Easter Blessings!
The cross is the standing statement of what we do to one another and to ourselves.
The resurrection is the standing statement of what God does to us in return.
-Richard Rohr
United Church of Martha
We’ve been the United Church of Martha for a very long time, and as one of my favourite sayings goes, “Your system is perfectly designed to get the results you’re currently getting.” If you want something to change, something’s got to change! Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”
The answer isn’t to figure out ways to make Martha work harder! It’s time to give her a break. It’s time to try something new – well, actually something very old. I’d like to teach you Mary’s secret. I’d like to teach you how to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen. I’d like to teach you how to pray all day every day. And I’m going to do all that by teaching you how to pronounce God’s name!
You’ve probably heard that the Jewish name for God, YHWH (commonly pronounced yah-way), is considered to be so sacred that it wasn’t to be spoken aloud. Richard Rohr teaches that the reason it wasn’t spoken aloud was because to pronounce it properly it cannot be spoken at all – it can only be breathed.
According to Rohr, the Hebrew pronunciation of those letters – Yah-veh – is an attempt to imitate the sound of inhalation and exhalation. You breathe in “Yah” and you breathe out “veh”, but you don’t make any sound other than breath sound. Try it! Do it very slowly and deliberately. Breathe in nice and deep through your mouth making the shape of “Yah” as you do, and when you breathe out just let the force of the air brush your bottom lip against your top teeth which creates the “v” sensation.
Ready? You’re about to pronounce God’s name – maybe for the first time! You’re about to pray the holiest prayer there is. You’re about to breathe God! Think “Yah” as you inhale and “veh” as you exhale. Close your eyes and give it a go.
[waits...]
You have just prayed God’s name!
Now, if you can manage that several times a day (and you’ll be breathing all day anyway) just taking a breath or two to consciously and intentionally breathe in and out the name of God, you’ll find that you are more and more able to be present to Presence more and more of the time. That’s the difference between Martha and Mary. Martha is breathless. Mary breathes deeply of the Spirit. And like it or not Jesus proclaims it to be the better part. If our church is to thrive in the future we need to learn how to breathe.
We aren’t supposed to choose between Martha and Mary. We need them both. But at this crossroads of our history considering our deeply held traditions of service in our churches we need to take note of the pointedness of Jesus’ teaching here. Jesus says to us, “No, United Church of Martha, you’re not wrong. If you didn’t serve this whole thing would fall apart. But look at you. You’re getting tired. You’re getting cranky. You’re starting to resent your service. It’s not so much out of love anymore but out of duty. Come on. Take a load off. First things first. Why don’t you come over here and sit at my feet for a while and drink in some of this life-giving water. Take the time to breathe. I think you’ll find it very refreshing.”
Yearning for Oneness
The starting point is not to assume that what is deepest in the other – whether that be the other nation, the other race, or those who somehow threaten us – is what is opposed to God or sinful. Rather, what is deepest in them is the image of God. Therefore what is deepest in us all is a yearning for Oneness, for peace – even though we may live tragically removed from that yearning.
John Philip Newell
Your Choice – Part 4 More Than A Faith-Lift
Preaching “die to self” in a culture that glorifies self is very counter-cultural. It’s a long and winding road in a quick-fix society. It’s physio-therapy in a cosmetic surgery world. Some people think that spirituality can be like cosmetic surgery, but it simply can’t. What we’re talking about is much more than a faith-lift. You can’t just come in and say “let’s just snip off this bit and reshape that part and leave the rest of me alone.” You can’t come in and get swept off your feet and taken up in an emotional mountain-top moment with your spirit soaring and call it done. That’s not transformation – it’s a faith-lift. What we’re talking about is far more profound than that.
Instead of a quick-fix, faith-lift kind of answer we need to see ourselves like a person doing intense physio-therapy who is learning to walk again. Physio-therapy is nothing like cosmetic surgery. It’s a long, sometimes frustrating, frequently painful process that has a clear goal and a profound desire to achieve it. The goal is a whole new way to be – and the deep joy that’s experienced with each small baby step forward is inspiring.
Well, that’s exactly what the faith journey is like. That’s what dying to self and being reborn in God’s Way is like. It’s like spiritio-therapy. It’s a long, sometimes frustrating, frequently painful process that has a clear goal and a profound desire to achieve it. The goal is a whole new way to be – and the deep joy that’s experienced with each small baby step forward is inspiring. You might look a little better (and even feel a little better) after a splashy faith-lift, but because it doesn’t transform you as a person it will not last. Following in the Way of Jesus is not a one-time decision to live a new way but a commitment to learning to walk that new way. That’s spiritio-therapy!
But this is just the beginning of the story. More
Your Choice – Part 3 The Cost
If those things are what you are truly looking for Jesus says, “Come and see, and if you start to find what you’re looking for then commit yourself to following in my Way. Take the risk! Lay down your old way and embrace this new Way. Follow me, and you will drink deeply of my Spirit, and God’s grace will fill you, and you will know God’s extravagant love and God’s abundant life. You’ll still have trials and problems and conflicts and sadness and frustrations – but we’ll face them together.”
What Jesus is talking about is the blessing and the cost of commitment, of immersion. It is the same in music. To really understand music – to really appreciate it – to really get inside it and have it resonate with your very being – you have to know what it is to be a musician. You don’t have to be a superstar or even that talented. But the experience of picking up an instrument, learning about the workings of music such as its history and how the chords and notes work, feeling the frustration of working out a difficult piece of music, knowing the joy that comes when you get it right, putting your abilities with others and instead of just talking about music together you actually make music together, and then turning someone else on to playing (maybe by teaching or mentoring them) – these experiences deepen the musical experience in ways that an incidental listener cannot fathom and a person who only interacts with music cannot fully appreciate. That is immersion, and immersion requires giving your whole self to the project, withholding nothing, dying to what was and embracing what will come. That is the Way. More
Spiritual AND Religious
“Ands” (spiritual AND religious) want religion revolutionized by spirituality; they want spirituality grounded upon (but not guarded by) ancient wisdom, theologies, and practices. They demand more authenticity, meaning, justice, and community from religious institutions, not less. In these longings, the “ands” voice an older way of understanding religion, where faith should and must be an experience of God that transforms one’s life for the sake of the world. If the “ands” are the vanguard of change, then the great religious recession is about to give way to a great spiritual awakening. Is this the end of religion or only the beginning of a new, and better, form of faith?
~Diana Butler-Bass