You may know that ancient Hebrew is a very spare language – meaning that one word can usually be translated many ways – and can mean at least several things.  I know of a man who set out to translate a book from English into ancient Hebrew and he quickly grew bored with how few words he had to choose from.  But from ancient Hebrew to English is thrilling because a multitude of meanings just explode out of the Hebrew words because of the abundance of English words that can be applied to Biblical Hebrew.  The Hebrew word ruach, for example, figures prominently in this story.  It means breath, and spirit, and wind.  They’re all the same thing in Hebrew.   Ruach.  The repetition is intense in this passage when it’s read in Hebrew.  The translators’ choice to vary the words breath and wind and spirit feels to me like a move away – getting some distance from the intensity. 

And then there’s the word that gets translated as “mortal” in Ezekiel in Hebrew -- ben adam (or Adam) literally reads son (ben) of man (adam).  “Earthling” is how my Hebrew study partner translates it – and I like that.  But whenever Ezekiel is read, what I wish we were hearing is how  “son of man” would ring in our ears if we heard it each time that it appears in Ezekiel.  “Son of man, can these bones live?”  “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.”  Ezekiel is called son of man 93 times in this book.  Son of man means typical human being in the Hebrew Bible, in stark contrast to the immortal, invisible, Holy One.  By the mid to late first century of the common era, ben adam, for Christians, came to be associated with messianic hope located in the person, the typical human being, named Jesus of Nazareth.

Prophesy, hinavay, is a verb in a passive form.(1)  It’s not the way we tend to think of prophesying – of making a big effort to speak up and to speak out.  Prophesying here is passive.   What that suggests to me is that the person doing the prophesying, that is, Ezekiel, is somehow submitting to the spirit of holiness -- to the breath of God – the four winds of the Holy One blowing through him to others.  In being asked to prophesy, Ezekiel is being asked to serve as a vessel or a conduit for the healing spirit of the Holy One.  Ezekiel is being asked to not block the wind, the spirit, the breath from entering in.  Ezekiel is being asked to allow the creative and empowering breath of God to blow into him and then back out of him as speech to the dry bones.  And then Ezekiel, filled with that breath of God, is being asked to allow the breath to speak right back to that creative empowering breath to blow into the dry bones which have risen up and started making connections.  Breath to breath.  Spirit to spirit.  Wind to wind.  It’s extraordinary really. Listen to it this way:

The scriptural testimony is that there is a breath which some call Holy – that is, not common, not profane – that can inspire and empower creative and life-giving expression if we allow it to flow through us.  This breath will flow through us if we open ourselves for it to come in and go out from us.  That coming and going, that receiving and giving, is as connected as breathing in and breathing out.  One without the other is a recipe for disaster.  In fact, there’s a word in this passage from Ezekiel, that for some reason doesn’t get translated, that says that it’s treacherous to be without inspiration. (2)   Treacherous indeed.

Many of us know people who seem treacherously lonely and sad.  You might say their spirits seem dried up – they’re not at all hopeful – and they are isolated, cut off from the love of a family or friends or a community.  They might be in the midst of family or friends or community and yet they are still somehow cut off.  Maybe they’ve just been incredibly unlucky – or maybe they’ve done it to themselves – it doesn’t matter.  They are treacherously without inspiration.  They are without breath.

So many of you regularly invite people who are alone or sad or hungry for community to be with us at Emmanuel Church, by offering them a ride or asking them to meet you here.  It’s really wonderful.  And I want to encourage you to keep at it!  Prophesy to them.  Permit the Holy Spirit to blow through you and out of you in your speech, in your very breathing.  Another word for prophesy is predict.  Predict.  Predict to people that when they come to Emmanuel they will find a loving community, beautiful worship, a friendly social time after worship, a group of people committed to putting their faith into action, a people committed to making religion a constructive force in society rather than a destructive one.    Predict to people that they will be treated well here.  Predict to them that they will be cared for.  Predict to them that this is a community where each of us can come out of whatever dark and small spaces we’re in.  Let people know what you already know – that this community is inspiring.   Let them know that the spirit of holiness is moving through us to help flesh out even the dry bones of what Madeleine L’Engel has called the “thin humorless Church!”

A few weeks ago we had a visitor (a bishop travelling in cognito) who spoke with a couple of you after the service and commented on what a happy place this is.  And it is – and of course that’s not all it is.  This is also a place where grief and sorrow have room and are honored – perhaps nowhere more poignantly than in this beautiful chapel built in memory of a young woman after her tragic death.  This is a place of inspiration.

Breathing in and breathing out.  Inspiration.  You know in the ancient Hebrew tradition and in Jewish practice today, the name of God is marked by four letters that cannot, must not be pronounced outside of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Some of my rabbi friends laugh at Christian attempts to make a pronounce-able word out of those four letters the way we do in our hymnody with Yahweh.  They say that the commandment to not take the Lord’s name in vain has nothing to do with invectives using the word God (although one should not use them because it is not polite).  Not taking the Lord’s name in vain means not wasting our time or energy trying to contain the name of God with a word, to label that which cannot be spoken.  And if we insist, they say,  the letters form an onomatopoeia for the sound of breathing in and breathing out.  (2 times)  It’s the beginning and end of life isn’t it?  The first and last (3 times).  That is the name of God that is so holy that it cannot be contained, that is inspiration, the spirit, the wind, the breath.

The custom in the Episcopal Church to renew Baptismal promises at least four times a year – on Pentecost, the birthday of the church, which is today; and at Easter Vigil, on All Saints’ Day, and on the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus.  It’s handy for people who are uncomfortable with the creedal words of the affirmation to have a candidate for Holy Baptism to focus on – to distract us a little bit.   But we don’t have that – so today I’d like to invite you to focus on our breath.  I’m going to lead us through the reaffirmation words and I’d like everyone to pause for a deep breath between every question and response.  Between every question and every response we will hear the ancient Name which is so holy that it cannot be spoken.  And more than hear The Name, we will breathe the ancient Name which is so holy that it cannot be spoken.  Perhaps -- perhaps -- we will hear and feel that we are not reciting a rote list of facts – rather we are joining in a communal prayer that transcends time and place.  Please join me.