From the Valley of Bones to the Work of Unbinding:
Migration with Dignity, Resurrection Faith, and the Courage of Minneapolis

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, John 11:1-45

The lectionary readings this week resist abstraction. They speak of bodies and breath, grief and power. They confront us not with private spirituality but with public resurrection—what it looks like when God’s Spirit moves in places where systems have already decided who is expendable.

These are texts for people standing in the valley.

And that valley is not only biblical. It appears today in detention centers, deportation pipelines, court backlogs, and fear-driven enforcement. It is also visible—and resisted—in Minneapolis, where neighbors, congregations, organizers, and public servants are choosing courage over silence and dignity over fear.

In Ezekiel 37 the prophet is led into a valley of dry bones—long dead, scattered, exposed. This is not merely the aftermath of violence; it is the consequence of abandonment. These bones belong to a people who have lived in exile long enough to believe their story is finished.

Then God asks the question that still confronts our public life:

“Mortal, can these bones live?”

It is the same question we face when migration systems are designed to deter rather than protect, to exhaust rather than restore.

Ezekiel does not answer with optimism or despair. He answers with humility:
“O Lord God, you know.”

Then God commands something dangerous: Speak to the bones.

Not about them.
Not for them.
To them.

Migration with dignity begins here—with refusing to reduce migrants to statistics, threats, or talking points, and instead naming them as neighbors whose lives are bound up with our own.

God’s promise is not merely survival:

“I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live… and I will place you on your own soil.”

In Ezekiel, resurrection is communal and restorative. It restores people to land, relationship, and belonging.

Psalm 130 gives voice to the spiritual posture required for such resurrection:

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.”

For migrant families waiting—for hearings, permits, reunification, and safety—waiting is not passive. It is exhausting and costly. Yet this waiting refuses despair without surrendering to cruelty. It rejects the lie that hardness of heart is realism.

In Minneapolis that waiting has taken flesh. Communities show up night after night. Neighbors accompany one another through fear. Congregations open doors. People refuse to look away.

This is not sentimental solidarity.
It is disciplined hope.

Paul sharpens the contrast in Romans:

“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

This is not anti-body theology. It is anti-domination theology. The “flesh” Paul critiques is the logic of fear, scarcity, and control—systems that treat human beings as problems to be managed.

Paul’s claim is audacious:

“If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you… God will give life to your mortal bodies.”

Not someday.
Now.

To claim the Spirit is to refuse neutrality in death-dealing systems. Resurrection faith has public consequences. The courage we are witnessing in Minneapolis—people pushing back against raids, intimidation, and silence—is what it looks like when communities set their minds on the Spirit rather than fear.

Then the Gospel brings us to Bethany.

Lazarus dies. Jesus delays. By the time he arrives, grief has settled in. And then comes the shortest, most devastating verse in Scripture:

“Jesus wept.”

Jesus does not explain suffering away. He stands inside it.

Then he commands:

“Take away the stone.”
“Lazarus, come out.”
“Unbind him, and let him go.”

That final command matters. Resurrection is not complete until the bindings are removed.

As biblical scholar Ched Myers writes in Binding the Strong Man:

“Jesus must bind the strong man in order to plunder his house. The struggle is not with individual demons, but with the social systems that keep people captive.”

In John 11 that struggle becomes visible. Death is the strong man. The tomb is his house. The grave clothes are his instruments of control.

Jesus breaks death’s hold—and then turns to the community and says:

You finish the work.

Migration with dignity is resurrection work precisely because it is unbinding work.

Unbinding people from detention without cause.
Unbinding families from separation.
Unbinding communities from fear and misinformation.
Unbinding laws from cruelty disguised as security.

Liberation never comes without confronting power.
Resurrection never comes without resistance.

The question God asked Ezekiel still stands:

“Can these bones live?”

In Minneapolis, people are answering—not with slogans, but with presence, risk, and courage. They are speaking to the bones. They are participating in the dangerous, hopeful work of unbinding.

Resurrection does not deny the valley.

It refuses to let the valley define the future.

Migration with dignity is not sentiment.
It is resistance shaped by love.

And every time the strong man’s grip loosens, every time a neighbor is unbound, every time fear is refused—

the Spirit breathes again, and the bones begin to live.

Rex Mckee is a Deacon in The Episcopal Church in Minnesota, serving at Saint John the Baptist. He is a co-leader of ECMN Immigration Caucus, MWD Task Force, Caucus and Episcopal Migration Response Network. Rex describes himself as an aging radical hippie beat poet theologian philosopher peacemaker;  “If I start from a place of love, more times than not I will find what is "right," but if I start from a position of "right" I will rarely find love.” You can find more of his writings on Substack:  https://rexmckee.substack.com/