Monday, March 2, 2026
Sunday, March 1, 2026
HOMILY: "Dance a Revolution"
AN INTERPRETATION OF PSALM 23
Thomas Merton
My Lord God
I have no idea where I am going.
I cannot see the road ahead of me
and I do not know for certain
where it will end.
Nor do I know myself,
and the fact that I think
I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe
that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope that I have that desire
in all that I am doing.
I hope I will never do anything
apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always.
Though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death,
I will not fear,
for you are ever with me,
and will never leave me
to face my perils alone.
A PRAYER FOR A REMEMBERED DEATH (for Ash Wednesday)
A prayer/psalm by the Rev. Micah Bucey (Judson Memorial Church/UCC in NYC)
I was hemming and hawing about my fears:
Will my body be safe?
Will my mind be safe?
Will my heart and my lungs be safe?
Should I make this choice?
Should I raise my voice?
Should I put my privilege and my life on the line?
And my sweet sister smiled and said,
“I once met a woman who shared that,
When her fear for her own life
Started to pull her back from actually living,
She stopped and said to herself,
‘I am already dead.’”
And my brain broke open.
I am already dead.
I am dust and I am stardust,
A fragile collection of glitter crumbs,
Ages-old, already honed by countless supernovas,
Who decided to come together and dance,
For a short, sacred time,
As one magical me-made shape.
My cells and my soul will move together
Until the moment they tear apart and drift off
To become another star, another shape,
Another fear-filled, already-dead, living thing.
So live.
You are already dead.
And every tiny, shiny particle
That makes up your parts
Knows how to dance a revolution,
Because they’ve done it all,
Endured it all,
And danced it all before.
You are new and you are infinite
And you are finite.
And that is freedom.
So move with the courage of
The supernovas who continue to shape this world.
You were born to die
Like the brave beings who have blazed before,
Who looked fear in the eye and said,
“I am already dead, so I’m gonna go out living.”
You are dust and you are stardust
And to both will you return.
So turn it out while you’re here,
Feel the fear,
But also feel the fire
That is not only burning you alive,
But burning you to life.
Sunday, March 1, 2026
The Second Sunday in Lent
Psalms New and Old
1.
Last weekend, during our celebration of Henry Smith’s life and spirit, one of Henry’s friends shared a lovely story about the two of them riding a bus across Cuba some years ago. Some of you were here to hear it. You could see in her eyes that this was a story she just had to tell. And she remembered the bump-bump-bumping of the old bus on the roughly paved Cuban roadway. And she remembered the two of them sharing a knowing look (she and Henry) as their bladders—bladders of a certain age, of course—registered each and every bump and quietly, but urgently, insisted on attention. And action.
And then Henry’s friend remembered how at last they prevailed on the bus driver to pull over for the two of them, in the Cuban countryside. And she remembered—with a certain gleam in her eye—the two of them dashing out into the grassy fields of Cuba to relieve themselves at last. She remembered their shared sense of relief and even joy. In the grassy, recently irrigated fields of Cuba. And then she might have said something like, “I’ll always remember Henry Smith as I knew him that day!” Glad and giddy. And we all laughed with her. A happy and healthy and Henry Smith kind of laugh.
And then, as fate would have it, or the liturgy that day, we read the 23rd Psalm – out loud. Together. It was in the program. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads beside still waters; he restores my soul.” Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the Holy Spirit does her magic and makes the old book new.
Because it struck me then that this beloved psalm isn’t a relic of somebody else’s faith, or a sober artifact of a distant time. It works because it captures so honestly the gratitude of a beleaguered soul. It works because it reflects soulful intimacy—discovered in faith, shared with friends, awakened in green pastures and beside still waters. We are created for communion. We are created for community. We wander away. We wander back. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads beside still waters; he restores my soul.”
And sometimes you need a bus driver to pull over on a bumpy Cuban highway. And a friend to run with. And in these ways, and so many more, God is with you, in the midst of the ordinary; in the swollen bladders of your old age; in the dried-out, grassy fields that welcome your need and your gratitude. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We have all that we need. We are enough.
For ever and ever, I’ll remember that image of Henry Smith, running into the fields and sauntering back to the bus happy and whole. Smiling at his friend.
2.
Now Thomas Merton comes to the old psalm in a very different way, of course. The poem that Katie’s read this morning is his 1960 interpretation. Out of his own midlife experience of the 23rd Psalm. And it seems he’s wrestling here with a sense of profound uncertainty and bewilderment. The kind of bewilderment that’s familiar, even unnerving, to most of us.
“My Lord God,” he begins, “I have no idea where I am going. I cannot see the road ahead of me, and I do not know for certain where it will end.” And while that’s raw and honest enough, it’s this next line that names what sometimes seems unnameable: “Nor do I know myself…” “Nor do I know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.” I mean, I know this is New England, but does somebody want to say, Amen? In the sixty years since this poem was written, it has given voice to a strange dis-ease so many have in the religious life. “Nor do I really know myself…” And its genius, I think, is in its ragged humility: We can love God with our whole hearts, and still despair for confirmation of God’s call in our spirits or God’s direction in our lives. We can desire God with our whole hearts, and still wonder if what we’re hearing is verifiable and true. “Nor do I really know myself…”
As you know, these forty days of Lent correspond to the forty days Jesus spends in the wilderness—just after his baptism and before he begins to build his movement of bread breakers and boundary busters and disciples. For forty days out there, Jesus fasts and prays, wonders and wanders around, rambles the grassy fields of his homeland and wrestles with his faith and its implications.
And so it ought to be in our own practice. Our Lenten journeys embrace reflection and discernment, and even confession and struggle in our spiritual lives and our walk with Jesus. We too can welcome uncertainty, and bewilderment, and even confusion along the way. In fact, it has to be so. Because there’s so much we don’t know. Because there’s so much that’s just not clear.
Isn’t it curious that Jesus goes fasting after his baptism. After he receives God’s blessing, God’s thrilling blessing, and the anointing of Spirit in the Jordan River, after he’s been named and claimed by Love, after all that, he goes out to the wilderness not to picnic, but to struggle. The blessing itself seems to insist on this, to provoke his own season of temptation and wonderment. Faith and doubt go hand in hand. For Jesus, yes; and for you and me too.
“Nor do I know myself,” says Thomas Merton in his psalm, “and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.” Christianity—at its very heart—insists on this kind of humility and openness. I don’t know. I need help knowing. And prayer then can bear our questions, and voice our vulnerabilities, and offer up our “not knowing.” That we might meet God in the wilderness. In the questions themselves.
3.
These lovely quilts around us—populating the pews this season, near enough that you can touch them: they remind us that there is also companionship in the wilderness, even warmth and tenderness in the wilderness as we wander. If we seek with our whole hearts. If we open up to the unknown. If we surrender to God’s grace.
I’m so grateful to our Liturgical Arts Team for these quilts and for their vision of a Lenten journey that is both demanding and comforting, a spiritual practice that welcomes temptation, but relies on God’s friendship in the midst of our doubting and struggling. The wilderness is indeed a landscape of bewilderment, sometimes even confession, and often temptation. But each one of these quilts is like a prayer stitched in real time, a promise of divine companionship and care. Each one, an expression of another’s creativity, an unseen friend’s devotion.
So reach out while you’re here these next few weeks, and touch one. Know that God’s grace is waiting for you. In the wilderness. In whatever questions you’re asking these days. And surrender to it. To that grace and peace. Thomas Merton says, “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.” Let that be your prayer.
4.
When I first read Micah Bucey’s prayer—mind you, this one was written just two weeks ago—my brain broke open. OK. That’s a line I’ve lifted from the poem. But I think you know what I mean. Micah’s a UCC pastor, and obviously a poet, who lives in New York City and serves a wildly creative congregation in Manhattan. And they're committed to reclaiming the psalms for contemporary worship and 21st century struggle. And they spend a good bit of time writing their own. Expressions of raw wonder. Or piercing lamentation. Or tender offerings of human gratitude. Micah’s prolific. And they've reminded me that the biblical tradition isn’t a closed or limited one: but that we join that tradition, we participate in it, as we write our own psalms and offer up our own prayers and live into the mysteries of faith together.
And in this psalm, the one we’ve read this morning, Micah takes my breath away. They remind me, they remind us that we can and we must live fully and bravely and joyfully in the very crux of contradiction and paradox. This is both the Lenten journey and Easter’s great mystery.
I mean, listen to this:
“Because every tiny, shiny particle / that makes up our parts / knows how to dance a revolution.” I mean, did anyone out there need good news when you showed up for church today? Faith means knowing in the marrow of your bones that you are created for life, for communion, for freedom. “Because every tiny, shiny particle / that makes up your parts / knows how to dance a revolution.” That one line is the gospel of Jesus Christ. No doubt. The gospel of Jesus Christ.
You do not have to know everything to dance. You do not have to have it all figured out to dance. If you’ve made a mistake or two along the way—even a great, big, nasty one—you can still dance. You’re made to dance. If you’re overwhelmed by the world’s bad news, the sad news, the wars and rumors of war that jump from our screens every day—you can still dance. You’re made to dance. “Because every tiny, shiny particle / that makes up your parts / knows how to dance a revolution.”
So embrace the mystery of it all. Wander knowingly in the wilderness for as long as it takes. Confess all the things you wish you knew, but don’t. Revel in uncertainty. Let this be your Lenten practice. And write a poem, write a psalm about it, if you like. But by all means, dance. By all means, dance. Because you know how.
Amen and Ashe.
Psalms New and Old
1.
Last weekend, during our celebration of Henry Smith’s life and spirit, one of Henry’s friends shared a lovely story about the two of them riding a bus across Cuba some years ago. Some of you were here to hear it. You could see in her eyes that this was a story she just had to tell. And she remembered the bump-bump-bumping of the old bus on the roughly paved Cuban roadway. And she remembered the two of them sharing a knowing look (she and Henry) as their bladders—bladders of a certain age, of course—registered each and every bump and quietly, but urgently, insisted on attention. And action.
And then Henry’s friend remembered how at last they prevailed on the bus driver to pull over for the two of them, in the Cuban countryside. And she remembered—with a certain gleam in her eye—the two of them dashing out into the grassy fields of Cuba to relieve themselves at last. She remembered their shared sense of relief and even joy. In the grassy, recently irrigated fields of Cuba. And then she might have said something like, “I’ll always remember Henry Smith as I knew him that day!” Glad and giddy. And we all laughed with her. A happy and healthy and Henry Smith kind of laugh.
And then, as fate would have it, or the liturgy that day, we read the 23rd Psalm – out loud. Together. It was in the program. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads beside still waters; he restores my soul.” Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the Holy Spirit does her magic and makes the old book new.
Because it struck me then that this beloved psalm isn’t a relic of somebody else’s faith, or a sober artifact of a distant time. It works because it captures so honestly the gratitude of a beleaguered soul. It works because it reflects soulful intimacy—discovered in faith, shared with friends, awakened in green pastures and beside still waters. We are created for communion. We are created for community. We wander away. We wander back. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads beside still waters; he restores my soul.”
And sometimes you need a bus driver to pull over on a bumpy Cuban highway. And a friend to run with. And in these ways, and so many more, God is with you, in the midst of the ordinary; in the swollen bladders of your old age; in the dried-out, grassy fields that welcome your need and your gratitude. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We have all that we need. We are enough.
For ever and ever, I’ll remember that image of Henry Smith, running into the fields and sauntering back to the bus happy and whole. Smiling at his friend.
2.
Now Thomas Merton comes to the old psalm in a very different way, of course. The poem that Katie’s read this morning is his 1960 interpretation. Out of his own midlife experience of the 23rd Psalm. And it seems he’s wrestling here with a sense of profound uncertainty and bewilderment. The kind of bewilderment that’s familiar, even unnerving, to most of us.
“My Lord God,” he begins, “I have no idea where I am going. I cannot see the road ahead of me, and I do not know for certain where it will end.” And while that’s raw and honest enough, it’s this next line that names what sometimes seems unnameable: “Nor do I know myself…” “Nor do I know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.” I mean, I know this is New England, but does somebody want to say, Amen? In the sixty years since this poem was written, it has given voice to a strange dis-ease so many have in the religious life. “Nor do I really know myself…” And its genius, I think, is in its ragged humility: We can love God with our whole hearts, and still despair for confirmation of God’s call in our spirits or God’s direction in our lives. We can desire God with our whole hearts, and still wonder if what we’re hearing is verifiable and true. “Nor do I really know myself…”
As you know, these forty days of Lent correspond to the forty days Jesus spends in the wilderness—just after his baptism and before he begins to build his movement of bread breakers and boundary busters and disciples. For forty days out there, Jesus fasts and prays, wonders and wanders around, rambles the grassy fields of his homeland and wrestles with his faith and its implications.
And so it ought to be in our own practice. Our Lenten journeys embrace reflection and discernment, and even confession and struggle in our spiritual lives and our walk with Jesus. We too can welcome uncertainty, and bewilderment, and even confusion along the way. In fact, it has to be so. Because there’s so much we don’t know. Because there’s so much that’s just not clear.
Isn’t it curious that Jesus goes fasting after his baptism. After he receives God’s blessing, God’s thrilling blessing, and the anointing of Spirit in the Jordan River, after he’s been named and claimed by Love, after all that, he goes out to the wilderness not to picnic, but to struggle. The blessing itself seems to insist on this, to provoke his own season of temptation and wonderment. Faith and doubt go hand in hand. For Jesus, yes; and for you and me too.
“Nor do I know myself,” says Thomas Merton in his psalm, “and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.” Christianity—at its very heart—insists on this kind of humility and openness. I don’t know. I need help knowing. And prayer then can bear our questions, and voice our vulnerabilities, and offer up our “not knowing.” That we might meet God in the wilderness. In the questions themselves.
3.
These lovely quilts around us—populating the pews this season, near enough that you can touch them: they remind us that there is also companionship in the wilderness, even warmth and tenderness in the wilderness as we wander. If we seek with our whole hearts. If we open up to the unknown. If we surrender to God’s grace.
I’m so grateful to our Liturgical Arts Team for these quilts and for their vision of a Lenten journey that is both demanding and comforting, a spiritual practice that welcomes temptation, but relies on God’s friendship in the midst of our doubting and struggling. The wilderness is indeed a landscape of bewilderment, sometimes even confession, and often temptation. But each one of these quilts is like a prayer stitched in real time, a promise of divine companionship and care. Each one, an expression of another’s creativity, an unseen friend’s devotion.
So reach out while you’re here these next few weeks, and touch one. Know that God’s grace is waiting for you. In the wilderness. In whatever questions you’re asking these days. And surrender to it. To that grace and peace. Thomas Merton says, “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.” Let that be your prayer.
4.
When I first read Micah Bucey’s prayer—mind you, this one was written just two weeks ago—my brain broke open. OK. That’s a line I’ve lifted from the poem. But I think you know what I mean. Micah’s a UCC pastor, and obviously a poet, who lives in New York City and serves a wildly creative congregation in Manhattan. And they're committed to reclaiming the psalms for contemporary worship and 21st century struggle. And they spend a good bit of time writing their own. Expressions of raw wonder. Or piercing lamentation. Or tender offerings of human gratitude. Micah’s prolific. And they've reminded me that the biblical tradition isn’t a closed or limited one: but that we join that tradition, we participate in it, as we write our own psalms and offer up our own prayers and live into the mysteries of faith together.
And in this psalm, the one we’ve read this morning, Micah takes my breath away. They remind me, they remind us that we can and we must live fully and bravely and joyfully in the very crux of contradiction and paradox. This is both the Lenten journey and Easter’s great mystery.
I mean, listen to this:
I am already dead.Try that verse out on your friends! “What did you talk about in church today?”
I am dust and I am stardust.
A fragile collection of glitter crumbs,
Ages-old, already honed by countless supernovas,
Who decided to come together and dance,
For a short, sacred time,
As one magical, me-made shape.
I am already dead.That’s church? But, yes! This is both the Lenten journey and Easter’s great mystery. The great and bewildering paradox of human existence and faith itself. Yes, we are already dead. Yes, we were born to die. But that’s not all.
I am dust and I am stardust.
A fragile collection of glitter crumbs,
Ages-old, already honed by countless supernovas,
Who decided to come together and dance,
For a short, sacred time,
As one magical, me-made shape.
“Because every tiny, shiny particle / that makes up our parts / knows how to dance a revolution.” I mean, did anyone out there need good news when you showed up for church today? Faith means knowing in the marrow of your bones that you are created for life, for communion, for freedom. “Because every tiny, shiny particle / that makes up your parts / knows how to dance a revolution.” That one line is the gospel of Jesus Christ. No doubt. The gospel of Jesus Christ.
You do not have to know everything to dance. You do not have to have it all figured out to dance. If you’ve made a mistake or two along the way—even a great, big, nasty one—you can still dance. You’re made to dance. If you’re overwhelmed by the world’s bad news, the sad news, the wars and rumors of war that jump from our screens every day—you can still dance. You’re made to dance. “Because every tiny, shiny particle / that makes up your parts / knows how to dance a revolution.”
So embrace the mystery of it all. Wander knowingly in the wilderness for as long as it takes. Confess all the things you wish you knew, but don’t. Revel in uncertainty. Let this be your Lenten practice. And write a poem, write a psalm about it, if you like. But by all means, dance. By all means, dance. Because you know how.
Amen and Ashe.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Sunday, February 15, 2026
HOMILY: "Christ Disheveled in a Blue Bathrobe"
Sunday, February 15, 2026
1.
I’m thinking this Transfiguration Sunday of a picture I saw this week—I think it was published in a Minneapolis paper—of a rather disheveled woman in an ordinary aqua blue bathrobe; and she’s using her phone to film ICE agents in the street, early one morning, as they aggressively detain immigrant neighbors and force them into unmarked vans. And it’s probably 5 degrees outside.
I imagine she’s been sitting at her breakfast table four or five floors up, enjoying a perfect cup of dark roast coffee with a warm English muffin, and closing her eyes with gratitude for the simplicity of a day to herself. And I imagine she’s been listening to a little music in the background, maybe a little morning jazz on her favorite radio station. Something easy and sweet.
But then her phone buzzes, a notice comes in on a Signal channel, and she dashes four flights down, into the street, without wasting even a moment to get dressed. ICE agents masked up and wound up. Whole families traumatized. And the robed woman shows up for her neighbors exactly as she is, precisely as she is, human and heartbroken, her whole self. In her aqua blue bathrobe. Because this moment in our history is not about heroism or saviorism or any of that; it’s about showing up. As we are. As she is. Just showing up. For our neighbors.
The irrepressible Alan Watts once said: “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” And it may well be that this is the message, the invitation, even the gospel this Transfiguration Sunday. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” She is something like an icon. The woman in her bathrobe. Without brushing the hair from her eyes. Leaving the radio on. Down four flights and into the street. Her phone ready to roll. Showing up for her neighbors.
And I’m reminded, then, of these lines in Beverly Tatum’s psalm:
And what does God’s Love require of us?
Throughout the ages it is the same:
to act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with our God.
Let us listen and follow directions.
Let our actions be our song of praise.
Isn’t that the line for 2026? “Let our actions be our song of praise.”
2.
We might say that Transfiguration Sunday is something of a “liminal” moment in liturgical time. Which is to say it’s not yet Lent; that begins on Wednesday, this week, with the tracing of ashes and dust into our skin and skulls. Not Lent, but not Epiphany either. In liturgical time, we’re between seasons, off of one well-worn path, but not yet onto the other. And that’s what liminality is, right? A space where old paths no longer track, and new trails have yet to reveal themselves. A longtime relationship unravels. Graduation beckons. A partner dies. A new calling arrives. Liminal seasons. And in these liminal seasons, we wander a little, or even a lot. We have to. Once trusted truths seem less certain. Trails once loved don’t work. The world seems both bigger and stranger.
I imagine this is something our friends in Minneapolis and Portland have lived with this past month. The world seeming both bigger and stranger. Their streets seeming dangerous and cruel, and yet, and yet, holy ground just the same. Holy ground. Where old paths no longer work, and new trails have yet to reveal themselves.
I don’t know why, exactly, but all those icicles out there, all those spikey, dripping icicles are signs to me of this liminality, this betweenness, today; not yet warming into spring, but not frigid, freezing winter either. Symbols of transformation, spiritual and communal and ecological. Change is in the air, and it’s in our bodies, and it’s in our communities, and it’s even in our eaves and gutters. And where all this change is going is anybody’s guess. But ambiguity need not be the enemy of faith; if we’re prayerful about it.
You do not have to be a literalist to find that Jesus and the stories of his life awaken in you a spirit of courage that defies complacency and despair. You do not have to be a fundamentalist to find that Jesus and the traditions around his story inspire practices that make your heart tender for service and resistance. And you do not have to be a zealot to find that Jesus walks with you, a source of wisdom in seasons of unrest, a companion and friend along roads once deserted.
Not the fundamentalist version of Jesus, the Jesus who aims to supersede all other teachers and saviors; and not the orthodox version of Jesus, the Jesus who threatens the world with judgment lest we wander from his side.
No, Jesus matters, because in his company we awaken to awe and wonder at the heart of biblical faith. Jesus matters, because in his company we awaken to the holy gifts discovered in neighborliness and solidarity. Jesus matters, because in his company we find mercy in transgressing boundaries and crossing borders and embracing God’s call to unity and communion. We break the rules that need to be broken, as he does, in order to reveal God’s love in human form and ordinary time.
Sunday of the Transfiguration
1.
I’m thinking this Transfiguration Sunday of a picture I saw this week—I think it was published in a Minneapolis paper—of a rather disheveled woman in an ordinary aqua blue bathrobe; and she’s using her phone to film ICE agents in the street, early one morning, as they aggressively detain immigrant neighbors and force them into unmarked vans. And it’s probably 5 degrees outside.
I imagine she’s been sitting at her breakfast table four or five floors up, enjoying a perfect cup of dark roast coffee with a warm English muffin, and closing her eyes with gratitude for the simplicity of a day to herself. And I imagine she’s been listening to a little music in the background, maybe a little morning jazz on her favorite radio station. Something easy and sweet.
 |
| Photo by Leila Navidi, Minnesota Star Tribune |
But then her phone buzzes, a notice comes in on a Signal channel, and she dashes four flights down, into the street, without wasting even a moment to get dressed. ICE agents masked up and wound up. Whole families traumatized. And the robed woman shows up for her neighbors exactly as she is, precisely as she is, human and heartbroken, her whole self. In her aqua blue bathrobe. Because this moment in our history is not about heroism or saviorism or any of that; it’s about showing up. As we are. As she is. Just showing up. For our neighbors.
The irrepressible Alan Watts once said: “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” And it may well be that this is the message, the invitation, even the gospel this Transfiguration Sunday. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” She is something like an icon. The woman in her bathrobe. Without brushing the hair from her eyes. Leaving the radio on. Down four flights and into the street. Her phone ready to roll. Showing up for her neighbors.
And I’m reminded, then, of these lines in Beverly Tatum’s psalm:
And what does God’s Love require of us?
Throughout the ages it is the same:
to act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with our God.
Let us listen and follow directions.
Let our actions be our song of praise.
Isn’t that the line for 2026? “Let our actions be our song of praise.”
2.
We might say that Transfiguration Sunday is something of a “liminal” moment in liturgical time. Which is to say it’s not yet Lent; that begins on Wednesday, this week, with the tracing of ashes and dust into our skin and skulls. Not Lent, but not Epiphany either. In liturgical time, we’re between seasons, off of one well-worn path, but not yet onto the other. And that’s what liminality is, right? A space where old paths no longer track, and new trails have yet to reveal themselves. A longtime relationship unravels. Graduation beckons. A partner dies. A new calling arrives. Liminal seasons. And in these liminal seasons, we wander a little, or even a lot. We have to. Once trusted truths seem less certain. Trails once loved don’t work. The world seems both bigger and stranger.
I imagine this is something our friends in Minneapolis and Portland have lived with this past month. The world seeming both bigger and stranger. Their streets seeming dangerous and cruel, and yet, and yet, holy ground just the same. Holy ground. Where old paths no longer work, and new trails have yet to reveal themselves.
I don’t know why, exactly, but all those icicles out there, all those spikey, dripping icicles are signs to me of this liminality, this betweenness, today; not yet warming into spring, but not frigid, freezing winter either. Symbols of transformation, spiritual and communal and ecological. Change is in the air, and it’s in our bodies, and it’s in our communities, and it’s even in our eaves and gutters. And where all this change is going is anybody’s guess. But ambiguity need not be the enemy of faith; if we’re prayerful about it.
There are layers and layers of meaning and mystery in the story of Jesus’ transfiguration on that mountain in the countryside. The storyteller wants us to see Jesus, to imagine Jesus, to understand Jesus in the great tradition of the Hebrew prophets, prophets like Moses and Elijah. Like Moses and Elijah, Jesus comes to make a claim for God’s universal love, for God’s justice and mercy. And like Moses and Elijah, Jesus will insist on covenants of compassion and kindness. People of faith showing up.
And then, did you notice how the storyteller playfully mocks Peter’s fascination with permanence? Peter’s passion for memorializing this moment in sanctuaries that mark it forever as more precious, even more holy than others? It’s to be expected. Of course Peter wants to build a retreat, or a temple or maybe even a spa on that mountain. It’s a pretty cool spot.
But of course, Jesus quickly insists that they retrace their steps, that the summit is not their home, that the work of love awaits in the valleys and villages below. And as the disciples follow him down, stepping with him into the lives and heartache of human communities there, the disciples begin to wonder aloud and discuss among themselves what this resurrection business is really all about. When he says he will rise from the dead, what in the world is he meaning to say? It’s not all that obvious.
And again, we’re in a liminal space, a liminal season. A season for conversation and discussion, a season for bewilderment and wonder. Only when we let go sometimes, only when we peel away old habits and certainties, does grace reveal herself anew. Ambiguity is hardly the enemy of faith; it can indeed be faith’s good friend. If we’re prayerful about it.
3.
The most compelling message in all this may be hidden in plain sight. And that’s simply this: that Jesus matters. Jesus matters.
And then, did you notice how the storyteller playfully mocks Peter’s fascination with permanence? Peter’s passion for memorializing this moment in sanctuaries that mark it forever as more precious, even more holy than others? It’s to be expected. Of course Peter wants to build a retreat, or a temple or maybe even a spa on that mountain. It’s a pretty cool spot.
But of course, Jesus quickly insists that they retrace their steps, that the summit is not their home, that the work of love awaits in the valleys and villages below. And as the disciples follow him down, stepping with him into the lives and heartache of human communities there, the disciples begin to wonder aloud and discuss among themselves what this resurrection business is really all about. When he says he will rise from the dead, what in the world is he meaning to say? It’s not all that obvious.
And again, we’re in a liminal space, a liminal season. A season for conversation and discussion, a season for bewilderment and wonder. Only when we let go sometimes, only when we peel away old habits and certainties, does grace reveal herself anew. Ambiguity is hardly the enemy of faith; it can indeed be faith’s good friend. If we’re prayerful about it.
3.
The most compelling message in all this may be hidden in plain sight. And that’s simply this: that Jesus matters. Jesus matters.
Not the fundamentalist version of Jesus, the Jesus who aims to supersede all other teachers and saviors; and not the orthodox version of Jesus, the Jesus who threatens the world with judgment lest we wander from his side.
No, Jesus matters, because in his company we awaken to awe and wonder at the heart of biblical faith. Jesus matters, because in his company we awaken to the holy gifts discovered in neighborliness and solidarity. Jesus matters, because in his company we find mercy in transgressing boundaries and crossing borders and embracing God’s call to unity and communion. We break the rules that need to be broken, as he does, in order to reveal God’s love in human form and ordinary time.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Monday, February 9, 2026
HOMILY: "Hold On, Hold On"
Sunday, February 8, 2026
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 5:1-12 (The Beatitudes)
1.
I mentioned last Sunday that I was recently introduced to a wonderful book by Rob Hopkins, a British pioneer in permaculture and sustainability. And it’s the book’s title that fluttered in my heart for days after: “How to Fall in Love with the Future.” “How to Fall in Love with the Future.”
I confess that I then had to look up permaculture—which (as you probably know) is a regenerative design system, based on observing natural ecosystems, to create sustainable, self-sufficient human habitats. A world made whole and holy. By care and partnership within watersheds and localities. And I was thrilled then to discover that, right here on the Seacoast, there is a thriving network of permaculture farmers, practitioners and visionaries—who are showing us how, right here in frosty New England, to make it happen. One of these is my friend Amy Antonucci with whom I was arrested at Congressman Pappas’ office in Dover two years ago. A brave, nonviolent and peace-loving perma-culturalist. Amy might even say that permaculture is something like her religion these days. And I wouldn’t talk her out of that.
But back to that title, to Rob Hopkins’ book: “How to Fall in Love with the Future.” The idea is that we’re living in an era of constant and deliberate dread. But human communities are capable, truly capable, of overcoming dread with imagination, and overwhelming anxiety with creativity and compassion. Why not fall in love with the future? See where that takes us? Step bravely into a world worthy of the two-year-olds among us?
Of course, authoritarian bosses sow fear and dread into the ground of our common life: fear of scarcity and financial ruin; fear of the colored immigrant coming for our jobs; fear of the religion we don’t understand; and dread around the waterfall of bad news that hits our screens, souls and spirits every morning. It’s this dread that fuels a fascist agenda of wealth consolidation, resource extraction and ecocide in the name of security and nationalism. From Ukraine to Minneapolis. From Gaza to the front pages of our papers. Dread drives the conversation. But it doesn’t have to be so, says Rob Hopkins. Within us, within all of us—is a river of wisdom wide enough and deep enough to reveal a future of shared prosperity, mutual blessing and wonder.
And Jesus loves a good river. But this morning he climbs a mountain, probably his favorite mountain, trails of childhood wonder, views of the lake where he learned to swim and then fish; and he climbs this dear and beloved mountain to meet this crippling dread head on and offer us a practice, a future we can love. A practice, a future we can embrace. A practice, a future we need not fear—but must nurture in daily choices and cultivate in backyard gardens and indeed claim as our dear and precious human birthright. To be clear: that practice is fully articulated in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount (which we find in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew). What we read this morning—these Beatitudes—is just the preface, just his introduction. But it’s a pretty fair place to start. The first steps on a trail that leads perhaps to a future we can love. And build together.
2.
For starters, we fall in love with the future when we are honest with our pain, our grief, our loss. And this runs against the cultural grain in a lot of ways, even mainstream spiritual memes that prioritize confidence and positivity. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says. “Blessed are those who mourn,” he says. For theirs is the kin-dom; for they will be comforted. The biblical tradition here, the practice, is sometimes known as lamentation. Lamentation. And it’s absolutely critical to distinguish between lamentation and dread. Lamentation invites God into the heart of our heartbreak. Lamentation dares even to challenge or question God; but calls on God just the same. Dread—on the other hand—presupposes God’s indifference; and so often yields to despair.
It’s stunning, really, to watch what’s happening in Minneapolis these past several weeks: how the intensity of that community’s grief is now vocalized in community song circles and vibrant, colorful, loving protests. With so many neighbors seized from schools and playgrounds; and advocates killed in their streets—Minnesotans are leaning into lamentation, honest and raw lamentation; but not dread or anything like despair.
Which is not to say that their singing erases their pain, or that their efforts cancel so many excruciating losses—but a community of the brokenhearted sings a song of determination and love; a community of the angry organizes creatively, trains itself boldly, moves together toward a future they can taste now. Lamentation. Lamentation. God is in the midst of it all. Attentive to their pain, committed to their dream of freedom and justice for all. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says. “Blessed are those who mourn,” he says. For theirs is the kin-dom; for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:1-12 (The Beatitudes)
1.
I mentioned last Sunday that I was recently introduced to a wonderful book by Rob Hopkins, a British pioneer in permaculture and sustainability. And it’s the book’s title that fluttered in my heart for days after: “How to Fall in Love with the Future.” “How to Fall in Love with the Future.”
 |
| UNH Marchers with Church Friends |
I confess that I then had to look up permaculture—which (as you probably know) is a regenerative design system, based on observing natural ecosystems, to create sustainable, self-sufficient human habitats. A world made whole and holy. By care and partnership within watersheds and localities. And I was thrilled then to discover that, right here on the Seacoast, there is a thriving network of permaculture farmers, practitioners and visionaries—who are showing us how, right here in frosty New England, to make it happen. One of these is my friend Amy Antonucci with whom I was arrested at Congressman Pappas’ office in Dover two years ago. A brave, nonviolent and peace-loving perma-culturalist. Amy might even say that permaculture is something like her religion these days. And I wouldn’t talk her out of that.
But back to that title, to Rob Hopkins’ book: “How to Fall in Love with the Future.” The idea is that we’re living in an era of constant and deliberate dread. But human communities are capable, truly capable, of overcoming dread with imagination, and overwhelming anxiety with creativity and compassion. Why not fall in love with the future? See where that takes us? Step bravely into a world worthy of the two-year-olds among us?
Of course, authoritarian bosses sow fear and dread into the ground of our common life: fear of scarcity and financial ruin; fear of the colored immigrant coming for our jobs; fear of the religion we don’t understand; and dread around the waterfall of bad news that hits our screens, souls and spirits every morning. It’s this dread that fuels a fascist agenda of wealth consolidation, resource extraction and ecocide in the name of security and nationalism. From Ukraine to Minneapolis. From Gaza to the front pages of our papers. Dread drives the conversation. But it doesn’t have to be so, says Rob Hopkins. Within us, within all of us—is a river of wisdom wide enough and deep enough to reveal a future of shared prosperity, mutual blessing and wonder.
And Jesus loves a good river. But this morning he climbs a mountain, probably his favorite mountain, trails of childhood wonder, views of the lake where he learned to swim and then fish; and he climbs this dear and beloved mountain to meet this crippling dread head on and offer us a practice, a future we can love. A practice, a future we can embrace. A practice, a future we need not fear—but must nurture in daily choices and cultivate in backyard gardens and indeed claim as our dear and precious human birthright. To be clear: that practice is fully articulated in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount (which we find in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew). What we read this morning—these Beatitudes—is just the preface, just his introduction. But it’s a pretty fair place to start. The first steps on a trail that leads perhaps to a future we can love. And build together.
2.
For starters, we fall in love with the future when we are honest with our pain, our grief, our loss. And this runs against the cultural grain in a lot of ways, even mainstream spiritual memes that prioritize confidence and positivity. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says. “Blessed are those who mourn,” he says. For theirs is the kin-dom; for they will be comforted. The biblical tradition here, the practice, is sometimes known as lamentation. Lamentation. And it’s absolutely critical to distinguish between lamentation and dread. Lamentation invites God into the heart of our heartbreak. Lamentation dares even to challenge or question God; but calls on God just the same. Dread—on the other hand—presupposes God’s indifference; and so often yields to despair.
It’s stunning, really, to watch what’s happening in Minneapolis these past several weeks: how the intensity of that community’s grief is now vocalized in community song circles and vibrant, colorful, loving protests. With so many neighbors seized from schools and playgrounds; and advocates killed in their streets—Minnesotans are leaning into lamentation, honest and raw lamentation; but not dread or anything like despair.
Which is not to say that their singing erases their pain, or that their efforts cancel so many excruciating losses—but a community of the brokenhearted sings a song of determination and love; a community of the angry organizes creatively, trains itself boldly, moves together toward a future they can taste now. Lamentation. Lamentation. God is in the midst of it all. Attentive to their pain, committed to their dream of freedom and justice for all. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says. “Blessed are those who mourn,” he says. For theirs is the kin-dom; for they will be comforted.
Monday, February 2, 2026
Saturday, January 31, 2026
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