Dry bones

Methodists' Sundays are governed by “the Plan”. To the uninitiated “the Plan” sounds vaguely like something out of a James Bond film. “I’ve been expecting you Mr. Bond. I have the Plan!” Sadly, it’s not that exciting. The Plan is the Preaching Plan, the rota of who is leading worship on a particular Sunday.

A quick glance at “the Plan” shows that on the first Sunday of Lent I was taking the service at one of my little chapels, Studley. It was also St David’s Day. Now the fifth Sunday in Lent is here. Where has that time gone?

I’ve just opened the sermon I preached that Sunday and see that I talked about the need for us to care for the environment as God has placed us on this planet to be his caretakers. It seemed an appropriate topic for Lent. And there were a number of initiatives by various churches focusing on this theme.

But looking at my sermon notes for that day I see I made no reference to Corona Virus or Covid 19. I may have mentioned this in my prayers but certainly not in my sermon. 5 weeks ago, it didn’t seem “big news” in this country. Now of course life seems very different.

I suspect that for many people who started off Lent with the good intentions of being more environmentally aware, things have changed. That intention to buy less food and not throw away so much might have gone with the panic buying of food in supermarkets. Though on the positive side, a report on the BBC News web site a week ago showed that, for now anyway, air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have fallen across the world due to Corona virus dramatically reducing the number of car journeys.

So far, one of the challenges for me as a minister during the Corona virus epidemic, is in trying to find a way of being your minister during this time.

There is no such thing as a typical week for me. But broadly speaking I have a service (sometimes two) on a Sunday. Each day I do some Bible study and make time for prayer. On Monday I start to think about the service for the following Sunday. This means reading the Bible for the suggested passages for the next Sunday. Usually by Monday afternoon I have a rough idea of what I want to talk about and can prepare an Order of Service with my hymns.

As the week progresses, the sermon will get written. But this is interspersed with church meetings, leading Bible studies, pastoral care and paperwork. All enough to keep me busy.

But now, many of these things are on hold. I can’t have face to face contact with people (though I can phone and write), I don’t have meetings or Bible study groups. There is, if truth be told, a sense of guilt.

Although I won’t have a service this Sunday (or on any Sunday for some time by the look of it) I have prepared an order of service for you to use if you wish. And I decided to look at the Bible passages for the fifth Sunday of Lent. One of those passages is taken from Ezekiel.

In the passage, Ezekiel, a prophet living with the Jewish people exiled to Babylon, sees a valley of dry bones. Skeletons. It is a vision. And we think the dry bones are meant to represent the Jewish people. They symbolise that they were spiritually dead. The Jewish people had turned their backs on God and in their sinfulness God has allowed them to be taken captive into Babylon. But in Ezekiel 37 God is prepared to give them a second chance. God is prepared to breathe new life into the Jewish people, the dead bones.

One of the Bible commentators I read, said Ezekiel was being presented with a vision of how God saw the world. A valley of dry bones. Lifeless.

In preparing a service to send out to members of my congregations for their own use on Sunday, I came across a prayer written by Donald Hinton:

To stop and think; that is the gift God offers in our Lent.
To pause and reflect; that is what God lays within our reach.
To look life in the face and ask its meaning; that is the opportunity God gives.
To see within ourselves and ask just who we are; that is an awesome task God offers.
And then step out to meet the Easter call. Donald Hinton Called to Praise

The prayer though could have been written for the situation we find ourselves in now. “To stop and think; that is the gift that God offers in Lent.” God presents us with this opportunity every Lent, but normally I for one am too busy to accept the gift.

This year God has taken his gift wrapped it up in brightly coloured paper, put a very big ribbon on it and put it right in my face. I cannot avoid the gift.

For me maybe a good thing that will come out of the enforced times of reflection we are all having to go through, will be the chance to look at the world through God’s eyes. To look at my own dry bones and the dry bones around me and then “prophesy to these bones and say to them ‘Now hear the word of the Lord’”?

In the future I’m sure many of us will look back on this time and try and think about what it meant to each of us. But I hope that each of us will use the opportunity now and in the future to consider what God is doing and what he wants to join in with.

Please take care. You’re in my prayers. Please pray for one another.


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