The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2024, Dr. Tamilio

 Today is Pentecost: the day that the Church was born.  After Jesus ascended into Heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to the believers in Jerusalem.  Tongues of fire appeared over their heads, and they began speaking in tongues.  Actually, they began speaking in such a way that the multicultural/multilingual gathering in Jerusalem that day understood what was being said.  Jesus had given them the Holy Spirit, just as he promised he would, in John’s Gospel: “If you love me, keep my commands.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever — the Spirit of truth” (14:15-17a).  We are told that hordes of people joined the new, fledgling Church that day.

That passage from Acts is part of the Lectionary for today, and rightly so.  But what about that other passage: the one from Ezekiel?  Huh?  This is the story of the Valley of Dry Bones, the one in which the prophet is brought to a valley and sees that it is filled with bones that are dry — “very dry” are the exact words used.  God asks the prophet, “Can these bones live?”  Ezekiel’s response would be the same one we’d offer: “Only you know that, God.”  In other words, “This is a little out of my hands, God.  If they can live, only you know and only you could make it happen.  That’s not in my job description.”  God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones.  It is almost like Jesus telling the sick and the lame to do the impossible: “Get up!  Pick up your mat and walk” (John 5:8).  Apparently, it is in your job description.

But what does Pentecost and the story of Ezekiel making a Valley of Dry Bones live have to do with one another?  I think the idea is newness — newness of life.

We can see why that is the case with the Ezekiel story.  Dead people.  Dry bones.  Prophecy.  The power of God.  Bone and sinew coming together.  New life for a holy people.  But Pentecost?  This is a story about new life, too.

The bones in Ezekiel are the whole house of Israel.  They are dry because they are spiritually as well as physically dead.  When they come to life, they become a great army.  It simply takes a word from God.  Then we have the people in Jerusalem on Pentecost.  Their Lord has physically departed, and they are left without direction.  One could say that they are spiritually dry, too — or at least they are on the verge of spiritual aridity.  Jesus sends the Holy Spirit upon them, just as God sent the spirit of prophecy upon the Valley of Dry Bones.  The bones become a great army.  The people in Jerusalem become the Church.

Death.  Bones.  Dryness.  Emptiness.  From that comes new life in one story, and a new purpose in the other.  It is all about that.  It is all about us.

God created the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo, as theologians say in Latin).  He put us on this earth.  Eventually, he gave us his Word to guide us.  We know our time here is limited.  It does not matter how old you are.  It is all relative.  We all have only so many years left on this earth.  Some more than others.  “Every day is getting shorter, never seem to find the time.  Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines” as Pink Floyd so eloquently sang.  If that is all that we have, then we would be pathetic and hopeless.  You are wasting your time in this sanctuary or reading these words if this is all there is.  If this is all there is, then we are hopeless.

The Apostle Paul had something to say about all of this: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19).

He’s right.  He is 110% right.  If our hope is only tied to this existence, then our faith is in vain.  It is faith in something thin at best, and a total myth at probable.  Why not worship a tree!  At least it will give you something of sustenance, something that is real, something you can touch.  A tree can give you an apple.  Ah, isn’t that where it all started?  (Footnote: according to the geographic description given in Genesis, the Garden of Eden was probably in Bagdad, be you a literalist or not.  It wasn’t an apple tree neither.  This isn’t Portland, Maine — or Portland, Oregon, for that matter.  It doesn’t really matter what kind of fruit it was, so I’m going to stop talking about it.)  However, you see it, don’t you.  There it is.  That apple with all of its empty promises.  Whatever they are, they cannot save you.  This is where it all got started.  This is where you thought you could do it.

This is when humanity defied God, again, be you a biblical literalist or not.  This is when we said, “No, we’ve got this.  We know what we’re doing.  Don’t worry about us.  We are our own gods, thank you very much.”

It all was downhill from there.  Sure, there were moments when we rose.  There were moments when the dry bones came together and said, “Hey, let’s pull together and create big things.  Let’s lead the world in technology.  Let’s build the most innovative political system and get the best and brightest from all over the world to fill our universities and hospitals and research laboratories.  Let’s walk on the moon.  Let’s create the greatest sense of Patriotism when it really matters (remember the aftermath if 9/11) — or maybe it should be all the time.  Let’s create music like the blues: music that can only capture the plight of the oppressed.  We didn’t experience it, but we can feel it.  We can empathize.  Just as you can feel New England by reading Robert Frost, and you can get a sense of the turn-of-the-century South by reading half of T.S. Eliot.  We also have Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Anne Bradstreet and Emily Dickinson, and these are just a few of the local guys and gals made good.  Canton had Paul Revere!  That’s pride.  I’d like to see that on the news.  I’d like the world to see what else started here.  I’d like for people to see the Cantonites I know and love.”

Did it feel like a tangent for a minute there?  It’s all been a tangent, my friends, the minute we bit that apple-fig-pomegranate-whatever-it-was.  The minute we thought we could be the sum of existence.  If that is true, then “we are of all people most to be pitied.”  Are you gonna take it with ya?  No?  Good, so it doesn’t matter as much as you think.  Not as much as a life well-lived that you can only live now.

And God wants you to live life now.  And he wants me to live life now.  And he wants us all to live life now.  And we’ve tried, and we’ve tried, and we’ve tried, and we’re not getting it right!  We’re not.  “We do not know the steps to the dance, Hallie,” if I may paraphrase the great South African playwright, Athol Fugard.

So, what comes at the end of this human edifice?  Nothing.  Dust.  The dust from which you came.  The dust to which you shall return.  The dust which someone else, in some other time, will sweep from their doorstep.  You will be nothing.  So, who cares?  What does any of it matter?  Camus is right to scream at his silent universe only to hear his own voice reverberating back at him.

But that is not how the story goes.  It’s not how dem bones, dem bones come together or how the Holy Spirit shows up in a way we cannot possibly imagine to set the world on fire.  To set the world on fire!

We are a people of fire — The Fire.  It drips from our tongues when we speak of true justice.  It gives a hug to the mother we will never know who can feed her child tonight because of what you gave.  It was the person sitting near Carl (yes Carl again) at the Senior Supper the other night.  I had a moment.  It brought me to tears as I wrote this.  For all we know (and I may be wrong), but for all we know, Carl may have been that old woman’s only human contact last week.  Thank you for that Kennedy smile Carl!  And thank you Rachel Rigoli and your crew for carrying on the legacy begun by Mary Jane Odell.  We have a rich history.  And a rich lineage.  And a rich faith.

Don’t hide it.  If there are dry bones, then it’s because of us.  Eat your Wheaties.  Exercise.  Take your Ibuprofen.  If it is a spiritual aridness, read your Bible.  Read it.  It’s not a decoration.  It’s not a bookend.  I’m not saying that you’re not reading it.  I am saying that you are not reading it enough — and neither am I.  We have to remain rooted in the Word.  Whether you read it literally or not.  Some of you are literalists.  That’s fine.  Some of you are like Marcus Borg who said, “All of the Bible is true, and some of it really happened,” or, if you are somewhere in between, maybe it is, as Eliot said, “The word within a word unable to speak a word.”  That’s how I see it.  It is the Word incarnate.  True words.  Beyond human words.  The Word as in Logos.  Breath of God.  You read it.  You feel it.  You experience it.  It is the only way to read it.

And we rise from the Valley of Dry Bones, and we are set ablaze with our new members as the Congregational Church of Canton, where we live what we proclaim, where we burn with the fire of the Holy Spirit, which some hear as a still small voice and others as a lion’s roar.  You will hear us say, “You are welcome here, sinner.  You’ll find a whole lot of us just here just like yourself.  We are all sinners in the hands of a God of love and forgiveness, because of Jesus.”  Our Puritan forbearer, Jonathan Edwards, called it, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  I’d say that we are sinners in the hands of a God of love and forgiveness, because of Jesus.”  And thanks God for that!  So let us rise.  And let us sing.

Amen.