One Breath, One People
Through the prophet-poet Jeremiah, YHWH, the God of Creation, the God of the Escape from slavery in Egypt, the God who made a disparate group of slave into a people, one people, a covenant people who are to be God’s Light to the whole world, is concerned that the political and religious establishment, meant to be the Good Shepherds of Israel, meant to maintain the unity YHWH has intended for all peoples, but who have instead scattered YHWH’s flock, have driven them away, and not attended to their needs as shepherds ought to do. [i]
As we heard from Amos, these bad shepherds have divided the people, and worse often only look out for themselves, “selling the needy for a pair of Jimmy Choo’s or Moonstar shoes…and crush the poor with unfair taxes and prices.” [ii] We might call it the ideology of Imelda Marcos! Now YHWH intends to shepherd the people himself, reunite them, make of them one people, YHWH’s people, “and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.” This unity and restoration is often depicted in art and stained-glass by Jesus the Good Shepherd holding one sheep, one lamb – a lamb that represents us all, united as one body.
Eight hundred years later, the peoples of the earth are still divided. The anonymous author of the Letter to the Ephesians recalls Jeremiah’s prophetic imagination. Whatever has characterized the divisions between Gentiles and Jews shall be no more. “For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” [iii] Christ is often identified as the Good Shepherd of Psalm 23, who makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. He revives our soul and guides us along right pathways for his Name's sake.” Christos – the Universal embodiment of Gods love, justice, mercy and compassion. Christos is our peace – our shalom – our embodiment of God’s dream of all peoples united by one spirit – one breath – one animating energy of compassion for one another. In the sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel one sees crowds of thousands of people following Jesus wherever he goes seeking to have their lives healed and made whole. [iv]
YHWH and the prophetic poetry of nearly 3,000 years imagine a peaceable kingdom, a peaceable world, a united people. Kind people. People who love their neighbors whomever they are, wherever they are. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Monk and Priest, makes an assertion which many of us pondered during the “valley of the shadow of death” the world experienced as Covid. Rohr says, “Your image of God creates you.” Which may be extended: Our image of God creates us. Does it create us as those people who choose to be united with others? All others? Or, does our image of God drive us to divide ourselves from others? All others? Rohr takes the biblical idea that we are created in the image of God, and then asserts that it is our understanding of God is what makes us fundamentally who we are – either as individuals, as members of a community, as a nation, and as the world.
In perhaps his most astonishing statement of all, in his
book, The Naked Now, Fr. Rohr invites us to an even deeper understanding of
what it means to have an image of God that is possible of healing the divisions
among the peoples of the earth. If only we might imagine God as the origin of
Life, and that to live, we must breathe. The image of God Rohr invokes revolves
around God’s “unspeakable name.”
“I
cannot emphasize enough the momentous importance of the Jewish revelation of
the name of God. It puts the entire nature of our spirituality in correct
context and, if it had been followed, could have freed us from much idolatry
and arrogance. As we now spell and pronounce it, the word is Yahweh… It was
considered a literally unspeakable word for Jews, and any attempt to know what
we are talking about is ‘in vain’ as the commandment says (Exodus 20:7)…whenever
it appears in scripture another word is substituted, like Adonai.
“This
unspeakability has long been recognized, but we now know it goes even deeper:
formally the word was not spoken at all, but breathed! Many are convinced that
its correct pronunciation is an attempt to replicate and imitate the very sound
of inhalation and exhalation. The one thing we do every moment of our lives is
therefore to speak the name of God. This makes it our first and last word as we
enter and leave the world.
“For
some years I have taught this to contemplative groups in many countries, and it
changes peoples’ faith and prayers lives in substantial ways. I remind people
that there is no Islamic, Christian, or Jewish way of breathing. There is no
American, African, or Asian way of breathing. There is no rich or poor way of
breathing. The playing field is utterly leveled. The air of the earth is one
and the same air, and this divine wind [ruahch] ‘blows where it will’ (John
3”8) – which appears to be everywhere. No one and no religion can control this
spirit.
“When considered in this way, God is suddenly as available and accessible as the very thing we all do constantly – breathe. Exactly as some teachers of prayer always say ‘Stay with the breath. Attend to your breath’: the same breath that was breathed into Adam’s nostrils by this Yahweh (Genesis 2:7); the very breath that Jesus handed over with trust on the cross (John 19:30 and then breathed on us as shalom, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit all at once (John 20:21-23). And isn’t it wonderful that breath, wind, and spirit and air are precisely nothing – and yet everything?”[v]
Our image of God creates us. How we see, understand, and experience God is capable of making us a people who stand in the breach to be healers – healers of division, rather than being those people who believe it is more important to stand pat believing that only our vision of life on this planet is the one and only vision. Jeremiah, the Psalmist, the author of Ephesians, and the Good News according to Mark all believe in an image of God that unites, that heals division, that brings God’s dream of a world of peace, love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness into being.
Fr. Rohr ends his meditation on Breath with this prayer: “Just keep breathing consciously in this way and you will know that you are connected to humanity from cavemen to cosmonauts, to the entire animal world, and even to trees and plants. And we are now told that the atoms we breathe are physically the same as the stardust from the original Big Bang. Oneness is no longer merely a vague mystical notion, but a scientific fact.”
May our God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, help us to be open to the Oneness of all creation, all peoples, and all creatures; as healers of the breach; as those who break down all divisions and hostilities; that we might allow your image and your breath create us as One Breath, and One People, now and forever. Lord, help us to stay with the breath. Amen.
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