Sermon for Sunday, August 31, 2025

August 31, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott





Luke 14:1, 7-14



When I was young with an even younger sister, my parents tried very hard to teach us good manners. For example, part of our holiday tradition was the Christmas afternoon writing of the write thank you notes. Much of their training, however, came at the dinner table as we discussed good manners. My parents insisted that we be on our best behavior, elbows off the table, chewing with our mouths closed, cutting our food into bites, and eating that one bite before cutting further. I always wanted to cut up all my food all at once, to get it done with. When I would whine about not being able to do it my way, my parents would say, “When you’re invited to eat dinner at the White House, you’ll be glad you know the proper way to eat dinner.”


I have yet to be invited to the White House, but I am grateful that should an invite arrive, I will not embarrass my parents. I may be a grown up, but I still remember how to be on my best behavior. In some ways, today’s Gospel is similar. Jesus gives the disciples good advice for how to navigate a social setting in a time before namecards tell us where to sit, and we can judge our social status for ourselves, as we see how far away we are from the guests of honor. In the time of Jesus, people would be left to figure out the best approach. Some people would march right up to the head of the u-shaped table and sit next to the host, hoping for the best. As Jesus points out, far better to be asked to move up to a better seat than ejected from the banquet because you chose the wrong seat.


But of course, Jesus is not only teaching an etiquette lesson, at least not the kind of etiquette my parents focused on—and to be clear, my parents, also, were teaching more than just good table manners. Like people who raise the next generation in many settings, Jesus was training his disciples in ways to be good humans in all sorts of communities.


The community that Jesus describes in the last part of this passage is a radically different community from any that his disciples might have imagined. And I am guessing that it’s radically different from anything that you or I have experienced.


We might protest: “It’s not that radically different! We live in that inclusive society envisioned by Jesus.” In some ways, we’d be right. I teach English classes at Spartanburg Methodist College, and when I teach some pieces of literature, like Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” I want to demonstrate how far we’ve come as a society. I have them look around the classroom. I ask, “If it was a hundred years ago, how many of us would be in this classroom together?” In my current Brit Lit class, none of us would be in that classroom; my ten students are female and non-white males.


We might say we’ve learned what Jesus proclaims throughout his ministry by pointing to our churches or our larger denomination to show how we have learned the lessons of inclusivity that Jesus tried to teach us. We have a social statement—in fact, a long history of social statements—that show that we are committed to the inclusivity modelled by Jesus. But many Lutheran activists point out that our denomination overall still looks much like it did a hundred years ago, even though we’ve overhauled our hymnal and some of our worship practices to be more inclusive.


The more I think about today’s reading, the more I think that we minimize this teaching of Jesus by reducing it down to inclusivity. Jesus did always challenge humans to think about who is being included and who is being left out when the guest list is prepared—but he’s not nearly as concerned about our dinner parties, our classrooms, or our congregations as we might think. Jesus’ focus is far more broad. Jesus wants us to change our hearts—and these changes will be made visible in our behavior.


Jesus shows that he understands how transactional humans can be, how transactional we are: I’ll do this for that person and then they’ll do something for me. Or I need to do something for that person because they did something for me. I think of high school graduation invitations, which I sent to every friend my mother ever had. She had spent years sending gifts to their children, and now it was her turn. We didn’t really expect them to come many miles to watch me walk across the stage. We did not invite people whom we did not know.


Jesus asks us, as he always does, to look into our deepest selves, the self that we might not even realize is in control, the self that is deeply transactional, the way so many of us have been trained to be in ways that we don’t even remember being trained. Jesus knew that much of our society sets us up to be transactional souls, striving to be invited to the guest of honor spot at the head of the table. Jesus understands how much of our motivation comes from the idea of what people can do for us, not what we can do for them.

Even those of us in helping professions might have these motivations, in a slightly different shade of transactional striving. When I did my chaplaincy training this summer, I was aware that it was much easier for me to go to the hospital rooms of people who were open to a visit. The ones who were grumpy or angry were the ones I wanted to avoid, even though they may have been the ones who needed a pastoral visit more than the ones who welcomed me warmly.


I wish I could tell you that I am the highly evolved human that Jesus calls us to be. I wish I could tell you that I bravely marched to the ward and went right to the rooms of the grumpy and angry and stayed there until my pastoral presence transformed them into kind and gentle patients—and look, here I am, being transactional AGAIN!!! Here, in front of you, in real time, wanting to be able to tell you of a pastoral visit that was a success, not about the pastoral visits that seemed to go nowhere and left me feeling inadequate.

The point is not to be of service so that people will change or come to our churches or become better versions of themselves. When my parents gave us etiquette training, they did not really expect that we would be invited to the White House. They wanted us to be better humans regardless of which dining room we were in.


Jesus wants us to be better humans, the kind of human who can issue an invitation without any ulterior motive at all, to make a visit without any expectation. Jesus calls on us to expand our circles to include everyone—not because of what they can do for us, not because we can then feel good when they accept our invitations. It doesn’t come naturally to us.


For similar reasons, we often have a difficult time believing any gift can be fully given. We look at an invitation thinking, “Hmm, I can’t return the favor, so what is the catch? Will this dinner turn into a sales pitch?” We think about the potential cost of accepting the invitation, and many of us give our apologies as we explain that we’re just too busy. We may do the same when God issues invitations. We may view these invitations with suspicion: who are we that Jesus would come and live with us, immerse himself in our lives even to the point of death? Surely there’s a catch. And in some ways there is a catch—the command to live lives not based in fear and transactions, but in generosity and love.



Say yes to this invitation. Give up the transactional life and be free to live boldly and without fear. Be free and be generous. Say with confidence, the words that end our second reading from Hebrews:


 “The Lord is our helper;
  We will not be afraid.
 What can anyone do to us?”

A Good Week: Teaching and Sewing

It's been a good week, one that has left me a bit more tired than usual, but tired in a good way. 

We're at the end of the third week of in-person classes at Spartanburg Methodist College, and I'm happy to report that my classes are still in a collective good mood.  Yesterday, despite a bit of chaos at the beginning of class as I printed last minute submissions of rough drafts and rearranged the room, peer editing in my English 101 class went REALLY well.  Usually peer editing is a much more mixed event.

What's made it a tiring week is that I've been doing Quilt Camp on either side of teaching.  It's not ideal, but I'm glad to have had the time at Quilt Camp.  I've had a chance to spread out my fabric and remember what I was planning, back in May when I put fabric away as CPE was about to start.

I've been working on this quilt top:

I've been sewing strips to make it bigger.  I had planned to make this quilt completely random, but in fact, each strip has various smaller bits that go together.  I like how the whole quilt looks, and it's even more fun up close.  I've enjoyed sewing the strips, but as the quilt has gotten bigger, I've enjoyed it less.  

Note for the future:  I could sew the individual strips by hand, and then sew them all together on a machine so that the process goes faster.  Do I have a machine?  No.  One of the Quilt Camp folks is going to bring me a small machine to see if I want it.  Many people would not, because it can only sew two types of stitches, with no computer.  Plus it's small--she seemed to say that I could put it on a shelf.  We shall see.

In the meantime, I now will have some sewing to do in the evenings, as I try to stay awake until it's bedtime.  This kind of sewing can be more mindless than sketching in the evening or writing notes.

This Quilt Camp was promoted as a stripped-down Quilt Camp:  no teaching time, no planned excursions, no evening devotions/worship.  Fewer people have come, primarily because it's not a great time in August, the days leading up to the Labor Day week-end.  It's not great for me, because it's so early in the term, and I had already needed flexibility because of my mom's hospital scare and my need to be gone for a day to finish CPE.

But I'm glad I've made the effort.  It's been wonderful to have a chance to talk to people, to see other people's projects, to get inspired.  The quilt I'm working on has been inspired by this type of quilt, where the kind of small scraps that most people throw away have been sewed together into bigger blocks:

Here's an inspiration from this year:

Every square is different.  The quilter has followed a pattern, which boasts of 100 different squares.  I love the idea of following my own whimsey. 

I've enjoyed Quilt Camp, although it's been strange:  when I'm at school, I've almost forgotten that I had been sewing, and then when I've been at Quilt Camp, I've been immersed.  Wait--am I finally learning to exist in the present moment?

No, not really, although I am getting better at living in the present moment.  It helps to be living in a house and an area that we can afford, to have several jobs that I love, and that I'm not taking classes at the moment.  I am glad to be here in this place.

Quilt Camp Begins

Usually, Lutheridge offers Quilt Camp twice a year, once in the Fall and once in the Spring.  After the Spring Quilt Camp, where so many people were distressed that the Fall 2025 Quilt Camp was already full, leadership decided to offer a late summer addition and see if there was interest.

Of course, it's hard to know which stretch of time would be best.  We couldn't offer Quilt Camp when summer sleep-away camp was still happening.  This year, August also held a 75th Anniversary week-end for Lutheridge and the Asheville Quilt Show.  So this four day stretch heading into Labor Day week-end was the only option.

I waited until the last minute to sign up.  I'll be teaching today and tomorrow, and I didn't want to claim a table if it meant that someone else couldn't attend.  But we didn't have the full registration that we expected, so I went ahead and claimed my space.

Quilt Camp started at 3 yesterday afternoon, and I spent the first hour sorting through my various collections, trying to remember what I was thinking when I organized my material back in the spring.  At first I felt despair and an urge to just throw it all in the trash.  Part of my despair was remembering how I had a plan in the spring, and the summer wiped out my ability to do much of anything beyond CPE and my weekly preaching.

Happily, I can often pinpoint the source of my despair and move beyond it.  As I sorted through fabric, my mind delighted at the memory of these fabrics and how I came to have them and the friends who have been part of the process.  I sat and sewed a few seams and settled into a rhythm.

I didn't take any pictures, but that's O.K.  I still have time.  But even better, I have a few days of my own table, a few days where I can leave everything spread out with the knowledge that I'm not in anyone's way.  I can sort and organize and sew and reconnect with friends.  

I can reconnect with myself and with the One who made me--one of the biggest gifts of Quilt Camp!

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The Readings for Sunday, August 31, 2025:

First Reading: Proverbs 25:6-7

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Jeremiah 2:4-13
First Reading (Alt.): Sirach 10:12-18

Psalm: Psalm 112

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 81:1, 10-16

Second Reading: Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14


Here is another Gospel lesson which reminds us how different a world is the one that Jesus ushers in. It also shows us that ancient times weren't much different than ours.

We spend much of our day vying for power and position. Even in settings where there's not much to be gained by winning favor, one still sees a ridiculous amount of energy and time spent on power games. Think of the last meeting you had. Think of how short that meeting would have been if you could have gotten rid of people who spoke up to say, essentially, "I agree with what the last person said." Think of all the time wasted in currying favor with the people in charge or with each other.

Alternately, maybe you're more familiar with colleagues who try to cut each other down. Even when the stakes are small, even when the outcomes don't particularly matter, people will wage nasty battles to prove that they're right and everyone else is wrong.

Outside of the workplace, we can also sees this dynamic. In volunteer situations, people often want to prove that they're indispensable. We even see this in our relationships with friends, the one place where you would think we would approach each other as equals. Likewise in marriages--many spouses spend absurd amounts of time trying to prove that one way of doing things is the right way, and all other ways are bad.  Maybe you've had arguments about the right way to wash the dishes or fold the towels?

Psychologists would tell us that we play these power games because we're trying to satisfy our needy egos. We want to feel important because we spend much of our lives feeling insignificant. But instead of addressing that pain by making others feel better, we try to make others feel worse. We put people down so that we feel better. We connive and work to wound others.

Christ comes to usher in a new age. Again and again, he reminds us (in the words of today's Gospel), "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14: 11). We don't win favor with God in the way we might win favor with the boss. God is well aware of God's importance. We don't need to make God feel like the big man so that we might win a promotion.

God calls us to a higher purpose. We're to look out for the poor and downtrodden. And we're not to do it because we'll be repaid by the poor and downtrodden. We do it because Christ came to show us how to crack open the world and let the Kingdom light shine into the dark cracks. And the way to do that is not to show how wonderful we are. The way to let God's light shine is to look out for the marginalized of the world.

Sermon for Sunday, August 24, 2025, Straighten Up!

August 24, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Luke 13:10-17




Here’s Jesus doing what he’s done throughout the Gospel of Luke. He’s teaching in a synagogue—check. He’s healing people—check. The one who is healed praises God—check. He’s angering the religious authorities—double check.


It feels so familiar, and it is—but it is also significant to the narrative in Luke. Today’s reading is the last time in the book of Luke that Jesus will teach in a synagogue, in first century his bodily incarnation at least.

The woman doesn’t ask Jesus for healing. She has no relatives to petition on her behalf. But she’s not cast out of her community, the way that some of Jesus’ recipients of healing have been. We can safely assume that she’s welcome to worship in the synagogue, even if she can’t stand up straight. Unlike other healings, Jesus takes the initiative.

Jesus is the one who decides she needs healing, and this approach is different from his past approaches. It’s not like the Syro-Phoenician woman who has to argue her case to be seen as worthy of having her child healed. Unlike the time when the bleeding woman touched the fringe of his cloak and caused power to flow out of Jesus without his consent, Jesus is in control here.

We might say, “Way to go Jesus! I like this version of you! Maybe next you could toss those moneychangers out of the Temple!” He’ll do that in Chapter 19, and in some ways, that chapter has more in common with this healing of the bent woman than the previous healings and teachings that Jesus has done in the synagogues so far.

Notice that Jesus isn’t rejecting organized religion, the religion of his ancestors. Throughout his ministry, he returns to the centers of organized religion, not to lead people away, but to bring them back to the core essence of what it means to be people of God. He’s there to remind them of the ways that religion as an institution needs to straighten up.

In some ways, this story reminds me of Martha, who has gotten so caught up in the tasks of diaconia, the work of discipleship, that she’s lost sight of the larger picture—much the way this bent woman cannot see much further ahead than her feet. Mary, Martha’s sister, has chosen wisely. Martha blusters at Jesus, much the way the synagogue leader does.

We might feel some sympathy with the this man who questions Jesus’ timing. I know that I do. I imagine how I would respond if in the middle of this sermon, one of you picked up a guitar and plugged it into an amplifier and started praising God in that way. I’d be more than annoyed. I’d try to get you to wait until the offering was being taken up—then you could play your song and praise God in a less disruptive way, at a time in the service where people would be expecting it. And if you did something even more miraculous? I might need to call Bishop Strickland for a consult to see how to proceed in the face of the miraculous. But in the meantime, I’d try to maneuver the worship service back to more familiar terrain—that’s why we have a liturgy, after all. And later, Jesus might show up in my thoughts, telling me to straighten up, gently asking me why I so often do not choose the best part so that I can do what is expected of me.

Even if we’re not religious leaders in our Monday to Saturday lives, we’re probably more similar to the religious leader in this story than we might like. There is good news in this—we’re not alone in our affliction. Again and again, Jesus preaches that rigid obedience to rules and tradition and the way we think the world must be—these are the things blinding us to the evidence of God at work in the world.

The language that Jesus uses in this confrontation with a religious leader is slightly different than language that he’s used in the past. Listen again to verse 16: “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

Jesus uses the language of liberation, freedom from bondage. We may hear the word bondage and think of sin and confession: “we confess that we are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves.” This would not have been true for first century listeners. They would hear the word bondage and think about being enslaved in Egypt and being set free from the forces of the Pharoah.

Jesus is not suggesting that it is the religious officials themselves who have enslaved the woman, in the way that Pharaoh enslaved their ancestors. But here he asks, once again, about the role that rigid obedience to rules and traditions plays in our lives. Here again, he warns us of how that blind obedience can keep us from seeing the ways that God is at work in the world. Jesus calls us to straighten up. Jesus comes to set us free from the forces that want to keep us bent over, looking at the dust.

Those forces won’t always look like Pharaoh. Pharoah’s forces have the benefit of being easy to recognize. In our current day, when we enjoy freedoms that first century humans couldn’t even imagine, Pharaoh’s forces are more likely to be the societal institutions that try to keep us away from what is life giving. Those forces aligned against Jesus too, and make no mistake, those powers and principalities are still at work in our world.

But this week, as with a few weeks ago in the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus warns us about the habits and traditions that come from institutions that might seem to have our best interests at heart, but really would prefer that we stay stooped over, never seeing the sun.

And let’s be honest, often the one keeping us in bondage is ourselves. What would we do, as individuals, as the Church, as citizens, as Christians, if we believed, TRULY believed that we are already set free to live in a more bold and outstretched way in our particular time and location?

In this last time teaching in the synagogue, Jesus’ message takes on urgency. By the end of chapter 13, just 14 verses later, the Pharisees come to warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him. This is not news to him. He’s been on this collision path for a long time, and he knows that he doesn’t have much longer.

Jesus has told us that we, too, are on a collision course if we’re truly following him. We might be on a collision course with the people in charge, or maybe we’re colliding with old ideas, traditions, and ways of living our lives that no longer serve us.

Take heart. Jesus promises us that if we lose our life, we will paradoxically find it. And just think again about this story. Would you rather be the respectable religious leader, asking Jesus to hold off on miracles for another day or two, when it’s more appropriate? Or would you rather be the set free from the bondage of what forces are keeping you bent over?

We may hear the term “Straighten up” and think about all the ways we need to improve, all the rules we’ve broken and now we need to get back on the straight and narrow. We may think of the Martha types in our lives who tell us how we must behave, how we will be free if we just behave.

Jesus comes along to remind us that we’re already free, if we would but claim what is the good part of a life, as did Mary, the sister of Martha, as did the crowd in this story, who praised God knowing that Jesus is the announcement that our deliverance day is here.

Straighten up. Our day of liberation is at hand—today and every day.

Glory Days: 1995 and Now

Yesterday was the kind of teaching day that made me so grateful to have a chance to do some of this again, to do some of it for the first time.

I got to my office and sent an e-mail to my English Dep't colleagues to let them know that I had volunteered to be the faculty sponsor for the Poetry Club.  Lo and behold, another colleague had also volunteered, so we strategized about how to move forward.  We're both relatively new to Spartanburg Methodist College, so we're both grateful not to be going it alone.  Later, we talked to the student who is taking leadership too; she's in my Creative Writing class, and I like her energy.  As an added bonus, she's got visual art skills, so she'll be making the posters and flyers for the Involvement Fair on Monday.

I got grading done, so I'm caught up until Monday, and I've strategized my classes for next week.  The two classes that I teach on MWF went well.  In fact, after my Brit Lit survey class, one of my students said, "This is the only class where I wish it could go longer."  I think he was being sincere, not giving me empty flattery; he had been engaged for the whole class.

Yesterday we talked about Dorothy Wordsworth in all her Grasmere Journal glory.  She's now in the Norton Anthology of British Literature.  When I first started teaching her in the early 90's, I was bringing in handouts to augment the mostly male anthology.

As I drove home, I wasn't as interested in the NPR stations, so I listened to a station that was in the middle of a 90 minute "rock block"--and several songs in a row were from 1995, when I would have been driving back and forth from my home base near Charleston, SC, where I had a full-time teaching job at Trident Tech, to Columbia, SC, where my spouse was back in grad school.  As I listened to Seven Mary Three's "Cumbersome," I had that time wrinkle disconnect:  here I am in a tiny, fuel efficient car, driving on I-26, after having taught Dorothy Wordsworth to a group of students who were incredulous/aghast at the idea of Mary Hutchinson being willing to marry into the William-Dorothy dyad.

As I said, I am so grateful to be having a chance to relive some of my glory days, while at the same time wondering if I should be sad that my glory days don't involve something more transgressive (spoiler alert--I'm not sad).  Most people have glory days that revolve around ill-fated but glorious love affairs or some sort so sports/athletic achievement or some other advancement.  And mine revolves around a time when I was teaching literature I loved while writing poetry that amazed me.

We settled into our Friday night routine.  I bought the series Back to the Frontier only to find out that we would be getting it episode by episode, with each episode available early on Friday.  It's been another kind of time wrinkle, discovering that the whole series did not drop at once.  And I've enjoyed tuning in each week, just like we would have in 1995.

The show owes a HUGE debt to the PBS show Frontier House, which we watched in 2002, when it was on the air.  Three families see if they could live like Homestead Act settlers did in the late nineteenth century.  It's compelling, even as we realize that they are living a much safer variation:  no other humans attacking them and no animals attacking them and if the weather turned really ugly, they'd be rescued.

I discovered that we could watch Frontier House on YouTube, and so we watched about half of it last night.  It's not as compelling as when we first watched it, perhaps because we've had so many variations of reality TV since this early pioneer of reality TV aired.

My spouse and I always try to analyze how we'd do things differently.  We would not make for good reality TV--we would know what we signed up for and not whine constantly.  Of course, I'm not sure whining makes for good reality TV.

I do know that if I viewed my morning by way of some camera, this morning would make me long for such a life:  a good week teaching and pumpkin cinnamon rolls rising on the kitchen counter, my spouse sleeping while I'm writing.  Perhaps I have died and gone to Heaven, where I get to keep reliving these glory days.

Inviting a Nurse to Communion

On Sunday on our way home from Bristol, we took communion to a parishioner in the hospital.  My spouse talked to him while I was getting set up.

A nurse came to record vital statistics and check on the parishioner patient.  I was worried we were in her way and offered to wait until she was done.  My spouse, on the other hand, said, "Or you could stay and join us in this small worship service."

She said, "I would love to stay and join you."

I was surprised but forged on ahead.  She participated in all but the thimble-full of wine for communion.

After we were finished with our very short service, she said, "Thank you so much.  I always miss church when I work on Sundays, and it was nice to do this with you."

I was humbled.  I have spent the whole summer in a hospital, after all.  I have spent the whole summer trying to train my brain to remember that I may see myself as an unwelcome intrusion in a hospital room, but that may not be the reality.  In fact, it's probably not the reality--after all, as a chaplain, I was the only one on the medical team who wasn't there to do an invasive or shame-producing procedure. 

My spouse is often better at parts of ministry than I am; he would likely make a better chaplain than I would.  But we are getting much older, and the time for these decisions is closing.

This Sunday encounter also made me think about other ministry outreach activities.  If that nurse misses her Sunday worship opportunities, there must be others of a similar mind.  When we walked into the hospital on Sunday, the lobby was completely vacant.  Could we be a ministering presence to people there to visit loved ones?  Could we roam the floors, doing "drive-by" communion on foot?

If we were a larger church, perhaps.  If I was full-time, looking to make connections to the community, perhaps.  It does make me wonder if the hospital has a chaplain, and if so, where was the chaplain?

As always, the idea of the ministry field is only constrained by our imaginations and by our time and energy.

Thursday Strands: Mountains and Abandoned Summer Camps and a New Version of "Frankenstein"

This morning, I'm a bit tired, and yet I still have two teaching days to go.  So let me collect some strands and see if they make a coherent cloth:

--I am officially done with CPE, although I'm sure I'll continue thinking about it and processing it all for some time.  It was such a mixture of things:  rewarding, exhausting, challenging, on and on I could go.  I feel very lucky to have had a great group of people in the Chaplains department.  I have heard the CPE horror stories, and each day I felt immense gratitude for the people around me.

--Yesterday, the morning view of the mountains was stunning, with swirls of clouds.  I thought, I will miss this view.  Of course, I'll have other views of other mountains throughout the week as I drive back and forth to Spartanburg and Bristol.

--I read an interview with Guillermo del Toro, who has directed/created a new version of Frankenstein.  How fortuitous that it comes out the same semester when I'm teaching it!  It sounds like it will be a movie that is more faithful to the book than past movies have been, but I've been fooled that way before.

--Last night, as I focused on bill paying tasks, my spouse had a YouTube video playing about Thoreau's Walden--it was a delightful listen of snippets from the journal along with some biographical and historical tidbits.  I have no idea what the purpose of the video was; it didn't seem deep enough to have an educational purpose, and it didn't include a lot of personal appreciation.

--This morning, as I walked around camp, I thought of families who have bought old camps.  I thought of the E. B. White essay, "Once More to the Lake," that my Creative Writing class is reading and using for inspiration.  I'm thinking of a book for middle school readers, sort of a Harriet the Spy, if Harriet lived at an abandoned summer camp and was an aspiring naturalist.  Or maybe it's a story for older readers, and maybe it involves a ghost from the 19th century.

Last Day of CPE

My schedule changes today, but just for today.  Today instead of driving down to Spartanburg to teach, I stay in town for the last day of CPE.  I've got copies of my final paper/report.  We will gather in the conference room for our last day where we will read each other's final papers/reports.  Then our Educator has 20 days to write his comments.  At some point, that report goes to my synod Candidacy Committee.  As I understand it, it's not on file anywhere else; if someone in the future wants it, it's in my control.  

It's hard to imagine anyone outside of my committee asking to see it, or even knowing of its existence.  But I will keep both electronic and paper copies, just in case.  I have a file cabinet of documents that may never be needed again, but I keep them, just in case.

It's been strange, being back in the classroom at Spartanburg Methodist College, without being fully done with CPE.  In some ways, this summer seems like a strange dream.  In some ways, it was.  But more specifically, I'm feeling the same way I did when I lived in seminary housing and came to the mountains for short visits.  When I was in one place, it almost felt like the other place had been a dream.

I have given today's students out-of-class assignments.  I'm grateful that technology allows me to do this, and that I'm at a school that allows this.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, but it will be bittersweet because it's likely the last time.  My, that sounds apocalyptic, doesn't it?  So, let me be more specific:  our time of seeing each other every day is over.  For me, it's been over for the past two weeks, but today is really the end of our time being colleagues in this way.

Yesterday and today, my brain was full of topics both mundane and consequential.  Remember to fill your water cup with ice, the way you don't need to do when you go to Spartanburg.  Don't forget your employee lanyard.  Did I neglect anything in the final report?  I wish I had had a chance to make cookies for us all.  Is there a possibility that I might fail at this late date?

Last night I was so exhausted that I went to bed by 6:15--in some ways, CPE ends just as it began.  I am hopeful that it won't always be this way.  I was tired from teaching 3 classes back to back, the kind of classes where we are moving past the easy, first week stuff, where part of my brain is focused on the day's work and part is thinking ahead to what needs to happen next.  I was tired from the intense writing I've been doing to finish the CPE document.  I was tired from driving.

On Monday, I was tired, but it was different.  I was able to stay awake and make the above sketch, make another sketch for a friend in quarantine, write her a letter to go with the sketch, and read a bit.  

Early in CPE days, I discovered a tin of high quality Crayola markers in a filing cabinet, and I've had fun experimenting with them.  A few days ago, I ordered a tin for myself.  It's the perfect size, and it would mean I didn't have to transport all my Copic markers to the living room when I want to sketch in the evenings.

Why am I not sewing in the evenings?  I feel like I've lost the thread (pun intended).  There is a streamlined version of Quilt Camp that starts next week, so I hope to have a chance to sort through my materials (and material) and to remember what I was thinking/planning when I put everything away after the last quilt camp.

Today feels very transitional.  I hope I get to the end of today saying, yes, I am done with CPE--well done, good and faithful Kristin--with tears in my eyes, of course.

Meditation on this Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, August 24, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 58:9b-14

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm: Psalm 103:1-8

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 71:1-6

Second Reading: Hebrews 12:18-29

Gospel: Luke 13:10-17


This week's Gospel, and others like it, is often used to show the rigidity of the religious officials of Christ's time. And indeed, the Pharisees and other temple officials were extreme in their adherence to the law. But they have a point--couldn't Jesus wait one more day to heal the woman?

I feel immense sympathy for the woman who is so afflicted that she cannot straighten her back. For eighteen years, she has suffered. It's the rare person who doesn't at least have a glimpse of what that must feel like. Our burdens can weigh us down so much that we can't look up from the floor.

Yet in our busy times, I also find myself feeling an odd sympathy with the leader of the synagogue, who says, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days to be healed and not on the sabbath day." The leader of that synagogue two thousand years ago couldn't have imagined the times we live in, our own age when it seems impossible to get away from work, where we're expected to be on call twenty-four hours a day.

Of course, it's important to remember that the religious leaders are not acutely concerned about the "on-call" nature of life. They are not scolding Jesus because they've tried to create a retreat from hectic life that he's now disrupting. They scold Jesus because there are rules that he refuses to follow.

To be fair, the religious leaders thought that strict observance of the rules of the purity codes would lead to the salvation of the Jews. Viewed in that light, their horror at the miracles of Jesus makes a certain amount of sense. The future of the chosen people is at stake.

Over and over again, Jesus reminds us that following the rules will not save us--and in fact, they might interfere with our salvation. Jesus makes it clear that any day is a good day to unloose people from the issues that bind them. Again and again, he tells us that we are to stay alert for opportunities to minister to each other.

Recording of August 17, 2025 Sermon

I did feel that our Sunday Gospel was a wrenching shift, from the "Have no fear, little flock" Jesus to Divisive Jesus.  But I was happy with the sermon I preached.

Here is the recording of the sermon.

If you'd like to read along, I posted the manuscript in this blog post.

Sermon for Sunday, August 17, 2025

August 17, 2025
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 12:49-56


Whoa—is this Jesus or John the Baptist? What happened to the Jesus who said, “Have no fear little flock?” The Jesus who told us that he didn’t come to be an arbitrator for the person who asked Jesus to tell his brother to share the inheritance with him? That Jesus said he wasn’t sent to be the judge in such matters. Today’s Jesus, just 35 verses later, in the same chapter, sure sounds like he’s judging us all. What happened to the Jesus who promises us peace and restored community?

This part of Luke marks a change in the narrative, where Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem. He knows what lies ahead. He knows that he’s been getting attention, and not always the good kind of attention. He knows that he’s upset the ones in charge: in charge of the Temple, in charge of the Jews, and in charge of the territory—which means that Rome is paying attention. This reading makes it clear that the family, the foundational building block of culture, will also be divided and disturbed. Society cannot go on in a business as usual trajectory.

Many of us read this text as Jesus foretelling the future, but too many of us fail to realize that he’s talking about the short-term future, not the two thousand years forward future. To be fair, nearly every generation has cried out about times like these. In some ways, he’s doing more describing than predicting. Go back to that text, where Jesus talks about how he’s brought division, not just in the larger society, but in the individual family unit. He’s not necessarily saying that family division is part of his mission statement. He’s just describing what has happened and will happen in his wake.

It's a text that may seem especially descriptive of our current time, which has seen divisions that may feel apocalyptic to many of us. The last 15 years have brought enormous swings, such that regardless of your political beliefs, at some point you’ve looked at the people in charge and felt like you didn’t know your own country. It has been thoroughly disruptive from anything like the business as usual model that has served many of us well for so long. Democrat, Republican, some point in between, we’ve all had plenty of reasons to feel dismayed. Not the least of which is the somewhere in between thinkers that seem to have been silenced by the others. No matter where we are on the political spectrum, we’ve all seen ideas that we thought were solid discarded with nary a thought for consequences.

If Jesus stood up here preaching, he’d probably remind us that we’re focused on the wrong thing, that we’re investing too much in the wrong vehicle, hoping for salvation. He might use that language of fire, but he’d likely use it in a different way than worldly leaders do. Worldly leaders want us to be afraid of a world on fire that may plunge us into nuclear winter, afraid so that we’ll let worldly leaders do whatever they want to do, which is so often not good for the weak and the needy, for the widow and the orphan, to use the language of our Psalm.

Jesus, on the other hand, reminds us of the power of fire beyond destruction. We live in a time of raging wildfires, so it can be hard to remember the other uses of fire. There’s the fire that refiners use, to transform brittle metal into forged steel. There’s fire that cleanses or clears the underbrush, making way for what is to come next. Jesus reminds us that there is a power that can refine through fire, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, families, the status quo, and yes, humanity, in times like these and every other generation who has cried out.

Jesus reminds us that he’s not preaching something new. His message is eternal, just like the weather systems. And like the weather systems, we can read the signs, if we are brave enough. When I see a storm like Erin strengthen from a tropical storm on Friday to a category 5 hurricane on Saturday morning, I pay attention. Unfortunately, we’re not always paying attention to the messages that God has been sending.

Jesus is not the first to tell us that God wants something different for creation. Look back to our first reading, to Jeremiah, a prophet we think was active around 630 BC. Jeremiah too, tells us that the word of God is like fire, like a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces. The writer of Hebrews reminds us of a past heritage, a heritage of faithful believers who have shaped the intervening generations.

We might read verse 33 of Hebrews and despair. We may not see ourselves in this list of people: “who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”

It’s good to remember that the faithful generations of the past were not always successful. We may feel more affinity with the ones described in verses 36-38, who “suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned to death; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.”

Well, thankfully, most of us haven’t suffered quite that way, not literally. But when we think about the vision of the Kingdom of God that Jesus teaches, and we compare it to what we see around us, in times like these, we may feel that we’re wandering in deserts or hiding in holes in the ground. We may feel that the end is nigh, but not in a good way. Sometimes even when we know the devastation a cat 5 can cause, we cannot get out of its way.

Jesus reminds us that the end is always near. The master may return at any moment, and we are to be prepared. We tend to think of the end in apocalyptic terms: mushroom clouds or poisoned water or melting glaciers. But Jesus comes with a different vision: he promises the end of oppression, the end of inequality, the forging of justice. He holds out a promise of a world where everyone has enough and no one has to endure a boot on the neck.

For those of us with eyes to see, we can notice the beginnings of God's plan for the world, in times like these, even while worldly powers think they're in charge. We can say be prepared to say yes to God's invitation to be part of that new creation that God is still creating. The long list of Old Testament believers had not seen the fullness of God since Jesus had not come, and for the alert, in every age since, we have been living in times like these. We, too, have not yet seen the fullness of God, even though we have glimpsed it in Jesus.

As we listen to Jesus talk about fire, think about how that imagery changes if instead of the kind of fire that a nuclear bomb delivers, we think about the fire that comes on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fire that transforms a scared band of disciples into a group of apostles with fiery speech and a fierce energy. Listen to verse 49 again, thinking not of fire raining down from the sky, but the Holy Spirit igniting hearts and minds: “49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze!”

When I think about Jesus casting Holy Spirit fire upon the earth, my reaction changes: “Yes, come Lord Jesus! Yes, bring that fire, Jesus. We are so ready for that change.” I sense that you are with me in this yearning, ready to be refined. Let us pray the reformer’s prayer, that we are the ones called for such a time as this. Let us run the race that God calls us to run, until we, too, join the cloud of witnesses, part of the transformation of the world that is far from finished. Let us look expectantly to the day when a time like this is one where the kingdom has come on earth as it is in Heaven.

The Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven

Today is one of the many Marian feast days. Today we celebrate Mary's Assumption into Heaven. Here are the readings for today:

First Reading: Isaiah 61:7-11

Psalm: Psalm 45:11-16 (Psalm 34:1-9 NRSV)

Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7

Gospel: Luke 1:46-55

I will state the obvious from the beginning.  We don't really know very much about the historic life of Mary.  That's both a blessing and a problem.  Because we don't know much about her, our imaginations can fill in all the blanks.  That can be wonderful, but we can make Mary into the person we need her to be. We could spend a lot of time trying to decide if this is a problem or as a benefit.

Did Mary know that she was headed for a chosen status before the angel Gabriel showed up?  I picture her as a young girl, having interesting dreams, having flashes of insight as she was taught to do daily tasks and how those tasks might be transformed into something more transcendent (bread baking, for example).  And then she takes that insight and teaches Jesus.

I might have a different version of Mary next year.  And I have no way of knowing whether or not any of it is true.

Likewise with her assumption into heaven--could this have actually happened?  Unlike some theologians, it doesn't seem very important to me.  I'm much more interested in the ways that God shows up for each of us with offers of potential and promises kept.

Throughout history, Mary has been used to show how all of us are somehow less worthy.  But most of us don't have the benefit of the angel Gabriel showing up to paint a picture of God's idea of what we could be and what the world could be.

Mary's response is worth remembering, especially as she hearkens back to Abraham and Sarah in praising God, who has kept the promises made to the ancestors.

Here we are, on the Feast Day of the Assumption, hearkening back to the Feast of the Annunciation.  If I had a favorite Marian holiday, it would be this one, or maybe the Visitation, which celebrates both Mary and her older kinswoman, Elizabeth.  These days, I'm yearning for more models of healthy aging, and perversely, Elizabeth speaks to me more often than the other elders in the Bible.

I am grateful for these shreds of information and insight from our spiritual ancestors.  While I wish we had more, I'm happy that we have enough for my imagination to take the reigns.

Narrow Gates, Wide Paths, and the Holy Trinity

When I first started this sketch, I thought I was illustrating this verse from the Gospel of Matthew:   “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy[a] that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7: 13-14 NRSVUE).

I don't have a copy of the early days of the sketch, the black line drawing that looked more like paths winding their way across the page.

As I started to add color, I started to see three figures, and as I added more color, the one on the left, the one in yellows and reds, started to seem female.  My mind went, as it always does, to ideas about the Holy Trinity.  And so, I decided to explore that.  

In the end, the figure on the left in yellows and reds became the Holy Spirit, and the one on the right, in greens, became the Creator.  The middle figure ended up being an amalgamation of colors and shapes that I often use for the Virgin Mary, along with images I've used, and the culture has used, for Christ.  There are three crosses, done in fine-line black pen, in the bottom circle, along with a star, also done in pen, in the space between the two circles. The darker ovals in the top circle were supposed to represent the empty tomb.

I'm pleased with how it turned out--but I continue to be intrigued by how I thought I was drawing something totally different only to end up sketching Trinitarian images again.

Wedding Anniversary #37

On this day in 1988, I'd be getting ready to be married in the same church where my parents were married in 1962, the same church where my grandfather was pastor for many years before he died.  Here's one of my favorite pictures of that early morning:

Yes, that's my grandmother ironing my wedding dress so that I'd be suitable.  The dress was not wrinkled; I have no idea why my grandmother decided she needed to iron the dress.  She was the kind of woman who believed in ironing.  I am not.  But I can still appreciate the efforts that people make for me to make me more presentable.

I appreciate them more now, 32 years later.  Then, I'd have wanted to spare my grandmother the hassle of ironing a dress that was just going to be rumpled anyway. This morning, I'm amazed at the fact that anyone on this planet is willing to iron a wedding dress. My grandmother had ways of showing love that I didn't appreciate at the time.

We got married at 11 a.m.  We had friends and family members with a long drive home, so we wanted them to be able to get an early-ish start.  We had a short honeymoon in Asheville, N.C.  That first night, we went out to eat.  We shared a slice of cheesecake with blueberry topping, and we each got our own cup of coffee.  That felt like an extravagance, not sharing a cup of coffee.  Then we got back home in time for our grad school classes.

For the most part, we've been happy together. He was a Philosophy major, and I was an English major: temperamentally we're suited. We come at social justice issues from a similar direction. We're artistically suited.   I know how lucky we've been.

I look back on that day when we got married and shake my head. I was convinced I was so grown up; I had just turned 23. But really, what do any of us know when we enter into such a union? We think we know all that we need to know, but we will learn so much more.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, August 17, 2025:

First Reading: Jeremiah 23:23-29

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Isaiah 5:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 82

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18

Second Reading: Hebrews 11:29--12:2

Gospel: Luke 12:49-56


In churches that use the Common Lectionary, we only get an apocalyptic whiff every now and then. This week’s Gospel is one of those days. 

Jesus tells us that he's come to separate family members, to sow division. We certainly don't see Family Values Jesus here. In fact, if we read the Gospels from beginning to end, we see that Family Values Jesus just doesn't exist. Again and again, Jesus tells us that if we follow him on the path he shows us, we're likely to lose a lot that the world tells us we should hold dear--that might include some family members. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus also assures us, that if we lose our lives, the lives that society sets out for us, we might actually find those lives.

But all too often, we don't see the signs we need to see, the signs that would let us know what kind of lives we're living, what kind of lives would satisfy our souls. We're good at forecasting the immediate weather when we notice obvious patterns: the direction of the wind and the appearance of clouds. But we're not good at noticing the bigger picture, like noticing God, when God becomes incarnate. We don't pay attention to doing what we know is right and good. Again and again, Jesus tells us that we need to pay attention.

It's interesting that these Gospel lessons come to us in the month of August, a time when the historian's mind might turn to apocalypse. We've just passed the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Barbara Tuchman wrote a book, The Guns of August, that explores the events in August of 1914 that led to World War I. Many regional conflicts burst into conflagration in August.

Jesus reminds us that the end is always near. We tend to think of the end in apocalyptic terms: mushroom clouds or poisoned water or melting glaciers. But Jesus comes with a different vision: he promises the end of oppression, the end of inequality. He holds out a dream of a world where everyone has enough and no one has to endure a boot on the neck.

For those of us with eyes to see, we can notice the beginnings of God's plan for the world, even while worldly powers think they're in charge.  Better yet, we can say yes to God's invitation to be part of that new creation that God is still creating.

Online Worship and Being Present

My mom is recovering from a bout of pneumonia that landed her in the hospital; she's still not strong enough to go to church.  Happily, the local Lutheran church streams their service, so yesterday at 9:45, Mom, Dad, and I gathered around the computer.  The church provides a bulletin, and the bulletin has all the music, so we were able to sing and participate that way.

As with most online worship that I've experienced, it still didn't offer much in the way of interactive activities.  But then again, much onground worship can be the same.  I heard more voices singing around me in the study yesterday than I often do when I'm singing in a congregation--we're just too spread out.

Later in the day, we had a knock at the door--someone from church delivering the altar flowers to Mom.  They are beautiful:

 

Even later in the day, I rearranged the remaining bouquets from last week:  fading roses and the other flowers that anchor bouquets and last forever.  

To be fair, the roses have outlasted their usual time.

We have had non-floral forms of good wishes, like lots and lots of get well cards.  There have been get well wishes in the form of baked goods:  a blueberry pie, a square of gingerbread, and some sort of oatmeal bar frosted with peanut butter.  

My favorite is what my uncle, my mom's brother, has been doing.  Every morning, he sends her a text with a link to a hymn or a song, and often a cheerful/cheering up message.  One morning it was "Zippity Do Da," with a text that wished her plenty of sunshine heading her way.  One morning, it was "Beautiful Savior."  Both my mom and my uncle have been involved with church music their whole lives, so it's interesting to see the daily choices, interesting to think about this music that has formed them.

This week has been full of good reminders that there are many ways to be present to those who need us.  The important task is to be present.

Sermon for August 10, 2025

I won't be in Bristol (Tennessee) this morning, where I'm usually preaching and presiding at Faith Lutheran. I'm in Williamsburg, helping my mom and dad recover from her hospital stay.

But someone will be delivering/reading this sermon:


August 10, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 12:32-40



Last week’s Gospel told us to be “rich toward God” (Luke 12: 21). At the midpoint of Jesus’ ministry, this week’s Gospel gives us a road map of reminders of how to be rich toward God.

“Be not afraid”—Jesus tells us this in the very first sentence of our Gospel for today. , It’s an echo of familiar Advent and Christmas readings. “Be not afraid”—it’s often the first thing that angels say when they appear to humans. It’s the message at the beginning of today’s Gospel, and it’s the message that begins the book of Luke, with an angel telling Zechariah, the eventual father of John the Baptist, not to be afraid. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary, the eventual mother of Jesus, and tells her not to be afraid.

And that’s just in the first chapter. In the second chapter, an angel tells the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night not to be afraid, and they go off to Bethlehem to see the Messiah. In the 5th chapter, after a phenomenal catch of fish, Jesus tells Peter not to be afraid for he will now be fishing for people.

And these are just the places where we have those words explicitly. An essential part of the message that Jesus delivers throughout his ministry, across his life and death and resurrection, could be summed up this way: “Be not afraid.”

And yes, easier said than done, this teaching to put aside our fear. So many elements of life have the ability to make us afraid, both as individuals and as a larger society. It is so very hard to follow this teaching: be not afraid. It was hard then, with Jesus right in their physical midst. It’s hard now.

Jesus goes on to give us a countercultural way to deal with fear. Our culture would tell us to build bigger barns so that we can save up for an uncertain future. But in today’s reading, Jesus tells us to give away all our worldly possessions. Just the thought of doing that might make us tremble.

Notice that we don’t sell our possessions just for the sake of lightening our load or leaving less of a burden for the loved ones who will have to dispose of them after our death. No, we are to sell what we own so that we can give to the poor, and this message, too, should be familiar, as Jesus returns to this teaching again and again.

The Lutheran Study Bible notes that rabbis interpret this concept of giving to the poor this way: "anyone who gives to the poor, lends to God.” And we know that God’s repayment schedule is amazingly generous. Perhaps this idea will make it easier to part with our worldly goods or at least to be aware that our worldly goods cannot save us.

Jesus warns us over and over again not to trust in earthly treasure. He's clear: earthly treasure will always, ALWAYS, fail us. That's not the message the world wants us to hear. The world wants us to rush and hurry, to buy more stuff, to build more barns for our stuff, to accumulate and hoard and lie awake at night worrying that we won't have enough. The world wants us to pay attention to our bank accounts. Jesus tells us to be on the lookout for God.

Jesus wants us to be aware of what is pulling our attention away from God, and it’s worth developing a daily or hourly awareness of where our minds and hearts are. When we consider our day’s activities, what is life giving and what is soul crushing? It’s a good practice to do as we review the day. It’s a good practice to begin the day by thinking about these questions as we think about upcoming day: What points us towards God? What pulls us away?

In the last part of today’s reading, Jesus sounds the theme that we hear in Advent texts, a theme that’s so important we return to it across the Gospels: be alert. Keep your lamps lit. It’s not enough to do the daily inventory of what is giving us life and what is sapping our spiritual strength. We need to do the activities, build the habits, cultivate the patterns that will knit our lives closer to God.

And then, at the end of the text, some role reversals, the kind that Jesus spends his whole life making. We’ve got a mini-parable about servants staying alert for the master who has been away at a wedding banquet—the master will return to serve them for a change. Then, as now, the ones in charge rarely serve the people who are below them. But Jesus tells us that the ones who are greatest are the ones who serve. This message, too, is one we hear repeated throughout the teachings of Jesus.

We end with an even shorter parable, about the homeowner who would have behaved differently had he known when the thieves would show up. Are we the homeowners? Is Jesus the thief in the night? Yes.

Here is another of Jesus’ frequent messages, the one about why we need to be alert. Jesus tries to tell us in every way that he knows how that God has a way of passing by unnoticed, especially if we’re not paying attention. We spend our lives working to fill purses that can wear out or be stolen or be destroyed in other ways. If we work this way our whole lives, we’ll get to a point where we realize we’ve focused on the wrong treasure. And by then, it may be too late—not because we’re going to hell, but because we’ve already missed out on so much here on earth.

Jesus comes to bring us salvation in many forms and one of ways is the idea of an abundant life. Not just the abundant life we hope to have in Heaven, but the one that we can cultivate right here, right now.

Jesus comes to announce that we’re already living abundant lives, if we would stop and notice. God has already given us the kingdom. Look at the verb tenses in verse 32: “has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.” It’s already happened—God has been pleased to do it—past tense. But it’s also ongoing: to give. It’s the infinitive form of the verb, and in this case, it does mean that the action will be happening ongoing, happening throughout infinity.

If we believe that we already have everything we need, two things might happen. It might be easier to give more away. And it might be easier to feel less afraid—which again, will loosen our grip on our possessions and all the other elements of life that distract us from the life that God wants us to have.

We don’t even need to believe that God has given us everything we need—we can just act like we believe it, which means we’ll stay alert and we’ll give away more and we’ll look for other ways to serve. We can behave our way into belief, instead of waiting to have the right belief mindset before we take action.

And in this way, we’ll discover that we have had an abundant life, a Kingdom life, all along.

Prayer Routines and Rhythms

I have spent the summer experimenting with prayer.  I haven't experimented with forms of prayer, the way I might have in the past.  I haven't done any new types of praying.

But I have prayed more throughout the day.  Since I've spent the summer doing chaplaincy training, this development may not come as a surprise.

Of course, you might say, "Wait, didn't you just finish a divinity degree?  Weren't you a person of prayer before?  And aren't you a Synod Approved Minister?  Doesn't that mean that you pray more than a non-minister person?"

I do understand all the reasons why we should pray.  Many of us do.  And yet remembering to pray throughout the day can be hard.  I've always envied monks their the community who reinforces the expectation of prayers throughout the day.

We began our chaplain day with prayer.  We met at 8, went over who would be where each day, and then we prayed.  We offered up our own prayer requests, and we prayed the prayers left in the prayer box in the chapel.

I tried to stay in the prayer habit as I moved through the day.  When I went on self-care walks on the grounds, I tried to remember to pray for everyone in the hospital.  I spent much of the workday going back and forth to the ward that was assigned to me.  I tried to remember to pray on my way up to the ward. 

It probably will come as no surprise that when I remembered to pray, my time on the ward felt better.  That was in part because of me:  prayer calmed my anxiety about feeling like I was intruding.  Prayer helped me remember who I am and why I was there.  

I am sure that prayer also helped in other ways that I can't quantify.  I hope to carry this illumination with me throughout the months and years to come.  I hope to remember to pray as I move through each and every day.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The Readings for Sunday, August 10, 2025:

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23 (23)
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

I've heard many a person talk about this text, and others like it. Almost all of them rush to assure us listeners that Jesus doesn't really mean that we should sell all of our possessions and trust fully in God to provide for us. Yet as I read the Gospels, I see that Jesus gives us these instructions again and again.

Why are we so quick to dismiss these instructions? What if Jesus really meant what he said? What if it's not some kind of code, but something we're meant to take literally?

Again and again Jesus warns us not to trust in earthly treasure. He's clear: earthly treasure will always, ALWAYS, fail us. That's not the message the world wants us to hear. The world wants us to rush and hurry, to buy more stuff, to build more barns for our stuff, to accumulate and hoard and lie awake at night worrying that we won't have enough. The world wants us to pay attention to our bank accounts. Jesus wants us to be on the lookout for God.

One of the often repeated messages in the teaching of Jesus is that God will provide for us everything we need. Why is it so hard for us to believe?

Jesus is very clear that money and the pursuit of money can seduce us away from God's mission for us. Once, when I was stuck in an airport in Kentucky, I saw a book in the bookstore with this title: God Wants You to Be Rich. Really? In what Gospel would that be? I scanned the book, hoping that the author would cleverly remind us that God wants us to be rich in love, not rich in money and stuff. Alas, no. The author assured the reader that God's deepest desire for us is for us to accumulate money.

I don't know what Bible that writer was using.  So much of the New Testament can be summed up thus: Stay awake and alert, focused on what's important; what's important is to love each other, the way God loves us; don't get too attached to things that don't matter--they keep you from loving your fellow sheep.

Again and again, Jesus tells us that we can't serve two masters. We must choose. Take a hard look at your life and the way you spend your time. What have you chosen? Do you spend more time in prayer or more time sorting through your financial investments? Do you read your Bible more than you read the business reports that swirl around us? Do you look for ways to welcome the poor and the outcast? The Bible tells us that we'll find God there.

Where is your heart these days? What do you spend your waking hours thinking about, your sleeping hours dreaming about? How is God trying to get your attention?

A Children's Sermon on Wealth and Bigger Barns

For these Gospel texts on wealth, I've had some trouble figuring out a good approach for a children's sermon, which is actually a youth sermon.  I'm the Synod Appointed Minister at a small, country church.  I don't have a solid sense of how parents are training their children around issues of finance.  I don't know if they get an allowance or have some sort of small jobs for extra money.  I don't know if they're allowed to spend their money however they please.

I came up with an idea in the hour before church started.  I had wanted to do some sort of blessing for people who work in the school system, and I thought about having the youth bless those folks.  But that's only 2 people, and what if they didn't come to church?

For the youth sermon, the youth come to the first pew.  I told them the parable of the rich man who decided to tear down barns to build bigger ones to hold all of his bounty.  And then I said that Jesus says that's not the kind of wealth we should count on.  And I said I had a demonstration of a different kind of wealth.

I asked the people who work in the school system to stand up.  The two people did.  Then I asked the people who have a biological connection to the youth on the front pew to stand up. 

About half the congregation was standing by this point, and the youth were facing me in the front.  I asked the people in the congregation who had pledged to support these youth with love and prayers to stand up.  I said, "And that should be most of you, because that's what we pledged to do last week when we blessed the backpacks."

Everyone in the congregation but the two visitors were standing at this point, and I had the youth stand and look back at the people standing:  all these people who love these youth!  I pointed that out, and then I said, "And here is true wealth, the kind of wealth that matters, the kind you can count on."  It was a stunning visual reminder, and I hope that the youth remember it, in the days that will come when they don't feel as loved; most of our youth are in middle and high school, and I remember the unloved feeling that can come with those grades.

I was pleased with how the youth sermon unfolded and pleased that it was a slightly different approach than the adult sermon.  It doesn't always work out that way, and I'm always happy when it does.

And here's a bonus:  one of the parents of the youth wrote to me to tell me how much she loved the youth sermon.  Hurrah!

Recording of Sermon from August 3, 2025

If you're catching up on your watching of sermons from Sunday, August 3, the recording of my sermon can be found here.

If you'd like to read along, the manuscript of my sermon can be found here.

This sentence from the sermon is my favorite, and it summarizes the sermon neatly:   Jesus calls us to make the choices that will make us rich in God, not in grain.

Sermon for Sunday, August 3

August 3, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 12: 13-21


At first, the Gospel for today seems fairly straightforward. In fact, we might hear it and relax—after all, we’re not people who would tear down old barns to build newer, bigger barns right?

The Gospel begins in the middle of a story which happens in a crowd of thousands—if we read from the beginning of the chapter, Jesus has been preaching and teaching, mostly about hypocrisy and about how they can defend themselves when brought before authorities. And then, out of nowhere, this guy stands up and asks Jesus to tell his relative what to do—in essence, trying to put Jesus on the side of those authorities.

It’s Jesus’ response that might surprise us—I am not sent to judge. I have met many a Christian who think that it’s precisely for that very reason that Jesus was sent to us, to be the judge and the jury, and then to be the one who gets us out of our bad behavior.
It’s worth some time to think about why Jesus says he doesn’t judge. Have we been wrong about why Jesus is here? If not to judge, then why?

If we read the Bible in one light, we might say that Jesus is here to teach us—and yet, it’s not always a straight forward teaching, is it? We’ve talked about parables before, about how strange they can be. This one seems straight forward, with a message that’s not so different from other parables and teachings about wealth. But if we dig deeper, we find that the message is a bit more nuanced.

Let’s look at the parable again. It’s not really about our excess belongings. If it was, I could just finish by playing the George Carlin routine about stuff and the need to put it somewhere. It would be funny, and we could marvel at the fact that it’s still as relevant today as it was in the 1980’s, when it was part of his stand up routine. And a side note: if you do watch the Carlin routine, it does have some R-rated language—it’s George Carlin after all.

The rich man’s error wasn’t that he accumulated stuff. It’s that he put his faith in his possessions. Instead of relying on God, he relied on himself.

Look at his speech. Look at those pronouns: I, I, I, me, me, me, my, my my. Think about all that the rich man left out of his speech of rejoicing.

There’s no acknowledgment of the laborers that have surely played a part in this bountiful harvest. Most of us have had a garden. Maybe I’m just a bad gardener, but I’ve never grown enough with my solitary efforts to need one barn—certainly I’ve never had to build additional barns or tear down the old barns to build bigger ones. Surely the rich man had a team doing the planting, the weeding, the watching of the ripening crops, killing the pests that attack the crops, the harvesting—but you wouldn’t know it to hear him talk.

You’d think that this rich man was the one who was the soil and the seed. There’s no thanksgiving for the land, for the good weather, for the ways that the planting season has gone well in ways that humans had nothing to do with. There’s no mention of God, who has blessed him.

The rich man isn’t saving his bounty for a day when the crops fail. It’s not like the story of Joseph and the Egyptian Pharoah near the end of the book of Genesis. Joseph advises the Pharoah to save the bounty of the land for a time of famine which will surely come. But our rich man in Luke wants to build bigger barns not for a time of famine but so that he has a place to store the bounty until he has a chance to consume it all—all by himself. He has more than enough to share—but he doesn’t.

The rich man has no consciousness of any life beyond his own. The rich man isn’t sharing with laborers, and he’s not sharing with others who are less fortunate. It’s all about him.

Therein lies the problem. His wealth is what separates him from everything and everyone else: the ones who work for him, the land that performs for him, God who blesses him, the larger community. The rich man thinks he can do it all and can continue doing it all.

The parable asks several questions, questions which are worthwhile even if we’re not so wealthy that we need to figure out how to build bigger barns. What do we want and why? We’re only here on this earth for a short time--what is it all for? I predict that most of us would not say, “I’m put on earth to store surplus in ever bigger barns.” That’s what we would say. What would our actions say? Our lives speak volumes—what do they say is most important?

The Gospel of Luke is full of these kinds of parables, full of rich men who are stupid with money. Parable after parable, teaching after teaching, asks us to consider what we’re doing with our wealth. In the Gospel of Luke, it’s O.K. to be rich, but you better also be generous.

And that’s not all. This parable asks us to consider our relationship with God. In this parable, the rich man’s wealth has separated him from everyone else, including God. Look at the last verse: “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” This parable asks us to consider what it means to be rich toward God.

It's not a simple share your wealth kind of parable, although that’s a valid take away. But it’s more than that. It’s also a parable that asks us to do some serious discernment about the kind of wealth that’s valuable. Are we spending time building up barns to store our wealth or are we generating a different kind of wealth—a wealth that won’t require barns?

This parable harkens back to the Mary and Martha story of a few weeks ago. Jesus asks Martha to discern—what distracts her and what is truly important. The wealth of the rich man distracts him from what is truly important.

It’s a shame that the Gospel ends where it does. This parable is even richer if we add the next several verses of Luke 12: “22 He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life?”

Hear again the message of Jesus. Like Martha, like the rich man, we are distracted by so many things. We scurry around building bigger barns, and we run the risk that our time will run out. We store up treasures that aren’t making us rich toward God. We pay attention to so much that isn’t really important in the long run, or even in the short run.

It’s not a question that is settled once and for all. It’s the result of a thousand daily choices. The rich man’s foolishness builds up day after day, month after month, year after year—he pays attention to what’s NOT important, and then his time is over.

Let’s return to the encounter that triggers this parable, the stranger’s demand that Jesus order his brother to share the inheritance. Now Jesus’ response makes more sense. The stranger has become obsessed with the kind of wealth that doesn’t matter. Like Martha before him, he’s gotten snared in worries that do not serve him in the long run.

Jesus doesn’t come to judge us to but to ask us to do some serious discernment. Are we, too, snared in worries that do not serve us? Are we so obsessed with legalistic details that we are missing the bigger picture?

Again and again, Jesus promises us that our lives will be richer if we pay attention to what’s important. Again and again, Jesus reminds us that worldly wealth is not important. Jesus calls us to make the choices that will make us rich in God, not in grain. And should we get off course, Jesus is here not to judge, but to call us back to our best selves, to offer us a life centered not in consumer goods, but in God. And that life, will be rich indeed.

The Hinge Festival of Lammas

Early August is a hinge point in the calendar. In some ways, it's not as obvious a hinge as the autumnal equinox or the summer solstice; in fact, it's the time directly between those two hinges--we're as far away from the start of summer as we are from the start of autumn. But in some ways, it's just as significant a point of seasonal shift.

If we lived in medieval England, we would be celebrating the festival of Lammas, a festival that celebrates first harvests with loaves of bread standing in for that first harvest.  There might be processions to bakeries, to bless them and to bless the bakers.  

It would be a festival that celebrates abundance, the abundance that comes later in a cooler climate.  Of course, we here in Appalachia are celebrating that abundance too, with piles of zucchini showing up at every gathering for people to take.

We may have slogged through summer long enough that we may feel that nothing will ever change--it will be hot and humid forever. The light hasn't changed significantly, the way it will in a month or two. But we are losing more daylight each day as we hurtle towards a different season. Students aren't in school yet, but the time draws closer. Most of us aren't agricultural people anymore, but if we were, we'd be seeing crops in their final ripening. Harvest would be coming soon.


Now is a good time to take an accounting. Have we been planning some summer festivities that we haven't gotten to do yet? Now is the time. Do we need to adjust our trajectories for the rest of the year? Let us make some plans.