"Hellfire or Rejoicing" January 21, 2018

Ezekiel 2: 6 - 3:11 Mark 1: 14-20 As North Americans in the 21st Century, when we do read the Scriptures, we weigh in our minds whether this is just good literature, historic fact, myth, truth, wisdom, moral teaching. A telling part of the identity of this House of God, of this Congregation, is that when built in the 1800s every pew had cast iron feet at the base not for kneelers, but for steam bent oak footrests, so every listener/believer could sit back, put their feet up and think for themselves about what was read and preached, considering before deciding how to act. On the one occasion every 3 years when our ecumenical Lectionary calls us to read Ezekiel, it has consistently been the Dead Dry Bones passage at the conclusion, asking after everything, when faith and life are dry as dust, is there still the possibility for faith of life? To which the MAN OF GOD/the SON OF MAN declares GOD, ONLY THOU ALONE KNOWS! Which we have castrated through singing the 1950s Mitch Miller Song Rejoicing “The Hip bone’s connected to the Thigh bone, the thigh Bone’s connected to the Knee Bone, the Knee bone’s connected to the Shin bone, so Hear the Word of the Lord!” We tap our feet along with this morning’s Anthem as a Spiritual, like Old Hound Dogs, muttering “Somebody’s Knock’n at the Door,” ignoring the immediacy of the Call, for each of us to question, am I the “O Sinner, unwill’n ta answer?” Historically, the Bible has often been used by Hellfire and Brimstone preachers, to scare folks into acceptance the Preacher’s political concerns or morality issues. This week I listened as a member of another church repeatedly phoned to complain how her Preacher and her Session’s decisions did not match her morality. Instead of either façade extreme of REJOICING without knowing Why, or Browbeating others, we need to listen and to hear the Word of the Word. This week, I also spoke with a friend, of the experience we each shared, when your spouse is ill, unable to get better, and you cry out to the Lord, “WHY? WHAT AM I TO LEARN FROM THIS?” When afterward, the person you fell in love with, is returned… At the outset, we need to confess… as your Pastor Preacher, I confess, that if right, now asked to abandon everything to “Come, Follow” my thoughts jumps to “But what about my wife? My work Responsibilities? People who depend upon me? What about our Mortgage? What about Retirement and plans… The Call to follow, names an ideal, a heart-image of Jesus Calling and our responding IMMEDIATELY. I am intrigued, how often our heads and our hearts respond differently. In faith, we feel and know from relationship how to respond, but intellectually, socially, professionally, economically, politically we have commitments, alternate answers. But in addition to holding up an IDEAL, these passages and our Anthem, speak of our need as believers to do more than consider ideas, to listen and go on with life… instead, to confront nights when we question, “I am uncertain how much more I can take.” “How much longer can we go on in a relationship this way?” “When will we confront our drinking, our affairs, pornography?” “When will we take responsibility for our sins?” When in Seminary, as 25 year olds, we were instructed that only those over 40 years of age had been allowed to read The Book of Ezekiel, not that it was dangerous, but that life-experience changes us, and after 40 years of life we perceive circumstance and visions with different eyes than in our 20s. The Major Prophet Ezekiel is not a series of sermons, or prophecies as we think of telling the future, these are visions that happened to Ezekiel as personal embodiment for the suffering to come to the Nation, and to Israel for the World. Ezekiel comes from the darkest period in all Israel’s history, which is saying something. Under Kings David and Solomon, the City of Jerusalem had been fortified with the Building of Walls, concentric walls 60 feet high, twice the height of out Sanctuary, all the way round the borders of the city. But the Assyrians had conquered Israel, carrying off and dispersing the people of God. Over the next 200 years, the Southern half of the Nation, Judah, was repeatedly attacked, the Walls they built reduced to landscape retaining walls. The Babylonians put then Zedekiah on the throne, as a puppet king, who then tried to align with the Egyptians against the Babylonians, so Babylon carried off all the educated as Prisoners of War, every able bodied person exiled to Babylon. The Book of Ezekiel begins on the Banks of the River in Babylon, having witnessed the power of their enemy as an invading Monster. Babylon is envisioned as a Beast, a Monster with the Bronzed Body of a Warrior, Four Immense pair of Wings, and 4 heads, the front of which being the face of a Human, the face of an Ox on the left , and the face of a Lion on the right of each, with the face of an Eagle on the back. The Babylonian Beast pulled a throne on wheels, with wheels within wheels. How long does it take? How many failures must we endure? After 200 years of being attacked and beaten down, being exiled from your homes and everything you have ever known, loved or cared about. When you have a vision of such a monster, and you Hear from God: a challenge, speaking the Truth. Will you listen and respond? Will you fall down and pray; or stand up and respond? We know our sins. We know our human failings, we need no one to rub salt in them. But we turn away afraid of our sorrows, afraid of lament. We know that our sorrows will taste of the salt of tears. We know Lament is a Bitter Pill. AND YET, as Ezekiel eats the Scroll, these words of lamentation and sorrow are to him Sweet as Honey. In places, the Holy Word of God’s Scripture seems extremely graphic. We have had folk wanting to form committees, because the Bible translation said that Abraham went into his wife and she conceived! That Rachel suckled her child. Or that Jeremiah was told to wear nothing but a linen diaper for 18 months, and when it was covered in filth to bury it, then dig it up and wear again. Here in Ezekiel, as in Communion, there is instruction to Take and EAT, the point being that consumption, literally involves our taking a thing into ourselves. A dozen years ago, my first night of being alone in South Sudan, we heard gunshots. The next morning, at Worship there was report that a man found his wife in the bed of another, and killing them and himself, their blood had become part of the sand and earth of this place. When it was my turn to preach, I knelt down, taking a handful of the dirt, placing a pinch upon my tongue and swallowing. In like manner, as your Pastor, this Church, and community, and people of God, You have become part of my soul and identity. But the fear of God for Ezekiel, is whether you can listen to one who is so familiar, or if you need in order to pay attention to have the voice come in a dialect and language more difficult to grasp? When Jesus walked passed the shore, calling to Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, the image is not as simple as “He Called and Fishermen became Disciples.” They each left family, home, traditions and family systems, careers and identity, to experience something different, trusting the unknown, trusting God. As Creatures, we follow the patterns we know, we cook the recipes we do because this is what our family’s ate; we have affairs because our fathers’ did, we live where we do, driving the kind of car we do, having expectations for our children, all as we inherited. To leave all that, and try to do something different, is a monumental risk, none of us commit to because of HELLFIRE or REJOICING. “COME, FOLLOW ME” is to risk failure, to risk everything, because we cannot stay as we were, weeping on the shore, we must take and consume faith into our being. That is the meaning of the Baptism and Membership and Ordination of this day!