THE HAND OF GOD

A sermon by George R. Pasley

Pentecost 2009

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-21

That amazing story from Ezekiel contains a clue to the circumstances in which it was first told.

The clue is found in verse 11, in which the word of the Lord tells Ezekiel that the whole house of Israel says: 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.'

In fact, the house of Israel was in exile. They were prisoners in a foreign land. Their nation was destroyed. There was no one back home to write to them or to pray for them or to send them care packages. Indeed, they were cut off from their land, their heritage and from everything they knew.

Last year Merta’s son David gave a talk at the Discovery Center about the Aleuts who were evacuated from their island villages and brought to Ketchikan during World War II. Here, cut off from everything they knew, they suffered homesickness so severe that some of them even died.

The landscape was different, the food was different, their ability to take care of themselves was mostly gone, and their sense of belonging was completely gone. Those who survived did so by amazing feats of adaptability and perseverance.

Into that sort of circumstance, to Israelites living in exile in Persia, the Word of the Lord came with a promise: God would put the Spirit into them, and they would live.

It happened.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell the stories of how it happened.

In fact, it happens all the time. The hand of the Lord is present throughout history, building up what sin and evil have destroyed.

Jesus was arrested, crucified, and buried.

But the Hand of God raised him up.

The disciples were gathered in a secret room.

The door was locked.

But the risen Lord entered the room and gave them hope. 

On Pentecost, the 50^th day after Passover, the disciples were together again.

They weren’t dry bones.

They weren’t without hope.

But they were without something crucial, and on that day, Pentecost, God gave it to them.

The Holy Spirit came, and they sprang to life.

They told the stories of God’s deeds of power, and amazing things began to happen.

A church was formed, and it included everybody.

Old and young

Male and female

Slave and free

People from as far away as Libya and Arabia were part of it and

Before long, it even came to include Gentiles.

Nobody was left out of God’s amazing deeds of power.

Nobody was cut off from the hope that we find in God.

Now I’m thinking, some of us are a long way from home.

Some of us have lost people we loved and life is never going to be the same without them.

Some of us are excluded from being part of certain things because we have physical limitations.

Some of us are excluded from some things because of other reasons- and those reasons are not our fault!

Some of us aren’t without hope, but we’re not exactly overflowing with it either.

Some of us have simply stopped dreaming, or just lowered our expectations.

Whatever the case, we’re not as bad off as the exiles living in Persia,

Or the slaves and women and elderly who became part of the first century church.

Nope, we’re not that bad off.

But that doesn’t mean the Spirit can’t be given to us.

That doesn’t mean God can’t breathe something amazing and perplexing into our lives, at any given moment.

Nope, it doesn’t mean that, because there is no one whose life cannot be changed by God and there is no one who can’t be used by God to make amazing things happen.

If you’re old,

If you’re young,

If you’re busy,

If you’re lazy,

If you’re crazy,

If you’re boring,

If you’re thoughtful,

If you’re not,

If you’re married,

If you’re single,

If you’re rich, if you’re poor,

If you’re tired, if you’re wet, if you’re cold,

It doesn’t matter,

God’s Spirit, the Hand of God,

Can touch you and can change you,

Pick you up and send you out,

Even stand beside you where you’re at,

And you will know that God has come a calling!

In fact, the Spirit HAS to find you.

The Spirit HAS to breathe into you and through you.

Because without it, we’re dry bones.

When we hear that story of dry bones, most of our attention is grabbed by the rattling of the bones and by their coming together, snapping in place, on the floor of that dessert.

Slightly less dramatic is their receipt of new flesh and skin.

But the least dramatic may have been the most important, because until God breathed into them they were still dead.

A skeleton is dead no matter if its bones are fastened together or not.

A skeleton with skin and flesh is STILL DEAD, if it’s not breathing.

And they weren’t breathing until God breathed into them.

Consider the disciples on the day of Pentecost.

They had studied at the feet of Jesus.

They had eaten with him and drank with him and walked with him and sailed with him and fished with him.

They had seen him do miracles and done a few miracles themselves.

They had seen the risen Lord.

But they were waiting on Pentecost Sunday.

They didn’t know, not exactly, what they were waiting for.

But when it came, they knew it was the hand of God.

Three times in my life I’ve bowed my head in prayer and told God I needed to know I was on the right track- that the things I was doing on those particular days were the things I needed to be doing.

Three times I prayed that prayer, and three times I got an answer, loud and clear- YES!

One of those times was last Thursday.

Each time I got the answer, it came through the voice of another human being.

None of the people involved knew I had prayed that prayer, and my suspicion is that at least twice they had no idea at all that they were conveying any sort of message.

But I knew that it was the Hand of God, the Spirit breathing, and it was life to me.

I have a friend, a colleague from seminary, Katie Griffin. She’s a mission coworker in Argentina, where the economy has been in trouble for a long time.

Katie teaches at a very poor seminary. Her husband is a local pastor in Buenos Aires. Neither one of them make much money. But Katie needed to buy a more dependable car.

Interest rates on car loans in Argentina are 36 percent.

I suspect that Katie may have been feeling a little bit like those exiles living in Persia. Except, the hand of God was busy.

Katie got a loan, from the Presbyterian Church USA.

It was $5000, interest free, and it was possible because a great many congregations make and keep their mission pledge, even in times of dispute and even when times are hard.

That’s the Spirit breathing into you and me, and it is life to Katie and her husband.

But here’s something more. Katie’s husband, Daniel, pastor’s a Pentecostal church in a very poor neighborhood. His congregation wanted to start a community service center, so last winter Katie asked the churches in America to pray.

Yesterday she reported that the congregation has started the center, and they are offering job training for computers and barbers and people are getting real jobs as a result of the training.

But they can also come to the center and receive massage therapy, podiatry services,

psychological counseling, nursing, and dental mechanics.

The Spirit of God has entered that neighborhood, and life is happening.

I will put my Spirit in you and you will live,

and I will settle you in your own land.

Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken,

and I have done it, declares the Lord.

You might not think so.

You might look at yourself and see dry bones.

But don’t count yourself out.

No, don’t do that.

Instead, count God “IN”

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.