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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”

Invocation. “Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.” —Serbian proverb

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¶ And God saw everything that was made, and behold, it was very good. (Gen. 1:31)

¶ Jesus answered, “If these my disciples were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Lk. 19:40)

¶ And God said to Noah, “Never again will I destroy every living creature. Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants, and with every living creature.” (Gen. 8:21; 9:9-10)

¶ For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God and will be set free from its bondage to decay. (Rom. 8:19, 21)

¶ Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. (Amos 9:13)

¶ Woe to those who get evil gain for their house. For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond. (Hab. 2:9, 11)

¶ Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. (Is. 40:4-5)

¶ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still water; he restores my soul. (Ps. 23:1-3)

¶ The mountains saw thee, and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation. (Hab. 3:10-11)

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Testify. “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on the trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” —Martin Luther

Hymn of resolve. “Sing, Be, Live, See. / This dark stormy hour, / The wind, it stirs. / The scorched earth / Cries out in vain: / O war and power, / You blind and blur, / The torn heart / Cries out in pain. / But music and singing / Have been my refuge, / And music and singing / Shall be my light.” —“Earth Song,” by Frank Ticheli, performed by the Baton Rouge High School Department of Choral Studies 

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¶ And I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. (Hos. 2:18)

¶ There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land. Because of this the land mourns. (Hos. 4: 1, 3)

¶ Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord. (Ps. 96:11-12)

¶ But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. In God’s hand is the life of every living thing. (Job 12:7-8, 10)

¶ The heavens are telling the glory of God. (Ps. 19:1)

¶ Behold, the envoys of peace weep bitterly. The land mourns. “Now will I arise,” says the Lord. (Is. 33:7, 9, 10)

¶ Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen in the things that have been made. (Rom. 1:20)

¶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. (Is. 11:6)

¶ The earth is satisfied with the fruit of God’s work. (Ps. 104:13b)

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Call to confession. “A polluted river was a symptom of a polluted civic soul.” —Wilma Dykeman, author of fiction and nonfiction, considered “The Mother of Appalachian Studies” and fierce environmentalist who spearheaded the French Broad River cleanup in Western North Carolina

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¶ Praise the Almighty, sun and moon, praise God, all you shining stars! Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling God’s command! Mountains and hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds! Let them praise the name of the Lord. (Ps. 148:3, 7-10, 13)

¶ If you defile the land, it will vomit you out. (Lev. 18:28)

¶ Then the Lord answered Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who determined its measurements? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the children of God shouted for joy? Have you commanded the morning and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? Has the rain a parent, or who has begotten the drops of dew? From whose womb did the ice come forth? Who has put wisdom in the clouds, or given understanding to the mists? (Job 38:4, 5, 6-7, 12-13, 28-29, 36)

¶ The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom. (Is. 35:1)

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Word. “I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.” —Gus Speth, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council

Hymn of invitation. “To my old brown earth / And to my old blue sky / I’ll now give these last few molecules of “I.” / And you who sing, / And you who stand nearby, / I do charge you not to cry. / Guard well our human chain, / Watch well you keep it strong, / As long as sun will shine. / And this our home, / Keep pure and sweet and green, / For now I’m yours / And you are also mine.” —Pete Seeger, “To My Old Brown Earth”

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¶ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Abba’s will. (Matt. 10:29)

¶ You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees will clap their hands. (Is. 55:12)

¶ But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath for the land, and for your cattle also. (Lev. 25:4, 7)

¶ For you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall. (Mal. 4:2)

¶ And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing. (Ez. 47:12; cf. Rev. 22:1-2)

¶ Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth in song, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord will be glorified in Israel. (Is. 44:23)

¶ The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. (Ps. 24:1)

¶ Further summary. In Scripture, God is referred to as a rock (Ps. 19:14); a mother eagle (Ex. 19.4; Deut. 32:11-12); a mother bear (Hos. 13:8); or simply a “dwelling place” (Ps. 90:1). In Jesus’ teaching, all manner of things in the created order were used to illustrate the purposes of God: the sun and the rain (Matt. 5:45); the scorching heat and the south wind (Lk. 12:55); clouds and rain (Lk. 12:56); the flash of lightening (Matt. 24:27); the rock and the sand (Matt. 7:26); the seeds and the grains (Mk. 4:2-8); the ox (Lk. 13:15); dogs (Lk. 16:21); fish, the serpent, even the scorpion (Lk. 11:11); sheep and goats (Matt. 25:32). And his desire, like a mother hen, is to gather all under the protective wings (Matt. 23:37-39, Luke 13:34-35). Taken together, the New Testament contains more than 70 references (in the form of allegories, proverbs, riddles, similes, etc.) where the non-human parts of creation serve as channels of divine instruction, intention and resolve.

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Benediction. “Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.” —Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Postlude. “What a Wonderful World.” —Louis Armstrong 

Litanies for worship commemorating Earth Day

• “The Earth is the Lord’s,” an abbreviated collection of the above material
• “Heaven’s Delight and Earth’s Repose,” a litany inspired by Psalm 145
• “Come again and feed the earth”

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(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”

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We have entered Eastertide, the liturgical season beginning with Easter and ending 50 days later on Pentecost (aka Whitsunday). The formulation of this season parallels the period in Judaism between the first day of Pesach (Passover, marking their liberation from Egypt) and the feast of Shavu’ot (Feast of Weeks, both a harvest festival and acommemoration of the giving of Torah at Mount Sinai). Parallel resurrection moments, setting the stage for resulting resurrection movements.

Freedom’s announcement is not a spectator sport. Neither the parting of the sea, nor the rolling of tombstone, is part of some kind of divine service economy. God is not a personal attendant, working for tips (aka piety). God is the Ringleader, the Chief Inciter of the rebellion against the reign of every cruel and merciless force.

There is no resurrection by proxy.* It’s a bet your assets kind of involvement. The baptismal waters are troubled and troublesome.

Eastertide was the period when the early followers of Jesus were forced to recalibrate their messianic expectations. Good Friday’s execution was a crushing blow to their hopes. Despite Jesus’ repeated teachings to the contrary, the apostles still presumed Jesus would be the leader of a divinely-inaugurated coup d’état that would expel Roman occupiers and restore King David’s regal dynasty.

Hadn’t the Hebrew prophets predicted this messianic outcome—confirmed in Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives?

We, even today, are not exempt from the same kind of disorientation caused by the resurrection’s disarranging announcement.

Eastertide as cognitive dissonance

Eastertide is the season for Jesus’ followers to undergo a complete reimagining of the nature of power. It demands a decolonization of the mind and a regeneration of the heart: conception, conviction, and practice operating in tandem, each shaping, correcting, and reinforcing the other. A certain deconstruction is at work, and it is often discomfiting, for we are being stretched and refitted to become suitable couriers of the news that is disturbing before it is good. —continue reading “Eastertide: The outing of the church”

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Hymn of lament. “This Too Shall Pass.” —music by Farya Faraji, ney by Ali Farbodnia, lyrics from a 14th century poem by Saif Farghani

Word. In a recent news conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson criticized the Pope Leo’s opposition to the war in Iran: “A religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously if you wade into political waters, you should expect some political response. Frankly I was taken a bit aback by him saying something about ‘those who engaged in war, Jesus doesn’t hear their prayers’ or something. There’s something called the ‘just war’ doctrine.”

 In fact: The Pope was quoting God, cited in Isaiah 1:15.

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From the vault
excerpt from “Made Known in the Breaking of Bread,”
a 2014 sermon on Emmaus Road story in Luke 24

In recent weeks I’ve been able to get back to stonework. I’m rebuilding a retaining wall in our yard. Several years ago I learned the trade working with a stonemason and discovered the beauty of putting together different shapes and colors and sizes of rock into aesthetically pleasing patterns. Nancy says I never got over tinker-toys, only in this case the pieces can weigh up to 100 pounds.

Physically it’s very demanding work, and I’ve had reason to remember a curious fact from my previous years doing this work. Particularly when working in summer’s heat, I remember how when my legs began to tire in late afternoon, my eyes got tired in the same degree. When I say “tired eyes” it’s not like I was getting sleepy. It really wasn’t my eyes that were tired; the weariness was in my capacity to see clearly—or more precisely, to “read” clearly. When tired, I had more trouble reading the rocks.

Right: “Road to Emmaus,” Julie Lonneman linocut

Maybe the greatest skill in stonemasonry is spatial vision: looking at the contour of the next space in the wall that needs filling, then looking at the pile of rocks available, and in that massive pile spotting the stone that most nearly fits. Stones are not bricks. They don’t have uniform shapes. They have unique angles and bulges and sizes and silhouettes.

The experience I’ve been remembering recently is the way tired legs result in tired vision. The longer the day, the slower I’d get at finding the right rock to fit into the intricate pattern of a finished wall.

The question posed to us by the text—as much now as it was in the original story—is the question of how when our legs are tired, our eyes are kept from recognizing what we most desire, the purpose and promise we seek, the Presence of the One for whom we long more than any other.

The recitation of the length and breadth of Scripture’s story of redemption accounted to the Emmaen travelers by the unrecognized, resurrected Jesus is summarized by saying that God is irrevocably involved with us. Part of that story is surely delightful, because of the intimacy that comes with being loved so thoroughly, so immeasurably. It is a love that gives true rest. “Come to me,” Jesus told his followers, “and I will give you rest.” St. Augustine said it so well in his famous line, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee…” St. Augustine

But God’s love is not only intimate, is not only to make us feel good, feel safe, feel secure. When appropriated, God’s love can also make us feel turmoil, feel threatened, feel insecure. There is an intimacy, to be sure. But there is also an insurrection at work, an insurrection against a system of domination and turmoil that now, by every bit of available evidence, appears to have the upper hand in creation.

Part of God’s involvement with us can be painful, disruptive and disorienting. There is always a kind of dying involved in finding the life authentic life. Our intimacy with the Beloved is more than God whispering sweet nothings in our ears. There is often a “get up and go” quality to this relationship, much like the Emmaen travelers who, after recognizing Jesus, got up and went back to Jerusalem, back to the city swarming with Roman soldiers and their priestly collaborators. No matter that you, like they, are tired. No matter than you aren’t fully trained and funded. No matter that others could do a much better job. No matter that it’s raining, or it’s dark outside, or it’s not practical, or there’s only so much that one person, or one church, or one organization can do.

Our life together is the rhythm of intimacy and insurrection. There is for us, like with the early church, a rhythm of waiting and walking. There is a time to be still, and a time to be stirred.

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Word. At his Pentagon monthly worship service this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told military leaders what they hear in worship should “inform” their war decision. Then he read a prayer calling for “great vengeance and furious anger,” purportedly from Ezekiel. Except it wasn’t. It was from a 1994 movie, “Pulp Fiction,” lines from a fictional professional assassin who’s about to execute an unarmed man.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Hymn of invitation. “The Road to Emmaus.” —Jason Upton

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Easter’s aftermath

Easter resurrection is never as assured
as the arrival of Easter bunnies.

Clothiers and chocolate-makers alike yearn
for the season no less than every cleric.

And yet, in my experience, the Spirit
rarely blows according to the calendar,
much less on demand.

We live with ears open, eyes peeled,
hands and feet nimble, ready for
jolting news and a dash to one tomb
or another.

And this, apparently, is the purpose
of wakeful attention during the transition
from Good Friday’s darkness
to Sunday sunrise:
training in the art of vigilance,
as maidens with well-trimmed wicks.*

One empty tomb poses no threat
to present entanglements,
any more than annual and
specially-adorned sanctuary
crowds encroach on Easter morn.

It’s Easter’s aftermath
resurrectus contagio,
contagious resurrection
that threatens entombing empires
with breached sovereignty.

The Lamb Slain sings
of tribulation annulled,
of death undone,
of heaven reraveling the
sinews of soil and soul.

Humus and human alike,
“the earth and all that dwell therein,”
inherit the promise intoned
on that first dawn.

Breath on truculent waves:
                              be still, be still.
Wind on Emmaen travelers:**
                              Fear not, fear not.

Ken Sehested
*cf. Matt 25:1-13. **cf. Luke 24:13-32

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Benediction. “He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.” ―Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Postlude. “Satan, we’re gonna tear / Your kingdom down / Oh, Satan, we’re gonna tear / Your Kingdom down / You’ve been building your kingdom / All over the land / Satan, we’re gonna tear / Your kingdom down, down.” —“Satan, We’re Gonna’ Tear Your Kingdom Down,” Shirley Caesar and The Young People’s Institutional Choir of Brooklyn 

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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

Call to worship. “Isn’t there anything you understand? It’s from the ash heap God is seen. Always! Always from the ashes.” —Archibald MacLeish in “J.B.,” a play based on the Book of Job

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For many years the joy of Easter Sunday’s resurrection observance has been contested by the continuing powers of death. Easter’s portable feast (due to its lunar calculation) means it typically falls in the vicinity of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s execution by the Nazis (9 April) and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination (4 April).

This bloody history adds a note of realism to Jesus’ own nail-scared end followed by the central affirmation of our faith: the tomb’s immutable stone rolled away, unbeknownst to Rome’s own Praetorian guards and Caesar’s imperial pretense. Not to mention with the collusion of corrupt temple authorities. (Temples of every variety—big houses, white houses, church houses—have corrupting tendencies.)

The quote from Bonhoeffer about “reading history from below,” from his “Letters and Papers from Prison,” was a pivot point in my tumultuous faith development, from the deconstruction of my childhood faith to its painful (and continuing) reconstruction. Dr. King’s lived speech gave clarified content.

By the way, the original German title for “The Cost of Discipleship” was a single word: Nachfolge, literally “following.” Indeed, “Nachfolge Christi” (following Christ) was the watchword of 16^th century anabaptist movements, collectively referred to as the Radical Reformation.

In contrast to the so-called Magisterial Reformation leaders (e.g., Calvin, Luther, Zwingli) who stressed “faith alone,” anabaptists held that such a formulation was good as far as it goes, but didn’t go far enough. Rather, faith entails more than eulogizing Jesus. It entails a risky participation in his cruciform vision and announcement.

All four Gospels mention Thomas as among Jesus’ closest circle. But only in John does Thomas speak. Since then he has been dubbed “doubting” Thomas, because he initially did not believe his companions’ report of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance. “I want to see the scars” Thomas responded. Then he got his wish, a week later, in another appearance, when Jesus invited him to touch his wounds.

Given my own experience with fluffy religious claims, I’m sympathetic to Thomas’ skepticism. Recall, though, that it was Thomas who earlier resisted the other disciples’ doubts, warning Jesus not to return to Judea, having just recently narrowly escaped arrest in Jerusalem, then fleeing “across the Jordan.” But Jesus’ friend Lazarus was ill, in Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, not far from Jerusalem. Thomas challenged the other disciples, saying “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (11:16).

Thomas’ faith was sturdy enough. And Jesus knew it, which was why he invited Thomas into the intimacy of fleshly wounds. Thomas’ faith, I am convinced, was grounded in a fleshly spirituality—as opposing to vacuous apparitions and sentimental chatter. Rather, a bodified faith. A faith demanding more than “believing,” more than cognitive assent and creedal affirmation. In John 1, when Jesus first invited two to follow, they asked where he lived. Jesus didn’t offer a compass reading or an abstract proposition. He said, “Come and see.” And in other enlistments, Jesus did not insist they “believe” in him, but to follow.

It is the following that matters. Jesus’ abode is on the road, not locked in philosophical argumentation. We forget that the root of the word “creed” is credo, which means “I give my heart to.” Thus, giving your “heart” to Jesus does not imply a particular religious emotion. It is an embodied risk of security, the very security which imperial agents always demand in return for their protection.

True adoration will grab you by the seat of your pants.

The Way of Jesus is, in his most concise assertion, that which requires withdrawing from the security of mammon: money, power, influence. Following Jesus does not teach you how to “win friends and influence people,” in the words of industrialist John Carnegie’s popular self-help book by that title—unless your friends happen to be the kind that Jesus most frequently associated with: those on the underside of bridges, the short side of markets, the wrong side of the tracks, the inside of refugee camps. The light of heaven is promised only to those who dwell in such shadows, where fear is endemic, threat is pervasive, and bodies shiver with terror.

In other words, following Jesus requires some skin in the game. It risks potential deprivation, bruised feet, maybe encounters with bandits and beasts.

By and large, though, the history of the church has substituted all manner of other criteria as essential for faithfulness: doctrinal rigor, vigorous piety, moral purity, liturgical precision.

Imagine with me. Jesus mounts a hill for his “sermon” to his disciples and the assembled crowd just above the Sea of Galilee. And he says (anticipating the language of the Nicaean Creed):

“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I am the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, for I am consubstantial with the Father; through me all things were made. For you and for your salvation I came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit I was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became human. For your sake I will be crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffering death and burial, and I will rise again on the third day in accordance with the Scripture. Then I will ascend into heaven and be seated at the right hand of the Father. I will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and my kingdom will have no end. . . .”

Disembodied faith, owing more to Aristotle than the hunted one from Nazareth. This very one who has become little more than a mascot, a totem, a necklace adornment, in gold or silver, worn prominently by pop stars and celebrities. We may genuflect in the presence of a crucifix but then go on about our business shorn of any cross-bearing mandates.

The Apostles Creed (not fully shaped and acknowledged until the seventh-or-eighth century) declare Jesus was “conceived . . . born . . . suffered . . . crucified and buried . . . rose again.” No dust gathered on his feet. No wedding wine produced. No healing ascribed. No table with sinners. No beatitudes or parables.

In the Chalcedonian Creed (451) Jesus didn’t even breathe but was a metaphysical formula: “One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis.”

In his “Geneva Catechism” (1545), the Magisterial Reformer John Calvin stated explicitly what the early creeds assumed:

“Question 55: ‘Why do you leap at once from [Christ’s] birth to his death, passing over the whole history of his life?’

“Response: ‘Because nothing is treated of here but what so properly belongs to our salvation, as in a manner to contain the substance of it.’” This formulation begs the question of what properly belong to our salvation.

Jesus jumps from crib to cross to crown of glory stripped of his actual teaching and practice, sterile as a mathematical formula. He retained his lordly title but was stripped of his defining character and sacramental agenda. He has been reduced to a cipher, an algorithm for decrypting Heaven’s salvific mystery in the midst of Earth’s misery.

Following Jesus, on the other hand, is a bet-your-assets proposition, rather than a passive consumer of providence. As Paul and Timothy wrote to the church at Philippi, God “has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for his sake” (1:29). What does his “sake” imply? Matthew 25 offers a sampling of the various destitute whose destiny is bound up with his own.

On the Jesus Road, the logic of existing power relations is upended.

Serious talk about Jesus emerges on the road in his promised Presence; and our testimonies of life that unfold, particularly in our troubles, are the first draft of our theological positioning. Resurrection, as Wendell Berry so eloquently reminded us, is a practice, not a possession. And the bones of all the saints—including, maybe, your grandmother—have yet to be sinewed. The Prophet Habakkuk (2:1-4) counsels: if the vision tarries, persevere.

The tribulation of Egyptian slavery, Babylon’s captivity, and Jerusalem’s Roman occupation endlessly resurrect. Good Fridays appear endemic, as are the martyrdoms of witnesses like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. The Kinship of God is unleashed but not yet unrivaled. Spring’s floral seeds are still buried; but blossoms are promised. Creation’s own travail, as in a woman’s laboring birth pangs, still cries out “for the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:19-23).

It is precisely in our troubles—as “incendiaries of the commonwealth,” as the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaders referred to the dissent pastor Roger Williams—that Jesus urged his Little Flock (John 16:33) to “take courage, be of good cheer,” for the world’s seeming inevitable spiral of violent greed and conceit is unraveling. And the reraveling of the Beloved Community, in their testimony that “my flesh will live in hope” (Acts 2:26), is beheld by those privy to the beatific vision of a New Heaven and a New Earth.

For “all flesh shall see the glory/salvation of our God” (Isaiah 40:5, Luke 3:6). Thus the message of Eastertide is the scandal, in the word of Thomas Keating, that “God is not attached to being God.” Such is the Apostle’s Gospel “foolishness.”

Thereby we are freed from the world’s habit of lording and hoarding, all claims of holy malice and redemptive violence, all justification of conquest and manifest destiny and colonial authority.

Nevertheless, even as Resurrection’s joy ascends, so, too, its detractors. Many tombs await new crucified bodies. But their days are numbered.

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Benediction. Practice resurrection!

Postlude. “I’d rather be dancing at the edge of my grave. / I’d rather be holding you close as we march forward loving and brave. / I’d rather be singing in the face of my fear. / I’d rather be dancing in front of the guns as long as I’m here.” —Libby Roderick, “Dancing in Front of the Guns” 

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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.

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I had a waking dream last week, vacillating between rage and despair. In that heavy, hushed silence, an angel sidled up, put a hand on my shoulder, saying “OK?” Then, “you finished yet?”

Then the heavenly messenger said, “Here, have a snack; now take a nap.”

And I did, a deep sleep, then rudely awakened, hand pulling me up by the collar, a gruff voice saying, “Get up you whiney runaway. Get over yourself. We got a long walk ahead and a mountain to climb. There could be bandits, maybe beasts, and uncertain provisions; but beyond, a land that is fairer than day, every night’s fright banished.” And I swear the voice sounded like Elijah. (cf. 1 Kings 19:5-8)

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Hymn of mourning. “A sorrowful mother stood under the cross / She cried and spoke through the tears / Oh, sonny, my sonny, for what sin / You endure harsh time now / On the cross.” —translation of lyrics to “The Sorrowful Mother,” Ukranian Lenten Hymn

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While there are differences in detail among the Gospels’ account of Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem—where he would be arrested, interrogated, tortured, and crucified (the most shameful form of Rome’s execution protocols)—the one common theme is that of confrontation between the competing assertions of power pitting Jesus against the coalition of Roman and temple aristocracy.

We in the US have rarely if ever had a clearer display of this contention, both arrayed in piety, than with our current political climate. The conflict hinges not merely on political vision but on idolatry and heresy.

Watch this brief (41 second) video of our cheer leading warmonger, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, quoting the Lord’s Prayer while playing in the background is a montage of videos displaying US military prowess.

§  §  §

Hymn of lamentation. “When in the dark orchard at night / The God Creator kneeled and prayed / Life was praying with the One / Who gave life hope and prayer.” —translation from “Wa Habibi” (“Mother’s Lament”), a Christian hymn of the Syriac/Maronite rite, performed by Fairuz. The hymn has been performed every year on Good Friday. 

§  §  §

As it happens, hope’s fertile soil lies in that spit of land between helpless despair and sentimental optimism. Our cultivating work, as the Welsh novelist and academic Raymond Williams wrote, “is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.”

Hope is wider than optimism, believing everything will be fine; and deeper than pessimism, sensing all is doom, claiming only the strong survive. The latter, in fact, is a form of arrogant self-obsession, as if the world will unravel without our attention and muscular exertion.

Both optimism and pessimism are haphazard and fickle, providing unreliable compass readings for the living of these days. When one or the other knocks at your door, give welcome; but say, you’ll get neither bed nor board in this house.

How are the faithful to hold up in the face of mounting tragedy? This is the focal question as we practice our special disciplines—as means of attentive listening—in this liminal season.

The counsel of scriptures and the saints for faithful posture and animated hands is this: In the panic, be still; in the ordeal, take heart; in the night of sorrow, remember the promise of joy’s release, for more is at work than we imagine.

Hope is not hope absent the context of threat. Otherwise, what you have is distracting amusement. And as Kate Bowler has written, we are “too tired for tidy hope.”

“For the world has grown full of peril,” Galadriel said to Celeborn in Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” “And in all lands, love is now mingled with grief.”

Celeborn asks, “What now becomes of this Fellowship? Without Gandalf, hope is lost.”

“The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife,” said Galadriel. “Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.”

Trying days are here. Death’s pandemic is more palpable than usual; but it does not have the last word. Find your company and devote yourself to its sustenance.

§  §  §

Word. “If the word hope doesn’t work for you, try ‘Never f**king surrender.’” —Rebecca Solnit

§  §  §

Lent’s invitation is to ponder our own mortal limit. For 25 years I’ve had a pictorial reminder of Lent’s brush with mortal boundaries. After my dad’s funeral in 2001, Nancy and I discovered that both my mom and my sister wanted to be cremated when that time comes. As did we.

Years prior, Mom and dad purchased side-by-side plots in Marlow, Oklahoma’s cemetery, where they, my sister Glenda, and I were all born in that small town’s four-bed hospital. Together we decided to purchase a gravestone that would stretch across both plots: Dad’s casket in one, the other to hold the ashen urns for the rest of us.

Which means every Lent I have had an icon, with my name on it, to focus my attention on breathly life’s impermanence. The picture casts no morbid shadow over my imagination. Rather, it is a vivid reminder that death has lost its sting; the grave, its victory. This (to the degree I allow it) is the secret to living free of fear’s shackle and smothering hesitance.

§  §  §

Benediction. “Good Friday is not about us trying to ‘get right with God.’ It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for a moment. Touching the shimmering sadness of humanity’s insistence that we can be our own gods, that we can be pure and all-powerful.” —Nadia Bolz-Weber

Postlude. “Soon it will be done / Trouble of the world / Soon it will be done / Trouble of the world / Going home! to live! with God! / No more weapin’ and wailin’ / No more weapin’ and wailin’ / Going home! to live with my Lord!” —“Trouble of This World,” Abbot Kinney & Lighthouse Choir 

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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.)

Call to worship. “You just need to look at what the gospel asks and what war does. . . . The gospel asks us to take up our cross. War asks us to lay the cross on others.”

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Passion week

In the coming week, we face Maundy’s mandate and Friday’s calamity . . . and, well, Saturday’s betwixt-and-between daze and discomposure of Jesus’ disciples and revelers. Then and now, the dominant culture remained confident in the security of the tomb’s immovable stone and the legionnaires’ vigilance over its irrevocable seal.

Best not bank on resurrection’s circumvention of death’s ascendance and terror’s reign. Few doubt the market’s ruleenforced by the sword’s regime.

Be clear about this: There is no bystanding in this drama. There is no skipping Maundy’s directive and Friday’s threat on the way to Sunday’s Uprising. No leap from crib to cross to Crown of Glory.

In prosperous cultures like ours, voyeurism is the great pretender as an agency of spiritual formation. Titillation substitutes for texture and substance. The quest for emotional novelties, intellectual baubles, and experiential souvenirs displacing incarnation’s fleshly ordeal.

In my native West Texas idiom, a pretend rancher would be described as “all hat and no cows.” You can dress the part without engaging the reality. “Spirituality” as levitation from history’s crucifying peril. The luxury of hope’s assurance severed from the context of threat. Singing the blues without paying the dues. The pretense of faith despite no back against any wall.

Holy Week epitomizes the story of history’s brutal affliction upended and overturned by Heaven’s insurgence. Good Friday is good not because of what it displays but because of what it foreshadows.

Easter’s eruption is our hymn of invitation to join this mutiny. There is no “getting right with God,” there’s only getting soaked. Only the passion opens onto the Spirit’s efficacy. In a suffering world, only a suffering God is believable. The Way is enjoined by imitating the One we adore.

Let this be our adoration. Let this be our testimony to Heaven’s insurrection for Earth’s reclamation. In the words of an old proverb, let this be our eulogy: They tried to bury us; they didn’t know we were seeds.

—excerpt from “Passion week – A meditation on getting right with God,” Ken Sehested

§  §  §

Word. “Unfortunately, it has become increasingly common to drag the language of faith into political battles, to bless nationalism, and to justify violence and armed struggle in the name of religion. Believers must actively refute, above all by the witness of their lives, these forms of blasphemy that profane the holy name of God.” —Pope Leo XIV in his 1 January 2026 “World Day of Peace” message

Liturgy. “Lament Together.” —“The Many,” highly recommenced 41-minute video of poignant music and timely readings for marking Holy Week 

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Holy hell week

As it happens, hope’s fertile soil lies in that spit of land between helpless despair and sentimental optimism. Our cultivating work, as the Welsh novelist and academic Raymond Williams wrote, “is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.”

Hope is wider than optimism, believing everything will be fine; and deeper than pessimism, sensing all is doom. The latter, in fact, is a form of arrogant self-obsession, as if the world will unravel without our attention.

Both optimism and pessimism are haphazard, sometimes fickle. When one or the other knocks at your door, give welcome;but say, you’ll get neither bed nor board in this house.

How are the faithful to hold up in the face of mounting tragedy? This is the focal question as we practice our special disciplines—as means of attentive listening—in this liminal season.

The counsel of scriptures and saints for the living of these days is this: In the panic, be still; in the ordeal, take heart; in the night of sorrow, remember the promise of joy’s release, for more is at work than we imagine.

Hope is not hope absent the context of threat. Otherwise, what you have is distracting amusement.

“For the world has grown full of peril,” Galadriel said to Celeborn in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. “And in all lands, love is now mingled with grief.”

Celeborn asks, “What now becomes of this Fellowship? Without Gandalf, hope is lost.”

“The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife,” said Galadriel. “Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.”

Trying days are here. Death’s pandemic is more palpable than usual; but it does not have the last word. Find your company and devote yourself to its sustenance.

—excerpt from “Holy hell week: In the panic, be still; in the ordeal, take heart,” Ken Sehested

§  §  §

Week’s worth of music. “A few (somewhat unconventional) music suggestions for Holy Week and Easter”

Benediction. “I would like to see every single soldier on every side just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane and say nope, I ain’t gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich want to fight. Give them the guns.” —Woodie Guthrie

Postlude. “Al-Fatiha.” —Byzantine-Gregorian Chant 

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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.

“Perhaps noise is anything that takes my attention away from that which most deserves my attention. And if that’s the case, then silence would be a lack of these things, a state allowing me to focus on that which most deserves my attention.” —continue reading Dr. Amy Boyd’s “Reflection on Silence,” Circle of Mercy Lenten reflections 

§  § §

Lent’s labor is designed as special time and attention to our own hearts and minds; to examine the work of our hands, the paths of our feet; to inquire into the ways and wherefores we give attention with our eyes and our ears; to audit our speech, whether we have been true and truthful, whether we have said too much—or too little; to scrutinize our longings and desires to see if any have breached their healthy boundaries, if some need retraining, retracting, refuting—or reviving.

But beware: Lent is not for our self-absorption or flagellation, which can be yet another form of narcissism, of pride, of conceit. The work is not a spotlight on ourselves, much less a despairing obsession with our own failings. It is the work of triangulating our attention, in alignment with and yoked to the Work of the Spirit, in a world that has forgotten its origin, its promise, its purpose.

Lenten observance is simply the recognition, followed by corrective measures, that pipes can get clogged; moving parts need lubrication; rust begins to corrode; bodies, in need of medical intervention; cracks exposed and rot replaced.

Remembering that you are dust is not an insult, for such is the very stuff of the universe, ordered and animated in God’s own delight. Do not grovel! Simply allow your compass to be adjusted, as needed.

We all need helpful hints on how Lent’s labor can be carried out. There are many—none are foolproof. What follows are some suggested questions to ponder in your own solitude or in conversation with others. Asking the right question is often essential to arriving at the right answer. You may not find what you need here, but in considering them, you might formulate your own.

§  §  §

Penitential unveiling. “. . . the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation / to the next, as in a relay race: / the baton never falls.” —Israeli poet Yeduda Amichai

Hymn of confession. “Why? – For Gaza.” —Annie Lennox 

§  §  §

In the struggle for a Beloved Community—forged in the grip of grace, penitential posture, joyful refrain, undergirded by a vision of time beyond animosity, all done in reverential awe of the Blessed One, of the Way of Jesus, powered and sustained by the Holy Spirit—ponder the following questions.

1. Can we be faithful without becoming arrogant?

2. Can we be generous without recreating relations of control and manipulation on the one hand and dependency and servility on the other?

3. Can we be compassionate without seeking publicity?

4. Can we be patient without becoming passive?

5. Can we be angry without becoming vengeful?

6. Can we become agents of meaningful change without becoming brokers of imposition?

7. Can we be hopeful without being sentimental?

8. Can we weep with those who weep while also rejoicing with those who rejoice?

9. Can we offer forgiveness without ignoring the need for repairing harmed relations?

10. Can we count our blessings that are not the result of wealth or other privilege?

11. When all is said and done, is more said than done?

12. Can we think of mercy as the mechanism that reconciles the demands of justice with the prerequisites of peace?

13. Can we be prophetic without becoming sanctimonious?

14. Can we prioritize the needs of the poor without romanticizing poverty?

15. Can we excavate the root causes of violence in the world while also doing that work in our own hearts and minds?

16. Can we offer pardon without collecting IOUs?

17. Can we engage those who differ from us without becoming antagonistic?

18. Can we be joyful without being triumphalist?

19. Can we tearfully express our grief and anguish without languishing in the solitude of lethargy and indolence?

20. Can we pledge ourselves to faithful communities without becoming tribal, insular, or sectarian?

21. Can we recognize that in leaving “Egypt” behind, we also have to dethrone the lingering presence of “Pharaoh” within our own hearts.

22. Can we rediscover God’s passion for the flourishing of the natural world—see ourselves as located within, not dominating from without—thereby recognizing our need for repentance and turn toward repairing and protecting the created order?

23. Can we discern the different but connected needs of providing emergency aid to the suffering as well as the need for opposition to policies which make charity necessary? Engaging in the charitable work of binding wounds, providing shelter and adequate clothing and nutrition and health care—but also deconstructing and reconstructing structures and policies which are the root cause of such deprivations?

24. Can our hands and feet be deployed in the work of resistance to injustice without resorting to clinched fists or trampling boots? To guard against becoming beastly in our struggle with beasts?

25. Can we be “still”—embraced by grace that generates calmness in the midst of torrents—without becoming indifferent or listless?

26. Can we publicly, even vociferously, demand public justice without becoming self-righteous?

27. Can we affirm that God is more taken with the agony of the Earth than with the ecstasy of Heaven—employing that affirmation as a plumb line to appraise all that we do and say and think?

28. Can we think of ourselves less rather than thinking less of ourselves?

29. Acknowledging we all have blind spots, unexamined presumptions, privileges of which we are unaware (especially those of us in the majority caste), how can we open ourselves to experiences which might expose our privileges—not for punishment but for reparation, for the growth of our understanding and the stretching of our hearts?

30. Can we conceive of the “good life” for ourselves as that life extending to an ever-widening circle of kinship?

31. Can we imagine that in our revolt against an economic system, which centers human greed, we need to do the hard work of imagining and constructing a new system which centers human need?

32. Can the passion we bring to the work of prayer become the compost that nurtures a life in pursuit of the Beloved Community; and bring both the joy and grief of that pursuit into the conduit of our prayer life?

33. Can we revive the conviction that faith in the Manner of Jesus entails a bet-your-assets commitment—that following Jesus is different from admiring him?

34. In the midst of interpersonal conflict, can we be truthful without becoming vindictive? Accept a criticism of ourselves without holding a grudge?

35. Can we get to the point of understanding there is no sacred and secular, only sacred and desecrated?

36. Do we have the needed imagination to affirm that one day all shall go out in joy and be led back in peace, the mountains bursting in song, the trees in applause? (cf. Isaiah 55:12)

37. How can we shape our communities of conviction so that pastoral work is not segregated from prophetic engagement (and vice versa)?

38. Is our faith buoyant enough to withstand squalls of doubt? (They will come.) Our hope, resilient enough to endure seasons of despair? (Those storms will arrive, sometimes without warning.) Our love, sufficiently robust to survive contagions of anger and resentment? (Infections are common.)

39. Can we be confessional without being colonial, living confidently (though nimbly) in the coherence of our faith tradition, without demanding that others, even our collaborators in the work toward a Beloved Community, adopt our identity?

40. How best can we adopt this pastoral advice from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. Just keep moving forward”? (In the end, that is all we are asked.)

§  §  §

Benediction. “In times of darkness, tend your fire: it will give light until the morning.” —St. Brigid of Kildare

Postlude. “Bella Ciao.” —Rana Choir, made up of Arab and Jewish women singing in Farsi, Hebrew, and Arabic, recorded as a gesture of solidarity with the courageous women in Iran

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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

Prelude. “Lament.” —Yuval Ron 

§  §  §

• At least 153 girls, most between the age of 7-12, were killed by a US missile strike on their school in Minab, Iran.

• An estimated 555 Iranians have died. Six US service members. Nine-to-eleven Israelis.

• The three US F-15E Strike Eagle warplanes shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait cost $90-$100 million each.

• Small Iranian drone missiles cost $20,000 each. Each US Patriot missile (used to shoot down the Iranian drones) cost $4 million each.

• On average, 1,000 bombs and missiles strike Iran each day.

• US “bunker buster” bombs cost $5 million each.

• US spent more than $100 million attacking Iran on the first day. And our president says the attacks will escalate.

• Each US B-2 Spirit Bomber costs $2 billion.

• Each of the two US carrier strike groups near Iran costs $13 million in regular maintenance per day. Each F-15 Strike Eagle jet costs $29,000 per hour to operate.

• Trump says war was planned to last “four-to-five weeks” but could go on much longer.

§  §  §

Postlude. “When I am laid, / am laid in earth, / may my wrongs create / No trouble / no trouble in, / in thy breast. —“Dido’s Lament,” Alison Moyet & Henry Purcell

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Picture below: Graves being dug for the elementary school girls killed by a US missile strike in Minab, Iran.

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Sources for this data:

“Prolonged War with Iran Would Cost Taxpayers Dearly“

AI overview: Cost of F-15 fighter plane shot down over Kuwait

“US F-15 Friendly Fire Incident in Kuwait, All Pilots Safe”

AI overview: “Warships, explosive drones and stealth bombers: The high-tech weapons and hardware the US is using to attack Iran”

“US announces its first casualties in Iran war; poll signals challenge for Trump”

“’Whatever it takes’: Trump says Iran operation could last a month or more “

“At least 153 dead after reported strike on school, Iran says”

“Iran death toll reaches 555 as US, Israel escalate attacks”

“The first 24 hours of the US attack on Iran cost approximately $779 million”

AI overview: cost of operating F-15 warplane

Ken Sehested

Under cover of sham “negotiations,” in an attempted denial of political gravity, likely setting the stage for triggering the 1976 National Emergency Act for an electoral takeover leading up to November’s mid-term elections, and the threat of being found culpable in human trafficking, our president has started another g*dd*mmed war.

The fundamental lie at the root of our nation’s crisis is a theological heresy: That the US has a “manifest destiny,” that we are the one “exceptional” nation, and we are so because God has “anointed” us as such. Which is why people on the Way of Jesus must collaborate with all people of conscience, of faith or no faith, to stand in the face of our nation’s presidential psychosis to say a clear, unambiguous, and vehement NO to this military adventurism.

What follows is a recollection of previous statement from one local congregation, from 2007 during George W. Bush’s presidency, then reissued again in 2012 during Barak Obama’s presidency.

They acted shamefully, they committed abomination;
yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall, says the Lord.
Jeremiah 6:15

Invocation. “Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness: according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin. . . .thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness: that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence: and take not thy holy Spirit from me.” —translation of “Miserere Mei Deus” (“God have mercy,” based on Psalm 51), by Gregorio Allegri, performed by Tenebrae 

Call to worship. “Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.” —Habakkuk 1:3

§  §  §

We Say No, Again
Baiting Iran toward a dangerous collision

by Ken Sehested
15 January 2012

On the first Sunday on Lent in 2007, when tensions between the US and Iran were escalating, Circle of Mercy Congregation unanimously adopted a statement (“We Say No: A Christian statement in opposition to war with Iran—see below”) opposing an attack on Iran. With the recent assassination of another Iranian scientist—the fourth to be targeted in the past two years—tensions between our two countries are again at a boiling point.

This is an appropriate time, on this observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, to reaffirm our earlier convictions.

Virtually no one in the US media, Congress or Administration is willing to speak of this assassination as an act of terrorism. One can imagine the outcry here if US scientists were being targeted, if Iran’s submarines were patrolling our coasts, if our nuclear program were the target of a cyber attack, if our energy exports and financial transactions were blockaded, or if Iranian political leaders were openly calling for “regime change” in the US.

No one denies that our two nations have real and substantial policy disagreements. What seems increasingly clear, however, is that the US is baiting Iran toward a dangerous retaliatory response.

The legacy which Dr. King’s bequeathed to us—highlighted by the new memorial in our nation’s capitol—is more than a fanciful pipe dream or fairy tale. Revering the dreamer while reneging on the dream only hollows his memory. If Dr. King is to be more than a public souvenir, his commitment to nonviolent struggle—stemming from his vision of the Beloved Community—must become our commitment as well. Thus the following convictions need reaffirming.

§  §  §

“We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line.”
—former President Joe Biden

§  §  §

We Say NO
A Christian statement in opposition to war with Iran
Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC (USA)
Lent 2007

Despite assurances to the contrary from the U.S. Administration, we believe our nation’s leaders may be seriously calculating the benefits and risks of attacking Iran. Our reading of this moment in history, in light of our commitments as citizens and our convictions as followers of Jesus, impels us to oppose such a move.

We fear that our political leadership—led by the Administration with the complicity of Congress—is pushing us to the brink of moral, financial, ecological and diplomatic bankruptcy.

As with the ancient empire described in the Prophet Habakkuk’s oracle, our government is setting its “national interests” above international norms of justice, usurping all authority to itself. With an escalating military budget—already larger than those of all other nations combined—we seem to have established our own destructive threat as the source of national glory and honor.

Pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out with fatness, their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth.
Psalm 73:6-9

It is not our habit to engage in partisanship on any political party’s agenda. We believe in the separation of church and state. But not in the separation of values from public policy.

In the Magisterial Reformation legacies of the Christian community (toward which some in our congregation lean) there is a tradition of invoking a status confessionis, of declaring that some moments in history require the church to refuse neutrality and abandon silence. And in the Radical Reformation traditions (various Ana/baptists, toward which others of us lean), Jesus’ insistence on loving enemies precludes the willingness to kill them.

Not only are these religious convictions suffering scandal; so, too, are the core values of this Republic’s founding. It was Thomas Jefferson, in 1807, who asserted, “The spirit of this country is totally averse to a large military force.” Now, with the Administration’s 2002 “National Security Strategy” document, the U.S. claims (for the first time) justification for waging preemptive war. This policy undermines our democratic traditions, any and every theory of when war is “just,” and the very foundation of international law itself. The contradiction is staggering.

Accordingly, should the U.S. preemptively attack Iran, we shall vigorously protest. For some of us, this commitment includes the willingness to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience.

In the same way, we also pledge vigorous support for any leaders willing to consider Iran’s security concerns and national interests alongside those of the United States. Competition in belligerent behavior carries catastrophic risks. The only enduring security is mutual security.

Another way is possible. Waging peace will require at least as much commitment—as much courage, pride, honor and ingenuity—as the pursuit of war.

We say no to war against Iran. It is both a contradiction to the Way of the Cross and a defamation of national honor. We say yes to the strategies of multilateral diplomacy and other nonviolent initiatives. We invite other Christians, other people of faith, and other people of conscience to deliberate these convictions and consider similar commitments.

Postscript

You have sown much and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough;
you drink, but you never have your fill; you put the wages you earn in a bag full of holes.
Haggai 1:6

We make this statement in the midst of Lent, the Christian season leading up to Easter. The traditional emphases of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving, all of which focus the mind and heart on the way gluttony corrupts our personal and common life. Appetites have a way of overwhelming wisdom. Righteousness is pursued by a commitment to clarifying disciplines: prayer, to calm the heart’s fretfulness; fasting, to purge the body’s toxic buildup; almsgiving, to recall God’s bias on behalf of those denied access to the earth’s bountiful table of provision.

Sisters and brothers, especially in the household of faith: the Apostle Paul’s instruction—overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21b)—is both a spiritual truth and the foundation for politically realistic strategies to transform conflict. The Way of the Cross leads home.

§  §  §

Benediction. “God shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” —Micah 4:3

Postlude. “Psalm 51.” —Choir of St. Simon the Leper, Republic of Georgia (sung in Aramaic) 

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