dry bones

Allow me to get super mario on you for a second.  I promise it won't take long.  Back in Mario 3, they introduced an enemy called dry bones.  Here he is in all his glory

He's basically a mummified koopa troopa, and since his introduction in Mario 3, he's become a bit of a mainstay.  He's been in Mario Party, Mario Kart, and a great number of other Mario sidescroller or 3D games.  Now, why oh why are we talking about this mario brothers enemy?  Because this last Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, featured the story of Ezekiel at the valley of dry bones.

You'd think this was just an excuse for me to talk about an identically named enemy in Mario, but it's not, not really.  It's not because Dry Bones has one other trait that separates him from just being a re-skinned koopa troopa.  He doesn't stay dead.  Yes, you heard me correctly, that Dry Bones, after you stomp him, will stay down for a while, then will rattle, and come back together.  How perfect is that?  The story of Ezekiel at the valley of dry bones is very similar to that story, now, isn't it  Bones that are very dry, have been stomped flat by Super Mario, and then there is a great rattling, and the bones come together.  And they don't stay down, either.  Although Mario can stomp them into dust for forever, they will perpetually come back to life.

This is great, because it is exactly what happens in the valley of dry bones with Ezekiel.  The people that were thought to be dead are brought back to life.  Their bones come together, bone to bone, and then there is flesh, and muscle, and organs, and then they are standing there, a great army.  But Dry Bones from Mario tells us something else, which is that Mario can stomp them down all day, and they can come back together all day.  In other words, there is no such thing as dead.  Dry Bones will perpetually come back to life.

This is what happens in the valley of dry bones.  Ezekiel overlooks the valley, and sees that the bones are very dry.  So God asks him 'can these bones live?' Ezekiel responds by saying 'Oh Lord, you know.'  In other words, no, no they cannot.  But Ezekiel is instructed to prophecy to these dry bones, to speak God's word to them.  It is his job to preach God's word to the dry bones, to corpses long dead.  And you can best believe that Ezekiel probably thinks that he's wasting his time.  Why bother preaching to someone who is not only not going to listen, but cannot listen?  If you go with what you think, what you feel, then you're going to come to the conclusion that you probably shouldn't waste your time on preaching to bones that are, in Ezekiel's own words, very dry.

But Ezekiel goes, preaches, and the bones come together, bone to bone, with a great rattling sound.  Contrast that with the day of Pentecost as shown in the book of Acts.  In that story, the disciples were together,  and then there was a great rushing wind, and divided tongues of fire became seen over their heads, and they began to speak. And when they spoke, all the people who were assembled, no matter where they were from, were able to hear and understand the preached word, and take it to heart.  If the disciples had been looking at things from a limiting view, they would have been unlikely to preach to the people assembled at Pentecost, thinking, as they well might, that it would be a waste of time to do so.  Why bother preaching to a group of people who aren't going to listen, and so most of us, looking at it, would just as well not bother.  Which is what we do now, right?


These days, though, we're tempted to not bother not because of language barrier necessarily, but usually because we feel as though nobody is going to bother listening.  People have already made up their minds, so what's the point of talking to them about it?  The bones are very dry.

Right.  But what kind of God do you believe in? What kind of God do you believe in, and what does the spirit do?  Here. we see the word of God reanimating corpses, we see the Spirit of God making it so the disciples can be heard and understood in all the languages of the world.  You believe in a God who spoke the universe into existence, who spoke, and the world was formed, who spoke and the creatures of the world popped into being, who made everything from K2 all the way to the mitochondria in your cells, you believe in all that, but you don't believe that the Spirit of God, the word of God, can change someone's mind?

Really?

We have a way of limiting God's power in our own minds.  We have in mind what God can and can't do, we feel as though there are certain things that are impossbile with Him, and those things are usually based on what people are or are not feeling or thinking about their position vis a vis God himself.  Once someone has made up their mind to reject God, we tend to view that as dry bones.  Unfertile ground.  It's something that's not worth preaching to.  And if Ezekiel or the disciples had viewed things that way, then they would not have bothered preaching where God had told them to.  But they did.  And when they did, bone came together with bone, and the people who were there to listen at Pentecost, three thousand of them were baptized that day.

If you just wait to preach to what you think is fertile ground, then you'll never get anywhere.  God isn't asking you to do that.  He's asking you to go to the valley of dry bones, to go to an unbelieving world, and bring Christ to them.

It's that, and it's more.  It's more than that relative to what you think the spirit of God can and can't do.  Your life is full of dry bones, isn't it? You may not want to admit that it is, or that you have valleys of dry bones around you, but you do.  You have plenty of dry bones occupying your time, your space.  You have broken relationships, broken over time with neglect or hurt feelings, and after a while, you look out over them, shrug your shoulders, and say to yourself when God asks you to get back to work with them 'the bones are very dry.'  There's no point in working on these relationships, right?  Dead is dead, gone is gone, too late is too late.



But it isn't.  Back to Mario, you can stomp on Dry Bones all day, but it'll keep on popping back up. reconciled to each other; to go back to the valley of Dry Bones, and preach there, to speak God's forgiveness, to be humbled and to repent, and to not ever think of calling unclean what God has called clean.  You've been forgiven by God, so you ought to forgive each other.  You were enemies of God, and were reconciled to Him.  You were dry bones, dead in your trespasses. That's when Christ died for you.
 What is God in the business of?  He's in the business of forgiveness and renewal, of rebirth and new beginnings.  That's what He's all  about.  That's why he wants us to lay down our weapons, leave our gifts, and go and be

You think it's too late?  You think things are too far gone?  Ezekiel probably thought the same.  And then the dry bones came together.

PJ.

Duck duck goose.

The question that we ask ourselves, after a while, is 'why am I here?'  Granted, you don't have to ask yourself that question, and most species don't ever ask themselves that question.  Ducks don't ask themselves that question, they just get on with the business of being ducks.  But people, we do ask ourselves that question, and in asking ourselves that question, we need to think not just about the question 'why am I here,' but also the other question of 'why can I think about why I am here?'

And to get to the root of these questions, we have to talk more about ducks.  At this time of year, you're going to see a whole bunch of cute, newly hatched ducklings, waddling around being cute.  Aren't they adorable?  Yes they are.  And you know they're adorable, too.  You may say to me 'I don't really care about ducklings,' but I would consider that you're fibbing.  I know you're fibbing, mainly because of the phenomenon of the mammatus clouds.  Remember that day in Regina when the mammatus clouds showed up?  Remember that day that we all went outside, and all took pictures of the same thing?

You probably remember where you were that day, and you probably did what we all did, which was to take pictures, share them to facebook, and all of a sudden, everyone's wall was innundated with pictures of the exact same shot.  That shot.  With ducklings, it's the same.  You see a row of ducklings waddling after their mama duck, and you rush to snap a picture, tweet about it, facebook it to everyone you know, and all that.  We do this because ducklings are adorable.  Goslings are adorable.

But nobody snaps pictures of full grown Canada Geese and goes 'awwww.'  They have an adorable phase when they're tiny and yellow and fluffy and sweet, and then that goes away, and they become full grown monsters.  They get big, they get loud, and they get mean.  This is what the geese do, and how they mature.  And we say of them like we say of puppies, kittens, ducks, that we wish they would stay small forever.  We say that of puppies, kittens, ducklings, and gosh, human beings too.  Why can't they just stay small and sweet forever?

But they don't and they don't for good reason.  If a duckling, or a human being, was to stay small and cute forever, they would stay small and helpless forever.  They would require their mothers to do everything for them perpetually, forever.  That's the tradeoff.  Think of dogs, because that's always a good place to start.  People love puppies, but those puppies grow up eventually, don't they?  And when those puppies grow up, they become less cute.  You might love them all the same, but they're not as cute.  So what we've done is to make the dogs small and cute forever.  They remain tiny and small and purse-sized for all time.  And we want that for all our stuff.  This is why we have dogs like chihuahuas, which are companion dogs, toy dogs, dogs not designed for work, not designed for productivity, but just designed to hang out and be cute.

That's what puppies are for with us, not designed to work, designed to hang out and be cute and adorable.  And we've managed to do that with certain dog breeds for eternity.  So when we ask ourselves what is the purpose for us being here, well, what's the purpose for these dogs being here?  What's the purpose of ducklings?  For Goslings?

The puppies are there to grow into dogs, to be shepherds, to be guards, to be guide dogs, or hunting dogs, to get to work.  The ducklings are there to grow into ducks, the goslings are there to grow into geese, they're all there to get to work.  They're there to be productive, to work, to get down to business.  They do that when they grow, when they mature, and when they get kicked out of the nest.

When we think about ascension Sunday, it's the day when Jesus ascended to the heavens, and left his disciples there, still probably half covered with metaphorical yellow down, wondering what to do next.  They were so used to being with Jesus, so used to him doing everything, so used to him doing all the healing, all the preaching, all the evangelism, all of the everything, that like ducklings, like puppies, they had no idea what to do next.

But the disciples weren't there just to follow around after Jesus like ducklings after mama duck forever.  The great thing about ascension Sunday is that the readings stem from the end of the Gospel of Luke, but also the beginning of the book of Acts.  And they speak about the exact same event, the ascension of Jesus.  But in Luke, that's the end of the story, whereas in Acts, it's the beginning.  It's the start of it all.

When the disciples are standing there at the ascension of Jesus, it's both the end of one story and the beginning of another.  It's the conclusion of the chapter of Jesus being present here on earth, and the beginning of the chapter of the disciples getting to work, shedding the down, and moving out into the world to accomplish the work that they had been placed on earth to do.  Not being puppies anymore, but becoming the workers that they were designed to be.

We are God's workmanship, says the scriptures, created by him to do good works which he has prepared in advance for us to do.  We were made by God to get to work, to do his work in the world, to spread his gospel and to do the work that he has given us to do.  And this is the same with us today.  God has not given you a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of self-discipline.  He has placed us here to do his work, and to carry the weight that he has given us to carry.  And we weren't going to do any of this if we still had in mind that Jesus was there, mama duck style, to do it all for us.  Then we were going to be moribund, weak, and disinterested in getting anything done at all.

So Jesus ascended into heaven, but gave his disciples a promise.  Because it wasn't just that he was leaving, but that he was actually going to be more present than he was before.  If you think about this, he told them that where two or three were gathered in his name, there he would be in the midst of them.  So not only does Jesus make it possible for us to get to work without becoming moribund, but he has also promised to be present with us all.  Whenever we gather together for worship, whenever we gather as Christians for devotional time, whenever we assemble together, Christ is there with us.  So his ascension comes with two benefits.  It gets us to work by kicking us out of the nest, and it means he can be in all places at all times, to be with his people whenever they gather.

So yes, why on earth are we here?  We are God's workmanship, created by him to do good works which he has prepared in advance for us to do.  How are we going to do this?  Getting kicked out of the nest, shaking off the downy fluff, and becoming wise as serpents, and gentle as doves.  Going out as lambs among wolves.

PJ.

Fruit vs Veg.

In case you were wondering, yes, we do like to play this game at home.  The ever-popular fun game of 'fruit or vegetable.'  It's a scream.  Here's how it's played: You look at a plant based thing on your plate, and say whether it's a fruit or a vegetable.  Hilarity ensues.

Now, you may very well claim something important here, which is that this isn't fun, and if you'd claim that, you don't live in my house.  We love this game, even though it only has one rule.  Does

the plant based item in question have seeds?  If it has seeds, it's a fruit.

That seems too simple, really, but it's not.  That's the definition for a fruit, period the end.  There is nothing else to say on the subject.  And I know, you may kick and scream, but it's true, that's what fruit is. Fruit is what the plant gives you that has a seed in it.

I'm aware that this all seems pretty simplistic, but it stands in opposition to how we use the things in question, which is why this game is so hard.  This game is so hard because how we use the botany in question.  We use fruit for tasty snacks, and we use vegetables as things to avoid because of how gross they are.  But that doesn't change the base botany of the situation as much as we might like to.  This is why, when it comes to Subway, when they offer you the chance to top your sandwich with fresh 'veggies,' there are only three veggies in the list.  The rest is fruit.  But you'd find it strange if they offered to top your sandwich with delicious fruit, wouldn't you?  Nobody goes into a steak restaurant and asks for a side of fruit, even though their seasonal veggies are primarily composed of fruit.  And as I say, there's only one rule here;  Does it have seeds?

As bad as you are at determining botany, you're every bit as bad at determining spiritual fruit as well.  You don't think you are, but nobody ever thinks they are.  Nobody ever thinks that they can't tell one from the other.  We assume we've got this figured out.  Now, when Jesus tells us to bear spiritual fruit, that's the question that we have to ask ourselves about what we're doing - is it fruit?  In other words, does it have seeds in it?  This is why the plant produces fruit to begin with, because it wants you to eat that fruit.  The plant wants you to eat the fruit, snacking on the fruit and dropping the seed somewhere else, which, when it is buried, will grow up into a new plant.  This is what is intended by the idea of spiritual fruit that Jesus wants you to bear - that it should feed people, and plant seeds.  That's what we're supposed to do when we do the things we do, when we do charity, when we care for God's people, when we nurture and cherish them, we are supposed to be nourishing them, and planting seeds.

It's that that we are designed for.  We are designed to bear fruit.  As Jesus tells us, he is the vine, we are the branches, and through him we bear fruit.  And the great thing about grapes, figs, tomatoes, other things that grow on vines, is that they can be harvested again and again, and the plant isn't harmed.  It can grow for years, continually bringing forth fruit, and that fruit is eaten, and the seeds are planted.  And this is what we are asked to do in the scriptures.  The charity we do, the good works that we offer up, those are fruit.  We bring them forth, they nourish others, they plant seeds, and we can keep on bringing forth fruit for decades.

But we don't.  We offer up vegetables.  And this is where we run into problems.  Because, as mentioned, if fruit is what the plant offers up voluntarily to get its seeds planted, then what are vegetables?  Vegetables are leaves, roots, stems, all those things that aren't fruits.  So, what happens to the radish when you harvest the radishes?  The radish dies.  You harvest the plant to eat not the fruit, not the part the plant wants you to eat.  You harvest the plant to eat the root, pulling it up.  And the radish dies.

This is what we do all the time, because we can't tell the difference between fruit and vegetables.  We don't stop to check to see if what we're doing actually has seeds in it or not.  Are we planting seeds of the Gospel, or are we not?  When we do the charity that we do, is it to plant seeds, or is it to draw attention to us?  Is it a fruit, or is it a vegetable?

The people that Jesus discusses, albeit unfavorably, in the sermon on the mount, they're not going out of their way to make sure that people aren't being fed, but they're not thinking about whether or not they're planting seeds.  When it comes time to think about how charity is done, about how prayer is done, about any of these things, the people that Jesus was talking about weren't pondering through whether they were planting seeds or not.  They were thinking about themselves.  They were offering themselves up as the centre of attention.  They were offering up the branches instead of the fruit.

So what happens when we present ourselves up as the best and brightest thing for people to consider? It's a vegetable situation.  We get chewed up, and no seeds are planted.  The absolute opposite of what we would want to happen.  Instead of the goodness of the fruit that nourishes and plants seeds, we allow people to devour us and our efforts, and no seeds are planted.  Nobody comes to believe in God because you tell them you're a great person.  They do so partially because of the planting of seeds that you do.  Jesus is no different.

We are told to love each other as Christ has loved us, and in keeping with the fruit vs vegetable theme, how was it that Christ loved us?  It was first and foremost through forgiveness.  As Jesus says in the Gospel reading from Sunday, we did not choose him, but he chose us.  He sought us out while we were still sinners.  He came to find us in our sin and in our shame.  It wasn't as though he waited for us to be good before he would love us.  He came and found us while we were still sinners.  He loves us through forgiveness.

We are called by Christ to love one another as he loves us.  And the only way to do that is to think about how it is that Christ loves us, and to do so accordingly to each other.  It means to love each other not because we are great, not because we are fantastic, not because we do well, but because the people we are called to love aren't that loveable.  And neither are we.  Christ loves us in spite of that.  He loves us in a spirit of forgiveness.  He loves us even in our sin; and this is how we are called to love each other.  Not because the people you're called to love are great.  They aren't.  Nor are you.  Not because the people you've been called to love are easy to love.  They aren't.  They're as disastrous as you are.  But this is how you bear fruit, and this is how you plant seeds.  We feed each other with charity and forgiveness, and we plant the seeds of the Gospel, culminating with the notion that we love becasue he first loved us.

There is no try.

Do you remember that book 'the secret?'  I remember hearing about it, but I didn't read it.  I only read the Bible anyway, not other books.  But regardless of that, 'the secret' essentially claimed that the power of achieving what you want is within you all along.  Wish it, want it, do it, that sort of thing.

Now, I'm not going to suggest that the solution to your problems is as simple as just thinking positively, but it is true at least that setting ourselves up for failure is a real thing that we do.  You don't succeed by thinking positively, but by presenting yourself negatively, you're almost guaranteeing yourself failure.  If you present your product by telling the person you're trying to sell it to that they don't want it, then they probably won't.  It's like selling yourself to a potential date.  If you start out by saying 'you probably won't want to go on a date, but in case you've gone crazy or have no other options, would you like to go out to a movie sometime, then ain't nobody going to want to go to that movie with you.

But we're bad for this.  We have a way of sabotaging our own happiness.  We have a way of desiring our own sadness, of authoring our own destruction.  People want to do certain things, they want to accomplish stuff, and yet at the same time, they seek to break their objective down.  This is a hard thing to hear, a difficult thing to go through, to realize that in many cases your own worst enemy is you.  When the question comes up 'what is to prevent me?' the answer is usually a bunch of stuff that
we bring up ourselves, which may or may not apply.  But we insist on following through with it anyway.  We tend to want to make sure that none of the stuff we want actually happens.  We stop it before it starts.  Call it good old fashioned self-destructive behavior.

Now, this carries over to all sorts of things, not just to baptism of other individuals.  Think about the message given to us from 1st John, where it tells us to love one another.  Great idea, right? It's a great idea that everyone is in favor of.  Everyone agrees with this as a principle, that we should love one another, and be good to one another, so the big question on everyone's mind is simply, 'why is that not happening?'  If absolutely everyone on earth believes that we should love one another, then what's stopping us?  Well, we are.  We stop us.  We put up barriers to make sure that won't happen.  We know we should love other people, that we ought to be kind and good and serve each other, but we go to a lot of effort to ensure that we block that out.  That will lead us to sadness, which we tend to feel is well deserved.

But here's the juice.  We are responsible for what we do, and the outcomes that result from that, they're our issue as well.  These problems, these issues we encounter, they're typically our own doing, really.  You know that part in 1st John where it tells us to love one another?  Well, that part isn't just in there for filler, and it's not easy enough for us to look at and claim that we were powerless to do anything about.  Why don't we love our brothers?  Honestly, because usually we don't feel like it.  We're not held captive in some machine forcing our decisions, usually we'd just rather not do what the scriptures tell us to do.  Why not?  Do we disagree with the Bible's insistence that we love one another?  Of course we don't.  Everyone, great to small, universally believes that we ought to be good to one another.  Everyone believes that we should love one another, that we should be kind and generous.  The people you conflict with on a daily basis believe this.  The rude teenagers who take your seat on the bus believe this.  ISIS believes this.  So, you know, why isn't it happeneing?

Simple question, simple answer.  This isn't happening because we get going on the wrong foot.  We start off in the wrong direction, then it's really tough to get going in the right direction again.  Almost impossible.  We start out believing that we should love other people, and so we shoulder that.  We bear that responsibility on our shoulders, and carry it forward.  And in carrying it forward, we realize that the people we are called to love, family and friends, neighbors and co-workers, the people who live in the apartment above or below us, the people who cut us off in traffic, the surly salespeople or distracted waitresses, they're all so desperately unlovable.  They have almost no redeeming features.  So when we read in the scriptures that we need to love each other, because if we don't love, yet claim to love God we are liars, it bothers us to our core.  It bothers us so much that we have to come up with excuses as to why it doesn't apply in this particular case.

Tough luck. It does.  It applies to everyone.  And you may complain and insist that these people are so awful that it ought not to apply.  It's not fair to expect you to love them, to be good and kind to them if they're so dreadful.  Well, that's where the foundational thinking comes in. We love, say the sciptures, because he first loved us, and gave himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  What does this mean?  It means that he laid down his life for us, the godly for the ungodly, the righteous for the
unrighteous.  I know the Bible likes to hammer away at you for being a sinner, but in this case, you really, desperately need it to.  You need it to, because it's the only thing that lets the rest of this make any sense.  You need to know who you are before you can possibly hope to move that to someone else.  What do I mean?  I mean that we're all the heroes of our own narratives.  We all believe that we're in charge of our own destinies, that we are the central focus of the story, and the goodness and badness of everyone else is in relation to us.  But it isn't.  None of us are that great.  None of us are fantastic.  The Bible tells us that there is no one righteous, not even one, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  We all have problems, and we all have people who find us to be desperately difficult to love.  We are all people who have those around us who would make excuses as to why Jesus would admit that we are the ones who are beyond loving!

In other words, we have to know about Christ's love for us.  While we were still sinners, while we were enemies of God, not neutral, not friends, but enemies of God, that's when Christ died for us.  He died for you not because you were so easy to love, but because you were so hard to love.  He died for you not because you had done a great job,  but because you were so dreadful.  Once you begin to realize that the stuff from the Bible actually applies to you, that you're not a beautiful, unique snowflake to whom the rules do not apply, then it actually makes it easier for you to love your neighbor.  Why?

Because you know you're no better than they are.

They're the heroes of their own stories, too.  They see themselves as the examples for everyone to follow.  And everyone, from the biggest to the smallest, genuinely believes that they are in great shape, and everyone ought to be like them.  Think of it in Star Wars terms for a minute - does it not seem strange to you that people would willingly join the Dark Side?  That they'd join the evil galactic empire?  Well, it's a matter of understanding that the people who are in the empire believe that they're fighting for goodness and justice, that they would sincerely belive that the rebels are evil, which seems insane to say, but there we are.  The forces of darkness don't see themselves as the forces of darkness, no matter how many skulls you pin to their uniforms.  When you disagree with them, they're not at home wondering how they can be more like you, but how you can be more like them!  In other words, to repeat the words of the Bible one more time, we love because he loved us.  In this is love, that Jesus died for us, to forgive us our sins.  This is what the Bible is essentially all about.  If you don't start from this position, love for each other becomes very difficult, if possible at all. But if you do, then all of a sudden, the people around you actually become loveable.  They do so not because they all of a sudden become better, but because of your perspective.  Why do they deserve love?  They don't!  And nor do you!  There's nothing that we do that makes us worthy of God's time or attention.  But if you work out that you are loved in spite of your sins and not because of them, then the love for everyone else becomes easier.

As usual, it's a matter of perspective.  Everything from a certain point of view.