“Get Busy Living”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
[audio:http://temc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/20110410_Sermon.mp3|titles=2011-04-10 - Get Busy Living]
Andy Dufresne was the man in charge of the prison library. It's offerings were so paltry when Andy arrived that he determined that he would better it. So every week, he wrote to the State authorities asking for more library materials for the inmates. It took six years of weekly letters but eventually the State sent over a few boxes of old books, records (LPs), and a cheque for $200.00 to the prison. The courier dumped the boxes in the warden's office and Andy was left to sort them out. As he went through the records, however, he came across Mozart's, The Marriage of Figaro and he just couldn't help himself. Andy took the record out of its sleeve and put it on the warden's player. The rendition of the Letter Duet was so beautiful that he was unable to help himself again, he thought he would share it with the entire prison. So Andy locked the warden's office door, switched on the p.a. system and for a few minutes, the dour existence within those drab prison walls was transformed by something of great beauty. The whole prison stopped to listen but an austere warden was not amused. He came roaring back to his office, was forced to break into it, and for his intransigence, Andy was given two weeks in the hole.
Upon release, a few of his friends asked Andy if it was worth it?
“Easiest time I ever did,” said Andy.
“Whaddaya mean?” one replied, “there's no such thing as easy time in the hole.”
“A week in the hole is like a year,” opined another.
“Not for me,” said Andy. “I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company.”
“What? Did the warden let you tote that record player down there with you?” asked one farcically.
“Nope,” replied Andy, “It's in here (he pointed to his head) and in here (pointed to his heart). That's the beauty of music, they can't get that from you.”
But the inmates didn't seem to get it, so Andy went on, “Haven't you ever felt that way about music?”
“Well I played a mean harmonica when I was a younger man,” said Red, “Lost interest in it though, doesn't make much sense in here.”
“But here is where it makes the most sense,” replied Andy. “You need it so you don't forget.”
“Forget?” said Red brusquely.
“Forget, so that you don't forget that there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone,” replied Andy. “That there's something inside that they can't get to, that they can't touch. It's yours.”
“What are you talkin' about?” asked Red.
Andy paused and then said one word, “hope.”
“Hope,” replied Red, “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the inside. You better get used to that idea.”
As the film, The Shawshank Redemption, played out, it was clear that hope was the very thing that prison life so often drove out of a person. Violence, rape, brutality from the guards, murder, and a parole system adeptly called “the rejection system” by the inmates, all served to eradicate almost every vestige of hope. Twenty, 30, or 40 years inside left individuals so institutionalized that they were unable to make it on the outside even if they did attain release. On the inside, life was pallid. On the outside, it was death. In Shawshank, hope all but vanished.
It is a terrible thing to live without hope. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”
In the middle of the sixth century B.C., God's people had lost hope. They had been taken into exile by the powerful Babylonians, the super-power of the day. The biblical accounts portray the prophets warning the people of Judah for years against the fallout of their idolatry, injustice, unrighteousness. They had been invited to turn and come under God's blessing but didn't. They kept going and finally in 587 B.C., God allowed the Babylonians to ransack Jerusalem. The walls of the holy city were torn down. The temple was destroyed. Jewish leaders and others were carried off into captivity and exile. For several decades, they languished there and if The Shawshank Redemption tells us about prison life in the 20th century, one can only imagine what captors did to captives 2,500 years earlier. The people were lost. They dreamt of things that had been. For them, life was essentially over. The crying had already begin. A psalmist at the time said it so well, with words popularized by the reggae group, Boney M, “By the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down, there we wept, as we remembered Zion (Ps.137:1).” We find, in our passage today, the captives quoted, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost. We are cut off completely (37:11b). ”
But there was one person in the midst of the exile for whom a flicker of hope survived. In spite of all, he knew the Lord God. And God came to Ezekiel and gave him a powerful vision of something new. In the vision, Ezekiel was carried off and placed down in the middle of the valley amidst countless dry bones that are said repeatedly to be very dry. “Mortal (ben-Adam or Son of Adam),” said the Lord, “can these bones live?”
“Only you know,” replied Ezekiel. “Then prophesy to the bones,” said the Lord, “and tell them that I will lay sinews on them and cause flesh to come upon them and cover them with skin, and put my breath, or ruach is the Hebrew word, within them and they shall live, ” said the Lord.
So Ezekiel prophesied as he had been commanded and the bones came together, bone to its bone, and sinews grew upon them and flesh came upon them and skin covered them but there was no breath/ruach in them. Ezekiel was invited to prophesy again, this time to the ruchoth, “Come from the four winds, O ruach, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live (v.9).” Ezekiel did and the ruach came into them and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
The valley of dry bones was a powerful vision for its time, for in those days there was no theology of resurrection, there was no real thought that individuals could come back from the grave. At death, an individual went to she'ol, according to Hebrew though, the place of the dead. It was as though an individual were “imprisoned” in a “land of no return” where existence was murky at best. But Ezekiel's vision points to something more, and there are those who would take this vision as the beginnings of God's revelation of an afterlife. But in Ezekiel himself, God placed the interpretation of this vision. The bones are a metaphor for the condition of the house of Israel. Their bones are dried up, they are long dead, they have no hope, they are cut off from life. Yet God is going to open up their graves, bring them up and back to the land of Israel. He is going to put his ruach in them, a word that is translated three different ways in this passage covering its range of meanings: breath, wind, and spirit. God is going to put his breath, his wind, his Spirit in them that they may live; this is all that they may have assurance, that they may know that the Lord is God (v.13), and return and serve him. The vision and oracle are words of hope to a people who have no hope. Salvation is at hand, they will return to the promised land.
It is a terrible thing to live without hope. A couple of weeks ago, I was having coffee with a friend. We hadn't seen each for a few months and I felt that I really needed to do better in terms of giving him a little time because he has been through some terrible things in the past few years. It perhaps began when he lost his mother. Then his wife took off and he became the sole custodial parent of their children. Not long after, his father became ill and he has had to look after him over half a dozen years now eventually getting him into long term care with all of that's associated headaches and visits. Last year, his sister who had helped him a lot and who was his best friend, suddenly died. He was devastated.
I texted him the day after we met and said, “Hope you don't mind me saying, Jim, but you seem down and resigned to the 'whatever' of life. I know that you've had difficult years and I'm sure they've taken their toll, but I hope you can choose to live rather than just exist.”
He texted back, “Didn't know I was coming across that way but I don't know how not to be resigned to the “whatevers.” Maybe some warm weather will improve things.”
“Well, maybe you need a bit of excitement,” I replied. “Or a dose of religion (he's not a religious man, so I added a smiley face to the text), or maybe you need hope.”
“Yes, hope would be good.” he replied. “Where the heck do you get that?”
It's a terrible thing to live without hope and I hear the words of Martin Luther King Jr. ringing in my ear again, “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving.” But, if there's one thing we can find in the midst of Ezekiel's message to us today, it is hope. In the despair of their ill-treatment and captivity, Ezekiel brought a message of hope and restoration to a troubled people. Whether one understands the passage in a historical sense, bringing the Judaean nation back to its homeland, or in an eschatological sense pointing toward resurrection of the people of God and God setting things straight at the end, or in a theological sense in terms of what it tells us about God, it is always a message of hope. God is a God of hope, of restorations. OT scholar, Walther Eichrodt, comments “The despair of the exiles meets here with something much more than a mere superficial word of comfort. Ezekiel does not see any less sharply … than the rest of his fellow-countrymen the utter ruin to which Israel has been reduced. He sees a great God and that …the sole basis for hope lies in the superhuman and miraculous power of God.” God will restore them. Yesterday, today, and forever, God is a God of restorations and where the Spirit (ruach) of God is, the breath of God, there is hope.
One of my friends in school, growing up, became a fireman. Martin had always wanted to be a fireman and after Grade 12, that is what he did. Upon emigrating to Canada, I lost touch with Martin and didn't see him for 27 years until I went back to Ireland for, among other things, an unofficial class reunion. About 15 of us gathered and we had a marvellous time.
But before we met, one of my school friends, Pauline, told me that Martin hadn't been well. You see, we had grown up in Belfast and Martin had entered the fire brigade in Belfast and Belfast during the 70s, 80s, and 90s was not the best place to serve in that profession. Terrorism is a dirty business and there are some things in this life that should not be seen. Martin had seen more than most, and more than most people in this country would understand or could bear. Bombs and fire do horrible things. Pauline, who is a nurse, told me that Martin had suffered from post-traumatic stress, he had to take early retirement on medical grounds.
In the middle of the evening, I spent some time with Martin and I heard a little bit about his story and how he had gone downhill because of the things he had seen. “It was just terrible, David,” he said, “But over the past 18 months or so, I've been getting better. I'm quite well now.”
“What do you attribute that to?” I asked.
“You're a minister, aren't you?” he replied.
“Yes.”
“Well, I started to go to church. I had heard that it might be good for me so I started going to church. And, David, I found something in the faith of the people that I needed and wanted; a positive-ness, a hope that I didn't have a couple of years ago. I know that Christians are just ordinary people. They have troubles like anybody else but for some reason they still have hope and see something better ahead.” He told me about the charismatic church he had been attending and how he had felt the Spirit (ruach) working in him.
“I'm doing well now and looking forward to better things.”
Through Ezekiel, God says, “I will put my Spirit (my ruach) in you and you shall live.” And history proved God true to his word. I think that is why The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is able to go on in that statement about the problem of losing hope to tell us about his own hope. He had the Spirit and he went on to talk about a dream. He said, “If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, 'but today, I still have a dream'”
And if you've ever watched the film, The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne was a man who knew his Bible. He could quote passages to the warden as quickly as the warden would fire them back at him. Perhaps, it was the hope within the sacred word that kept hope alive in him more than in the others in that prison. Towards the end of the film, he is talking to his friend Red about his hopes for the future. The more realistic, Red, can hardly take it. He laments his fate. At nearly 40 years inside, he is now an institutional man who can't do much inside and couldn't live outside. “So don't give me any of your pipe-dreams, Andy!”
Andy looked at him and said, “Red, it's a simple choice really, you can get busy living or you can get busy dying.”
I think that if I were picking a title for this morning's message today rather than two weeks ago, I would call it, “You can get busy living, or you can get busy dying.” For we all have a choice before us, we can choose to live or choose to merely exist. Sometimes, like the people of Judah or the inmates of the likes of Shawshank, a person may be in a place in which there is little to hope for. Anything that is remotely salvific seems far off. But there is something about God and there is something about having a God who restores in your corner, a God who can breathe out his Spirit to give life, to give hope, regardless of what this world throws at a person. With God, we can choose life, choose to live not merely exist ... for God has put these things in our hearts: life and hope and eternity.
I don't know where you are at this morning. Each week there are many people who come through the doors of the church and there are always those who come expectantly out of some deep need, some struggle or difficult circumstance that drives them almost to despair. As clergy, from time to time we have the privilege of hearing some of those stories and ministering to that need. For those, today, who feel the burdens of life and the world weighing heavily on their shoulders, hear the word of the Lord. If there is one thing we hear in Ezekiel, it is that God is a God of restorations and God is a God of hope. And if we don't see in Ezekiel, we find it in holy week, in the cross and in the resurrection of Jesus. God is with us. God gives us hope. We can choose life. Amen.