Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”

Ezekiel 37:11–12

Module Six: To Love; To Suffer

Study:

In preparation for this week's liturgy, please read Introduction and Chapter 6 of Jesus Wants to Save Christians, by Rob Bell and Don Golden.

After you have completed the above, choose one or more of the the following:

• “Accumulation Stories” on the Learning How to See Podcast

• “Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr

• “10 of the Best Poems About Money” from Poem Analysis

• “The First Noble Truth” by Steve Kowit

• “No Man Without Money”
  by Robert Herrick

  No man such rare parts hath, that he can swim,
  If favour or occasion help not him.

• “How They Conjugate ‘To Have’”
  by Anonymous

I met a man of aspect wise
Engaged in catching butterflies.
"A gorgeous box-full friend," quoth I.
"Now for what purpose sage and high
Didst catch this lovely company?"
"That I might have them," answered he.

• Little Boxes with Pete Seeger

The Liturgy

To Love; To Suffer

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”

Ezekiel 37:11–12

Over the last few years, circumstances have made it necessary for me to stand so often amid the surging [moment] of life’s restless sea. Moments of frustration, the chilly winds of adversity all around, but there was always something deep down within that could keep me going, a strange feeling that you are not alone in this struggle, that the struggle for the good life is a struggle in which the individual has cosmic companionship. For so many times I have been able with my people to walk and never get weary because I am convinced that there is a great camp meeting in the promised land of God’s universe. Maybe St. Augustine was right: we were made for God; we will be restless until we find rest in him. Martin Luther King Jr, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”

Opening Prayer

Creator God, who quickened the world, we gather in the name of life and breath. Spirit of Inspiration, nourish our souls. Save us from despair, apathy, and cynicism. Friend of the broken, teach us your definition of abundance. Show us the way that leads to life, truth, and joy—and console our weary minds who were looking for an utterly different salvation. Attune our hearts to the length, depth, and breadth of our cosmic experience, and help us to revel in the mystery of hope.
Amen.

Confession

Merciful God, we confess that we have shamed our neighbors for their wealth and poverty. We have participated in systems that isolate us from communion: families, communities, cities, convinced that to be an individual is our greatest achievement. Alone, we are forced to build our own kingdoms in which to be kings and subjects alike. We have castigated those longing to provide for those they love, labeling ambition as avarice, while the price of milk and honey trickles ever upwards. Friend of the poor, we have broken your trust. We have learned to fear those who drown for never having access to the lakeshore. Oh Holy Kindness, we have chosen satiety over sanctity. Forgive us. Reconnect us.

Amen.

Passing of the Peace

Exchange this acknowledgment of confession.

From the freedom of confession, I greet the Christ in you.
From the freedom of confession, I greet the Christ in you.

The Reflection

Read aloud:

What do you want? For dinner, for Christmas, to learn? Where do you want to go? On vacation, in your career, with this story? Who do you want? To meet, to impress, to understand? To want, to desire, is as deep in the human story as eating, loving, and creating. What do you want? To eat of the fruit, for my sacrifice to find favor, to reach the heavens. To live is to desire, but it also is to suffer. It is the First Noble Truth of Buddhism. To live is to suffer. So, what of salvation? Shall we repress and reject and learn not to desire? Shall we choose a diet of dust?

When God rescued the Israelites from Egypt, God did so during a feast.

The first time Jesus stepped outside the mundane. What did he do? He endowed a celebration of desire with wine.

The bread was broken and fed five thousand, the bread was broken and became sacrament, the body was broken and became resurrection.

What is desire but the urge to live and grow and beget? What is grace but the urge to love and thrive and create? There’s a hand-in-handness between holy animation and desire. Grace flows like water, and it stirs the soul to celebrate! But if the nuptial wine had been stored up, hoarded, saved, it would have soured. Oxidized to vinegar, no longer fit for toasting new life: festering. Grace must flow or it turns to avarice. If Jesus came to bring salvation, salvation must be encoded in Jesus’s life and death, and what do we see Jesus doing? Seeing the invisible, touching the untouchable, defending the weak. These are the actions of love. To love someone is to see them even when they have lost themselves. To love someone is to be willing to inhabit what they cannot handle. To love someone is to stand with the bullied. What is salvation? To enter into the flow of grace, refusing to hoard it unto destruction, and, instead, to live open-handed in love.

But what is love but to suffer?

Love is a risky business. The moment that you are grasped by love, you are no longer your own. You belong to love. Your guts are now stitched to that which you have dared to love, and there are no promises that you will survive. Chances are, you will be eviscerated by this. Certainly, the Christ was. Salvation, it seems, cannot be counted on to bring us anything less costly or more painful than joy.

The Inquiry

These questions will be used each week to guide a time of sharing. 

What joy have you encountered this week?

What suffering have you encountered this week?

What longs for salvation?

After each person shares, the group will offer a blessing to each person:

[Person’s name], in the name of Jesus Christ know you are beloved of God 

The Practice

And You Shall Live centers on breathing spiritual practice. Each week, participants will be offered a breathing practice with an optional silent prayer mantra.

This breathing practice is a pyramid practice. The metronome below can be used to provide a measured rhythm to the breaths. The practice starts with an inspiration for one beat and an expiration for one beat without pausing between breathing in or out. After each expiration, one beat is added to the next set until you are breathing in for seven beats and out for seven beats. At that point, the process is reversed, the breaths becoming shorter by one beat after each expiration.

For Thought

The question . . . is whether there is Spiritual healing, and if it exists, how it is related to the other ways of healing, and further, how it is related to that kind of healing which in the language of religion is called “salvation.” (Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. III, p 277)

Read Aloud:

The dry bones of hopelessness and despair can learn to dance again, but salvation and healing come through death and resurrection. Teach us to dance. Amen.

The Response

These questions can be used to help the group engage with the reflection.

What did you notice during the Practice?

What did you notice during the Reflection?

How would you like to grow in response?

After each person shares, the group will offer a blessing to each person:

Christ, give us the courage to hear and be heard.

Responsive Reading

Adapted from John 2 and Ezekiel 37

A. On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’

B. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel.”

A. Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim.

B. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”

A: When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first…but you have kept the good wine until now.”

B. Say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”

Closing Prayer

Spirit of Truth, we live in a world enmeshed in deceit. We are assaulted by images of what we should be, what we should desire, what it means to be happy. We learn that the world cannot be trusted—no one is coming to save you. Source of Love, we long for you to make sense of the brutality of life. Hold us in your embrace until we are saturated by love. Let that be a baptism of salvation for the world.

Blessing

Go, love the world, knowing that you are accompanied and encouraged by Love. This, then, is salvation, to be loved and to love even though you die.