Sermon: You're sure we have all the right pieces?
When you buy IKEA furniture do you take the time to see first if you have all the right parts before trying to assemble it? And what would you do if you found you were missing a few essential parts to that swing set you just bought for the kids? Or had some wrong parts – what look like some parts maybe left over from a lawn-mower instead?
I wonder if Christians today often approach church with
this "do we have all the right parts?" mind-set. Why else would
we hear so much lament about not having enough kids, not having enough young
families, not having a parking lot, not having enough money, not having the
right mix of people, enough of the right music, or the right
technology ... as though things like these are the problem, and a
good church can’t be assembled without all the right parts?
Just think of Ezekiel as he stands before, and then enters
into the valley of bones.
Bad enough that they are dry, dusty, dead and
disconnected. That’s the state of the
people of Israel. They are no longer a
kingdom connected together and living out their God-given role in the world. Through years of bad policy, dishonest and
corrupt leadership, poorly-thought-out alliances, selfishness and
short-sightedness, and a basic refusal to honour God and God’s way of serving
the good of Earth and the well-being of all things, they have ceased to be a
people of any purpose or importance in the world. They have lost their life and their reason
for being, and have actually been overthrown and dismantled by their foes.
But also, the pieces now are all jumbled. Imagine how the bones have been scattered and
tossed about. Mixed up and
confused. How now will Ezekiel or God or
the host of God’s angels know which bones connect to which, which ones belong
together and in what order to rebuild the bones into real individual and
separate bodies? Do they have all the
parts? Will there be some parts left
over – put aside for spare parts, maybe?
And, even if they manage to build the bones into bodies,
will they not still be missing the more important ones? Because the king and the royal household, the
priests and the prophets, the nobles and the chieftains and the ones who can
manage the affairs of state and offer leadership in the arts and the sciences,
have all been taken off to Babylon. Some
of them have even died there. And what
will we do without them? Without the
ones who were the more important members of the body of the people?
On all kinds of levels, I can imagine Ezekiel looking at
what lies before him, and honestly asking, “God? Are you sure we have all the right parts to
rebuild the people?”
To which God replies, "Stop worrying about the parts
list. Each people I build is different anyway. As long as the Word
and the Spirit are there, the parts that are here will be just what's
needed. So preach the Word, and help the
people hear it; the Word will bring the parts together in the way they need to
be. And call for the Spirit; when you
do, I will send it and it will be the breath of life the people need to live
and move as the people they are brought together to be.”
Do we sometimes worry about being dry and dusty? I know with the change from old village to
new suburban life, we worry about being dis-connected.
Do we sometimes feel all jumbled and mixed up? Not sure what parts belong with which? What pieces of what used to be, we should try
to carry on? What new things or pieces
from elsewhere to embrace? What one or
two of maybe seven or twelve or twenty different projects or points of focus to
take on?
And do we sometimes lament that maybe the more important
pieces aren’t here? That we’re missing
something crucial – whether money or kids or a parking lot or the right kind of
minister or the newest program or whatever someone else’s parts list tells us
we should have?
God? Are you sure we
have all the right parts to be what you want us to be?
To which God replies, “Stop worrying about the parts
list. Each people I build is different anyway. As long as the Word
and the Spirit are here, the parts that are here will be just what's
needed. So preach the Word, listen to it
and let it guide you; it will bring you together in the way you need to
be. And call for the Spirit; when you
do, it will come and it will be the breath of life you need to live and move as
the people you are brought together to be.”
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