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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
But all of this makes Ezekiel a really interesting figure to turn to to speak of joy. Remember, he writes at the absolute low point of the story. He writes in ways that invite speculation and imagination. He writes in ways that in some sense, I think require our hope for the future to overrule the testimony of the present. And whether or not any of us here like it, I want to argue that sometimes that's what joy requires from us as well, hope that overrules.
Jeremy Duncan:Today, we are continuing a series on joy, and we'll get to that in just a moment. But first, I did want to mention that here at commons, we are hosting the regional gathering of our denominations' AGM next month on Saturday, May 4th. There'll be a time of worship together, a lunch, a bit of the business of the broader church. And if you're interested in any of that, it is open to anyone to attend. You can find information at commons.church/news if you are intrigued by that, so check that out.
Jeremy Duncan:Today, though, we're on the theme of joy. Last week, we kicked off this series by talking about rediscovering our joy in the ordinary experience of being human. And to talk about the ordinary experience of being human, I turn to a story about literally having lunch with God. And I do realize that it's kind of a ridiculous place to start a story about the simplicity and beauty of the ordinary experience of being human. But in my defense, the story is not quite what it seems in summary.
Jeremy Duncan:Because if you actually go back and read the text of Genesis 18 as it unfolds, the emphasis there is not on the scale of the story at all. It's not even on this epic promise made to Abraham and Sarah at the end of lunch. In fact, when you read the story, it's almost disarming in its simplicity. Abraham is sitting on the porch in the heat of the day enjoying a cool breeze, and God appears. And in the context of the story, this is in contrast to the intensity of what happens in chapter as an interlude, a breather for us as readers.
Jeremy Duncan:And yet it's there in that breather that we actually get a divine appearance. And that alone seems important to me. That for all the work that all of us do religiously, for all the work that I do as a career, it all still sometimes falls far short of those quiet, unexpected moments where God shows up uninvited. Maybe I'm just not as important as I think I am, and I'd like to think I can be okay with that. Because as we said last week, the God of the Bible is not conjured up religiously.
Jeremy Duncan:God appears where God wants or as Jesus might say, the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it came from. You don't know where it goes, so it is with God. And so here, God pops over and Abraham offers lunch, and God says, sure. And then we get the big promise.
Jeremy Duncan:Right? Sarah will have a child, that's an amusing premise for her at 99 years old. We joked about some of her chiropractic concerns last week. But the whole story still feels very playful to me. Sarah laughing and God calling her out on it.
Jeremy Duncan:There's no judgment there. There's no walking back of the promise. There's just this divine presence at the scale of a very human story. And I think that sometimes, the joy that changes our perspective on everything in life first gets noticed at the scale of a good day you're simply thankful for. And so that's where we started, our conversation on joy.
Jeremy Duncan:Cool breeze and lunch guests and big surprises, the joy that takes root when we learn to savor the ordinary well. Today, we're going to jump to the prophets. And today, we're going to have to talk about loss and despair and hope, and hopefully, the joy that can be found in all of that as well. But first, let's pray. God of the joyful ordinary, God of the hopeful future, might you help us to savor all of our small moments well and to realize your presence apart from the experience of the religious, and away from the experience of the ecstatic, and very much in those easy to miss moments that simply make us smile.
Jeremy Duncan:Might we start to find contentment in the everyday content of our lives, friendship, and sunshine, and good news, and long conversations. And might we learn to dream big, but always to root those big dreams in being content with what we already have in front of us right now. Might that story lead us to be more courageous, more generous, more kind, more committed to the path of peace, and to the way of grace. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.
Jeremy Duncan:Today, we're talking about joy again, but this time we're talking about joy at the bottom. And so we need to cover exile and apocalypse, big bad valleys, the worst moment of your life, and reviving both body and soul. And to do that, we're going to turn to the prophet Ezekiel. However, before we do that, we need a little context here because Ezekiel was written in the midst of the Babylonian exile, And that colors everything we read. So here's a quick brush up on Hebrew history.
Jeremy Duncan:At one point, the nation splits into 2 kingdoms. Unfortunately, the northern kingdom of Israel is conquered by Assyria. And then about a century later, the southern kingdom called Judah is conquered by Babylon who rolls through and conquers pretty much everything else in the area, including Azaria. And this happens in the early 6th century BCE, And it's a pretty demoralizing period in Jewish history, but it's also a very fertile period for Jewish writing. In fact, it's when we tend to think that most of the Hebrew scriptures are actually written down and collected together into the texts that we have today.
Jeremy Duncan:Large parts of the Hebrew scriptures existed as oral tradition before the exile. Certainly parts of it would have existed as individual texts before the exile. But it's during this period of Babylonian conquest, we think those texts were gathered and collected and turned into what would later become the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible. However, it's also during this period that the prophets are writing. Some of them writing ahead of conquest, warning their people about what's coming.
Jeremy Duncan:Some of them lamenting the destruction of the nation as it's happening around them. But this period becomes a time of incredible self reflection for the Jewish people, probably not unlike a lot of difficult periods in our lives. That is where Ezekiel comes in, because Ezekiel is written in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem, the absolute low point of the story. And what sets Ezekiel apart from some of the other prophets is that instead of really talking about the politics of the moment, what pleases or displeases God, and how the Jewish people need to get right and change in order to restore their standing with God, Ezekiel is in many ways, the forebearer for what becomes the apocalyptic genre. Now, I've written extensively about this genre, both in my academic work and in my last book, Upside Down Apocalypse.
Jeremy Duncan:But the important part is always to keep in the back of your mind that when reading these types of apocalyptic texts, they are using wild imagery to uncover something very real about the world around us. One of the metaphors that I used the last time we talked about revelation here at Commons was to compare the apocalyptic to the work of Pablo Picasso, in particular his painting Guernica. Is a violent, even grotesque, very abstract painting depicting the horrors of war on a small Spanish town. But the point of that painting is certainly not to be violent or to celebrate war. It's to reveal through outsized abstract imagery the damage that our violence causes to all of us.
Jeremy Duncan:That is apocalypse, which despite our love for end of the world movies, simply meant to reveal something hidden. It had nothing to do with Mad Max. Although it was a great movie, you should check it out. So when we turn to Ezekiel, there are all kinds of these weird, bizarre images in the text. Right?
Jeremy Duncan:This is the guy who describes angels as wheels within wheels covered with eyes and wings. You're honestly not supposed to try to sit down and draw out that description as a literal representation. You're invited to wonder about what those words might mean to reveal about the world. In fact, Jerome records that Ezekiel is quote, so great in obscurity that the rabbis forbid anyone studying it until they reach the age of 30. Now whether that was true or not, that's hotly debated, but the point remains that in the ancient world, rumors swirled about the suitability of this text we're going to read today, because the images were like so weird.
Jeremy Duncan:Maybe too open to interpretation. But all of this makes Ezekiel a really interesting figure to turn to to speak of joy. Remember, he writes at the absolute low point of the story. He writes in ways that invite speculation and imagination. He writes in ways that in some sense, I think require our hope for the future to overrule the testimony of the present.
Jeremy Duncan:And whether or not any of us here like it, I want to argue that sometimes that's what joy requires from us as well, hope that overrules. So let's turn to Ezekiel. If you're under 30, just plug your ears. I'll let you know when you can open up again. But here's chapter 37.
Jeremy Duncan:The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord. He set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. Now, before we go any farther here, let's ask a question. What kind of valley is this?
Jeremy Duncan:And in keeping with apocalypse, I'm going to say, I don't think it's a real valley at all. It's a metaphor. However, I do think this valley is meant to invoke one of, or perhaps both of, 2 very real, very significant valleys in the Hebrew story. Those are the valleys of Hinnom and the Valley of Megiddo. Now those particular locations may not elicit much of a reaction for you.
Jeremy Duncan:It's possible you've never even heard of them before, but it's likely you've heard of hell and Armageddon. So let's talk about those. Because the Valley of Hinnom, it's translated Gehenna in Greek, and that's the word that Jesus uses that gets translated hell in our New Testament. Now in my opinion, that's a bad translation. It should absolutely just be left as Gehenna.
Jeremy Duncan:Whether you think that Jesus is using Gehenna to speak metaphorically of Hell, or to refer to the specific location, that's fine. I just think we should leave Jesus at what He says rather than putting our interpretive spin on His words. But, Hinnom was the site of some famous carnage. In the period predating the Babylonian exile, the Hebrew Scriptures describe Hinnom as a place where child sacrifices were offered to the Ammonite god, Moloch. And then in 2nd Kings, the righteous King Josiah, quote, desecrated the Valley of Hinnom, So that no one could ever use it again to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire of Molech.
Jeremy Duncan:That's where we get this idea that you may have heard where Gehenna referred to a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. Now historically, is any of that true? It's tough to say. Were children ever actually sacrificed in this valley? Was it ever a dump?
Jeremy Duncan:Where garbage was burned? Truth is, it gets really hard to find archaeological evidence to prove any of that. But in the scriptural narrative, in the collective memory of the Jewish people, that is absolutely what hinnom represented for them. Something like a hell on earth. That's why Jesus uses it in the New Testament.
Jeremy Duncan:Alright. Let's talk about Megiddo. Well, the term Armageddon comes from a phrase in the book of Revelation, har Megiddo. And that means the mountain of Megiddo. And that's a pretty big giveaway to what the author is trying to do with this term because, well, there is no mountain of Megiddo.
Jeremy Duncan:There is only a valley in Megiddo in the middle of the plains of Jezreel. And so in Revelation, John is like hammering you over the head with a neon sign that says, 'Look, this is not a real place. I'm using a metaphor here.' And for that metaphor, I want you to think about Megiddo. And just like Hinnom, Megiddo was pretty infamous. The Egyptians fought Kadesh at Megiddo.
Jeremy Duncan:The Assyrians fought Babylonians at Megiddo. The righteous King Josiah that we just talked about was killed at Megiddo. Deborah fought the Canaanites at Megiddo. Gideon went to war with the Midianites at Megiddo. Saul fought the Philistines at Megiddo.
Jeremy Duncan:It's another hell on earth. So when Ezekiel talks to being taken to a valley full of bones, You may have some imagination where this story is going. You may have heard about how these bones come together and come back to life, and all of that resurrection and return imagery may flood in overpowering the starting point here. But what you have to understand is that this story starts in hell. And not just like Dante's imagination of hell with fire and hooves, and pitchforks and red pajamas.
Jeremy Duncan:No. This is something much worse than that. Because Ezekiel has just watched his nation fall. He's seen his capital crumble. He has been witness to his friends marched off into exile away from their families and their lands.
Jeremy Duncan:And so he invokes these very infamous valleys, these places of desolation, not as a cute starting point for an uplifting story, but to very firmly ground you in the worst moment of your life. And I know that sounds like a terrible place to go today. Right? You're like, Jeremy, this is a series about joy. Can you not?
Jeremy Duncan:But I think that's exactly the point. The Lord led me back and forth. I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. When the prophet Isaiah wants to bring up an image like this, take you here, he talks about the worm that never dies and the fire that's never quenched. It's not about everlasting fire.
Jeremy Duncan:It's not about worms that magically keep munching without ever getting full. It's about this image here in Ezekiel. Like there's nothing left to burn. No one was able to put out the fire. There's nothing left to decompose.
Jeremy Duncan:No one was able to stop the worm. There is nothing like hope left here at all. Just very dry, burned out bones. And whether we want to talk about it or not, whether we want to bring it up in a series that's called Joy, that is a place that all of us find ourselves eventually. Your marriage is ending.
Jeremy Duncan:The company you started is folding. Your friendship is crumbling, your dog is dying, you've lost a parent, you find yourself in constant pain, your serotonin levels are just not where they should be right now. Look, I don't know what it is. I'm not living your life, but I know that Ezekiel is trying to name the most difficult space he can possibly imagine because He wants you there for what comes next. And trust me, I don't want to go there any more than you do.
Jeremy Duncan:I don't want to talk about these things. But I also think that's why the scriptures like this have found their way into the collective One of my favorite things to quote at a wedding, One of my favorite things to quote at a wedding is the song 1 by the band U2. And I haven't done it for a long time because U2 is not as popular as they once were. At least the kids don't think so. But you know what?
Jeremy Duncan:They wrote some good stuff, so I'm going to stand on white middle aged business right here. Okay? Still, one has this beautiful chorus. It says, we're 1, but we're not the same. We get to carry each other.
Jeremy Duncan:And I love that sentiment, particularly for a wedding. In our difference, we make each other better. Amen. But it's not actually my favorite part to read at a wedding. It's actually this part.
Jeremy Duncan:Is it getting better or do you feel the same? Will it make things on you easier now that you've got someone to blame? Did I disappoint you? Leave a bad taste in your mouth? You act like you've never had love, and now you want me to go without.
Jeremy Duncan:And I like to read that at a wedding because first, the juxtaposition is amusing and makes everyone laugh for a moment, so that's fun. But more importantly, I read it because after 23 years of marriage, that feels a lot like the truth of it all. Like, there are times that we disappoint each other. There are certainly times we leave a bad taste for each other. There are times we blame, and we withhold, and we scapegoat, and we punish each other, and I happen to think it's better to remind ourselves on day 1 rather than 1,000.
Jeremy Duncan:It was about 10 years ago now. I'm pretty sure it was on Easter in like year 1 or 2 here at commons. But in that sermon, I read a letter from my wife, Rachel, that she had written in her journal in the first couple years of our marriage, so like 20 plus years ago. And somehow years later, I had come across it when we were moving, and it wasn't meant for me, but, you know, maybe it was. I'm not going to read it today.
Jeremy Duncan:I cried last time. Once a decade is enough of that for me. But in it, she talked about how frustrating I could be, and how angry I could make her, how anxious she was about our future, and how far she wondered we would actually get together. And I know exactly where that letter is. I've kept it all this time, but I didn't pull it out this week.
Jeremy Duncan:I didn't need to. It's not why I hold onto it. I keep it because I want to remember exactly what it was that hit me when I first read it, and it was this sense that maybe there was no coming back from this point. Like, it wasn't just bones, it was very dry bones. And that moment there, that's what Ezekiel is going for here.
Jeremy Duncan:That's where he wants you, the Valley of Hinnom, the pit of Megiddo, the worst place you can possibly imagine finding yourself. And I think sometimes, because the next image is so beautiful, and it's so powerful, so uplifting, we kind of gloss over where this story begins, and I think it's a mistake. Because I worry that when we do that, we miss out on something really important here, that hope is not happy. Hope is the antidote for despair, but that means sometimes we despair. And I think part of the difference between joy and just good times is this profound hope that the present does not get to determine our tomorrow.
Jeremy Duncan:So we start low. But this conversation is about joy after all. So let's keep reading here. This is verse 3. He asked me, Sonammon, can these bones live?
Jeremy Duncan:And I said, Sovereign Lord, only you know that. So He said to me, Prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones hear the word of the Lord. Verse 7, I did as I was commanded, and when I did there was this noise. It was a rattling sound, and the bones came together bone to bone. I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them.
Jeremy Duncan:Skin began to cover them, but there was no breath in them. So he said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Say it. This is what the Sovereign Lord says.
Jeremy Duncan:Come breath from the 4 winds and breathe into these slain that they may live. So I did. Breath entered them and they came to life and they stood up on their feet, a vast army. And He said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone.
Jeremy Duncan:We are cut off, and it looks like they're right.' But I tell them, this is what the Sovereign Lord says, my people, I am coming to open your graves, to bring you up from them. I will bring you back. It's a pretty powerful image. Right? Remember, Ezekiel is talking to people who have been conquered.
Jeremy Duncan:Like they've been carted off into exile. Families have been separated. Friends torn apart. Ezekiel is speaking to you, to them, in their worst moment telling them that what you thought was the end isn't. And maybe that's all you need to Him today.
Jeremy Duncan:Like, I'm convinced that reminder alone can change the trajectory of any of our lives. Today is not the end. The story is not finished yet. If that's all you need to hear, then great. Take that, hold it, run with it this week.
Jeremy Duncan:But there is one thing here I think we should talk about before we go, something I think that can actually help us get really practical when it comes to the other side and rediscovering the joy in our hope for what could be for all of us. And for me, it's kind of buried in this 2 step process that Ezekiel envisions. Right? Like when he narrates this moment, there's this first step where the bones come together, and the tendons appear, and muscles grow, and skin covers. But he says this really interesting thing.
Jeremy Duncan:He says there was no life in them. And so then he's told to prophecy breath. And when he does, the Lord breathes into them, and they come alive again. And we should be careful with this passage, because in Hebrew thought, they absolutely did not hold to the same kind of Greek dualism that we sometimes do, this idea that our minds and our bodies are really separate, and that we, us, are ghosts trapped in these machines that we call bodies. That's not how Hebrews thought about themselves.
Jeremy Duncan:But I do think Ezekiel is naming something very important here, that to be human and to be fully alive is to be both embodied and enlivened. And what I mean by that is that when you find yourself in that very low place, you're not going to find your way out just by thinking better thoughts. Like bones and tendons and muscle and skin, this is as much part of you as everything that happens up here. Now, I don't think Ezekiel is talking about your workout regimen. Look, I think he's talking about reminding his people that God cares about their experience of the world.
Jeremy Duncan:But I'll tell you why I might be talking about your workout regimen here. A few years ago, I didn't have a great time during that whole panoramic era, granted very few of us did. But I had spent 20 years before that being a pastor and building community, and all of a sudden I was a YouTuber, and it just wasn't a lot of fun. And so the truth is, I picked up some bad habits, and I wasn't looking after myself particularly well. But as I finally started to come out of that and feel like myself again, I realized that if I wanted to continue on that trajectory, then I needed to make some changes in my life.
Jeremy Duncan:And for the EME, that meant I stopped drinking, and I started working out more regularly, and I started paying attention to how many calories I was eating. Now, not to cut them down. It was actually to make sure I was getting enough each day, but those physical choices have dramatically helped me get back to a place where I feel like I can hear from God again. And look, we all have different stories, and we all have different limitations in our physical bodies, in our time, in our capacity, in our mental energy, but if we don't pay attention to this, it gets really hard for spirit to breathe into this. Now at the same time, hear me.
Jeremy Duncan:You can work out every day and eat healthy and never touch a drop and do all the right things, and that will not bring you all the way back to the joy that lifts you out of the pit. This is not a pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of sermon. Remember, for Ezekiel, bones came together, skin began to grow, muscles returned, and they were not yet alive. And look, unremarkable cards on the table here. I'm a religious person.
Jeremy Duncan:So I think beyond all the work that we put in, I do believe chests is gift. But what I take from Ezekiel here is that all of us need more than calories. We need a story. Because hope is that trajectory that points us forward. Life is about this narrative that drives us on, and joy is this sense that there is purpose behind the beating of your heart, that same heart that you look after every day.
Jeremy Duncan:And that purpose doesn't need to be big. It doesn't need to be world changing or earth shattering. It can be as simple as being a better friend today than you were yesterday, or more kind than you were last week, or more caring than what has been offered to you in your life. That's a good purpose for you. But when that purpose begins to feel like it has been breathed into you by something beyond you, and it actually begins to animate your physical presence here in the world, then I honestly believe that there is a joy that can heal dry bones and breathe new life into all of us.
Jeremy Duncan:A joy that can make possible real celebration even in the midst of those valleys. Remember, Ezekiel doesn't get to live to see the return from exile that he prophesies about here. He lives out his life in Mesopotamia. He dies in this valley in some sense. But there is still a profound joy in his writing that animates his presence in his world that makes his writing still worth reading some 25 100 years later today.
Jeremy Duncan:And I'm not going to tell you that if you follow my advice, everything's gonna turn out the way that you want. It won't. That's not real life. But I am convinced that if we can both embrace the beauty of our embodied presence and work to honor that gift, and we can listen for spirit that speaks with purpose every time we breathe in, then we might not always be happy, but we can encounter a joy that will keep us moving forward, trusting that tomorrow can be new every morning. And that is worth moving toward.
Jeremy Duncan:Let's pray. God, for those of us that find ourselves in the valley right now, feeling stuck in the worst moment we've experienced, a moment that just seems to hang on for longer than it ever should. Might you be present to us here, renewing muscle, and bone, and skin, teaching us to love this body that you have gifted us with, but at the same time, whispering breath every time we breathe in. Purpose and meaning and small ways that we can contribute to a better, a more just, a more holy, more peaceful world with the steps that we take and the choices we make with our bodies. Might that conviction begin to reanimate and move us forward and give us energy, and may it become contagious when we offer ourselves in service to those near us trusting that that purpose will actually bring life back to us In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen. Hey. Jeremy here and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information. You can find us on all of the socials at commonschurch.
Jeremy Duncan:You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our discord server. Head to commons.church/discord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in.
Jeremy Duncan:Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.