Oneing

God of the jailbreak, set us free, from all the ways we imprison ourselves, from all the ways we imprison one another. From all the ways we try to lock up your grace. Set us free. Amen.

As we begin this morning, I want to take a moment to invite you to take a breath. Slow down. Close your eyes, if you feel safe. Notice what you notice. It may be your own desire to fidget. It may be your neighbor, next to you. It may be your breath, notice what you notice. Breathe. See if you can let go of any desire to change or control what you notice. See if you can let go of any inner critic, which thinks this practice is silly or beneath you. Just let go.

Pause.

Now turn your attention toward your heart. We spend so much time in the one cubic foot of real estate between our ears. See if you can sink down instead. Bring your attention, your inner gaze, to your heart center. See if you can feel your heart open. Just breathe a moment there.

You are welcome to open your eyes.

Beginning in a Different Place

I wanted to begin in a different place, because I think this teaching from Jesus isn’t primarily an intellectual one. This prayer from Jesus for his followers “that they may be one, as you and we are one,” it isn’t about some doctrine or dogma, not really.

Sure we have built a whole palace of doctrine around words like this. We’ve built out statements of faith, catechisms, but Jesus didn’t pray that his followers memorize their catechism. He prayed for one-ness.

One-ness isn’t something you experience primarily with your brain. It’s interior. It’s deeper.

Julian of Norwich and Oneing

One of the saints who was a great teacher of this one-ness was Julian of Norwich. Julian lived about 700 years ago, in England. She perhaps is the first woman to have written published words in English vernacular. Julian wrote about a series of visions she had of God, and I have to admit, for years, I was a little bit turned off by Dame Julian. I tried to read her in college and in seminary, and her language just felt so Catholic, so laden with old time language.

Then a few years ago, I found the translation by our fellow New Mexican Mirabai Starr. Mirabai’s translation takes some liberties. For instance, when Julian says “Christians” Mirabai renders the word as “spiritual seekers.” For “Church” Mirabai chooses “spiritual community.” These linguistic decisions made me want to have a long cup of tea with Mirabai Starr and to learn what she believes about the future of faith. But for Julian, the overall effect, for me, was disarming. I wasn’t on the defense against a saint who seemed too old timey. And then I noticed that some of Julian’s language could break through.

Mirabai Starr recovered, from Julian, some language that other interpreters had taken away. Julian of Norwich, in places, refers to God as “the maker, the carer, and the lover.” But there was one word in particular that Mirabai recovered, one that Julian herself made up: “One-ing.”

Richard Rohr liked it so much, he chose it for the title of the journal of the Center for Action and Contemplation: oneing.

Julian turns Jesus’ desire for us, his followers into a verb. Our inner work, she says, is “One-ing” with God, with one another. And the work of One-ing, Julian says, is a work of desire. She writes:

We allow ourselves to be filled with the overwhelming desire for oneing with our Beloved, to listen deeply for God’s voice. We delight in God’s goodness and revel in God’s love.

When was the last time you took time for delight? When was the last time your reveled in God’s love? I hope it was recent. When was the last time you gave time to God, allowing yourself to sit in a desire for one-ing?

Devotion and Words

I was in a yoga class the other day, when the teacher started talking about devotion. She asked us to really ask ourselves, to what are we devoted?

I’d share that question with you. To what are you devoted? What brings you to church today? Did you come to hear some intellectual argument that would make your brain tingle? Did you come because you wanted to see friends, or to find shelter from the frustrating news all around us? Maybe some or all of those are true. And maybe, just maybe, you came because you are devoted to seeking something deeper.

With Julian, I raise the question of language, because one of the things to which I am devoted is words. I hope words are a lesser devotion than my devotion to God, my devotion to the Reign of God, Jesus’ teaching of justice, and equity, and love available for all people. I hope those alongside my family, and my community, are my primary devotions. But I am devoted to words. I spend a great deal of time on words. Words matter. Language matters.

And, when it comes to faith, you have to know that all language is metaphor. All language is a way of seeking. St. Thomas Aquinas, the writer of the Summa, the GREAT theology, wrote thousands of pages about God, and it was Thomas Aquinas who said, “anytime we start using words, using language for God we are no longer talking about God. We are talking about our construction.” All language for the divine falls short. All of it. All metaphors, all the ways we can make the neurons in our brains fire, they all fall short. Even the Nicene Creed. I know for some of us, especially the Nicene Creed falls short. We’ll have to do a series sometime and talk through the creed.

But all of the formulas, all the language, all of the words we use, all of the cerebral power we leverage on God, is going to fall short.

Being One and Doing Justice

My friends, we are living through difficult days. We are living through times which will try our very souls. One of the most difficult things about these days are how little it seems we can do about the news around us. I’ve sat through so many meetings lately, where I’ve felt powerless to help, to change the situation of my community.

Tonight, a group of us are driving out to Torrance County Detention Center. We’re going to the place where thousands of immigrants are being held in prison, in conditions which are inhumane, in conditions without adequate nutrition, with sewage backing up into their rooms. People who are being held without due process for months, while our broken immigration system decides what to do with them, are being held less than an hour from here. And we haven’t been able to stop the suffering and the detention. And so some of us are going to go and pray.

We are going to go out there, because we are one with the migrants who are being detained. We are one family. We are sisters, brothers, siblings. Jesus named a reality, that we are one, Just as he and God are one. We are going to practice oneing.

The more we can witness to that one-ness, the more deeply we can know it in our souls. The more devoted we become to this idea that we are one body, the more committed we will be to act, when there is something we can do, to make our neighbor’s life better.

We go because we believe in a God who breaks open jails. God did it before. God will do it again. We believe in a God who sets people free. We believe in a God who won’t let walls that stand between us stay standing, not forever.

Practicing Oneing

It may feel, in the short term, that all we can do is pray. The government isn’t listening. The policy won’t change fast enough. But don’t sell prayer short. Don’t sell your heart short.

Because what Jesus prayed for, it’s not about what you believe in your head. It’s not even really about what you feel in your body. It’s deeper. It’s connection. It’s one-ness. It’s knowing, trusting, that you are already united to God.

That the love that binds the very universe together has already caught you up in an inescapable network of relationships. There is nothing you can do to alienate yourself from God. There is nothing we can do to separate any of God’s creatures from the love of God. Nothing.

What you can do, is to practice one-ing. You can practice letting go of the distractions, the inner critic. You can practice letting go of trying to control your neighbor’s breathing, the laundry list of to-dos we all carry. You can practice sinking down into your heart, opening your heart to what is always already true. You are already one with the One behind it all. You are united to God.

So take a breath. Sink into your heart. Practice oneing. Be set you free. Be about setting others free.

Amen.