Can the dry bones of the Church live again?

At the beginning of the year, I heard the rattling of dry bones in the spiritual realm. I felt the wind of the Spirit blowing over God’s people, urging us to movement, to move with Him. He was urging us to get out of our comfy spots with their clearly defined boundaries and parameters. There was a call to be prepared to move into spaces that feel ill-defined and even unsafe or scary because we have never been there before, because we don’t know what it looks like and even how to live in those spaces. 

During worship recently, the leader shared how the words to the old song “these bones, these bones, these dry bones, now hear the word of the Lord” [sic] kept rising up in her mind. She sensed that it was the Word of God that brings life to the dry bones and the dry bones were numbers of people in the churches. 

As she spoke, I had a strong image of what God is doing at this time. 

We often refer to the idea of the Body of Christ as being made up of individuals. We can also see those dry bones as individuals. However, this time, the dry bones were about the various ‘parts’ of the Body which have become disconnected from each other. I felt that in our disconnection, just like limbs and appendages separated from a body, we have also lost our life.

In our disconnection, we have lost our life.

If we look back into the days of Acts when the Church first began with the coming of the Holy Spirit, it is painfully obvious that there were no denominations, no branding and no marketing.

We are given a picture of a Body that is fully alive, fully functioning.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t have their problems – Paul addresses this himself in 1 Corinthians 1-3, when it would appear people were trying to start factions based on whether they followed Paul, Apollos, Cephas or Jesus. He brings them back to the point that each of us should be followers of Jesus alone.

However, over the last two millennia, rather than working hard to keep the unity of the Spirit, (Ephesians 4:1-6) we have continued the practice of creating divisions. These have had their basis in offence, differences of opinion, and unfortunately, often due to power plays and a desire to ‘lord’ it over others or simply to have control.

What started as One Body in Christ, started to become many separate parts.

When offence or a difference of opinion occurred, *SNIP*, we hacked off a finger, or *SNIP* we chopped off a leg, and *SNIP*, we removed an arm. Over time, the *SNIP*, *SNIP*, *SNIP* has led to denominations and movements of every imaginable sort, and what started in unity is now a Body in complete disarray. (If you want some comic relief that illustrates this problem very succinctly, head here, but I’ll warn you, it is black humour!)
 
For some time I have been impacted by the prayer Jesus prayed for His disciples and for those to come (John 17). He prayed that we may be one, even as He and the Father are one. I guess He knew the temptations we would have toward offence and distrust of each other and that disconnection was all too easy.

But of course, when we pull it all apart, these disconnections are valid and important, aren’t they?

We don’t want the Gospel message distorted or corrupted. We don’t want people being led astray by false doctrines, false teachers, those dread wolves in sheep's clothing. However, I am reminded of one of those little sayings that pop up in your Facebook feed: “Would you rather be right or have relationship?”.

Too often, our being right has become a reason to abandon relationship.

Perhaps this needs some re-evaluation in light of the lengths God went to in order to have relationship with us, not even sparing His only Son!

I know there is no simple solution to this problem. There are beliefs and practices that some people have that are unconscionable to others of us. Again, we are no different to the early Church, where practices such as circumcision and eating food offered to idols threatened to destroy the fragile unity of a bunch of people brought together who had a long history of distrust and dislike toward each other. (See 1Corinthians 8 and Galatians 6 for starters).

So what is the answer? 

Maybe it is time for each of us to be the first to take a step toward those we disagree with, not to beat them up with our point of view (which seems to have been the desire of many), but in love - to show the love of Christ toward them.

And when we look at what the love of Christ was like, we might like to remember how He treated people considered unholy, wicked and sinful in His day; people like the Samaritan woman at the well, lepers, tax collectors and others judged unclean, people who had the potential to make Him unclean.

What would it look like if we tried try to find those things we are in agreement about and start there? 

Or at the very least, to start behaving in a loving way with all people, rather than sitting in judgement, (a place that lacks humility and is filled with the belief that we do not deserve any judgement ourselves, that we are perfect and have it all right). 

One of the biggest detractors to the Christian faith for those outside it would have to be the way we fight and bicker among ourselves. Imagine what it would look like from the outside if we behaved in love towards each other, with respect, grace and honour even to those we believe deserve it least. 

Are we ready to be transformed from a pile of disconnected, dead, dry bones through the transforming breath that comes from the Living Word by allowing ligaments and tendons, muscles, skin, veins, arteries, nerves and all the rest of the mess that makes life to grow between us and the other parts of the body?

What would you be prepared to lay down to take that step toward someone local to you to start to rebuild unity?

"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

John 17:20-23