ON POWER: "At the Doorstep of the Military Industrial Machine"

My Remarks at the Sig Sauer Protest:

Saturday, October 10, 2026

Newington, NH

I wanted very much to be with you all today, but Covid had other plans for my weekend. I wanted to add my voice to yours and demand that Sig Sauer recognize its complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians. That genocide hasn’t happened and couldn’t continue without Sig Sauer’s weapons and others like them. And it hasn’t happened and couldn’t continue without our American blessing and financial backing. If Sig Sauer’s complicit, we’re all complicit. And you’re all here today to change that. To say no more!

With Sig Sauer’s grotesque machinery, and this technology is indeed demonic and grotesque, Israel continues to terrorize Palestinians of all ages, obliterate whole families, and enact a rightwing vision of a land cleared of Palestinians once and for all. My Palestinian friends in the West Bank say that Israel aims to crush their spirits: day by day, drone by drone, death by death. Their resistance is a sign of grace.  A reminder of the steadfast spirit of life itself.

As a Christian I believe in human kindness (of course, I do) and I preach loving service as our purpose together on this planet. But what you’re doing today, my friends, takes my faith to another level, and challenges my commitment to take another step forward. A consequential step forward. What you’ve done in confronting Sig Sauer this year, and now together in their neighborhood today, is powerful work. It’s powerful work. And it’s not the power of the fist or the gun. And it’s not the power of hatred and contempt. And it’s most certainly not the power of devastating drones outfitted with AI-operated machine guns. What you’re doing today manifests in public the power of a people committed; the power of a people committed to collective liberation and a just peace for all; and the power of many kinds of people doing the hard work of organizing, and strategizing, showing up together, and making sacrifices of time and energy for a future worthy of our children and all children. You aren’t just talking about peace, you’re making peace today. You aren’t just writing another wonderful op ed today. You’re putting your bodies where your convictions stand. Together. Nonviolently. As one people. United.

You know, as I do, that this is just one day, one leg on a much longer journey. You know that. But, my friends, we will bring the American war machine to an end by building this kind of power together. Right here in tiny New Hampshire. Right here at the polished doorstep of Sig Sauer. Wherever corporations and governments have sold their souls for profit. Wherever CEOs and Boards of Directors have betrayed their obligation to children and life and the common good. We will bring the horrific Israeli genocide to an end by continuing the invest in relationships, like those you’re looking at right here; by continuing to invest in hard work, like the work that brings us to this place today. We will bring this genocide to an end by continuing to invest in nonviolent traditions that we know work. And we will do it all together. Not as single, heroic individuals. But in a movement of kindness and love AND power. Yes, power.

So my little congregation in Durham stands with you today; some of us are here in the flesh, others are with you in spirit. But our entire congregation has committed itself to ending apartheid in Israel, joining efforts to boycott Sig Sauer and any other company profiting from death, and destruction, and genocide. You can count on us. And I know we’re counting on you.

Because we are not powerless. Not by a long shot. We have only to build our power, one day a time, one conversation at time, one disciplined campaign at a time, one called-out company at a time. We have only to watch and learn and use our God-given power to transform violence into new life, to turn our own country from a madhouse of war into a garden of justice. We have only to show up again and again and again for every Palestinian and every Israeli who yearns for the only freedom that really matters. The freedom that is ours together.

God bless you, all!

The Rev. David Grishaw-Jones
Pastor, Community Church of Durham, NH

United Church of Christ

THOSE WHO MOURN: "Have Mercy"

On sabbatical last summer, I met Sister Anisa at Wi'am, as she participated in the women's program and worked with so many others to build beloved community and a powerful relational culture.  As she grieves now, for a daughter and granddaughter, I pray for her broken heart.  And I re-commit my energies to dismantling the violence and greed that perpetuates genocide day after day after day.

ONE GUN AT A TIME: "Guns to Gardens"

EVENT: Guns to Gardens Event

DATE:    Saturday, October 17, 2026

TIME:      9 am to 12 noon

PLACE: Community Church of Durham, 17 Main Street, Durham, NH 03824

“Guns to Gardens” in collaboration with the Community Church of Durham is providing an opportunity for Granite Staters to remove unwanted firearms from their homes without putting them back on the market.  Instead, these guns are transformed into garden tools and beautiful arts and crafts—objects more useful, and less harmful, to our community.

All are invited on Saturday, October 17, between 9 am and 12 pm.  You’re invited to bring unwanted, unloaded firearms in the rear of vehicle.  If you’re unsure whether the firearm is loaded, you’ll let our volunteer know.  Your identity will remain anonymous.  Trained volunteers will then dispose of your gun safely, using ATF guidelines.  Scrap metal and wood from dismantled firearms will be given to artists to be transformed into functional works of art and garden tools.  

Under state law, NH law enforcement is prohibited from destroying firearms which come into their possession.  Any firearm surrendered to police may only be used by the police, stored, or sold at public auction, thereby returning them to use in the community.

Guns to Gardens – NH provides an alternative.  Whether it’s a veteran disposing of a firearm they no longer want in the home, a new parent eager to protect children, a gun owner removing firearms from easy reach of friends in crisis, or a community member generally wary of escalating gun violence, previous participants have made it clear this is a valuable program for New Hampshire.

$25 gas gift cards will be offered to the first 30 participants.  For more, see: https://www.ccdurham.org/guns-to-gardens-10-17-26/ or https://www.nhcucc.org/mission-groups/guns-to-gardens; or contact the Rev. David Grishaw-Jones at the Community Church of Durham...DavidGJ@CCDurham.org.

A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE!

COALITION-BUILDING IS THE WAY: "Apartheid Free!"

OMER BARTOV on "Israel: What Went Wrong?"

We were deeply honored to host an event, organized by Not in My Name NH (a NH coalition of Jews against Genocide), featuring the scholar and historian Omer Bartov of Brown University.  With courage and clarity, he describes what we've all seen unfolding over the past many decades, and the particular way in which the US has facilitated Israel's devastating genocide in Gaza (and now, he adds, in the West Bank).  The time for sanctions, he says, is now or never!

HOMILY: "On Earth As in Heaven"

A Meditation for Creationtide

Sunday, September 13, 2026

John 4 (at Jacob's Well)

1.

Hidden in another peculiar conversation, embedded in another quirky bit of dialogue, is a question. This question.

Is there a wellspring within you, within you, that roils and rises within to awaken and arouse the life without end in your soul? The life without end in your soul? That’s the question today. At the heart of the gospel itself.

It’s an odd little moment between the two of them, the Jew and the Samaritan at the well; but it’s anything but superficial and cheap. And this question bounces between the two of them, and then across time and space to you and me. On this second Sunday in the Season of Creationtide. Is there a wellspring within you that stirs and sometimes even surges to arouse the life without end in your soul? And before you take even a moment to answer for yourself, allow me to be so bold, maybe even so brazen, as to answer for you. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Whether you think of yourself as liberal, radical, evangelical, progressive. Whether you’re an artist, an activist, an academic or a mystic. Yes. Yes. Yes. Whether you’re kicking off a new year in the classroom or shifting new responsibilities at work, whether you’re tackling a new ministry here at church or even reexamining every last priority in your life. Whether you’re preparing for a baptism, and a few of you are, or you’ve been a member of this church (or some church somewhere) for all of your life. The gospel does not equivocate. There is within you—as there is within every one of us here—that wellspring that stirs with sustenance and spirit, that calls out from the depths, to inspire and bless and awaken your truth. Which dances of course, spins and skips and dances, with all truth.

And this Jesus, then, the Jesus we find in the fourth gospel, embodies the promise. To take him seriously is to absorb the promise. To offer it shelter in your own soul. You are not created for boredom. You are not created for monotony or manipulation or abuse. Within you is this wellspring of grace, this wellspring of courage, this wellspring of desire. And you need never, never be thirsty.

2.

The wild thing in our story this morning is the way the two of them—Jesus and the Samaritan—tease this good news out of one another; the way the two of them, even playfully, identify the gifts, possibilities, and promises for one another. Living water. Quenched thirst. Life without end. There’s no doubt at all that Jesus is poking around in her spiritual life, in her community’s practice, inviting reflection around what truly nourishes, what quickens her spirit, what sustains her. That’s so clear here.

But isn’t it just as true that she does something similar for him: that she jousts with him verbally, that she plays a bit with metaphor and language, that she provokes in Jesus himself self-awareness and even divine vocation? So that he can say to her, eventually: “I offer water, I offer water that will become a wellspring within you…” And he gets there because she engages fully and from the heart in this conversation. It’s stunning, really. And theologically consequential. How the two of them discover that wellspring of god’s grace in one another—the wellspring that stirs with sustenance and spirit, that calls out from the depths, to inspire and bless and awaken their truths.

And isn’t it our experience that God comes so often in the guise of a stranger, a refugee with a dream, a woman with a bucket, and we’re challenged by something new in her story, or provoked to see things differently as we consider her point of view? This is indeed the great gift of koinonia, of our life together in the Body of Christ. That if we’re vulnerable in community, if we’re open to one another, if we risk hearing the stranger’s story and whatever it is that makes that story holy—God so often shakes loose in us a calling we’ve been missing, a calling that serves now as a kind of wakeup call for the kingdom of heaven, the kin-dom of God. On earth as in heaven.

I worked with a young couple years ago as they planned their wedding and worked out some tricky family dynamics along the way. She’s Palestinian from a big Arab American family in the Midwest; and he’s Jewish from a rowdy Jewish family in California. And their engagement had turned the tables, so to speak, on several of their dear aunts, uncles and cousins. On both sides. And their assumptions around identity and commitment. And one or two grievances around history and distrust. Big stuff, really, for any young couple to work through.

What I remember most vividly from our work together is the intention the two of them invested in bringing their beleaguered, befuddled families together, and the gratitude we discovered for one another as we worked these things through over several sessions. And they challenged me. They challenged me, in a whole bunch of ways, to set aside ideas that limited their imagination, biases that assumed irreconcilable differences and disappointment. And I heard in their voices a kind of resilience and even an innocence that changed me in the end: it transformed the way I understood the Palestinian-Israeli divide, and it changed the way I experienced my ministry with so many other couples in complicated moments.

Just last week, by the way, now twenty years later, the two of them sent me greetings from California on their twentieth wedding anniversary; and they thanked me, unnecessarily, I think, for the gifts and insights of our time together. And what was a gorgeous, international, multicultural wedding.

3.

And like that wedding twenty years ago, our story this morning is, in part, about crossing boundaries, clearly, and breaking customs, and recognizing in our differences themselves the wildest opportunities for theological discernment, spiritual awakening and human understanding. “I can’t believe that you, a Jew,” she says to him, “would associate with me, a Samaritan; much less ask me to give you a drink.” And there seems to be a kind of twinkle in her eye: am I right? As if she knows exactly what she’s doing. And the differences between the two of them reveal sacred space for curiosity, playfulness, metaphor and discovery. It’s everything the spiritual life can be.

Isn’t it always that way though? Doesn’t it work that way for you too? My friend Sean Rohlfing here reminds me every Sunday what singing hymns is really all about. My friends Pam Monroe and Bryn Burns open my heart, my imagination to the true meanings of marriage and covenant. And Ernie’s voice is Jesus’ voice now, Jesus in the here and now, saying: “Come, follow me.” Come, follow me. And in all of this, in the push and pull of life together, in the bearing of our griefs and blessing of our gifts, you and I taste that wellspring, that everlasting water rising, bubbling, even surging within. Slaking our thirst in a way no seltzer, no coke, no beer ever could.

But we have to be honest, right. This doesn’t mean, it certainly doesn’t mean that we have figured ourselves out. And it doesn’t mean we don’t get sick or really confused or even depressed sometimes. Because we do. But there is, within us, within you, just the same, a wellspring that ripples with grace and quickens your spirit and links you, connects you, joins you to the One Great Love that is your one true home. Like all the rest of us you are a mixed bag of doubts and despair; of guts, glory and grace; and all of that, all of you, is made, designed, fashioned in the image of God. You see, your brokenness is itself a sign of God’s presence in your life, a confirmation (if you will) of divine solidarity: that you too are perfectly imperfect; that you too are wounded and worthy; that you too are dust and DNA and blood and bone tossed together in a body that’s built to get old and weird. Go figure.

There’s this temptation, and I think you know what I’m talking about, to fall into the trap, or maybe the bad habit that says: Yes, but I’m the exception. Yes, all this wellspring business sounds good, poetic, even generous; but I’m the exception. I’m too broken to be included in the circle of grace. I’m too depressed to even understand what that means. My mistakes are too significant. My faith is inconsistent. I’m the exception. And to be honest, my friends, the Samaritan woman at the well has her own reasons to fall for this temptation: rules she’s broken, relationships she’s left behind, commandments she’s transgressed, and authoritarians she’s probably ticked off.

But this Jesus, this gospel will not exclude you, me, her, anyone from the cosmic dimensions of God’s grace, from the universal reach of God’s love, from the kin-dom that knows no beginning or end. “I offer water,” Jesus says, and he’s not kidding, “that will become a wellspring within you that gives everlasting life.” The temptation is to believe—even for a moment—that there are exceptions, that there are limits, that you or I might be that exception. For any number of flimsy but well-rehearsed reasons. You know the drill. But Jesus says: No way. Don’t fall for it. The way the world carves us up. The way its weariness exhausts us. Jesus says: Don’t fall for it. We’re all in this together. Let our circle be unbroken.

HOMILY: "Jesus in Creationtide"

Sunday, September 6, 2026
The First Sunday in Creationtide
John 3:1-17

1.

The question that Nicodemus asks, several times really, in today’s reading is so spot-on, I think, so fair in fact, that it seems a little flippant, or maybe whimsical, in the moment. “How can an adult,” he rightly wonders, aloud for all to hear. “How can an adult be born a second time?” And then, so that his point isn’t lost in translation: “I can’t go back into my mother’s womb to be born again!” There may even be something playful about all this, this witty banter between the two of them. Nicodemus and Jesus. And they’re into it.

Now I think we can assume Nicodemus understands that Jesus is working here in the realm of metaphor, poetry, philosophy. When Jesus says: “The truth of the matter is, unless one is born from above, one cannot see the kin-dom of God.” Of course, he is. And what we’re reading, then, what we’re privy to here in John’s gospel, is a conversation around interpretation and meaning and faith. And maybe readiness. Maybe readiness.

What would it mean, Nicodemus is asking himself, for me to trust this particular Teacher? This strange cat who’s turning water into wine at weddings, who’s flipping profitable tables in the temple market, who’s hanging out with hooligans and prostitutes in the name of God? What would it mean, he’s asking himself, for me to start all over again and engage Jesus’ particular path, Jesus’ wisdom and Jesus’ truth? Am I willing to surrender to this kind of newness, to this kind of metaphor, to the reshaping of my inner and outer life? And indeed, friends, these are the questions we ask this morning. Am I willing to surrender to this kind of newness? Am I ready?

Nicodemus has heard something, seen something in Jesus, that arouses his curiosity, awakens his imagination, excites him in some strange and consequential way. Maybe it’s Jesus’ capacity for trust in a power higher than himself. Maybe it’s his conscience, his unbounded compassion, his courage in crisis. Nicodemus has experienced it. Am I willing, he’s asking himself now, to surrender to it? To make it my own?

And that’s how, that’s why, the two of them—the Pharisee and the Rabbi—get into it around birth and rebirth, around faith and the kin-dom, and around the kind of Holy Spirit that blows where it wishes, and surges as it desires, and dances to its own sweet tune. So here they are. Chapter Three. Puzzling together over the newness of life with God. Questioning whether this kind of newness is even possible. What it might change in us. Where it might take us. And who it is—and this is maybe the biggest question of them all—who it is that speaks from the heart of this sweet, holy, windblown mystery. Who it is—this Jesus, this Rabbi, this poet—that speaks so fearlessly about rebirth and resurrection and everlasting life. 

Everlasting life? No wonder Nicodemus needs a minute.

2.

This text, of course, has been and continues to be all too smugly quoted and deployed, and for most of the wrong reasons. For God so loved the world, the King James version we all heard first: “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

The thing is, though, that Jesus resists—throughout John’s gospel—Jesus resists the simplicity and dogmatics that are so often foisted upon him. And what we’re working with here is metaphor, language, poetry. And it’s wonderfully complex and curious as metaphors so often are. So let’s clear all those dogmatics aside, for the morning at least, and dive into these deep, dark, wonderful waters. The third chapter of John. And let’s wonder about our own readiness: our own readiness for rebirth in the Spirit and new life in Christ; and what in God’s name this kind of newness means for you, me and the church.

Yes, God…so loved…the world. John 3:16. But in the realm of metaphor, yes, in the world of spirit and faith, words have to matter. Words have to matter. And particular words challenge old habits and suggest a new kind of consciousness. And the Greek here, friends, the ancient Greek word in 3:16 is ‘cosmos.’ World is simply too small. World is simply too familiar. World is too comfortable and maybe even too tribal. My world is what I know, where I’ve been, where I could plausibly go; it’s defined by the horizons of my experience, and maybe my species’ limitations.

“Yes,” Jesus says, “God so loved the COSMOS as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have full and everlasting life.” It makes a difference. COSMOS. Again, we want to clear all those dogmatics aside. COSMOS. The word itself suggests a much wider lens for our reading, a deeper receptivity to what’s going on here, and a more humble approach to faith, rebirth and Jesus himself.

Because that word, you see, COSMOS in the ancient Greek, has a far more expansive meaning than just ‘world.’ Because COSMOS captures everything, everywhere, always. All of it. All of us. Because COSMOS includes the places we know and love and touch with our fingers and toes, and the places we’ve never been and probably never will go. Because COSMOS includes the knowledge and wonders we can grasp in our minds or see with our eyes, and everything else: all the questions we’ll never answer, all the mysteries only God can understand, all the weirdness and loveliness that lies beyond our grasp. COSMOS. God so loved the COSMOS.

So you see, this text, this passage isn’t a threat. It’s an epiphany. The mystery and mercy of this Jesus is hidden in a love that is always bigger, bolder than we can imagine. And that’s the good news. That’s the heart and soul of faith itself. God so loved the COSMOS. The mystery and mercy of this Jesus is generated by a love that is wilder than any wind, swifter than any current, and sweeter than any feast. And this Jesus, then, is given to us all not just to anoint or bless or save a few, or a tribe, or a nation, or a species, but to gather the whole of this creation in glory and everlasting life. This is the perfect text for this First Sunday in Creationtide. This Jesus gathers it all in glory. Ecosystems and communities of all kinds. The tiniest creatures that live but for a fortnight and the greatest beasts that earth has ever known. Galaxies and unsearchable dimensions of the unseen beyond. You and me, and every hungry or headstrong child in every land and generation.

Faith isn’t a competition for salvation, you see. The zealots get it all wrong. Faith is a way of participating, Jesus says; faith is a way of delighting and sharing in the one great love that moves inside us all, and bathes all that is and will be in grace. Not just the lives or ideas we know and understand. Not just the places we visit and love. But all that is and will be. In grace. This Jesus isn’t interested at all in dividing the world up into the saved and unsaved, the familiar and the scary, friends and enemies. This Jesus comes from God to reconcile, to refresh, to awaken God’s radical and holy oneness in you and me.

And here’s the thing. The reason this chapter still works. The reason it still matters. Because surrendering to that love, yielding to that kind of grace, is kind of like being born from above. That’s it, Jesus says: that’s the metaphor. So play with it. Dive in, splash around. Let it wash over you and awaken nerves and feelings and dreams you never knew you had. Surrendering to this kind of love, the John 3:16 kind of love, is kind of like being born from above. Are you ready for that? That’s the question as a new year dawns in Durham. Are you ready for that?

3.

A few weeks ago, I’m sitting on a dock up the coast a bit, and I’m dangling my ankles in warm summer waters. And I’m visiting with one of my daughters who is sitting nearby, and dangling her own ankles likewise, in the glassy lake we love so very much. And we’re talking about family stuff, about us in fact. And maybe some will recognize this dynamic; my daughter and I are working out something kind of new in our relationship. And it’s tricky, to be honest. She’s not a kid anymore, in fact she’s a young adult training to be a psychotherapist; and she’s involved for the first time in a very serious relationship. And some of the old ways we’ve related, and loved one another, and supported one another, don’t work the way they used to. Is this sounding familiar? She’s not 7 or 12 or even 19 anymore. She needs something different from her dad now. And I haven’t quite figured out how that goes.

So we’re talking all this through, and I’ll be honest and tell you it’s not all that easy, this growing up stuff at sixty-four. But we’re doing our best. The two of us. We’re dancing around the important stuff, sure, but getting into it a little, just enough. When high above us, in a stately old pine, there’s a really loud rustling in the branches, and then a dramatic flapping sound; and we turn from one another to look skyward, and catch two bald eagles, two great birds, casting themselves from the tree into the summer breeze; and then directly over our heads not more than a stone’s through; and then way, way out, across the bay before us. Where it seems they land together in another tree, on another shore, to wait together and watch (presumably) for their next meal. It seemed to happen in a instant. For that instant the two of us, my daughter and I, took one collective breath. And gasped.

“So don’t be surprised,” Jesus says to Nicodemus, “when I tell you that you must be born from above. The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound that it makes, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” Watching those two eagles, watching them with my daughter that day, I found myself wondering if Jesus’ faith is about a kind of uninhibited trust, and the kind of uninhibited trust that allows those great birds to leap from one nest, in every expectation that there will be another out there, another strong branch, somewhere across the bay. And if that’s faith, if that’s where Jesus is going, just maybe I’ll trust that my daughter and I will figure it out, that we’ll work through our disappointments or even missteps; and that what I need to do, always what I need to do is stay open to her, be honest with her, listen well and turn my spiritual life over to God. Again. And again. And again. Like the eagles winging it across the lake and disappearing from view. As they’ve been doing, I presume, for thousands of years.

And when Jesus says, “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit,” maybe he’s saying we work out newness in our lives, you and I; we work out newness in our relationships, and newness in our communities, as we surrender to summer thermals, as we yield to God’s invisible but undeniable grace, as we trust the Spirit’s care and courage to see us through. “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Or in the words of the great gospel tune by the legendary Thomas A. Dorsey: “The Lord will make a way somehow.” The Lord will make a way somehow.

NAMES: "Hannah Rose"

BOOKS: "Here Where We Live is Our Country"

 

I've just finished Molly Crabapple's remarkable history of the Jewish Bund, and I can honestly say that it is the most difficult book, the most affecting history I've read in a long, long time.  It's the story of Jewish resistance in tsarist Russia, and then Poland and beyond, as the Bund faces rising tides of bigotry, racism, fascism and genocide...and resists through courageous networks of workers, artists, activists and visionaries.  And all the way through, there runs a thread: that our one hope is one another, solidarity, building movements beyond borders and differences.

Here's what Molly says about her project:

"So why did I write thie book about the Bund--who lost, who were failed--and not about victorious killers? Because I am sick of monsters--whether they belong to my group of any other or any other.  Because I know that we all have the capacity to be victims and tormenters, as well as bystanders, staring blanklyat a burning wall.  Because I want off the samara wheel of atrocity, and the Bund's demand of solidarity across difference is the only way to get there.

"Such solidarity is fragile and frequently betrayed, but it is all we have.  It is the only thing that can save us..."

For my many friends working so bravely to protect human rights, strenghten democracy and end the occupation that has decimated Palestinian communities in Gaza and the West Bank...I recommend this book as a challenging, indispensable and inspiring reflection on where we've been, and where we might still go.

See more about Molly Crabapple here.

SIGN ON: "No Partnering with ICE!"

CONCERT FOR PEACE: "With Sheikh Abed and Stu"

A chance to experience the creative, peacemaking spirit of Sheikh Abed Manasra; the soulful genius of Stu Dias; and the heartfelt voice of Brennan Whaley!  An intimate concert Saturday night, with no tickets or charge!  Come to be inspired!

Who is Abed Manasra?

Sheikh Abed Alsalam Manasra is from Nazareth in the Galilee region of Israel/Palestine. He represents the third generation of spiritual masters in his family within the Sufi Qadiri Tariqa As-Salaam, described as a branch of Sufism/Islam dedicated strictly to the study and promotion of peace.  His father Ghassan has been to Durham twice these past several years, sharing the family's commitment to reconciliation in this heartbreaking season of war and genocide.

In addition to his speaking work, Sheikh Abed is also an oud player. The oud is a traditional Middle Eastern short-necked lute. He uses music as a core mechanism for reconciliation in times of division and uses the instrument to engage young people through his Young Peacebuilders Training Program.

Abed says that he committed his life to grassroots diplomacy in high school while working in a region marked by long-standing conflict and oppression. He serves as the interfaith dialogue expert for Rising Tide International and the Israel programs manager for the Abrahamic Reunion, a nonprofit organization focused on building sustainable peace among the diverse faith communities of the Holy Land.

"Given the difficult circumstances we are facing today in the world, and especially in the Holy Land," he says, "our great responsibility compels us to work hard for a better future for all of us — a future in which we live in safety, peace, and love, and reject hatred, aggression, wars, and extremism."

MUSIC: "Can't Find My Way Home"

MUSIC: "With a Little Help..."

MUSIC: "Up Where..."

HOMILY: "What 'If'?"

Isaiah 58
Sunday, July 12, 2026
On the Semiquincentennial of U.S.A. (Part 3)

1.

Watching from afar, or at least the next state over, we have of course witnessed this week the dissolution of what was a promising Senate campaign in Maine. One that had for many months inspired a movement of Mainers—with visions of universal health care, a fair and just economy, and a national commitment to international law, human rights, rather than perpetual and genocidal war. The political tide seemed to be literally turning in Maine. And change seemed be even within their shared and collective grasp.

Like so many of you, I have friends north of the border, and a good many are devasted this weekend. And there are questions, so many questions this weekend, that pertain, I think, to our summer conversation about democracy itself and what we in the church bring—spiritually, theologically—to that project.

Was Graham Platner a fatally flawed candidate with a compelling message? Was he set up for failure by hasty operatives in his own party or maybe taken down by frightened powerbrokers in the other party? And then this one: Do you have to be a perfect human being to participate in democratic decision-making, in community leadership, in public life? How imperfect or even broken can you be and still contribute? And perhaps just as urgently, maybe most urgently: What are we to say and do about the pervasive crisis of sexual violence in our country, and in our world? Because sexual violence continues to destroy communities and traumatize, devastate the lives of sisters and brothers, siblings, we love.

2.

To this last point, let us remember that the fundamental commitment of the gospel is inclusion, and the core practice of Christianity is healing. Healing of bodies. Healing of spirits. Healing of communities. Over and over again, Jesus engages meaningfully and bravely with women, and a few men, who have been brutalized. Brutalized by systems of cruelty and privilege. Betrayed by family and even religious leaders they trusted. And over and over again, Jesus makes space for their truth, for the sharing of hard stories, for their grief and rage, and then for compassion, for inclusion, and the healing of their bodies and spirits. And, indeed, that’s the calling, the vocation of beloved community itself. Ours and so many others. If you’ve been violated in any way, there is a privileged place for you at this table. We can heal together. So we bring to this work—just as Jesus does—our most humble hearts and most courageous loving. There is simply no other way.

I want to suggest too, and this is hard to say; but I want to suggest that it may well be that Graham Platner too is a victim of systemic, organized, generational violence. And it may well be that his choices, his treatment of women, his violence (if that’s what it is)—that his life has been scarred by unholy wars, and toxic masculinity, and the trauma of American violence perpetuated by governments going back decades and decades in this country. Which is not for a second to rationalize or dismiss the price paid by the abused and scarred among us. It is simply to say that violence, war: it is all too often ingested, embodied and transmitted—generation to generation; soldiers to their families; partners to their partners. And in the cacophony of this week’s news, in the flurry of activity to oust him from the race in Maine, I fear that this point is too easily lost on us. The kind of violence of which Graham Platner is accused is mapped out in war rooms, paid for by Congress, and rationalized by presidents who all too often lie to make it happen.

Graham Platner served three tours, we know, in Iraq and Afghanistan: three tours in countries we had brutally occupied, three tours in communities of families ripped to shreds, three tours in conflicts where unimaginable terror traumatized the young people sent to do our government’s dirty work. And that kind of violence, coupled with toxic masculinity and crippled self-esteem, does awful, awful things to men, and to the women they love.

And if we’re committed to the difficult tasks of supporting those who’ve been abused and violated, and healing those who’ve ingested war, and violence, and abusive notions of power and sex; if we’re committed to this, we must address the patterns of violence, even the political economy of war and violence, that betrays democratic traditions of collaboration, negotiation and neighborliness.

Rape is not just Graham Platner’s issue, or his fatal flaw. It is an American issue, a public health issue, a spiritual crisis; and we are all responsible for healing this body politic. This country. Our country. Who will we choose to be?

3.

Both readings this morning are lyrical, almost musical in the ways they land in our hearts and here in our pews. And in two very different ways, perhaps, they set before us—and before our country—a choice.

Down in Massachusetts, Regie Gibson says:

“Any path this nation takes, it’s because we helped to choose it. Any tyranny that eventually triumphs, it’s because we helped excuse it. Any freedom this nation loses is because Massachusetts helped to lose it…” And Isaiah’s ancient text is, too, about a choice, a choice in every generation, a choice that involves particular commitments, shared among us, expressed in personal piety and public policy. The choice is consequential; and so too the blessing on the other side: “The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong…” Isn’t this the blessing we ache for in our generation? That our bones, that our democratic bones might be made strong again?

And this extraordinary word, this poetry, is indeed a stunning call to a particular practice, and it’s a shared and communal practice. With implications, profound implications of course, for personal piety. For the patterns of our own families and households.

You heard the text. God’s promises are sweet. God’s blessing is indeed on offer. But this practice (says the prophet) is our obligation, our collective responsibility. To betray that responsibility is to dismiss the promises themselves. What Isaiah conjures for us is a practice that meets violence with justice, a practice that meets the abuse of power with the rebuilding of trust. And this has profound implications, I think, for our American democracy. Listen.

“If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.”

There is a conditionality to God’s blessing. That’s the troubling, but essential prophetic tradition in a nutshell. There is a conditionality to God’s blessing. Isaiah’s speaking to an entire people, to a people he obviously loves, but chooses here to challenge and even cajole. “If you remove the yoke from among you, then your light shall rise in the darkness…If you satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then you shall be like a watered garden…” This, my friends, is the word of the Lord. The blessing of a people, of a nation, comes with conditions. The promise of God’s spirit, of God’s repairing, of God’s healing: these too come with conditions.

A democracy will hold up in the sweep of history, amidst the storms of history, only insofar as we act together, as we collaborate in communities, to remove so many yokes of oppression. A democracy will thrive and mature among us only insofar as we satisfy the needs of the afflicted, of the children, of the refugees and vulnerable in our midst. There is a conditionality to God’s blessing. And it sounds through both these texts like an anthem today, like Woody Guthrie singing “This Land” or Bob Dylan singing “The Times They are a Changin’” or Nina Simone singing “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.”

And so I offer these texts to you this morning, to the church, and maybe to our friends in Maine, and maybe even to Graham Platner and his team. I offer them as anthems of hope, as clarifying words, and (yes) as sharpening tools, in a democratic moment that requires clarity and discernment among us all. We have obligations, responsibilities. And God has indeed set conditions on every nation. But the promise, the blessing, and the hope is extraordinary:

"Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.”

MUSIC: "Golden Slumbers"

HOMILY: "This Land Is Made for You and Me"

A Meditation on Matthew 11
And the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution (Part Two)

Sunday, July 5, 2026

1.

This quote in your bulletin this morning, words of the indominable Gangulu and Aboriginal organizer Lilla Watson, seems to me a potent reminder of what’s a stake in every democratic project. Every one. “If you have come to help me,” she says, “you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” If you have come because your liberation, your freedom, even your salvation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the teachers, friends, mentors who’ve shaped my ministry and nurtured my faith, really, over many years. And every one of them has fused in their own spirit these two things: Christian discipleship and democratic commitment. Wherever it is they live and serve. Christian discipleship and democratic commitment. Or to put it in a different way: obedience to Jesus and servant leadership.

I’m thinking about my friend Zoughbi Zoughbi in Bethlehem, Palestine; and the bright light in his soul that has outlasted imprisonment and violence and now shines in a land of shadows. I’m thinking about my friend Taj Smith, black and beautiful and trans; and the faith in his eyes that continues to find friends, allies, beloved community in a world that can seem organized against his very survival. And I’m thinking about my friend John Thomas, once the President and General Minister of our United Church of Christ; and how it is that John spends his 70s now organizing labor unions and undocumented immigrants in some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.

Every one of these friends chooses every day to follow Jesus. Not a smug, triumphalist Jesus. Not a festishized, European superhero. But a storyteller who invites moral and spiritual imagination. And a teacher who offers a practice of risky nonviolence and lovingkindness. And, yes, Jesus, a savior, whose mercy is not to be claimed by victors at the end of battle, but to be shared in reconciled and reconciling communities. By peoples of all genders and orientations. By children of all nations and faiths. For Zoughbi, for Taj, for John, and now, for me too, Christian discipleship has everything to do mutual liberation. Following Jesus, loving Jesus, means taking Lilla Watson seriously, and recognizing in the vulnerability of queer kids my own fragile future, and living my life in solidarity with Palestinian resisters and Jewish prophets of peace, and peoples across this continent striving for justice together. On a radically decolonized Turtle Island.

So let’s talk democracy for a moment, on this July 5, this day after the semiquincentennial. Because we’ve missed the mark, I think, if we imagine and then defend democracy as a system of protections designed only to make possible individual achievement and family, generational wealth. It’s not that. And don’t we see a bizarre manifestation of this capitalist sin in the White House itself these days?

And we miss the mark, I think, if we engage democratic traditions only insofar as they safeguard our tribe’s traditions, our people’s power, our nation’s control over economies and landscapes. To be clear, this is the crisis of white supremacy and Christian nationalism in this land. And in others too. And it’s a betrayal of both religious tradition and democratic values as well.

And indeed we miss the mark, I think, if we interpret democracy itself as a cut-throat battle for riches, as a pull-no-punches fight for survival. Mine against yours. The city against the heartland. Democrats against Republicans. Left against Right. Where salvation is nothing other than a bulked-up bank account, a stake in the hottest tech market, and a plan for a Mars get-a-way. When the planet falters.

2.

With Tarek Zoughbi, 2025

Instead, and this is where Lilla Watson and other indigenous teachers come in, we can and we must reclaim the dynamic (and let’s be honest, almost theological) vision of democracy itself. That on this planet, on this continent, and within every imaginable watershed, our liberation, our freedom, even our salvation is bound up with one another’s. And that, I’d suggest this morning, on the day after our semiquincentennial, that is the most compelling democratic insight of them all. And one we would do well to embrace anew. And teach to our children. And make the core curriculum of every church, synagogue, mosque, university and public school.

In the 60s Martin Luther King said: “Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.” And it seems to me now, sixty years later, that we either believe in this as a democratic nation, or we don’t. We either commit to this vision of shared responsibility in a common future, or we don’t. And if we don’t, we should expect the democratic experiment itself to die.

And to this point, Dr. King said: “As long as there is poverty in this world, no [one] can be totally rich even if [they have] a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no [one] can be totally healthy, even if they just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America.” In other words, my friends, our liberation is always mutual liberation. And our youth saw this up close in the desert, at the border, last month. And those of who visit and advocate at the jail, in detention centers every week—you see it there. As along as racism poisons the blood of our politics, we are all sick. As long as capitalism drives the rich to abandon the poor, we are a house divided.

But democracy is, democracy should be a thick matrix of practices, in an interconnected web of communities, that make us whole. That imagines mutual liberation. That invites and insists on sacrifices of the heart for the common good. And again, we can and we must embrace these practices anew. We can and we must teach them to our children. And we can and we must make them the core curriculum of every church, synagogue, mosque, university and public school.

3.

What Jesus brings to the table this morning is both provocative in a sense, and reassuring in another. And these two modes in his teaching, in his gospel, come together powerfully in the text this morning, as well as in John Thomas’s “Confession” for the semiquincentennial, a confession we’ll read together in just a few moments. Jesus provokes and he reassures. Jesus unsettles and defies our expectations, and then comforts and uplifts. And this, my friends, is Jesus at his best.

The Prodigal, Hoffman

He’s provocative as he insists that communities of faith are easily fooled, that we can too quickly dismiss the call to discipleship, the sacrifice required of the faithful. He asks: “To what will I compare this generation? It’s like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you didn’t dance; we wailed, and you didn’t mourn.’” In other words, you got so tangled up in the machinations of the marketplace, or the angst of having it all, that you missed the whole point: which is committing your energies and prayers to the kin-dom of God, to the great feast of creation’s abundance and glory. “‘We played the flute for you, and you didn’t dance; we wailed, and you didn’t mourn.’” Tangled up in the machinations of the marketplace.

Lilla Watson and Martin King might put it this way: that we too often settle for a version of faith that conforms too easily to the status quo, that settles for capitalism as Truth, and fear and loathing as necessary protections. In a world where the market is God and violence sacramental. And in so settling, we miss the consequential and costly call to discipleship, community and (most importantly) mutual liberation. “We played the flute for you, and you didn’t dance; we wailed, and you didn’t mourn.” And Jesus gets at just this this morning, urging his generation, and ours, to listen carefully, take the gospel deeply into our hearts, and respond generously and bravely. To his voice, his call. “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens…”

Now the clue to this particular text, to its meaning and its purpose in Matthew’s gospel at least, is in those three precious, familiar, even intimate words. “Come to me.” “Come to me.” It’s the call to discipleship, my friends. With Jesus, it’s always the call to discipleship.

This is the same Jesus who says, “Come to me,” and then teaches his friends to turn the other cheek when struck, bear witness in that moment to a better world, and love their enemies. This is the same Jesus who says, “Come to me,” and then insists we find him not in temples and sanctuaries, but in prisons, detention centers, field hospitals and nursing homes. This is the same Jesus who says, “Come to me,” when his friends are overwhelmed by the hunger of the poor, by their misery far from home, and then teaches his friends to break bread, and bless it all gladly, and then to feed the many with holy human hands and bread that satisfies. “Come to me.”

So here, in the eleventh chapter of the gospel, very close to the fulcrum of the whole story, Jesus again calls you and me, and new friends too, to follow him on a perilous road in a bewildering world. The Roman Empire then. American Nationalism. Israeli Apartheid. Homophobic Fundamentalism. Now. Wherever frightened, anxious souls in frightened, anxious systems scapegoat this group or that one in the name of security or Making Someplace Great Again.

HOMILY: "The Arc is a Long One"

A Meditation on Proverbs 29:18
And the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution (Part One)

Sunday, June 28, 2026

1.

“Where there is no vision,” we read this morning, “the people perish.”  “Where there is no vision, the people perish.  But happy are those who keep torah…”  That’s the familiar verse out of today’s reading from Proverbs.  Or, the very contemporary translation of Eugene Peterson goes like this: “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves…”  “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what [God] reveals, they are most blessed…”  

The particular vision around which our United Church of Christ gathered years ago did not insist on or even hope for a Christian nation on this continent.  Instead, our forebearers imagined a wildly pluralistic democracy.  And the church as a partner in that project.  They anticipated conversation, dialogue, even civil disagreement with a thousand other religions, traditions and communities.  And they trusted—as we still do—that an educated and committed democracy would champion freedom and human rights, collaborative wisdom, and the kind of justice that involves and honors us all.  “Attending to what God reveals” is so much more than cherry picking biblical texts.  For our United Church of Christ, it’s always meant meeting other traditions, seeking common ground, discerning the Spirit’s wisdom together.  And listening for the still, small voice that says: ‘You are one people.  All of you.  And you share one planet.  All of it.  So build a better future together.”

This past week, we in the UCC celebrated our 69th birthday.  Did you all see that?  In 1957, this denomination, our denomination, was born in a season of ecumenical spirit and hope.  Indeed, there was a movement in the 50s to name our denomination the “Uniting” Church of Christ—so passionately did our founders believe in the project of pluralism and unity and mutual liberation as God’s own dream for the church.

So yes, we resist the dangerous clamoring for a Christian nation, or an American theocracy.  And yet, we in the United Church very much believe and have always believed that faith requires public action, community involvement and passionate participation in multicultural, multiracial, multifaith movements for justice, kindness and peace.  And, it kind of goes without saying, that that kind of participation is a hallmark of this very congregation in Durham.

So over these next three weeks, I’d like to explore with you our unique religious tradition and how it meets the moment of the nation’s 250th anniversary.  What do we bring to the table?  How might our particular tradition offer both insight and motivation to a nation that has, in many ways, squandered its vision and settled for a politics of stumbling instead?

2.

Let’s begin with a 19th century preacher, whose commitments seem right at home here, among us, in Durham.

Maybe you caught some of the dedication events as the Obama Presidential Center was opened in Chicago last week.  In his own remarks, the former president recalled the ministry of Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister in the 1850s, who first articulated the line that Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister in the 1960s, would make famous.  “I do not pretend,” Theodore Parker said in his West Roxbury pulpit, “to understand the moral universe.  The arc is a long one.  My eye reaches but a little ways.  I cannot calculate the curve…I can however divine it by conscience.  And from what I see,” he said, “I am sure that it bends toward justice.”  A century later, Dr. King would thunder from a hundred American pulpits: “The arc of history is long indeed, but it bends, it bends toward justice.”

Right off the bat, a question that begs asking in 2026 is this one: “Do we still believe it?”  Can you and I still divine the long arc of the moral universe?  Can we still say—with Dr. King and so many of our heroes—that it bends toward justice?  I want to suggest this morning that it is the vocation of the United Church of Christ to insist that we can.  It is our calling not only to insist that we can, but to be about the work of bending that arc together, building wonderfully diverse coalitions of Americans to bend and pull and believe and heal and move together on the arc that bends toward justice.  We’ve got a long history of doing just that—imperfectly at times, but doing just that.

What makes Theodore Parker’s 1853 sermon all the more meaningful is its context: its context in the ministry of a man and a church committed to the idea of protection, of safe passage, of sanctuary.  Because that’s what was going on in his congregation in the 1850s—when he first spoke of the arc being long.  In more than a few ways, you see, you and I are standing on Theodore Parker’s shoulders.  In 1850, he had welcomed, he and his West Roxbury church, in his own parsonage, the fugitive Ellen Craft, a former slave and a member of his congregation.  Together, at great cost to their reputations, they had protected her there.  In his parsonage.  In that same year, as you may know, the Fugitive Slave Act was debated fiercely (and eventually passed) by Congress in the ‘Compromise of 1850.’  

And under that law, as you’ll recall, Northerners were required to round up and turn over men and women (like Ellen Craft) who had managed to escape slavery, so that they be inhumanely returned to their Southern “owners.” The abolition of slavery and the demise of the Fugitive Slave Act was Theodore Parker’s fervent cause, deeply planted in his religious and moral convictions.  Because the liberty of one’s body and mind were divinely given, inalienable rights, he saw slavery as the greatest abomination there could be against God and nature, and the most corrupting force in democratic society in these United States.  

What would Theodore Parker be preaching today?

Now interestingly, most Boston clergy in the 1850s refused to oppose that legislation.  Some even supported it as a constitutional obligation, arguing that it was the only way to "save the Union." Others argued that catching fugitive slaves was somehow sanctioned by scripture. (Show me where they found that one.)  But Theodore Parker proclaimed that the Compromise of 1850 violated Christian ideals and threatened all free institutions and governments. He preached and rallied against it, calling for churches and church folk to defy and break the law once passed. 

And in time, he helped Ellen Craft to escape to Canada. 

And then, in 1854, Theodore Parker and other members of the Vigilance Committee he had founded agitated on behalf of another captured fugitive named Anthony Burns.  And yes, that was the young fugitive’s name: Anthony.  Anthony.  This time, for his organizing, Theodore Parker was arrested and indicted by a grand jury for obstructing the duties of a federal marshal.  And sadly, that same federal marshal with hundreds of others soon seized, tried and marched Anthony Burns to Boston harbor.  Where he was put on a ship and set back to Viriginia in chains.  As many, many in Boston watched. 

3.

And that was the moment.  That was the context for the sermon.  That was the troubling, bewildering, heartbreaking provocation for Theodore Parker’s gospel.  It wasn’t a moment of triumph, or wildly satisfying victory.  It was a moment of darkness, sadness and loss.

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe,” he preached in Boston that Sunday. “The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but a little ways. I cannot calculate the curve...”  And then, my friends, this: “I can divine it by conscience,” Theodore Parker said.  “And from what I see, I am sure it bends toward justice.”

He couldn't see it. Not all of it, but he believed it anyway. And then he kept fighting.  Creating sanctuary for fugitives.  Advocating, organizing for an end to slavery.  Insisting on a vision of pluralism and justice for all.

As President Obama put it this week, Theodore Parker's words were “a declaration of faith, a defiant call, not to abandon hope or give way to fear, but to stay true to our better selves, and true to one another, and to keep fighting...even in the face of cruelty and bitter disappointment, even in the face of impossible odds.”

HOMILY: "On Earth as in Heaven"

A Communion Meditation

On John 21
Sunday, June 14, 2026

Welcome, friends of God:

Come as you are; come, beloved and blessed, to the crowded Table!

You know, the version of Christianity we’re leaning into, here, is not that tired version that claims salvation for some at the expense of the many. And it’s not that preachy version that promises easy answers if you play by the bully’s rules.

No, this Christianity, this Gospel – like the Teacher himself – invites vulnerability and collaboration. This Gospel insists on wild mercy and justice, and partnerships with friends from a thousand faiths and all walks of life and every possible way of looking at the world.

So come, beloved and blessed, to the crowded Table –

where many become one,

songs become prayers,

and everyday bread, the promise of a whole new world,

which is the world beneath our feet!

1.

It’s possible, in the playful world of this fourth gospel, that Jesus has been watching from the shore, standing at the edge where the slurpy waves lap the beach, all night long. It’s possible. The disciples don’t see him, of course, because it’s dark, really dark; and because they’re lost, really lost, in their own frustration--fishing all night long, working all the angles, saying all the prayers. And catching nothing at all.

I’ve always imagined that Jesus shows up (even magically) at daybreak, as the sun’s just sneaking out of the hills. But John’s story’s ambivalent on this. And it seems quite possible that Jesus has kept this vigil through the long night, that he’s pulled his cloak close against the darkness; because we know that love does just that when the beloved are grieving, when pain exhausts their efforts, and everything comes up empty. Love shows up. Love keeps a vigil. So I imagine Jesus in the gloaming keeping vigil, and then into the darkest hours of the night keeping vigil, and I imagine him waiting, waiting, waiting for daybreak. And watching, all the while, from the shore.

And their futility may seem familiar to us. The collapse of their movement in the days after his crucifixion. The unnerving reality that empire so often crushes dissent, that violence so often overwhelms compassion, that fear seems to win every time. So they fish and they fish and they fish, deep into the night, even all through the night, and the crushing reality of those very dark days sinks into their hearts, and then their hands, and even their feet. They catch nothing. Not a single fish. All night long. Scarcity demoralizes them. Cruelty wins again. Empire rules the world. And they can do exactly nothing to stop it.

Except. Except God’s mercy keeps watch. Except Jesus has kept his fearless vigil all through the night. And when he calls out from shore, begging them to cast their nets on the other side, challenging the soul-crushing logic of scarcity itself, there are suddenly so many fish now, that they can’t possibly haul the net in. (And in case anybody’s keeping score, there are 153 of them.)

My friends, and this I think is the good news, the gospel itself, God’s mercy keeps watch. All night long. Jesus keeps his fearless vigil for you, for me, for us, for the world, all through the night. Even when the pain is breaking us. Even when scarcity breeds fear, and dictators preach xenophobia and genocide. Jesus keeps his fearless vigil with that Palestinian family living under twisted rebar in the rubble of Gaza. All night long. Jesus keeps his fearless vigil with the young man I met in a Georgia prison years ago, serving a life sentence, scratching years off an old calendar. All night long. Jesus keeps his fearless vigil with an old man I know with Alzheimer’s, who can’t remember his own name, let alone the faces of his family. All night long. And you all know, you really do know that Jesus keeps his fearless vigil with Antony, with our dear brother Antony, roaming the church late at night, stopping to pray in this sanctuary for his family and every one of yours. Hoping beyond hope for a revolution of kindness in America. God’s mercy keeps watch. All night long.

And this is the power, my friends, it’s the only power resilient and resolute and strong enough to transform hearts of steel into spirits of grace; it’s the only power resilient and determined and strong enough to transform frightened fisherfolk into daring ministers of grace and peace. The power is love. And it’s always been so. The power is love. Jesus is love.

And on the beach, around the fire, the warm bread and fresh fish seal the deal. Weeping may endure for a long night, but joy, joy, joy comes again in the morning.