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

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

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

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      Your cartoon for the day: A couple, sitting in their living room. One says to the other, “It seems wrong to celebrate America’s birthday while it’s on life support.” We today asked ourselves, “Is our nation’s historic anniversary the occasion for celebration or lamentation?” Or both?

I’m breaking a cardinal rule in preaching, which dictates that you give only one image for the congregation to ponder. Today I’m giving you three, because I think these three interact with each other, and each impacts and reshapes the other.

The first image comes from Woody Guthrie, from his song, “This Land Is Your Land.” He wrote the song as a protest to the familiar patriotic hymn, “God Bless America.”

One of Guthrie’s verses is rarely listed when his lyrics are printed. That verse reads “One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple, / By the relief office I saw my people. / As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering / if God blessed America for me.” It is a not-so-subtle critique of the church, as an agency complicit in the structure forces of poverty.

The second image is to imagine a tussle between Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty, our two patriotic icons. Given the condition of our republic, you might think there’s a case of domestic violence going on.

The third image is excerpted from the text for today: “Return to your stronghold you prisoners of hope.” What exactly is our stronghold? And are we really imprisoned by hope, against our will? Is the yoke of Jesus merely the transference of one form of bondage for another?

Chances are you can recite from memory the eloquent lines from the Declaration of Independence, whose adoption we observed yesterday: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . .”

But of course, the self-evident truth of “all men are created equal” did not intend what it says. “All men” did not include women, or slaves, much less Native Americans, whose very existence the Declaration repudiated later in that document. And by “equal,” it did not mean the right for all to vote—not even for all men. You had to be a white, property-owning male to vote in those early elections. It would be 52 years before the popular vote was a factor in presidential elections.

Today, though, we observe another semiquincentennial—from America’s first major prophet, the remarkable abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818–1895). On 5 July 1852, Douglass gave his famous speech—“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July”—to a gathering of the Rochester, NY Ladies Anti-Slavery Society.

“I answer:” Douglass declared, “[this is] a day that reveals to [the slave], more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. . . .”

National Baptist leader Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879–1961) viewed white Christianity as a contradiction of true identity because of its support for segregation and lynching. She rejected America’s Christian identity, saying “but it is the most lawless and desperately wicked nation on the globe.” Lynching, she insisted, was “no superficial thing . . . it is in the blood of the nation. And the process of eliminating it will be difficult and long.”

Ouch! And again, ouch!

Without a doubt, slavery was the original sin of our country. While it’s true that this abominable practice is as old as written history, the modern African slave trade was far by the most extensive in history. Worse than that, the only way our ancestors in the US could bear the shame of this exploitation was to literally invent the notion of “race” to justify the practice—invented a novel moral code—that dark-skinned people were less than fully human. The signatories of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were so conscious of this blasphemy that, in the latter document, they could not bring themselves to use the word “slave.” Instead, they chose the euphemism of “other persons.”

Jefferson himself, the chief architect of the Declaration’s soaring words of liberty, was owner of a large contingent of slave, and sired at least six children with one of those. Today he would be called a serial rapist.

Yet his original draft of the Declaration included a 168-word section condemning the slave trade as an “execrable commerce” and a “cruel war against human nature.” The other five men in the drafting group immediately scratched out that section.

Also, we should not forget that at the time of the Declaration’s proclamation, all 13 colonies permitted slavery. The reason the South developed its “peculiar institution” was not because the Northerns were predominantly abolitionists. Rather, slavery was profitable as a tool of industrial scale agriculture—whereas the Northerners developed industrial scale manufacturing. Late in his life, Douglass wrote that the “wage slavery” of Northern industry was almost as brutal as chattel slavery of the South. And wage slavery is still a thing.

In case you haven’t noticed, the chain now laying at the Statue of Liberty’s feet can barely be seen. We’ve largely forgotten that the statue’s French architect, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the chain was meant to be in the hands of Lady Liberty as a celebration of the defeat of slavery. But the US financiers of the statue’s pedestal didn’t want to be reminded of that horrible conflict. So only a few links can be seen under the Lady’s skirt, and is only visible from above.

The famous poem by Emmas Lazarus, a Jewish immigrant to the US, penned those memorable lines—”Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—was added later, declaring our nation’s willing welcome of immigrants. In these days, those lines have been suppressed by the forces of nativism, xenophobia, and unabashed cruelty.

Slavery was certainly the cause for our Civil War. But not as a human rights issue—it was a war between competing industrial policies.

So, yes, Uncle Sam’s notion of liberty and freedom is locked in a White House lawn cage fight with Lady Liberty’s ideal. And right now, the Lady is being pummeled.

We sometimes forget that words and ideas can change over time. Uncle Sam’s notion of liberty means 800 US military bases outside the borders of the US. As former US Secretary of State Henry Kissenger famously said, “The US has no friends; only interests.’

“Freedom” in the US—and not just recently—has come to mean the freedom of our economy to penetrate and subjugate the economies of other countries. (It’s called “free enterprise.”) Domestically, freedom has established wealth as moral stature; and when money is god, to be poor is a sin.

Right: Hundreds of the white supremacist group Patriot Front march in Washington, DC, on July 4, carrying US and Confederate flags.

And in the church, “freedom” has come to mean “don’t expect me to make any commitments.” Freedom as personal autonomy, with no covenant bonds, no vows, no friends, only interests. Reminds me of what Bill Ramsey, a former member, said several years ago in a Lenten prayer group, when the question was asked: Give a brief characterization of the church. Bill replied: “We are a community of consequences!” Membership has implications.

But it is beauty, not duty, which embraces us—though not the beauty of Milan’s fashion runway or Miss America contests or even a gymnast’s perfectly scored routine. The beauty which has a hold on us is that of a beatific vision, of the day when all tears are dried and death itself is vanquished.

Given the shifts over the last 10 years, a significant slice of the Christian community is itself vehemently opposed to Douglass’ claims. Our nation has always had its share of what we now call “white Christian nationalism,” but in this century it has developed into a prominent political force, with frequent and insistent calls that the US has always been a “Christian” nation, that Christians should be in charge, and that all our institutions, from the military down to the local school district, should prominently feature this perspective.

We have, for much of our history, consulted a flattering mirror like the Evil Queen in “Snow White”: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” The mirror’s response to our national vanity’s query provides the basis for manifest destiny, national exceptionalism, America-first assumptions.

I would caution you, though, not to assume it’s only the right-wingers who believe these things. Progressive political currents meant something similar, though they used different terminology. “Manifest destiny” and “exceptionalism” were common terminology.

In his 2012 commencement address at the US Air Force Academy, then-President Barack Obama said the United States is exceptional, and will always be, [quote] “the one indispensable nation in world affairs.”

The phrase “indispensable nation” was first coined in 1996 by an aide to President Bill Clinton, who later used it in a speech outlining the rationale for the NATO’s intervention in Bosnia. Then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright used that word in a 1998 interview on NBC’s “The Today Show” defending the US role in enforcing an embargo on Iraq after the first Gulf War in 1991: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”

James Baldwin put his finger on our problem when he wrote, “For those innocent [white] people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”*

The Declaration of Independence is a remarkable document. In its day, in the age of kings and monarchs and imperial despots, it declares a truly radical political idea, that governing power derives “from the consent of the governed.” Regardless of how you define “the governed,” that notion on its own is historically distinct in political philosophy. That is something we can celebrate and commemorate and cherish.

By the way, I support democracy because it is the most common way we practice nonviolence.

Our nation’s steeples—both conservative and liberal—have been and are now implicated in policies of injustice, in legacies of institutional trauma, in justification of slavery and Jim Crow and patterns of generational poverty and the blessing of wealth . . . and on and on.

There has been and is now a massive struggle between Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty. And it is, I believe, the church’s duty both to publicly denounce these faults and to put our shoulders—however small in relation to the enormity of the task—to the wheel of repentance and repair, of healing and restitution and, ultimately, of hope. As has been said, “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.” And has also been said, that arc doesn’t bend on its own. Bending it has consequences for those of us on the Jesus Road, and we do so in the company of people of other faiths and conscience.

What, then, is the stronghold to which the prophet Zechariah calls? And is the hope we profess (and call others to) simply another form bondage, an alternative form master-slave relations? Is hope nothing more than “a tease designed to keep us from accepting reality,” as Violet Crawly, played by Maggie Smith, said in an episode of “Downton Abbey”?

No. No. No. No. No And no.

We are prisoners of hope because are head-over-heels in love with the promise of mountains being humbled and low places raised. Of nourishment appearing as manna in the desert and water flowing from sheer rock. Of the day when lions and lambs lie peacefully together. Of swords beaten into plowshares.

We are prisoners only in the sense that our minds are being decolonized—literally freed from its bondage to death—which is a modern way of saying what the Apostle Paul said when he called for the “righting of our minds,” righting in the sense of recognizing a horizon beyond the prevailing dogma that might makes right, that the strong take what they can, the weak suffer what they must. Of the day when the poor will have plenty to eat, the powerful dethroned, the rich sent away, the land itself restored to its ecological prime.

There are many, many beautiful things about our land and its people. Of the ugliest is what is currently referred to as Christian Nationalism.

Is our republic on life-support? Maybe. I’m not sure. There are a number of reasons to think the fever now gripping our nation is decreasing. But fevers can create long term damage. It will be a while before we can make any reliable predictions.

And so we pray, “Blessed One, on this dramatic date of commemoration, help us to distinguish between the beautiful and the abominable—and be ready for the consequences—as we discern the times in which we live.”

Amen.

* James Baldwin in “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation,” The Fire Next Time

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Benediction. Hear this benediction from the closing remarks of Douglass’ speech: “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. ‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened,’ and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains. . . .”

Postlude. “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

Bonus tracks

• “Let America Be America Again.” —Langston Hughes poem, spoken word by James Earl Jones

• “I Too Sing America.” —Langston Hughes poem, visual representation by William Sexton, spoken word by Denzel Washington

• Five young descendants of Frederick Douglass’ read excerpts (6:59) from his “What Is the Fourth of July to the Slave” speech.

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Ken Sehested

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

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

¶ And then there’s this: “Cato Study: Immigrants Reduced Deficits by $14.5 Trillion Since 1994”

¶ And also: “A robust body of research shows that welcoming immigrants into American communities not only does not increase crime, but can actually strengthen public safety. In fact, immigrants—including undocumented immigrants—are less likely to commit crimes than the U.S.-born. This is true at the national, state, county, and neighborhood levels, and for both violent and non-violent crime.” —”Debunking the Myth of Immigrants and Crime”

¶ There is no shame. Vice President J.D. Vance confessed that he made up the story about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio (Trump later told the same lie) saying that if he had to lie to get media coverage, “then that’s what I’m going to do.” —NPR

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We live in a fretful land
A litany for worship regarding the plight of immigrants

Gracious One, who jealously guards the lives of those at every edge, we lift our heavy hearts to your Mercy. Corrosive leaders claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

We live in a fretful land, anxious over the ebbing away of privilege, fearful that strangers are stealing our birthright.

Loud, insistent voices demand a return to “the rule of law.”

Speak to us of the Rule of your law, the terms of your Reign. Incline our hearts to your command.

“Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.” All the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deut. 27:19)

All the people shall say, “Amen!”

—continue reading “We live in a fretful land”

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Songs about immigrants and refugees

I pulled together my list of favorite songs about immigrants and refugees, shared it with some friends, got additional titles, for this chart of 23 songs. —kls

• “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor,” Irving Berlin, using lyrics from Emma Lazarus’ poem, performed by The Zamir Chorale 

• “City of Immigrants,” Steve Earle

• “El Coyote,” Guy Clark

• “Matamoros Banks,” Bruce Springsteen

• “The House You Live In,” Gordon Lightfoot

• “Moving (Songs for Refugees),” Refugees Welcome

• “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” Woody Guthrie 

• “I Am a Stranger,” Ken Medema

• “The Refugee,” U2

• “Clandestino,” Manu Ahao  [English translation: “I come only with my punishment / There comes only my conviction / Running is my fate / In order to deceive the law / Lost in the heart / Of the great Babylon / They call me the Clandestine* / ’cause I don’t carry any identity papers.”

• “Todos Somos Ilegales (We Are All Illegals),” Residente, Tom Morello & Chad Smith

• “American Oxygen,” Rihanna 

• “Without a Face,” Rage Against the Machine 

• “Ice El Hielo,” La Santa Cecilia 

• “America,” Neil Diamond 

• “Immigration Man,” Crosby & Nash 

• “Immigrants,” Leslie Lee & Steve Gretz 

• “Look In Their Eyes,” David Crosby 

• “Refugee Immigrant Song,” Jack Warshaw 

• “Lady of the Harbor,” Brother Sun

• “Good Night, New York,” Nanci Griffith

• “Running (Refugee Song),” Gregory Porter, Common, Kenyon Harrold & Andrea Pizziconi

• “The Prayer of the Refugee,” Rise Against 

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Ken Sehested

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

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Among my most treasured photos is the one below, of me and my second born, Alayna (a few moons ago). Such a cherished face, with me beaming in recognition of such loveliness.

 

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“When there was no ear to hear /  You sang to me. . . / When there were no strings to play / You played to me. . . / When I had no wings to fly / You flew to me. . . / When there was no dream of mine / You dreamed of me.” —“Attics of My Life,” Grateful Dead 

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Almost as treasured is of Alayna’s first born, Jordan, helping me mow the grass. This one, too, is from a while back. Jordan recently turned 20. (Whose umbilical cord, along with his mother’s, I had the honor of cutting.)

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“Just the Two of Us.” —Will Smith

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And then there’s me and my Dad, circa 1952.

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“I’ve heard of God the son and God the father / I’m still looking for a God for the daughters.” —Little Big Town, “The Daughters” 

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For many, Father’s Day (like Mother’s Day) is poignant and filled with sweet recollections. But for more than a few, these observances are filled with mixed emotions and conflictive memories.

Which is why I never grow tired of rereading the posts my friend Courtney Walsh sends every year on these occasions, this one for dads’ day:

“As we head into this weekend: I am thinking of all of you who are not fathers but want to be, all of you who decided not to be fathers but feel society’s pressure, all of you who navigate the realities of being a stepfather or a former stepfather without a current connection to kids you cared for, all of you who have lost a child, all of you whose fathers have left this Earth, all of you whose fathers weren’t/aren’t who you needed them to be. This weekend may be tough for you. Please remember that you are loved and you are not alone.”

And, yes, it’s true: Some children remember their father’s eyes more with fear than delight. But today, let’s remember the fathers who bless.

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Recessional. “As my soul slides down to die. / How could I lose him? / What did I try? / Bit by bit, I’ve realized / That he was here with me; / I looked into my father’s eyes. / My father’s eyes. / I looked into my father’s eyes. / My father’s eyes.” —Eric Clapton, “My Father’s Eyes”

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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.

§  §  §

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 

#  #  #

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”  

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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 

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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 

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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).

§  §  §

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. 

§  §  §

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

§  §  §

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

#  #  #

 

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 

§  §  §

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.

§  §  §

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 

§  §  §

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.”

§  §  §

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. 

§  §  §

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)

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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.

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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.”

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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

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