Commentary

What are we to make of our nation’s semiquicentennial?

Ken Sehested, Circle of Mercy Congregation, 5 July 2026
Text: Zechariah 9:9-12
(“Return to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope”)

Prelude. “One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple / By the Relief Office I saw my people — / As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if / This land was made for you and me.” —“lost” verse to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”

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Ken Sehested

¶ Read Cameron Vickrey’s brief summary of the Supreme Court’s brutal rulings affecting immigrants’ “protected status” and asylum seekers fate.

¶ You probably didn’t know: Undocumented immigrants paid more income taxes than Amazon, GM, IBM and Netflix combined. —SNOPES fact checker

Ken Sehested

Processional. “I'm going to watch you shine / Going to watch you grow / Going to paint a sign / So you'll always know / As long as one and one is two / There could never be a father / Who loved his daughter more than I love you. —“Father and Daughter,” Paul Simon 

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Seven recommended habits for white folk like me
designed to breach the wall of racism

 Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Come on and raise your voice above the raging seas / We can't hold our breath forever / When our brothers cannot breathe / Come on and raise your voice above the raging seas / We can't hold our breath forever / When our sisters cannot breathe.” —“All Good People,” Delta Rae 

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Ken Sehested

Unlike traditional cultures (mostly of the past), Western modernity has few common “rites of passage,” typically during the transition of adolescence from childhood to adulthood. Getting a driver’s license is our substitute, along with school graduations. What follows are two pieces of adaptable commentary.

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Meditation on Israel, Palestine, and the calculus of power

Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Adonai (Psalm 113:3).” —Hebrew and Arab voices, must by Nathaniel Bassey: “From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised"  

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Ken Sehested

Prelude. “Lord we praise you / All things were created by you / Everything, everything, all things.” —translation of "Tsohle Tsohle" (“Everything is Everything”), performed by Abel Selaocoe, Bernhard Schimpelsberger, and the Aurora Orchestra 

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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

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Ken Sehested

Introduction

Today, 30 April, is the anniversary of the official end of the Vietnam War (1975). Though it was never officially a “war,” since the US Congress, according to explicit Constitutional directive, is the only authority to declare such.

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”