Sermon for March 31st, 2013

Ezekiel 36:26-28, 33-38
26A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. 28Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

33 Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the towns to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. 34The land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. 35And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified.’ 36Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.

37 Thus says the Lord God: I will also let the house of Israel ask me to do this for them: to increase their population like a flock. 38Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals, so shall the ruined towns be filled with flocks of people. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.

Resurrection Spirit
Over the past several months, I can't even begin to count the number of times someone has come up to me and talked about the "New Spirit" in the air here at First Presbyterian Church. Usually it's a member of our church, speaking from personal experience, but often it's someone from outside our community--a member or even a pastor of another church, who has heard about it from others, or participated in something we've done in the community.

I agree that there is a "new spirit" at work in our church. I feel it too. But when asked about the cause of that "new spirit" some people point to the new pastor, or now the new youth director, or some new program we've started. And I think that's a mistake. All these things, myself included, are not causes of a new spirit, but rather effects, results, or products of a new spirit. And that "new" spirit is really a very old spirit--God's Holy Spirit--which is simply doing a new thing, kind of like he did so long ago for the Ancient Israelites in today's scripture passage from Ezekiel:

"A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."

So the "new spirit" is not because of the new pastor. Rather the "new pastor" is because of the new spirit." The Spirit was at work here before I was.  But instead of asking "why" there is a new spirit here just yet (we'll come back to that question later), it might be helpful to ask "when."  The word "new" by its very nature implies that something has changed, and recently, at that.

I don't know if I can pinpoint the exact time--God's spirit works through many people and situations all at once--but I can tell you when I first encountered it. Many of you have already heard this story, and knowing me, most of you will hear it a few more times after today, too.

It was Monday, July 11th, 2011 somewhere between two and three in the afternoon. Amy and I and the kids were here in El Paso visiting on summer break before my last year of seminary. Bob Reno was the pastor here at the time. I was getting ready for ordination exams later that summer, and so I came here every day to study in the church library. I had been studying all morning and needed a break, so I wandered into the sanctuary to pray for awhile. The air conditioning was off and it was pretty hot. I wandered up to the balcony, and stood for awhile at the top of the balcony, looking down at the empty pews. The wooden railing at the front of the balcony was dry and cracked, and as I prayed, I ran my hand over the wood, and I thought of the story of the dry bones in the book of Ezekiel. That image stuck with me, and so I came back downstairs and got out one of blue pew bibles, sat down, and turned to Ezekiel. The story of the dry bones is in chapter 37, but I never quite made it there, because my eyes came to a stop just a little before that point -- on the last two verses of chapter 36. I remembered this later, because I happened to be 36 years old at the time. This is what I read:

"Thus says the Lord God: I will also let the house of Israel ask me to do this for them: to increase their population like a flock. Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals, so shall the ruined towns be filled with flocks of people. Then they shall know that I am the Lord."

I knew immediately that it was a beautiful message, a promise not just for Ezekiel's Israel, but for First Presbyterian Church as well. A beautiful message...but...not my message. Someone else's message. I put away the bible, left the sanctuary and went back to the library. I had ordination exams to study for, baby number three on the way, and far too many other things on my mind. I was a member of First Presbyterian Church at the time, but not the pastor. And besides...I had already informed God that I wanted to go into church planting...not church resurrection.

There's an old saying: If you want to make God laugh...just tell him your plans! Exactly one year and four days later, I preached my first sermon here as your new pastor. That "new spirit" didn't arrive when I did...it was already here, already at work when I wandered into the sanctuary that hot summer day. For that, and for the fact that God's plans are always better than ours...I am grateful.

Resurrection. It may seem strange for a pastor to preach a sermon from the Old Testament on Easter Sunday -- or "resurrection Sunday," as some churches are calling it now. The story of Jesus' resurrection from the grave is certainly the central story of our entire faith, and we proclaim it every Easter in our scripture readings, our liturgies, our hymns, and our anthems. And not just on Easter Sunday but for the next six weeks of the "Easter season" as well!

While the resurrection of Jesus is central, resurrection also happens to be a theme that runs throughout the entire bible. Beginning with Noah, whom God called out of the ark to bring life back into a world that had been destroyed, and then Moses who brought the Israelites out of slavery and captivity in Egypt, and into a new life in the promised land. The prophet Jonah was buried for three days and nights in the belly of a whale, before being raised back to land and life to take his message to Niniveh. Throughout the New Testament, the act of baptism is a symbolic death and resurrection, going under the water, and being raised again to new life.

In our scripture passage today, the prophet Ezekiel has witnessed the total death and destruction of Israel and the temple of Jerusalem. He, along with the other survivors, has been taken into forced captivity in Babylon, and it is in this grim, almost hopeless situation that he receives his vision from God, and prophesies about the resurrection of his people and the restoration of Israel's fortunes.

As Christians, we are a resurrection people. But this goes beyond the idea that when we die, like Jesus, we will be resurrected from the dead. As resurrection people, we believe there is hope for resurrection in our churches, resurrection in our communities and in our governments, resurrection in our businesses and in our finances, resurrection in our lives and in our relationships. Wherever there is death and stagnation, wherever God seems the most distant or absent altogether...there we find hope in God's promise to Ezekiel:

"A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you...you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."

I think we can see some fundamental, timeless principles at work here in Ezekiel--we'll call them "Resurrection Principles"--that we can apply to our own situations as individuals and groups of individuals. We'll start by looking at WHO does WHAT in this passage. There are certain things God promises to do, things we (as God's people) are asked to do, and certain things that those around us--those who are not God's people--will do. I'm going to read the whole passage again, but this time, I'd like you to keep score: count the things God does, the things we do, and the things done by the "other nations."

26A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. 28Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

33 Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the towns to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. 34The land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. 35And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified.’ 36Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.

37 Thus says the Lord God: I will also let the house of Israel ask me to do this for them: to increase their population like a flock. 38Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals, so shall the ruined towns be filled with flocks of people. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.

I think that last "they" includes the other nations as well as God's people. But it should be pretty clear to you by now that God is the one doing 90% of the work. Resurrection is God's job, and it's one we need to leave to God--he's really good at it. We have basically two things to do: The first is to ask:  "I will let the house of Israel ask me to do this for them: to increase their population like a flock." This, of course, is prayer. I have been praying Ezekiel 36:37-38 almost every day now for the past nine months. There is great power in prayer.

The second thing we are supposed to do is to be God's people. And this is where, I think, a lot of people get cold feet: We tend to think that being God's people--being a Christian, is all about behaving a certain way, following a set of strict rules, and it ends up being kind of like a diet or a new year's resolution:  No matter how hard you try, you always end up right back where you started. God, we can't be your people...your rules are too hard.

Look closely at verse 27-28...which does mention rules...but look again at WHO does WHAT here. "I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statues and be careful to observe my ordinances." We can't do it on our own, but God puts his spirit within us to help us. To put it another way: Following the rules doesn't make us God's people. Becoming God's people helps us to follow the rules.

So how do we become God's people? That's a good question. There's another good question I raised (but didn't answer) at the beginning of the sermon: Why is God's Spirit beginning to move here at First Presbyterian Church? We might add to that the larger question, why does God offer the hope of resurrection to dying people, institutions, relationships, situations...at all?

We're 2/3rds of the way through the sermon and that's a lot of big questions. Fortunately, I think the answers to all of them are wrapped up in the last two verses of our scripture passage:

37 Thus says the Lord God: I will also let the house of Israel ask me to do this for them: to increase their population like a flock. 38Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals, so shall the ruined towns be filled with flocks of people. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.

God's people are compared in this passage (not for the first or last time in the Bible) to a flock of sheep. There are three identifying characteristics of a flock given in these verses. Three identifying characteristics of God's people. They also answer the question "What's a flock good for anyhow?" which is another way of saying, "Why would God want to raise up a flock?"

Three reasons:
 * 1) Like a flock for sacrifices. We don't generally sacrifice sheep anymore, but the concept of sacrifice is an important one.  When you sacrifice something...your time, your resources, your life...it is generally for someone or something else, not for yourself.  Sacrifice, or service, is putting the needs of others ahead of your own needs.  Sacrifice and service are defining characteristics of God's people.  If you want God to bring about resurrection in your own situation, it might be a good idea to invest in the lives of the people and situations around you.
 * 2) Like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals. Sheep were an important part of the rituals and festivals through which the ancient Israelites worshiped God.  Sheep are for sacrifice...and sheep are for worship.  Worship is at the very heart of what it means to be God's people.  Worship is something God intends for us to do together, as a flock, not off on our own, independently.  Today, Easter Sunday is one of our great "appointed festivals" in the church, and today we have a pretty big flock.  But I'd like to put out this challenge to you:  It's easy to be a Christian on Easter. But will you be a part of the flock the Sunday after Easter, and the Sunday after that?  God is faithful to keep his promises to me and to you...in return, God's people are faithful in their consistent worship of him.
 * 3) Then they shall know that I am the Lord. A growing flock reflects well upon the Shepherd. The Lord is our Shepherd, and our lives are a living witness to what a great shepherd we have.

So sheep are for sacrifice...sheep are for worship...and sheep are for witness. As God's people, we will be known by our service to others, by the consistent worship we render to God, and by our witness when we give God the credit and the glory for every increase in our lives.

Three friends were sitting around one day, discussing death. One of them asked the others, "What would you like for people to say about you at your funeral?" The first friend replied, "I'd like them to say 'He was a great humanitarian, who cared about his community.'" The second one said, "I want them to say 'He was a great husband and father, who was an example for many to follow.'"  And then the third friend, the one who had asked the question, thought about it for awhile...and then finally looked up and said, "I'd like for them to say, 'Look! He's moving!'"

People of First Presbyterian Church -- we are moving. God has put a new spirit and a new heart within us. Let us resolve today--this Easter Sunday, this Resurrection Day--to be his people: In our service to others, in our worship of him, and in our witness to all of El Paso.