The Power of God's Breath

“God has shown you, O Mortal, what is good.

           And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly…” Micah 6:8

The fires burning around our nation in protest over the death of George Floyd are a stark reminder that the work of God’s people is never done. ‘America has witnessed a murder’ by a rogue white police officer who ignored warnings and cries for help by as he was suffocating a black man, Mr. Floyd, under the guise of an arrest.

How can we as a nation not be outraged? Our nation must rise up in a unison chorus of condemnation of this abuse of apparent authority. The acts of these officers do not represent the vast majority of our law enforcement personnel. The condemnation of those who killed Mr. Floyd and the calls for reform are directed at those who do not represent who we want to be as a society.  

The sad irony of this story unfolding on Pentecost weekend is that tomorrow, Sunday, we will be talking about life-giving breath, about tongues of fire.  The Church of Jesus Christ was born with the tongues of the Spirit’s holy fire, with the expiration of life-giving, mission-empowering breath, the breath of Christ’s Spirit. 

The Church has ever since that Pentecost Sunday carried the weight of every soul’s glory, as C.S. Lewis famously wrote.  It falls to the Church of God to rise up with passion and compassion, using its platforms to speak for those silenced, for those whose dying words are ‘I cannot breath.’  We pray for God’s healing breath to be spread over all races to the corners of the earth.

Justice is more than words. Justice is an action which God requires of us. Did you see that word, requires? 

The Church does not condone violence.  The accused are entitled to a fair trial. But those truths are not an excuse for a lack of action.

‘Rise up, O Church of God, be done with lesser things.’ The Church still carries the cleansing fire and the life-giving breath of the Spirit. It’s collective voice must now demand justice and reforms.

Let us commit to using the power of God’s breath to cleanse this land of hateful racial discrimination.

Gel In

When I visit to some dear soul in a hospital I take a moment to apply the gel at the doorway which has next to it a sign , “GEL IN”.   Sometimes I need to put on what we all now know to be ‘PPE’, personal protective equipment, consisting of a face mask, gloves and a body wrap.

 It is this last piece that often made me late for my visit, trying to tie the thin yellow cloth around a body size for which the cloth was not designed.  Sometimes a kind nurse would help, successfully suppressing a smile the whole time she was trying to make the ends meet.

Why go through this drill when I wasn’t worried about getting sick in the hospital room? The point of asking me  to ‘gel in’  and wear PPE was not to protect me, but to protect the dear sick soul from me.  I may think that I have the immunity system of the Pentagon, but I agree to ‘gel in’ because no matter how immune I am to disease, I may be a ‘carrier’ of something that would make the person I am visiting even more sick.

Churches will now be asking people to ‘gel in’ and to wear face coverings into their worship spaces.  Why? Not to protect the person wearing it but to protect someone with a weak immune system, someone who is vulnerable to disease, from contracting a disease that the person wearing the mask may unwittingly have and thus pass on.

When you choose to worship together during a pandemic consider whether you are willing to demonstrate your love for your neighbor in protecting their health. To love God is to worship God, and this is the first and great commandment. The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus isn’t asking you to lay down your life for your neighbor in church. But, until we know it is safe to do otherwise, if you choose to gather with your neighbor to worship God in community then, just like you would do in the hospital, consider how to protect the health of the other ‘patients’ in the room who have come to seek the healing presence of the Jesus you represent.

Churches are hospitals too.

"A Mother and Child Reunion"

No, I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away           (Mother and Child Reunion, Paul Simon)

There once was a mother and child who lived in a one room abode. They were happy, but they dreamt together of the day they would share many rooms, still together, but free to be.

One day the mother’s fortunes changed in a most unexpected way.  She told the child that tomorrow she, the mother, must leave because she found the way to the place with many rooms, and that one day they could be there together. It would be a wonderful place, beyond the places they imagined together in their bed time prayers.  The child, though, was quite unhappy. ‘Don’t leave me, Momma,’ she said through her sobs and tears.  But the mother explained, ‘Mommy has to go to get your room ready for you to enjoy.  I am going to make it very special, painting it your favorite color, with a bedspread of your favorite hero. It is going to be so special, and we will both enjoy it together forever.’ So the mother promised the child a reunion in the place with many rooms. 

The mother departed, but not before making sure that grandma could stay with the child to protect and comfort the child.  Still, the parting of the mother and child was not easy, on either of them.

After a time and time again the rooms were ready. The child and the mother had both grown. Now, when it was time for the reunion, after she had finished all of the preparations,  the mother…

How would you finish this parable? Is how you wish it would end different from how you think it would end if you were the child? If you were the mother?  It’s all a matter of trust, of belief in the goodness of the mother, right? The child must either believe mother’s promise or not. The mother was telling the truth or she was not.  So it is in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am.” (Jesus, John 14:3) I would not give you false hope. It is only a motion away.

To Touch Each Other

“I am drinking in the sun

and the lilies again are spread across the water.

I know what they want is to touch each other.

-----

and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,

then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,

close, close to one another.” The Pond, Mary Oliver

We have begun this physical-distance dance, learning how to be near each other without touching.  You meet a friend in the driveway and you ponder how to greet without touching?  It seems so foreign to pull back your arm’s attempt to extend a hand, to wave with arms that want instead to hug.

Two months ago, if you witnessed a scene of six chairs in a driveway in a circle wide enough to hold twelve you would have wondered what made them so upset that they sit so distant from each other. Now, in an instant, you know the reason.

Yes, we want to touch each other, even we introverts. We ‘slide on the wind and the tug of desire/close, close to another’ because it is in the nature of all living things to want to touch.  Is that what drives our anxiety, our anger, our sadness? That the God-instilled desire to be close together is gone, for a time?

God, restore to us soon our ability to touch each other, and until then help us to know that this tug of desire arises from our longing to extend the warm grasp of your hand upon us. Amen.