Sermon for Sunday, April 6, 2025

 April 6, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

John 12:  1-8

Today’s Gospel might seem easy to interpret as we read it today, taken out of the context of the larger book of John.  Mary takes the correct path, Judas doesn’t, be like Mary.  But this reading is much more complex than it seems at first.  It benefits us immensely when we consider it in the context of the larger narrative trajectory.

In the chapter before this one, John 11, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead.  Before he does this act, both Mary and Martha have testified to the power of Jesus.  And now, the world will know his power.  It’s one thing to heal the sick, but quite another to raise the dead.  Because people have come to comfort Mary and Martha, there will be witnesses.  Jesus raises Lazarus and withdraws to a place called Ephraim.  Chapter 11 ends in outside turmoil, with various people going to the religious leaders and the religious leaders demanding that anyone who knows where Jesus is must turn him in.

But in our reading for today, we don’t have a sense of this turmoil that is closing in on Jesus.  On the contrary, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus give a dinner for Jesus.  When you read “Martha served,” you might think about the other story that features Mary and Martha, when she complained about not getting help while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus—but that was the gospel of Luke.  This text does give us insight into the idea of what it means to serve, but it widens it considerably.

Take a minute to imagine this table, before we get to the disruption of perfume and feet.  Imagine having a meal with Lazarus, who had been in the grave for four days.  This dinner doesn’t happen immediately after the resurrection of Lazarus, but I imagine it will be a topic of dinner conversation.  It also mirrors the larger movement of the Gospel of John, which ends with Jesus in service, grilling fish and bread for the disciples’ breakfast.  

Mary takes her costly perfume and washes the feet of Jesus and wipes his feet with her hair.  This behavior would seem strange to us, in the 21st century, and it would have been unusual and shocking to her fellow dinner companions.  Those of us who have participated in foot washing services for Maundy Thursday might see this act as one of attending to a delicate part of the body which has remained hidden, but that would be less likely the case with first century people.  Their feet would be crusty with dirt and mud and all the nasty gunk that comes from not having modern sewage systems.

Most people would wash their feet before coming into a house, and wealthy people would have slaves to perform this basic act of hospitality.  Mary takes a task of hospitality and elevates it by adding expensive perfume to the act and by wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair.  And Jesus tells everyone to leave her alone.  Jesus elevates her by saying that she understands what is about to happen to him.   Mary bears silent, powerful witness to Jesus—Mary, not the men.  In two weeks, we will see a similar dynamic on Easter morning, where the women are first witnesses to and believers in the resurrection of Christ.

We may be tempted to see a gender commentary that may not be there:  Mary the female, understands, and Judas, the male, does not.  But think of all the times that Jesus has instructed us to care for the poor.  Judas has a point.  Is this the best use of the money?  We may have had similar experiences if we’ve visited other churches that are more ornate, where we worry about the people donating all of their retirement money to fund a pretty building.

Judas has a larger problem with money, and we might not see it because of the detail about his thievery.  But his larger problem is his fear of not having enough.  His scarcity consciousness mirrors the response of the disciples at the second Passover that’s in the Gospel of John, where Jesus feeds the five thousand men, plus the women and children who followed him.  The disciples protest that they can’t possibly feed the crowds with five small barley loaves and two small fish—but not only do they feed everyone, they gather 12 baskets of leftovers.

Again and again, across Gospels, Jesus proclaims the inbreaking Kingdom of God, and he often does this in the language of abundance.  It’s not just language:  there are acts of abundance that demonstrate what Jesus means when he talks.  In today’s Gospel passage, Mary shows that she has understood his message and his mission, and she has embodied it.  She has taken her money and used it to glorify and worship Jesus.  She doesn’t just utter empty words, like Judas.  She doesn’t speak at all.

And here’s an even more radical possibility:  perhaps through her action, she teaches Jesus too.  In the next chapter of John, Jesus mirrors her action by washing the feet of his disciples.  They protest.  They are still thinking that the kingdom Jesus talks about is a kingdom that will be like earthly kingdoms.  Imagine Herod or Pilate or Caesar washing feet:  it’s impossible!  On Maundy Thursday, we’ll hear the text about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and the larger lesson he wants them to remember.  Jesus comes to serve, and our mission is to serve.

Oh, that sentence is so simple.  But we know that Christians through the ages have argued, much like Jesus and Judas argue, about the best way to serve.  If bank accounts are slender, the arguments are more fierce.  Should we buy something special to make worship more beautiful or should we increase our donation to Lutheran World Relief?  Should we have the church dinner catered or should we cancel it and give the money to the food pantry?

Scholars and theologians have spent centuries arguing over what Jesus meant when he told us we’d always have the poor with us.  Gospel commentators have written about Mary and Judas offering us two different paths to discipleship.  But I think that Jesus is telling us to expand even further in terms of setting our minds and expectations away from scarcity and towards abundance.  We can have beautiful worship AND feed the poor.  We can follow the path of Jesus, resurrecting what was dead and then having a wonderful meal with friends who extend their hospitality beyond the meal and onto our feet as an exuberant measure of hospitality.

I thought about ending this sermon by passing out oil and fancy towels and having us wash each other’s feet, but instead, I’ll take this opportunity to say that for Maundy Thursday, in addition to having communion together, I plan to offer an optional healing element by anointing foreheads, not feet, and saying a prayer.  I’ll stand here, and as you come away from communion, if you’d like your forehead anointed, you’ll come over.   It won’t be expensive nard—my New Testament professor says that nard smells awful to modern noses.  It will be unscented olive oil.  In this way, we’ll follow in the footsteps of Mary, by adding an anointing to the meal we share.  And if we think it’s meaningful, we can add this element to our weekly communion or offer it once a month.

As we come to the end of Lent—next Sunday is Palm Sunday!—let us examine our hearts to see where we are like Martha, who prepares a meal and where we are like Mary, who anoints with special oil and exceptional hospitality.   If we discover places where we are like Judas, and  if we take an honest inventory, we will—let us pray for our hard and judgmental hearts to expand beyond isolating, tight-fisted scarcity.  Jesus comes to offer abundant life—let us look for ways to recognize that life and to help that abundance expand.

A Great Teaching Day: Nuclear Apocalypses and Civil Rights Primers

Yesterday was a great teaching day, although I didn't fully savor it.  I had several seminary projects due last night, one of which was a presentation, so that stress was simmering in the background.  My commuting has gotten a bit nightmarish, with slow downs and stops that add an hour to my trip home.  By the time my seminary class started, I was more stressed than normal.

So let me savor the teaching day here.  In my Nonfiction Writing class on Tuesday, we sketched out the remaining class days--there are only 6 of them, or there were on Tuesday.  My students wanted to think about propaganda yesterday, so we began with the Daisy ad from LBJ's 1964 presidential campaign, the ad which combines a cute toddler pulling apart a daisy with a nuclear explosion.

I knew that we were going to discuss the ad, so I spent yesterday morning watching this video that compares The Day After to Threads.  It talks about The Day After as a form of propaganda/teaching.  We only watched the first part, because I didn't want to expose them to Threads, which is quite graphic and gruesome.  We had a good discussion.  The students had never seen either film, but the commentary was understandable (as we watched it, I wasn't sure that it would be).

Then I went to teach my American Lit survey class.  It was the day to discuss Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  I wanted to use some music to set the mood as they came in, so I cued up this album (by the magic of YouTube):

I had the CD cover on the screen, and one of my students walked in and said, "That looks like they're having fun."  Hmmm.  So I used it as a later teaching moment.

I've actually seen the real photograph--there was a display of Civil Rights photo at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art.  As I recall, it's part of a three part set.  I said to the class, "What you can't see on this side is the firehose of water being aimed at peaceful protestors."

We talked about protest, about the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, about the unjust situation that King described in his letter.  We talked about modern issues of injustice that need our attention and how we might affect change (write letters, protest, run for office, write a poem or a song).  I talked about how the Civil Rights protestors of the 50's and 60's came from a church background and what that meant.  And then to conclude class, I had them write about the best way to do that, while we listened to two songs from the album, "This Little Light of Mine" and "(Ain't Gonna Let Nobody) Turn Me Round."

It was a good mix of history, modern politics/issues of social injustice, civics reminders (your legislators will take notice if you write or call, and they may change their minds), literature, and song.  It was less a focus on literature than most class meetings, but it felt important.  And it will lead nicely to Claudia Rankine's Citizen:  A Lyric on Tuesday. 

A Week of Interviews and Contracts

It has been a whirlwind week, and I'm not talking about the "will he or won't he" tariff chaos.  It's been a week where I have multiple seminary assignments due--from here on out, they will be more spread out.  I do think that if I was smart, I would go ahead and get the final projects done, and maybe I will.

I had an interview this week.  On Tuesday, I interviewed to be part of the Summer 2025 cohort of the CPE program at the Asheville VA Hospital.  I wasn't sure what to expect--after all, it's not like a job interview, where people are trying to determine if they want me to be part of their lives for what could be a long time.  

My mom sent me this e-mail, which I thought was charming in so many ways:  "Hope all goes well. You are a dynamite young lady who can ace this interview. Keep us posted! Mom."  It's been a long time since anyone called me a dynamite young lady--I certainly don't feel young anymore.

The interview went well, I thought.  It was the kind of interview where I could tell that the three people on the interview team had read my extensive application materials and thought about them and come up with incisive questions.  I answered them honestly.  The interview lasted 45 minutes, so there could have been plenty of places where I stumbled.

For example, they asked me what I hoped to learn outside of skills, what kind of self development did I hope to experience, and I said that I wanted to learn more about how to be present to people with problems that aren't fixable. I felt like it was a good answer, but they might have found it problematic.

Happily, they must have found more about me to like than reject.  Yesterday, the day after the interview, I sent a thank you e-mail, and I got a reply offering me a spot.  I wrote back to say yes.  

You might be asking why I am doing CPE this summer--aren't I graduating?  Yes, I am on schedule to graduate with my MDiv degree, but I still have requirements to complete before I am eligible for ordination.  One of them is CPE, a kind of chaplaincy training.

I also got my teaching contract for next year, signed it, and made some inquiries about health insurance.  Happily, our health insurance continues through the summer, even though technically I'm between contracts for a few months.  It is so nice to be at a place where I'm treated well.

Here it is Thursday, and it feels like I should be done with my tasks for the week.  But I still have two papers due today to finish, and seminary class tonight,  along with teaching tasks--and it's time to start thinking about my sermon for Sunday.

Well, let me get to it.  The weather seems iffy, so I'll get a walk in.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, April 6, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm: Psalm 126

Second Reading: Philippians 3:4b-14

Gospel: John 12:1-8

I've always had some amount of trouble with this Gospel; I suspect it's because I would have been that disciple who said, "Just think what we could have done with the money that went to buy that expensive oil. Doesn't Jesus know the electric bill is due? We could have helped the poor. And she went and poured it all over his feet!"

I know that traditionally we use this Gospel lesson to make us think forward a few weeks to Good Friday, when Jesus' dead body will be anointed with funeral oils. But there's still something about this Gospel that makes me restless.

Perhaps it is Jesus saying, "The poor you will always have with you." I'm uneasy with the way so many people through the centuries have used this line to justify their unwillingness to work to eradicate poverty. A shrug of the shoulders, that verse out of context, and poof, we don't have to worry about our riches.

I've been trying to sit with this passage in a different context, in the context of the whole Gospel of John. Jesus says that the poor we'll always have with us, but we won't always have Jesus (at least not in human form). I'm trying to see it as Jesus telling us that we must treasure the moments in life that are sweet. Did Jesus know what was about to happen to him? Different theologians would give you different answers, but even if Jesus didn't know all the particulars of his upcoming execution, he must have known that he was stirring up all sorts of worldly trouble for himself. He must have known that he wouldn't have had many more of these occasions to sit and savor a meal.

I'm sure he's also speaking towards our impulse towards anger and self-righteousness. I can criticize the decisions of others in how they spend their money and what they should be spending their money on ("Imagine. She calls herself a Christian and look how much she spends on books. She could get them from the library and send the money she would have spent to Habitat for Humanity"). It's not always easy for me to know how to allocate my resources of time, treasure, and energy.

Truth be told, I find it easier to work on many a spiritual discipline than to sit and savor a meal with those whom I love, the ones, whom, like Jesus, I won't always have with me. I find it frighteningly easy to slide into the behavior of the disciples, that self-righteousness which precludes being able to enjoy a meal together.

In these days that feel increasingly hectic, let us remember to take time to focus on what's truly important. Let us put aside the anger and judgment that can make it so hard to live in community.

Five Years of Morning Watch

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of morning watch, the morning devotional time that I do for my Florida church and anyone else who wants to tune in.  I started doing it during the early days of the pandemic, when my church was looking for ways to stay connected.  I still went to church on Sunday mornings, where, for a few Sundays, a core group of us gathered to do parts of the service live and stream it to our members at home.

We also brainstormed other things we could do, like a Compline service. I volunteered to do something in the morning. One of the brainstorming group suggested that in addition to some sort of reading, that we have time for something creative.

At first I thought about choosing the readings, and then I thought, why do this? I have Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours; she's done this work for me. I did the readings for the day, took a five-seven minute pause to do meditation, writing, sketching, yoga, whatever gets us grounded for the day. And then we came back for closing prayer, also from The Divine Hours, and I gave some closing thoughts, a benediction of sorts.  I did the first one on March 31, 2020, and I'm still doing it every morning.

The video is short enough that I think I can add it to this blog post.  Here's the very first episode of Morning Watch to air live, on this day in 2020:

It hasn't changed much. I do show the sketch I'm working on; my dad made a comment that he wanted to see what I was working on, so I started holding the sketch close to the camera.

I've continued to do morning watch, and it's interesting to scroll back through a selection of posts that Facebook gave me when I did a search. Here I am with much longer hair. Here I am in a variety of rooms (the house near the beach, the downtown condo, our Lutheridge house, my seminary apartment, vacation/travel destinations). Here I am with Christmas lights in the back, and here I am almost always with construction happening in the background. I won't link to all those posts, as I'm almost sure it's only interesting to me.

This blog post tells a more complete story of the early days. It also contains this link to the first day when I used Phyllis Tickle's work--on March 30, I had technical difficulties, so I didn't post that broadcast. It's gotten 187 views. Later broadcasts get much fewer views. But I hear from people who find it meaningful, so I'll keep doing it.

To be honest, even if I didn't get encouragement, I'd probably still do it. It helps me to stay faithful to this method of formation.

Recording of Yesterday's Sermon

Last week's feast days meant I didn't post a link to the video of my sermon on my YouTube channel.  Today I'll get back in that habit.  Here is yesterday's sermon, where I preach on the parable of the Prodigal Son, or as I prefer to call it, the Parable of the Two Lost Sons.

If you'd like to read along, the print copy of the sermon is here in yesterday's blog post.

Sermon for Sunday, March 30, 2025

 March 30, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Today’s parable is a response to the grumblings of religious leaders, to the question of why is Jesus acting differently than we might expect.  Today’s parable is actually the third in a series.  Before the parable of the lost sons, Jesus tells the very short parable of the lost coin, the longer parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd who goes out to find it, and now, the parable of these two lost sons.  We tend to focus on the prodigal son, but both boys are broken.

We’re probably familiar with this story, and our familiarity can keep us from seeing some of the finer nuances.  The set up of the story:  man acquires wealth, ne’er do well son wants his share in advance, father agrees—we might see these plot developments as serious breaches of etiquette, but we likely don’t understand it the way that Jesus’ listeners would have. 

Jesus taught in a time when it became increasingly difficult to hang onto ancestral lands, and at a time when loss of land meant an instant plunge into poverty and precariousness.  A younger son asking for his share of the inheritance might shock them in the same way that it might shock us, but there would have been the additional shock for first century listeners at the audacity of the son assuming he would get an inheritance at all.  Customs were changing by the time of Jesus, but historically, the younger son would get no more than 1/3 a share of inheritance.  The father’s decision to liquidate land holdings would have been seen as much more scandalous.  There’s also the complication of selling ancestral heritage.  Many of us are not living in homes that our parents and grandparents lived in, and even if we are, we don’t see the land and the home on it as prepared for us by God.  If we sell our homes, we don’t see it as an act that negates a covenantal relationship with the Creator, the way that first century humans would.

The younger son takes his inheritance and goes off to a distant land where he won’t be bothered by family connections.  We might understand this yearning, but first century humans would not.  Just as land gives security, so does family, according to a first century mindset.

The younger son squanders his money, the same way he squanders all the advantages that he had at home--no surprise to us or to first century listeners.  His decision to accept a job feeding pigs would be a profound shock to Jewish listeners, as would his temptation to eat pig food himself, if any had been offered to him.  This part of the plot would show how profoundly debased the younger son has become.

But then, the younger son sees an opportunity.  He comes to his senses.  Another translation says, “He returned to himself.”  He remembers who he is, and whose he is—or was.  He has hope that his father will let him return as a servant.  It’s one of the only wise decisions we’ve seen the younger son make.  There’s also a less generous interpretation, that the younger son sees an opportunity to get even more money out of his father, that his return to himself is the self we see at first, the manipulative, conniving self.

The father’s response probably makes sense to us in the 21st century.  We’ve probably had a variation of this type of experience—love goes silent, but then, somehow, we rekindle it.  Friends leave, children leave, family members leave—but if they’re still alive, some part of us yearns for them to return, and some part of us might always be watching, and in the meantime, we make do with phone calls and video chats.

First century listeners would be shocked at the father’s reaction.  Just as the younger son debases himself, the father debases himself in rushing out to greet the younger son.  First century listeners would expect the father to reject the son who has so dishonored him.  Perhaps we do too:  fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice . . . But the father not only embraces his boy, but throws a party to have the whole community participate in the welcoming.  And where is the older son?  Has he been invited?  He has to hear what is going on from a slave.  No matter where we are in our family systems, we must feel that sting.

And then, the next dishonoring:  the older son throws a jealous fit.  I suspect that the older son’s reaction is not unfamiliar to many of us.  We’re here in church, week after week, which suggests to me that we are the responsible ones in the family and society dynamics where we live.  We’re the ones who go to work, whether we feel like it or not.  We’re the ones who save for the future.  We’re the ones who make the weekly phone calls, who plan the family get togethers, the ones who know which members are OK and which are faltering.  And what reward do we get?  I know that there are seasons where we choke on the unfairness of it all.  It’s easy to envy the ease with which some of our society just do their own thing and give themselves to riotous living—or worse, take from others who can least afford it and have not received their just compensation.  It’s normal to feel resentful when those riotous partiers do not get any sort of punishment and worse, are given even more opportunities and celebrated. 

The older son’s response might not have puzzled first century listeners or us, but the father’s actions towards the older son would have.  The father goes to talk to the older son.  He leaves his guests whom he has invited to his house—a serious breach of etiquette.  He argues from a place of abundance, while the older son reacts out of a space of scarcity and righteous indignation.  It’s worth considering where we are.  Who are we in the story?  Are we the oldest son, feeling overlooked and abandoned?  Are we the younger son, scattering resources?  Are we the father, eager to share and rejoice when the lost have been found?  

The traditional approach to this parable is to see the Father character representing God, with a love that we cannot hope to offer to others. In writing a book-length exploration of this parable, theologian Henri Nouwen says, "Perhaps the most radical statement Jesus ever made is: 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.' . . . "what I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. I am an heir. . . . The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father" (123).

How on earth can we accomplish this? Nouwen suggests that we cultivate these three traits: "grief, forgiveness, and generosity" (128). To those I would add that we should commit ourselves to believing in resurrection. Believe in the possibility of second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. Continue to hope that the lost will be found.  New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine reminds us that we may not need to go far—the lost ones may be in our own households.  We can rejoice at the return of the prodigals. Levine tells us not to wait for apologies that may never come or forgiveness that may be far away before we throw a fabulous party to rejoice. 

And here’s the way that we can mirror the radical love of God.  When we notice that someone is missing from the party, someone is standing in the shadows, stewing in resentment, anger, grief, envy—we can leave the guests that are more fun and go get that person, assuring them that they were always invited, never an afterthought. God calls us to love each other in this way.  

The parable is unfinished, probably on purpose.  We don’t know the older son’s response.  Is family harmony rebuilt?  Does the prodigal son leave again?  Does the older son believe that he has a place in his father’s heart?  We don’t know.  We don’t even know what the son says.  We want to know what happens next, and Jesus doesn’t tell us.  It could be his way of indicting the Pharisees and us—or it could be Jesus’ way of inviting us into the story.  What does the son say to his father’s radical love?  What will we say in the face of God’s radical and abundant love?

Week of Smoke, Week of Encouragement

 It has been a strange week, a wonderful week, a tiring week, a good week overall for me personally but not so much for larger communities.  Let me record a few snippets.

--It's been the week when we've learned that some of the highest federal government folks have been talking on unsecured networks; this week's scandal has been dubbed "Signalgate."  I've been shaking my head, as many people have.  Many of us have had to go through yearly trainings to remind/teach/train us of the importance of keeping secure information secure.  And one doesn't need these trainings--it's common sense.  Grrr.

--It's been a week of other kinds of smoke.  We've had lots of fire in the Carolina mountains.  So far my house is safe, but the smoke is visible, and the air quality is poor.  As I drive back and forth to Spartanburg, I can see huge plumes of smoke in the distance.  We need rain, a few days of soaking (but not torrential!) rain.  More than that, we need the downed trees cleared away, but I'm not sure how that will happen.

--We've had family members in town as one of the next generations scouts wedding venues.  It's been great to be with them.  It was too brief, but brief visits are better than no visits.

--My seminary schedule is a bit strange, with lots of due dates next week.  The good news is that by getting this work done now, I'll have less to do later.  But I am feeling loaded down.

--The two classes that I'm taking have been particularly good this week, so that's a blessing.  And I've gotten good feedback--much needed encouragement, encouragement needed because I'm tired, not because I'm doubting myself.

--It's also been a good teaching week, with encouragement and praise.  It's nice to feel appreciated.  And it's a marvel to be praised for all the things I do, like the quilting bee on Monday.  I've worked at many a place where people would have questioned what any of that had to do with writing an essay, with the insinuation that I should just do my job.  And it's nice to be in a place that has space to do a quilting bee.

--I had students who came to the quilting bee who wanted me to do it again, and one student who wishes I would teach a sewing class.  I wish I had those kind of sewing skills.  I can't take a pattern and cloth and end up with a shirt.

Even though it will be an intense week-end getting next week's seminary tasks done, it will be good to have a day when I'm not driving.  It will be good to have some time to get the work done.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 30, 2025:

First Reading: Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm: Psalm 32

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Ah, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We've heard it so many times that we may have forgotten pertinent details. We remember clearly the younger son, the one who squanders his fortune in a foreign land and becomes so hungry and desperate that he yearns for swine food. We understand this part of the parable. Even if we haven't been the wastrel child, who among us has not occasionally envied the ease with which some of our society just do their own thing and give themselves to riotous living. We assume the younger son represents us as our worst sinner selves.

We forget that this story has two lost sons.

Yes, the older son is just as lost as the younger. Perhaps more so.

Look at his behavior and see if you recognize yourself. He has to find out from the servants what is going on. He hasn't been invited to the party. He has done all the right things, been steadfast, honored his father and society, and what does he get? Does he get a party? No!

Which child is more lost? The one who gives into his animal nature, who indulges in carnal pleasures? Or the one who shows himself to have all sorts of repressed anger, a well of resentment that erupts all over his poor father?

In his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen says, "Looking deeply into myself and then around me at the lives of other people, I wonder which does more damage, lust or resentment?" (71). What a powerful question!

Nouwen sees this parable as being about love and how we're loved and how we're afraid that we won't be loved. We spend a lot of time looking for the approval of others. Nouwen says, "As long as I keep running about asking: 'Do you love me? Do you really love me?' I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with 'ifs.' The world says: 'Yes I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much'" (42). Obviously, we can't win this game.

Luckily, we don't have to win. God loves us regardless. Of course, learning this lesson of love may take us a lifetime. We have to force ourselves to the disciplines that will thaw our frozen hearts. Nouwen suggests, "Although we are incapable of liberating ourselves from our frozen anger, we can allow ourselves to be found by God and healed by his love through the concrete and daily practice of trust and gratitude" (84).

The traditional approach to this parable is to see the Father character representing God, which is certainly true. But many of us assume we cannot love the way God can. Maybe not. But we have to try. Nouwen says, "Perhaps the most radical statement Jesus ever made is: 'Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.' . . . "what I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. I am an heir. . . . The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father" (123).

How on earth can we accomplish this? Nouwen suggests that we cultivate these three traits: "grief, forgiveness, and generosity" (128). To those I would add that we should commit ourselves to believing in resurrection. Believe in the possibility of second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances. Believe that the lost will be found. Believe that the Prodigal will return. Throw a fabulous party. And when you notice that someone is missing from the party, someone is standing in the shadows, stewing in resentment, anger, grief, envy--go get that person and invite them to the party. Remember that we are children of a God whose love we cannot begin to comprehend.

Model that behavior.

Poems for the Feast Day of the Annunciation

Today is the Feast Day of the Annunciation, which celebrates the day the angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that God had a vision for her and for the salvation of the world and invited her to play a huge role.  She asked a question or two and then said yes.

I've spent much of my life thinking about this pivotal moment.  In my early years, I thought about consent.  In my childhood years, we didn't think much about consent as we discussed this story; we thought about the honor of being chosen.  In my teenage years, I thought about the burden of being the mother of the messiah.  I thought about consent--was God a rapist?  

I have since decided that Mary could have said no, which made me think about other women who might have said no along the way.  Was Mary God's first choice?  I've also thought about modernizing the story, which is a typical approach of mine.

Here's a poem I wrote some years ago now.  (for more process notes, see this blog post), which was included in the book Annunciation:

A Girl More Worthy

The angel Gabriel rolls his eyes
at his latest assignment:
a virgin in Miami?
Can such a creature exist?

He goes to the beaches, the design
districts, the glittering buildings
at every boundary.
Just to cover all bases, he checks
the churches but finds no
vessels for the holy inside.

He thinks he’s found her in the developer’s
office, when she offers him coffee, a kind
smile, and a square of cake. But then she instructs
him in how to trick the regulatory
authorities, how to make his income and assets
seem bigger so that he can qualify
for a huge mortgage that he can never repay.


On his way out of town, he thinks he spies
John the Baptist under the Interstate
flyway that takes tourists
to the shore. But so many mutter
about broods of vipers and lost
generations that it’s hard to tell
the prophet from the grump,
the lunatic from the T.V. commentator.

Finally, at the commuter college,
that cradle of the community,
he finds her. He no longer hails
moderns with the standard angel
greetings. Unlike the ancients,
they are not afraid, or perhaps, their fears
are just so different now.


The angel Gabriel says a silent benediction
and then outlines God’s plan.
Mary wonders why Gabriel didn’t go
to Harvard where he might find
a girl more worthy. What has she done
to find God’s favor?

She has submitted
to many a will greater than her own.
Despite a lifetime’s experience
of closed doors and the word no,
she says yes.

It's a topic I return to again and again, a question I continue to have.  What relevance does this Bible story have to our modern lives?  I am thinking of a nap I took years ago, when I woke up and looked at a palm tree, and a poem came to me.  I took this picture of the tree:

Look at the two browner fronds at the bottom, closest to the trunk--don't they look like a pair of wings?  That musing led to this poem:

Annunciation


In the early hours of this feast
day of the Annunciation, I listen
for God’s invitation, but all I hear
is the roar of a motorcycle speeding
away after last call. The rustle
of the palm fronds in the wind,
the only angel wings today,
as I lay enfolded in the arms
of my beloved of thirty years.

The Feast Day of Oscar Romero

Oscar Romero is now officially a saint, and today is his feast day.  On this day in 1980, he was killed, a martyr for the faith.  When I made this collage card years ago, I couldn't believe that he'd ever be canonized:

Many scholars believe that he was chosen to be Archbishop precisely because he was expected not to make trouble. All that changed when one of his good friends, an activist Jesuit priest, was assassinated by one of the death squads roaming the country. Romero became increasingly political, increasingly concerned about the poor who were being oppressed by the tiny minority of rich people in the country. He called for reform. He called on the police and the soldiers to stop killing their brethren. And for his vision, he was killed as he consecrated the bread for Mass.

I was alive when he was martyred, but I didn't hear or read about it.  I remember reading about some of the more famous murders, particularly of the nuns, and wondering why people would murder nuns or missionaries who were there to help--I had yet to learn of the horrors of colonialism throughout history.

In my first year of college, I was asked to be part of a service that honored the martyrdom of Romero, and this event was likely how I heard of him first.  Or maybe it was earlier that semester when our campus pastor took a group of us to Jubilee Partners.

Jubilee Partners was a group formed by the same people that created Koinonia, the farm in Americus Georgia that most people know because they also created Habitat for Humanity--but they were so much more, in their witness of how Christian love could play out in real practice in one of the most segregated and poor parts of the U.S. south.  In the early years of Jubilee Partners, when I went there, the group helped people from Central America get to Canada, where they could get asylum in the 1980's, when they couldn't get asylum in the U.S.

My consciousness was formed by these encounters and by other encounters I had throughout the 80's.  I met many people in the country illegally, and I heard about the horrors that brought them here.  Then, as now, I couldn't imagine why we wouldn't let these people stay.

Many of us may think that those civil wars are over, but many countries in Central America are still being torn apart by violence.  The words of Romero decades ago are sadly still relevant today:  "Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression."

But his teachings go beyond just a call for an end to killing.  His messages to the wider church are still powerful:  "A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?"

And even those of us who are not part of a faith tradition can find wisdom in his teachings:  "Each time we look upon the poor, on the farmworkers who harvest the coffee, the sugarcane, or the cotton... remember, there is the face of Christ."

If we treated everyone we met as if that person was God incarnate, what a different world we would have!

But for those of us who are tired from the work of this weary world, here's a message of hope and a reminder of the long view.  This prayer, while not written by him (it was written by late Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, drafted for a homily by Cardinal John Dearden, and misattributed to Romero), is often called the Romero prayer:  "We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own." 

On this day that honors a man who was not always honored, let us take heart from his words and from his example.  Let us also remember that he was not always this force for good in the world; indeed, he was chosen to be Archbishop because the upper management of the church thought he would keep his nose stuck in a book and out of politics. 

In these days that feel increasingly more perilous, let us recommit ourselves to the type of love that Romero called us to show:  "Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world."

Sermon for Sunday, March 23, 2025

 March 23, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 13:1-9

At first glance, it seems that we have another Gospel reading with parts that don’t go together--verses 1-5 don’t seem related to 6-9.  Verses 1-5 show people whipping themselves up into a righteous, or maybe self-righteous, anger.  Or maybe the people are trying to get Jesus to tell them that the time to launch a military resistance is right now—Pilate killed people in the Temple where their blood could mingle with the blood of sacrifices—what a desecration!  Historians of the time period tell us that Jesus moved in a world where many people were yearning for change, and among them were people who were only too happy to take advantage of the unhappiness that comes with unfulfilled yearning, including militants who wanted a revolution, who thought the time was now.

Jesus takes a different direction.  He says that those people did nothing to deserve their fate, and the people who had the tower fall down on them, they, too, had done nothing to deserve it.  Here in the 21st century, we might say, “Of course it wasn’t their fault.”  Or maybe not. 

When I think of towers collapsing, I think of the condo building in Surfside Beach, Champlain Towers, that fell to the ground in 2021.  Since then, we’ve had plenty of theories about what happened and who is to blame.  Fingers have pointed to the usual suspects:  the contractors who built the tower, the building inspector who should have been more pro-active, the town that let new development happen.  Most surprising was when the blame shifted to the condo residents themselves:  they should have elected a better board or demanded action, even if it cost them every penny they had.

In our more rational moments, we see these occurrences, towers collapsing and dictators murdering, as being a result of bad luck and poor governance.  In the time of Jesus, this kind of bad luck was not seen as accidental or random.  People thought that if you had bad luck, you had done something to deserve it.  If not you, maybe your parents or grandparents.  Somewhere back in your family line, someone had done something, and the punishment would ripple across generations.

In this context, Jesus’ reply makes sense—and at first it seems compassionate.  Here we receive another promise from God, but it’s not exactly comforting: “They didn’t deserve their fate, but unless you repent, you will perish too.”  This warning is followed by the fig tree parable, and at first glance, we might come away saying, “This God is not the loving God we thought we knew, the mother hen that longs to gather us together.  What is going on?”

One traditional approach to the fig tree is to say that humans are the fig tree, just sitting there, not bearing fruit, and that God is the owner of the vineyard, the one who demands that the gardener rip it out.  In this traditional reading, the gardener is Jesus who argues for a bit more time.  It’s easy to see this as a parable about Jesus coming to lead us into a theology of Divine mercy instead of Divine wrath.  We might see the manure in the parable as the blood of Jesus fertilizing the soil of human life.

Under that reading of the parable, humans don’t do anything but sit there and wait for the gardener to save their fig tree lives.  But today’s Gospel reading makes it clear that more is required from us.  So what is the fig tree’s defense? As gardeners of many fruit trees know, it takes time. Fig trees are doing something during those three years; they are becoming grounded in a strong root system; they are taking in what nutrients they can while still requiring a great deal of care; they are building themselves up so that they can be more fruitful. Like the horseradish plants that we discussed at the fish fry, mature figs trees start bearing in about year 4; they produce fruit not once but twice a year, and produce up to 60 to 100 figs depending on the variety. 

Treated well and allowed to grow and become strong, fig trees produce a good deal of desirable fruit throughout the year. Notice though, that while the gardener understands the tree’s needs and what is possible, there is only one year left. Either the tree utilizes its resources well and starts producing good fruit or it will be removed to make room for others.  The urgency of action is the similarity that ties the two parts of the Gospel together.  The situation is urgent because we don’t know how much time we have—at any moment, the political situation could change or shoddily maintained buildings could collapse, and then where will we be?

Over and over again, Jesus reminds us that God desires more for us than to be a stick of a dying tree in a vineyard; we are made for flourishing.  We have a variety of ways of living in the world, but only some will lead to flourishing.  This parable asks us to envision what we would need to bloom and when we are going to get busy producing.  What fertilizer are you lacking?

Today’s text is not teaching us about the need to remain fallow.  If we have experience with growing things, we know that at times, the best approach to a failing plant is to leave it alone.  But at a certain point, it’s clear that the plant needs an intervention.  It’s been three years.  Time for something else.  The owner of the vineyard shows the approach (perhaps even impatience) of many of us to a failing plant or project:  chop it down!  Walk away!  Put something in the soil that will show more immediate results.

The gardener argues for a different and more informed approach:  more fertilizer, dug in, so that any soil that has become hard packed can be broken up.  More nourishment and attention, someone rooting for the tree to become more fruitful.  One more year, and then assess the situation.

Maybe it would be more accurate to see God as the gardener.  Who, then, is the owner who wants to abandon the tree?  Traditionally we might say it’s the Devil.  Maybe it’s the world.  Maybe we are the harsh vineyard owners, eager to abandon the seemingly fruitless fig tree of our lives and projects and relationships.  We think that if we just rip up what’s not working, maybe we’d get to a better place.  Fertilizing takes so much patience and resources for uncertain results.  We might do all this work and still end up with an under producing fig tree. Here too is a connection to the earlier part of the gospel. If we are continually impatient and tear things up before their time, before they are mature, we will never see any trees come to fruition.   

The parable doesn’t tell us how the tree ends up.  It’s not a tidy fable with the moral that the more work we put in, the greater the reward will be.  Episcopal bishop Michael B. Curry says this about the parable:  “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. Being freed from managing the results of our actions enables us to do something, and do it well. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.” 

But make no mistake:  while it is Jesus who is in charge of the redemption of the world, we have our part to play by strengthening our roots and finding our nourishment.  It is not enough to always be a passive fig tree, taking up valuable real estate.  We may not control the final outcome of our lives, but we are called to act in ways that will lead us to bear good fruit.  We may fear that others will blame us when our best efforts go wrong for items outside of our control but God is not the harsh gardener who will chop us down and throw us into the fire.  God has the wisdom of the gardener, not the impatience of the owner of the vineyard. The season of Lent does remind us that we won’t be here in our current physical form forever.  This is the call of the Gospel. Once you are mature and well grounded, choose your spiritual manure and get to work bearing good fruit.

Confirmation Bread Baking

Yesterday, I made this Facebook post:  "I have been down to Spartanburg, SC to teach, and now we're about to leave Arden, NC to got to Bristol, TN to help Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church with tonight's fish fry. If we cross the line into Virginia, I'll have been in 4 states today. If you're in the Bristol area from 5-7, come on by to get the best meal deal: $10 buys a great dinner along with delicious desserts and a beverage. All proceeds go to fund local charities. It's so many wins I can scarcely count them."

That post sums up my Friday; we did not drive into Virginia.  The post doesn't talk about the bread dough creating that was part of the fish fry.  I had this vision that the confirmands and I would make bread dough during the slow moments of the fish fry, from the proofing of the yeast to the mixing of the dough.  I calculated that there would be plenty of time for the bread to rise.

My plan did not take into account that two of them would have their horseback riding lessons rearranged.  I proofed the yeast and hoped they would show up, but no luck.  So, as the minutes ticked by, I decided to go ahead and mix up the dough without them.

The one confirmand who was there watched, but she didn't want to mix the dough.  The older teen who was confirmed two years ago watched even more intensely than the confirmand.  The adults divided their attention between bread dough and the baby that one of them has.  One of them said, "You really love doing this, don't you?"  Imagine it said in a kind way, not a sneering way.

We ended up with five chunks of bread dough.  I had four paper pans, four plastic bags, and baking directions--one for each confirmand and one I gave to the parishioner who first asked, "Would it be possible to have homemade bread like we did at my church in Wisconsin?"  I took one home with me.

This morning as the bread baked, I thought back to my own beginnings in bread baking.  My grandmother baked rolls every day for the big meal which was usually in the middle of the day, but the first person I knew who baked loaves of bread was an intern who came to our church in my 7th grade year.  Her name was also Kristin, and she seemed like the coolest person I'd ever met.  She was my confirmation teacher, and she brought bread for snack time, which she ate, while we ate the candy that we bought from the convenience store across the street.

I didn't start baking bread, though, until high school, when my mom suggested we try it for the seminarians who were coming over for dinner.  Kristin the intern had moved on by then, but we still had her recipe for Milk and Honey Whole Wheat Bread from the cookbook Recipes from a Small Planet by Ellen Buchman Ewald.  I don't have access to my copy, but I found someone else's photograph online:

The recipe used whole wheat flour and dry milk, with honey, oil, salt, warm water, and yeast.  I no longer make that recipe, but I bake variations of it, sometimes with liquid milk, sometimes without, often with butter instead of oil and brown sugar instead of honey, and oats.

I hope that the bread baking experiences that I've brought to Faith Lutheran Church take root.  I think of the intern who first expanded my notion of what bread could be, and I hope I'm doing that for the youth who are there.  At the very least, I hope I'm giving them good memories, even if they don't do bread baking of their own.

Sermon as Preached on Sunday, March 9, 2025

It's been a hectic week, but I've finally had a chance to post my Sunday sermon to my YouTube channel.  You can view it here, and you can read a draft version here.

I particularly like the way the sermon ends, and it felt even more powerful when I preached it:

Jesus yearns to gather us under the shelter of his protective wings. Let’s agree to meet there, in the feathered softness, such a sanctuary from the sharp and hard edges of the world. Let us gather close to the one who will sacrifice himself to protect us. We do not need to fear the foxes of this world. We shelter under the wings of the Triune God.

Praying in the Imagining Center

 I have been going to lots of medical appointments.  Happily, nothing is wrong.  One gets to a certain age where preventive maintenance takes more time.  Plus, modern medicine requires more time.  For example, to get a colonoscopy, I have to have a referral from my GP, an initial consult with the Gastro doctor folks, some phone calls about scheduling both before and after the initial consult, and maybe I'll get a colonoscopy one of these days.

Similarly, now we use better technology for mammograms; it all seems to be 3D now, when that technology used to be reserved for people more at risk or for the follow up to anything suspicious.  Now in this part of the country, the 3D mammogram is the first one, which means I have had two follow-ups, one each year, to the first mammogram.

Hopefully, they have both come back with reports that the suspicious matter wasn't anything after all; last year it was "bunched up tissue" and this year a lymph node not a cancer mass.  Hurrah!

I am deeply aware that many women will not be so lucky.  Last year I felt that panic, as I asked myself, "What if these are the last moments of the 'before cancer' life for me?"  Tuesday I didn't feel panic, but there was a detached part of myself thinking that the news might be bad, and I should steel myself.

At the imaging center Tuesday to get the mammogram follow up, I changed into the gown and waited in a room with no magazines, waiting to be taken to the ultrasound room.  I decided to pray instead of getting my book out of the locker.  I prayed for all of us in the building, those of us waiting for scans and those operating the equipment and those reading the scans.  I prayed for the staff that will clean the rooms at the end of the day.  Then I widened my prayers for all who are undergoing tests of any kind, those who are helping the sick, and then even widening my focus, I prayed for the whole world generally.

My results gave me good news, but I am under no illusions that my prayers had anything to do with it.  Nonetheless, I offered up a prayer of gratitude--and once again, I prayed for us all, regardless of the news we would get.

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 23, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm: Psalm 63:1-8

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Gospel: Luke 13:1-9


In this week's Gospel, we get the parable of the fig tree, that poor fig tree who still hasn't produced fruit even though it's been 3 years. This Gospel gives us a space to consider our view of God and our view of ourselves.

Which vision of God is the one in your head? We could see God as the man who says, "Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?" If we see God that way, and if we see ourselves as the fig tree, that's a scary proposition; we've got a few years to produce before God gives up on us.

A traditional approach to this parable might see God as the impatient one, and Jesus as the vinedresser who pleads the case for the poor little fig tree. I know that Trinitarian theology might lead us this direction, but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of a God who gives up on humanity. Everything in Scripture--and the experiences of those who walked this path before us--shows us a God that pursues us, going so far as to take on human flesh and walk amongst us. This doesn't sound like a God who gives up after 3 years.

In an eye-opening conversation at a women's retreat, a pastor proposed this approach to the parable: what if God is the withered tree and humans are the manure?

It seems an essential question: how are we manure, for God, ourselves, and the world? And what manure do we need to nourish ourselves?

Maybe you've felt yourself in a fallow place spiritually. Or worse, maybe you've felt yourself sliding backwards, a withering on the vine. Maybe you started Lent with a fire in your heart, and you've burned out early. Maybe you haven't been good at transforming yourself.

Look at that parable again. The fig tree doesn't just sit there while everyone gathers around, waiting for something to happen. The gardener gives it extra attention. The gardener digs around it to give the roots room to grow and gives it extra manure--ah, the magic of fertilizer! We, too, can be the vinedresser to our spiritual lives. And we don't have to resort to heroic measures. We don't have to start off by running away to a religious commune. Just a little spiritual manure is all it takes.

That spiritual manure can take many forms: maybe we need to add a different activity, or maybe we need to do less. The parable reminds us that it doesn't take much in times of time or money--we just need to rearrange the dirt around our roots and add some enrichment.

And the parable reminds us that we are biological creations, so at some point it will be too late--but it's not too late now.  Not yet.

Coracles for Saint Patrick's Day

 On Sunday afternoons, we often watch recordings of livestreamed church services from churches where we have been members.  Once we've done that, we often go to the recording of the Sunday service at the National Cathedral.  

Usually, each pastor is preaching on the day's Gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary.  But yesterday, the sermon at the National Cathedral was delivered by The Most Reverend John McDowell, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland and Metropolitan, Church of Ireland.  His stole and cope did not match the purple of the others.  No, his had gold shamrocks.  He preached about Saint Patrick and Jesus, and what we can learn.  I had not realized that Patrick and Augustine were alive at the same time.  

The sermon made me think of a poem that I wrote long ago, "Coracle of Hope."  Yesterday I went to look it up, and happily, having much of my writing online makes it easy.  I think it holds up well, and I'll post it below.

The poem was inspired by Dave Bonta's experience with coracles in Wales, which I wrote about in this blog post years ago:  "I found myself captivated by this post of Dave Bonta's about his experience with coracles on his recent trip to Wales. He reminded us of the ancient Celtic monks, some of whom set off without even an oar. Somehow, my brain made some connections to the modern workplace, and I was off, composing a poem."

This poem is part of my latest chapbook, Life in the Holocene Extinction .  It seems like a good choice for March 17--happy St. Patrick's Day!

Coracle of Prayer


As my computer dings
its constant reminders
of meetings and appointments,
I think of those ancient
Celtic monks and their coracles,
their faith in fragile canoes and currents
and a God who will steer
them where they need to go.

Having given over my free will
to Microsoft Office, I allow
the calendar to steer
me. I rely on my e-mails as a rudder,
although I often feel adrift
on this sea of constant communication.

Perhaps it is time to ransom my soul
which has been sold to this empire
of the modern workplace.
I look to the monks
and their rigorous schedule of prayer.
Feeling like a true subversive,
I insert appointments for my spirit
into the calendar. I code
them in a secret language
so my boss won’t know I’m speaking
in a different tongue. I launch
my coracle of prayer
into this unknown ocean,
the shore unseen, my hopes
rising like incense across a chapel.

Sermon for Sunday, March 16, 2025

 March 16, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 13:31-35

Today’s Gospel shows shifting loyalties, shifting histories, our layer upon layer of relationship, as Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem, as we continue in our Lenten pilgrimage.   Let’s begin with the Pharisees who come to warn Jesus about Herod.  I’ve thought about this turn of events all week, and the more I think, the stranger it seems.

Why would they warn Jesus?  If you’re like me, you’ve been taught since childhood that the Pharisees are the enemy of Jesus.  Here we see the danger of painting with too broad a brush – the type of generalization from which much hate is born.  Surely some (if not many) Pharisees opposed Jesus, but remember that not all of them were.  They may have come in secret, like Nicodemus, but we can’t assume that everyone hated him.

And even if they all despised his teachings, that doesn’t mean that they wanted to see him killed.  Even if they were opposed to Jesus, they likely were more opposed to Herod.  In fact, historically, they would have been much more likely to disdain Herod, who was a puppet of Rome, whom the Pharisees opposed—but opposed quietly for the most part, as was the safest route.

Unlike the way we saw the devil and Jesus in last week’s temptation story, we routinely see heated debates between Jesus and the Pharisees across the Gospels.  But Jesus and the Pharisees interact in a way we selcome see today:  they have respectful debates, and they debate because they do have some significant differences.  For Jesus and the Pharisees, the clash was over whether Law or Love was most important when it came to following God.  It is reasonable to believe that the Pharisees passionately disagreed with Jesus but still had a great deal of respect for him.  It’s not a bad model for us.  If you come across people, whether in your face to face life or on social media, who are more invested in being right than in having an honest dialogue, there’s no point in trying to have a conversation.  As with the Pharisees and Jesus, only engage with those who have integrity of spirit and of mind.

The Pharisees respected and cared for Jesus enough to warn Him about Herod, but they probably didn’t need to do that.  Everyone saw what happened to John the Baptist.  Herod was not one to be respected, not one to debate in honest disagreement.  Jesus knows he’s on a collision course with the authorities.  He’s been trying to teach the disciples how to non-violently resist an oppressive regime (the turn the other cheek Gospel of three weeks ago), while not letting that resistance become the sole focus of their lives. He’s been training them to continue the work when he’s gone.  

Here, too, Jesus models how to survive and thrive in hard times.  When there’s no way to avoid the coming clash, keep doing the work that needs to be done:  the healing of the culture, the casting out of whatever demons have been unleashed.

Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, and here, too, he might find common cause with the Pharisees, who were also distressed over the behavior of the people who lived in Jerusalem, the center of the culture.  Jesus looks back in history to all the prophets killed by the larger culture.  The writer of the Gospel of Luke is looking back too.  By the time he writes, Jerusalem has been destroyed by Rome.

There is solace in this Gospel.  It ends with Jesus yearning to be our maternal hen sheltering her brood. We don’t often get images of Jesus as mother, so lets take a look at this analogy. Those of you who have raised chickens may be better able to speak to  how a mother hen interacts with her chicks than I am.  From my research, the chicks are allowed to run free and explore as they peck in the dirt, they are allowed to make mistakes, they are allowed to get into petty arguments with their siblings, and when they get too far from safety, the mother hen steps in.   Baby chicks are allowed certain freedoms unless the mother hen senses a clear and present danger. 

When the fox appears, the mother hen is less patient with the chicks and more protective. Despite all of her efforts, however, some of the vulnerable chicks wish to keep playing at trivial games and ignore the often aggressive attempts of the hen to return them to safety.   As the fox approaches, the brood gathers under the mother’s wings and in captivity, all the mother hens may form a collectively defensive posture. The mother hen doesn’t say: yeah, take the kids so long as you leave me alone. She puts her own life on the line to better ensure protection and salvation. Her posture says: you might kill the vulnerable, but you will have to fight your way through me first. Despite the hens that may have been losses, the number of prophets that have been killed, Christ wants to be allowed to do that for us.   Jesus longs to give us freedom within a comfort zone but when true danger appears, Jesus wants to protect us all, particularly  the weak and vulnerable, from the deadly fox.

Our human loyalties may shift, the way that the Pharisees appear to shift loyalties regarding Jesus, moving from trickery to protection.  They may shift like the appearance of disinterest by the hen and when she will sacrifice her life for her children. But the loyalty and respect from Jesus doesn’t shift.  When we face a fox like Herod, Jesus won’t run away.  Jesus is there to protect us if we will allow it. 

How can we help stay close enough to the one who yearns to be our mother hen?  We know all the ways that Jesus taught u, all the spiritual disciplines that we might use.  Daily prayer is chief among them, and if we don’t have words, we can pray as Jesus taught us, the Lord’s prayer, or we can let the Holy Spirit pray the words.  We can read for spiritual nourishment instead of doomscrolling our way across our phones.  We can remember what creative work brings us joy—and we can do it often.  We can look out for those who are so at risk inan empire ruled by evil and manipulative foxes like Herod.

Jesus yearns to gather us under the shelter of his protective wings.  Let’s agree to meet there, in the feathered softness, such a sanctuary from the sharp and hard edges of the world.  Let us gather close to the one who will sacrifice himself to protect us.  We do not need to fear the foxes of this world.  We shelter under the wings of the Triune God.

Revising a Sermon: Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence

If I'm able to work far enough ahead, I have my spouse read my sermon and make suggestions, if he's got the time.  Yesterday he did substantial revisions.

I'll take another look today.  He read it to me last night, and it seems much stronger.  I think he added 1-2 pages of new material.  He knows more about chickens than I do, and added more about hen behavior to explicate the idea of God being like a mother hen gathering her brood.  He added more about how to have respectful discussions instead of the social media kind of sniping, which I may cut down a bit--it felt more like the beginning of Philosophy class than a sermon.

I feel strange about his revisions, but not because I feel like my writing has been violated.  I like the idea of collaborative writing, but I'm almost always working on my own, because I like it better, and I get exasperated at having to coordinate schedules.

I feel strange because I am paid for sermon preparation.  I also feel strange because I've spent my whole life in academia, and I'm always careful about whose ideas are mine and whose are someone else's.  Because it's hard to document co-writing, I often don't let people put words into my documents.

I know that a lot of people are using ChatGPT and other AI ways of writing to revise sermons.  I feel better about using my spouse, for all sorts of reasons.  I know that a surprising number of people are using ChatGPT and other AI ways of writing to write sermons.  I won't be doing that, but I also know that I'm fortunate not to need to do that.  I have lots of previous writing of my own that I'll use before I use AI.

I'm also fortunate because I've spent my whole life writing, so it comes naturally to me.  With luck, I won't face the kind of writer's block that leads me to use AI carelessly.

Comparing Worship Numbers: 2015 and 2022

Yesterday as I waited for my audiologist appointment, I read the report on the future and pastors in the ELCA; you can read it too, if you'd like (go here for the PDF).  It seems well-researched to me, and the implications also seem well-reasoned.  I say "seemed" because I didn't do a deep dive.  I was in a waiting room, reading the document on my phone, which is not a good way to read for me.  I tried turning the phone sideways, but the document did not shift to a more readable position.  

The information isn't new to me.  I know that churches have been shrinking in terms of attendance and money.  I know that there are far more pastors retiring than seminarians graduating.

What was new to me:  more churches are now very small.  Very small was defined as 50 or fewer worshipping each week, and online worshippers weren't included in that count.  

Here are the latest numbers, for 2022:

58%    worshipping fewer than 50

35%    worshipping 50-150

4%      worshipping 151-250

2%       worshipping more than 250

in contrast, here are the numbers for 2015:

32%    worshipping fewer than 50

47%    worshipping 50-150

12%      worshipping 151-250

9%       worshipping more than 250

There are many reasons for the decline, the pandemic chief among them.  Many of the people who stopped worshipping in person did not come back to worshipping in person; there wasn't analysis of those numbers, but there was reference to another study which concluded that those absent worshippers aren't as involved in 2022, even if they worship remotely.  

The study, as we might expect, was most interested in how that plays out in terms of money.  I will spend some days thinking about the spiritual implications for the people who aren't in church.  Do they have other systems in place to help them see God at work in the world?  They might.  Do they have support systems that will get them through life's hard times?  They might.

But for the majority, I imagine that there's not an institution that has replaced the Church, at least not one that's healthy.  And that's what worries me.

Video of Sunday's Sermon

I have finally had a moment to download the video of the sermon that I preached on Sunday.  Go here to see it.

It's always interesting to me to see how the sermon changes from draft to draft, and then as I actually preach it.  I posted the sermon in written form in this blog post.  As I delivered the sermon, I saw typos, but I decided to leave them alone.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 16, 2025:

First Reading: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm: Psalm 27

Second Reading: Philippians 3:17--4:1

Gospel: Luke 13:31-35


This Gospel is one of those that might tempt us moderns to feel superior. We're not like that wicked Jerusalem, are we? We don't stone the prophets and others who are sent to us. We're a civilized people.

But think of how many ways there are to kill the messengers of God. Let's start with our individual Bibles. Do you know where yours is? Have you touched it this week? This month? This year? Of course, we might argue that the Bible app on our phone makes it less important that we have a paper Bible on the shelf. But do we use it? We can look up any chunk of the Bible online and read it in multiple versions. But do we?

One of the main ways God has to speak to us is by way of the Scripture. And if we don't read our Bibles, we lose out on a major avenue of communication with God. You might protest that you hear the Bible plenty when you go to church on Sunday. And that's great. Far too many churches have very little scripture as part of the weekly service. But it's not enough. We'd be better off if we read our Bibles every day. It's far too easy to be seduced by the glittering secular world; a daily diet of Bible reading can help us remember God's claim on us and our purpose in the world.

But the Bible isn't the only way we can learn about God and our place in the community. We can read the works of other holy people. There are plenty of books out there that can help us be more faithful. My reading list is fairly eclectic; if you're new to this, I'd start with the works of Henri Nouwen, Kathleen Norris, Madeleine L'Engle, and Thomas Merton, among many others.

You could also listen for God. Many of us are pretty good at talking to God, especially if we're in trouble. But we're not very good at listening. Henri Nouwen suggests that we take 10 minutes a day to quiet our minds, to sit and just listen. You might also keep a journal, which can be a very valid form of active meditation for busy Westerners. Don't just write down what happens to you during the day. Keep a list of things for which you're grateful. Keep a list of your heartfelt desires. Make a space for any sorts of intuition you have. Ask God for insight. Keep a keen ear for what God replies. Write it down so you won't forget.

In this time of Lent, we can repent for all the times we've metaphorically stoned the prophets. We can turn our attention to God and once again, try to be more faithful. God longs to gather us, as a mother hen gathers her chicks. Come be part of the brood.

Week-end Recap: Wild Women and Sedate Sketching

Well, Spring Break is over for me as a teacher.  For me as a student, Wesley Theological Seminary has reading week this week, a sort of week off.  Unlike last semester, I don't have an onground intensive at the campus this week, so I'm hoping to make use of this time off to get some work done.

I am realizing that I am in the time of the semester when I will always feel like I am never going to feel caught up.  I am tired, and I am wondering what it would feel like to only have one job for pay.  I've rarely had that.  It's been hard for me to give up part-time teaching because I can't be sure that my full-time job, whichever one I've had in the past, will last.

Given the state of the country, I don't think I will ever feel sure that my full-time job will last or that I can count on Social Security or that my retirement funds will be safe.  But let me not focus on the things I can't control.

Let me do a quick recap of the week-end.  I spent much of it helping with a retreat, the Wild Women Week-end at Lutheridge.  I had a much easier commute than the last time I was here for the Wild Women Week-end back in 2003, the first one I ever attended, the one where I heard about the Create in Me retreat, which became my retreat of choice.

I was on hand to offer an optional workshop during the time right after lunch that had several optional options.  

I planned a few writing activities, like the free writing after choosing an object from the table, and the writing letters to ourselves from the point of view of our younger selves and older selves.  I tried to structure the time as a drop in kind of opportunity, and about 15 people came by.  They seemed enthusiastic, and I was happy to be part of their options.

The retreat itself was good, but it didn't tell me anything about Mary Magdalene that I didn't already know.  I am fairly sure that most of the retreat participants learned a lot; most of them likely haven't spent time researching the subject.  But it's the kind of topic that I don't mind revisiting.

Yesterday after I got back from a good day at church, preaching and presiding at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, I went over to one of my good friend's house in the neighborhood.  We sat in her downstairs studio and did some sketching and painting while we caught up with each other.  She has more art supplies (of the painting and paper variety) than I do, and she's happy to share.  It was very satisfying.

And now, back to a more regular schedule.  Let me try to get a walk in this morning.  It will be dark, which doesn't make me happy, but it will be better to do it this morning while my spirit is willing, as are my feet.

Sermon for March 9, 2025

 March 9, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 4:1-13

First, the good news about this Sunday’s reading:  while we might spend much of our lives looking to Jesus and modeling our behavior after him, this text is not offered to us as a mandate to do 40 days of fasting ourselves.  We are not necessarily called to this Lenten discipline.  The first hearers of the Gospel would have heard the reference to 40 days in the wilderness and caught that allusion to more ancient prophets.

It's important to place the text in the larger context of the life of Jesus and his ministry.  In Luke, Jesus is baptized, and then the Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness.  The devil tempts Jesus, Jesus resists, the devil retreats, and then Jesus returns to society, preaching and teaching, but not doing miracles yet.  Even though the devil has just told Him that he could. Jesus returns to his hometown and declares the prophecy of Isaiah to be fulfilled, and his hometown wants to kill him (you may remember these incidents from the last Sunday in January and the first Sunday in February).  And then he calls followers—and here we are, today, catapulted back to an earlier time in the life of Jesus.  Why?

Well, symbolically, it makes sense to revisit this story for the first Sunday of Lent.  Lent is a season of ash and penitence, not just a day or two after the new year, not just the lead up to our yearly physical, but a full 40 days to reflect upon how we have or have not lived up to being the best person we can be and a time tomake some course corrections.  Lent can be a period that many believers experience as a wilderness time.  Wilderness can be a space of temptation and testing, and that means more than just ignoring the yearning to have a sugar-filled desert or a glass of wine or whatever tempting thing we’ve given up for Lent.  It is easy to follow the temptation to just give up our introspection for any number of reasons or to decide that we have already done all that is necessary because we haven’t failed as spectacularly as others. In this way, Jesus shows us a way to resist the devil and those many temptations, or as the country music Josh Turner would say, a way not to “buy a ticket on that long black train.” 

When we experience a passage like this one, we may not realize the larger lessons for us all.  When Jesus is in the wilderness, it’s clear that he’s talking to Satan or the devil or however one recognizes and names the many faces of evil. The stakes are clear in today’s Gospel text.  However, for many of us, we won’t always recognize the foe that we’re facing. But the temptations that the devil offers Jesus are not very different from the ones that we face.

Many Gospel commentators focus on the nature of the temptations.  Consider turning stones into bread—how wonderful that would be as a practical skill for all of us. All hungry persons could feed themselves without worrying about distribution issues or greed standing in the way.   But the deeper nature of this temptation is that of wanting our physical needs met, and what we’ll do to make sure that we have a roof over our heads and food on the table.  The deeper temptation is to forsake our spiritual lives so that our physical needs are met.  It’s a short slide from taking care of our families to hoarding our resources—the danger is that we lose our souls as we take care of our physical needs.

In our Gospel text, not surprisingly, the devil does not go away after Jesus withstands the first temptation.  The temptations just get stronger, the rewards better.:  Jesus is then tempted with power—to be the ruler of all the kingdoms of the world.  We might say, Of course Jesus can withstand this temptation.  He already knows he’s the one in charge.  But wouldn’t it be nice if the rest of the world knew it too?  That’s what the devil seems to offer.

We still face this temptation today, although it may take different forms.  I don’t know many people who want to be president of the U.S., but it's the rare person I've met who doesn't wrestle with questions of status and earnings and promotions--and the power that comes with better earning potential. Even if we think we are comfortable with the decisions we’ve made, we might feel a pang when we see that young rising star and feel ourselves eclipsed.  

After failing to successfully tempt Jesus’ with food and power, Satan offers Jesus a chance to prove who he says he is, and notice that Satan is now using scripture with a  reference to Psalm 91, the psalm upon which the song “Eagle’s Wings” is based. Satan is essentially saying: If you believe the protection promised in this Psalm, prove it: Jump! 

We face this temptation too, this yearning to channel God’s protective power.  Most of us aren't very patient with God's time scale. We wish God would just hurry up and show us the Divine Plan.  We understand that God is making all things new, but in the meantime, the world feels broken, not beautiful.

We may not see the devil in a physical form, promising us the “world as our oyster” while we forget that we cannot live on oysters alone, but we feel similar temptations every day.  We may not see the devil in physical form asking us to show how much we really trust God, but once we start to think about where we place our faith, we may realize that we’re tempted every day:  tempted to do something unsavory if the ends justify the means, tempted to seize whatever power we can, tempted to  rely on ourselves, not God, tempted to make God prove God’s power to us. Lent sets aside a period for us to do this contemplative work and fortify our resistance against the world’s insistence. 

Just as two weeks ago we got a resistance text that we might not have recognized, here too, we get a resistance text.  Jesus shows us how to stand up to evil, whether it’s the evil of an earthly culture encouraging us to take advantage of all our blessings, seeking power over others, or making poorly calculated mistakes to prove are right in our beliefs.  Jesus answers each temptation with scripture.

Jesus says no to the devil, three different times. Each time, Jesus uses scripture to resist the temptation.  What a simple solution to temptation!  Notice what Jesus does not do.  Jesus doesn’t interact with the devil.  Jesus doesn’t try to show where the logic of the devil’s argument breaks down.  Jesus doesn’t bargain.  Jesus doesn’t try to make a deal with the devil, hoping that more good than brokenness comes out of the deal.  Jesus doesn’t engage in physical violence.  No, Jesus responds with a quote that says no to the devil.  He relies on the spiritual wisdom of those who have gone before him even when evil tries to us the scripture himself to justify deadly behavior.

You might say, “But I don’t have all those texts memorized.”  But you have probably memorized more than you think, although it might be in the form of song, rather than text.  Most of the liturgy that we sing and say every week together use words that come from the Bible.  Many of the hymns that we sing are based on Biblical texts. As Lutherans, we believe that even memorization of the Bible is insufficient understanding outside of community particularly at Lent. This is why we gather here and why in Lent, and sing, “Return to the Lord your God,” and pray not to be lead into temptation. May those and our Lenten reflections be enough. – AMEN