Today’s sermon is offered in honor and memory of the over 100,000 people who have died of Covid-19 in the United States and in honor of all victims of police brutality.
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The wail of an infant upon its birth is a cherished sound. As a baby enters this world, that gasp and water expelling cry is one of the first signs that this, this baby, will live.
And, as that baby grows, from baby into child and once more into person grown, the ears of those who have loved them, and loved them into being, stay atuned to the sound of their breath.
Tip toeing into the nursery in the wee small hours, looking closely for the gentle rise and fall of the chest.
Listening for the sound of a child’s voice from another room—knowing full well that there is such a thing as too quiet.
Rolling over in the night, detecting a shift of rhythm or pattern, loved ones lean close at the end of the day. Are they with me still?
From the first to the last, our lives are marked by the breaths we take.
A breath in, a breath out.
Life continuing, creation assured.
Is it any wonder then, that the breath of God, figures so prominently in scripture? The life giving Word, the creation tilling sigh, the voice upon the waters, the peace breathed upon friends, and the wind bearing power.
All familiar images. Familiar images of the breath that runs through life and the gift God has given of love.
And, it these familiar images that run up against the world today. The world that is telling us, in a voice so strong and unrelenting, “I can’t breathe”.
George Floyd, yet another victim of police brutality and the broken system that sets us against each other took his last breaths whilst speaking his last words,
“I can’t breathe.”
His truth of stolen breath, writ large as the truth of our sinful world.
We have suffocated each other. We have stolen so many breaths. We have taken the words, and the futures, and the hopes of so many. Through silence. Through violence. Through those things we have done and those things we have neglected to do. We have omitted and committed, colluded and convinced. We have used our breath for destruction.
And, in using our breath in this way, we ourselves have become breathless.
Because, wherever we stand as oppressor or oppressed—none of us can fully live unless all have been set free. None of us can draw a full breath, while bound so tight by the systems we have inherited and perpetuation. None of us.
So, in the midst of our collective breathlessness, listen and listen hard so that you can hear the Body breathing still. Look and look hard so you can see how the Body breathes. In the midst of our fears of breaths stolen too soon, by virus or by violence, look and listen.
Look and listen for the sounds and the signs of the Body that is us. The Body that longs for breath. The Body that cannot help but be moved.
Moved by the wail of the baby born. Moved by the gasp of lives taken. Moved out of complacency and into action. Moved, perhaps not so coincidentally, upon the Feast of Pentecost.
The Feast of Pentecost, when the Church universal celebrates her birth. When we celebrate the power to dream and the power to hope. When we celebrate, as one Body, who we are and to whom we belong.
Who we are and to whom we belong as the beloved people of God.
And, even in celebration, even in this knowing, comes a painful truth.
When we steal a man’s breath, we have stolen from God.
When we steal a man’s breath, we crucify our Lord.
When we steal a man’s breath, we renounce our true calling.
Nothing we do will bring George Floyd, Jamar Clark, or Philando Castile, back to this earthly life.
And yet, everything we do, from here on out, has the potential to breathe new life into the death that has been dealt into this world.
So, dear Friends, dear ones, dearly beloved.
How will you use your breath?
Will you use your breath to plead for life?
Will you use your breath in the midst of strife?
How will you use your breath?
To create or destroy.
To give or to take.
How will you use your breath?
Will you gasp?
Will you sigh?
Will you rage against the sky?
How will you use your breath?
The breath of God, like tongues of fire. The breath become a violent wind. The breath proclaiming the creator’s power.
How will you use your breath?
Amen.
As you sit with the words I have spoken, pay attention to your own breath.
Notice the way your body feels as you breathe.
Notice the rise and fall of your chest.
Notice the sensation of your nostrils flaring as you fill your lungs.
Notice the roundness of your belly as your diaphragm stretches and contracts.
Notice where you are.
What do you hear?
What do you see?
What do you feel?
What do you smell?
As you take each breath. As you continue to breathe.
Amen.
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