“Bringing Order to Life”
Ezekiel 37; Exodus 20; 1 Cor. 14:39-40
When God called Ezekiel to preach to the dry bones
His
calling was to bring life and hope to the
People of
They
were struggling to know where their faith fit in
To
a world that seemed out of control.
Their
understanding of God seemed very different
From the people around them.
Often
God seemed very distant to them
And
the daily struggles of their life.
In
verse 11 they even cried out:
“Our bones are dried up,
and our hope is lost.”
Have you ever felt like that?
Have
you ever felt that God was far away?
That
the world was spinning out of control
With
wars that seemed to have no end
And
economic demands that are relentless,
And no political solutions in sight.
That was the world into which Ezekiel
preached life-
And
that life has a built in pradox:
There
was vitality but there was also order.
God
breathes his spirit into us, just as God breathed into
The
very first human to give life and breathed into
The Israelites to give their dry bones new life.
I
felt that breath of God breath life into me last weekend
At
a retreat at
It
was a short course on Christian living but more than that
it was an opportunity
to feel the breath of God’s Spirit
breathing into me through music, learning and
Christian fellowship and worship.
It was lively, dynamic, unexpected but
behind it was order.
And that order gave me comfort to know
someone was in control
Even if it wasn’t me.
You
know as a Presbyterian Christian I like order.
I
carry my Book of Order around to every meeting I attend
Even
the Clerk and the General Presbyter
Give
me a hard time but I feel like if we know
The
structure that we have a certain freedom
To
adapt and adjust the structure
To
fit the ministry God is
Calling us to.
We
say that we do things “decently and in order.”
I
bet you didn’t know that that quote comes from
1
Corinthians 14:39-40. Right after the gifts passage
in Corinthians 12 and the love passage- Cor 13
Paul
is talking to the Corinthians about speaking in
tongues and says:
“So my friends, be eager to prophesy, and
do
not forbid speaking in tongues; but
all
things should be done decently and in order.”
Isn’t that a fascinating paradox.
The
very verse that were use to describe our structure
Also
lifts up the spontaneous experience of speaking
In tongues that we usually shy away from.
Paul
says even that’s ok as long as it it done
“decently and in order”, under girded by God’s love.
In Ezekiel 37 God breathes life into the
dry bones but
He
also gives structure and order to those bones.
Notice
that in Ezekiel 37:6 God says:
“I will lay sinews upon you,
and will cause flesh to come upon you
and cover you with skin.”
The sinews allow us to move our arms and
legs,
And
our skin keeps all the other organs
In there place and out of sight.
I other words, the sinews and skin are
the “order” of life
while the breath is the “vitality” of life
And
God always gives them together.
Even when God freed the people from
As
they traveled in the wilderness,
He
gave them structure in the 10 commandments
So
that with the new freedom, the new life
There
would be life giving and
Life preserving order.
There are actually 613 commandments in
the Old Testament.
There
are commandments that tell us what to do if
An
ox falls into a pit or if someone injures our eye
Or if a child disobeys.
A
journalist named A. J. Jacobs tried to follow
all the
commandments in the Bible and then wrote a book
about it. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s
Quest
to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
His
initial purpose was threefold:
1) to wrote a
book and make money;
2) to explore
the spiritual side of his otherwise secular life;
3) explore the topic
of Biblical literalism.
At
the end of his journey he did write a fascinating book
And in the
process he realized that no one is a
Biblical literalist no matter what
they claim
And
yet there is real value in
the laws God gave us.
They
do mold and shape who we are
and he was
different at the end of his quest
then he was at
the beginning
The law that he was most struck by and
will continue to keep
Even
after the books sales die down and his fervor for
The
story dissipates is the command to keep the Sabbath.
And in a sense that Law is one that
connects all the others.
It
is only by taking time apart,
Attending
to God, and God’s word for us
That
can worship and honor God, remember creation,
Remember
that we are created in God’s image
And
that we need to care for ourselves,
Each other and all creation.
The call to remember the Sabbath and
keep it holy,
Is
in fact a call to love God and love each other.
And
that is the summary of the Law that Jesus gave us
In
Matthew when the lawyer asked him:
Which commandment in the law is the
greatest?
And Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart,
and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the
greatest and first commandment.
And the second is like it.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On
these two depend all the law and the prophets.”
The Law God gave to the Israelites who
were wandering in the
wilderness was offered as a gift of God’s love and grace
just as it is offered as a gift of God’s love and grace
to us in our wildernesses today;
Just as the words of Ezekiel breathed
life and gave structure
To
the people of
Gives life and structure to our chaotic world today.
Sometimes we think of God’s law as a
test
Given
to us by the ultimate teacher who is testing to see
Whether we
have earned a passing grade or not.
And yet when
we look at the breath and depth
Of the law
and take it seriously we realize
As the Rabbi become Apostle Paul said
in Romans:
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
Therefore
we are justified by his grace as a gift
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
God’s law is the gift that gives order
to our lives.
The
law does not stifle life but gives us real freedom
To be the people of God.
God
gave the law to the Israelites in the wilderness
After
they had been freed from bondage in
So
that they would be truly freed from fear
And free to worship God and
To love each other.
That’s why in the Presbyterian Church we
say the Law
Not
before the prayer of confession to remind us of
How
far we have fallen short of God’s plan for us
But
we repeat the law after the assurance of pardon
and after the
Gospel lesson and sermon
to thank God
for the order and plan for our lives.
God’s law brings order to life.
Let us
celebrate God’s plan and order
as we share
together the Ten Commandments.