Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I 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.”
Ezekiel 37
Okay, but what can God do with empty pews?
It is a harsh reality that many clergies these days feel a bit like Ezekiel, prophesying to half-empty spaces hoping to see the bones of the Church rise up. I can only imagine what it feels like to sit on the other side, wondering where the person on your right and on your left has gone, why it feels so empty in a space that once felt so warm.
As a Christian community we are confronting an outside world that in some ways has moved on from church; living in a secular society skeptical of a religion that purports to tell everyone how to live, that seems to thrive on judgment and division, and that, during the worst of the COVID pandemic shut its doors to people when perhaps they needed God most. Perhaps worst of all, we are confronted with a group of people who love what we do but who simply found other things to do on a Sunday morning. Antagonism and indifference.
If 2020 brought twin pandemics of COVID and white supremacy, the post COVID era has brought on ‘the Great Resignation’ - not just from work but from public life: church, community, politics, even family. More and more of us have decided to just simply be alone. Or perhaps to be ‘online’ - that is to be together, but only in the context of a curated world where we have more control over how we are perceived and understood, and who we interact with, than we ever have to find in real life.
While preachers and pastors have always lamented sermons falling on ‘deaf ears’, now we wonder if they reach any ears at all. Some, perhaps, are simply resigned to it.
They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’
And yet I walk outside and I see lots of people out and about enjoying the seasonable (if mercurial) weather. I walk into Church on Sunday and I see a glut of small kids following Miles to Sunday School, I see people timidly stepping foot in the church for the first time or the first time in a long time looking for meaning. I see people hungry for a call to justice, to action, to community. I see new neighbors and new communities popping up around us. I see energy, and joy, and life.
I see the bones, and I see the new flesh, muscle and sinew and I pray that they can come together.
But the muscles need something to attach to. The sinews and flesh need a frame to fill out. This valley of dry bones needs to be attentive to the work of the spirit and see and connect to what God is offering to us as a community of faith right now and embrace and support it so that it can grow.
Even if that skin has a different hue. Even if those muscles flex in different ways. If the body that forms has different interests, passions, directions.
The Church will always be the Body of Christ at work in the world. The challenge for worshipping communities like Memorial today is that we have to decide if we want to be a part of building up the Body of Christ or to stick with what we have always done. If we want to hoard the gifts and talents and treasures we have, or do we want to turn around and share them with the wider world, not for our glory, or Memorial’s glory, or the Episcopal Church’s glory… but for God’s Glory.
Despite increases in attendance, program and need in the broader community - Stewardship at Memorial, including volunteer hours, financial contributions, and gifts of time and talent, are all declining. Our own great resignation. We can be resigned to this fact. That there is opportunity and potential out there and perhaps we are not the community to do it.
Or we can look at the abundance all around us. Stop worrying about what we don’t have and revel in the joy of what we do. And in so doing find Christ and each other and in that, everything we could possibly need to share with the world.
For when the Lord calls “and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I 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.”