Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) is committed to the full participation of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the life and ministry of the Lutheran church.
The Rev. Jane Ralph
Ezekiel 37 Sermon
37The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” 7So 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. 8I 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. 9Then he 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.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. 11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.
Grace and Lenten greetings. . . . . .
Greetings also from ELM and thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. It may be a testament to G_D’s divine timing and sense of humor that you get to have a queer pastor preach when part of the good news is the command to “Come Out” –and I would love to linger over the breadth of human emotions that Jesus shows in this gospel –as well as the fact that Jesus calls his dear friend out –not just from the closet but from death itself. This is truly good news!
But its Lent –maybe not exactly the time for a bit of camp –entertaining as that might be. And besides –there are all these bones. Do you see them? I know I do. G_D takes Ezekiel out –it says the hand of G_D came upon him and the Spirit of G_D led him into the middle of a valley of bones. So he could see them too.
At that time things were particularly dire for the house of Israel. I think when I envision the house of Israel, I tend to see its glory days but at this time they were a small population on the fringe Babylonian Empire. They were struggling for survival. They were desparate, dried up and hopeless. Babylonian empire was doing what empires always do – becoming more powerful by either destroying anyone who was not like them or creating conditions that forced anyone different to assimilate to their culture and norms.
For the Israelites –no doubt for any group of people- this is a terrible choice, really no choice at all. Survive by becoming or pretending to become something you’re not or die resisting. They were being forced to give up their very identity in order to survive at all. Clearly this was not the first nor the last time the house of Israel would be faced with this dilemna.
Nor are they the only group that has had to make it –Empire building by its nature disenfranchises nations in order to set up its own franchise –those who go along may get some benefit, those who don’t are eliminated or so marginalized that it only takes a generation or so for assimilation to occur. The Roman Empire, British and some would say US have followed suit in subtle and not so subtle ways.
And its not just a function of nations and empires but cultures themselves that are assimilated in subtle and not so subtle ways. Culture becomes defined almost entirely by the norms of a dominant culture. So that any sense of other identities are hidden if not denied completely. This for house of Israel was completely untenable –so unthinkable that a multitude had sacrificed themselves in an act of sacred violence rather than lose the next generation to a Babylonian identity. The Psalmist captured in the line, “How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?”
So the alternative was this valley of bones, dry lifeless bones with no marrow, no hint of life left in them. But Yahweh did an amazing thing.Yahweh took the prophet Ezekiel into that valley and asked him a ridiculous question –can these bones live? Ezekiel responded with elegant ambiguity “Oh G_D, you know”. That has got to be one of the most profound statements of faith I have ever seen!
I would be anything that Ezekiel, if he trusted his own experience and vision knowledge of the situations would have answered much differently! But instead, he chose to trust whatever Yahweh might say next. It was a supreme act of faith because Captivity had sapped their hope. They regarded their political and military defeat as an irrevocable historical judgment. Nothing would dislodge the Babylonian colossus from its hegemony over their world. Yahweh had been proven impotent. Marduk had prevailed. Why not assimilate? The ancient faith had proved inadequate; it was nothing but the tribal faith of a tiny population on the fringe of a great empire. Now the exiles were bereft of their land, their temple, their sacrifices--everything that made them a people with a unique identity and vocation. They were removed to the heart of empire. Here were gods of real power, gods of universal sovereignty, gods of irresistible might.
But Ezekiel does not say that, against all odds he says “O G-D, you know!” And G_D responds as G_D always does –with life out of certain and irrevocable death.And the whole community –the vast multitude is given life! It is embodied and through the Spirit’s breath re-animated, resurrected –not in some afterlife but in the present time in this first resurrection story. They are renewed with a purpose as later chapters will tell us –to build a temple, a dwelling place for G_D.
This story and the experience of Babylonian captivity is one that resonates with many populations –many communities that find ourselves within dominant cultures whose norms and identities are not our own. And many of us occupy both the Babylonian as well as the captive role depending on the context –we carry within ourselves multiple identities, multiple experiences. I would love to enter a dialogue of how this story taps into each of your stories and where the braid weaves through the seen and unseen identities each of us carries. I think that would be a rich conversation and one that I encourage folks to have as part of our Lenten journey.
But for the next few minutes I’d like to share just a bit of how I see this story weave in and out of the founding stories and some particular experiences of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries from my perspective and some of the things that inspire this bag of bones, that re-animate and renew us in the face of a dominant church culture that still urges us to assimilate rather than live out the fullness of who G_D has created and redeemed us to be.
For me and for many in the ELM movement, it starts with Joel Workin. He could be described as our Ezekiel. The hand of G_D led Joel and three other seminarians to the 1987 March on Washington. And the mall was both an experience of beloved community as well as a valley of dry bones as the Names Project, the Quilt was displayed as a testament to many who had died from AIDS. And the four were re-animated by their experience to no longer assimilate to the dominant straight culture but claim their wholeness and the life G_D had given them as gay men preparing for ordination. This created quite an uproar and more than a little “Who do you think you are?” from gay and straight Lutheran communities alike. Some saw this as an act of ecclesiastical liberation and an inbreaking of the culture of G_D and others saw it as ecclesiastical suicide. –This too is theme that repeats itself frequently within the formative years of ELM predeccesor organizations and will probably repeat itself again.
Insert “Doubts” from “Dear G_D, I am Gay. Thank You!” by Joel Workin
You see what Joel got and prophesied to us was G_D’s irrevocable yes in the face of what seemed –and may still seem, like the church’s no. And the Spirit has been blowing across Lutheran communities ever since. It blew through the Castro neighborhood and settled on St. Francis church where its straight pastor was looking out on its own valley of dry bones. People, mostly gay men were dying of AIDS at alarming rates. Pastor Jim DeLange knew that to speak good news to this community and to lead his congregation to respond to this crisis, particular voices were needed –the voices of gay and lesbian pastors leading a Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministry –and so with another congregation, First United, a gay man and two lesbian women were called and ordained extraordinarily with the help of 40 Lutheran clergy and a multitude of re-animated people of G_D.
Over time it became clear that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered pastors were quietly disappearing –and sometimes not so quietly. Rather than be held captive by a policy of enforced celibacy, pastors were trying to find ways to make tolerable an intolerable situation. There wasn’t and still isn’t any one right way to deal with an untenable situation and there have been terrible costs all along the way.
Some of us came together in a retreat and over time formed a parallel roster of clergy and candidates for ministry. Our process and policies were intentionally as close to that of the ELCA and ELCIC as we could make them with one notable exception. We all agreed to be in public principled non-compliance to the ELCA policy of involuntary celibacy. This was another controversial decision and has at times created tension within the larger Lutheran glbt community not to mention with the ELCA itself.
At the same time it was becoming clear that there was a clergy shortage –one that also still exists. Over time some congregations and other ministries chose to consider pastors from our roster –many times along with candidates from the ELCA roster. It has always been our most fervent hope that each ministry setting has the opportunity to call the person who is seen as most fitting for that mission and ministry. Now we have pastors serving in congregations, as chaplains, within homeless ministries and within other specialized ministries.
We found that many of these ministries were as tired of waiting for policy to change as we were. That policy change follows a change in practice and that they could be part of that change. Part of that liberating new life, part of the multitude that believed that G_D’s yes was more powerful than the institutional church’s no.
Page 57 from “Dear G_D I am Gay, Thank You”
Joel, as our Ezekiel had the experience of his own Dry bones becoming enlivened and re-animated. His words have nourished me and I hope they have nourished you. The church is best served when all of us can bring our particular G_D given gifts and offer them wherever and whenever G_D has called us to do so –always trusting that G_D is the one who knows, that G_D’s vision for us is always unimaginably more life giving and Easter oriented than we could have guessed.
ELM seeks nothing more than to be a part of the vast multitude – the vast choir that sings G_D’s yes in a world held captive to no and to sing it in a Lutheran key, bringing our voices to harmonize with all the other particular Lutheran voices that are a part of this church that we love.
