The dream-like vision that the prophet Ezekiel had, of being in a field of dry bones that he and God partnered together to bring back to life, occurred about seventy years before the reading I preached on at our “Annual Meeting Sunday” from the 8th chapter of Nehemiah. In that reading, people had returned from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, and rejoiced at hearing the scriptures read aloud beside the rebuilt Temple. By contrast, in the reading we heard today from Ezekiel, the exiles from Jerusalem and Judah had just arrived in Babylon and the future looked bleak. Few expected to see their homeland ever again. Amidst the gloom, the Spirit of the Lord presented Ezekiel with a vision, in a field of dry bones. Not animal bones, but dry, human bones, as if a military regiment had got lost in the desert while doing a training exercise, and had met a grim end.
God asks Ezekiel a question –
“can these bones live?” – and Ezekiel basically turns the question back to God,
“well, can they?” The late Canadian religious scholar Peter Craigie, in his
wonderful commentary on Ezekiel, described what came next: “God addressed
Ezekiel and told him, in effect, to preach to the bones. As an experienced prophet, Ezekiel must have
felt many times in the past that he was preaching to the dead, but never so
dramatically as on this occasion; and when he began to declare God’s word, the
results were equally startling. He
preached to the bones, declaring that God would restore them to life, and even
as he spoke, his sermon was accompanied by a cacophony of clanking as the dead
bones began to come together. Then,
before the prophet’s eyes, the reconstructed skeletons were fitted with sinew
and muscles and clothed with skin. They
now looked marvellous, their skeletal appearance removed, but still they were
dead. Again, the prophet was commanded
to speak; addressing the four winds, he invited the spirit (RSV ‘breath’) of
God to enter the reconstituted bodies and give them life. As he spoke, life was imparted: a great host
of living persons stood up in the valley where formerly only corpses had been.”
It is natural for us to draw
the connection between this vision of this Jewish prophet, and a Christian
belief in resurrection – in this case, a resurrection of an entire nation and its
hope. Once more turning to Peter Craigie, we read that “this prophecy provides
an extraordinary insight into the life-giving capacity of God. (repeat) To a people whose life seemed to be
over, a declaration of new life was made.
To those whose existence had become a form of living death, new horizons
of hope were revealed…. The message of hope to those in exile may become a
message of hope to all: that the Spirit of God imparts fulness of life to
all creatures.”
I invite you to receive that
on whatever level you need to hear it today.
If your faith is flagging and you need a fresh infusion of belief in the
God of resurrection, the God of Jesus Christ who shares in our life and death
and prepares for us a life beyond death, let that be yours. If you are weighed down by the anger and
division that is so prevalent in the world today, and the challenges faced by
this beautiful planet as economic concerns overrule ecological ones, open
yourself to God’s own Spirit breath, to renew your life and, hopefully, have
impact on this broader scope. And if you wonder, what might this highly unusual
reading about a valley of dried-out bones has to do with us, well, listen on.
At our recent Annual Meetings,
each of our congregations did some preliminary looking ahead at what might come
next in our gathered life, as a family of faith tasked with sharing God’s love
with one another and with our neighbours.
You may have already guessed that the people of Osoyoos United Church
and Oliver United Church are not the only United Church folks wondering about
the future.
In recent years, the United
Church of Canada has been well-aware that the numerical trends, both membership
and finances, are mostly disheartening when we imagine the future. Facing that fact is important, but that’s not
where we pitch our tent, for we believe in the God of resurrection, the God of
justice and reconciliation, the God who told Ezekiel to bring those dry bones
back to life for they had more life to live. Spurred on by that trust in God, and a
curiosity about where God would find hope for us, our national General Council
in 2025 prayerfully considered the question, “who will we be ten years from
now, in 2035?” There are ministries in
our denomination that are showing signs of new life, so we are curious: what
is working for them that can inform what all of us might do together? And since we know from decades of experience
that a faith that makes sense intellectually but fails to turn into meaningful action
is not inspirational to younger generations, how do we articulate our call and
purpose in ways that attract interest and propel us forward?
You have seen this logo (on screen), which gives visual
expression to the United Church’s new call and purpose, to be a Church of deep
spirituality, bold discipleship, and daring justice. I would add to that a fourth element,
something like “authentic kindness”, for wounded people of all ages in our
community need safe, kind gathering places with people who are thoughtful,
non-judgmental, patient, truly welcoming. Naming this new call and purpose was an
important first step in figuring out who we, as the United Church of Canada,
will be going forward.
The next step, was to
envision what a living, breathing Church will look like in 2035: if you will,
what the valley of dry bones, the valley of Church decline looks like when the
spirit of life refreshes it. And here is
the basic description, written as a present-tense statement in 2035: “in
The United Church of Canada, inspired, resilient, and diverse contextual
communities of disciples seek to continue the story of Jesus by embodying
Christ’s presence in the world. The church is present and deeply connected
coast-to-coast-to-coast in rural and urban settings, and in ecumenical and
global relationships. Guided by hope-filled, adaptive and effective ministry
leaders, the denomination is increasingly multigenerational, multiracial, and
intercultural”.
That’s a densely-packed
statement, and impossible to cover in one sermon – so today I’m going to lift
three phrases out of it.
· Who will we be
as a denomination as we move toward 2035? We will be contextual communities
of disciples – that is, congregations that pay attention to the communities
around them. That, in essence, is one of
the three questions Shannon put in front of us at the start of our Interim time,
“who is my neighbour?” - and I think you have done well at keeping that
question before you for the past eighteen months. And in fact, over the years you have done a
lot of good work looking at future vision, which relates to this call to love
our neighbours.
· What are we going to do as we move toward 2035? We will continue the story of Jesus by
embodying Christ’s presence in the world.
For many years, United Church congregations and their leaders – and I
fully count myself into this number - have been baffled as to how to connect
with younger generations we barely know. Well, something we have heard consistently
from young adults who DO end up in Church, is how moved they are by the brave,
inclusive, loving person of Jesus and by individuals and congregations who let
his unconditional love change them – congregations transformed by inclusive,
socially aware love. Embodied, authentic love, the love of Christ that breathes
us to life, is still the key answer in a world that enjoys hatred.
· And what will we look like as we move toward
2035? We will be increasingly multigenerational, multiracial, and
intercultural. (And, of particular
interest to Oliver as we foster a relationship with our Anglican neighbours,
“ecumenical” is in there, too). What many Churches are finding, especially
those in a growth phase, is that people who have come from other parts of the
world are blown away by the message of love and inclusion of Jesus Christ expressed
boldly and blatantly in the United Church of Canada. Churches, rural and urban, that connect with
new Canadians, open an important door to people who want to be with us. Then,
of course, it’s up to the whole congregation to actually mean it – to be a
people of deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice, in the name
of the risen, eternally loving, completely non-judgmental Christ.
I could go on and on about
this, but what I hope you are hearing in all this, is that the work that you
have been about locally for some time now, of imagining what this congregation
might look like in years to come, maps onto this bigger, longer view of our
denomination rather well. It’s not
identical, but the road forward identified locally is not all that different
from the road forward identified nationally.
And there is one more thing. As
a key aspect of the Toward 2035 initiative, our Moderator, the Right Rev. Dr.
Kimberley Heath, is calling the Church to prayer. Not a top-down, “fix all this, won’t you,
God” kind of prayer, but a prayer that includes a lot of listening: listening
for God, listening to one another, listening for the surprising whispers of the
holy spirit, listening for what Peter Craigie called the “cacophony of
clanking” as the dry bones start to come to life.
So that’s how I’d like to end
this message: in prayer. First, we will
remain seated and prayerfully sing together, “God prepare me to be a sanctuary”
– {More Voices #18} --- and then I will lead us in words of prayer suggested by
our General Council and Moderator…
“Gracious
and loving God, you called into being This United Church of Canada, One
expression of Jesus’ Beloved community, here in the particularities of our
place and our time.
For the
past 100 years You have guided and sustained and called us back when we have
erred.
Now, as
we look back We also look forward, Daring to believe That even among us, even
in this very place, you are doing a new thing. We long to perceive it
Like a
way through a wilderness for the sake of our neighbours, for the sake of this
world of beautiful and broken things, yearning to be made whole, yearning to be
made new, may we perceive and live into it. Amen.”
Let us
continue in prayer, in silence or aloud:
We bring
to mind, O God, the nations of the world in their most recent and perilous
struggles…
Our
neighbours here in the south Okanagan, as we see vines and orchards being
prepared for a new growing season…
Those
known to us, and those known to you, O God, who are needing love to feel real
again…
And
prayers for ourselves, for health, for guidance, for hope…
And now, as a child turns to her mother in hope and trust, we turn to you, O God, as we say together The Lord’s Prayer… Amen.
References cited:
Craigie, Peter C. The Daily Study Bible
Series: Ezekiel. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983, pp. 259-261
The United Church of Canada, “A Listening
Prayer”, accessed at https://united-church.ca/toward2035#downloads
The United Church of Canada, “Toward 2035”, https://united-church.ca/news/toward-2035-invites-communities-faith-hope-filled-bolder-future
© 2026
Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.
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