Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 22, 2026:

First Reading: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Psalm: Psalm 130

Second Reading: Romans 8:6-11

Gospel: John 11:1-45


What a strange picture of Jesus in this Gospel. Remember the Jesus of several miracles ago? The one who instructed people to go and tell no one?

Here we see a Jesus who seems overly aware of the impact of his actions. It's as if we're seeing a man who is aware of his legacy and how he'll be seen--a man who is trying to control the story. And of course, we see foreshadowing in this story, foreshadowing of the death and resurrection of Christ, which we'll be celebrating in two weeks.

Notice that Jesus waits until Lazarus is good and dead before he appears to comfort the sisters and perform a miracle. It's as if he wants no dispute about the miracle. Unlike the past few miracles when Jesus raised people who had only been dead for a few hours, here he waits 4 days. There's no doubt about what he's done once he's raised Lazarus from the dead. We can't easily imagine that Lazarus has been faking his death for 4 days. Even if Lazarus wanted to help Jesus fake a miracle and put on a good show, it's hard to imagine that he'd willingly submit to being sealed in a tomb for 4 days.

As we watch the world around us gear up for Easter, we'll see a certain number of Jesus detractors. We'll see people who want to explain away the resurrection. The liturgical calendar gives us this story of Lazarus to return us to one of the main themes of our religion--we believe in (and are called to practice) resurrection.

And why is the idea of resurrection so hard in our fallen world? Do we not know enough people who have turned their lives around? Think of all the people who have risen again out of the ashes of drug addiction, mental illness, disease, or domestic turmoil. Why are we so hesitant to believe in miracles?

Although writing about a different miracle, Wendell Berry has said expressed my idea more eloquently than I can today. In his essay, "Christianity and the Survival of Creation," he says, "Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine--which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes" (this wonderful essay appears in his wonderful book Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community).

The world has far too many cynics. Christians are called to be different. Choose your favorite metaphor: we're to be leaven in the loaf, the light of the world, the city on a hill, the salt (or other seasoning) that provides flavor, the seed that pushes against the dirt. 

Each day, practice hope. Each day, practice resurrection.

The Feast Day of Saint Patrick

Here we are at the Feast Day of Saint Patrick, perhaps even more popular with non-Christians than the Feast Day of St. Valentine.  I think of people eating corned beef and cabbage, or perhaps some sort of potato dish, served with soda bread and green beer to wash it all down.  Do those people think about Saint Patrick's years of slavery in Ireland before he became a missionary to Ireland before he became a patron saint of Ireland?

It's strange to think of Saint Patrick in these years when we've been censoring books that mention slavery, when we've been banning curriculum that talks about the more recent history of slavery, when we've been altering information at museums and national parks.  Hmmm.

We like slaves who are safe in centuries we can scarcely remember.  Patrick was born to a high ranking Roman family in England, but when he was approximately 16, he was kidnapped and spent 6 or 7 years as a slave in Ireland. While there, he learned the language and the non-Christian customs of the land.

This knowledge would come in handy when he was sent back to Ireland in the 5th century to solidify the Christianity of the country. There are many stories about Patrick's vanquishing force, complete with Druid spells and Christian counterspells. I suspect the real story was perhaps more tame.

Later scholars have suggested that Patrick and his compatriots were sent to minister to the Christians who were already there, not to conquer the natives. Other scholars have speculated that one of the reasons that Christianity was so successful in Ireland was because Patrick took the parts of pagan religions that appealed most to its followers and showed how those elements were also present in Christianity--or perhaps incorporated them into Christianity as practiced in Ireland.

These days, I am thinking about all the decisions made in the earliest centuries of Christianity, about roads not taken, about the ways we could have had a more vibrant religion.

This morning, on the Feast Day of Saint Patrick, I'm realizing that we do have it.  

I'm thinking of Celtic Christianity and all the ways it can enrich our daily lives.  I realize we could argue about whether or not Celtic Christianity really existed in the way we might think about it now, this many centuries later.

Even if modern versions of Celtic Christianity aren't historically accurate, these ideas have much to offer us in the twenty-first century.  I like the idea of living in community.  I like the idea of taking care of creation.  I like the way that spirituality can infuse every element of our lives, if we're being aware and intentional.  In an article from the Northumbria community, Trevor Miller says, "Esther De Waal puts it well; ‘The Celtic approach to God opens up a world in which nothing is too common to be exalted and nothing is so exalted that it cannot be made common.’ They believed that the presence of God infused daily life and thus transforms it, so that at any moment, any object, any job of work, can become a place for encounter with God. In everyday happenings and ordinary ways, so that we have prayers for getting up, lighting the fire, getting dressed, milking the cow etc."

The entire article is well worth your time, especially if you're looking for ways to revitalize your own spiritual life.  What a great way to celebrate Saint Patrick--much more nourishing than corned beef and green beer! 

Sermon for Sunday, March 15, 2026

March 15, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




John 9:1-41



On Friday, after two days of wrestling with this Gospel text, after thinking about issues of sight and blindness, I went to the optometrist and the dermatologist. Oddly, I got more insight about sight from the dermatologist than the eye doctor. In some ways, these two things—Gospel text and doctor visits—are not connected. The eye exam happens annually, and I had the dermatologist appointment way back in December, after my biopsy came back as a melanoma, long before I was thinking about this Gospel text.


At Friday’s dermatology visit, we talked about my last visit, about how we both first thought my melanoma was something else. It looked like a pinkish bug bite, not the classic dark-mole-gone-wrong kind of melanoma. But because it turned out to be a melanoma, on Friday we evaluated my skin much more thoroughly than we ever did before. My dermatologist decided to biopsy three more spots, which she likely wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t had the last biopsy come back as a melanoma.


In today’s Gospel, too, we see people taking a second look. In some cases, the second look has life-saving implications. Sadly, though, that’s not always the case.


The disciples see a blind man and ask who sinned. This belief would be common in ancient times where disease was thought to be an outward sign of inward unworthiness. In many ways, we still see vestiges of this belief today. I thought of it recently, when an old grad school friend announced he had esophageal cancer, and another grad school friend and I tried to remember when he had stopped smoking. It seems a modern method of doing what those disciples did: trying to establish who is to blame for misfortune and often, sadly assuming that it is the victim’s fault. And there’s also more than a bit of trying to reassure ourselves that we can avoid misfortune by virtuous living.


Jesus gives an answer that we would now expect, that nobody is to blame. And then, Jesus goes further, saying that he can use this misfortune to glorify God. Jesus in the Gospel of John is always on the lookout for ways to show people who he is. In the Gospel of John, Jesus knows that he’s the Messiah from the get go, and he’s always trying to let others know too. It might be with long discussions with people like Nicodemus and the woman at the well. This Sunday, Jesus shows that he is the Messiah by making a blind man able to see and later telling the blind man that he is in the presence of the son of man who is the light.


This healing bothers me, though, and it’s not about the spit. If Jesus walked into this sanctuary right now and offered to heal the arthritis in my feet with his holy spit and some dirt, I’d have my shoes off lickety-split. But it’s the fact that Jesus doesn’t ask the man if he wants to be healed, the way he does with so many others. I know that it’s my 21st century sensibility that makes me wish that Jesus had looked for a way to show that the blind man had different abilities, like enhanced hearing. I wish that Jesus asked permission before he rubbed the mud on the man—or at the very least told him what he was about to do, the way the best doctors tell us what’s going to happen before they do the procedure, like my dermatologist did on Friday: “now I’m going to take a picture of your spot . . .”


The next part of text is even more disturbing, and a good teaching moment about rebirth and healing: we see the reaction of all the neighbors, some of whom don’t recognize the blind man who can now see and some who doubt it’s the same man. By now it’s clear that we’re working with blindness on many levels. Had the neighbors really never seen the blind man at all? How could they not recognize him after spending time assisting him? Perhaps they are like my dermatologist, who sees me in a new way, now that I’ve had a melanoma. But it’s probably something more troubling.


It’s tempting to say something like they never saw him but just saw his disability, but that’s probably more of a 21st century approach. What’s probably more accurate about their disbelief is what the blind man says later—this kind of healing has never been done. They’re so busy looking for explanations that they fail to see the miraculous. They might see but cannot accept the miraculous. Or it may just take them awhile to process what they’ve witnessed.


The religious leaders are not much help. As is usual when they are depicted in the Gospel of John, they get bogged down in the legalistic angles of the questions: if Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he couldn’t really be doing miracles from God, could he? The reaction of the blind man’s parents shows how much power the religious leaders have—the blind man’s parents can’t rejoice for fear of being displaced from their community. Their answer also shows a way of dealing with this kind of power, a sort of understated defiance when they say, “Go ask our son the grown man. Ask the blind man who he saw heal him.” They’re not rejecting their son so much as they’re rejecting the relevance of the question.


This poor blind man! Back and forth he goes: summoned in for interrogation, released, re-examined on the same questions, until he’s finally exasperated and says in verse 25, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."


Keep in mind, he can’t even describe the man who healed him. He’s only heard his voice and followed his instructions to wash afterward, after Jesus has gone. He doesn’t see Jesus with his eyes until the end of the Gospel. As with so many encounters with Jesus, in a way that’s similar to the stories of Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well, the blind man doesn’t understand what he’s been shown, at least not at first. And to be fair, most of us are the same way—it takes time to adjust to a new situation, to new information, to a diagnosis that comes back that is different than what we expected or hoped for, to a flood of light that breaks through the gloom.


The blind man has heard the voice of Jesus before he could see him, has felt the fingers of Jesus smearing mud on his eyes, but he doesn’t actually see Jesus with his newly opened eyes until after the relentless questioners have made their judgment and moved along.


The blind man has several encounters with Jesus: in the first one, he only hears the voice of Jesus. In the second one, after he’s been interrogated by the religious leaders, he comes to understand who Jesus is as he sees him later, face to face.


We don’t read the next chapter of John in this morning’s Gospel, but if we did, we’d have an even richer understanding of both this text and chapter 10, the one that follows this text. In chapter 10, Jesus talks at great length about sheep and shepherds and the ones who hear his voice and respond. If we read them together, it’s clear that the blind man heard the Lord’s voice and responded, whereas so many others do not.


The blind man isn’t the only one in today’s Gospel who has heard the voice of Jesus, the good shepherd. Jesus heals the blind man in a way that shows the power of God’s love to all the members of the blind man’s community and family. We might be left wondering what will happen to the blind man and the larger community. But if we read further, we find out that with each miracle, Jesus’ circle of followers grows. With each miracle, the landscape changes, for Jesus and for all who see and hear him. With each miracle, we see people expand their ideas of what might be possible in this world.


As I watched the dermatologist study my skin, I thought about how the landscape of my body has also changed. Once we looked and saw sun damage or bug bites. Now my dermatologist lingers on every spot, just to make sure that she sees, not turning a blind eye, not overlooking potentially deadly cancers.


Jesus, too, encourages us to see our landscapes differently. As with skin, there are many spots that might turn out to be nothing, like community members who don’t really know us or care to look closely. But they might turn out to be malevolent, like the Pharisees in this story who still don’t understand how blind they are at the end of today’s Gospel.


Again and again Jesus reminds us of how God knows us down to our tiniest details. Again and again, Jesus encourages us to hear God’s voice and recognize our creator. Jesus continues to invite us to experience transformation and healing, transformation that might seem impossible when we first consider it. Jesus know that if we say yes to his invitation that we might also attract the attention of the badgering, oppressive forces of society. But Jesus also promises that he will be beside us as we testify to the power of God, that once we were blind, but now we see.

Wednesday Night Soup and Worship

We are a bit past the midway point of Lent.  I find myself thinking of my Wednesday experience from this past week when I was visiting my mom and dad in Williamsburg.

We started the evening with a soup supper at my parents' church, one of my church homes away from home.  We had a choice of three soups (corn chowder, vegetable with beef, and chili) and cornbread and sourdough bread.  I love these kinds of soup suppers, and I was glad to be able to be part.

We were there for soup supper because the church does a Lenten Wednesday evening program.  It was meditative and quiet.  We ended with the option to light a small candle from the Paschal candle and put it in the cross-shaped sandbox on a table in front of the Paschal candle.  I wanted to record it, because I liked how it looked.  Is it worth the extra effort to make a sandbox in a specific shape, instead of a big bowl of sand?  Perhaps.  It was lined with 2 layers of heavy plastic, not to protect the wood frame from the flame, but to keep the sand contained.

I didn't take any pictures because I didn't bring my phone to the church.  There wouldn't have been a good way to take pictures, and I wouldn't have wanted to destroy the meditative mood by taking pictures.

On the way home, we stopped at a soft serve ice cream place, the kind that has a small building with a walk-up window and some picnic tables in the parking lot.  It was wonderful to eat ice cream after church and enjoy the freakishly warm weather.

What Time Is It? What Season Is It?

 I'm one of those people who wish that we wouldn't turn clocks forward or back, even though I know that if we did that, we'd lose something in terms of darkness and light.  If we had fewer sunsets that came later or fewer sunrises that came earlier, but I don't think I would care.  For me, it doesn't matter if we spring forward or fall back, it takes me weeks to get back to a regular sleep schedule, as regular as my sleep schedule is.

This week, in addition to a time change, we've had a drastic change in the weather--it's been downright hot.  So my sweaty self thinks it's summer, while my light sensitive eyes read spring in the shift in light, while my body is still back in winter in its desire to go to bed early.

I had thought of this time away as having writing residency possibilities, at least in the morning, since I get up hours before my parents.  But instead, I'm tired.  I pulled up some poem rough drafts that I thought I could finish transforming into final drafts, but no, not this morning.  I need to write Sunday's sermon, and if I was really efficient, I'd also write the one for the following Sunday, when we'll be away at a family wedding.

I want to write something more profound as a blog post.  But it won't be this morning.

Happily, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat has written something more profound.  In this blog post, she writes eloquently about why she won't be using AI when she crafts sermons and other religious writing--or any writing:  "My divrei Torah and sermons are love letters, of a kind: they’re love letters to Torah, to God, to my tradition, to the communities I serve. They’re not just communicating information, they’re conveying heart. This may make me old-fashioned. (The fact that I’m still writing longform blog posts on my own blog may also be a sign that I”m old-fashioned!) But it is still my goal to communicate with others without AI mediation. It matters to me that what I share (here and on the bima) are always the words of my own mouth and the meditations of my own heart."

Today my mouth and heart are tired.  Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, March 15, 2026:

First Reading: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm: Psalm 23

Second Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14

Gospel: John 9:1-41

Occasionally, a student will ask me how I know that a symbol is really a symbol, and not just me overreacting to something in the text. I always reply that we know we're looking at a symbol when the author comes back to it again and again. Then an image is meant to take on more weight.

Today's Gospel would be a good illustration of this point. Again and again, we see blind people in this text, from the physically blind to the metaphorically blind. Again and again, the text returns to blindness. Clearly, we're meant to explore issues of our own blindness. It's not bad to do a spiritual inventory periodically. Where do we see evidence of God in our lives? Where are we blind to God's presence?

As I read the text for this week, I found myself getting to this point from a different angle. Look at how Jesus cures this blind man. He mixes dirt and spit (dirt and spit!) onto the man's eyes and instructs him to bathe. I'm not the first to be struck by the earthiness of this cure: the use of different elements (dirt, saliva, and water), the rootedness of the cure in the physical (Jesus doesn't cast a spell, for example, or call on angels), and the simplicity of it all.

It might make us think back to the Genesis story, of God forming the first humans out of dirt (Adam) and an extra rib (Eve). It might make us think of all the ways that God uses basic, earthbound elements in both creation and salvation.

Think of our sacraments, for example. There's baptism, the word bound with water. And the water doesn't come to us from some special source--it's not magic water that we can only get from a special spring. The power comes from the word--and perhaps more importantly, from the words that the congregation offers. When we baptize someone, the whole congregation takes a vow to support that person--when you wonder why baptism is such a public event, and why some people are adamant that it not be separated from the service and the congregation, that's why. It's not a photo op. It's a sacrament.

Think about Holy Communion. I've been to many Holy Communions now. Some churches use wafers specially ordered from religious communities, but you don't have to do that. I've had Communion with pita bread, with challah, and once, with a pizza crust. I've had good wine, bad wine, and grape juice. Again, what's important is the symbol of the elements, mixed with the words. It's not just about memory--it's how God becomes present to us, through a mystery that we don't fully understand.

As we work our way through the Scriptures, think about how often God takes simple things and turns them into routes that can lead to salvation. The most stunning example, of course, is the story of the Incarnation. During weeks where I'm impatient with my own failing flesh, I'm even more astounded than usual that the Divine would take on this project.

And we, of course, can work similar magic. Open up your dinner table, and observe grace in action.  Or  make a phone call or check in by way of social media. Forgive freely, and watch redemption work. Pray for those who would do you wrong, and notice what happens. Get your fingers in the dirt and watch the flowers bloom later. Take some simple elements and envision them as sacramental, a symbolic route to God.

Recording of Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2026

Yesterday was a good day at church, which was a relief, because my energy level was lower than usual, what with the time change and all the traveling I have been doing.  I've put a recording of my sermon here on my YouTube channel.  If you'd like to read along, this blog post has the sermon manuscript.