Reflections on "Tell It Again" Acts 2: 1-21; Ezekiel 37: 1-14

Two great biblical stories -- the imagery of rattling bones, tongues of fire and sweeping winds, not to mention people talking in multiple languages fill the listeners' minds.  

I had thought about having three or four people read the Acts lesson simultaneously to get a feel for how that might have sounded that Pentecost long ago, but I did not get that accomplished.  We have done that at least once hear, and it is a very vivid way of illustrating the text.  

I used the Ezekiel passage, but did not build enough on the hope that is found in that text.  I was trying, of course, to draw out the part of the passage that fit with telling our stories, but the passage's primary theme is one of hope.

In the sanctuary service I used the Time with Young Disciples to point out how silly it seems that the power the Holy Spirit brings is to speak.  I didn't really think about that much in the sermon preparation, but I would like to build a sermon around that more one day.  Think of the implications -- the power of God found in talking to each other -- instead of going to war, or ignoring, or holding in resentments.  

The connection to Genesis and the role of speaking in the act of creation came late to the sermon (about 8:10 Sunday morning).  That theme could have been explored much more as well.    

“Tell It Again” Telling the Stories series; Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Acts 2: 1-21; May 27, 2012; FPC, Troy, Pentecost

Introduction: Telling our stories: story of what God has done; our story; how those intersect.

Move 1: Celebrate Pentecost and remember that arrival of the Holy Spirit.

a. Christ had promised the Holy Spirit to his followers.

1. When Christ would tell his friends about what waited for him and how he would have to leave them, he comforted them by the reminder that they would not be alone.
2. The Holy Spirit would be with them.
3. With tongues of fire and sweeping winds, the Holy Spirit has made its grand entrance.

b. What does the Holy Spirit bring?

1. Imagine you are the early followers of the resurrected Christ.
2. What do you need from God to maintain your faith?
3. What do you need to do your work?
4. What do you need to calm your fears and concerns?

5. Would you want some kind of magical powers?
6. Or super strength?
   c. The Holy Spirit brings the gift of languages?
   1. I bet the gift of languages was not on very many people's lists of things they needed to follow Christ.
   2. But God gives the followers the ability to speaks all the different languages so that everyone around them can understand what they are saying.

100. The gift of languages reminds us of the power of telling God's story, of telling our stories.
     1. What do those early followers of the resurrected Christ need to be able to do – tell their stories.
     2.And tell them again and again. New language is given to them so that they can tell it again.
     2. What gift do we have to share with the world? God's story and our stories.

Move 2: The Holy Spirit equips us to tell stories that give life.

a. Ezekiel

1. Prophet is taken to a valley of dry bones.
2. Can you envision what Ezekiel sees in that valley – dry bones everywhere.
3. Dry bones that signify death.
4. In the movies when they have a desert scene and try to depict the how desolate and forbidding the desert is, what do they show? Dry bones laying on the sand.
5. Dry bones show no life...no hope.

b. The Lord asks Ezekiel – can these bones live?

1. Ezekiel punts that question back – you're the only one who knows!
2. The Lord tells Ezekiel to prophesy, to tell the word of the Lord, to tell the story, and then the dry bones can come to life.

3. Craig Barnes, the well-known Presbyterian preacher (married to one of Mark Hess' relatives, and prolific writers suggests that if had been Ezekiel, he would have asked God to bring the bones to life, then he would have preached. (Craig Barnes, The Christian Century, 2002 February 27-March 6, 2002, p. 20.)
4. But God demands that the story be told.
5. So Ezekiel begin to prophesy, and the bones begin rattling. Then they come together. As Ezekiel prophesies, the breath of life comes to the bones.

100. God makes the point that Israel will be saved.

d. God's story give life because it gives hope.

Move 3: What story gives you life?

a. Go back to Peter in the story from Acts.

1. Peter telling the story that gives life.
2. Story of God sending Jesus Christ.
3. Christ dying on the cross.
4. Christ being raised from the death.
5. The story of God turning death into life is the story that can breathe life into dry bones.
   b. I bet Peter also told his story.
   1. His leadership among the first disciples and what he saw Jesus do.
   2. but also his betrayal of Jesus at a critical time.
   3. And the opportunity the resurrected Christ gave him to put his betrayals behind him and go and serve God's people in the world.
   4. Peter tells the story of God's saving act in Christ, even as he tells his own story of how Christ saved him.
   b. What story gives you life?
   1. Ron Hall, the Caucasian business man from Ft. worth, TX, who became intertwined Denver Moore, the African-American street person, whom he met at the soup kitchen in downtown Ft. Worth, writes about how he has learned to tell his story.
   2. He describes how he used to have “verbal battles” with people as he tried to save them. But, over time he learned that he could not make people believe, nor could he legislate how they believed. All he could do is “tell the jagged tale of my own spiritual journey and declare that my life has been the better for having followed Christ.” Same Kind of Different, Ron Hall and Denver Moore, 60

100. What jagged tale do you have to tell?
     1. Maybe your story is about how God gave you hope hope in the midst of a crisis.
     2. Or perhaps your story is now a resurrection story – of how God turned something akin to death into new life.
     3. or maybe your story celebrates the joy you have discovered in following Christ.
     4. you can speak the language of the people because you know the challenges, joys, and fears of being human.
     Conclusion: We first discover God in the act of creation. As Genesis describes the act of creation, it begins when God speaks.
     God speaks a word of creation and their was light, and then life.
     You have a word to speak, a story to tell, a story that gives life. God and tell it.