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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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Malcolm X’s Autobiography was the first book that scared me. Here I was, in the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, secretly abandoning my pietist-revivalist rearing in favor of the more verdant fields of liberalism (which helped for a time), and here’s this guy, who I now am ready to befriend, sharply critical of liberal integrationists!

Turns out he was right, unnervingly prescient, not exactly predicting the cases of Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddy Gray—ad nauseam and likely to be continued—but sensing that “civil rights” could be doled out in limited doses without affecting the underlying patterns of structural disparity.

The Black Lives Matter movement made important inroads. But then the backlash against “diversity, equity, inclusion” policies cratered that advance. Similarly, the whitelash against Obama’s election paved the way for Tumpism. Something deeper is at work sustaining the patterns of discrimination, something more than simple bigotry and prejudice.

Right: Malcolm X painting by Derek Russell

However sincere the righteous intent, integration has mostly been a one-way street. Despite curtailed bounds, the African American community had—before the advent of the “war on poverty” urban renewal initiatives—vibrant commercial districts, schools, neighborhoods and other cultural institutions. While the grip on access to bus seats and lunch counters and drinking fountains and even voter registration rights were loosening, the noose of widespread economic disparity was tightening.

The accumulated racial trauma reminds me of that tragic conclusion of Msimangu, in Alan Paton’s memorable novel, “Cry the Beloved Country,” where he says “I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they [white South Africans] are turned to loving, they will find we [Blacks] are turned to hating.”

So, what are we to do? How are we to live? What are the new habits needing to be formed?

The first is to get over the assumption that we can do one big march, back one ambitious legislative agenda, read all the right books, and be done with it.

The second habit is to admit that we are “trapped in a history” we do not understand, as James Baldwin wrote to his nephew; that it has to do with our nation’s mythology of manifest destiny (and its warped ideology of “freedom”), both domestically and internationally; and that we must bare our faces to the blistered history that mythology has left in its wake. It’s not a pretty sight: The truth will indeed set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

Third, understanding this venal history will require a look at our awash-in-cash, pay-to-play political process, our imperial military policies, our cannibalizing form of capitalism, a judicial system transforming corporations into persons—and a church for which “freedom” means “don’t expect commitment.”

The fourth habit is to get over the need for personal purity, admitting that we are all enmeshed in structurally tangled relations—racial, economic, national, gender, sexual orientation, relative dis/ability, etc. (we have trouble even naming them all)—that will not dissolve with well-meaning, even heroic personal effort.

The fifth habit, for those in positions of relative power (and it’s a complex equation—all of us are haves and have-nots in relative degrees in various contexts), is to acknowledge that the journey to justice, and its promise of genuine peace mediated by the agency of mercy, will come at a cost. We need to cultivate a beatific vision powerful enough to sustain against the fear-mongering threats that the choice of right-relatedness will entail.

Sixth, we must devote ourselves to initiating and sustaining partnerships—starting close at hand, extending to far away—with those whose destiny is un-manifest, consciously taking incremental steps toward margins of every sort (and you can’t do them all—get over it!), and not only personal partnerships but community partnerships.

Theologian Kelly S. Johnson, in The Fear of Beggars: Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics, unveils a universe of meaning in one single sentence: “The opposite of poverty is not plenty, but friendship.” When folk living with bounty and privilege set out to form relations of solidarity with those who live amid scarcity, it is so, so, so easy to develop a skewed donor-recipient relationship. Patronage and philanthropy are typically only kinder, gentler forms of appeasement and control of those of meager means.

In every instance when justice is established, wealth will most definitely flow from the affluent to the impoverished. But the relief provided is reparation, a returning of what has been stolen, rather than benevolence. The logic of manna is the goal: as characterized by the Israelites’ harvesting instructions during their sojourn in the wilderness: larger families gathered more, smaller families, less; but none had surplus (or, if so, it quickly spoiled) and none were lacking (cf. Exodus 16).

And finally: While the promised Commonweal of God will profoundly rearrange every provision of privilege, our walk to freedom will recognize that colonized neighborhoods and nations are generated by an underlying colonizing of the mind, of the heart, of the will. Thus we must be invested in communities whose labor includes decolonizing of the mind, disarming of the heart, re-abling of the will.

And Jesus disclosed: “I do not call you servants any longer . . . but I call you friends” (John 15:15). This sort of befriending is both manifesto and mandate, a penetration of reality accompanied by the wherewithal to reshape it, a knowing of the truth divulged only in its doing.

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Postlude. “Got a Mind To Do Right.” —Morehouse College and Cornell University Glee Clubs

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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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Prelude. “Wide Open Spaces.” —The Chicks

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Advice on vocation to a young friend

Recently, a young, about-to-graduate friend wrote:

I felt recently a sort of calling to do something… I’m just not sure what that is. I think it may just unfold rather than me choosing it… If you have any thoughts about following a call and understanding how to hear its direction, I’m all ears!!

I responded:

There’s no magic to it. It will, indeed, unfold but may then require you to work your tail off. Your calling, like a wild animal, will not come close on your command. Wait patiently; coax it, sing to it, proclaim your love for it, pray for it. You will likely have to overcome some fear. Fear can be cruel master or a helpful servant.

Pay close attention. Let your head do whatever work it needs to do, but then let your heart have the final say so. Look in odd places. Turn your ears in unexpected, unfamiliar directions. Pay particular attention to options that cause your heart to leap. Prepare to be surprised.

There will likely be dead ends. Don’t fret the wasted time. Nothing, finally, is wasted.

No doubt you will make mistakes. And the ancient Deceiver will try to convince you that you are a mistake. This is the only appropriate time to issue a middle-finger salute.

Be prepared to have your heart broken, but you will heal and even be stronger. Locate those who have wisdom—the best are those who ask you insightful questions, not give you the right answers. Keep a diary of your questions. Each will be like a piece of a larger puzzle taking shape. Listen to those who call you by your true name: not the name you want, or the name that failed you in the past, or the name that others have required you to have.

Don’t take sh*t from anyone; plant a boot in their ass, if need be. The mandate to take up the towel of servanthood still applies today as much as when it was declared to those dumbfounded disciples. That doesn’t mean becoming a doormat for people to wipe their feet on.

But your default practice is kindness, especially to those who have no way to return the favor. Assess your past truthfully, especially the hard parts. But do not judge. Just notice. The past cannot be changed, but it can be remembered differently.

Find worthy companions. They will be part of your discernment, probably without even trying to. There is a Rwandan proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, walk alone. If you want to go far, walk together.”

And, finally, trust that you are beloved beyond your wildest dreams. Gravitate to those who reflect this back to you, for you, on you.

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Altar call. “So we took one on the chin fought a battle we couldn’t win / Until it all comes ’round again it’s welcome to the great unknown / So we’ll taste the bitter tears till the darkness disappears / While we’re leaning on each other it’s welcome to the great unknown / So we’ll taste the bitter tears till the darkness disappears / While we’re leaning on each till we can hold our own.” —“Go Light a Candle,” Rodney Crowell feat. Emmylou Harris & Lera Lynn

Above: Sixteen years ago my friend Mark Siler (left), a prison chaplain in the US, spent a year in Cuba assisted in the first class of volunteer prison chaplains in that country (pictures are but a few of that graduating class). Graduates went through 60 hours of intensive training, in retreats around the country, for chaplains—a project initiated by Rev. Francisco Rodés, pastor emeritus of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Matanzas (and my personal pastor). That work continues to this day.

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On the Flow of Tears
For my daughters (as they take their leave)

—from years past, when our first-born graduated from college, our younger graduated from high school

As each take your leave, now charting your own courses, I pause and ponder your upcoming absence with dreaded joy: joy that your wings have spread so far so fast, dread at the silence filling the air which your voices once stirred.

It wasn’t that long ago that I maneuvered surgeon’s scissors and severed the cord which tied you to your mother. That I did so— snip, then a brief spurt of blood— without fainting was a happy surprise. I took it as a hopeful sign, that I would not faint as a father.

The memory of those similar, separate exertions—the extent of my labor in bringing you to life so disproportionate to that of your mother’s—has occupied my thoughts with more than passing recollection in recent weeks. It is as if that rupture served, with each of you, as prophetic announcement of what was to come. It has taken many measured steps and years and come, no doubt, too slowly for you, too quickly for us; but now the significance of that severance is being fulfilled.

Each of you are occasions for delight, in ways unique to the wonder of your separate ways. The seeds I have sown in your life-soil (and that of your mother’s, but here I will speak for myself) will continue to sprout for countless seasons to come and mark you in ways of which I alternately rejoice and repent. It is up to you to cultivate, including pruning and plucking and uprooting, as needed.

But your leave-taking also prompts me to inventory the ways your lives have cultivated my own, beginning with your births.

I was a mere bystander in your gestation, of course. But I now know about the connection, on either end, between the passion and pain in every act of creation. All hopeful planting finally unfolds with tender shoots tearing their way through resistant ground. The earth must be disturbed; the womb must be rent; the cord must be cut.

Every birth is an act of dangerous hope: The cord which nourishes can also choke; the body which shelters can also poison; the tempestuous journey from watery womb to inaugural breath is subject to countless perils threatening giver and gift.

Why life should begin with a blood-soaked scream is a mystery. But such are the terms for the flow of milk.

One day, says the prophet, against overwhelming odds and much reliable evidence, the flow of tears will be dried and death itself will be undone. As it now stands, though, history’s outcome seems to favor those who turn lions loose on lambs, those who squelch every scream and rob the suckling of its breast, and plug birth canals with fists of fury and fits of ambition.

In their hideous vision every natal cord becomes a slaver’s chain; every spilling of blood, a grasping demand rather than a gratuitous gift. Even now, says the psalmist, their “eyes swell out with fatness,” gorged in assault against creation’s gestation and promised deliverance.

You, beloved daughters, serve as reminders that life cannot be had on the cheap; that every new future foreseen in joy will endure all tearful failures; that strength of hand and valiance of heart must be coupled with wombish welcome to that unnameable (and thus unmanageable) Promise that death’s ascendance will be crushed.

Such vision persists; such milk flows; and by it we are kept from perishing.

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Postlude. “I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, / Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens, / Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance, / And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. / I hope you dance.” —“I Hope You Dance,” Lee Ann Womack 

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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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The 15^th of May is the anniversary of what Palestinians call al-Nakba, translated as “the Catastrophe,” in reference to the day following Israel’s formation as a state in 1948. Some 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes or left in fear of their lives. Four hundred Palestinian villages cease to exist. The heirs of the expelled now number five million, most living in refugee camps on the West Bank, Gaza, and surrounding countries.

I was in my 30s when I first heard the word al-Nakba, and the historical moment it represents, well into a career requiring broad knowledge of global affairs. In my experience, few here in North America know the word.

A more evocative translation of al-Nakba could be “the Humiliation,” since in English “catastrophe” is often associated with “natural” disasters. As such, no human agency is implied—only the brute hand of animus well beyond our control or even prediction.

al-Nakba was not natural, not beyond control, likely not even beyond prediction.

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Above: A Palestinian refugee and her child separated from their home by the “green line”
establishing the 1949 newly-drawn border of Israel

The agonistic struggle among ancient Canaan populations of the Eastern Mediterranean trace back to BCE eras. Multiple empires, vying for invaluable trade routes, have transgressed and rearranged a host of governed borders, tossing and turning in the churning crossroad of European, African, and Asian influence.

But the events surrounding 1948 are pivotal in discerning the way forward in establishing its state of equitable accord, of how to mediate the demands of justice with the prerequisites of peace.

The only (vague) memory I have of this period in Palestine’s history is watching one of Paul Newman’s early films, Exodus (1960), based in part on Leon Uris’ book by the same title, loosely retelling the dramatic saga of Holocaust surviving Jews attempting to reach Palestine from France after the war.

I don’t remember that movie saying anything about Irgun and Lehi, Jewish terrorist groups, which carried out bombings and assassinations against British governance and military (during the “British Mandate” rule) and the predominantly Arab population.

Indeed, in my research I notice that Wikipedia prefers to speak of “Jewish paramilitary” groups who engaged in “Zionist political” military action during this period. The difference between terrorists and freedom fighters is almost always decided by whose future gains the upper hand.

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Hymn of lament. Azi Schwartz of the Park Avenue Synagogue recites the Jewish Kaddish as a tribute to the 11 victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. —NBC 

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Above: Mother and Child by Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, 2009

Among the vilest things I’ve ever heard about Jews came from the imam of a mosque in Basra in southern Iraq. Afterward our group quizzed our translator to make sure he wasn’t exaggerating. “Actually, it was a little worse,” he said.

And some of the most reprehensible statements about Muslims I’ve seen were scrawled on the closed shop gates of Arab merchants in Hebron, spray painted by residents of the surrounding Jewish settlement in the heart of that ancient West Bank city.

One of the good recent articles regarding the situation in Gaza is by Rabbi Edward Retting of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, an organization that does courageous work. “There is only one way toward peace,” he writes. “That is the recognition that our dispute concerns two just causes [that of Jews and of Palestinians] tragically thrown into opposition one to the other.”

Yes, I say in response. But one is an elephant, the other is a mouse. Without recognition of this premise, without clarifying the calculus of power, whatever conclusions emerge will only deepen the cycle of violence which now feeds on itself, like the record-breaking warmth of the Gulf of Mexico turning always-destructive hurricanes into monster storms.

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Hymn of encouragement. “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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Above: Palestinian boy throws rock at Israeli tank-Musa Al-Shaer, Agence France-Presse

The work of reconciliation in the midst of conflict can never sidestep the question of power relations between conflicting parties. To illustrate that disparity, here are some figures from Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza.

Between 10,626 and 10,895 Palestinians were killed (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled). Sixty-six Israeli soldiers, five Israeli civilians (including one child) and one Thai civilian were killed and 469 Israeli soldiers and 261 Israeli civilians were injured (the latter by rockets fired by Hamas into southern Israel). The Gazan casualty rate was 65%-70%. —“2014 Israel-Gaza conflict,” Wikipedia 

[The bloody inventory of Israel’s crushing of Gaza, and incursion into its current raids into Lebanon, is reviewed below.]

Until recently I could see no way forward in addressing this conflict other than the so-called “two state solution,” with the nation of Israel and a newly-created Palestinian state residing side-by-side, with a negotiated land swap that would approximate the pre-1967 war’s border.

Everybody knows that Hamas, Gaza’s ruling party (chosen by democratic election), still refuses to recognize Israel’s legitimacy. Few know, however, that Israel’s ruling Likud Party, along with other parties in its governing coalition, are officially and adamantly opposed to any meaningful two-nation arrangement.

The US is hardly an honest broker in this conflict. Israel is by far the largest recipient of US foreign military aid, now at $4 billion per year. Before President Trump’s administration, US support for the Palestinians was a tiny fraction of that, almost all of which was routed through various UN agencies to support basic infrastructure and refugee provisions. Trump has canceled all humanitarian aid.

While it’s true that US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital does not affect any concrete structural changes; it does however give symbolic strength to Israel’s claim of sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, in contravention of United Nations’ mandates (which also make all of Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal under international law).

Just this past week, on Israel’s a state-sponsored “Jerusalem Day,” marking the anniversary of the city’s capture and annexation, thousands of Israeli and West Bank settlers rampaged through Palestinian East Jerusalem streets chanted “death to the Arabs,” “may your villages burn,” and “Gaza is a graveyard.” Some believe Southern Lebanon will soon be added to Israel’s annexation claim.

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Above: Palestinian & Jewish boy greet each other at Hanukkah

There is a popular saying among visitors to Israel/Palestine: Stay for a week, and you think you can write a book. Stay for a month, and you think, well, maybe an essay. Stay for a year, and you don’t know what to say.

I do not pretend in these spare comments to offer policy guidance toward a different future. I do know, as the saying goes, that when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. And I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the dominant narrative in American political culture is not only shortsighted but also complicit with Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine’s population.

The only genuine, lasting security is mutual security. At present, the West Bank and Gaza are more like maximum security prisons.

Truth be told, over the past hours of writing I have fought off my own heart’s numerous pleas to cease and desist any public comments on this topic. I am connected to several communities for whom conversation about sexual orientation is a breeze compared to discussions of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The volatility quotient is enough to shut down meaningful dialogue. In addition, for people like myself, who at this distance face little existential threat, the subject easily becomes a conveniently liberal parlor exercise. When there’s no blood on the floor, talk is cheap.

In the end, though, silence on the matter is both an abdication of liability (make it go away!) and a collaboration with infamy. We have the right neither to demand this conversation nor to abandon it. We sit, always, on a moral precipice—but that is exactly the proper posture of reverence. Shared reverence is our only hope.

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In the end, my political pessimism is held at bay because I know a few of the many Israelis and Palestinians (and there are more than you know)—Jews, Christians, Muslims, and other people of conscience—who arise each day, indefatigably and almost beyond imagination, to practice truth-telling and justice seasoned with mercy and compassion. And I know a few others, here in the US and elsewhere, who persevere in their support for these insistent, persevering agents of reconciliation.

What to do? At the very least, dig deeper for information and perspective on this topic beyond what our dominant media supplies. Hold your heart open to the possibility of connecting with the network of resisters, healers, and visionaries who dream differently, inspired by the vision spoken of by the Prophet Micah, for the day when all shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, with none to make them afraid (4:4).

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Hymn of petition. “Erev Shel Shoshanim” (“Evening of Lilies [or Roses”]). —Yuval Ron Ensemble. This song, a love song well known throughout the Middle East, is dedicated to the children of Jerusalem, the vision of peace between Jews and Arabs, and peace around the world. 

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Above: desolation in Gaza

Gaza and Lebanon devastation
Numbers can be numbing; but they provide needed perspective

• As of 3 May 2026, nearly 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza which began on 27 October 2023—70% of them women and children. Thousands more are believed to still be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
• Scholars estimate that 80% of the Palestinians were civilians. These totals do not reflect the number who have died as a result for lack of health care, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation.
• Among those killed were 270 journalists, 560 humanitarian aid workers.
• An estimated 83% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed.
• Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced at least once. Included in that number is an approximately 1.85 million children under the age of 18.
• Slightly more than 2,000 Israelis have been killed, 1,200 of them during the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack, and another 253 taken hostage.
• As of mid-May, at least 2,882 have been in killed by Israeli Defense Forces in Lebanon and more than 1 million people internally displaced. Seventeen Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat, and 2 Israeli civilians in northern Israel.
• Minutes after the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on 8 April, Israeli air strikes hit 150 targets in Lebanon, some in densely populated residential neighborhoods, all within 10 minutes, killing more than 300. Hundreds are still buried under rubble. More than 1 million people have been displaced.
• A list of humanitarian and human rights organizations asserting that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: UN Commission of Inquiry § Amnesty International § Human Rights Watch § International Association of Genocide Scholars § Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention § Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor § Two Israeli Human Rights Organizations: B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel § Oxfam International § Doctors Without Borders § Eight Global Quaker Organizations § Christian Aid
• The legislatures or executive officials of 68 countries assert that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
• Video (1:00) of destruction in Gaza City.
• Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich “has vowed that ‘Gaza will be entirely destroyed’ as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will ‘leave in great numbers to third countries’, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory. . .” —The Guardian

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Postlude. “Psalm 135: Arabic Orthodox Chant,” —from St. George Church, Aleppo, Syria.

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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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The Feast of the Ascension is observed by some on the 40^th day after Easter (this Thursday); by others, on the seventh Sunday of Eastertide (this Sunday).

The Feast of the Ascension doesn’t get marquee billing, at least not in Protestant circles. Do a quick web image search and you can see why: Many depict a pasty white Jesus, in a chalk-colored robe, levitating above his surrounding disciples in a beam-me-up pose. Makes me think of the velvet paintings of Elvis.

Which is why most yawn at hearing details of the church’s liturgical calendar, except for Christmas and Easter, which are boons to the economy.

We have so much historical recovery to do.

The context
“Got anything to eat?”
—Luke 24:41

I am writing with Feast of the Ascension textual suggestions in mind—Jesus advising his disciples to “stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). All this just shortly after Luke’s account of the Emmaen travelers who had come to sense Jesus’ presence “in the breaking of bread,” in the most mundane, yet life-giving, acts of human flourishing (24:28-35).

The pattern continues in the Gospels’ resurrection appearance stories. In Luke, Jesus appears from nowhere, greets the disciples by saying “Peace to you” (i.e., don’t be afraid), proves he was not a ghost by showing them his crucifixion wounds, and then asks, “Got anything to eat?” (24:36-43)

John’s Gospel accounts a similar food-featured story, of the disciples’ miraculous catch of fish, after toiling through the night with no luck, at Jesus’ suggestion yelled from the shore . . . where he was cooking breakfast (21:1-14).

Such stories, along with some 2,000 biblical texts that emphasize God’s special attention to the poor, are indicators that food sufficiency signifies a larger livelihood and the corporeality of salvation.

Faith in the manner of Jesus is always bodified. Anything less is a signal that we suffer Ascension deficit disorder.

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Hymn of encouragement. “Walk down that lonesome road all by yourself / Don’t turn your head back over your shoulder / And only stop to rest yourself when the silver moon / Is shining high above the trees / If I had stopped to listen once or twice / If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes / If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart / I’d not be on this road tonight / Carry on (carry on) / Never mind feeling sorry for yourself / It doesn’t save you from your troubled mind.” —“Lonesome Road,” James Taylor covered by CANTUS 

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The culprit
“I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten.”
—Joel 2:25

With the disciples in the Acts 1 account, we still stand gazing to Heaven: with nostalgia for days past; with a longing for divine comfort shielded from earthly drama; with atoning desire emptied of fleshly content.

C.S. Lewis allegorized this deficiency in his classic primer on spirituality, “Screwtape Letters,” a book of satire written in the form of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon in the bureaucracy of Hell, to his nephew Wormwood who is a rookie tempter sent to subvert the faith of a particular individual identified as “the Patient.”

At one point Wormwood writes to his uncle Screwtape in frustration, saying he’s tried everything he knows to get “the Patient” to stop saying his daily prayers. Screwtape responds:

“It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very ‘spiritual,’ that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism.”

One reason many of us were weaned on innocuous spirituality has to do with the English translation of Scripture.

For instance, we are instructed to “love not the things of this world” (1 John 2:15). But, on the other hand, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” (John 3:16). On the one hand, the world is said to be passing away (1 John 2:17); on the other, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

The Newer Testament epistles are filled with negative images of “the flesh,” perceived as corruptible, as warped desire, as licentious (Romans 13:14; 1 John 2:16; 2 Peter 2:18). Flesh is “hostile to God” (Romans 8:7), and we are warned against walking “according to the flesh” (Galatians 4:23, 29), or “setting the mind on the flesh” (Romans 8:5), “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (8:8), and “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50) contrasting it with “things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:4-13).

Let this be known: “The world” that is presently aligned against the Reign of God is a bootleg world.

Scripture repeatedly locates the work of salvation in the flesh. Ezekiel predicts the day when a new spirit will be put into human creatures, a “heart of flesh” displacing a “heart of stone” (36:26). Joel foresees the time when God will “pour out my spirit on all flesh” (2:28).

The Prophet’s claim (Isaiah 40:5)—echoed in Luke’s rendering (3:6)—is that “all flesh shall see the salvation of our God.” The first imperative in Jesus’ own model prayer is “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). And John the Revelator (11:15) asserts “the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our God,” a sentiment sung fortissimo in Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”

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Hymn of resilience. “The Drone Song.” —A Gaza music teacher has taught it to his students. He teaches refugee children in a camp in Gaza City, and they have formed a group called Gaza Birds Singing. 

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The conclusion
“Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
—John 16:33

With Jesus, those aligned with Heaven’s insurrection also implore “let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 25:39) when sanction threatens. We prefer to reason: Since Jesus paid it all, what is there left for us than to agree? Slip conveniently, briefly, beneath heated baptismal waters? Pay our tithe and say grace at meals? Quote from our catechesis? And, most importantly for the zealous, convince others to do the same?

It is only by way of entering into Jesus’ Passion, and the disruption it entails, can we rediscover the Spirit’s Promise of presence—not in a space beyond tribulation but in its midst.

With the disciples, we remember that Jesus left, but we forget that this ascension would lead to a descension, of the Holy Spirit, and the its powerful animation of our little, defenseless flock on the Jesus Road into the far reaches of the globe with the profoundly unsettling news that a New Order was rising from the ashes of the old.

Throughout Scripture, the indwelling of the Spirit traffics in fleshly affairs.

The healing of our Ascension deficit disorder requires the ekklesia to revisit the passion to which it is bound, living open-eyed in a world predicated on and subject to violation—and doing so without resort to in-kind response.

The scuttling of this disorder comes by way pathos, where we learn that God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven.

The Feast of the Ascension’s insistence is that God has not constructed a co-dependent relationship. The covenant is relational, not despotic. Faith entails participation, not consumption. Jesus is not our mascot, but the “pioneer of faith” (Hebrews 12:2) who bids us follow.

The threat he faced could very well be ours. But also the enduring power of joy, our buoyancy in the face of trouble.

The Feast of the Ascension is the seal of heaven’s safeguard: Not from the bootleg world, but in it, for it, on its behalf, for the blessing of Creation has not been annulled. Soon, Pentecostal power will be announced, the insurgence launched, pursuit of the New Heaven and the New Earth renewed day by day.

At the Feast of Ascension we receive our enlistment notice, and wait for the “clothing with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). It is a power “the world” does not understand and, finally, cannot resist.

Then, at Pentecost we mobilize, as the Resurrection moment animates the Resurrection movement.

§  §  §

Postlude. “Oh, how I long for peace / Oh, how I long for peace / Among the peoples and the nation / How I long to halt the plunder / Of the wonders of creation / Oh, how I long for peace / I cannot understand / How the sisters, wives, and mothers / Cannot stop the slaughter / Of the husbands, sons, and brothers “ —“How I Long for Peace,” Rhiannon Giddens, Crys Matthews, Resistance Revival Chorus 

#  #  #

 

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

§  §  §

Prelude. “I’m an ordinary man / from the place where the palms grow / and before I die I want / to sing out the verses of my soul.” —English translation of the first verse of “Guantanamera,” the Cuban unofficial national hymn, performed Compay Segundo 

§  §  §

(Singing) I am, I said. I am, I cried.

 

“I am, I said.” Those are the opening words of the in-flight movie I streamed when I

flew from Cuba to Des Moines a few weeks ago. The movie had me both boo-hooing

and belly-laughing all the way through. Maybe that was because I was already feeling

intensely emotional and vulnerable, given that we had arrived at the Havana airport that

morning accompanied by two close friends from Ebenezer Baptist who were supposed

to be our traveling companions, only to find that ICE had revoked their visas for no

apparent reason, and they were not allowed to board. So as you might imagine, by the

time I buckled into my seat I had a lot of pent-up feelings, and needed a cathartic

experience. The movie “Song Sung Blue” gave it to me.

 

The film starts with a middle-aged guy with long, stringy hair trying to tune his guitar;

the camera zooms in so that his face fills the screen, and he gives what sounds like a

monologue:

 

“I am, I cried. . . I am. . . an entertainer. When I’m not doing engine work or oil changes, I’m

the lead guitar with the Dog Night Specials at the Red Dragon Lounge. . . I sing all types,

I got Mellencamp, Elvis, Bon Jovi. And oh, for these occasions, I have created a

persona. It’s like a superhero of rock and roll. I mean, I got no cape or nothing, I got no

mask, but I got this. . . .”

 

The character turns and shows a lightning bolt embossed on the back of his jacket,

and the scene goes on:

 

“You know why I got a lightning bolt? ‘Cause they call me Lightning. Oh yeah, Lightning’s

a star. . . He’s like Chuck Berry, Barry Manilow, and the Beatles all rolled into one. Oh

yeah. He’s singing the songs people love to hear. The songs people need. The songs I

need. . . Yeah, the songs I need to keep going. ‘Cause when the song’s over, and the

applause stops, I’m not Lightning anymore. I’m just another drunk.”

 

The camera pans out, and you see that Lightning has been addressing about a dozen

people seated in a circle, in an AA meeting. “My name’s Mike,” he says, “and I’m an

alcoholic.” The circle greets him, “hello Mike,” and then he goes on to explain that this

is a very special day; it’s his sobriety birthday. He has not taken a drink in 20 years, and

every year, on this day, he treats his AA community with a song from his favorite singer,

“Song Sung Blue” by Neil Diamond. Cue the music, and the movie goes on.

 

That opening monologue kept coming back to my mind as I reflected on the well-worn

verse from the lectionary text for today, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus

may not have had a lightning bolt on the back of his cloak, but he did have the

gumption on another occasion to say to his circle of followers, “I am… the Light of the

World!” And after his death and superhero-like resurrection, those followers created a

persona; they became the Body of Christ. After all, Jesus had told them that they, too,

were the light of the world, and they believed him, showing up like chain lightning all

over the Roman world.

 

For the first three centuries of the history of this circle of Jesus followers, the

community was something like a group of teetotalers living in a virtual distillery of

intoxicating spirits, spirits of power and privilege and excess prosperity. The Romans,

especially the Caesars, pretty well stayed high as a kite on those spirits. And they

tended to be mean drunks, at least to the people who refused to be enablers, people

like those Jesus followers who resisted co-dependence.

 

But then, sometime in the fourth century, the Body of Christ got its first taste of

privilege. What none of those first-century Caesars had been able to do with their

cruelty, namely, debilitate that pesky band of Jesus followers, the fourth-century

emperor Constantine was able to do with his enticing invitation to join him for cocktail

hour and take a swig of intoxicating privilege. The church started imbibing, bellying up

to the bar of imperial power, and before you knew it, when their song was over and the

applause stopped, they woke up hungover, their heads spinning, and they staggered

out into their role as a bona fide world religion.

 

You can read the last 1600 years of church history as that of one recovery period after

another—recoveries led by sober mentors such as St Francis of Assisi and Teresa of

Ávila and Menno Simons and others. The church as a whole bears the scars of many

falls off the wagon, when the temptation to power and privilege and prosperity was just

too much to resist.

 

One of the things that has long fascinated me about the church in Cuba, that particular

manifestation of the Body of Christ, is that it has not taken a swallow of the world’s

wine in over six decades. It was on April 16, 1961, to be exact, a few days after his

victory at the Bay of Pigs, when Fidel Castro publicly declared the Revolution to be

atheist in nature, and people of faith were disinvited from the party. Suddenly, those

triple shots of power and privilege and excess prosperity that the Church had acquired

such a taste for, they were no longer available.

 

Castro’s declaration was a sobering blow to the church, especially so for young

leaders like our friend Raúl Suárez who had risked life and limb in defending the

Revolution. They had to re-learn how to embody the persona of Jesus of Nazareth,

who was now persona non grata. And learn they did, so much so that one of the

repeated phrases we hear from church folks who visit Cuba for the first time is that to

enter into the faith community there is like being transported back to the early church.

So, two weeks ago, on the anniversary of Castro’s famous declaration, if you had been

at one of their meetings, you might have heard the circle of Jesus followers singing

their own song of celebration, marking the Cuban church’s 65th sobriety birthday.

 

Throughout those six decades they have continued to “work the program” as they say,

living one day at a time, praying the serenity prayer. Twelve 12 years ago, when Kim

and I pulled up roots and relocated to Cuba, it felt like we were being admitted into

detox, with the Fraternity of Baptist Churches acting as our spiritual Betty Ford Clinic.

 

When Mac Dennis, pastor of First Baptist Asheville, gave a report about his visit to their

sister church in Las Tunas, he said it felt like he had been pulled up by the nape of the

neck and plopped down in the midst of the first century church. He had to scrap the

sermon he had planned to preach there, and start from scratch, because suddenly he

was hearing the words of Jesus in a totally different way.

 

I could relate to Mac, as I continue to encounter Jesus in a different way, hearing words

from the sober-as-a-judge Jesus instead of the three-sheets-to-the wind Jesus who so

often acts as a convenient cover for our culture of conspicuous consumption.

 

So, what might the clear-headed Christ be saying in this audacious “I Am” statement

from John? That is, what might we hear the embodied Jesus in Cuba saying? Let’s

break it down:

 

First, I am the way.

A couple of popular hymns in the Cuban church include a line from the Spanish poet

Antonio Machado, Caminante no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar. “Traveler,

there is no way. The way is made by walking.” So what if Jesus was not referencing a

fixed way, a road laid out on a map, but was instead calling his followers to get a

move on and start making the way?

 

What if Jesus was essentially saying, I am the Movement? What if he was offering a

radical challenge to every fixed establishment that tries to harness and direct the “light

of the world” toward its own purposes? The world’s empires and their attendant

systems of religious control spend great time and energy putting up roadblocks,

detaining all who don’t fit the mold, trying to immobilize every mobilization for justice.

And then comes Jesus, forever on the move, creating a “motion picture” out of the still

life of this world.

 

So if we are to understand what it means to embody Jesus of Nazareth in our world, it

would do us good to spend time studying movements, familiarizing ourselves with the

resistance movements that have cropped up over the centuries. I mean, we have

studied and learned from the Civil Rights Movement, right? But how many of us are

familiar with the strategies of the Young Christian Workers Movement in Belgium? Or

the Catholic Workers Movement in the U.S.? Or the Landless Workers Movement that

is still going full throttle in Brazil?

 

Ken—I’m not sure you realize just how prophetic you were when you named what

might be the longest-running ministry of the Circle: “Mercy Movers.” That title speaks

to a whole lot more than moving furniture from one home to another. The Circle really is

moving mercy through this merciless world of ours. So much so that I wouldn’t be

surprised if one day those resistance leaders in Belgium and Brazil started saying to

their people, “It would do us good to spend some time studying that movement over in

Asheville, North Carolina, the Mercy Movers!

 

While we’re moving, let’s move on to the second part of Jesus’ bold identity statement:

 

I am the truth.

 

At the beginning of my in-flight movie, the opening credits informed me that “Song

Sung Blue” is based on a true story. What if, when Jesus said “I am the truth,” he was

not referring to deadening conceptualizations of faith or credal correctness? What if

instead he was telling his followers, “This movement of ours, it’s based on a true

story . . . I am that true story.”

 

In making such a bold proclamation, could it be that Jesus was challenging all the

competing stories that claimed to make meaning in people’s lives? It’s easy enough to

contrast the truth of Jesus’ life with the dominant false narratives of his time.

Throughout the first century the communities of faith suffered mightily under one reign

of terror after another, administrations marked by narcissistic egos, excessive force, and

a ruthless suppression of all who didn’t bow the knee and comply. That was the running

story of all the Caesars, and they stuck with it.

 

But my Cuban friends are teaching me not to be satisfied to hear Jesus’ words simply

as a denunciation of the most extreme examples of excessive imperial idolatry; there’s

nothing particularly prophetic about challenging such blatantly false and outlandish

claims to power. There are armchair prophets on every corner voicing those

complaints.

 

But what if Jesus was doing something different? What if his real aim was to challenge

the false narratives of his own tribe, reminding them of a

truer story on which to base their lives? Think about the

iconic stories Jesus grew up hearing: stories with titles

we’re all familiar with: the Exodus, the Promised Land,

Solomon’s Temple.

 

Do you really think Jesus came to verify the truth of a

liberation story that portrays God equipping the liberator

with weapons of biological warfare (euphemistically called

plagues) and then commissioning a death angel to

assassinate the first born child of every family in an entire

nation? Can you imagine that scenario ringing true for

Jesus?

 

Do you think Jesus came to verify the truth of a settlement

story where God commands the faithful to breach the walls

of a city and slaughter everything that has breath with the

edge of the sword, young and old and animal alike? Can

you imagine that scenario ringing true for Jesus?

 

Do you think Jesus came to verify the truth of a Temple

story that involves an infamous sexual predator with hundreds of enslaved women at his

beck and call, claiming that God was blessing and inspiring him to construct a lavish center

of governance, a gold- plated Temple that would come to function as a center of command

and control over the marginalized poor? I can’t imagine any of those core stories, neither

Solomon’s gilded Temple nor Joshua’s battle of Jericho nor Moses’ death-ridden liberation

narrative, ringing true for Jesus. He was calling people to live and find meaning from a truer

story, the true story that he embodied.

 

If that is true, then Jesus’ words call us to go farther in our prophetic complaint, farther

than a simple denunciation of the most outlandish false claims to power of our day:

After all, calling out the daily deceptions coming out of the White House is easy

enough, we don’t need Jesus for that. But what if he’s calling us to dig deeper in the

well of truth, to critically examine the foundational premises of our own tribe?

 

What if, here as we approach the 250th anniversary of our empire’s founding, we hear

Jesus’ claim to be truth as a challenge to our own sacred stories, the narratives that

serve as pillars of our own civil religion: tall tales that we all know well by their titles:

democracy, free market, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all made possible by

superior military might?

 

What if the state of affairs of our current gilded age is not an aberration, but the logical

conclusion of a society built on false premises? Can you imagine our settlement story

ringing true for the Christ embodied in indigenous peoples whose lands were stolen?

Can you imagine our democracy story ringing true for the Christ incarnate among

African peoples captured and enslaved to build the nation? Can you imagine our free

market story ringing true for the Christ present in Latin American peoples whose

resources continue to be looted and pillaged for our pleasure?

 

What if we have ears to hear Jesus telling us that there is a truer story, that he is the

truer story? Sisters and brothers of the Circle of Mercy: I believe you’ve heard that

story, and I believe you’re claiming it as your own. So much so that I can imagine a day

when Garreth Higgins convinces one of his director friends to make a movie about the

Circle—can’t you see Hugh Jackman as Stan Wilson and Kate Hudson as Mary

Elizabeth? And as the opening credits roll, the viewers will read the words on the

screen, “What you are about to see is based on a true story.” Cue the music!

 

Now we come to Jesus’ third claim:

 

I am the life.

 

What if Jesus here was essentially saying something like this: “I am the Sumak

Kawsay“? Now there’s a phrase most folks in our culture are not likely to be familiar

with, even the Spanish speakers. Sumak Kawsay. It’s a phrase I encounter with

frequency in workshops at the Martin Luther King Center, but it’s not Spanish; it’s an

indigenous Quechua phrase, sometimes translated as pura vida (pure life) or buen vivir

(good living). It’s a philosophy of the plentiful life that prioritizes harmony between

human beings, their community, and the natural world, focusing on collective wellbeing

rather than individual accumulation. Sumak Kawsay is a popular notion in Latin

America; it’s even embedded in the constitutions of countries like Bolivia and Ecuador.

 

When I’ve heard people in Cuba talk about Sumak Kawsay, they sometimes will riff on

some words that we are familiar with: “standard of living.” They talk about how that

phrase is understood in the developed world, with Merriam Webster defining “standard

of living” as “the minimum of necessities, comforts, and luxuries . . . held essential to

maintaining a person in customary or proper status.” But what if we examine the

gospels and come away with a different definition? What if Jesus is the standard of

living? What if the lifestyle of Jesus is the measure of the good life?

 

One of the things I love about the Circle, is that it feels to me that this principle of

Sumak Kawsay is embedded in our very constitution as a community of faith. We may

not always measure up, but buen vivir, good living, isn’t that what we are reaching for?

 

“I am,” Jesus said. “I am,” Jesus cried. “I am the movement, I am the true story, I am

the standard of living.”

 

If we are going to assume the persona of Jesus, this Body of Christ, then, when we are

at our best, we, too will tune up our guitars and sing, whether in sanctuaries or saloons

or Target stores; we’ll sing the songs people need.

 

And when we’re not singing, we’ll be faithful to work the program—going to meetings,

and oh, for people like us, in recovery, remember it’s super important for us to secure a

good sponsor. Circle of Mercy—we have the perfect sponsor at hand; we have pastor

Waldemar and the church in Oliva!* Wouldn’t they be great sponsors as we strive to stay

sober and abstain from the world’s intoxicating power and privilege and excess?

 

And remember that we’re a circle of mercy, so we need not be overly discouraged or

beat ourselves up if we occasionally fall off the wagon. After all, we do live and move

here in our own virtual distillery of those spirits of injustice. So any time we fall and find

ourselves with the blind staggers, losing our way, trusting the wrong story, striving for

the wrong standard of living, we can simply call up Waldemar and sing our own song

sung blue:

 

“Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I want’a go to bed. I had a little drink just an

hour ago, and it went right to my head. . . .”

 

Show me the way to go home. Waldemar and the Oliva folks will show us, and they’ll

remind us that we have a better theme song. They’ll remind us that we are the light of

the world, and we have our own multi-lingual “I am, I said” song; it’s the song people

need to hear; it’s the song we need to hear to keep going: Siyahamba ekukhanyeni

kwenkos . . . Caminamos en la luz de Dios . . . We are walking in the light of God.

 

Amen.

§  §  §

Postlude. “And we will walk into the world with faith and living in hope / Celebrating, singing, smiling, and struggling for life.”  —English translation of lyrics to “Y Andaremos Por El Mundo,” performed by the Circle of Mercy Band (with a few guest musicians)

# # #

Context. US President Donald Trump’s intention of “taking” Cuba doesn’t surprise those who know the history of our countries’ relations. Following the Spanish American War (1898), the US oversaw the writing of Cuba’s first constitution. Two of the most important provisions of that document gave rights, in perpetuity, to the US of the Guantanamo Naval Base on the island’s eastern edge, and granted to the US the right to invade Cuba at any time. (Which we did, four times, not to mention dozens of attempts at assassinating Fidel Castro.)

Current restrictions on travel to Cuba are authorized by the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which grants the power to prohibit financial transactions in time of war.

In the earliest days of our republic, Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the “Declaration of Independence,” wrote that the US, “at the first possible opportunity,” should “take Cuba.” And Secretary of State John Quincy Adams suggested there is such a thing as “political gravity” and that Cuba “can gravitate only towards the North American Union.”

We are currently in the seventh decade of the US embargo of Cuba, applying an economic chokehold designed to slowly suffocate that island nation’s resolve to remain outside the US domination of the western hemisphere. (That’s what the 1823 “Monroe Doctrine” was designed to do. And now, with the blockade of Cuban oil purchases from other countries—an action explicitly named in international law as an act of war—we now have Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine.”)

*Circle of Mercy Congregation’s partner church in Cuba is Juan Naranjo Baptist Church, pastored by Rev. Waldemar Murguido, in the small village of Oliva.

# # #

Below: Stan Dotson and Kim Christman performing in Matanzas, Cuba.

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.

In 2018, leading up to the 50^th anniversary of the Mỹ Lai Massacre, when US forces murdered some 500 men, women, and children in that small hamlet, an ad hoc committee organized national commemorations of this war crime. I was asked to put together worship resources for such remembrances in Christian congregations.

Below is some of the material from a worship liturgy for use in churches, “Penitential Opportunity.”

§  §  §

Prelude

“Come on, people! Come on, children! / Come on down to the glory river / Gonna wash you up, and wash you down / Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down / Come on, people! Come on, children! / There’s a king at the glory river / And the precious king, he loved the people to sing / Babes in the blinkin’ sun sang, ‘We shall overcome’ / And I got fury in my soul / Fury’s gonna take me to the glory goal / In my mind I can’t study war no more / Save the people! Save the children! Save the country, save the country now!” —“Save the Country,” Laura Nyro 

Invocation

“To speak about God and remain silent on Vietnam is blasphemous.” {Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel}

Call to Worship

One: We gather to remember a story of war that haunts us to this day, to remember a wrong that must be made right.
All: We gather to reckon with the sorrow that still pains the souls of many—to reckon with the brokenness that remains within the living who cannot forget the dead.
One: We gather to reflect upon the prospects for meaningful justice and the compelling call for healing and reconciliation.
All: We gather to resolve not to leave this place unchanged or unwilling to transform this haunting memory into something good. In the words of Rabbi Abraham Yitzak Kook, “We don’t speak because we have the power to speak; we speak because we don’t have the power to remain silent.”   {Paul C. Hayes}

Opening Prayer

Holy Light, we stand somewhere in the shadows, in between the battlefield of our struggles and the sanctuary of our souls. Shed a little light on our way. Keep your lighted sanctuary within us portable, able to see clearly, to walk courageously, to withstand the forces that corrupt the truth of our belonging to your one world wide family.

Keep our madmen world leaders away from buttons of annihilation. Keep them clearly out of range from pushing our buttons toward hopelessness and helplessness. Don’t give them security clearness to our spirits. Keep us ever secure in You. Shed a little light on our way.

Shed your light of healing on all who struggle with illness of body, mind and spirit. Shed your light of grace on all who stumble with regrets and shame too tender to touch. Shed your light of mercy on all who fear for their lives, who are caught in the crucible of suffering. Here, now, once again…shed a little light on us all. Amen.             {Nancy Hastings Sehested}

Word

“There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.”         {Roman Catholic Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa, martyred in 2001 in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo}

Confession

One: The One who extends Presence into the most desolate region—even to the place of utter abandonment—is mighty in mercy, strong in tenderness, powerful in pardoning.
All: God hears! God knows! Therefore we will praise that Unspeakable Name forever.
One: Relax, oh my soul, in the arms of the One who dries tears, who swaddles our fretful limbs, whose light in the night scatters dragons, and whose promise is bounty and abundance.
All: God hears! God knows! This is our assurance against the ravages of fear. Therefore we will praise that Unspeakable Name forever.

Absolution

“Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.”         {Book of Common Prayer, prayer for Ash Wednesday}

Words of Assurance

Be assured that the God who shakes heaven and earth, whom death could not contain, who lives to disturb us and heal us, blesses us with the power of the Spirit to redeem and to restore with justice and in love.         {Adapted from Janet Morley’s “All Desires Known”}

Word

“Repentance for silence is better than repentance for speaking.”       {Moorish proverb}

Professing Our Faith

One: For what do we hope?
All: We hope for the Beloved’s promise to overtake the world’s broken-hearted threat.
One: For what do we long?
All: We long for the moist goodness of God to outlast the parched climate of despair.
One: For what do we lack?
All: We lack for nothing—save the need for hearts enlarged by the assurance that every hostage will be freed.
One: For what do we strive?
All: We strive for lives marked by goodness, purified of deceit and malice, and hands made gentle by the tender caress of Wisdom’s approach.
One: For what do we struggle?
All: We struggle for the fate of every child whose sighs and cries are muffled by the market’s disdain.
One: In what do we rejoice?
All: We rejoice in rebellious acts of abundance in the face of every stingy arrangement.
One: For what prize do our eyes arise?
All: Our eyes arise for the Beloved Community’s embrace of earth’s abode and Heaven’s favor.
One: Peace be with you!
All: And also with you!            {Ken Sehested}

Benediction

One: Among the memory prods in every tragedy’s aftermath is this reminder of the Spirit’s directives—
All: About whose presence we must foster,
One: About which whereabouts we must locate,
All: Whether the season calls for laughter or lament,
One: Whether patience or militance is called for, caressing hand or shaking fist.
All: Only after this interrogation can our speaking and silence, our moving and stillness, put us in the position to see and know what is to be done,
One: With whom it is to be done, in what place and time it is to be done,
All: And by what authority we proceed.
One: In and through our penitence, grant the bounty of grace and the risk of resolve.
All: Resolve to break the silence; to remember afresh; to hope that is stronger than fear; to persevere beyond fatigue.
One: You shall know the truth, beloveds, and the truth will make you odd!
All: So may it be, from henceforth and evermore.           {Ken Sehested}

Postlude

“Finally brother after a while / The battle will be over / For that day when we shall lay down our burden / And study war no more.” —“Study War,” Moby

#  #  #

 

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

§  §  §

¶ 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)

§  §  §

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 

§  §  §

¶ 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)

§  §  §

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

§  §  §

¶ 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)

§  §  §

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”

§  §  §

¶ 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.

§  §  §

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”

#  #  #

 

(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”

§  §  §

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”

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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

§  §  §

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

§  §  §

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 

#  #  #

 

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

§   §  §

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.

§  §  §

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” 

# # #

Prelude. “Fey Oh Di Nou” (“Oh Leaves Tell Us”) by the Creole Choir of Cuba tells of a group trying to invoke the divine power of medicinal plants to heal a sick person.

Call to worship. “Resurrection Blues.” —Otis Taylor.

§  §  §

Introduction. From Circle of Mercy Congregation’s beginning, 25 years ago, our pastors ask 2-3 members to share “stories of resurrection”—something experienced or witnessed—in our Easter Sunday worship (in lieu of a clergy sermon). Below is one from this past Sunday.

§  §  §

Bodywork therapy in Cuba

by Jessica Mark

Last November, a colleague and I traveled to Matanzas and Oliva, Cuba to share the bodywork therapy we practice, Ortho-Bionomy, with our friends there. This was my fifth trip to Cuba. (My fourth was 19 years before this one.)

During our week-long stay, our days unfolded something like this: a morning group class of self-care and body awareness explorations, followed by a few hours of hands-on work for anyone who wanted it. Then lunch, and more hands-on work or time spent visiting in other ways. Over the course of the week, I had sessions with over 50 people.

My story for today is set in Primera Iglesia Bautista in Matanzas—where many of you have visited before, and where our friends Kim Christman and Stan Dotson lived for years before moving to Havana. We had just finished our morning movement class with the Tercer Edad (“Third Age”) senior adult group, and I began working with a few women, my table set up in the center aisle of the church.

For those unfamiliar with Ortho-Bionomy, it is a gentle form of bodywork with roots in osteopathy and homeopathy. It supports the body’s innate wisdom to self-correct and heal from within. It allows the brain to recognize what’s happening in the body and respond, creating more ease and communication throughout the whole system. There is a structural component, as well as an energetic and fluid one. As practitioners, we are not fixing—we are facilitating, supporting the body to remember its wholeness.

So, I began working with maybe my third friend of the morning, and I noticed my own body beginning to feel irritated and frustrated. Gratefully, I’ve learned to pay attention to those sensations because it’s usually a clue about how I’m working or what I’m working with.

I recognized this one quickly: a sign that the tissues of the body I was working with were unresponsive. It was like no one was home. I tried most everything I could find in my bag of techniques to help stimulate a response—some kind of movement, a sense of presence, connection—but nothing.

‘No es fácil’

I realized I had felt a very similar sensation in the bodies I had worked with before hers. There was a theme. It felt like a familiar pattern, but not quite. This felt deeper. More ingrained.

I kept working, and kept listening. And then I wondered—Is this what systemic trauma feels like? Could this be the tone of generational trauma in the body?

Something in me recognized that as true.

My eyes suddenly grew hot and watery, and tears began rolling down my face.

I had touched into something—quite literally.

Into grief.

Into long-term holding. Into bracing for impact.

Into hypervigilance.

Into living in a culture of not enough… of struggles upon struggles.

“No es fácil” (a common Cuban aphorism).

“It’s not easy.”

A phrase I had heard 20 years ago—and one that had not changed. And suddenly, I felt helpless. Hopeless. With no sense of how to support what I was feeling. I had never before felt this depth of loss, uncertainty, and hopelessness in the tissues of the body—all at once.

‘Ask for guidance’

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed. I asked for guidance. For something—anything. Of all places for this to be my “office,” how fitting to be in a church.

I lifted my gaze to the front of the sanctuary. To the cross. And I opened—to something beyond my understanding.

I stayed as present as I could. With my own overwhelm. With my connection to the body under my hands. I began working with a familiar technique—one that holds past energy and invites it into the present time. But something felt incomplete. One-dimensional.

I asked the moment: What is missing?

And then, something shifted. Not as an answer exactly—but as a wondering.

What if this body… this community… this country…was not only holding the struggles and injustices of the past—and working like mad to survive present day-to-day life, but also struggling to imagine, feel into, or visualize the possibility of a future?

Where did hope live in the tissues? How did expansion towards what might be embodied in the physicality of their flesh and bones?

So I continued to wonder…and something new floated into my consciousness.

What if I held the past with my left hand…the present through my torso and legs…and the future with my right hand? What if they could all three come into relationship?

I had nothing to lose. So I reorganized my hands and my energy. And then I felt a movement emerge—like a figure eight moving between my hands. It took a moment to recognize what was happening, but then it became clear.

The energy was circling the past, crossing through the present, and connecting into the future. Over and over. Clear. Connected. There were moments of doubt—because what I was feeling was so unfamiliar. But I stayed. I listened.

And then…the tissues began to respond. They softened. They moved. They breathed. They woke up. There was a connection.

I stayed steady. Awestruck. Watching. Listening. Participating in something I did not fully understand—but could not deny. And I wondered: Had hope been reawakened?

Ever the skeptic, I thought—maybe this is a one-time thing. So I tried again. And again. And again with each of the following friends who came to my table.

Each time I met that same quality—stuckness, contraction, absence. And each time, I held that relationship—past, present, future.

And each time…something shifted. Something expanded. Something came back to life.

‘Embroider a new world’

Upon reflection of what happened that day, I remembered a quote by Bjork, an Icelandic singer and songwriter. She said:

“After tragedies, one has to invent a new world, knit it or embroider, make it up. It’s not gonna be given to you because you deserve it; it doesn’t work that way. You have to imagine something that doesn’t exist and dig a cave into the future and demand space. It’s a territorial hope affair. At the time, that digging is utopian, but in the future, it will become your reality.”

I realized that’s what happened that morning. I held a pathway to knit together the hope, hold the sensory feel of hope, and imagine it so fiercely that it demanded space and connection and realness. Until the body could sense it and bring it into fruition.

On Sunday, during the church service that closed our week, Primera Iglesia’s pastor, Orestes, offered words of gratitude.

With tears in his eyes, he said:

“You brought us hope. We have been living without hope—and you brought us hope through your work, your presence, your gifts.”

And while I received his kind words, there was something in me that wished I was able to put a response into words. If I could do it over, I would grab the microphone and say something like this:

“Oh, dear friends…That may be true. But something else is also true. By being in your presence this week, by laughing and crying and moving and singing and eating with you…you have embodied for me a depth of hope I did not know existed. We have ignited a hope within each other.

You have shown me that hope does not always manifest as certainty, or ease, or even relief.

‘We carry hope for each other’

Sometimes hope looks like staying. Like being with. Like being here, in this moment with each other. Like continuing to show up inside of conditions that are impossible. You have helped me realize that hope is not something we carry alone. We must carry it for each other.”

I would also have shared this quote from Muriel Ruckeyser:

“The moment is real, this moment is what we have, this moment in which we face each other…Whatever has happened, whatever is going to happen in the world, it is the living moment that contains the sum of the excitement, this moment in which we touch life and all the energy of the past and future. Here is all the developing greatness of the dream of the world, the pure flash of momentary imagination, the vision of life lived outside of triumph or defeat, in continual triumph and defeat, in the present, alive. All the crafts of subtlety, all the effort, all the loneliness and death, the thin and blazing threads of reason, the spill of blessing, the passion behind these silences – all the invention turns to one end: the fertilizing of the moment, so that there may be more life.”

And maybe this is what resurrection looks like.

Not only something that happens once, long ago—but something that happens again and again in the living body.

In moments where something feels lost…numb…unreachable…And then—through relationship, through presence, through love, through connection—something begins to move again. To breathe again. To awaken again.

Together, we remind each other that life is still here. That wild possibilities are still here. Together, we keep imagining the hope we yearn to see in the world. For each other. With each other.

I think resurrection hope is this—the quiet return of hope when we think none is possible, made real through our willingness to stay, to listen, to imagine a new reality. Where we carry hope for one another and are held fully by the Divine.

§  §  §

Benediction. “In this marathon of Hope, / there are always others to relieve us / in bearing the courage necessary / to arrive at the goal which lies beyond death… / Accompany us then on this vigil / And you will know what it is to dream! / You will then know how marvelous it is / To live threatened with resurrection! / To dream awake, / To keep watch asleep / To live while dying / And to already know oneself resurrected!” —Julia Esquivel, Guatemalan poet and theologian

Postlude. “And we will move through the world with faith and living hope, / celebrating, singing, smiling, struggling for life. / And we will smile, together with the child and our brothers & sisters, / and to the one in need, we will extend our hand. / We will organize with strength and wisdom / and keep singing and struggling for life. / And we will walk with much faith and confidence / and keep singing praise to God.” — translation of “Fe y esperanza viva,” Enrique Sosa Rodríguez, performed by Circle of Mercy Congregation band and guest musicians 

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Mark is an Advanced Practitioner and Instructor of Ortho-Bionomy® and founder of Embody in Asheville, NC. She began her career with modern dance troupes in New York City and Philadelphia and has performed liturgical dance in many locations in the US, Canada, Cuba, and South Africa.

BONUS track. “O, gather up the brokenness / Bring it to me now / The fragrance of those promises / You never dared to vow / The splinters that you carried / The cross you left behind / Come healing of the body / Come healing of the mind / And let the heavens hear it / The penitential hymn / Come healing of the spirit / Come healing of the limb.” —“Come Healing,” Leonard Cohen, performed by the Circle of Mercy Band and Chorus, dance by Jessica Mark