​

​

This past Sunday we didn't do church the usual way. We had a baptism, a baby named Charlie, and a room full of kids (young, and old) who were not interested in sitting still for a sermon about Matthew 18 and the king who forgives but then takes it back and throws a slave into prison to be tortured. So, we skipped that, and instead I invited the kids over to play with the baptismal water with me.

They did, immediately and without hesitation (which is the correct theological response to a bowl of water, by the way). Little hands went in. Water got swirled, scooped, spilled. One of the kids poured a cupful from the pitcher into the bowl, and we all just listened to that sound for a second, water finding water. I asked what water does. They knew: It helps you when you're thirsty. It helps plants grow. It washes the dirt off. It's what animals and people and trees need to live. None of that is complicated theology and all of it is exactly right.


Then I asked whether anyone remembered their own baptism. Most of the grown ups in the room don't, not really, not the way you'd remember a birthday or a first day of school. Charlie certainly won't. So I told the kids that's part of the whole point: nobody has to hold onto the memory of being loved by God all by themselves. God gave us water. And with that water, we remember all these good things, and can remind one another. That's one of the things this whole enormous, strange, beautiful family of God is for, reminding one another we are loved just as we are, we are never alone. We help each other when we're thirsty. We find each other food when we're hungry. We stay next to each other when we're lonely. We help make things fair when they're not. I encouraged the kids to help their parents remember all these things, too-- and one truly grabbed one of the squirt toys and took it right over to her dad for a quality little splash. It was good, for all of us.


Our texts this week, Paul writing to the Romans and Jesus telling that hard parable about the servant who wouldn't forgive a debt after his own had just been forgiven, are both about people who've gotten so busy keeping score, who owes what, who's right, who's clean and who isn't, that they've stopped noticing what the person in front of them actually needs. Water doesn't do that. Water doesn't keep score. It just keeps moving around between people and creation. 


So we poured some of that water on Charlie's head and welcomed him into a family that is, frankly, still learning how to do that movement and loving behavior. We don't always get it right. Charlie's family won't always get it right. I won't either. But that was never the bar. The water isn't there because we're good at this. It's there because every time we touch it again, washing our hands, jumping in a pool, catching rain on our faces, we get to remember something true whether or not we did anything to earn it: I belong to God. I have a huge family, in this room and well beyond it. And we belong to each other.




A Practice for the Week
Next time you touch water, on purpose or by accident, washing dishes, caught in the rain, a kid splashing you in the bath, let it be a small reminder. Take a second to think: You are loved just exactly as you are, imperfections and all. You, and all those around you, and al of creation. Perfectly, wholly loved.  And if you forget once in a while, that's ok because somebody in this huge, strange family can remind you. And, you can remind remind people in this whole big global Christian family, too. 

So, remember your baptism, friends. And rejoice- baby Charlie has joined the family!


with joy,
Pr. Sam

A Failed Experiment 
Here's what I tried: I asked everyone to find a partner, face each other, touch hands. Person 1, step toward Person 2. Now, Person 2, step toward Person 1.

It went nowhere. The people who were supposed to step, stepped. The people on the other side...stayed put. People laughed. I laughed. I genuinely expected that, as has happened in most other places where I've done this little drill, people would intuitively move when someone stepped toward them in a close space. Ballroom dancers would recognize this right away and likely make the move immediately (though not always).

Well, what had happened elsewhere didn't happen at all, in this case, and I had to call it what it was, a failed experiment.

The theological point I was reaching for isn't actually about choreography, of course. It's more about how we're bigger than just our physical bodies, and we pretty intuitively will "dance" around and with one another. Like we do when we're moving fast down a busy sidewalk. Or, you know that thing, when you're walking through a busy space, a train station, a full hallway, and your body is constantly and automatically adjusting? Shifting to make room, stepping left because someone stepped right, the whole crowd moving like a single breathing thing? We could claim it's entirely due to literally seeing things, but it's more than that. Many of us quickly and easily sense movement around us without seeing a thing. Nobody calls it out. Nobody directs it. Nobody's thinking about it. And yet somehow it happens, automatic, unrehearsed, all different, and still together. A whole body of being and intuitive movement that is bigger than our individual selves.

That is the sermon, kind of.  Hold that. Both of those things at once: the automatic response, and the variety of it.

Borrowed Choreography

The disciples are with him in Caesarea Philippi. And he asks them something.
"Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

They reach, immediately, for borrowed choreography. The stuff they've been told or heard, categories they already know. John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah. Familiar names. Familiar categories. Moves that already exist, steps they've seen before. And, crucially, Jesus doesn't tell them they're wrong. He doesn't correct a single one of them. All of those answers are, in their own way, reaching toward something real, pointing in the general direction he seems to be trying to orient them.

Then he turns and asks them directly: "But who do you say that I am?"

And Peter (who has literally said almost the exact same thing just a few chapters back, mid-storm, mid-miracle) just. dives right in and says you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

He doesn't know any special theological dance moves here, as far as I can tell. He's just present. Something comes at him, the full weight of the question, the full reality of the person in front of him, and his body answers. No choreography. Just response.

And I suppose we could stop there. We could say Peter stumbled onto Truth with a capital T, thank you God, let's go home happily knowing that Jesus came here to save us.

But that's not actually good news for us today. Not unless we want to remove our own responsibilities from the full picture. Which, honestly, is a very popular move for people who have co-opted Christianity for things like nationalistic purposes. Handing everything to a divine figure so that you personally never have to account for anything is a very convenient theology...if avoiding accountability is what you're going for.

So let's sit with what else might be happening here.

Bar Enasha: What Are Humans Actually Capable Of?

What if Jesus isn't, initially, asking about himself at all?
He does already know who he is, after all. And, ego stroking doesn't really strike me as his kinda jam.

The Aramaic phrase he uses in that first question, bar enasha, is a tricky one. It's got the potential to be used as an idiom, not just a title. It could mean something like "a human being like this." It's the kind of phrase you could use when you want to point at yourself while also opening the question wider than just you.

So what he could literally be asking is something like: "Who do people say a human being like this is? What do people think someone like this, like me, like us, is actually capable of?"

Now, some scholars will argue he's referencing the Book of Daniel, where a "son of man" like figure appears as something almost beyond human, coming on clouds to receive divine power. That's a real reading. And well supported in plenty of places.

But here's another possibility, especially given that Daniel's own text says "one like a son of man," using that word like to signal something resembling but not quite an ordinary human being: what if Jesus is asking his closest friends what they think your average, ordinary, humble human being is capable of? Based on what people say. Based on what society tells us.

Notice that he's also asking these question in Caesarea Philippi, in Caesar's city. A city built to honor the Roman emperor. A place where the official answer to "what is a human being capable of?" if you were not Roman, was: not much. You've been conquered. You are a barbarian. And we'll remind you of that, lots.

The disciples (who grew up with that messaging in their bones) don't go where Jesus seems to be potentially pointing. They hear "son of man" and go straight for the external, the elevated, the exceptional. The book of Daniel version. Surely he must mean someone especially holy? Someone like the Daniel figure? Because we need someone to take on Rome, and we need someone who's exceptional to do that, right?

I get it. Genuinely. When you've been told your whole life that ordinary people like you are worth very little and capable of even less, when someone uses a phrase that could mean either "ordinary human being" or "exceptional divine figure," you reach for the exceptional interpretation. Because the more ordinary one carries too much weight and gets into how people are actually feeling... It asks too much of you.

But what if Jesus is trying, gently, to pry that story open to get them to consider another possibility?

Tiny Gods in Caesar's City

Think about the other readings that showed up for this particular Sunday (at least, the ones suggested for us in the Revised Common Lectionary). 

Isaiah: Look to the rock from which you were hewn. Not "look to a messiah coming to save you." Look to your origin, the same stuff God created within creation...Which, by the way, is divine.

We are imago Dei. Made in the image of God. Each of us tiny gods, created and becoming alongside the God who is always becoming with us. That is not a metaphor. That is a theological claim about what you actually are.

Paul in Romans: We are many parts, many gifts, but we make up one divine body, a body whose sum is so much greater than its individual parts. All different. All distinct. Still together. Still creating something between us that is larger than any of us alone.

Go back to those answers the disciples gave. John the Baptist. Elijah. Jeremiah. What if they're not wrong, just partial? Each one names someone extraordinary. Someone known for recognizing the divine moving through ordinary human life. Each one is a thread of genuine recognition, a different move toward the same I-AM-ness, the same divine reality. 

And now Jesus is pushing them further. He wants them to think beyond those socialized limits of who's holy and who's ordinary. Beyond who gets to matter and who doesn't. And goofy, often-misunderstood Peter (who by himself certainly does not have the full picture) gets told he gets a key. Whatever he looses or binds on earth is loosed or bound in heaven.

Note: Jesus doesn't just say this to Peter. A little later, he says it to everyone. The key gets distributed. The power does not stay in one place.

That is not a small thing. That is Jesus saying: the capacity to participate in the reign of God is not located in one exceptional person. It lives in multiplicity among all of us. It moves through the whole body- individual, and larger mystical body.

So maybe, just maybe, we're being asked  here not to fixate on Jesus's separate and individual power. Instead, maybe we're being asked to hold up some mirrors. To notice how, like those bodies in crowded spaces, we move separately and yet collectively. And to recognize, in a more intimate way, our own being made in the image of God, and just how powerful that actually makes us. Contrary to everything the current power machine would have us believe.

Take that one in. Really sit with it for a second- because I think we too often don't or avoid thinking about this.

You are made in the image of God. Not egoic, fear-driven, small you. Your fullest, whole-self you.
You are, inherently, as God made you, extraordinarily powerful. Not because you did something special. But because you simply have been made this way.

Despite all the messaging designed to make you keep yourself smaller and manageable and believing that if you just have this one other thing you might be enough.

And we, together, reflect that powerful made-in-the-image-of-God divinity.

The Turning We Can Do

Paul in Romans pushes us to recognize this through words about different gifts, different moves, one body. We are not required to have the complete picture. We are required to bring what we actually have, which is already so much more than we think, and often far more native to us than we've been taught to believe.

Because what we loose, joyfully, lovingly, energetically, even here, even in the shadow of highly controlling forces, is loosed in heaven. Bit by bit. One turn and move and collective response after another. One thread at a time, loosing the reign of God, right here and right now.

There's a song, Canticle of the Turning, whose refrain begins: My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
I am betting that most of us tend to hear that "you" in there as the day God brings. And yes. Absolutely. That's part of it.

But I want you to hear something else in that "you," too. What if the "you" is not only God? What if, when we gather like this (this specific room, this particular collection of imago Dei) we are the "you" who helps bring the day? What if that "you" you're singing is as much the person across the room from you, as it is God? What if the turning comes just as much through us as God, when we show up with our fullest imago Dei selves?

The next part of the refrain goes "Wipe away all tears for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn."

Not only because God wills that turn from above. But because you, all of us, this world full of tiny gods becoming, loosed it. Moved it. Brought it. (Note: the "tiny gods becoming is a direct quote from Franciscan nun Sr. Ilia Delio- look her up if you're not familiar. It's a fansatic and important point she makes about our relationship with God, and one another).

The world turned, and turns yet again, in part because we moved.
 
That's the good news. Bring what you have.
We aren’t left to rely on any ol' persons claims about who they say Jesus is.
WE are part of that body, WE are a reflection of who Jesus is. The turning comes through you, me—- us with God.

That's the good news. Bring what you have. We aren't left to rely on anyone else's claim about who Jesus is. We are part of that body. We area reflection of who Jesus is. The turning comes through you, me, us, too.

Go look up and sing Canticle of the Turning, and each time you encounter the word "you"-- think about specific people in your life. See if it illuminates the lyrics in a new way for you.

with joy,
Rev Sam

The reading of bar enasha as idiom rather than title draws on downright contested scholarship by Geza Vermes and Maurice Casey.  I chose to go there via theological imagination, and that's valid, even if it's not historical critical real. We all get to use our theological imaginations, it's a great means to getting to know God better. Also, as I noted above, the phrase about us being tiny gods becoming alongside God is indebted to Sr. Ilia Delio's work on evolutionary theology and imago Dei. 

based on John 14:15–21 for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A

A few of you have asked me about my thing with the bees. Bee jewelry makes it onto my jacket every weekend, and there are a handful of reasons for that, but one of the biggest comes from the Easter Vigil liturgy, the Exsultet.
There's this line about the Paschal candle being produced through the work of the bees and human hands together. And I love that image because the production of the very first that comes into our darkened sanctuary after Good Friday is presented not as ressurection magic, but as collaborative effort betwen us, and the bees. Tiny creatures. Human labor. Repetitive work that, brought together, creates the first light in the room otherwise left like a tomb.
Bees do incredibly small work. Almost invisible work. Tiny flights and movements. Tiny acts of pollination.
And yet? Lose the bees, and entire ecosystems begin collapsing.
We so often buy into this myth that meaningful change happens in one giant dramatic moment. But most meaningful change does not work like a lightning strike. It works like mycelial networks underground. Like roots cracking concrete. Like the work of the bees. Even the movements we think of as rather sudden — Civil Rights. Stonewall. BLM in 2020 — those were visible peaks of much longer accumulated labor. Deep community organizing. Conversation. Protest. Feeding people. Acts of art. Presence. Refusing disappearance or silencing.
Tiny, repeated acts that eventually changed entire landscapes. Sometimes with a hallmark moment we all name and remember, like Stonewall. Sometimes without one — which is its own kind of reckoning, like the slow-built pathways of Christian Nationalism that we're watching now. Those were also built one tiny act at a time.
We are in this passage again — a continuation of what came last week, all of it building toward Jesus' official taking of leave. Ascension is coming. Pentecost is coming.
The disciples seem anxious as hell. Those exact words are not written down — but come on. You can hear it in the text. Jesus keeps saying things like do not let your hearts be troubled and I will not leave you orphaned. Nobody says those things when everyone's feeling great. These are the things we say when fear and anxiety are already filling the room.
And it makes sense that the disciples would be fearful. These were people hoping for something clearer. Stronger. Faster. They were living under empire — violence, occupation, exploitation. Their expectations had been wrapped up in a militaristic response to a militaristic regime, and what they received instead was a guy on a cross who then seemed to come back to life. Awesome party trick — but not exactly the thing that feels like it's going to bring down the soldier with the threatening sword when he's demanding more supplies, more money, more compliance from your family.
Any of us would want certainty. Okay, Jesus, sure — God in all of us and in you, but… when do we win?
They wanted specific dates. A clear plan. An underdog victory story. They wanted something to cling to that might make them stop being afraid.
Jesus does not give them a single one of those things.
Instead, he gives them commandments. And if you want to get really technical, he gives them a commandment: love one another as I have loved you. Which honestly sounds deeply unsexy compared to the underdogs taking over and coming out on top. But the wisdom someone thought worth writing down for us to receive is: keep my commandments. Love one another.
The disciples want a conquering system. Jesus responds with an ecology.
They want domination. Jesus responds with pathways for relationship.
They want certainty. Jesus responds by giving them practices. Tiny, repeated acts of love — just the minuscule daily work of the bees.
I think this excerpt from John is easily distorted because we hear if you love me, you will keep my commandments as moral pressure. Like Jesus is standing there with a clipboard. But in John's gospel, commandments are not a list of rules to follow. And in fact, commandments aren't even a list of rules to follow in the Hebrew Bible — they are suggestions for how we live better together, and with God. The commandment here is: love one another as I have loved you. That's it.
Which means Jesus is not saying: prove yourself spiritually impressive. Be some kind of saint. In fact, it's quite the opposite — Jesus is saying: when you participate in love, you participate in God. If you are loving, you know me and you are doing the thing required of you.
This whole chapter is soaked in mutual indwelling language. I am in God. God is in me. I am in you. You are in me. This is ecosystem language. Relational language. Love circulates. Care circulates. Courage circulates. God is not the distant emperor somewhere above the clouds. This is not far from what Luke is writing in Acts: in God we live and move and have our being. God with us via connection, truth, nourishment, courage, protest, mercy, song, bread — through showing up for one another again and again and again.
Zero words about perfection. Lots of words pointing toward participation and collaboration. Like the work of the bees, and human hands.
I also think we can easily distort this passage when we hear I will not leave you orphaned and interpret it as just a line of comfort. In fact, I think this might be the central line of the whole excerpt — but maybe not for the reasons we were first taught.
Because notice: Jesus does not promise the disciples will stop feeling afraid. He does not promise that empire and its overbearing problems disappear tomorrow. There is no promise that the hurts and frustrations and pains will go away. He does not promise certainty beyond this: certainly they will continue to see him and experience him — God — via loving one another.
Maybe I will not leave you orphaned is way less about comfort — and in fact, making it primarily about comfort might be what makes it lose its teeth. Maybe I will not leave you orphaned is more an instructive reminder: you are not orphaned when you remain bound together in love. You are not orphaned when the work continues. You are not orphaned when people keep feeding each other, protecting each other, telling the truth, tending wounds, making art, singing songs, blessing what is breaking, refusing to disappear or silence one another — faithfully continuing on, even when we don't feel like we're getting it quite right.
The world teaches us that power comes through domination.
Jesus skips all of that and insists that abundant life comes through stubborn, ordinary, repeated acts of love. The basic, everyday work of the bees.
And honestly? Bees themselves are not perfect little symbols. Bee colonies operate with hierarchy. They've got their own disagreements, chaos, and problems. They are strange little creatures — just like we are. But they keep participating in the work that sustains life beyond themselves.
Maybe that is the core of discipleship too. Because a lot of us — whether we'll admit it or not — believe that the best way to live well and abundantly is primarily to get things correct, to ensure we entirely dismantle the problems as we go. But that doesn't really work out. All we end up doing is either avoiding the simple everyday work, or reifying the very systems of destruction we claim we're trying to dismantle.
No human is perfect. We are all horribly inconsistent. There is no moral purity among us — and honestly, the more certain someone is, the more suspicious I become.
So maybe that's the invitation and reminder this week. Not perfection. Not moral purity. Not certainty. None of these are necessary.
Just: keep practicing love anyway. Keep participating in courage anyway. Keep telling the truth anyway. Keep blessing what is breaking anyway. Keep on keeping on in the way of Jesus.
Tiny acts. Tiny mercies. Tiny bits of courage.
Because the kingdom of God doesn't come in like a military coup. It comes in more like tree roots cracking up a cement sidewalk. It's the little in-and-out, every-day work of the bees — that eventually becomes that collaborative first light, in a world filled with fear and anxiety, but aching for hope.

​with joy,
Pr. Sam