Breathe on me breath of God

Mary sat quietly at the feet of Jesus and listened.

Martha was filled with busy-ness.

Are you a Martha or a Mary?

Maybe there is something of Martha and Mary in each of us.

In that case where is the balance – do you come down with Martha in your busyness, to the neglect of Mary’s stillness and listening?

Do you come down on the side of Mary so still and always listening but not doing?

Or is there a balance?

And what about us as a church community.

Do we have Martha tendencies to the neglect of the stillness of our prayer life?

Or do we have Mary tendencies to the neglect of actually doing anything?

Exiled far from Jerusalem with so many other exiles in Babylon, Ezekiel felt impelled to DO something, to speak out.

But he didn’t.

He held his peace.

And he went down to the river and sat with those who were suffering and listened. In the words of the NRSV he was stunned.

Then he spoke out vigorously, challenging the people to think again about what they had done. And in a dream he held out the hope that the dry bones would live again. He prophesied to the bones and they came together. But there was no life in them. He prophesied to the ‘breath’ and their life was restored.

If in our busyiness we have lost the tranquillity of being able to listen and the stillness of prayer that was Mary’s maybe we need that breath of life to be breathed into us anew.

To do that we need to seek stillness … and that is exactly what we did for nearly ten minutes, listening to two worship songs, reflecting on words of promise from the Scriptures and seeking anew the breath of God in all its life-giving power.

At the death of their brother Mary didn’t want to speak. Jesus simply listened … and wept with her.

Martha spoke nineteen to the dozen and Jesus responded to her questions.

I am the resurrection and the life, he said, those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live and whoever lives and believes in me will live.

Breathe on me, breath of God
Fill me with life anew.

Do you believe this? He asks of us, just as he asked of Martha.