Sermon for March 22, 2026

March 22, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




John 11: 1-45





In the book of John, Jesus performs a series of signs and wonders, all of them miracles to show that he is the Messiah. He controlled the weather. He healed a blind man. He multiplied loaves and fishes to feed thousands. In today’s Gospel, we see the last miracle that Jesus performs before his journey to the cross and resurrection. In today’s Gospel, we see the many ways that humans respond to the real presence of God—and the ways that God responds to humans, particularly humans in distress.


The overwhelming way that humans respond to God in today’s Gospel, and throughout history too, is an attempt to control God and to force God to conform to the view of the world that humans have. All along the way, Jesus has reminded his followers, the way he reminded Nicodemus, that the movement of God is more like the wind than something that can be controlled by human forces.


Throughout today’s Gospel we see people interacting with Jesus that shows that they still don’t fully understand who he is: from suggesting that he change his travel plans early on to criticizing him for not arriving in time to trying to control the unprecedented miracle that is at hand, as we see Martha doing when she reminds Jesus that Lazarus’ body will have started to decay and stink.


Again and again, Jesus shows that he has his own timeline and his own agenda, his own world view and understanding of true power. Again and again, Jesus reminds everyone that humans might not be able to fully comprehend or understand God’s view. Again and again, he stresses that God will be glorified. But he also shows a Divine compassion. He shows that God is not immune to human grief.


Jesus also shows that God can handle our wide range of human emotions. Like the book of Psalms, we see Mary and Martha act in anger and sorrow. They believe in Jesus’ divinity, and they believe that if Jesus had come just a few days earlier, their brother wouldn’t have died. Jesus could have prevented his death, but no one can help them now. It’s good to have today’s Gospel to remind us that God can handle our anger and our grief. We can question and wish for different outcomes from God. Like Mary and Martha, we will not be punished for our doubt that God knows what is best and God is not restrained by our understanding of what is possible and how it must be achieved.


It’s easy to see today’s Gospel as telling us that Mary and Martha are vindicated for their faith, to say that because they declare Jesus to be the Messiah, that Jesus rewards them by returning their brother to them. That’s a misreading of the text that sets us up for a wobbly faith or a descent into self-loathing and believing that our faith is not strong enough when we don’t get the miracles we pray for.


We don’t have easy answers to the age old question of why God allows misfortune and sorrow. Maybe there’s a Divine plan that we’re not privy to. Maybe it’s the less comfortable part of the advantage of having free will. There’s a whole branch of theology called theodicy dedicated to exploring this problem of a loving God who does not stop pain and suffering, and there have been no end of attempts to explain. Most of these explanations leave us unsatisfied.


Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, a miracle that can’t be explained any other way. Unlike the past 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.


This miracle sets off a chain of consequences. Mary and Martha have their brother returned to them, and this miracle leads many more to believe in Jesus. This miracle makes the religious leaders feel even more threatened, and in the next chapter of the Gospel of John, they’re not only plotting to kill Jesus, but also Lazarus. It’s a potent reminder of how powerful earthly forces almost always react when their authority is threatened. Earthly forces have a variety of ways to punish those who don’t behave the way that empires need people to conform to their vision.


Today’s Gospel has parallels to the resurrection story we’ll celebrate in two weeks. The liturgical calendar gives us this story of Lazarus to return us to one of the main themes of our religion--we believe in resurrection. If we go back to read the Gospel—any of the four Gospels—we see that Jesus has been calling us to resurrection long before he raises Lazarus or himself from the dead. We not only believe in resurrection, but we are called to practice it.


Jesus shows again and again that earthly empires don’t have our best interests at heart. Today’s Gospel tells us that communities of believers are imperfect, too, at wanting what is best for their individual members. Long before we’re in a literal tomb, earthly forces bind us in grave cloths that keep us from living lives that God intended. We warp ourselves into shapes that better fit the forces of our society, as we move through school and make decisions about what we want our lives to be. Every so often we hear the voice of the Savior who commands us to leave the graves constructed for us, but all the bindings of our culture can make it so very hard to respond.


Today’s Gospel shows us that having Jesus with us on our journey won’t save us from the grief that comes from living a human life. If we live long enough, we’ll lose a lot of what we have loved. But we won’t be alone in our grief. God weeps with us while bearing the weight of our disappointment, our grief, and our anger at the losses.


Again and again, Jesus shows us that we don’t have to accept a world that insists that we are doomed, that the situation has progressed so far that miracles are impossible. Jesus shows us that we don’t have to accept the views pressed on us by worldly leaders. Jesus also reminds us that we cannot control God, who has a timeline and an agenda and a say. Jesus tells us that the grief and grave clothes won’t have the final word. Jesus is there to command that we be unbound, free from all the forces of death that weigh us down. Jesus is there, waiting to liberate us from all the earthly graves that hold us prisoner. We might have doubts and confusions and concerns, and we might shed some tears along the way, but Jesus is there to promise, to encourage us, to unbind us from all the places and processes of death that want to hold us captive. Jesus is there, as he has always been, there to set us free.

Atlanta and Me

Atlanta is famous for its horrible traffic, and yesterday's traffic was horrible, just as we expected.  The worst part was some side streets which had cars parked on either side of the street, a 2 way street, which barely left room for one car to drive through.  Yikes!

Happily, we made it through and got to the hotel in Midtown Atlanta.  The car is parked in a garage, and we will not be moving it until we leave.  Last night, we walked down to South City Kitchen for dinner--what amazingly good food, drinks, and service!

As we walked back, I looked at the huge skyscrapers and thought about my connection to this city.  My earliest memories are of Atlanta and theatre.  In 1972 or so, we came to Atlanta to see Godspell, a life changing event even when I was 7--that play shaped my theology and that trip to Atlanta made me see big cities as thrilling, not scary.  In 1978, when I was 13, we came to Atlanta to see A Chorus Line and to shop for some Scandinavian furniture to go with what my mom and dad had bought when they were stationed overseas in France in the 60's.

We lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and when we would drive to see my grandparents in South Carolina, Atlanta was an unmissable landmark with buildings bigger than any in any other Southern city, a statement no longer true.  Later, in my undergraduate years, I would go to Atlanta or drive through Atlanta periodically.  I loved Atlanta and my Georgia Tech friends so much that I thought about going to grad school in Atlanta.  But instead, I went to the University of South Carolina, a choice I don't regret.

I remember coming to Atlanta in 1997 to see an exhibit at the High Museum, the first time I ever saw Pre-Raphaelite paintings, the real ones, not pictures of them in books--amazing.  I left and bought my first set of paints and brushes from Pearl, a local-ish art supply place (only later did I realize it was a chain when I moved to South Florida).

My fondest memories are of Charis Books, a feminist bookstore that is still in business, a happy surprise.  But I will not be going there today--the wedding week-end logistics don't allow for many other activities, but that's O.K.  It's good to see relatives we don't get to see often, and good to have a happy occasion to bring us together.  I am aware that in future years, it will be more likely to be a funeral that draws us near.

But let me not think about that today.  Let me marvel in this city, which 1980's Kristin would not recognize.  That girl could make her way through the city in her 1974 Monte Carlo without breaking a sweat.  I remind myself that she was younger and more foolhardy, and the city wasn't as crowded then as it is now.  Let me enjoy this time out of time, an experience that has always been quintessential Atlanta for me.

The Feast Day of Saint Joseph

 Today is the feast day of St. Joseph, Mary's husband, the earthly father of Jesus. Here are the readings for today:

2 Samuel 7:4, 8-16
Psalm 89:1-29 (2)
Romans 4:13-18
Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a

I have done some thinking of Joseph, as many of us do, in the Advent season, when occasionally, we get to hear about Joseph. He thinks of quietly unweaving himself from Mary, who is pregnant. This behavior is our first indication of his character. Under ancient law, he could have had Mary stoned to death, but he takes a gentler path.

And then, he follows the instructions of the angel who tells him of God's plan. He could have turned away. He could have said, "I did not sign up for this!" He could have said, "No thanks. I want a normal wife and a regular life."

Instead, he turned towards Mary and accepted God's vision. He's there when the family needs to flee to Egypt. He's there when the older Jesus is lost and found in the temple. We assume that he has died by the time Christ is crucified, since he's not at the cross.

Some of us today will spend the day celebrating fathers, which is a great way to celebrate the feast day of St. Joseph. Lately, I've been thinking of his feast day and what it means for administrators and others who are not the stars, but who make it possible for stars to step into the spotlight.

Let us today praise the support teams, the people in the background, the people who step back to allow others to shine. Let us praise the people who do the drudgery work which makes it possible for others to succeed.

For example, I am not the kind of person who immediately decides what to do with each piece of e-mail. Consequently, once every few weeks, or more often, I need to go hunting for a particular e-mail. I am amazed at how many e-mails I send and receive in any given day. And yes, much of it is not that important.

But occasionally, an e-mail exchange can quickly settle a problem. Some times, it's good to have an e-mail chain for reference.

Many of us grow up internalizing the message that if we're not changing the world in some sort of spectacular way, we're failures. Those of us who are Christians may have those early disciples as our role models, those hard-core believers who brought the Good News to the ancient world by going out in pairs.

But Joseph shows us a different reality. It's quite enough to be a good parent. It's quite enough to have an ordinary job. It's quite enough to show up, day after day, dealing with both the crises and the opportunities.

Joseph reminds us that even the ones born into the spotlight need people in the background who are tending to the details. When we think about those early disciples and apostles, we often forget that they stayed in people's houses, people who fed them and arranged speaking opportunities for them, people who gave them encouragement when their task seemed too huge.

I imagine Joseph doing much the same thing, as he helped Jesus become a man. I imagine the life lessons that Joseph administered as he gave Jesus carpentry lessons. I imagine that he helped Jesus understand human nature, in all the ways that parents have helped their offspring understand human nature throughout history.

Let us not be so quick to discount this kind of work. Let us praise the support teams that make the way possible for the people who will change the world.


Here is a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, thank you for your servant Joseph. Help us to remember his lessons for us. Help us look for ways to shepherd your Good News into the world in ways that only we can.

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.