

And then God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. “Tell these bones to listen to the word of the Lord.”

“So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” (vs. 7-10)

Do you see what happened here? God gave Ezekiel the power to summons God’s breath. God gave Ezekiel the power to summons God’s blessing, blessing for a dry and weary land, blessing for a dry and weary people. God gave Ezekiel the power to call God’s blessing into being. And there, before his very eyes, Ezekiel saw those dry bones get up and dance!

Sometimes when my husband, Robert, is going somewhere to do something important like leading a workshop, I offer to bless him. And most Sunday mornings before I leave the house, especially when I’m planning to preach, I ask him to bless me. And he lays his hands upon the top of my head, and prays for me, silently empowers me, brings God’s blessing into being for me, breathes God’s spirit into me, at least that’s how it feels. You see, I believe in blessing, I believe that God has given you and me the power to bless. Just like Ken Casey’s daddy had the power to bless him all those years ago, to make him feel loved, to make him feel like he would, indeed, be a strong man someday, just like William Sloane Coffin had the power to bless me all those years ago, to bring into being something that had not yet entered my mind, just like Ezekiel had the power to bless the people of Israel all those years ago, to cause a desert full of dry bones to rise up and dance, I believe that you and I have that same power.

The power to call God’s blessing into being, the power to bring life to a dry and weary land, the power to bring hope to a people in despair, the power to bring feeling to a people who have forgotten how to feel, forgotten how to laugh, how to cry, how to love, the power to bring peace to persons and to nations who’ve known nothing but unrest, the power to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the oppressed, recovery of sight to those who’ve never been able to see, to really see the presence of God before. God gives us the power to call God’s blessing into being! God gives us the power to make dry bones dance!

I’ve seen it happen over and over before in this little congregation. A man walks in on a Wednesday night. He’s homeless, and addicted to cocaine, and he sits down, and one of you sits down beside him, and talks to him, or listens to him, I should say, for almost an hour, you listen to him, and he comes back again and again and again, and his life is changed, he begins to recover from his addiction, and his dry bones learn to dance.

Another man comes to church on a Sunday morning. He’s unhappy with his life, he’s living with a woman in the housing projects, doing some drugs, selling some drugs, and he comes to church, and someone here tells him that she loves him, just out of the blue says, “I love you,” one day, doesn’t even remember it two weeks later, but because of that freely given, no-strings-attached love, his life is changed, his dry bones begin to dance.

A woman is invited to one of your house for Christmas. It’s no big deal, or so you think, but it makes an absolute world of difference to that woman. She finally, for the first time ever, feels loved, like she belongs, and her dry bones begin to dance.

There is a song that I’ve grown to love since I’ve been at our church, an old-timey song, “Rescue the Perishing.” My favorite verse is this: “Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, chords that are broken can vibrate once more” (Fanny Crosby).

You know what? We are a powerful people, sisters and brothers, a people who in the speaking of God’s blessing, not just through our words, but through our lives, can cause broken chords to vibrate, can cause broken people to heal, can cause dry bones to dance.

And because we are a people of blessing, I want us to take a few minutes to bless one another this morning. Now, if you don’t feel like this is something that you can do right now, that’s okay. But if you do, I want you to bless one of the people next to you, and then, if there are other folks that you want to bless, you go right on ahead and bless them, too. You can either lay your hands on that person’s head and say a silent prayer for them, or you can say to that person a hope that you have for him or her, or, if you know the person, you can affirm him or her in some way, mention something that you admire or appreciate about him or her. Or, you can just reach out and feel his or her arm muscles.

Let us bless one another as the people of God!