Pioneer Scholars and a Hope for the Future

Yesterday was Pioneer Scholars Day at Spartanburg Methodist College, our first ever.  Last year, we had a smaller, precursor event, where students had time to present posters they had created for a class project.  For those of you who go to academic conferences, you're probably familiar with posters as a way to present research.  If the idea of a poster is unfamiliar, think of the posters you might have made for school projects, but more sophisticated in appearance (i.e. not made with markers and glue) with proper citations of research.

The presentation of posters was still a big part of Pioneer Scholars Day.  In addition, in the morning, we had panel presentations, and an art display.  I was judge for the art display.  During the other morning  events, I heard a panel of papers written for History classes and later in the morning, students presenting their musical compositions on a iPad app.

In the afternoon, graduating seniors presented their capstone projects, a wide variety of work.  The day culminated in a late afternoon celebration of graduates, with happy hour type food.

I signed up for the morning shift, so I didn't stay for the afternoon events.  I was very glad to have a chance to be part of the morning shift.   It was so wonderful to see students presenting their work in a variety of ways--and wonderful to see the variety of work.

Although I went to Newberry College, a small, liberal arts college, I have spent most of my teaching life in other types of schools.  I've found kindred spirits there, particularly in schools that had an English major.  It's refreshing to be teaching in a school where the value of having a diverse education, of becoming a well-rounded human, is a value we all support.  

A few weeks ago, as I was walking to my car, I saw this tire cover on a jeep, with a reference to Thoreau:

Not for the first time, I reflected on how lucky I am to be here, at this point in my life.  Teaching these students, most of them no older than 21, makes me feel hopeful for the future--these students will be able to figure it out, no matter what the future holds for them.

 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 19, 2026:

First Reading: Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm: Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17 (Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Peter 1:17-23

Gospel: Luke 24:13-35

Today we read of the sojourners on their way to Emmaus. This story gives us an important window into the lives we are to have as Christians, particularly when it comes to the sharing of a meal, and our basic obligations when it comes to hospitality.

That hospitality is the often overlooked side of the Emmaus story. The travelers have walked seven miles together.  For those of you who are wondering, that might take the modern walker, walking at a fast clip, a bit over two hours; in Biblical times, with unpaved roads with poorly shod feet, I'm estimating it would take half a day. When they get back to their house, they don't say to Jesus, "Well, good luck on your journey."

No--they invite him inside. What remarkable hospitality. They share what they have. They don't say, "Well, I can't let you see my house in its current state--let's go out to dinner." No, they notice that the day is nearly done, and they invite a stranger in to stay the night.  They don't direct the stranger to the nearest inn.

Those of you who have read your Bible will recognize a motif. God often appears as a stranger, and good things come to those who invite a stranger in. For those of you who protest that modern life is so much more dangerous than in Biblical times, and so it was safer for people like Abraham and the Emmaus couple to invite the stranger to stay, I'd have to disagree.

Without that hospitality, those strangers never would have known their fellow traveler. We are called to model the same behavior.

One thing we can do in our individual lives is to adopt a Eucharistic mindset. Never has this been more vital. Most people have ceased cooking for themselves, and many Americans are eating at least one meal a day while they drive.

Rebel against this trait. Look for ways to make meals special. Cook for yourself. Invite your friends and loved ones to dinner. Occasionally, invite someone to join your group that is outside of your regular friendship circle--the new person at church/book club/work.  Each week, go to a different bakery and buy yourself some wonderful bread. Open a bottle of wine and savor a glass.

If we can't be together in person, we can do this virtually.  One of the good realizations to come out of the pandemic is that hospitality can be shared from a distance.  It's easier for many of us to have a video call than a phone call, and many of us have the technology to do this now, with our computers and smart phones.  Technology can be distancing, but it can also connect us.

Jesus calls us to a Eucharistic life, which requires a major readjustment of our mindset around the issues of food, drink, time, and hospitality. Consider the Capitalist/Consumerist model that our culture offers us, and the invitation from Jesus looks even more attractive.

So, before the day gets later, go and buy some bread. Think about the many ways that bread (and other grains) sustain most of us throughout the world. Drink some wine and think about the miracle of fermentation; ponder the reality that in many parts of the world, people drink fermented beverages because the water supply is tainted, but fermentation provides some protection.

You are the leaven in the loaf, the yeast that turns grape juice into the miracle of wine--how can you make that manifest in the world today?

Week-end Recap and a Look ahead at the Coming Week

It has been a good week-end; I haven't meant not to blog this week-end.  My basal cell skin cancer removal on late Friday afternoon went well.  In fact, it was the easiest skin cancer removal yet.  Is it because it was on my back, so I couldn't see what was happening?

Whatever the reason, I'm always grateful for easy medical operations.  

We had a week-end similar to so many, filled with cooking, baking, running errands, looking at mindless TV and mindful internet wandering, both together and apart.

In some ways, my Sunday was easier than most Sundays.  We had a group of seminarians and college students staying at the church.   They were in town for the race, and they slept and had meals at the church, which they've done every time they're in town. The seminarian preached 2 great sermons, both the youth sermon and the other one, and he and 2 friends assisted with communion. Their enthusiasm for life in all its facets made me feel like maybe civilization has a chance after all.

I didn't have to craft a sermon for yesterday, but I still spent time writing a sermon--I won't be with my congregation this coming Sunday, so I'll need to have a sermon to them.  I had hoped to have it ready to leave at the church yesterday, but it was not to be.  I got a draft done, but it was still in rough shape yesterday.

This morning, I've done some revising, and I'm happy that it's stronger now.  I'll put it aside, do one or two more revisions and call it done.

This week will be one of schedule disruptions.  Tomorrow, all classes are cancelled so that we can all participate in Pioneer Scholars day, where we'll have presentations of all sorts.  Faculty are required to be on hand for a variety of support.  I am judging a fine arts competition.

At the end of the week, I will be up the hill at Lutheridge, for my beloved Create in Me retreat.  I haven't really thought about the retreat too much at this point--I'm not that kind of member of the planning team.  I am somewhat surprised to find myself here, speeding to the end of the semester. 

Prayers and Poems for the Artemis Mission

Like many others, I get the occasional e-mail that tells me that the sender can help me find new readers for my brilliant books, millions and millions of readers.  Yesterday I got a different e-mail, an old-fashioned fan letter of sorts.  

The e-mail writer told me that she had selected my poem for a specific reason:  "This is to let you know that as a member of a Lectio Poetry group that met this morning, I chose your poem 'The Moon Remembers' for our session. Because of the recent NASA mission to send humans farther into space than ever before, and to study the dark side of the moon, I felt fortunate to find your poem to share."

The e-mail concluded this way, "In this world of chaos, 'The Moon Remembers' gave us an hour of peace, of joy, of hope."

Wow--what writer could hope for more than that?  I mean that sincerely.  It is one of the reasons I write, in the hopes of bringing something positive to people.

I don't get many fan letters anymore, and the ones that I get are usually about "Heaven on Earth," perhaps my most famous poem, read on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac.  Yesterday's e-mail referenced "The Moon Remembers."  It's a poem I barely remember writing, and at first, I wondered if she was writing to the wrong poet.

Happily, my blog answers many a question for me.  I posted it in this blog post, and I'm guessing that's how the group leader found my poem.  Even though it's not one of the poems I remember, I'm still happy with it.

Let me post it here again, as I also say a prayer for the Artemis Mission which returns home Friday:

The Moon Remembers

                “I sing and the moon shudders"
                            Li Po, “Drinking Alone by Moonlight”



The moon does not approve of elementary choir
masters who stop the rehearsal, make each quivering
child sing a solo to find the one
who is off key. The helpless moon, marooned
so far away, wishes she could offer sanctuary.

The moon knows what the choir master forgets.

The moon doesn’t understand scales or the division
of voices into the caste systems of chorus:
superior sopranos, dowdy altos, basses as the bubble
of depth holding us up, the star tenor.

The moon remembers what the choir master forgets.

The moon sees our best selves as we sing:
the lonely driver late at night, singing to stay awake,
the melancholy mother, humming Christmas carols
to cheer the babies, the desperate lover
serenading the empty window.

The moon remembers what we all forget.

The moon knows that if we believed in our songs,
strengthened our fragile voices, and sang
as if we meant it, then galaxies would blow
to bits as the universe expands.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

  The readings for Sunday, April 12, 2026:

First Reading: Acts 4:32-35

Psalm: Psalm 133

Second Reading: 1 John 1:1--2:2

Gospel: John 20:19-31

This week's Gospel returns us to the familiar story of Thomas, who will always be known as Doubting Thomas, no matter what else he did or accomplished.  What I love about the Gospels most is that we get to see humans interacting with the Divine, in all of our human weaknesses. Particularly in the last few weeks, we've seen humans betray and deny and doubt--but God can work with us.

If you were choosing a group of people most unlikely to start and spread a lasting worldwide movement, it might be these disciples. They have very little in the way of prestige, connections, wealth, networking skills, marketing smarts, or anything else you might look for if you were calling modern disciples. And yet, Jesus transformed them.

Perhaps it should not surprise us. The Old Testament, too, is full of stories of lackluster humans unlikely to succeed: mumblers and cheats, bumblers and the unwise. God can use anyone, even murderers.

How does this happen? The story of Thomas gives us a vivid metaphor. When we thrust our hands into the wounds of Jesus, we're transformed. Perhaps that metaphor is too gory for your tastes, and yet, it speaks to the truth of our God. We have a God who wants to know us in all our gooey messiness. We have a God who knows all our strengths and all our weaknesses, and still, this God desires closeness with us. And what's more, this God invites us to a similar intimacy. Jesus doesn't say, "Here I am, look at me and believe." No, Jesus offers his wounds and invites Thomas to touch him.

Jesus will spend the next several weeks eating with the disciples, breathing on them, and being with them physically one last time. Then he sends them out to transform the wounded world.

We, too, are called to lay our holy hands on the wounds of the world and to heal those wounds. It's not enough to just declare the Good News of Easter. We are called to participate in the ongoing redemption of creation. We know creation intimately, and we know which wounds we are most capable of healing. Some of us will work on environmental issues, some of us will make sure that the poor are fed and clothed, some of us will work with criminals and the unjustly accused, and more of us will help children.

In the coming weeks, be alert to the recurring theme of the breath of Jesus and the breath of God.  May we be open to the transforming power of God's breath, breathing on us all, through time and across time.

Easter Sunday Recap and Recording of the Sermon

It was a good Easter Sunday at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN.  It's a small, country church, so we don't have what suburban or city churches experience, those folks who show up only for Christmas Eve and Easter.  We are more likely to have brand new visitors on Christmas Eve, not Easter, and even then, it's only one or two.

The church felt full, though, in a similar way yesterday.  It's one of the few days when all members are likely to come, along with some friends and family members tagging along.  In addition, the folks who aren't members but come here and there--they were there too.  It was joyful and a bit noisy.  It was also raining outside, so we don't have as many pictures at the chicken-wire cross covered with flowers; some folks did put flowers on the cross, despite the rain.

My sermon stopped recording part-way through.  I decided to have our tech expert post what she captured, and when I got home, I recorded the rest.  The first part of the sermon is here, and the second part is here.  If you'd like to read along, I put the sermon manuscript in this blog post.

We got home and drifted around the house, collapsing into bed around 6:30.  I woke up a bit later and thought, we are missing a glorious sunset, before falling back to sleep again.  

Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026

April 5, 2026, Easter
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 28:1-10



We’ve spent our week together thinking about crowds. Last week, on Palm Sunday, I talked about the different kinds of Palm Sunday crowds, those who were there to see Jesus, those who hoped that the Messiah would arrive (and some of those hoped that the Messiah would turn out to be Jesus), the religious authorities, those who were there for the highest of the Jewish Holy Days, the Roman authorities looking to keep the peace, and others who might be there for darker reasons, looking to take advantage of travelers or making trouble in other ways. Last Sunday, I talked about the Good Friday crowds, and on Maundy Thursday, we focused on a smaller crowd, the disciples gathered with Jesus to celebrate the Passover meal that celebrates liberation from oppressors.


We don’t see those crowds in today’s reading, but we do see a type of crowd who has always been there. In today’s reading, we see the group of women, many of whom have been kept at a distance, and finally, they have a chance to take center stage. But it’s not so much that they arrive—no, the women have always been there. Even at the lowest point, as Jesus hangs on a cross and wonders why God has abandoned him, the women are there, without the disciples, watching from a distance.


The disciples have fled, and the other crowds have dispersed. But the women remain, there to do the tasks that must be done. The women return to the tomb, and unlike other Gospels, we’re not told why. Maybe they come as part of the grieving ritual. Maybe, as in other Gospels, they bring spices.


We know it’s been three days, and they return to the tomb. They come alone, with no male protection, no male companions, no disciples to take charge. They know where to seek for Jesus because they were there when Joseph of Arimathea laid him in the tomb. They are back three days later.


The women are there for the earthquake. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, geological events like earthquakes are used to signify the arrival of the Divine. The women, the ones who have been kept in the crowds that are more distant from Jesus, the women are there for the arrival of the angel. The forces of empire, the ones who have put Jesus to death, they shake in fear and become like dead men. The guards faint—the Roman guards, the fiercest fighting force, frozen in time, like a deer in headlights, holding their breath, hearts racing, immobile limbs, paralyzed with fear. The women stay alert.


We have an angel in the Gospel of Matthew, which is unusual. The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel most associated with angel messengers. In the Gospel of Matthew God more often speaks in dreams and premonitions. But at the end of Matthew, the women who have stayed faithful and not fled in the face of the unjust killing by Roman and Jewish leaders of the empire, they are the ones with a Divine message to deliver: Jesus will meet the disciples back home in Galilee, full circle, just as Jesus has already told them he would.


And even better, the women are the first to see the risen Christ. Jesus has a message for them, and for the disciples, and for all the men and women who have been following and presumably fallen away. Leave Jerusalem, the capital city, a seat of earthly power and claims of Divine power, Jerusalem, the place of death and destruction. Walk away from the tombs and all the ways that death hold us.


The guards have fainted, and the disciples are faint-hearted. In our Easter text, it is the smaller crowd, the ones who have been most faithful, who get to experience resurrection up close and become the first evangelists to tell of the risen Lord. It is this smaller crowd who has been most faithful, the women named Mary and all the other women who are the first to understand the mission of Jesus and to get to work. Their stories are there in the Gospels, there in the background, if we go back to read with fresh eyes.


Each Spring, we hear this story, one where God intervenes in human history, with an earthquake at the death of Jesus, and an earthquake before the stone is rolled away. For most Christian theologians, this story is the one that marks the passage from the former present age, one of evil, sin, and death, to the New Creation, the one that is ready to welcome the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the one with believers ready to go out and conquer the forces of Rome and all the empires to come, as we become those who bring the good news of God’s Kingdom on earth. Jesus has been raised from the dead, but something different is happening now. Resurrection is not a return to old life, but something bold and new.


And yet. And yet. Here we are, two thousand years later, far removed from those events, still trying to understand what we have witnessed. We might feel ourselves as part of some crowd, lingering in the background, trying to understand. We are still here, in the in between space, the now and the not yet. The Kingdom of God is here, Jesus proclaims, but not fully complete yet. For some of us, as we hear the stories each year, as we move through lectionary cycles, we may feel the borders blurring. Maybe we’re still in an Ash Wednesday space, feeling more bleakly than ever the truth of the message that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Maybe we understand the cry of Jesus up there on the cross, as we wonder if God has forsaken us. Maybe we find our thoughts returning to Lazarus, dead for four days and then yanked back only to have his life threatened again, or Jesus in that tomb for three days, only to have the Roman guards paid off to lie about his resurrection, waiting for what comes next. Jesus meets us on the road to tell us that we have waited long enough, waited during these past 40 days of Lent, waited for who knows how many years or decades. Jesus shows up resurrected, saying with his body and maybe with words: It is time. Buckle up. This journey is about to move to a new level.


Maybe it’s hard from where we’re sitting, to believe that God can overcome the forces of death. The forces of empire and death sure look like they are winning, depending on when we can bear to uncover our eyes and ears to take a look and a listen. The Powers that Jesus vanquished sure seem to be in control, in league with chaos. And yes, some self-proclaimed religious authorities also seem to be working with the powers of chaos.


Today’s second reading, the letter to the Colossians, tells us to seek things that are from above. I realize that Paul, the letter writer, meant heavenly things or Christlike things, but as I’ve been thinking about an Easter sermon, I’ve also been keeping an eye on the Artemis mission, the one with a diverse crew of astronauts headed to the moon, a much bigger event than most space events of the last few decades. I found myself thrilled to be alive in such an age. I have a pastor friend who has become enthralled by the live feed from the ship, which is about the size of 2 minivans; I’m not at her level of engagement, but I understand the relief that comes from lifting our eyes to the heavens. Of course, we don’t need to leave earth. If we look around our families and communities, we’ll see evidence of resurrection. We’ll see small, loyal groups continuing to do the work begun by the first group of followers of Jesus, those who were named and those who mostly stayed in the background.


Paul wrote to the Colossians from a Roman prison, so he might have had reason to despair. His letter shows no sign of that. He continues to witness to what God has done, what God continues to do. We, too, can witness like Paul.


The angel rolls back the stone and says, “Do not be afraid.” Jesus, too, says, “Do not be afraid.” The Holy Week stories remind us that the God who made the Heavens and the Earth, the God who can shake the planet to its foundation, this God is still in charge.


The small, loyal group of women was not afraid as the strength of empire fainted away. We may feel that they had some special quality that we do not, but those feelings are wrong. Those who are in the background are up to the task to proclaim the good news that death does not have the final word. If you doubt it, remember the words of the African-American spiritual, drawn from the prophet Jeremiah, “If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, you can still tell the love of Jesus, who came to save us all.”


A balm in Gilead, good news for the ages.


Christ is risen—he is risen indeed—and all God’s people say: Alleluiah!