Music Week Day 1: The Contrasts and the Contradictions

 The last 24 hours have been full of contrasts.  On the one hand, it was the first full day of  Music Week at Lutheridge:

--Monday began with a long walk with the S. Florida church friend who is staying with us for the week.  Up and down hills, but I didn't really notice them because the conversation was deep and meaningful.

--Morning worship was also deep and meaningful.  I LOVED this prayer of the day:  "On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, not revenge.  He offered bread to feed and to forgive.  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took a basin of water to sooth [sic], liberate, and heal.  Help us, so washed and fed, to do the same."

--My inner English major was intrigued by the above spelling error, which made me think of soothsaying, which I continued to think about all day.

--My inner English major also was there for Bible study, which will take us to some villains in the Bible.  We began with one of the biggest, the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  One participant talked about the devil possessing the serpent, which sent me to the text, which reminded me that it's not in the text.  Ah, Milton, how your version has taken over everything we think we know about the story--which is what I said, in more non-English-major accessible form.

--One of our last questions for Bible study was "What does the serpent get out of this?"  I keep misspelling serpent, and this morning, I thought about serpent and repent, and now I want to write a poem, "The serpent repents."

--I was there for general choir rehearsal.  From the very beginning, this group can sing.  They sounded amazing, like they had been practicing for weeks, instead of just beginning together.

--The director has interesting ways of describing what he wants:  "You just sang the color dusty rose.  But it was the dusty rose of a piece of tuille or a curtain so faded you can see through it.  Now try it as a deeper rose color."  I immediately thought of a creative writing class idea, having students write a description and me bringing in different fabrics and colors and saying, "Now write it this way." 

--We had good meals together at our house.  The prep work was easy because I did most of it in advance.  It's becoming clear that I have prepared too much food--happily, much of it is freezable.

All of yesterday happened against a back drop of World Cup drama, both the games themselves, and the rumors of a phone call pressuring the officials to change a decision about red cards.  And then, this morning, the U.S. team lost anyway.

I got up this morning to news not only of that sports/political development/scandal, but also of the one in Maine.  If I left that sentence standing by itself, would future me remember which scandal I'm referring to?  In the interest of history, let me note that there are new rape charges against the Democratic candidate for Senate.  The charges that were already known (inappropriate sexting, inappropriate use of force against girlfriends) by the time of the primary would have been more than enough to disqualify him in the not-so-distant past.  Sigh.

I don't have a pithy way to end this post.  After all, if we're lucky, every given day is full of these contrasts if we just know to look:  deep friendship and deep spirituality and the farcical elements of modern life particularly the political bits and pieces, along with song and sustenance of all sorts.

Recording of Yesterday's Sermon: Christian Life as Young Teen Girl Slumber Party

Yesterday's sermon went well.  Three years ago when I preached on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, I did more talking about the process of yoking.  This year, I envisioned a different metaphor:  the Christian life as young teen girl slumber party.  It seemed well received.

I'm always happy when I can introduce a metaphor that seems new to me.  My metaphor brain went immediately to a sports team, which seems obvious.  The slumber party was not immediately obvious, and it got some attention--particularly from the young teen girls in the congregation, who aren't always paying attention to the adult sermon time after having their own youth sermon.

I posted the recording of my sermon here on my YouTube channel.  You can read the sermon manuscript in yesterday's blog post.

Sermon for Sunday, July 5, 2026

July 5, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30


Our Gospel today has bits and pieces that we’ve often heard out of context, like verse 28: "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Doesn’t that verse fill you with yearning? At last, a person who can help us figure out a way to shed our heavy burdens! Surely then we’ll get the rest we’ve been needing!


But then there’s that problematic ending: “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Wait! There’s a yoke involved in this getting rid of our heavy burdens???!


You probably don’t need me to paint the paradox. We’re in a little church in the country—you’ve probably seen a yoke, that device designed to keep oxen in line and moving together instead of moving in different directions—all the better to get a field plowed. All well and good—but that doesn’t mean we want a yoke around our necks. Especially not if we don’t know who will be on the other side of the yoke.


A yoke does tether one animal to another, but it also reduces the work load for each animal.


Thinking of reduced work loads takes me back to 8th and 9th grade, where I went to some wild parties in my youth—no, not those kinds of parties. I had a friend with Type 1 diabetes, the kind that one is born with, the kind that can be so difficult to manage and make being a kid so hard. Every 3 months, she hosted a party, complete with sleepover afterward. We slept over not because we had drunk so much that we couldn’t drive. No, we were 13-15 years old. We weren’t driving.


We also weren’t drinking. Our friend was allowed one party every 3 months. For 12 hours, she could eat whatever she wanted, every treat she couldn’t have in ordinary life when too much accumulated sugar could kill her. On party night, we all brought our favorite treats and stayed up as late as we could, far after midnight, gorging on sweets. We went home sick with sugar and lack of sleep.


We were teenage girls, so we all tried to spend the intervening 3 months also not eating sugary treats. I wish I could tell you that we did it because we wanted to support our friend. Sadly no. We were all hoping to lose weight or have clearer skin. We supported each other in our desire for healthy eating habits regardless of the reason why.


Yes, I often think about what might have been different, had we been obsessed with another project, say writing novels or learning another language. It does make me sad the way that diet/appearance culture invaded our lives in that way, and I feel sad that this diet/appearance culture has now infected young boys, along with all of us really. It’s not just pre-teen girls who are going to extremes to meet the culture’s beauty standards, and it’s not just here in the U.S.


Our reading from Paul (Romans Romans 7:15-25a) might be the obvious place to go next, Paul’s letter about the body not obeying the mind, when the mind wants us to do good, but our bodies have other desires. But if you’re like me, you’ve had decades of this kind of body shaming beaming in at you from so many directions. If you’re like me, you’ve had quite enough of body shaming.


Instead, let us return to that band of teenage girls at a slumber party so that they can gorge on sweets, both for the joy of gorging on sweets and to support their friend, who needed to be careful most of the days of her life. When I was at those parties, I remember saying, “This must be what heaven is like! We can eat whatever we want and calories don’t count!” I don’t think I was wrong, but I think I was wrong about the reason. Absolutely I think that Heaven involves all the treats. I am willing to bet that God never cared about the calories, but only about our long term joy.


Jesus came to tell us that the Kingdom of Heaven is already here. Does that mean that we can eat like teenage girls at a slumber party now? You don’t need me to tell you the answer. However, there are other ways that the Kingdom of Heaven is like that slumber party.


I am always thinking about the symbols and metaphors that Jesus uses, how they may be unfamiliar if we didn’t grow up on a farm, like today’s yoke metaphor. Let’s use the teenage slumber party to see if we can update the yoke image that Jesus uses in this Gospel.


If I said that a life following Jesus is like a slumber party of teenage girls too young to drive and too law abiding and responsible to drink, many people would say, “No thank you.” Popular culture has a lot to say about mean girls, but much less to say about responsible and supportive communities. A group of teenage girls can be a force for pain and a source of pain. But they can also be a fierce support group. And that group can accomplish far more than one young teenage girl working alone to preserve her life.


That’s the nature of groups, of people who yoke themselves together. Like those children in the marketplace at the beginning of the Gospel, this metaphor of the power of teenage girls has a message for us. We can do more yoked together than we can ever achieve alone. At the very least, it makes our burdens lighter.


I think of writer’s groups I’ve been part of, and how we each accomplished more in the years that we met than I have since. I think of the running groups and other groups of athletes that do more as a team than they would alone. I think of the groups of campers that I hear each week, singing as they walk up and down the hilly trails, singing to support each other as they make their way through each day.


But Jesus isn’t giving us a message about the value of teamwork. Jesus reminds us that if we yoke ourselves to him, we’re working in alignment with something even more powerful than a group of teenage girls, an artist’s collective, or a running club. We’re transforming ourselves into a stronger force, plowing new fields for the kingdom of God.


Some will still try to pull in opposite directions, but yoked together, we won’t ignore the messages that God has for us or the messengers, like John the Baptist, or Jesus himself, who have been sent to us. We will learn from them and our souls will find rest and find our burdens lighter.


If we have heavy burdens, and who among us does not carry heavy burdens, Jesus invites us to put them down. We put them down by sharing them. Jesus invites us to yoke ourselves to him, and then, unlike Paul, we can find our body, mind, and soul working as one, one joined to the Divine, all of us together, yoked to our desire to do good, along with the ability to see that desire through because of the yoke that keeps us all enjoined and connected to God.

Happy Independence Day: History as Life Preserver

 I have begun this 4th of July listening to a variety of podcasts:  an interview with The Rest is History British podcasters and David Remnick and a NYT Book Review podcast with Jill Lepore talking about history and good books for Independence day.  I listened to this story on heartland rock, which didn't tell me anything I didn't already have figured out about Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."  This piece on Octavia Butler's typewriter was disappointingly short. 

I have been re-reading Octavia Butler's Wild Seed, and I might go on to re-read Kindred, both interesting approaches to understanding history.  The interview with Jill Lepore meanders into a remembering of what it was to be immersed in books, especially the summer reading in childhood type.  Glorious!  I am always grateful to have longer stretches of reading time than I sometimes do during the school year.

This morning, I've also been re-reading past July 4 blog posts that I wrote.  Every 4th of July post is both similar and different, full of hope, yet also tinged by dread of what might be coming.  This year is no different.  Sure, we have a corrupt president, but that has usually been a national truth revealing how many different ways one can be corrupt, if one has enough power.

Here is the way I concluded my 2012 July 4 post.  It seems perfect for any ordinary Independence Day, but also for this one, which celebrates the U.S. at year 250:

I love this picture of a flag and a life preserver.  I often wish that our country could do more to hold out a life preserver to oppressed people across the globe.  But it's good to remember that our history serves as a life preserver of sorts, a beacon of hope to so many.

Midway Points: Inspirations and Revelations

I am grateful to have been blogging for so long, grateful for many reasons.  I often go back to re-read old blog posts--by often, I mean at least two or three times a week.  I go back to see what I was thinking/doing, to find recipes, to find rough draft ideas and inspirations, to spark my brain when I feel I have nothing new to blog about.  This morning I found this blog post about a poem idea I forgot I had for a poem called "The Holy Spirit Takes a Holiday"; I haven't finished the poem, now, a year later, but I still have the rough draft.

This meandering made me think about a summer project, making a rough draft into a finished draft each week.  And yes, that's one of my new year's aspirations that has fallen apart as the year progressed (this January blog post has details about my specific intentions for 2026).  But that's the joy of early July--there's still time to adjust my trajectory.

Speaking of inspirations, during my driving to the grocery store yesterday, on NPR's Fresh Air, I heard an interview with romance writer Kennedy Ryan.  She's the first African American to win the RITA, the highest romance writing award.  I started thinking about romance novels and wish fulfillment and the voices and faces that aren't characters in romance novels.  I thought about older women characters who might get one last shot at their dreams coming true.  Romance novels need an obstacle, and the inability to see oneself as romance worthy could be that obstacle.  Another potent one would be that one dream is coming true, and the inability to believe that multiple dreams could come true at once.

If I wrote romance novels with older female protagonists, I'd approach it as alternate life Kristin explorations.  But I was also attracted to this idea, from yesterday's interview, about creating an imaginary town, a place that becomes an escape, like all those clergy novels of the 90's.

Before I head out on my morning walk to beat the coming heat, let me also record this snippet from last year's blog post on this day:  "I wonder where we will be at the halfway point of next summer. Hopefully I will be meeting with my candidacy committee to proceed to endorsement, which is usually a halfway point to ordination, but in my case, I'm doing things a bit out of order. At Lutheran seminaries, students would do CPE much earlier, often in the summer after the first year, and then they'd get to endorsement sometime in the following year, before internship (year 3 of seminary) and the last year of seminary."

Last year Kristin had no idea how much would have changed and for the better.  My candidacy has now transferred to a different synod, which means I can progress towards ordination more quickly.  A year ago, I was expecting to have to do a part-time internship which would last two years, in addition to needing additional seminary classes, which would mean that summer of 2028 would be the earliest I could be ordained.  Now I am on track to be ordained in the first half of 2027.

Last year Kristin had hopes that she might get a tenure track job at Spartanburg Methodist College, but she would have assumed that it probably couldn't happen soon.  And now I am an Associate professor on the tenure track.

This morning, I'm feeling a bit fretful about the electrical work happening at our S'burg house--we bought all sorts of fixtures thinking that the installation was included in the expensive cost to rewire the house, only to be told we'd get an update on Monday.  Does this mean a proposal/invoice, as it sounded on the phone with the scheduler?  Or just an update on timelines?  It's tiring.

Tiring, but fixable--let me remember the saying that I first heard in one of Anne Lamotte early books, when one of her friends said that a problem solved by an infusion of cash is not really an interesting problem. It's especially not a problem when one has the money.

The sun is up to begin the day's roasting--let me go for my walk.

Life/Spiritual Lessons at the Dermatologist's Office

Yesterday, I went to the dermatologist.  I came home and made this Facebook post:  "The intense heat and sun of today takes me back to a high school time, similar weather, when high school Kristin said, "Hey, if I start now, maybe I'll have a good tan by the time we go back to school" -- which is why later life Kristin had to have another spot biopsied today. Happily, it's on my shoulder, not my face, so even if it needs more cutting, it's bearable."

I am supposed to go to the dermatologist every 3 months because of my melanoma diagnosis in December.  Because of that diagnosis, because we missed the significance of that spot for 18 months when we thought it was a weird bug bite, my dermatologist PA now biopsies more than she might otherwise, a mindset that I encourage.

She's a very kind PA.  I apologized for being sweaty.  She told me about the people who ride their bikes to the dermatologist and thus, are more sweaty than I will ever be.  I apologized for being fat, and she said, "You're in great shape," while the MA nodded enthusiastically.  I do realize that plenty of people are fatter than I am, but it still feels strange to have enough flesh in places that the very professional PA needs to move aside to inspect.

Well, that's likely too much information for the multitudes  one or two people still reading this blog.

But I also want to add that she also said I have great skin.  In some ways, she's correct--for a woman who is about to be 61, I do have great skin.  For a woman who has spent a lot of time in the sun with no protection of any kind, I do have great skin.

I am working on feeling the same thing about my extra weight--some days are easier than others.  When I'm out every day, walking and eating berries and appreciating the world in other ways, I feel fine about my body.  When I don't compare my current body to past years, I'm better than when I think about how many miles I could once run/jog.

As a wise yoga teacher once said to me:  "Quit comparing yourself to everyone else.  It won't help."  It's not solely yoga teachers who know this, of course.  Most world religions contain this wisdom somewhere.

It's a life lesson I'll continue to say to myself, probably on a daily basis.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, July 5, 2026:

First Reading: Zechariah 9:9-12

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

Psalm: Psalm 145:8-15 (Psalm 145:8-14 NRSV)

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 45:11-18 (Psalm 45:10-17 NRSV)

Psalm (Alt.): Song of Solomon 2:8-13 (Semi-continuous)

Second Reading: Romans 7:15-25a

Gospel: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30


In this week's Gospel, we see the mystical Jesus, the one of bizarre stories and metaphors that confuse. The first part of this week's Gospel has those strange comparisons calling us children in the marketplace, and then Jesus reminds us that he and John are the latest in a long line of people sent by God to get our attention. And then the Gospel ends with that strange bit about easy yokes and light burdens, when the very definition of yoke and burden encompass experiences that aren't easy and light.

Maybe in these days of rising prices, you're feeling the more traditional definition of yoke and burden, a strangling and a crushing sensation. Maybe you're weary of the world's problems and the inability of governments to even attempt to solve them. Maybe you wish for a savior to show up in our troubled times. But then you'd have to wonder if we'd even notice, in our world of noise and distraction.

Sometimes, when I feel most bleak, I like to return to the words of the Old Testament prophets. It's good to remember that no matter how terrible our historic age seems, it's not really a new situation. This week's reading from Zechariah commands us: "Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope."

That command is our burden and our yoke. We must be prisoners of hope. We are called to commit to resurrection. That doesn't stop with our belief in a resurrected Lord. That's just one sign, among a galaxy of signs, of a God who creates and recreates the cosmos daily.

In our deepest despair, we must remember that we're Resurrection People. To me, that's one of the beliefs that separates Christianity from the other major religions. We don't believe in a fixed universe. We don't believe that we're doomed. We don't believe that we have to accept our lot with stoic resignation and wait for a better life--in a future lifetime, in Heaven, but not right now.

No, our burden and our yoke is that God calls us into partnership in this remodeling of the world into one that is more in line with God's vision and plan. Could God just step in and order it to be so? Perhaps. But God didn't create that kind of universe. For whatever reason, God found it much more interesting to design a world in which we have free will. We can put our necks into the yoke that God offers us and discover that what appears to be a burden is, in fact, a blessing that transforms us as we transform the world.

Sermon on Acceptance Finds Acceptance

Yesterday was a good Sunday.  As I was driving and driving and driving on Saturday followed by a night when I was up and down, I wondered if I would be just exhausted on Sunday.  Happily, I felt fine.  I got up and reworked my sermon, taking out the bit I had written about grad school experiences as a Community Outreach Worker for a Methodist church, leaving in the later experiences about a church welcoming a transgender visitor who became a member.

I did wonder if I should feel worried about children in church hearing about a transgender human and asking their parents questions, but I decided that it was likely to be fine.  Most children aren't paying much attention during the non-youth sermon.  If the teenagers paid attention, I reasoned that they're likely to know what a transgender person is.

I had an encounter after church that reassured me.  One of the younger members, a father of two of those teens, thanked me for my sermon, thanked me for including modern issues.  I said that I had worried a bit about the children hearing about transgender issues for the first time, and he said, "They already know.  It's all over the place."  He thanked me again, and I thanked him for reassuring me.

As we drove home, I reflected on the sermon, which isn't nearly as radical as I might have made it sound with my worries about it.  The Gospel, Matthew 10:  40-42, is a standard hospitality text, and I used the example of my South Florida church welcoming a transgender visitor to show that radical acceptance and radical hospitality blesses everyone in all sorts of directions, like how remodeling a bathroom with cramped stalls into a single use bathroom benefitted people in wheelchairs or with mobility issues, who now had more room, and parents with babies who needed a diaper change, who now had a bathroom with a changing table.

But of course, the more important change is hearts and minds.  Once we know a transgender person (or any one member of a minority group), it's much less easy to accept the demonization of a whole group of people.  And it's so vital for members of minority groups to find support from majority groups so that the forces of empire and forces of evil have less traction.

You can find the manuscript of the sermon here, and you can watch/hear the sermon here.

Sermon for Sunday, June 28, 2026

June 28, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 10:40-42



At first, this text seems like a standard hospitality text, and we’re not wrong to read it that way. It’s a familiar lesson that repeats over and over again through the Gospels, and indeed through a variety of texts both ancient and modern. Not that we agree, of course. You don’t need me to remind you of how different our opinions can be when we talk about who is welcome and who is not. Today’s Gospel reminds us of the stakes. If we’re not welcoming, we risk turning away God, who often comes to visit in forms we don’t expect.


Of course, there are other risks to hospitality. When we fling open our doors or our borders, when we are welcoming, things can get messy. Look at Jesus mentions: prophets and children. Even righteous people come with a risk: that insistence that we follow God’s law, not our own rules.


We understand the chaos that comes with children and teens. For every story that I’ve heard about how a chaotic child came to the church and by the end of the year was helping with altar guild duties, I could tell you 10 more about the grumbling and complaining that comes when we truly welcome children in a way that lets them be both seen and heard.


But today’s Gospel is an optimistic one. Look at what is missing: there’s no threat of punishment for those who aren’t welcoming. You could say it’s implied, sure. But in this Gospel, we are promised reward for right behavior. But it goes even deeper. Bible scholar Stanley Saunders says, “These three designations—prophets, the righteous, and little ones—do not differentiate members of the community so much as they describe interrelated aspects of Christ-discipleship.”


To see how that might work, let us consider an experience from a different church, one of my home churches, the one in South Florida, where we used to go to worship early because the choir rehearsed before worship. I took a book and read and sometimes talked to the pastor. One Sunday, he told me he’d gotten a strange phone call from someone who was looking for a place to worship, and when the pastor invited the person to join us, the person on the phone asked, “Would your church be welcoming to a transgender person?”


“What did you say?” I asked the pastor, who would know the hearts of the members better than I did.


My pastor said, “I said ‘Of course you’d be welcome.’” He waited a beat and said, “I hope I’m right.”


When my pastor tells the story now, he’s very honest that he didn’t know for sure. Many of the members were older, and one had a habit of saying outrageous and moderately offensive opinions at coffee hour. But those older members turned out to be the most welcoming, which helped other members to be welcoming too. We worked through issues of rest rooms, updating our 1970’s era bathrooms to become single use bathrooms, which let us put a changing table in them and have a bathroom that a person in a wheelchair could use.


Ellen, the church’s first openly transgender member, helped the church be more open minded, and the church transformed into a place that was welcoming to more members who hadn’t always felt welcome before. We gave her a safe place as she figured out the ins and outs of her transitioning. In turn, she invited us to ask her any questions that we had—and members did. She, too, asked questions. We all came to understand each other better.


In this story, we see discipleship in action. The church had been participating in county-wide justice events, where 25 or more churches gathered to demand justice for underserved populations. These actions led to more oversight in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, more affordable housing, a different approach to justice for juvenile offenders. The church had been prophetic on a county-wide level, and it was also able to live into its prophetic calling on a personal level. Similarly, the church had declared commitment to righteous living, following the ways of Jesus. In its acceptance of Ellen, the church practiced what it preached. Ellen came to the church needing the cup of cold water that is acceptance and welcome. We gave that to her.


She also gave us a cup of cold water, a cup that many of us may not have known that we needed. She showed us what prophetic righteousness looks like on a personal level. She gave us the opportunity to practice radical hospitality. Years after Ellen first came to worship, the church became a Reconciling in Christ church, which is the designation that many LGBQTIQA+ people look for when they are determining if a church will be a safe space. Many churches say that all are welcome. But it can be hard to put that into practice, especially when the visitor may look so different. It might be easier if it’s a cute child. But it’s harder if we have to adjust to people of different cultures, different practices, different clothing choices, different tattoos and piercings.


When we can practice radical acceptance, that’s the space where radical hospitality can take hold. We do this by offering a cup of cold water, which seems like such a simple thing in our day of refrigerators and ice. But it would have been a different symbol in the time of Jesus, when cold water came from a well, and quickly grew warm.


We’re to give a cup of cold water—not stale water that’s been sitting under the hot, desert sun since we drew it out of the well yesterday, not water that’s been sitting in a jar. We’re to give the cup of cold water to little ones, an inversion of the hierarchy that comes with many human relationships. Here, the vulnerable, the expendable get the water—a child, not a person in charge.



The world needs the cup of cold water that each and every one of us can offer. And we, too, are in need of a cup of cold water. Jesus came to give us that living water. And thus, transformed by the living water of Christ, we can go out renewed and refreshed. We can welcome the prophets, the righteous, the vulnerable ones. We can live into the life of renewal that Jesus came to give us, the life that radical hospitality makes possible. That’s the reward given to prophets, to the righteous, to the little ones. That’s the reward that can be ours too.

Kristin in Indianapolis, Paul in Spain

In another hour or so, I'll put the last of my stuff in the car and head back to the mountains of North Carolina.  I've been in Indianapolis, taking a class on Paul, another task done on the path to ordination in the Lutheran church (ELCA, the more progressive expression of Lutheranism in North America).  

It has been a great class, full of deep dives into Greek words and church history and Paul's theology, which can be summarized as Proclaim Christ Crucified.  We even had a fun digression into what we would proclaim--I find it problematic to proclaim Christ Crucified.  Christ incarnate, yes.  Christ risen from the dead, yes.  But crucified?  That's the most important thing?

The cross means something very different for Paul than it does for me.  The cross as a symbol/shortcut does something very different for Paul.  I get that. 

We talked about not knowing how Paul died, not for sure.  Church custom/tradition posits that it's likely that he died in Rome, executed by Emperor Nero.  But it's also possible that he left Rome and continued onward to Spain.

A random thought floated through my brain on Thursday:  that would make a good poem, Paul in Spain, late in life.  By yesterday morning, I decided to jot down some lines, and voila!  A poem emerged, mostly formed.

Here's how it begins:

Paul slices citrus for sangria, 

oranges and lemons plucked

from trees in the lingering light

of a late October evening.

Who would have dreamed or demanded

such a soft landing?

This morning I thought, oh dead, when does citrus ripen in Spain?  I chose "late October evening" because Paul is in the late autumn of his life.  Happily, a quick search this morning shows the detail can work--and even had I discovered that it didn't, I'd have probably kept it.

The poem ends this way:

Safe for now, he pours the sangria

and waits for the sun to set.

I do worry that the poem is cliched, and I also worry that it won't be interesting to non-Christian readers.  But we all age, and this poem looks at aging.  By using Paul as the vehicle, maybe it does say something new.

I'll put it away and look at it again later this week.  But I am happy to have created a poem the way I once did:  an idea comes and within 24 hours, I'm attempting a poem and seeing it to completion.  Hurrah!

Rethinking Paul

Yesterday was our first TEEM class on Paul.  It was riveting.  I'm still not much interested in preaching using Paul's letters, but because Paul has been so influential and so misused, it's good to find out what's really there.

The most interesting way of thinking about Paul that was new to me is to see him as a Jew framed by apocalyptic thinking, the apocalypse being when God comes to earth to judge the living and the dead, an event which will begin with the dead rising up from their graves as they come back to life to be judged.

So when Paul meets Jesus on the Damascus Road, a man who has been dead brought back to life and speaking to him, he assumes that judgment day is under way.  Being a good Pharisee, he would assume that Jews will be O.K. on Judgment Day--as people of the Covenant, God has chosen them.  But Gentiles are in danger.  Thus, off he goes to tell them how to be saved.

I asked the question that some of you might be asking.  Did Paul see a human Jesus on the Damascus Road?  I have always thought of that event as the heavens splitting open and the voice of Jesus speaking to him, not as an encounter with Jesus in his human body.  My professor talked about the different depictions of that event, including recountings of that event that we find in Acts and the letters of Paul.  In some of them, the encounter does sound disembodied, the voice from the heavens.  In others, we could interpret it as an encounter between Paul and a human-appearing Jesus. 

I still maintain my long-standing approach to Paul.  He wrote letters to specific churches/communities with specific problems.  Taking those letters and applying them to twenty-first century life makes very little sense--unless we're experiencing similar problems.  We had an interesting session looking at 1 Corinthians, the passage where Paul excoriates the Church for eating the good food before the whole community arrives and connecting this behavior with Communion.  How do our own Communion practices exclude or include in similar ways?

I still can't see myself preaching on Paul or even having the kind of Bible study that would interest most people.  But I'm very glad to have had this educational opportunity.

A Short TEEM Report

This morning has less blogging time, but I have finished my movie review, the first assignment for my TEEM class on Pauline letters.  I have done the practice quizzes one more time--I've been doing them over and over in the hopes that I'll do well on the quiz that will begin today's class.  

We have another quiz tomorrow, and I haven't done any practice for that one.  So tomorrow may be a light blogging day too, as I practice and practice.  I have not taken a quiz for course credit since undergraduate school.  Of course, I've taken quiz after quiz as part of HR training--those quizzes that you can take over and over again so that you can continue to be employed.

Each quiz counts for 10% of the course grade.  My inner good girl wants to make an A.  My pragmatic older self knows that whatever grade I make will be fine.  I'm not even sure if TEEM classes show up on a transcript.

And then, part of me wonders why I care about my official record.  Am I going to do more graduate work?  Maybe--and that's why I care.

Yesterday's TEEM training was a workshop on stewardship.  When I first heard about the workshop, I felt a bit of despair.  I've already had so much stewardship training.  But it was a great workshop.  We talked about a much broader vision of stewardship:  what do we value?  How do we protect what we value?  It's far more than money, budgets, and a finance team. 

I've been part of small churches, with attendance below 50 members, so these are not concepts that are new to me.  In a very small church, one can't assume that others will pick up the slack, unlike in a church that has over 100 members in the pews on Sunday.

Our workshop leader, Tim Brown, was both compelling and entertaining.  We had worship in the middle of the day, followed by Indian food.  It was good to have that long break.

Let me bring this writing to a close so that I can get some breakfast before the day begins.  Onward!

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, June 28, 2026:

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Genesis 22:1-14


Psalm: Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18


Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 13


Second Reading: Romans 6:12-23


Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42


This week's Gospel reading has the flavor of the theme that Jesus develops more thoroughly in the 25th chapter of Matthew--that reading where Jesus reminds us that as we treat the least of our fellow humans, that is how we treat Jesus. This tiny Gospel reading reminds us of some of the themes Jesus returns to again and again: stay alert and watchful. Treat everyone as if they're God in disguise. Keep our Christian priorities always in the front of our vision, so that we know what's important.

If I wrote a modern paraphrase, I might say something like this: Why do you swoon over supermodels and superathletes? What good do they bring into the troubled world? Why are you not searching out the words of the wise ones among you? Why do you neglect your duties to the next generation?

When I was younger and not surrounded by multiple types of media, it seemed easier to ignore the siren calls of the larger world. I remember a world before cable TV: we had four channels, and when we lived in Montgomery, Alabama, we could sometimes see a snowy version of one of Ted Turner's superchannels out of Atlanta. Little did we know that we were seeing what would become one of the cornerstones of the cable world. Even in the early days of cable, one's viewing options only expanded to 10-40 channels, and then, as now, half of those were just dreadful creations formed to take advantage of cheap airwaves.

Once at a graduation, our graduation speaker told the graduates that there was no Internet 20 years ago. Of course there was. But there wasn't a widespread World Wide Web, so the medium was text based and not as user friendly. Unless we were at a university dedicated to the technology, it was slow and clunky. Therefore, we weren't as prone to let it suck away our lives.

Now we're surrounded by electronic information, media, and gadgets. Of course, in some ways, it's invaluable. It's much easier to research any subject from the comfort of my computer--unlike the old days, when I'd have to go to a library. It's easier to keep in touch and communicate, at least for those of us plugged in. I've often wondered if Christian communities online can be as valuable--even more valuable--in terms of keeping each other centered, grounded and on track. We now have churches that have as many people worshipping online as in the sanctuary, and some churches have started to hire online ministers; we're at a moment that might be transformative.

But will it be for the better or worse?  I wouldn't be the first to point out all the ways the technology can lead us astray. We spend our days dealing with e-mail instead of doing real work. In our quest to be connected, we often let our connections in the real, human world slide.

The Gospel for today reminds us that there are rewards for righteous living. Traditionally, Christian communities have translated those rewards as coming in the afterlife. But we shouldn't overlook that righteous, connected living has rewards for us in our lives right here and now. We will be able to recognize the prophets and disciples that Jesus promises to send. We will be able to discern the presence of the Holy Spirit. We will not neglect our duties to the young and disadvantaged. We will drink from the streams of living water and be able to know what nourishes us and what saps our strength.

Sermon for June 21, 2026

June 21, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 10:24-39



How is this year’s liberation season going for each of you?


You might be scratching your head, wondering what liturgical season I’m referring to and why haven’t we changed the paraments. Alternately, you might be feeling the first tingle of exasperation as you say, “I came to church to get away from talk of divisive holidays.” Maybe you’re saying, “If she’s wants to preach about Juneteenth, she should have done that last Sunday, and then we could have used that prayer petition that talked about Juneteenth.”


Summer brings us a stretch of holidays that gives us occasion to consider liberation, from June 6, which commemorates a major turning point in World War II, to Juneteenth, to July 4. We could take a more global approach: we could celebrate Bastille Day on July 14, when political prisoners were released, and France began to move toward democratic government.


Being honest about liberation season would mean including some non-joyful remembrances, like the Tiananmen Square massacre, which happened in early June of 1989, where unarmed students and workers were killed for demanding that the Chinese government change and abandon its policies that violated human rights. That government slaughtered them, with cameras rolling, rather than give them more liberty.


We must resist the temptation to see some liberation movements as ordained by God when they’re successful, and some as not favored by God—that risks us believing that God favors some nations and peoples above others, based on very human metrics. But if you read the Bible straight through, one theme is always there: God desires freedom from tyranny—all sorts of tyranny—for all of creation.


The approach of celebrating the human fight against tyranny might seem to be in line with the first part of today’s Gospel, where Jesus seems to be offering an egalitarian future, where no one is above anyone else. But go back and read the actual words, and keep in mind this is one of the verses that has historically been used to support slavery: “A disciple is not above the teacher nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher and the slave like the master.”


The use of this passage to justify slavery and other types of bondage is not the only troubling part of today’s Gospel. Make no mistake, Jesus isn’t necessarily commanding us to rise up and overthrow our government or to wage war, in the way that some of our summer holidays celebrate, but Jesus is clear-eyed about what happens when humans say yes to our God of liberation:


"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and one's foes will be members of one's own household.”


In the past 10 years, regardless of political affiliation, almost everyone I’ve talked to has had such severe political disagreements with at least one friend or family member, or more, that they’re no longer on speaking terms. We see first-hand the dynamic that Jesus describes.


Some of these political differences have been taken to extremes. An honest celebration of Liberation season might include those, as a reminder of what can happen when not everyone embraces the idea of liberty for all.


We might include remembrances of the slaughter of people partying at the Pulse nightclub in 2016, or the 9 people killed 10 years ago at Mother Emanuel church in Charleston by a young man hoping to start a race war. Sadly, this list could go on and on.


Being honest about liberation also means being honest about the other ways that the desire for liberation can be manipulated by unscrupulous rulers. Juneteenth is our latest federal holiday, but we didn’t come to have it without a fight, just like the Martin Luther King holiday before it. But even holidays that seem more straight forward, like July 4, can show how divided we are as a nation when we can’t agree on what the events of 1776 mean.


Of course, the people experiencing the events were themselves divided—I highly recommend the Ken Burns’ documentary on the 1776 Revolution, which explores the divisions between those who supported the colonists who wanted to break away from England and those who were loyal to the crown—divisions within families, as well as the larger political divisions.


Even if we go back to the liberation anniversaries that seem straight forward, we find that wars won often led to further battles. At the end of the 1776 revolution, many of the people living in the U.S. were not free. The news of emancipation that we celebrate on Juneteenth did not leave freed slaves economically better off, especially not in that first generation when so many experienced a different kind of slavery in sharecropping. Sure, they could leave and many of them did, only to be worked to death in northern factories. Soldiers who survived the invasion of Normandy went on to fight additional battles before Hitler surrendered, and of course, the war in the Pacific was far from over on June 6, 1944.


Again and again, Jesus calls us back to the truth that will set us free—truly free. The idea of liberation can be terrifying, particularly for those of us who have seen how things can go wrong and how one person’s liberation can have unforeseen consequences, like a divorce that leaves everyone in a more precarious position with family members pitted against each other.


Paul’s letter reminds us that we are not abandoned. God’s liberation leads to resurrection. And in the middle of today’s Gospel, Jesus, too, tells us not to be afraid, in a much loved passage: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. 31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”


Today’s Gospel ends with the assurance that the efforts we make for God will not be in vain: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Freedom!


Theologians from Paul onward have reminded us that God comes to set us free, and we’re set free so that we can unbind others from what holds them enslaved. Our liberation holidays celebrate the human yearning for freedom and liberty. It’s a yearning that’s yet to be fully realized, even if we think we’re done. We’re all in need of liberation, to be free from the forces that would enslave us, the powers and principalities that want us to be held in the chains of addictions or debts or anger or racism or inequality or violence—the list of evil forces in the world is long.


As we move through this season of liberation holidays, let us remember that we are resurrection people free from our chains even if we’re slow to understand how free we are.


Let us move forward in faith, developing a new liberation for this time, trusting in God’s promise that the forces of hatred, oppression, and slavery, all the powers and principalities that have caused so much destruction and death—these forces do not get to have the final word. God has the final word, and God’s word always leads to liberty and freedom and flourishing.

TEEM Work and Other Anxieties

It has been a strange week in terms of home renovations.  We're at a point where it makes sense to wait until the work of next week is done.  Hopefully by this time next week, we'll have an HVAC system installed and the house rewired.  Then we'll do the painting and the hardwood floor restoration.

It feels weird knowing how much work needs to be done, but not doing it.  Of course, I have plenty of other work to be doing, primarily grading and encouraging students.

In a way, it has been a good week to be pulling back on fixer-upper tasks.  I've gotten information about the next part of my path to ordination.  I will take three classes through the TEEM program, and the first class is next week.

The TEEM program has 3 onground intensives a year where participants gather in Indianapolis and take 2 classes, one on Monday-Tuesday and one on Thursday-Friday, along with a workshop on Wednesday.  I will be taking the Thursday-Friday class on Paul's letters next week.  I'm happy to be able to patch up some holes in my knowledge; I had wanted to take a seminary class on Paul, but it never worked out.

I needed this week to order books and get started on the reading.  I had missed the deadline to get the discounted hotel price, but happily, when I called, I was able to get that price. 

It's been an up and down week in terms of anxiety.  When I'm at the house in Spartanburg, I feel that we made a good decision.  When I'm not there, there's a bit more self-doubt rattling in my brain.  I've never driven to Indianapolis from here, so I feel a bit of anxiety in terms of a car trip, while reminding myself that I have relatives along the way who could help me if need be.  I'm headed there by myself, because my spouse needs to be here to oversee the HVAC installation and rewiring.  I'm looking forward to being away, but also a bit anxious at the thought of all the new people I'll meet.  I feel a bit of anxiety at the thought of all the money we're spending on home repair--if it goes well, I'll be glad we spent the money. 

I have some course work to do besides showing up for class next week.  There's reading to do, and a movie about Paul to watch, which I've done, and a review of the movie to write, which I haven't, but will soon.

But it's nice to feel I have time to do that work.  The last time I was getting ready to go to an onground intensive, it was October of 2024, and we were still dealing with Hurricane Helene aftermaths.  I'm sure there's some residual anxiety that my body is dredging up.

Hopefully, in a week or two, I'll be able to look back on this anxiety and smile because all the moving parts came together so well.

Liberation Holidays: Juneteenth

Today we celebrate our newest federal holiday:  Juneteenth.  Of course, many populations have been celebrating Juneteenth since the news of freedom first came to the last enslaved people in Texas in 1865.  This is the first year that I've been in a workplace that recognized the holiday.  In 2021, I was working for a small school that was very stingy with holidays, so we didn't have that holiday or MLK day or Presidents Day.

In 2022, I was no longer working for that school.  I was driving back across several states, coming back to Florida from the onground intensive at Southern Seminary.  I was already a certified spiritual director through their program, but I went back to take advantage of the education, to have a reunion with my small group, and to see a friend graduate from the program.  Two weeks later I would turn around to drive back up to Arden to buy the house that I'm writing in this morning.  So far, I have never regretted that purchase, which is not usual for me when it comes to housing or moves or jobs.

Or maybe it is becoming usual.  I don't have regrets about the spiritual direction certificate or my MDiv.  My main regret about my job at SMC is that I didn't have it sooner.  I love this house in a way that I haven't loved any other house.  Maybe my lack of regret is a pleasant part of being in late midlife.

I am tempted to tie these ideas back to Juneteenth, but I don't want to trivialize the holiday or the history.  While regret can enslave us, it's a very different enslavement than other forces and humans that enslave.

Wat are the forces enslaving so many of us? We think of iron shackles, but there are other societal constructs that hold so many back: debt, geopolitical forces, violence, educational systems.  And let's not forget that literal slavery hasn't disappeared. 

So on this Juneteenth, let us think about the captives who need our help to be set free. Let us also think about all the captivity narratives that hold us enslaved. Let us embrace liberation narratives. Let us envision what life would look like if all were truly free.

The Rethinking of Mary Magdalene Gets Wider Acceptance

I have been listening to a fascinating interview between Diana Butler Bass and Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer.  Several years ago, Bass preached a sermon using Schrader-Polczer's work, which Bass points out is one of 3 of the most watched sermons of all time; the other two were Bishop Budde's sermon at the interfaith worship service after the second inauguration of Donald Trump and the sermon preached at the wedding of Prince Harry and Mary Markle.

In that sermon, Bass presented the work of Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer, who was then a PhD student at Duke.  She did research on the Lazarus text and noticed that the word Mary had been changed to Martha.  Why would someone do this?  And how can we be sure?  

Bass published her sermon here.  It's worth the read, and it's got a link to hear the sermon.  Bass makes the case that it was likely a 4th century change, a change to disempower Mary Magdalene.

In the interview I'm listening to today, Bass and Schrader-Polzer review those ideas.  It's an interesting window into how research on ancient texts is done, and how this work was done.  It's got great information about issues of gender, along with church history.

Here are some highlights:

--At minute 28, they talk about the canon--which books made it into the Bible, which did not, and why.  Schrader-Polzer posits that the approach to Mary Magdalene, the changes made in the Gospel of John, might have happened in the 2nd century so that the book would be seen as more acceptable, so that it would survive. 

--In the oldest artwork, whenever there's a Lazarus, there's only one sister.

--Throughout the interview, there's lots of great information about translations of the Bible and how we come to have the Bible that we do.

--It is fascinating to me that there are changes to Bible commentaries and forthcoming changes to translations, including the master text, the "Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland). The 'Nestle-Aland,' or 'NA,' is the source from which almost all versions of the New Testament are translated into every language around the world" (quoted material from Bass' newsletter).  These changes happened because of Schrader-Polzer's work and Bass' promotion of this work.  I'm inspired that academic work can have this effect.

--Bass points out that this kind of revision to Bible scholarship, a major revision like Schrader-Polzer's, doesn't happen often and usually about once a generation.

--In the first century, the town of Magdala didn't exist (roughly minute 1:08).  So using Mary of Magdala would be a wrong translation.

--"Reframing ancient questions" vs. "opening new questions"--Bass uses this language about the way that the Catholic church might approach these developments.  She posits that this research is the reframing of ancient questions kind of development.

--Just after 1:18, Bass and Schrader-Polzer talk about the Gospel as a piece of story telling, a cohesive narrative, that is not the way that most people think about a Gospel:  approaching it the way a creative writer/teacher would see it.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, June 21, 2026:

Genesis 21:8-21

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

As we look at the teachings of Christ, a central theme emerges. Fear is at the root of all that keeps us from God. In this teaching, Jesus again gives us both warnings of what is coming and reminders to be of good cheer.

Again and again, Jesus yokes his teachings of what will be required with the admonition to have no fear. Here, Jesus tells us that God knows about the least little sparrow--and we're worth more than sparrows. The wisdom of the Holy Spirit invites us to new life, not to paralyzing fear. Jesus tells us that even sparrows are nurtured in God's economy. God will take care of us too.

I love this vision of God who knows me from the individual hairs of my head to the rough soles of my feet. I love this vision of God who helps me travel through the dangerous parts of the world. I want to believe that I am worth more than sparrows, and I want to believe that in God's economy, sparrows are worth more than two pennies.

But again, Jesus warns us that we can't stop with that vision. This is a God who keeps watch so that we can do the transformational work that must be done. It is work that is likely to take us to threatening places where we may have to oppose the dominant power structure. We may find ourselves crucified, in every sense of that word.

Again and again, Jesus asks if we're willing to pay the price. Again and again, Jesus offers the promise that we find at the end of this Sunday's Gospel: if we quit our obsessive clinging to those elements that we think give us life, we may indeed find true life.

We find ourselves in a time period where many of us have stopped clinging to those parts of society that diminish and demean us. May we have the courage to move towards what will nourish us and to demand that nourishment for all of us.

Recording of My Sermon for June 14, 2026

Yesterday's sermon went well at Faith Lutheran, the small country church I serve in Bristol, Tennessee.  Because 1/3 of our membership is an extended family, when they go on their family beach vacation, the worship space can feel a bit empty.  Yesterday we had no youth, so no youth sermon.  When I announced that there would be no youth sermon, I asked the congregation to think about what had brought them joy in their own youth.  I referenced a popsicle in the park event that one of the members had made the subject of a Facebook post.  The recording of the sermon referenced that popsicle event; the manuscript does not.

I've been trying to read my sermon less, which in some ways is good, primarily in the more lively energy.  But I don't like that I get tongue-tied, and I worry about my sermons getting longer.  I want a sermon to be 9-12 minutes.  

You can view yesterday's sermon here, on my YouTube channel.  You can read my sermon in yesterday's blog post.

Sermon for Sunday, June 14, 2026

June 14, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)




A traditional way of interpreting this Gospel is to see it as a companion to the “Go and make disciples” type of text that weaves its way through the lectionary. Here Jesus tells the disciples what to do as they go out to make disciples. Many sermons approach this text as a mission statement: the mission of the disciples, which then becomes the mission of the church through the ages. Traditional thinking goes something like this: if it’s good enough for those disciples who then train others to go and do likewise, then we, too, can adopt this passage as our mission statement.


But what if this approach is wrong? What if this message of Jesus is only meant for those disciples who are hearing it? What if Jesus didn’t mean for us here in the 21st century to assume that we, too, are supposed to do what those 12 named disciples were called to do?


You might ask, well, what’s it doing here, then? If it’s not direct advice from Jesus telling us how to live our lives and how to judge the success of the church, then what is the purpose of this reading?


Part of the purpose is to bear witness to the good news that Jesus embodies. One way that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew does this is to introduce us to Jesus, and also to introduce us to the disciples, the first generation to continue the work of Jesus.


Some of the first hearers of this Gospel might have actually known the disciples. I imagine them hearing this text and saying, “Curing the sick—yes, John was great at that. Casting out demons—how did Jesus know that Peter would get to be so skilled in that area?”


At this point, let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that the writer of Matthew needed to add some additional information, some newer disciples who lived in the centuries after the original 12 disciples named in this passage. Who might the Gospel writer choose? Let’s consider some of the great witnesses of the 20th century.


There’s Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farms, which gave birth to Habitat for Humanity. There’s Dorothy Day, who founded Catholic Worker houses all over the country, showing people how to live communally. There’s Archbishop Oscar Romero who was martyred for speaking out and demanding that the killing of non-combatants in El Salvador stop. And Martin Luther King, who ushered in a new era of human rights.


And of course, there are the less famous disciples, like a woman in my old church in South Florida who taught Confirmation classes for over 60 years; imagine how many people she told about the good news of Jesus. The number of schools and hospitals kept running by faithful people are too many to list in a sermon.


When you hear me list these witnesses, do you say to yourself, “Let me go and start a farm in the red clay dirt of Georgia to show that black and white citizens can farm in harmony like Clarence Jordan did”? I don’t. I don’t have farming skills in the best of circumstances, but I admire those who do.


Why, then, do we hear sermons and theologians tell us that the mission of the original 12 must still be our mission? In part, it’s because we have a long history of this interpretation. And don’t get me wrong: if you can heal the sick, that’s a great way of announcing the good news of Jesus.


But it isn’t the only way. Not by a long shot. Take a minute. Think about your own gifts. If the writer of the Gospel added your skills to the list of healing the sick, cleansing skin diseases, raising the dead, and casting out demons that we hear today, what would it be?


Frederick Buechner has a great quote for those of us who doubt we have any sort of call or who have lost sight of God’s call or who fear it might be too late. in his book Wishful Thinking he says : “The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."


Of course, even when we find that place, we won’t always find people who are happy we found it.


In part, today’s Gospel is also a cautionary tale. We can answer our call, our call that is unique to us, our own way of announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near, but that doesn’t mean that the world will instantly accept our gifts. Jesus warns us that just the opposite might happen. It sounds pretty grim. Not a great way to win converts. But Jesus tells us not to worry. God will speak through us. We will not be left to our own devices.


Not so long ago, I would have written this sermon imagining that very few of us would face any sort of resistance when we answered God’s call. Humanity seemed on a path of improvement as we charted our way through the last several decades of the 20th century. But as I was pondering this week’s Gospel text, word leaked out that the Southern Baptist Convention has decided to curtail the ways that women can be involved in the church.


Southern Baptists already restrict women in terms of answering a call. A Southern Baptist woman who hears God calling her to be a pastor would not get support in that denomination. In a way, this is not a new development. But that denomination continues to wrestle with how to deal with the issue of women and power. Can women be guest speakers? Can they be lectors? Should women be allowed to supervise men? Can they be Sunday School teachers?


If your social media feed is like mine, you may have seen an upsurge in reminders of all the ways that women have been faithful, with Biblical examples, like Mary Magdalene, whom some call the first apostle, because she’s the first to see the risen Jesus and she tells others. And look what happened to her—most people are more likely to remember her as the woman possessed by demons than as the first apostle.

Not so long ago, I might have said that our religious communities could help us discern a call and help us to be sure that it’s God’s call we’re hearing and not the call of those who might not have our best interests at heart. Now I use the words of Jesus in advising us how to proceed: we must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We can ask ourselves if we’re part of a process that announces the Kingdom of God is at hand, or are we announcing someone else’s kingdom.


In this way, we will endure until the end. In this way, we will be saved.

Women and Authority and Southern Baptist Decisions

I wonder if the social media feeds of other people are full of rage at the Southern Baptist governing body and their decisions about women in leadership.  In many ways, it's not a surprise:  they've forbidden women pastors for decades now.  The recent decision seems to say that women can't even be church council members or Sunday School teachers or speak in worship at all--no lectors, much less assisting ministers.  

Obviously, I disagree with these decisions.  I am lucky to have other denominations, including my own, the ELCA, the more inclusive expression of Lutheranism in the U.S.  I am not Southern Baptist and neither are most of the people filling my feed with rage.  Living in a "free" society and believing in free will does mean that people get to make their own decisions, no matter how much I think they are on a wrong path.

I do wonder who will do all the work, if women aren't allowed to do even volunteer work, even the work traditionally done by women, like teaching of all kinds.  Are there really all these men, waiting in the wings who have been chomping at the bit to do the work?

It's hard for me to believe that they do.  Of course, I've been in congregations that are tiny, where everyone who is breathing has been put to work, churches that don't have the luxury of excluding half (or more) of the congregation.

I am happy to be part of a church that welcomes everyone into the circle to do the work of kingdom building.

All the Battles Worth Watching, One after Another

We spent a long chunk of time yesterday watching One Battle After Another.  It's a movie that's been out for awhile, but only recently free to stream on Amazon Prime.  I had forgotten how long it was, but happily, we started it in the late afternoon, not at 7:30 at night.

It wasn't until the later part of the movie, during one of the long (LONG) car chases that I became aware of how long it was taking to finish the movie.  It was compelling from the beginning until close to the end, compelling in ways that surprised me.

I was impressed with all the chunks of narrative that did manage to come together.  Paul Thomas Anderson deserved those Oscars for best director and best adapted screenplay.  There were moments when I did some math to try to figure out the revolutionary aspect of it all--if the daughter is 16 or 17, then the revolutionaries were active in 2008 or 2009?  The planting of bombs in government buildings and calling in bomb threats from a pay phone seemed so 1972 to me, but clearly, that timeline wouldn't work.  It was a nebulous revolutionary movement in the movie, so I was willing to suspend my initial disbelief.

There's another revolutionary movement in the movie, and it's the "Latino Harriet Tubman situation."  This movie has a lot to say about a great many issues, and one of the disadvantages of a vast movie is that some issues get short shrift.  I'd have liked more about all the Latino issues, especially the nods to the sanctuary movement that are hiding there in plain sight for those of us with eyes to see.  It's in the storylines about migration where we see revolutionaries who are working for social justice and working against a government that's against the flourishing of all people--unlike the other revolutionaries, the main characters who seem to be just blowing things up for the thrill of it all.

I try very hard not to fault movies or books or TV shows for not being the story that I wish they could have been.  In the end, I was happy to have a well-made movie to watch, a movie with much to mull over, a movie worth re-watching, as so few things are deserving of a second look these days.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, June 14, 2026:

Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)

Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19

Romans 5:1-8

Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)


In many modern churches, especially in the time around Pentecost, we spend a lot of time talking about mission, even if we're not realizing we're talking about it. Does the church exist to serve the members? Does the church exist to serve the community? And what do we mean when we talk about the church anyway?

In this Sunday's Gospel, we get a very different vision of the early church than we'll get in parts of Acts. In Acts, we often see the early believers arguing about doctrine, like who gets to belong and who doesn't--and once we've decided who gets to participate, there are debates about how to participate, like what can be eaten and when it should be eaten.

In this Sunday's Gospel, we see a vision of the early church in the way that Paul will practice it. Jesus gives instructions to his disciples to go out taking very little with them: no food, no money, not even a change of clothes. Their mission: "Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons."

And what will they get for their troubles? They will be flogged in the synagogues and drug before rulers, where we assume a gruesome death will follow. Their message will divide families, but they are to persevere, to endure.

I think about those early disciples and our current time. The early disciples lived in a time of upheaval, and Jesus had fomented even more unrest. We, too, inhabit a time of social unrest with threats both familiar and new. We, too, sense we are at a hinge moment in history, when the time before us will be completely different to the time we lived in not too long ago.

In these days when we can't budget in the ways we once did, how can we possibly plan for our mission in the coming months and years? We have spent years and decades learning to make plans and budgets, skills which seem geared for a different time in history.  Each day, if we listen to news and social media platforms, we get news of how the church seems increasingly irrelevant to the larger world.

Yet our mission remains the same: to care for the outcast of society, to speak truth to the ones who rule, to cast out the demons that oppress society. Jesus sends his disciples out into the world without a plan, without a budget, without supplies, without a script. He trusts them to be able to think on their feet, to react to the circumstances that they actually encounter, instead of planning for encounters that may never happen.

Jesus ends with one last piece of instruction: "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10: 16). 

Let us all be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, a mission that is as important now as it ever was.

Recording of Two Sermons for Sunday, June 7, 2026

Yesterday was a good day in worship at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  I preached on the true miracle that Jesus performs across the linked stories in the Gospel reading, Matthew  9:9-13, 18-26, the ability to rescue us from the living death of isolation--and it's a miracle we can perform too.

You can view the recording of the sermon here on my YouTube channel.  If you want to read along and see where I went off script, I posted the sermon manuscript in this blog post.

My spouse also captured the youth sermon, where I reminded the youth that like the father in the Gospel, God will never give up on us, even in death.  You can view it here on my YouTube channel.

Sermon for Sunday, June 7, 2026

June 7, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26




The Revised Common Lectionary, our schedule of readings, was designed long before we had our smart phones. This Gospel text was written long before modern inventors created the smart phone and other ways of keeping humans isolated and miserable. In today’s text, we see that the problems that afflict humans aren’t so different from age to age. Today’s text shows Jesus healing in a variety of ways, but in addition, he creates the miracle of repaired community.


In today’s text, we have a call story, a chronic health problem cured by a woman’s insistence and initiative, and a little girl raised from the dead. Of these three, the last one is probably the one that most of us have not experienced, the one ordinary humans cannot claim to do ourselves, the one that seems like the truest miracle.


When we think about Jesus raising people from the dead, we probably think of Lazarus, but that’s not the only time he raised people from the dead. The most significant raising of the dead is in the 27th chapter of Matthew, when the souls of the righteous come out of their graves when Jesus died. In all these instances, the dead are very dead. Likewise, in today’s text, the girl has been dead for some time, at the very least, the amount of time it takes her father to find Jesus, ask for help, and bring him back to the house.


Death is the ultimate isolating incident, and in ancient times, death was even more isolating, with rules about how to treat the corpse and the family of the dead. The period of mourning was over a year, with the family isolated or in other ways excused from community duties for over a year. And of course, death is the most severe severance from community for the person who dies. Jesus comes and resurrects the girl and her family into community.


The bleeding woman, the other woman in today’s Gospel text, is also resurrected into community. This healing story appears in all three Gospels, which can be a key to how important the story is to understanding Jesus. As with the customs surrounding death, the customs surrounding bodily fluids have changed so much that we may lose sight of what happens here.


A woman bleeding in this way would be completely isolated. Bleeding people were seen as unclean, and like lepers, a person bleeding would not be able to live a normal life in communion with the larger community. Their bleeding would be seen as contaminating the larger community, and everyone would need to go through ritual purification if they were in proximity to a bleeding person. If a person bled for an hour or a few days, that bleeding was manageable, but a woman with chronic bleeding was likely to live continuously without much community contact or hope of it.


The Gospel of Matthew gives us less detail about the healing, but we do get the detail about the 12 years that she has been bleeding (Luke tells us she had spent all of her money on doctors). In this healing story, she grabs initiative and touches the fringe of his cloak. Instead of getting angry, Jesus uses her as an example of faithfulness. Desperation can lead to faithfulness, and this kind of experience is more familiar to us today, as more of us wrestle with health issues which seem incurable.


Matthew the tax collector may seem to have little to do with the dead girl and the bleeding woman, but he, too, is isolated from society. We may see him as a man with a good job, but that’s not how his fellow citizens would see him. Jews would hate him because he worked for the occupying empire and made money off their misery; Romans would despise him because he was Jewish. This dinner that he’s enjoying with Jesus is likely the first time he’s shared a meal with others since he took the job. One of the details of The Chosen which makes me respect the franchise is that the show does depict the hatred that everyone feels for this man, based not on his personality but on what he does for a living.


The other people in today’s Gospel text show us people who are isolated in much the same ways we are today. There are the Pharisees who ask why Jesus is behaving the way he is. If you’re on social media for any amount of time, you’ll see this behavior has just gotten worse instead of better—we know how everyone should behave and we’re hypercritical of those who want to live differently and those who want to express their opinions have a way to do so 24 hours a day. Social media just amplifies behavior that’s been part of humans since ancient times, behavior that we see in the people following Jesus, both those who approve of him and those who don’t.


The crowd at the dead girl’s house is also an isolating force. Jesus shows up to do things differently, and they laugh at him. Jesus goes ahead and raises the dead girl.


Isolation is one of the largest forces of death in our current world. Last week I concluded my sermon by saying that nothing is impossible with God. This week, we see that power in action, the impossible becoming incarnate in our world.


Those of us struggling with the losses that come with death or illness might say, “Well, from this vantage point, it sure does look like some things are impossible.” The ministry of Jesus shows that he understands that there are situations worse than death. Jesus comes to heal the living death that the most isolated people experience. Jesus comes to heal us in all the ways that life in community can be isolating.


We often hear how we are living in unprecedented times, facing existential threats that past generations never had to figure out, whether that be nuclear bombs or artificial intelligence. The wisdom of a 3 year lectionary cycle is the reminder that we’ve always been facing the same existential threat, even as the method of destruction varies. Jesus shows us that the true existential threat is how isolated we are from each other. The true miracle that Jesus works over and over again is his ability to reintegrate the most isolated humans in our culture.


Jesus reminds us over and over again that the way to heal our individuals is through reweaving the social fabric. If we refuse to accept the voices that gossip about those who do things differently, if we refuse to join in the mockery and laughter that often greet those who are making a different world, we are creating the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim is inbreaking.


Of course, in so many ways, this community gathered here this morning is already reweaving the social fabric of the community. The most obvious way might be our fish fry evenings, but there is so much more. I look around and see people who cook, people who teach, people who can repair any broken thing. I look around and I see people raising the food that will feed a hungry nation and people taking care of those who come to our lakes. I look around and I see people raising the next generation to be kind and community oriented, and I look at our youth, and I have renewed hope for the future. I look around, and I see a community who includes all who come here, a community that stops the hemorrhaging disease of isolation that is draining the life force out of so many communities.


In this way of building and strengthening community, ordinary humans can bring the dead back to life. Jesus showed Matthew the tax collector the way to do it. Let us continue in this work that has been given us to do.

Annual Dinner with Camp Counselors

Last night, we had dinner with the Lutheridge and Lutherock camp counselors.  We've done it before, and I always come away impressed.  The neighborhood community who lives in the residential section of Lutheridge brings a variety of desserts, and the camp provides burgers and hot dogs, chips and beverages.

We sat with a guy who's finishing the fall semester and then headed to Duke Divinity school and another senior staffer who hopes to come back for another summer or two before he said he probably should find a regular job.  I said, "Or you could continue working in outdoor ministries year round."

Happily, no one was there to point out the shrinking job opportunities in that field.  I will never understand why the larger church doesn't do more to help/commit to campus and outdoor ministries.  The counselors I spoke to last night are full of hope for all the ways their futures might unfold.  I've found that my SMC students are similarly optimistic.  It's refreshing.

Before the dinner, I spent the day trying to fix my course shell for my online class at Spartanburg Methodist College.  The book has changed editions (again--sigh), so the references to the book page numbers that students find in the assignments and discussion posts are wrong.  Ugh.  I'm teaching someone else's course, and so it's not intuitive to me, the way I would have if I had created it all--it takes more time to diagnose problems and fix them.

I also did some baking--I decided to bring a gluten free, dairy free dessert.  It worked beautifully.  It's an almond-coconut concoction, and I want to record it here:

1 C. sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 C. almond flour (or grind up a lot of almonds into as fine a powder as possible)

1 1/2 C. coconut (I used sweetened and unsweetened in 2 different experiments--no difference)

Whip the sugar and eggs until tripled in volume or until tired of the noise of the mixer.  Fold in the almond flour and the coconut.  Pour in a 9 inch cake pan lined with parchment paper and greased or in cupcake pan.  Bake at 350 for 25ish minutes.  You can only tell if it's done by color--a golden, light brown color.  It will be sticky and delicious.  It keeps at room temperature for days, although the crispiness of the crust declines.

The Lectionary Cycle Begins Again

We are now at the 3 year anniversary of my being the Synod Authorized Minister at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bristol, Tennessee.  I still find it very fulfilling.  I've enjoyed the weekly worship, along with the high water moments, like baptisms and Confirmation.  I've learned so much.  I've wished that I could go back to apologize to some pastors when I was too tough in my judgments.  I'm amazed at how being the minister in charge has enriched my Sunday worship and sustained me through the week in ways that I both anticipated and did not.

But that's not what's on my mind this morning.

Three years means that we're back at the beginning of the lectionary reading cycle.

There's been repetition before, of course.  Christmas Eve is Christmas Eve--how to make it new every year?  But now we're back at the beginning.

I will continue to write something new every week.  I'm paid a specific amount, $100, to do that; the preaching and presiding is at a different rate.  I don't feel a temptation to use the sermon from three years ago.

I did pull it up to look at it.  It's a good sermon; I understand the temptation to use old material without revising it.

I am a bit relieved that while I'll be using some of the same ideas, it will be a different sermon.  I am also sad that some of the ideas about the ways that empires function by making outsiders and pitting us against each other sadly are even more relevant.  

It will be an interesting new phase of weekly ministry, finding ways to make the lectionary readings new in a place where I have preached them before.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, June 11, 2023: First reading and Psalm
Genesis 12:1-9
Psalm 33:1-12

Alternate First reading and Psalm
Hosea 5:15-6:6
Psalm 50:7-15

Second reading
Romans 4:13-25

Gospel
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26




In this Sunday's Gospel, we have a strange assortment of stories that don't seem to go together. We have a story about a tax collector being called to follow Jesus, and then a discussion about who should be eating with who, and a mysterious passage about who needs a doctor and mercy vs. sacrifice. And then we get to the bleeding woman who gets healing and a dead daughter. What on earth do these passages have to do with the first passage? But when I go back to look at the reading again, I begin to see what unifies it. I begin to see a larger pattern of healing. But it may not be healing in the form we expect.

Across all of these verses in today’s reading, we see outcasts of all kinds. There are the two women at the end of today’s text, the most obvious outsiders, one bleeding, one dead—both conditions making them beyond the borders of acceptance in an ancient culture. 

There’s Matthew the tax collector, whose profession puts him outside of acceptability to both Jews and Romans. Jews would hate him because he worked for the occupying empire and made money off their misery; Romans would despise him because he was Jewish. The leader of the synagogue is outside of acceptability; his daughter’s death has compelled him to seek out Jesus, which would not have been OK with his colleagues back at the synagogue. Bible scholars would want us to note that he kneels before Jesus, signifying his inferiority to Jesus. Even the Pharisees who want to know why Jesus shares a meal with sinners have cast themselves out from the society gathered around Jesus in this passage.

But what does this have to do with us?

The truth is that we live in a society that is rigid and stratified in similar ways to first century Rome. We live in an empire that is still in thrall to the military-industrial complex, and so we live under a current state of war and preparation for the next war. We live with traumatized survivors of past wars and families ripped apart. We take money that could be used to feed people to feed the war machine. War weapons are used against civilians: every week brings another school shooting, massacres of all sorts.

And even if we can maintain a healthy distance from the military-industrial complex, we live in a capitalist empire that wants us to buy more, more, more, and so we are bombarded with messages of how we are inadequate in the hopes that we will buy more and more. And to make matters worse, we willingly carry the tools of empire’s oppression with us all the time. How long can you go without looking at your phone? How often is your phone sending you the message that you are a beloved creation of God? Not often, I bet.

Maybe in our focus on the healing miracles, we’ve missed the point. We’ve focused on the individual healings and lost sight of the larger resurrection Jesus offers. Jesus came to heal our communities, to raise the larger society from the dead. And this healing happens by inclusion, outsiders made insiders, the realization that we are all outsiders desperately in need of inclusion. Jesus announces a kingdom of God that will be very different than the kingdoms of earthly empires.

As a society, we’ve been hemorrhaging our very life force for much too long. Many of our communities are as dead as the daughter of the synagogue leader. Like the Pharisees, we ask questions about who is eating with who instead of asking essential questions about the best way to live our lives, the most life-giving ways to order our societies. We are in desperate need of a physician.

I suspect that many of us feel like Matthew. We do work that doesn’t feel essential—or worse, we do work that helps an empire repress the people we claim as our own. But the Gospels remind us again and again, that God offers us an invitation to a life that can come in the middle of our living death. Jesus invites us to put down our cell phones and follow. Jesus invites us into a new community built on inclusion. 

The ways we create an inclusive community are as vast and varied as we are. When in doubt follow Jesus’ lead: invite people to dinner. Reach out to women with chronic health problems; reach out to anyone with a chronic condition. Jesus invites us to follow him.

I hope you will say yes to the call of Jesus in the ways that only you can.

Will you?

Recording of the Sermon for Sunday, May 31, 2026

Both of my sermons yesterday seemed to go well.  For the youth sermon, I focused on the reading from Genesis and used it as a chance to remind/teach about the 2 creation stories, that Adam and Eve are in the second one, the one that people use to explain why the world is bad.  But in yesterday's creation story, we see God creating with great happiness and declaring everything good, which is how God feels about us.

My adult sermon wove together Trinity Sunday and the Feast Day of the Visitation. I decided to go that direction as I contemplated how many Trinity Sunday sermons I might preach in my life and how rarely the Sunday will fall on May 31.

You can view the recording of most of the sermon here on my YouTube channel.  If you'd like to read along/instead, I posted the manuscript here on my theology blog.

Sermon for May 31, 2026, The Feast Day of the Visitation and Holy Trinity Sunday

May 31, 2026, Holy Trinity Sunday
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



First Reading: Genesis 1:1--2:4a

Psalm: Psalm 8

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20





The wonders of technology make it possible for me to be part of the women’s group at the church in Florida where I used to be a member; once a month, we meet by way of Zoom to check in with each other and to have a bit of Bible study. We met the Saturday before Pentecost, and we talked about prayer and which part of the Triune God we talked to when we pray—or do we separate them in that way? I would offer the same question to all of us, as we think about Holy Trinity Sunday. It’s one way of thinking about what it means to have a Triune God.


In the Bible study group, we found out that most of us pray to Jesus and/or God, who we described as Creator or Father. None of us pray to the Holy Spirit. In a way, that’s not a surprise. We’re Lutherans, after all. In my Lutheran Theology class, we studied the foundational documents written by Luther and his fellow reformers. The focus was on Jesus and justification more than God and creation or the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gets no mention at all.


When we look at the readings for today, we see something similar. Look again at what we just heard. In the first reading and the Psalm, we see God the Creator in full force. Not God as judge, not God as rescuer, not God as avenger-- three of the other main ways we see God across time, three of the main ways we see humans relating to God.


In our Gospel reading, we see the second part of the Triune God. We see Jesus at the end of his ministry, Jesus as dispatcher, sending the disciples out to carry on his work. In today’s Gospel reading, we don’t see Jesus as savior in the same way we do during Holy Week and Easter. In today’s reading, we don’t see Jesus as healer and worker of miracles.


The Holy Spirit only gets a brief mention, just part of a sentence in both the second reading and the Gospel. For Holy Trinity Sunday, this seems unfair. Sure, we had a focus on the Holy Spirit last week, but now we seem back to our non-Pentecostal life, all the parts of the Triune God back in their lanes, each responsible for different parts of our spiritual and church lives.


Throughout the centuries, the Church has wrestled with trinitarian theology, with the question about what it means to have God in 3 persons, blessed Trinity, as the hymnist writes it. Were all three there in the beginning? Can they exist separately, apart from one another? Different theologians would give us different answers.


Some theologians might tell us that the answers aren’t important. The important question is how we relate to this Triune God—how we understand the ways that God is at work in the world. This understanding can shape our spiritual practices: how we pray and to whom we pray, for example.


Our Gospel reading is one predominant way that Christians through the centuries have related to God, by going out and making disciples. Through the centuries, that has been interpreted as going to people who haven’t heard about Jesus and convincing them that Jesus walked the earth and died for us and rose again. That model has us converting people and moving on to the next group who hasn’t heard about Jesus.


That model doesn’t seem as useful today. Can there be any people out there who haven’t heard about Jesus? Would our showing up to preach and teach really make a difference?


Perhaps we’ve focused on the wrong verb in today’s Gospel. We’ve focused on the verb “Go”; for today’s world, “Make disciples” is a much more important focus. In the past, we’ve done that by preaching and teaching. But how does the Triune God make disciples?


One clear way is by coming to live with us. Christians focus on Jesus. Jesus comes to earth to show us what it means to be human, how to live our best human lives. From the beginning of the story, even before the birth of Jesus, the Triune God is showing us by example.


May 31, roughly 6 months before Christmas, is the Feast day of the Visitation, a day that commemorates Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, her kinswoman. In Protestant denominations, we hear about this visit in Advent, if we hear it at all. But it provides an interesting note for Trinity Sunday too. It’s an important counterpoint to Pentecost, which often is presented as something that happens to the disciples after they have been commissioned by Jesus.


The story of Mary and Elizabeth reminds us that others are also worthy of commissioning, worthy of doing God’s work in the world—and those people may look very different from those 11 disciples in today’s Gospel. Society and biology told Elizabeth that she was too old for a child; God said it wasn’t too late. Society told Mary that she wasn’t the appropriate choice for a mother of the Messiah; God invited her to ignore that judgment. Women said yes, God said yes, and the history of the world shifted.


It's a great day to celebrate those possibilities. And even if we've been feeling like our time is passed, that it's too late for us, it's great to remember that God doesn't see us that way. If we feel like we're too inexperienced, that we don't know what we're doing, it's great to remember that God doesn't see us that way.


On this Trinity Sunday, let us remember that our God is revealed through community—community between Creator, Redeemer, and Holy Spirit, and community between the Divine and humans. Let us follow God’s example. Let us rejoice in all that is possible when we say yes to God, when we join this community. In a world that rarely celebrates the ways we need each other to thrive, let us make disciples by being a living example of the value of community. So let us go, go about our days, secure in the knowledge that with God, nothing is impossible. With our Triune God, nothing—nothing—is impossible.