Ezekiel 37:1-14; 1 Peter 2:1-10
June 6, 2015
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Baptist Church of Boston’s 350th Church Anniversary.
When Donald Thacker and Earl Norman invited me to speak, I don’t think they thought I would talk about dry bones. If my mother was still alive like a good Chinese mother, she would say, “Don’t talk about such things! Go and wash out your mouth!” Ezekiel is talking about dead, dry bones not the human skeleton that I still remember hanging up in the basement of this church for a Halloween party when Joy and I were here during our college days in the early 1970s—over 40 years ago.
The valley of dry bones is a graphic, unforgettable scene. Ezekiel paints a scene of total death. These bones are not merely dead; they are “dry”—totally dead, drained of all marrow. This is not a land of milk and honey but a valley for dry bones. The dry white bones lie strewn on the valley floor. The valley beneath is likely a dry rocky surface. No life to be found anywhere.
On this momentous occasion, the 350th anniversary of this church, my home church; the church where I was dedicated as a child and baptized as a teenager by Dr. Charles Seasholes and later reaffirmed by Rev. Charles Griffin. Here at this church, I was ordained over 40 years ago with Rev. Ronny Lanier and Joy’s father, Rev. Torrey Shih participating and Dr. Eddie O’Neal from Andover Newton preaching. And 25 years ago, you were kind enough to claim me as one of your own “favorite sons” and invited me back to preach at the 325th anniversary and here I am preaching and talking about dry, dead bones.
Have I no appreciation and gratefulness? Perhaps it is because I have never left my heart in Boston and this church that I can have the audacity and the privilege to talk about dead, dry bones tonight. Having not lived in Boston for over 40 years, I still root for the last place Red Sox.
It’s awfully easy for churches to go right ahead with business as usual. Death, decay, decline is not so tough once one gets used to it. We come to accept death as normal, as the way things are. The church, caught with the wrong age group, planted in the wrong neighborhood, with the wrong people, death by sociological realities.
What does death look like? It looks like a valley of dry bones. I have seen death in the individual, the gradual wasting away of flesh down to the bone, the skin hanging on frail arms and legs due to illness, the last, rattling, gasping for breath that is prelude to the last gasp of life.
I have seen death in the institution. It’s faded Sunday school resources lying about the room that hasn’t been used for Sunday school in years. Dark hallways where children once hurried to their classes on Sunday are now dark, dusty and vacant. It’s empty pews staring back at the pulpit on Easter. It’s grass growing in the corners of the church parking lot. It’s the frantic search for some community agency, counseling service, or other group to rent unused space for a church now preoccupied with keeping a roof over its head. That’s death.
Serving as ABC president, I have visited many of our American Baptist churches and asked God, “Can these bones live?”
Baby Visitors
William Willimon, former professor at Duke Divinity School in Durham and former bishop of the United Methodist Church told a story of what life looks like.
“We are sending you to this old, inner city church,” said the bishop. “Some wonderful people there. Yet, they are old. Been in decline for the last 20 years. Just a handful of them left. They don’t expect much ministry from you. Just go there, visit them, do the best you can.”
She gulped. This was not at all what she wanted when she went into the ministry. “I have always enjoyed working with young children, young families,” she told her board when she first met with them. The members of the board were mostly older women. They were far beyond the age of young children, young families.
She asked God to lead her to fruitful ministry in this place, even in this declining parish.
A few months later she happened to be visiting in the hospital and stopped by to visit a new mother and her newborn son. They talked about the experience of childbirth.
“The worst thing,” said the young mother “is that we have had to have this baby by ourselves.”
“What do you mean ‘by yourselves’?” asked the pastor.
“Our parents live all the way across the country. Since this is our first baby, it’s a little scary for us. We have no one to ask what to do next, no grandparents. Most of the people in our neighborhood are young couples like us. I wish this baby had some grandparents.”
Suddenly, a light came on in the young pastor’s head. Grandparents? She saw all those white-haired people who sat before her in the congregation each morning. It was as if God had told her what had to be done.
To make a long story short, she talked to the congregation into visiting in the home of every new baby who was born within a couple of miles of the church. These “Baby Visitors,” as they called them, turned out to be a wonderful evangelistic program. Grandparents were needed. Young couples were looking for someone to be excited about the birth of their children. Her church had a surplus of grandparents, a surplus of wisdom, time, and energy.
Today, her church has been reborn. Those “grandparents” have brought dozens of young families into the congregation. The church that was supposed to be near death has been resurrected. Where there was once death, there is now life. This is what life looks like.
Holy Spirit
The valley of dry bones, the “valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23) is a frightening, lonely place, particularly when it’s your church.
Israel in exile was as good as dead, cut off, without hope. Ezekiel says Israel was like a valley of dry bones, bones so dead they were dry. Yet the vision told of a wind, a holy, mysterious, life-giving wind that blew through the valley, remembered those detached, dry bones, and gave them life. Just like God’s holy breath hovered over the dark waters of creation, bringing forth life from chaos. Just like God’s breath was breathed into the man and woman in the garden, creating humanity out of the earth, whispering life.
You have seen it in your own life, those times when you have been in some dark valley of death, cut off, severed from life, your life just like that “valley of the dry bones.” Then, as if out of nowhere, a holy wind has come upon you, refreshed you, and you have been brought back to life. That life-giving wind was not “out of no where.” This is the Holy Spirit.
If there is to be life for such utterly dead bones then it will not be through human effort or some act of self-improvement. It will be because of an act of God, some stunning act of creation not unlike that of the “wind” in Genesis 1, not unlike that of the resurrection of those bones at the tomb on Easter after Friday at the Place of the Skull.
God’s breath always has the last word in matters of life and death. God is still breathing new life at First Baptist of Boston after 350 years of continuing faithful witness. It is only because God’s been faithful that we are renewing our spirit. It is only because of God’s Spirit that any dry bones can become living stones in the city of Boston.
Living Stones
As long as I can remember growing up here, we have spoken proudly about our historic church building, the sixth meetinghouse of First Baptist and where it has now been over 133 years.
To mix up metaphors, dry bones can become living stones. In 1 Peter 2, we are invited to come to Jesus Christ, a living stone, rejected by people and yet precious in God’s sight. Joining with Jesus Christ the living cornerstone, we then become living stones being built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Peter writes, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).
+Seeking for a safe place to practice our freedom of religion, our first church home was probably in the house of Thomas Goold in 1665 in what is now East Boston. Baptists in those days were publicly whipped, sent to prison and fined. For 18 years, the general Court and the Puritan ministers tried to crush and banish this little band of worshipers meeting in private homes in relative security.
Today, we are on the most historic avenue in Boston on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street. No longer dry bones, God is calling us to be living stones for the whole world to see.
+The First Meetinghouse from 1679-1771 was situated in an inconspicuous Back Street. “Back Street was then a shady country lane which wound along the shore of the mill pond. It led off from the main thoroughfare between Boston and Charlestown and was quickly lost among groves and gardens.”
Today, we are in the Back Bay where people shop, visitors enjoy, politicians negotiate, business people make money, and runners complete the Boston Marathon. We can’t hide and get lost among the groves and gardens. No longer dry bones, God is calling us to be living stones for the whole world to see.
+While there has been 5 previous church buildings, this one is the only one any of us really knows. Designed by H.H. Richardson who later also designed Trinity in Copley Square, the Southern Romanesque style with the square tower is of remarkable beauty. As a youth, I have been up in the tower by climbing the stairs to the belfry. I remember there were lots of pigeons up there! The four friezes designed by the French sculptor Bartholdi who did the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor created four scenes: baptism, communion, marriage, and death.
These enduring stones that came from the quarries in Roxbury making our church symbolize not dry bones. When they are living stones, they call people to the living God. The tower seen from faraway calls people to worship. The church bell rings out for peace and justice. The Baptism frieze proclaims new life. The Communion frieze proclaims God’s love. The Marriage frieze proclaims the bonds of human love. The Death frieze is not about dry bones but eternal life in heaven.
+Growing up at First Baptist, we learned about Samuel Stillman. I was here when we installed the stained glass window of Stillman over there. Stillman was pastor for 36 years and records tell of a meeting on May 26, 1802 at First Baptist that American Baptist started its missionary endeavors in the founding of the Massachusetts Missionary Society. In 2012, we celebrated 200th anniversary of foreign missions. In 2013, we remembered Adoniram Judson and Ann Hasseltine sailing from Salem and arriving in Burma. And last year in 2014, we celebrated the formation of American Baptist International Ministries.
Today, American Baptists are still sending out missionaries to partner with the many Baptist leaders in countries around the world. Last month, I returned after spending 2 weeks in Northeast India. American Baptist missionaries went to India 180 years ago and today I have been inspired by their faithfulness in God and love for Christ. I visited 3 of the 7 Baptist colleges and 3 of the 6 Baptist hospitals. These hospitals are mercy hospitals where I met “Baptist Mother Teresas.” One of my commitments from this visit is to help raise funds to establish the “Northeast Christian University” in Nagaland for all Christian students to attend. Under religious persecution from Hindus not unlike how we were persecuted by the Puritans when we tried to practice our Baptist faith in the 1600s, Christian students need a school to learn how their gifts and talents can be developed into professions and other practical trades. Would you be living stones with me in Northeast India? Would you help us build this new university with living stones?
+In 1844, you spoke up to question the Home Missionary Society from sending a slaveholder to be a missionary that divided our nation between the north and the south. Our Baptist ancestors spoke up for blacks to have the same privileges enjoyed by whites and that blacks have the right to sit on the floor of the sanctuary and not be relegated to the balcony where they were often not able to see the pulpit and they were unseen by those who sat on the main floor of the church. Being free in Christ means that all the pews are free to be sat on. My parents and we boys used to sit over there. While there are brass numbers on all of these pews signifying that in the past one had paid for the right to be seated there, today, they are reminders that no longer are we separated by the haves and the have-nots but all who profess the love of God have the privilege to be here.
Today, our country and our denomination are still fraught and troubled by racial and cultural discord. Black lives do matter. Burmese Baptists are our descendants. Not all Muslims are terrorists. While we might say, “Boston Strong” to feel better about ourselves during uncertain times, we must also say, “Baptist Strong” to bear witness of our Christian faith in a time hurting for reconciliation, trusting our neighbors, and forgiveness. Dry bones need the Holy Spirit to breathe on them to become alive once again. Living stones can’t just enjoy the security of being God’s chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. Living stones are called to proclaim the mighty acts of Christ who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
+First Baptist has always stood at the forefront of associating with other Baptist churches to bear witness and do mission together. I can remember annually that we would have a pulpit exchange with People’s Baptist and Dr. Richard Owens would be preaching. I remember being a page for Dr. Ed Tuller when he was the General Secretary of the American Baptist Convention held in our church in 1965. Our church’s commitment to live out the associational principle allowed us to practice the priesthood of all believers in the community of disciples for accountability and common mission. I was ordained by this church only after 50 delegates from 24 churches met as the Samuel Stillman Association on January 19, 1975.
Today, I serve as ABC president because of what I have learned and gained from my years at First Baptist of Boston. My college roommate and an usher in our wedding is still a member of Twelfth Baptist. I did one of my field education years at Concord Baptist. I became an intern at Park Street Baptist in Framingham. And today, Dr. Wesley Roberts, senior pastor of People’s Baptist continues to serve on the Executive Committee and the Board of General Ministries of the ABC where I preside. These are not signs of dry bones but living and actively living, rolling stones gaining momentum and movement to become the hands and feet of Christ Jesus in the world.
+Growing up with Earl Norman, we heard about the name of John Hancock inscribed on one of the cornerstones under the carriageway at the base of the tower. I read that the King’s soldiers mutilated the signature because of the state’s special spite toward John Hancock. I guess we’ll never be able to see this signature but the folklore continues. Every time I have led friends to our church, I too would tell of this story. What we do know historically is that John Hancock was an active member of the Brattle Square Church, a predecessor of the First Baptist Meetinghouse.
Today, let us affirm that Jesus Christ is the only important Cornerstone from whom we as living stones are lined up to become a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The only Cornerstone under the carriageway at the base of the tower that we know exists is Jesus Christ our Lord!
+I read that there was a Sadie Toliday, one of the Church Visitors of our church who wrote, “I have worked with pastors ten. Can it be one weak woman can outlast so many men?” Sadie Toliday was before my time but I will always remember Mildred Davis, the Church Visitor of my days. Mrs. Davis would come to our home in Roxbury and teach us parlor games, like hiding the penny. She taught my mother how to set the table with forks, knives and spoons. And being an Irish/British person, I was told that she named me, “Donald” after her brother.
Today, we still need church visitors who would go out to welcome in the strangers, the homeless, the new immigrants, the college students, the tourists, the doubters, and even our enemies. We need “Baby Visitors” to go into all the homes within two miles of this church to meet new parents who may need grandparents. As living stones, we need people to suggest names for our new friends and neighbors and not just inscribing names on headstones.
Today’s Bones
In a recent issue of National Geographic, an article entitled, “Lost Tribes of the Green Sahara” describes how archaeologists unearthed some 200 graves near a vanished lake that indicated the Sahara was once a fertile area. The skeletons buried there disclosed amazing information about two groups of people who had lived at least a thousand years apart. The bones and teeth unearthed from the graves revealed the sex, age, general health, diet, diseases, injuries, and habits of the deceased. The size and condition of the bones gave clues to lifestyles, work, and living conditions of the inhabitants.
Based on the teeth of the Kiffian people, investigators could tell that their diet included coarse grain; they drank from the local water source and probably did not travel far from Gobero, where they lived. The bones of the Ternerian people disclosed that they were more lightly built and may have been herders, but they also likely depended on hunting and fishing.
What would an analysis of our spiritual bones indicate about our spiritual maturity? Would we show a deficiency of a substantial diet of Baptist witness, community outreach, advocating for human justice, faithfulness especially at times of daunting changes, and a meaningful relationship with God? What would this examination tell us about the richness of our spiritual practices? How sincerely do we long and pray for the gifts of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? What would be our answer if the Lord spoke directly to us and questioned, “Can these bones live?”
Our bones are not yet dry and drained of marrow. Celebrating God’s faithfulness over these 350 years has meant that we cannot see firsthand what God has done in the past and we in faith won’t be able to see where God will be taking this church into the future. God’s faithfulness is bigger and more expansive than any of our lifetimes. When we trust in God, our spirits are renewed and re-energized. God’s plan for us as mortals is God’s way of blessing us with mercy and grace to not know God’s plans for tomorrow but to only trust in his love for us today.
If this congregation lives, if we survive as God’s people here in this place, it will be as a gift, as the result of God’s gracious Spirit blowing through here, giving us that which we could not have had on our own.
While we live in such a fragmented, disjointed society, which is the very death of community and unity, we pray for the Holy Spirit to come from the four winds to breathe upon us so that we may live.
This H.H. Richardson Roxbury stone building with Bartholdi friezes on its tower and where John Hancock’s signature once was inscribed can’t shout out about the love of God in Jesus Christ. This remarkable beauty needs you and me as living stones built on Jesus Christ as the Cornerstone to proclaim life in the Lord. Without God the Creator, Christ the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit the Living Presence, we are as good as dead.
Thanks to the historical summaries compiled by Connie Hanson and the “Nuggets of History” by Ruth Parks, let me close with the prayer that was used when Pastors Harry Kruener and John Miller were here in the 1940s and 50s.
Grant, O Lord, that our ears which have heard Thy voice
May be closed to all unworthy voices;
That our eyes which have looked upon Thy cross
May ever look to Thee for light and guidance;
That our tongues which have sung Thy praise
May ever speak the truth in love;
That our feet which have walked in this Thy church
May ever walk in the paths that lead to righteousness and peace;
And that our hearts which have waited before Thee
May ever be open to Thy coming;
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.