From our 21st century perspective, Ezekiel has got to be one of the strangest people we meet in the Bible. Now don’t get me wrong. Ezekiel comes to his people with important things to say. Life-and-death things. It’s just that the way that he says them, it’s... unconventional. Prophets come with messages that are unsettling – it’s what prophets do – they come with bad news and then good news: Something is coming to an end, AND, God is bringing something new to life.[1] The prophets announce big changes – sometimes painful changes.
Ezekiel, though, doesn’t come and just speak his prophecy. He acts it out – he embodies the message – Ezekiel lives out God’s news for the people – in his flesh and bones. Ezekiel’s way of prophesying is more than a little unusual.
But first, we have to set the scene: We’ve got to picture Ezekiel and his community living in what is essentially a refugee camp.[2] The people of Israel are at war, and they are getting hammered. The Babylonian empire has crushed them and taken prisoners. The empire has carried off the best of the best – the royalty, the craftsmen and craftswomen, the priests. They’re all living in a refugee camp in Babylon, and they are cut off from their people back home. The only hope of this refugee people is that Jerusalem – their city – has not fallen. Yet.
But God calls Ezekiel to bring the news. Jerusalem is going to fall, the old ways – the ways that have harmed too many people for far too long – the old ways are coming to an end. Period. There is better news down the road, but for now, the news is hard. Jerusalem is going to fall. Ezekiel, go tell the people. Ezekiel is called, as one writer says, to be “a traumatized witness to [an already-] traumatized people.”[3]
So here’s what Ezekiel does: Now maybe we should have known that something about Ezekiel is different. At the very start, when God calls Ezekiel to be a prophet, God hands Ezekiel a scroll with the word of God written on it. And Ezekiel eats it. Maybe that means that, for Ezekiel, God’s word is part of his whole being, but that is the story: Ezekiel eats the scroll.
And then he goes to deliver the news. God tells Ezekiel to let himself be tied up inside his house, to show the people the reality of living in bondage. And Ezekiel’s community watches as that happens.
Then, when he gets untied, Ezekiel goes into the middle of the refugee camp and draws Jerusalem on a clay tablet. Then, he lays siege to the clay tablet. Ezekiel builds camps, and battering rams, and puts them around this clay tablet. This signifies the siege of Jerusalem. Babylon has the city surrounded.
And then, Scripture says, Ezekiel lies down, on his side, next to the clay tablet, and he lies there for 390 days – that’s to mark the number of years that Israel has lost its way. Then, after 390 days, Ezekiel rolls over and lies on his other side. He lies on his other side for 40 days, to signify the 40 years of captivity that these refugees will experience. Now keep in mind that all this is happening in the center of this refugee camp. It’s like Ezekiel is a street preacher.[4] Ezekiel’s community walks by Ezekiel every day watching him live out his prophecy.
After these 430 days are over, Ezekiel gets up and shaves his head. He takes 1/3 of his hair and burns it to represent the destruction of Jerusalem. He takes another third of his hair and scatters it in the wind – this represents the community scattered by war. And he takes the final 1/3 of his hair, and tucks it in his belt. This represents the remnant of the community that may survive. (I promise, I’m not making this up.)
This is how Ezekiel tells the people in captivity that Jerusalem is going to fall – he acts it out. For Ezekiel, just speaking the words is not enough. He lives out the word of God – he brings the word of God to the people in flesh-and-bones. In Ezekiel, that word comes to life.
And then, the day that the people dread comes. A lone runner arrives with the news, and runs into the center of the camp. Out of breath, the runner says those three words that the people have feared for so long: “Jerusalem has fallen.” It has been burned to the ground. And this refugee people – weary from war – cry out, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is gone. We are cut off.”
In this morning’s Scripture, God hears and answers their cry. It’s not surprising that – like Ezekiel’s prophecies of impending doom – his prophecy of hope is also a story of flesh and bones. In the vision in this morning’s Scripture, God takes Ezekiel and sets him down in the midst of a valley full of dry bones – a place of utter desolation, and God asks Ezekiel this question around which this whole Scripture hinges:
Mortal, can these bones live?
In the midst of this utter desolation – of this valley – of your world –
in the midst of utter desolation, Can these bones live?
Now there’s an answer to that question that Ezekiel dares not speak: These bones are dusty, dry, and dead. Can these bones live? C’mon.
But instead. Ezekiel responds to God’s question: “God, you know.”
And then, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones, “Tell them that God says this: I’m going to put you back together. I’m going to attach these dry bones, bone to bone, with tendons. I’m going to put flesh on these bones. And I’m going to cover them with skin. And then, then, I’m going to breathe life into these bones, and they will live. Go ahead, Ezekiel, prophesy to these bones.”
Ezekiel does as he’s told. He prophesies to the bones: “Dry bones, this is what God says: Come to life.”
And it happens. There’s a sound. A rattling. And Ezekiel sees the bones start to come together. Bone to bone. Tendons. Flesh. Skin. A restored – but still lifeless – multitude of peole. And then God tells Ezekiel to summon the winds. “Ezekiel, tell the winds to breathe life into these dry bones.” And Ezekiel does, and the bones – the bodies – come to life. A multitude standing in that valley... alive.
And then God explains: The dry bones are the exiled people of Israel. They have heard the news, and they have cried out in despair: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is gone!” And the question is, “Can these bones live?” And God answers God’s people in flesh-and-bones. Yes, yes, my people you will live. And God breathes the breath of life back into God’s despairing people.
Even though this embodied, prophetic vision may sound wild and strange to 21st-century ears, I don’t think it’s that hard to envision the places of desolation we see and know in our own world. Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones is likely a battlefield scene – the wreckage of violence and war. About a month ago, I saw All Quiet on the Western Front – the remake of the 1930s movie about the carnage and senselessness of WWI – with its haunting images of that brutal trench warfare – the battlefield strewn with bodies just left in the barren expanse between the trenches. For the past year, we have seen the devastation in Ukraine – the relentless bombing, the buildings in ruins, millions of people fleeing for safety, tens of thousands of people killed.[5]
Imagine the desolation there. Ezekiel’s vision is like imagining the bodies of those battlefields, coming to life. Imagine those who have defended their homeland, coming home to their families – their families returning from exile. Imagine Russian tanks in retreat. Imagine the rebuilding of buildings, the rebuilding of a nation and a life. Imagine a return of sanity to the leadership of nations. What will peace and rebuilding look like? What is that vision?
God brings Ezekiel into a valley full of dry bones – into the desolation the world has wrought – and asks Ezekiel the question upon which everything depends: Can these bones live?
This week, we also can’t help but think of the latest urgent warnings of the desolation we are bringing to our planet – as once again, like a broken record no one wants to hear – the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) has issued a report with stark climate facts and dire projections for the future.[6] The IPCC reports that we’ve passed the threshold of 1 degree Celsius in global warming and are heading swiftly toward 1.5 degrees, likely reaching that benchmark early in the next decade. Already, the world is experiencing an increasing number of extreme weather events – drought – record-breaking storms – we know what that looks like. Extreme weather events have displaced 13 million people. Roughly half the world’s population faces at least seasonal water scarcity. At 1.5 degrees warming, they project even more fresh-water scarcity, crippling heat waves, coastal flooding, and crop failures that will threaten the world’s food supply. The UN Secretary General calls the latest report “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”[7]
If we listen to these repeated warnings, we can envision the desolation that is already here and on its way. Can we imagine? Imagine the radical action that the UN and climate scientists insist is necessary for survival. Imagine the love, courage, and compassion it will take to live in our new realities if even a part – or all – of this collapse unfolds. Can we begin to see that vision?
God brings Ezekiel into a valley full of dry bones – into the desolation the world has wrought – and asks Ezekiel the question upon which everything depends: Can these bones live?
Ezekiel’s vision is indeed big, and at the same time it is personal. We see the places of desolation in our world. We know the places of desolation in our our lives – the hurt, the ache, the sorrow. We’ve known what that question can feel like in our flesh and bones. Can these bones live?
In the vision in this morning’s Scripture, God asks the question. And, God answers the question. Not right away, but in a very particular way. And with what we know of Ezekiel, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. God answers the question by putting the answer in Ezekiel.
God asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?”
Ezekiel responds, “God you know.”
And God says, Ezekiel, you prophesy. Prophesy to these bones. Call the four winds from the corners of the earth. Together, we will call these bones to life. And the bones come together, and flesh, and the winds, the Spirit, breathes breath into dry bones. And the bones live.
God asks Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?”
Ezekiel responds, “God you know.”
God essentially says,
“Oh, I know I know. But Ezekiel, I need you to know.”
A few months ago Herman and Mary gave me a book that I’ve just started to read – Roman Krz-naric’s book The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking.[8] In our conversations here, we are talking about the reality of climate collapse – the results of our rampant consumption and wasting ways already in progress. Into that conversation, Krznaric suggests that we turn to a question first voiced by Jonas Salk: “Are we being good ancestors?” In the lives we are living now, are we being good ancestors to those who will inhabit this earth after us, the generation that will follow, and then the next, and then the next, and then the next? Krz-naric argues that, in a world full of existential threat, it is no longer enough to be a Good Samaritan. We must also be a Good Ancestor.[9]
And what that means, Krz-naric explains, is that we must embrace long-term thinking – very long-term thinking. We have to look up from our screens, from our phones – from the immediate impulses of our momentary lives – and look and live toward the far horizon of future lives – the lives of those who will follow us. What that looks like – and there’s so much more to Krz-naric’s book – what that looks like is that (1) we embrace what he calls “a deep-time humility,” we see that we are but “an eyeblink in cosmic time” – time is vast, embracing so many lives.[10] Then, (2) we begin to think of think of the legacy we will leave to the generations that follow, casting that vision at least 7 generations out, and (3) we seek justice now for those generations – insisting on the same justice we value in this moment for all people – no matter when they are or will be born.[11] And then, Krz-naric suggests that (4) that we undertake projects – big projects – bigger than our lifetimes – that begin to build that just world; (5) we imagine broadly multiple paths so we’re not surprised as the world unfolds; and (6) we set a goal that is nothing less than the healing and health of a world, thousands of years forward – we become Good Ancestors for the billions of lives that will flow out from our own.
In that valley of dry bones, the bones come to life – and I think I’ve always assumed that the bones are meant to be the people in that refugee camp – the folks in exile to whom Ezekiel will first report this vision. But what if the bones that come to life are not only their bones – what if the life breathed into that valley is the life of the generations that will follow them – the life of those who will eventually make their way back to Jerusalem – the life of those who will crawl over the rubble and begin to rebuild, brick upon brick – the life of those who will remember what it is to live in relationship to God – restored, rebuilt, revived. What if the life breathed into that valley is the life of seven generations, and beyond, reaching all the way to us, and then even further. Ezekiel’s vision is of life that big – and it comes to life in that valley, in Ezekiel, in the people – in flesh and bones.
Next Sunday, we’ll gather here for worship on Palm Sunday, and we will begin our journey into Holy Week. We will travel together as Jesus turns the tables in the Temple and confronts the powers. We’ll gather together on Maundy Thursday, as Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and shares a meal – and then is betrayed, arrested, tried, flogged, and crucified. We will stumble our way to Good Friday – and with those who followed and love Jesus, we will ask together, at the foot of the cross, hope against hope, “Can these bones live?”
And in the desolation of those days, remembered once again in our dry bones, we will hear the echo of Ezekiel’s plea – “God, you know” – and the whisper of God’s response – as quiet as the very breath we breathe – “Oh, my Beloved, I know that I know. I need you to know – in your flesh and bones – so that together, we will find your way to life.”
© 2023 Scott Clark
[1] See Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1978), pp. 13-14. [2] This telling of Ezekiel’s story follows scholars who locate Ezekiel as a prophet living in exile, whose prophetic work begins after the first wave of deportation, but before the razing of the Temple in Jerusalem. See Robert B. Coote (from lecture notes); Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, “The Book of Ezekiel,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. vi (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001). [3] See Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, A Good Enough Life: 40ish Devotions for a Life of Imperfection (New York: Convergent Press, 2022), p.220. [4] See Robert B. Coote (lecture notes). [5] See https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/02/1133737 [6] See https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/climate/global-warming-ipcc-earth.html ; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/climate/climate-change-ipcc-report.html [7] See https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/climate/climate-change-ipcc-report.html [8] Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking (New York, NY: The Experiment, 2020). [9] See id. pp. 4-15. [10] Id. p. 39. [11] See id. 79-86.