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The Practicing church

Can't Breathe

5/31/2020

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This Pentecost Sunday as the prophetic cry rings out — I CAN'T BREATHE, I ask for the very breath of the Spirit to fall on us and bring repentance. Jesus BREATHED on his disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” May the breath of God empower us to bring peace - not a false peace, but true peace - the kind that brings reconciliation through the laying down of our lives.
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“I can’t breathe.” These were the prophetic words of George Floyd as he was publicly lynched before our very eyes. Some eyes, weathered and worn from trauma upon trauma. Some eyes, shocked and in disbelief. But we all felt the gut-wrenching punch of that cry, “I can’t breathe.”

A cry now reverberating in the streets in protests and outrage. Lamenting the disproportionate black suffering and death in this current pandemic. How long, O Lord, how long?

A cry that threatens to suck up all the air for our brown and black siblings. Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and too many hashtags. We are weary. We are angry. We are so very tired.

A cry so full of heartbreak and yet confoundingly simple, sung by weary and courageous prophets and sages, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. They can’t breathe.

Listen. Listen to the prophets. Listen to the lament. Listen to the terror of injustice we ourselves cannot imagine. Listen.

They can’t breathe.

As a pastor, a mother, a follower of Jesus, and a white woman of privilege, I beseech my fellow white friends, neighbors, colleagues and community members — Listen. Listen to the prophets.

We can’t go jogging (#AmaudArbery).
We can’t relax in the comfort of our own homes. (#BothemJean and #AtatianaJefferson).
We can’t ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride).
We can’t have a cellphone (#StephonClark).
We can’t leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards)
[Read More… Black People Are So Tired]

Listen to our black siblings — preachers, social justice activists, writers, poets, and artists.

What is the color of air?
Who owns the right to breathe?
Why are we so afraid of each other?
[Read More…Running For Your Life]

And for the love of all things good and holy, just listen.

You are grieved. You are outraged. You feel helpless and you don’t know what to do.

Listen. Listen until their pain becomes your pain. Weep with those who weep. Mourn with those who mourn. [Romans 12:15]

Listen. Listen to understand the magnitude and the scope. Here is a place to start. [Anti-Racism Resources]

Listen. Don’t feel the need to pontificate other than to spur others on. To listen.

Now listening to prophets comes at a cost — for it is sure to make us uncomfortable. And uncomfortable is exactly where we want to be. As white folks, for all our years of privileged distance and comfort, repentance looks like discomfort and proximity. We must be willing to be uncomfortable, to get outside of our own homogenous experiences, friendships and worldviews. And we must refuse our own privilege of distance and apathy, choosing instead to move closer…closer to the anguish, the discomfort of our complicity, the not knowing what to do or to say, and our own ignorance. We must lament a world in which black lives are disposable.

So yes, mourn, weep and lament and ... Listen. Give up your distance. Give up your comfort.

They can’t breathe.

If you and I are going to join in the work of reconciliation to make the community livable again [Isaiah 58:12], we must learn what it is to love our neighbor as ourselves. [Luke 10:27-28] Jesus said, “Do this and you will live.” Do this and maybe we all can breathe.

​by Jessica Ketola
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The Gift of Pentecost

5/17/2018

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This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles even as we come together for our Community Creativity Session in our own holy huddle to wait for the inspiration and empowerment of the Spirit. We will commemorate the bestowal of the Spirit’s gifts that enabled the apostles to leave the Upper Room and preach the Gospel just as we will wait for the Spirit to enable us also to leave our safe and silo'd lives to be good news to our neighbors. And we will remember that God is with us, from Creation to Mount Sinai to Pentecost to today, the presence of God upon God's people, revealed in wind and fire is our beautiful Holy Spirit who is continuing to lead us just as the cloud of shekinah glory led the Israelites through the wilderness. 

Pentecost derives its origin from a Jewish Festival called the “Feast of Weeks,” otherwise known as the Shavu’ot, which celebrated God's providence and the harvest of wheat. The Feast of Weeks, deriving from the Greek word Pentekostos (meaning “fifty”) occurs fifty days after the Passover. Shavu'ot soon came to commemorate the covenant God established with his people through Moses on Mount Sinai as many believe that Moses received the Law on Sinai during the Feast of the Weeks. And so just as the shekinah glory descended on the mountain as God bestowed a covenant with God's people, so the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room as God bestowed a new covenant of his blood. And gifts were poured out in abundance, hearts were emboldened, and the all inclusive sweeping nature of the gospel was made known as a multicultural crowd heard this revolutionary message in their own language. And the Church was birthed as three thousand hearts were compelled to join God's dream in the world, fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel.

‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants–men and women alike–
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

This Saturday, as The Feast of Weeks begins, we will meet for our Community Creativity Session to celebrate that God's Spirit has been poured out upon all people. And we will remember that we are a part of this sweeping story of God that is so much bigger than ourselves and includes everything and everyone! We will pray for the Spirit to move upon us so that every man, woman and child regardless of race, class, gender or difference can hear the good news in a way that makes sense to them. And as we stir up creativity and imagination, we will pray for the gifts of the Spirit to be poured out upon us propelling us into God's Dream for our neighborhoods. And we will prophetically call forth that which is unseen. We will share visions and dreams. And we will pray for the Spirit to continue to birth her work among us.

​by Jessica Ketola
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