Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026:

Liturgy of the Palms

 
Psalm:  Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Second reading:  Matthew 21:1-11

Liturgy of the Passion

 
First reading:  Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm:  Psalm 31:9-16
Second reading:  Philippians 2:5-11
Gospel:  Matthew 26:14-27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54

Those of you who have been going to church for awhile may have noticed that Palm Sunday sometimes stretches for a longer time than Easter Sunday. There's so much we cover these days. We start with the Palm Sunday story--some churches actually have their congregants start out seated, then they rise and march around the church, either inside or outside, and then they sit down again. 

And then, when they get to the readings, they hear the whole story of the Passion. We get Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday all in one Sunday. It's almost a relief to show up on Easter and only have to deal with one part of the story.

Easter is the part of the story upon which our Christian faith is rooted. It's the place where most of us like to fix our focus. But Holy Week reminds us of essential truths too.

Palm Sunday, which is now called Passion Sunday, reminds us of life's journey. No one gets to live the triumphal entry into Jerusalem day in and day out. If we're lucky, there will be those high water mark periods; we'll be hailed as heroes and people will appreciate our work. All the transportation and dinner details will work out like we want them to. Our friends will be by our side.

Yet the Passion story reminds us that those same appreciative people can turn on us just as quickly. The cheering crowd today can be the one calling for our blood next week. If we're lucky, we'll have friends who stand by us, but we're also likely to suffer all kinds of betrayals: from our friends, from our governments, from any number of societal institutions, and ultimately from our bodies, our all too fragile flesh.

What do we do with this knowledge?

The corridor between Palm Sunday and Easter instructs us in what to do. We can watch out for each other. We can find like-minded humans and stay together in solidarity. We can make meals and take time to eat together.

We can go even deeper into our care for each other, and on Maundy Thursday, we get a glimpse of that kind of care. Some churches will read the Maundy Thursday text of the woman anointing Christ's feet with oil. Some churches will read the Maundy Thursday text that shows Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

Good Friday reminds us that we can do all these things, and still we may have to stand by helplessly as those whom we love are ravaged. Or we may find that we are ravaged.

The Palm Sunday/Passion Week trajectory reminds us that we worship a God who has experienced this truth of the human condition first hand.

But we also worship a God who has been working through time and outside of time to transform this human condition. We don't always see it, but Easter assures us that the process is in place and that resurrection will break through, even in the most unlikely circumstances.

The Feast Day of the Annunciation

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, the feast day which celebrates the appearance of the angel Gabriel, who tells Mary of her opportunity to be part of God's mission of redemption. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says, in the older wording that I still like best, "Hail, oh blessed one! The Lord is with you!" Mary asks some questions, and Gabriel says, "For nothing will be impossible with God" (Luke 1: 37). And Mary says, ". . . let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1: 38).

That means only 9 months until Christmas. If I wrote a different kind of blog, I'd fill the rest of this post with witty ways to make your shopping easier. But instead of spending the next nine months strategically getting our gifts bought, maybe we should think about the next nine months in terms of waiting for God, watching for God, incubating the Divine.

I find Mary an interesting model for modern spirituality. Notice what is required of Mary. She must wait.

Mary is not required to enter into a spiritual boot camp to get herself ready for this great honor. No, she must be present to God and be willing to have a daily relationship, an intimacy that most of us would never make time for. She doesn't have to travel or make a pilgrimage to a different land. She doesn't have to go to school to work on a Ph.D. She isn't even required to go to the Temple any extra amount. She must simply slow down and be present. And of course, she must be willing to be pregnant, which requires more of her than most of us will offer up to God. And there's the later part of the story, where she must watch her son die an agonizing death.

We might think about how we can listen for God's call. Most of us live noisy lives: we're always on our cell phones, we've often got several televisions blaring in the house at once, we're surrounded by traffic (and their loud stereos), we've got people who want to talk, talk, talk. Maybe today would be a good day to take a vow of silence, inasmuch as we can, to listen for God.

If we can't take a vow of silence, we could look for ways to have some silence in our days. We could start with five minutes and build up from there.

Maybe we can't be silent, but there are other ways to tune in to God. Maybe we want to keep a dream journal to see if God tries to break through to us in that way. Maybe we want to keep a prayer journal, so that we have a record of our prayer life--and maybe we want to revisit that journal periodically to see how God answers our prayers.

Let us celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation by thinking about our own lives. What does God call us to do? How will we answer that call?

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 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.

What Time Is It? What Season Is It?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, March 15, 2026:

First Reading: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm: Psalm 23

Second Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14

Gospel: John 9:1-41

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recording of Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2026

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

Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2026

March 8, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



John 4:5-42


This week, we move from the shadows where we met Nicodemus, into the bright midday light where we meet the Samaritan woman at the well. This conversation with the Samaritan woman is the longest one that Jesus has—with anyone, across all of the Gospels. This encounter comes shortly after the one with Nicodemus, and taken together, they both point towards ways that people will react to Jesus.


Both Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman ask questions, and Jesus answers them, although not with a straight forward answer that they might have been expecting or hoping to hear. In both encounters, Jesus shows that he has an understanding of the questioner that is deeper than surface level. In both encounters, Jesus takes time out of his increasingly busy schedule to listen and to have a conversation—not a conversation where he’s hoping to win converts but a conversation that invites the listener to a deeper relationship.


On another level, these two people, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, couldn’t be more different. Nicodemus is a man, a Pharisee, which means he has spent more time than the average man reading and studying the Law and the Prophets. Nicodemus has social status—he’s a leader of the Jews. The Samaritan woman comes to Jesus from a very different place.


For one thing, she’s a Samaritan, which means that she is part of a Jewish community that isn’t in conversation with the Jewish community of Nicodemus—in part because of geographical divisions, a split about the proper geographical place to worship God. We may hear the word Samaritan and attach it to the idea of the Good Samaritan, who stops and tends to the wounded traveler. People in the time of Jesus or the slightly later time of John’s Gospel would not have had these associations. Samaritans would have been seen as the outcast tribe of Judea that worshipped wrong and lived wrong because they embraced wrong beliefs.


Some have interpreted the fact that the Samaritan woman has had five husbands to mean that she’s a woman of looser morals than most. But there’s nothing in the text that asserts our modern claim. She would not have been allowed to divorce her husbands; it’s more likely that she has been a widow five times, which might soften our hearts towards her. It’s also possible that she’s been divorced a time or two or five, but again, this would have been done to her, not done by her.


Similarly, some interpreters have seen her appearance at the well at midday to mean that she’s so slutty that the women of the town have shunned her, and she has to come to the well by herself in the heat of the day. Women customarily came to the well at sunrise; they came in groups both for safety and for community. What is this Samaritan woman doing at the well all by herself? We might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that she’s an outcast many times over.


Scholar Laura Holmes cautions us about this traditional reading of the woman at the well, as a woman ostracized by her society. Look at the way the Gospel for today ends. The woman goes back to town and tells everyone what she’s experienced. If she was truly an outcast from her Samaritan society, no one would have given her the time of day. Instead, they listen to her and come out to verify for themselves. We’re told that many believed in him BECAUSE of her testimony. Once again, one of the earliest evangelists was female.


In last week’s Gospel, Nicodemus goes away puzzled. In today’s Gospel, the Samaritan woman also goes away puzzled. But instead of staying in the shadows, the way Nicodemus seems to, the Samaritan woman invites others to help her discern the truth. It’s a very Lutheran approach, isn’t it? In the end, they all have opened eyes and a deeper understanding.


They invite Jesus to stay with them, and he does, for two days. A better translation of the verb would be “abide.” We’ve seen this word before, and it means more than just to stay. It is more akin to making a home in a place—it’s a word that connotes settling in, getting grounded, creating and sharing community.


I assume that something similar happens to Nicodemus along the way, but we don’t see it in the same way that we do here, with a whole community doing the work of discipleship. Some come to believe in Jesus because of the testimony of the woman. Some may decide on the strength of their own encounter with Jesus, but it’s an encounter they wouldn’t have had without the woman at the well.


I assume that there are others in the Samaritan community who will be more like Nicodemus: hearing and questioning and remaining baffled as they go away. Will they come back? Has Jesus planted a seed that will lead to later flowering? We don’t know.


We also see the disciples in action. Here are men who have been with Jesus, and yet they still don’t understand. They have an encounter with Jesus that is similar to the encounters that Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well have. They ask questions about reality as they understand it. Jesus answers questions that they don’t even know they have or can’t articulate yet. Jesus shows the same patience with the disciples that he shows with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. He understands that they are asking a different question, but he wants to show them a different way of perception. God is in their midst, and he wants to guide them to a deeper communion.


We see a similar dynamic today. Some will hear the words of Jesus and go away puzzled. Some will come back. Some will be curious. Some will be cautious. Some will witness to the whole community early on. It may take time for others. Some will live with Jesus for years at a time and still have questions.


The throughline is Jesus, who takes time to move the listener to a deeper understanding—an understanding of who Jesus is, and who the listener is in relationship to Jesus. Jesus offers living water, and like the Samaritan woman, we may be stuck on a literal level, wondering about how to get water with no dipper. It may take us time to realize that Jesus offers something much more profound.


Jesus is there, the drinking gourd, offering water for our parched souls. As he tells the disciples, he is the food that nourishes, the food we yearn for, even if we’re not always aware of our hunger.


When Jesus nourishes us and gives us living water, we can leave refreshed, replenished and renewed. We can go into the larger community, ready for the harvest that someone else began, generations of disciples before us, nourishing the earth, planting the seeds, watering the soil.

In a Week of Unraveling, the Sun Still Rises

It's been a week of hard news, a week of war and death and the world as we knew it unravelling.  I do realize my privilege in saying this.  For many parts of the world, that's just a regular week:  war and death and unravelling.

I've taken solace in the sunrise.  Part of it is the happy confluence of being able to get out for a walk in the last week before Daylight Savings Time starts.  Next week, it's back to walking in the dark if I want to get my walk done before my work day.

So this week, let me record these pictures from the high point of Lutheridge, the chapel and Dedication Altar.  Let me remember that God can transform every manner of gruesome death into new life.

The Seminarian Wins a Senate Primary

I am not the seminarian who won the primary--that would be James Talarico, who came to seminary with a wealth of education and experience: an M.Ed from Harvard, a stint with Teach for America, and time in state level politics.  News reports call him a seminarian, but he's earned the MDiv.  Maybe he's like me, an MDiv but still tasks to do before ordination.

I've done a bit of internet searching, and I can't tell what kind of Presbyterian church he's from, the more conservative branch or the more liberal one.  From his comments, it sounds like the more liberal one, but I did hear one commenter say that it wasn't the PCUSA branch, which I think is the most liberal.

I think of his candidacy committee.  Is the U.S. Senate a mission field?  Can he be ordained to serve the Senate?

If he wins the election, does his desire to be a minister change?  Is this something he'll do later?  The U.S. Senate doesn't seem like a bivocational fit.

Most of all, I am happy that someone with a gentler religious view can be a viable candidate.  We need more people with gentler views, but those of us with gentler views don't have the political scaffolding and resources that we would need.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 8, 2026:

First Reading: Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 95

Second Reading: Romans 5:1-11

Gospel: John 4:5-42

If you didn't read much of the Bible, you might assume that Samaritans are good people; after all, wasn't the only person who stopped to help the traveler who was assaulted and left for dead, wasn't that person a Samaritan?

Yes, and that's part of the point of the story that many of us miss. Church officials didn't stop to help. The only person who did stop to help was one of the lowest people in the social stratosphere.

Actually, today's Gospel introduces us to one lower, a Samaritan woman. We know that she has low status because she's a Samaritan and because she's coming to the well later in the day. It would have been the custom to come early in the morning to socialize, and the fact that she doesn't come then speaks volumes; she's an outcast among outcasts. She's a woman in a patriarchal society and part of a group (Samaritans) who have almost no social status. It would only be worse if she was a prostitute or a slave.

Yet, Jesus has a long conversation with her, the longest that he has with anyone recorded in the New Testament. Here, again this week, Jesus is in Mystic mode. She asks questions, and he gives her complex answers.

But unlike Nicodemus, she grasps his meaning immediately. And she believes. She goes back to her city and spreads the good news. And her fellow citizens believe her and follow her back to follow Jesus. Notice how she has gone from isolation to community.

Jesus preaches to them and seems to include them, complete outsiders, in his vision of the Kingdom. Hence the good news: Jesus came for us all.

In this Gospel, we see an essential vision of a messiah who will spend time with people who are completely outcast. We are never too lost for God. We don't have to improve ourselves to win salvation. God doesn't tell us that we'll win love if we just lose ten pounds or pray more often or work one more night in the soup kitchen or give away fifty more dollars a week to worthy charities.

Jesus doesn't send the Samaritan woman back to town until he's made a connection with her. He doesn't say, "Hey, if you're at a well at noon, you must be a real slut, if the women won't even let you come to the well with them in the morning. Mend your slutty ways, and maybe I'll let you be part of my vision for the Kingdom."

No, he spends time with her and that's how he wins her over. He knows that humans can't change themselves in the hopes of some kind of redemption; we can’t even lose 10 pounds in time for our class reunion, much less make the substantial changes that will take us into a healthier older age.

However, Jesus knows the path to true change; he knows that humans are more likely to change if they feel like God loves them and wants to be with them just the way they are. Jesus comes to say, “You’ve lived in the land of self-loathing long enough. Sit with me and talk about what matters.”

That treatment might be enough to motivate us to behave like we are the light of the world.

Recording of Sunday Sermon

Yesterday was a good day at Faith Lutheran:  a good Confirmation class, engaged worship, and a visit to a sick parishioner in the hospital afterward.  If you're not ready to let Sunday go, if you need a sermon that offers some hope of moving out of the shadows of fear and into the light of something new and redemptive, the sermon that I preached on Sunday morning is here on my YouTube channel. If you want to read along, here's the blog post where I put the manuscript.

Sermon for Sunday, March 1, 2026

March 1, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



John 3: 1-17

When I was much, much younger, there was a bumper sticker that I saw on many a car in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1970’s. It was bright yellow, and black letters simply said, “John 3: 16.” So of course, I looked up the Bible verse: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” As a child, I still didn’t understand why it was worthy of a bumper sticker. And as I’ve gotten older, and seen the verse move from bumper stickers to billboards to spray painted graffiti to tattoos on the bodies of sports professionals and others, I’m still perplexed.



Of all the Bible verses that people are likely to know by heart, this is one of them. Consequently, as with many a thing taken out of context, many people think they understand what the verse is saying, that this is all they need to know to be a Christian. However, when we look at the full text, we begin to see the larger implications, something that will never fit on the bumper of a car. But we need to know so much more than this one verse. Luther was not the first or the last to warn us of the folly of choosing just one verse and thinking that we understand the whole Bible based on our understanding of one small piece.


We get this Bible verse in the middle of a teaching. Nicodemus has come to Jesus. He’s a shadowy figure. We see Nicodemus here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and we’ll see him at the end, when he buys burial spices for Jesus, many more times than is needed and of a very high quality.


I say that Nicodemus is shadowy in part because there’s a whole middle story of conversion that we don’t get, the middle in between today’s Gospel and Nicodemus at the end of the life of Jesus—what happens in the in between time? What happened to transform him from a man of many doubts and questions into that person who will spend a small fortune on burial spices? And does the act of buying burial spices signify that Nicodemus has come to understand what Jesus tries to teach him in today’s Gospel reading? Perhaps he is like Martha, who Christ tries to teach, who also had an in between time that we don’t witness, but we see a profound change from her first experience with Jesus to her later one, a change from someone who doesn’t understand Jesus to someone who is vital to the ministry. Those of us who work in the field of education in any way probably have this same hope for those lives we encounter, that hope for transformation to the better.


I also use the wordy shadowy because his behavior seems suspicious. Why does he come to Jesus at night? Traditionally, many readers, scholars and non-professionals alike, assume that Nicodemus comes at night because he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s there. But there’s nothing explicit in the text to support that view. Nicodemus doesn’t explain his late appearance, and Jesus doesn’t ask or even seem surprised. Maybe it’s not the issue for them that we have been taught.


We’re told that Nicodemus is “a leader of the Jews.” Maybe he comes at night because he’s busy during the day, busy with leadership duties and commitments. Maybe it’s the only time the crowds go away, and he has his chance to ask his questions and have Jesus answer them without him having to wait his turn.


He asks his questions, and Jesus doesn’t dismiss him with bumper sticker sized slogans—here we see two men with very different life purposes and understandings of the world, but they take each other seriously, not dismissively or combatively. However in this encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus doesn’t explain what he means in a way that Nicodemus understands. He answers the questions of a mystified Nicodemus with more mysteries. (relatable modern example from teaching)


Those people who put John 3:16 on bumper stickers or other places—could they explain this mystical chunk of text that surrounds the verse? I doubt it. We’ve had thousands of years of scholars trying to puzzle out the mystic threads, and we don’t have agreement on what it means. For example, most people hear the term “eternal life,” and their minds leap to an afterlife of some sort, which would have been a fairly new concept at the time of Jesus, afterlife as a place that is pleasant or a reward. Bible scholars can and do spend many pages parsing out all the different ways we could interpret the phrase “eternal life.”


Maybe Jesus is just as confused with Nicodemus as Nicodemus is with Jesus—how can Nicodemus not understand? Isn’t he a leader of the Jews? It may be precisely because he’s a Pharisee that he doesn’t understand. He’s spent a lot of time with texts trying to parse out the answers to these questions, questions about eternal life, questions about signs that signify the presence of God, deep and meaningful questions about how to live a deep and meaningful life. But what he hears from Jesus is completely foreign and contradictory to his beliefs. Rather than dismiss it, Nicodemus continues to reflect on what he has heard.


I picture Nicodemus, his brain aching, his spirit weary from interacting with his fellow Pharisees, and he says, “Well, what about this new teacher? Let’s go and see what he says. Maybe he can give me the straight forward answer.” Jesus does not give the understandable answers that Nicodemus must have been hoping for. We, too, have an expectation of the type of explanation that will work with our learning style, whether that be emotional appeal, snarkiness, humor, or a clearly articulated and well reasoned argument.


We are probably more like Nicodemus than most of us want to acknowledge. Like Nicodemus, we have spent a goodly portion of our waking hours trying to figure out what the ancient texts tell us about how to live a good life. We have made some assumptions. We have felt the emotional power. We have appreciated wit and insults. We have drawn some conclusions. We might feel confused when we mix the ancient teaching with more current wisdom which often makes no more sense than the ancient wisdom. How we yearn for Jesus to sum it all up for us!


Many see John 3:16 as that summary, a verse containing the whole Gospel in one simple sentence. But the Bible is too complex to be summed up in one sentence. You may remember that I, too, fell into this trap in a recent children’s sermon when quoting from the famous rabbi who summed up the entire Bible standing on one foot, saying “Love God, Love neighbor.” Many people might tell us that all of Jesus’ ministry can be summed up in this one verse or that other verse. Again, that might be so, but it leaves out so much essential information. Like Nicodemus, we want more and hopefully want a fuller, more complex and meaningful understanding of this verse.


We have many centuries, too many centuries, of people offering this verse as a summary of what Christianity means and how we should respond. Want eternal life? Just believe in Jesus. The shadow side of this approach to this text is how it has often been interpreted: that everyone who doesn’t believe is headed to Hell.


In a text that is so difficult to understand with our heads and not our hearts, it’s fascinating to think about how this one verse, plucked out of context, has become the hammer with which we clobber any questions. No room for doubt here: believe or you don’t get eternal life. Note that this is not what is said here. Believe and receive is NOT equivalent to don’t believe and you won’t receive.


What if this verse is not a command, but an invitation?


In this passage, Jesus does not say that everyone who doesn’t believe in him does not get eternal life. But he does say that opening our hearts and minds to the new possibilities offered by Jesus will leave us open and ready for rebirth. It won’t be like a bumper sticker, all tidy and summed up by the fewest words possible. And it’s not all about what happens to us when we die. It’s not about judgment, but about wind blowing in mysterious ways. It’s about being open to a reconsideration of even the fundamentals of our beliefs with a pure and open curiosity.


The winds of the Spirit clearly blew through Nicodemus. We don’t know what happens in Nicodemus’ in between time, exactly, but by the end of the book of John, Nicodemus has left the shadows and lives in a different light. Jesus invites us, too, to move from the shadows of whatever scares or threatens us, whatever keeps our minds, spirits, and hearts closed to understanding others. Jesus invites us to move out of our heads and to act with our hearts.


When we move away from loyalty to a bumper sticker mentality to an open, genuinely curious desire to understand the hearts of others, and the heart of God, we can, like Martha and Nicodemus, be re-born to a new and more meaningful and more faithful understanding. Let us pray that we can more forward to this understanding in our in between times as well—as individuals, a community of faith, and in our world.

The First Fish Fry of the Season

Yesterday afternoon, I finished teaching, drove from Spartanburg to Arden, where I live, and then, after changing clothes, drove from Arden to Bristol, Tennessee, where I am a part-time minister at Faith Lutheran.  Last night was the first of four spring fish fry events.

People pay $10 for a wonderful plate of food:  fish (fried or baked), mac-and-cheese, pierogies and caramelized onions, cole slaw, green beans, rolls, and an amazing assortment of desserts and drinks.  I use the word amazing because I know how many members we have and how many desserts we offer, and that means people are making a lot of dessert.

All of the money goes to local charities, primarily the local ones that deal with hunger.  But people come for the food.  That's what I thought until last night.

We arrived at 4:45, and the event was supposed to start at 5.  When we got there, people were already there, waiting for food.  Many of the people who came were so excited to be there.  They love the food, but more than that, they love the chance to sit and reconnect with neighbors from across the community (and a few of them are reconnecting with literal neighbors).

We had a steady stream of people coming and going, with almost every place in the smallish fellowship hall occupied for the first 80 minutes of the event.  We ran out of cole slaw, but we didn't run out of desserts.  

I thought about how past Kristin would have viewed this event.  She would have wondered why we were having this event, when so many people who come already have a church home.  She would have looked at the amazing amount of work that it takes to put on this event, and she would have suggested that we donate a chunk of money instead of buying the food and cooking it and selling plates.

But current Kristin has a glimmer of a different way of thinking about this.  People are hungry for community.  They want to have a chance to reconnect with people who live in the same geographical area.  They care less about people's religious or political beliefs.

I realize that what I observed last night may be more true in small towns than in big urban centers.  But I suspect that even in the big cities, people are longing for the kind of connection that a fish fry event can give them.

The Third Testament

I found it interesting that in the same week I wrote about being the fifth Gospel in this blog post, I saw a Facebook post about how we are the third Testament.  I saw it in a post by Wil Gafney, who credits Bishop Yvette Flunder.

As with being the Fifth Gospel, I find the idea that human lives are a walking testimony or history an intriguing one.  I've said/written it before, in many a setting, that for many people, they will learn more about Christianity from watching believers and their behavior than more traditional ways, like growing up in the faith or attending worship and/or classes. Our behavior needs to match what we say we believe, or people simply are not going to ask us to know more.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 1, 2026:

First Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm: Psalm 121

Second Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Gospel: John 3:1-17

It's always interesting to come across a familiar verse in context. John 3:16 is one of those verses that many people can quote. And yet, we're at the end of centuries of disagreement about what it means. Does it mean that Jesus had to be crucified as a sacrifice for our sins, as many Christians will tell you? Does it mean that Jesus came to show us a different way of life, thus saving us, as many people uncomfortable with a sacrificial Jesus would have us believe? Does it mean that Jesus is the only way to the Divine? What about people who will never hear about Jesus? Will they go to Hell when they die?

John is the most mystical of the Gospels, and not surprisingly, Jesus acts as a mystic in this episode with Nicodemus, who asks Jesus serious questions, as a scholar would, and Jesus seems to give him nonsense answers about being born again.

Read what Jesus says again, and imagine how frustrating it must have been for Nicodemus. It's frustrating for me, and I come from a tradition that would be happy to explain it to me. I can talk about the ideas of Martin Luther with the best of them, the small and large Catechisms, and yet, Jesus seems to be offering mystical babble here.

These are the passages that I hate discussing with the confused and the non-believers. How to explain these mystical concepts?

Maybe we don't have to explain. I take part in all sorts of mysteries that I can't explain. I don't understand internal combustion engines, but I drive my car anyway, and I have faith that it will work. I can't explain how electricity is generated or how it powers all the things that make my life easy, but that doesn't stop me from turning on the lights when it's dark.

Advent and Lent are two times of the liturgical year when I am most conscious that I'm participating in a mystery--and therefore, I can't explain everything, especially not to the satisfaction of non-believers. I can't even explain it to me. As Jesus says, "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit."

I have faith in being born again, although I might define that differently than my fundamentalist friends. Each day is like a new opportunity, a new birth, a new chance to re-align myself towards God. Each day, God wants to come live with me, and each day, I get to decide whether or not that will happen. Even if I go through a period of not living as mindfully as I'd like, I can start again, whenever I choose. Like liturgical season of Advent, Lent reminds us of the need to turn and return to God.

The Feast Day of Saint Matthias

Today is the traditional feast day of St. Matthias. In the 1960's, the Roman Catholic church moved his feast day to May 14, so that we're celebrating his life in a month that makes more chronological sense--Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, who committed suicide after he realized what his betrayal had wrought, so it makes sense to celebrate his life after Easter. Of course, traditionalists will celebrate today. And Eastern Orthodox believers will observe his feast day on August 9.

I've recently become a bit fascinated with this saint. I've done a smidge of research, and I can't tell what, exactly, he's the patron saint of.

If I was in charge, I'd make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition. Would I make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition in the workplace only, or in any situation? Is that process of waiting so different?

I have this on the brain because I have worked in places where the local job ladder is very short with lots of folks who have been working for the organization for ten years or more--when there's a job opening, they couldn't all be promoted. And if they wanted further promotions, again, long wait times.

I imagine that the circle of Jesus was similar. There's the inner circle, the twelve, chosen early. Then there's a massive outer circle. Who would have dreamed of the incidents that led to a job opening in the inner circle?

Of course, as a woman, I will always wonder at what Gospel revisions went on in the early church. Was the inner circle really that tight? Was it really only twelve? Was it really only men? We know that Jesus had a sympathy towards women that was uncommon for his time period. Would he really have excluded them from the inner circle?

Then I think of the logistics of being one of the twelve--all that travel, all those difficult circumstances. Maybe it was kinder of Jesus not to call women to be part of the inner circle. If you go back to the sayings of Jesus, it's clear that he doesn't see hierarchy in the same way that humans do--he clearly mocked the idea that some disciples are more chosen than other.

So, would Matthias have even seen his appointment as a promotion? Maybe it's just our later proclivity to make lists that sees this development as a promotion. Of course, there is that passage in Acts that seems to show that the disciples shared our proclivities toward hierarchy and list making.

I think of Matthias, patiently waiting, following Christ, never knowing the outcome. In that way, he's the patron saint of us all. We follow Christ, not knowing whether we'll be chosen for some superhuman greatness, or whether we'll be called to stay put, quietly ministering the people around us. Some of us believe that God has a plan for us, while others believe that God will use us where we are, like a master weaver. Some of us believe that the universe is essentially chaotic, but we are not excused from God's mission of Kingdom building. Some of us know that we cannot possibly comprehend any of this, and we know that we are lucky that God does not depend on our puny imaginations.

The Fifth Gospel

A seminary classmate/friend posted an idea that a spiritual mentor passed to her:  "You are the fifth gospel."  It was such an interesting idea that I wanted to post it here.

Many of us know something about the 4 gospels.  We may not realize how long after the life of Christ they were written; Paul's letters were written before the gospels.  The gospels were written when the first believers realized that Christ would not be coming back quite as quickly as they had thought and maybe they should start to preserve the teachings/wisdom/insight of the disciples before the last ones died and/or before the ones who learned directly from those disciples died.

So what does it mean to be the fifth gospel?  It can mean so many things.  Like a gospel, we bring good news.  People might turn to us to learn something about what it means to be a believer and/or to learn about Jesus, another purpose of a gospel.

I've said/written it before, in many a setting, that for many people, they will learn more about Christianity from watching believers and their behavior than more traditional ways, like growing up in the faith or attending worship and/or classes.  Our behavior needs to match what we say we believe, or people simply are not going to ask us to know more.

Sermon for Sunday, February 22, 2026

February 22, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 4:1-11


The story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness always comes to us for the first Sunday in Lent, the Sunday right after Transfiguration Sunday and then Ash Wednesday. It’s important to remember where we are in the story of the life of Jesus. Last week, Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus was midway through his ministry. For today’s Gospel, we go back to the beginning, to the time just after his baptism, just before his ministry starts.


In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus in the wilderness, the place of prophets, the place of preparation. We might associate the word “wilderness” as a time where bad things befall us and our faith is tested. The first Christians, hearing or reading the Gospel of Matthew, would have had different associations, and the number 40 gives us insight into a different relevance of this text.


Think about the meaning of 40 in the Old Testament: Noah is on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights, Moses fasted on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights as he wrote down the words of the new covenant that God offered, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and for 40 days and nights Elijah fasted in the desert before getting a new mission from God. The number 40 is a sign of preparation and waiting for the next thing that God will be doing, not a sign of being punished by God.


It shouldn’t surprise us that the devil takes advantage of this time out of time, this space between what has happened and what has yet to come. The temptations are familiar, because they are still what the devil uses to tempt us today: the seduction of knowing that we will have enough for our physical needs still has power, and we only need to watch a news program, from any end of the political spectrum, to see how many ways humans lust for power: power over people and power over nations, power over the whole world. The middle temptation might seem strangest, but if we put it in other terms, we see that it, too, can wreck our best laid spiritual plans. I can almost hear the devil whispering it now: “Aren’t you tired of waiting for God to act? Aren’t you tired of waiting to find out what’s next? Don’t you want to claim God’s powers for yourself?” Our first reading for today gives us one of the more well known versions of this temptation: “Go ahead and eat the fruit—claim that knowledge for yourself. Why should God have all the power?”


Jesus responds to the devil as we would expect. He resists temptation, but not only that: he offers well-reasoned responses as to why he rejects the devil. In the reading from Genesis, we see the devil’s reasoning; here in the Gospel of Matthew, we see Divine reasoning.


Jesus will go on to do the things that the devil suggests: feeding multitudes, enduring the suffering of the body, and ultimately possessing the nations. What the devil offers to Jesus are powers that he already possesses. But the reasons that Jesus has for these displays of Divine power will be very different than the ones that the devil offers.


In these early days of Lent, we, too, might find ourselves in an in between time, like the one where we find Jesus in today’s reading for the first Sunday of Lent. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has just been baptized, just experienced the heavens open and the spirit come down on him. Jesus has heard that God is pleased with him. But what now? The wilderness becomes a time of discernment. The devil’s temptations give Jesus several possible road maps and force Jesus to wrestle with important questions: what will Jesus do with his life? How can he best serve God and serve as the bridge to reunite the people to God? How can he be a beacon to show the ways that God is already at work in the world? The devil offers a warped version of the mission, but Jesus shows that he understands that he serves a very different purpose.


We, too, serve a different purpose. We, too, are called to serve God by showing the ways that God is already at work in the world. We, too, are living in this in between time, where it may seem that the devil is in charge. In our current time, the devil offers us gifts and powers that we already collectively possess.


Lent is a time that offers space to wrestle with the question of who we are serving and how we will use our power. When we’re assembled here in this building on Sundays, the answer seems so clear. Of course we serve God. We’re not off in a fancy restaurant having a champagne brunch—although the idea of combining the worship service with a champagne brunch is one we might find tempting: mimosa mass for the masses!


Isn’t it amazing how many ways that Satan has to tempt us? A wilderness time can be a time of temptation, when the devil tries to move us from service to God’s vision to service of our own vision of what the world should be. It’s especially hard to resist the devil’s temptation if we’ve grown impatient with God’s timeline. It’s so intoxicating when we first grasp the message of Jesus, about the inbreaking Kingdom of God, which is already here and not yet fulfilled. As the time drags on and fulfillment seems further away, it’s tempting to take matters into our own hands. We might even tell ourselves that we’re serving God in any number of ways. For example, by making lots of money which we’ll use to feed the poor. By getting political power so that we can change policies to be more Bible based. But once we’ve had a taste of the power of money and being in charge of policies, we might see their spiritual danger as more temptations come our way. It can be hard to remember who we are and who we serve, and it’s so easy to get pulled away by the glittering attractions of the world.


These ideas aren’t necessarily bad ideas, but in today’s Gospel of Jesus in the wilderness, we see how easy it is for the devil to take ideas for serving God and warp them into ideas that will disrupt God’s timeline. The time of temptation in the wilderness shows that the devil has a sense of where Jesus’ mission will take him. The difference is that Jesus will do these things in a different spirit.


Jesus knows that he already has the gifts that the devil offers him. We, too, have gifts given to us by God, although we may have felt that we’ve been in the wilderness so long that we’ve lost sight of those gifts. Lent offers us a time of discipline and enrichment, so that we can rediscover those gifts and strengthen ourselves to withstand the devil’s temptations.


Rest assured, the devil is always around the corner, always ready to tempt us. Don’t fall for those empty promises. Remember that God has already given you everything you need and more. Renounce the devil and all those empty promises. Serve God, who has promised us everything and who will deliver.

Catechisms and Croziers in Confessions Class

In yesterday's Lutheran Confessions class, our professor closed our session on Luther's large and small catechisms by asking what the role of the historical church documents is today which led us to an interesting discussion about good ways to educate children--and acknowledgement that now, as in Luther's day, adults may need some basic Church/Christian education too.

At some point in class, we talked about protests and whether or not clergy would be allowed at twenty-first century protests.  Our professor, who is president of the seminary and has been a bishop in the past, said of course clergy are allowed to go to protests as long as they remember that they are answerable to the larger Church, which includes bishops.

Along the way, we had a talk about the authority of bishops, and our professor said that he used to go to protests for causes that aligned with his faith, and he would go in full bishop regalia, including crozier.  He did this for a variety of reasons, but mainly to remind everyone whose authority he claimed.  He knew that if any clergy member was going to be arrested, they'd start with him, and he figured that they might resist, since it wouldn't make a great visual, arresting a bishop in full regalia with a crozier.

We had a few minutes of amusement, thinking about the police trying to figure out how to handle the crozier and envisioning the police car driving away with the crozier sticking out the window.  Then it was back to the serious business of thinking about the future of the Church in light of Reformation history.

Recording of Ash Wednesday Sermon

My Ash Wednesday sermon went well, I think.  I always try to say something I haven't said before, and on church festivals like Christmas Eve, Easter, and Ash Wednesday, it's more difficult.  Last night, I was successful.  If you'd like to see it, I posted a recording here, on my YouTube page.  It talks about my shift in thinking, from Lenten disciplines to Lenten enrichments.

If you want to read along, I put the sermon manuscript in this blog post.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, February 22, 2026:

First Reading: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 32

Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11


This week's Gospel tells us the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. Notice that Jesus is human in his temptations: he is tempted by the ideas of fame, power, and immortality.

In her book, Things Seen and Unseen, Nora Gallagher points out that Jesus will indeed accomplish these things that Satan asks him to do. Jesus will reverse these days in the desert: he will multiply bread, he will hurl himself from the cliff of his crucifixion and be caught by angels, he will be worshipped, but by humbling himself in service (page 85).

Gallagher says that we face the same kinds of temptations that Jesus did: “Magical powers, helplessness, rescue, fame and power—they beckon me every day of my life. Just around the corner lies happiness; a new lover will provide lasting bliss; if I had what she has then I would be . . . They are the fantasies, the illusions, that suck out my vitality, that keep me from discovering my own rich reality. To come to terms with illusion is one of the great jobs of our lives: to discern what is fantasy and what is reality, what is dead and what is alive, what is narcotic and what is food” (page 84).

We may want to tell ourselves that Jesus could resist temptations because of his Divine side. But I would posit that Jesus' special powers of resistance were less about his supernatural side, and more about his spiritual discipline. He's in the wilderness, making a retreat to pray, when he’s tempted. He resists. Throughout the life of Jesus, we see him hard at work honing his powers through his spiritual practices.

Here's the good news. These practices are available to all of us too. Great disciples are not born, they are created. How? We turn ourselves into great disciples the same way that a doughy person transforms himself or herself into a great athlete, the same way that a creative person becomes a great artist. We show up, day after day, logging the training miles, working on our art. And soon enough, we wake up to find out that we've transformed ourselves into a person with new powers.

The season of Lent begins, that season of penitence and discipline. Now is the time to attend to your spiritual life. What practices will you adopt to become a great spiritual athlete? You’ve got a wide variety to choose from. You could give something up: gossip, worry, sugar, alcohol, excessive Internet time, caffeine, chocolate, speeding, more money to your tithe. You could add something: additional Bible reading, more devotional time, prayer, a creative practice. Spend some time in discernment. What one practice could you choose that would bring you closer to God by the time that we get to Easter?

Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2026

February 18, 2026, Ash Wednesday
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21


A lot of us approach Ash Wednesday as a kind of wake up call, a reminder that we all die in the end, and so we better get on with it and start living better lives. Because we live in a secular culture that wants us to forget this reality, in many ways the Ash Wednesday message that we're returning to death is an important one.


And yet, the older I get, the less I need this reminder. When I was younger, the Ash Wednesday message—we are dust and to dust we shall return—that message still had the power to shock me. For a very long time, my maternal grandmother was one of the oldest people I knew, and she always had more energy than the rest of us combined. But now I’ve seen death come for former classmates, former colleagues, and friends and family. Some weeks, it feels like every day comes with the Ash Wednesday wake up call, as people younger than me die, and now it seems predictable, no longer freakish.


So we might be tempted to choose a Lenten discipline with an eye to cheating death. We might want to give up alcohol, for example, in the hopes that we get a few more years. We might give up sugar, thinking that we’ll say a prayer whenever we have a sugar craving, but also hoping to lose some pounds along the way.


One of the problems that comes with thinking about our Lenten disciplines this way is that many of us go right back to our former habits once we get to Easter. Shouldn’t a Lenten discipline change us more profoundly and permanently? What does it say about our discipline, Lenten or otherwise, that we can drop it so quickly?


If you were at church on Sunday, or if you listened to the sermon (thank you tech wizard Katie!), you hear me think out loud about giving up something that’s really hard. We live in a culture that’s always giving up sugar or dairy or gluten or extra calories. There’s lots of support for that effort. On Sunday, I made this impromptu suggestion: If we’re giving up something for Lent, let’s give up talking badly about other people, both the people we know personally and the ones who are famous. If we want to do something really hard, let’s giving up thinking bad thoughts about others—let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt and tell ourselves, “They’re doing their best.”


Luther encourages this behavior. In The Small Catechism, in interpreting the Eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor, he tells us that the commandment is about so much more than refraining from lying. He says that we are to interpret everything that our neighbors do in the best possible light.


But I’ve decided not to do this as my Lenten discipline. Just thinking about it for 48 hours made me realize how hard it would be and how much of my time would be consumed with reminding myself that people are doing their best. Maybe I would retrain my inner thoughts. But maybe there’s another way to do this, a way that would benefit not just me, but others.


I like the idea of adding something for Lent, although I realize that for some of us, just thinking of where we would add the extra something might make us ready to throw up our hands in defeat before we even start. In the past, I’ve added a daily devotional, and if that’s your preference, know that the publishing world has noticed—you’ll have a lot of books to choose from.


As I was reflecting on Lenten disciplines, my mind wandered to how many people I know personally who are facing crises of various sorts and how few are not. I made a note to myself to pray for them. And then, my Lenten discipline revealed itself.


I’m going to send at least one note of encouragement to someone each day. It will be a physical note, written by hand on paper, and sent through the mail. As I’m writing the note, I’ll be praying for them and for the larger world. My hope is that the recipient will have their spirits lifted, at least for a time. They’ll have something to keep on paper, a reminder that someone is praying for them and with them.


Some of you might ask, “Don’t you already do send hand written cards?” Yes, for friends who really need it, for people for whom it is the only way to communicate, like my friend who had a stroke and is confined to a skilled nursing unit. I send a note at times of acute crisis. But I’d like to send notes as a matter of routine.


It may seem like a little thing, especially when compared to the big, difficult thing of refusing to think bad thoughts about anyone that might flit through my brain. But refusing to think bad thoughts would only be changing me. Sending notes of encouragement has the potential to change over 40 individuals, at least for a brief moment at the mailbox. Sending notes of encouragement will give me a tactile prayer discipline. If I begin this practice now, my hope is that it will be cemented by Easter, that I can continue sending notes and cards of encouragement throughout the year.


We might think that a Lenten discipline needs to be something dour or something that imposes order on chaos. But what would happen if we looked for ways for our Lenten disciplines to bring us joy? Writing cards will bring me joy, from the creating of the card to the affixing of the stamp. I’ve been buying more stamps than I have been using, and the post office creates so many beautiful stamps.


I’ve found it useful to think about Lenten enrichment, instead of Lenten discipline. The theologian Diana Butler Bass reminds us that the earliest Christians saw the season of Lent as preparation for meeting the risen Lord. It’s an interesting idea—if you knew that Jesus was coming here, in the flesh, to celebrate Easter with us in this sanctuary, and then spending the week with you, in your house, what would you be doing right now to prepare?


Don’t say you would be deep cleaning the house, unless that brings you joy. I’d be reaching out to people, planning some get togethers. I’d bake a poundcake or two, because they freeze well, and they’re a versatile dessert. I’d get together the art supplies we’d need to have a fun morning creating together, where I would see the creative process of God in real time.


I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Let’s approach this Lent as a time where we’re getting ready to meet Jesus, where we have the courage to put aside all the stuff that hasn’t served us well, and we have the discipline to commit to joy, and to choose the joy of living in the Kingdom of God even before death. Death will come for us all soon enough. Choose joy. Choose Jesus.