Sermon 3/29/20: Breath Work (Pr. Ben Adams)
Pr. Ben Adams
Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 29, 2020
Breath Work
It’s hard to believe, but it’s only been one week since the stay at home ordinance went into effect in Illinois. I actually Googled that to make sure I had it right since I’ve lost all track of time. I never really had a great concept of time, but this stay at home ordinance has thrown me for even more of a loop than normal. And it’s not just me, I saw a meme posted by our MIC Seminarian Sarah that said, “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” So, if it’s being memed, that’s confirmation that I’m not the only one. Other people are experiencing it too. But I’m not gonna lie, I felt that meme.
But all jokes aside, beyond our sense of time being completely thrown off, there have been even greater challenges faced by many recently. Hours have been cut, positions have been furloughed or eliminated altogether, or in some cases there are those who still have their job, but may be in extended quarantine and are running out of sick time.
And that’s not all, many students are losing their place to live as college campuses have closed and have moved virtual, nurses who work in ICUs are separated from their families for fear of carrying the virus home from work, parents are working from home and trying to homeschool and care for their children, and just bearing the weight of the growing death toll has us all longing for any signs of hope.
So maybe the posture of our spirits this morning is not one of full-throated praise, but it's more like it says in today’s Psalm, Psalm 130, we are coming to worship today crying to the Lord out of the depths. And you should know that however you find yourself this morning, whatever your emotional and spiritual posture, you are valid, and you are good.
We are all going through so much right now, and if you need to just lay it all on God today, by all means, God can hold it. Because if we don’t have a place to lay down our burdens and cry out when we are in the depths then our spirits become disturbed. I know that over the course of this past week I have noticed disturbance in my own spirit especially whenever I felt the rush to judgment about what others may or may not be doing in the face of this pandemic.
But even though the gravity of our current situation has at times brought out the worst in me, I found great comfort when I read our Gospel today and heard that Jesus too was greatly disturbed in spirit. It says in John, “When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus began to weep.” There is just something so comforting about knowing that Jesus knows what we’re going through.
And if we dig into this a bit more, where it says Jesus was greatly disturbed in spirit, that same word for spirit in Ezekiel is translated as breath where God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, and similarly, the Greek word translated as “Spirit” in both Romans and John can also mean “breath.” So, in other words, we could understand the line that Jesus was not only disturbed in spirit but in breath. The death of Lazarus disturbed Jesus’ breath, or as we might say, it took his breath away.
There’s been so much to grieve lately that I’m sure we’ve all had moments where our breath has been taken away like Jesus’s was at the death of his friend Lazarus. And with COVID-19 being a virus that literally takes people's ability to breathe away from them, Ezekiel's command from God to prophesy to the breath takes on entirely new meaning in this moment we find ourselves.
So, while we cry out to God from the depths we are comforted by Jesus who is close to our pain, and we hear a command back from God to prophesy to the breath.
But what does that even mean? What does it look like to prophesy to the breath? For many of us this week it meant doing nothing, staying home and not contracting or transmitting COVID-19 to others. Some also called on our elected leaders to protect the breath of our nurses and provide them with adequate personal protective equipment as they put themselves on the front lines of this pandemic. I know for me personally, prophesying to the breath has meant doing both of these things as well as doing breathwork through my practice of yoga. As I have been separated from my yoga studio, I am grateful to Holy Trinity member Erica Bohac who recorded and posted a video yoga session on our community life Facebook page. I’ve done her video three times this week and plan to do it again this afternoon.
It’s really something, how important our breath is, and yet how easily it can just become an unconscious action that we do without thinking or without any intention. But prophesying to the breath means honoring the breath in us and in others as nothing short than the spirit of the living God filling us and flowing through us. This breath and spirit is too precious to take for granted, so instead let’s prophecy to the breath like Ezekiel did and watch as the dead and dry things in and around come to life.
In his book Just Jesus, Walter Wink reminds us of how sacred breath is and how it connects us not only to each other, but even the first moment of creation. He says, “All the matter in the universe derives from the Big Bang (or better, the “Big Breath”). And each breath we breathe contains a quadrillion atoms. More than a million of these atoms have been breathed personally sometime by each and every person on earth. We are all one breath,” He says.
We are all one breath and so whether it’s being intentional about our own breathwork, or doing everything in our power to defend and protect the breath of others and this planet, we are prophesying to the breath. And maybe we feel so much grief right now in this moment because the loss of breath that COVID 19 has caused to so many in this world right now has also been a loss to our own breath since, as Walter Wink reminded us, we are all one breath. And it’s a lot to hold, and the disturbances to our spirit and moments that have taken our breath away are real. There’s no minimizing that.
But even in our most breathless depths, let us not also minimize the love that is still all around us to be experienced. No doubt that this has been one heck of a first week of staying at home, but I want to testify about a moment of real love that reminded me of God’s presence in my life this week. And it happened right from the comfort of my own couch. That’s been where I post up much of the time because it allows me to get work done while still sitting in close proximity to my record player. This has resulted in me keeping records spinning for much of the day as I work, and this week as I was listening to one of my favorite albums, I had one of these lovely breathtaking moments. Maybe it’s because this pandemic and all the feelings that are at the surface for me, but I had this moment where it just felt like I heard a lyric for the first time even though I had heard it many times before.
And you know what, since I’m preaching from home right now, why don’t I just take y’all on a quick tour over to the record player and I’ll play it for you rather than tell you about it. So, let’s take a short walk over here, and as you can see here, I’ve got the record I was listening to all set up here. You can see I was listening to 2014 Forest Hills Drive by hip hop artist J. Cole. Great album, probably in my top 10 of all time, but definitely not suitable for children, in case any of you parents were out there were wondering, and it was during the final song of this album when I had my breath-taking moment. It’s a song called “Note to Self”, it’s a good song but, since it’s more of an outro song, J. Cole spends much of the song just calling out the credits on the album and giving thanks for different people who contributed, but there’s a line before he gets to just listing all the credits that really stood out to me and I’ve got it cued up here so let’s take a listen.
I hope you could hear it. So, did you catch it? In that line of the song J. Cole sings:
I've got a feeling that there's somethin' more
Something that holds us together
Something that holds us together
The strangest feeling but I can't be sure
Something that's old as forever
Something that's old as forever
And right after he finishes his backup singers repeat the word Love, Love, Love.
In this one line, J. Cole prophesies to the to the breath by using his words from his lungs to sing about the ultimate truth that even in our depths there’s something more holding us together, something that’s old as forever, and that thing is love.
The death and suffering that the COVID-19 virus is causing might take our breath away and cause us to weep like Jesus did, but out of his love for us Jesus takes even that which is dead and dry and resurrects life. Life out of love is the same love that holds us together one to another, and holds us together personally when it seems like we have hit the rock bottom of our depths. So, as these weeks continue, let’s prophesy to the breath by reminding ourselves and others when we forget about the love that holds us all as one. Amen.
