Have you experienced God’s animating spirit? The passage from Ezekiel is about a people that is dried up, that has no life left in them. God asks the prophet to survey the lifelessness of the dry bones and then asks, “Can these bones live?” The rest of the story is about that prophet being given a word to speak to the bones; a word that animates them, that puts flesh on them, that breathes life into them. I’ve stuck with the church because here, within this community of trust, from ancient but living stories…I continue to experience God’s animating spirit.
When I was 15 it happened for the first time. I was a know-it-all teenager. My social life was hopping, my grades were good, I was involved in sports and music and all kinds of extracurriculars. As far as I was concerned I was very much alive! Then I went to this youth gathering that happened alongside our synod assembly (talk about DRY!) And this life was blown into my lungs, animating me, making me come alive in ways I never could have imagined. I had been very shy and at one point I led a prayer for the entire synod assembly of about 400 adults. Who the heck was this new person? My identity shifted from follower to leader, from unsure to sure-footed, from self-doubting to someone that knew their worth. I experienced the church as a place that breathed this animating breathe into my life.
Years later after Elijah was born and Marcus and I were between calls and very unsure what was next for us, Sunday worship was like CPR breaths, sustaining us while we waited for a call. Sermons spoke directly to my heart. We met every week with the pastor and a deeply prayerful woman of the congregation as we discerned our way forward learning and practicing ancient prayers as well as new ones; learning new ways to listen for God’s voice in our lives. It was another time when church to me, was breath.
I imagine that you have had experiences like these as well. Maybe you had a life-changing experience out in the world and you came to church and learned language for what had happened to you. Words like grace, forgiveness, or resurrection. Maybe you experienced this animating breath in church or through church.
Church at its best is a set of lungs that God uses to breathe life in and out. You come to worship on Sunday and hopefully receive an animating spirit into your lungs and then collectively we breathe life out into the world around us. Ya’ll brought in over $2,000 for TACO during our Lenten Offerings. We are on track to give over $7,000 to the local food pantry this year. We sheltered 10 unhoused people, many of whom found solid footing during their time with Interfaith Shelter at our church this winter. At our best, we are a set of lungs, breathing God’s animating spirit into the community around us, just as God’s animating spirit had first been breathed into us.
Then he said to me: “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breathe, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them.”
Thanks be to God for this animating breath that we receive in and breathe out!
Pastor Bekki