Commentary

Editor’s introduction. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly declared (as recently as a week ago) his intent to “take Cuba” after crushing Venezuelan sovereignty and attempting the same to Iran. Stan Dotson, along with his spouse, Kim Christman, have lived in Cuba for the past 12 years. They serve as associate pastors at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Havana. Dotson’s sermon is based on Jesus’ declaration, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (See the bottom of this sermon for more context regarding US-Cuba relations.)

Sermon by Stan Dotson
Circle of Mercy Congregation
May 3, 2026
Text: John 14:1-14

§  §  §

For Earth Day:
Biblical texts which reveal the non-human parts of creation
responding to God’s presence, provision and purpose.

Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Salvation is created, in the midst of the earth, O God, O our God. Alleluia.” —translation of “Spaséñiy, sodélal” (“Salvation is Created” from Ps. 74), Pavel Chesnokov, performed by National Lutheran Choir

Call to worship. “Freedom is the world’s water / and weather, the world’s nourishment / freely given, its soil and sap: / and the creator loves pizzazz.” —Annie Dillard, “Annie Dillard On God, Earth, and Freedom”

(resurrectus contagio)

Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Easter Oratorio, BWV 249 ‘Adagio.’” —J.S. Bach, performed by Alexei Ogrintchouk & Sinfonietta Rīga

Invocation. “Coax us back to Jerusalem’s turmoil, where Heaven contends with Earth’s remorse, where the promise of forgiveness confronts the knots of enmity, where danger’s threat is met with the Spirit’s assurance that one day public good shall supplant private privilege, when the tyranny of might over right will end, when all tears will be dried and death itself comes undone.” —excerpt from “An Emmaen prayer”

Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” —Annie Moses Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9-1thLeoaI

Invocation. “. . . the world is erupting around us, Christ is very often offering us the scars in his side.” —Christian Wiman

Ken Sehested

Prelude. “This world is so profane, / I can hear the earth screaming, / screaming in pain. / Everywhere; / There is not compassion left in us. / Why is it that so much pain is caused? / and so much injustice is done in the name of God? / Why have children stopped dreaming? / and why is it that mothers won't stop crying; / I just ask myself how can God look at us.” —English translation of lyrics in “¿Porque?” (“Why?”), Yasmin Levy

Call to worship. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" —Aramaic phrase spoken by Jesus on the cross, translated to "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Quoting Psalm 22:1, recorded in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34.

Pastoral and prophetic resources

Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Lullaby.” —Together for Palestine 

Invocation. “The War Prayer,” by Mark Twain, presented as an animated film by Markos Kounalakis. Twain’s work is a short story written in the heat of the Philippine-American war of 1899-1902 offering a poignant reflection on the double-edged moral sword implicit to war. (14:02 video.)

40 questions for contemplative attention

Ken Sehested

Prelude. Sufi dance, featuring Rana Gorgani, Farid Sheek, Mirtohid Radfar 

Call to worship. “Gordon Hempton, acoustic ecologist, considers silence to be not the absence of sound, but the absence of noise.  As I’ve been dwelling on silence in preparation for this reflection, I’ve thought about this definition and tried to figure out, then, what noise is. Last week, during a hike, I sat by Deep Creek in the Smokies, my feet in the water, not able to hear anything but the thundering sound of the water over the rocks. I wondered: Is that noise? Is noise just loud sounds, or is it a word describing things that assault our senses in an unpleasant, unsettling, or undesirable way? If so, then for me, noise would not just refer to sounds, but also to billboards, and to those videos playing at gas pumps. It would be the words scrolling endlessly on news shows, and a riot of perfumes wafting from the centers of department stores. It would include the garbage piled up by the river after the hurricane, and the lies coming from amplified voices of power in our society.

These are but a few of the price tags of the first 50+ hours of the war

Compiled by Ken Sehested

§  §  §

“. . . they traded their wisdom for their splendor.”
—Ezekiel 28:17