Category Archives: Uncategorized

Resurrection Radicalism

March 31, 2026UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, jesus, resurrectionrevolsen

RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD

Prayer of the Day God of mercy, we no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for he is alive and has become the Lord of life. Increase in our minds and hearts the risen life we share with Christ, and help us to grow as your people toward the fullness of eternal life with you, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality,but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousnessis acceptable to him.’” Acts 10:34-35.

“In a wide variety of global contexts, populist political movements pose serious challenges to churches and theology. Churches are called to reflect more deeply on their public role in view of populist exclusionary policies. In a situation where populist movements misappropriate Christian rhetoric to justify their aspirations, churches cannot remain silent, but need to resist exclusionary strategies.” Eva Harasta and Simone Sinn, INTRODUCTION, Resisting Exclusion Global Theological Responses to Populism,(LWF Studies, 2010/01) p. 11.

The above photograph was taken by yours truly at the Hosios Loukas-Byzantine Monastery Distomo in Greece. It depicts the Resurrection of Jesus which, in the thought of the Eastern Church (and St. Paul), is intimately linked to our own. For this reason, the risen Christ is seen taking the hand of Adam. Eve, who is just behind him, clings to the clothing of her husband. We are given to understand that, behind Eve, stands all of humanity. Jesus does not rise alone. He leads with him the whole human family from the grave to resurrection life. As Saint Peter points out, “God shows no partiality,but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousnessis acceptable to him.” This fresco, replicated in numerous sanctuaries and frequently engraved on Orthodox icons speaks eloquently to the God who loved the cosmos enough to send the Son, not to condemn the world but to save it.

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection. The tone is one of joy and this is right. How else can we approach the titanic reversal of death itself? Yet to understand this miracle rightly, it is necessary to be clear about what is actually miraculous. Nobody in the first century doubted that God, or a god as the case may be, would be capable of raising someone from death. And if that were all there were to the Resurrection, it made little difference then and makes even less now. The miracle of the Resurrection does not lie in the assertion that God raised Jesus from death. The real miracle is that God raised Jesus from death. That is what makes the Resurrection truly radical. God raised the one who refused the temptation to employ coercive force in the service of God’s reign; the one who practiced radical hospitality, welcoming people living at the margins including the sick, the foreigner, the poor and the outcast; the one who recognized no humanly drawn barriers between peoples but died to draw all people to himself. John 12:32. The life Jesus lived that drew him into conflict with power, wealth, empire and oppressive religion ending in his execution God vindicates by raising Jesus from death. Any god who favors exclusively any nation, class, race, clan or religious group is not God.

This is why Harasta and Sinn remind us that “[i]n a situation where populist movements misappropriate Christian rhetoric to justify their aspirations, churches cannot remain silent…” This is why we must be clear and insistent that the God who raised Jesus from death is not the one engraved upon our coins, the one invoked to “bless America,” the one who “protects our war against Iran,” the one who sanctifies the graves of our fallen soldiers. The God who raised Jesus from death is not the vengeful deity imagined by much white evangelical religion who throws a wrathful fit over what people do or do not do in the bedroom, but is altogether indifferent to Iranian school girls killed by American tomahawk missiles or millions losing their health insurance and food stamps to finance tax breaks for the wealthy. The God who raised Jesus from death is not about to rapture a few million privileged souls off to heaven while leaving the world for which the Son died in the hands of the devil and to the fate of some great tribulation. The Resurrection and the reign of God is not for the privileged few. It is for all the descendants of Adam and Eve.

The good news of Easter is that the reign of God Jesus gave his life proclaiming is the future. That, however, does not sound like good news for those of us who have benefited from the status quo and want to keep it in place at all costs. Easter does not sound like good news for those of us accustomed to wealth and privilege. Easter does not seem like good news to those of us who feel threatened by people who look different, speak differently and worship differently than we do. The future does not belong to wall builders. If you have a problem with open borders, you have a problem with Jesus. If you have a problem with Jesus, you are on the wrong side of history.

As I have said before, sometimes the good news has to be heard as bad news before it can be received as the good news it truly is. Many of us need to be made aware that our privilege is actually a lethal addiction. Many of us need to recognize that the walls we build to protect ourselves are really imprisoning us. Many of us must learn that Jesus is appealing to us through our neighbors-even the ones we deem our enemies. Many of us must be liberated from the twisted, distorted and altogether too small and limited images of God arising from nationalistic ideologies before we can finally recognize the beauty and richness of the God whose love for us is stronger than death. Many of us need the blinding light of the Resurrection to chase the darkness out of our lives and open our eyes to the new reality of God’s reign that respects no humanly established border, favors no nation, race or class, turns away no person seeking mercy, forgiveness and welcome.

Here is a poem by Miller Williams that speaks of hope that struggles to see through the veil of failure, doubt and cynicism. It is a hope akin to that ignited by Jesus’ Resurrection.

Of History and Hope

We have memorized America,

how it was born and who we have been and where.

In ceremonies and silence we say the words,

telling the stories, singing the old songs.

We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

The great and all the anonymous dead are there.

We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.

The rich taste of it is on our tongues.

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?

The disenfranchised dead want to know.

We mean to be the people we meant to be,

to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how

except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?

With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—

and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together

cannot become one people falling apart.

Who dreamed for every child an even chance

cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.

Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head

cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.

Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child

cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.

We know what we have done and what we have said,

and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,

believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—

just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set

on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—

but looking through their eyes, we can see

what our long gift to them may come to be.

If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

Source: Some Jazz A While: Collected Poems, (c. 1999 by Miller Williams; pub. by University of Illinois Press). Miller Williams (1930-2015) was an American Poet, editor, critic, and translator born in Hoxie, Arkansas to a Methodist pastor. He was honored as the country’s third inaugural poet, reading the above poem at the start of former President Bill Clinton’s second term. Williams earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from Arkansas State University and an Masters in zoology from the University of Arkansas. He taught college science for many years before securing a job in the English department at LSU with the support of his friend, the noted author, Flannery O’Connor. Williams has written, translated, or edited over thirty books, including a dozen poetry collections. You can read more about Miller Williams and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

Beware of the Influencers

March 23, 2026UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

PALM/PASSION SUNDAY

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Matthew 21:9.

^“Pilate said to them, ‘Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?’ All of them said, ‘Let him be crucified!’Then he asked, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Let him be crucified!’” Matthew 27:22-23.

In all the gospels, the “crowd” or “the people” constitute a unique character. The crowds flock from all over Palestine and beyond to hear Jesus’ teachings and to be healed of their ailments, though their understanding of his preaching and mission is limited. The religious leaders in Jerusalem fear the crowd. They know the crowd holds Jesus in high esteem and that the reign of God Jesus proclaims challenges the imperial power of Rome. They are also painfully aware that the position of privilege and power they hold depends on their placating Rome. Thus, the religious elite find themselves in an untenable situation. Arrest Jesus and risk a riot that would certainly bring down a military response from Rome; or ignore Jesus’ messianic mission which is clearly on a collision course with Rome. Either way, a conflict with Rome appears inevitable. The only solution: undermine the crowd’s attraction to Jesus.

Crowds are notoriously capricious. Their memories are short and their loyalties fleeting. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s villain. Crowds can be carried away by lofty rhetoric. They are easily seduced by charlatans who promise easy solutions to complex problems. Crowds are vulnerable to extremists who put the face of minorities, foreigners and other disfavored groups on all their fears and convince them they are being persecuted, victimized and dispossessed. A crowd has a mind and a spirit distinct from and bigger than any of its members. Its malignant will overwhelms one’s instincts of decency, compassion and civility. People will commit and applaud unspeakable acts of violence and brutality when part of a mob that they would never think of doing or condoning individually. Skilled rhetorical manipulators know how to awaken our deepest fears, prejudices and hatreds. They know how to exploit these dark angels of our nature to inspire paranoia, knowing that when we are afraid, uncertain and confused we can easily be driven to destructive and violent action. We can be made to forget who we are, the relationships that bind us together as a community and the values we hold dear. A mob has no memory, no vision and no thought process. It does not move deliberately. It is driven by the energy of its blind malice. Other than the crucifixion of Jesus, there is no better example of that phenomenon than the Republican insurrection of January 6, 2021.

The gospels do not tell us exactly how the religious leaders in Jerusalem “persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed.” But we have contemporary examples of “influencers,” with large followings. The late Charlie Kirk comes to mind. Joe Rogan’s “manosphere” is another example as is Charlamagne the god. Taylor Swift exercises a powerful influence over her millions of fans as have other superstars over the decades. Influencers can affect the way we dress, the slang we use, the cars we drive (or wish we could drive), the music to which we listen, our politics, morality and spending habits. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having influence, nor is there anything sinister about being influenced. I do not know where I would be today without the teachers, pastors, authors, poets and artists who have influenced me over the years.

Still, I believe it is critical to recognize and acknowledge that we are, in fact, being influenced. It is also important that we ask ourselves frequently, “by what or by whom am I being influenced?” This inquiry is increasingly important in this age of social media which, in addition to making vast amounts of important news and information easily available, also constitutes a swamp of misinformation, unfounded conspiracy theories and hateful ideologies. The rise of AI makes it possible to distort and even fabricate pictures, videos and works of art such that it is becoming ever more difficult to determine what is real. We are open to mass manipulation and misdirection like never before. History has taught us that such manipulative power can drive a crowd of otherwise law abiding people to heinous acts of violence such as lynchings, rioting and genocide. The gospels teach us that mass manipulation led to the crucifixion of God’s Son.

During these last days of our Lenten pilgrimage I believe we would do well to consider the forces influencing us and to ask ourselves who or what is shaping our hearts and minds. What or who is demanding our attention? How are we being entertained? From where are we getting our news and information and what effect is all of this having on the way we think about our world, about our neighbors and about our God?

Here is a poem by Carl Sanburg speaking to the fickleness and capriciousness of the mob as well as its vulnerability to manipulation. The poem also expresses the hope that the mob might finally gain a soul and become a people governed by the lessons history has to teach.

I Am the People, the Mob

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

Source: Creative Commons. Carl Sandburg (1878 – July 22, 1967) was a Swedish-American poet, biographer, journalist and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and one for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Sandburg is widely regarded as a major figure in contemporary literature. At the age of thirteen Sandburg left school and began driving a milk wagon. Throughout his early years, he worked as a porter at the Union Hotel barbershop in Galesburg, Illinois, a bricklayer, a farm laborer in Kansas, a hotel servant in Denver, Colorado and a coal-heaver in Omaha. Sandburg began his writing career as a journalist for the Chicago Daily News. Later he wrote poetry, history, biographies, novels, children’s literature and film reviews. He also collected and edited books of ballads and folklore. He spent most of his life in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan before moving to North Carolina. You can find out more about Carl Sandburg and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.

The Life of the World to Come?

March 17, 2026UncategorizedBible, faith, god, jesus, resurrectionrevolsen

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, your Son came into the world to free us all from sin and death. Breathe upon us the power of your Spirit, that we may be raised to new life in Christ and serve you in righteousness all our days, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” Ezekiel 37:5.

Scholarly consensus is that Ezekiel’s vision in the valley of dry bones foretells not a general resurrection of the dead, but the restoration of the nation of Israel following the end of its exile in Babylon. That is probably so. But I am not convinced that exhausts the meaning and interpretation of this powerful text. Biblical narratives, oracles, parables, prayers and poems have always pointed beyond themselves and their immediate context. That is why they continue to engage us centuries later. Like a snowball rolling down hill, the Bible gathers meaning and its texts deepen and expand through interpretation and application to ever changing circumstances as it rolls through time convicting, inspiring and comforting faith communities as it goes. It is fair to say, I believe, that Ezekiel’s vision turned out to be bigger than he imagined. That would not have surprised or displeased Ezekiel. He knew, as all true prophets know, that the words he spoke were not his own. They were God’s Words animated by God’s Spirit. As such, they have a life of their own. They have power to stimulate the imaginations of their hearers in every age and to and open their eyes to new realities. That is, after all, the whole point of prophecy.

Ezekiel’s vision, therefore, is properly understood and preached as a Resurrection text. But wait! Aren’t we still deep in the season of Lent? Aren’t we jumping the gun, preaching the resurrection of the dead more than a week before Good Friday? For better or worse, the texts leave us little choice. Even as Jesus approaches Jerusalem where we know he will meet arrest, condemnation and crucifixion, he raises Lazarus from death. Ironically, the raising of Lazarus turns out to be both the reason for Jesus’ triumphal reception at Jerusalem and the event that finally convinces Caiaphas and the religious leaders of Judea that Jesus must be put to death. At least that is John the Evangelist’s take. Death and Resurrection are inseparably woven together. In our lesson from the Letter to the Church at Rome, Paul points out that death to sin is the flip side of sharing in Christ’s Resurrection. The line of demarcation between life and death is not as clear and absolute as we are prone to assume.

The lessons for this Sunday illustrate the difficulty of preaching the Resurrection-which we are called to do even-and perhaps especially-during the Sundays in Lent. As I have noted before, the temptation here is to say either too much or too little. We moderns are prone to preach Jesus’ resurrection as a metaphor for something else, such as liberation from economic oppression, a well ordered democratic government, world peace-you name it. One of the characters in John Updike’s first novel, The Poorhouse Fair, illustrates this approach. Updike’s story takes place in a state run home for the destitute elderly overseen by prefect Stephen Conner. Conner is a product of the New Deal. He believes in the inevitability of human progress through social evolution and the perfection of governmental institutions. Conner becomes engaged in a conversation among the residents about the afterlife. He shares his vision of “heaven on earth” formed in a future society where illness is overcome by advanced medicine; pollution eliminated through harnessing atomic power; and oppression defeated through the spread of democracy. Mrs. Mortis, one of the residents, asks him whether this heaven on earth will come soon enough for her to see it. Conner responds: “Not personally perhaps. But for your children, your grandchildren.”

“But not for ourselves?”

“No.” The word hung huge in the living room, the “o” a hole that let in the cold of the void.

“Well, then,” Mrs. Mortis spryly said, “to hell with it.” Updike, John, The Poorhouse Fair, (c. 1958 by John Updike, pub. by Random House).

I tend to share Mrs. Mortis’ sentiments. If the unsatisfied longings of billions for justice, peace, freedom and love never find fulfillment in God’s future, then for too many that future will have been a cruel hoax. Moreover, it is next to impossible for me to share Mr. Conner’s blithe optimism and his belief in the inevitable march of human progress under the shadow of a world slipping into fascism. His demythologized resurrection seems no less improbable than the real thing.

In the end, I do not believe our difficulty speaking about the Resurrection has anything to do with our inability to square it with modern science. Modern science has lost much of its enlightenment certainty in the face of ongoing discoveries and new theories undermining what we once believed were immutable laws. Increasingly, the questions posed by modern science are sounding ever more like those poets, novelists, philosophers and theologians have been asking for centuries. I believe our biggest problem with the mystery of Resurrection is that, well, it is a mystery. Even Jesus could speak of it only in parables. In a very real sense, when we say we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come, we do not know what we are talking about. A mystery can never be explained. If it could, it would no longer be a mystery. Its inexplicability in rational terms does not make it any less real, however. Mysteries are a very real part of our existence. But they can be apprehended only through the medium of graphic art, poetry, fiction, mythology and storytelling-and then only in small part. Contemplating mysteries always leaves us with more questions than answers. I believe that we modern Christians, schooled as we have been to equate reality with what can be proven empirically in the sterility of the laboratory, must re-learn the ancient art of living comfortably alongside mystery.

There are many imponderables when it comes to contemplating the mysteries of Resurrection and eternal life. What does it mean to live in God’s eternal now? Will there still be equations to be worked out, new discoveries to be made and growth in maturity and understanding? It is hard to imagine life worth living in the absence of such challenges. It seems obvious, too, that we need to change substantially if we are to live harmoniously under God’s just and gentle reign. Eternity will be anything but heavenly if we bring into it the grudges, animosities, prejudices, resentments and blood feuds that are so much a part of this life and so much a part of ourselves. Yet I wonder how it is possible to extract the experiences of pain, grief, loss and anger from our lives without uprooting the wisdom, patience and triumphs that come with facing these challenges which makes us who we are. Must we be so radically changed as to be unrecognizable to our present selves? Will our relationships with loved ones be somehow preserved, complicated as they are with selfishness, jealousy, envy and resentment? Will questions like these matter or even make sense in the life of the world to come?

Preaching ought not to attempt resolving these issues-as if that were even possible. Instead, preachers need to emphasize that the reign of God is not wholly a future state, but that it is breaking into our world even now. The world to come is woven together out of the fabric made from our common life together, our faithful witness to God’s reign in our preaching, teaching and works of justice, mercy and compassion. Eternal life is not merely a matter of duration. To live eternally is to live in faith, hope and love-the three things Saint Paul reminds us are eternal. I Corinthians 13:13. Every second lived within the parameters of these virtues is a measure of eternal life. All time lived outside of them is tragically wasted. In sum, precisely because we believe in the Resurrection of the Body and the Life of the World to Come, the way we live in the here and now is critically important.

Philosopher and teacher Alfred North Whitehead has been a powerful influence in my thinking over the years, providing me with valuable conceptual tools for interpreting the Scriptures. The following passage, which I know I have quoted before, has been enormously comforting to me and helpful in thinking about the Life of the World to Come.

“The wisdom of [God’s] subjective aim prehends every actuality for what it can be in such a perfected system-its sufferings, its sorrows, its failures, its triumphs, its immediacies of joy-woven by rightness of feeling into the harmony of universal feeling, which is always immediate, always many, always one, always with novel advance, moving onward and never perishing. The revolts of destructive evil, purely self-regarding, are dismissed into their triviality of merely individual facts; and yet the good they did achieve in individual joy, in individual sorrow, in the introduction of needed contrast, is yet saved by its relation to the completed whole. The image-and it is but an image-the image under which this operative growth of God’s nature is best conceived, is that of a tender care that nothing be lost.

“The consequent nature of God is his judgment on the world. He saves the world as it passes into the immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved. It is also the judgment of a wisdom which uses what in the temporal world is mere wreckage.” Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality (c. 1979 by The Free Press) p. 346.

The message latent within Ezekiel’s vision is that, in the end, God will bring to completion in a future of breathtaking harmony what God began with the words, “Let there be.” Jesus assures us that we will be included in that future. That is not all that I would like to know about the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come. But it is enough.

Here is a poem by Sister Maris Stella that bears a striking resemblance to Ezekiel’s vision.

RESURRECTION

from the deep sea wrack

from the green light under the sea

from the coral caves men will come back

on mountain tops where

dropped from the air

or hurled

against the world

their bones grow cold

among the old

rock-frost above the tree-line

they will rise up with the divine

breath breathed into them again

as on the first of men

Adam, newly conceived of clay

on the sixth day

God breathed

even somewhere Adam will rise

opening again his eyes

on the world to find

nothing much changed but of a mind

that he was blind before

Abel, first-slain

having lain

longer in earth than any other man

and Eve with the look of the new Eve

upon her but still Eve

they will rise up having known

the terrible trumpets blown

would cry: this is the doom

this is the crack of doom

who will record the innumerable horde

in hope to see

what publican will mount into a tree

what wind

what weather what bird

will shout unheard

against the sound

of whole tribes and families growing up out of the ground

what earth does every spring

is only a hint of the thing.

Source: Poetry (April 1943). Sister Maris Stella (1899–1987) was born Alice Gustava Smith in Alton, Iowa, in 1899. During her junior year in high school she moved to St. Paul, Minnesota to attend Derham Hall High School. Smith graduated from Derham Hall in 1918. Two years later she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of St. Joseph and took the name Sister Maris Stella. In 1924 she received her undergraduate degree from the College of St. Catherine with majors in English and music. She traveled to England thereafter where she earned her master’s degree in English at the University of Oxford. In 1939, Sister Maris Stella published her first volume of poetry, Here Only a Dove. During the 1940s she continued to write poetry for magazines. You can read more about Sister Maris Stella in the Minnesota Historical Society website.

Learning to See with the Heart

March 9, 2026UncategorizedBible, faith, god, jesus, johnrevolsen

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

Prayer of the Day: Bend your ear to our prayers, Lord Christ, and come among us. By your gracious life and death for us, bring light into the darkness of our hearts, and anoint us with your Spirit, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” John 9:41.

According to Jesus, there is more to blindness than simply lack of sight. In fact, even a person born blind is capable of sight, while those with perfectly sound eyes can be utterly blind. The disciples were blind to the humanity of the man Jesus encounters in our gospel lesson, a man who managed against the odds to survive without sight in a world without a safety net for the disabled. To the disciples, this man was an abstraction, a theological riddle to be solved with sophistic arguments. Surely a good and gracious God cannot be responsible for such a dreadful circumstance as congenital blindness. “So what do you think, Jesus,” the disciples ask. “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” The disciples saw the man born blind with their perfectly sound eyes, but not with their hearts.

This kind of thinking is not unusual. Although we enlightened moderns are not inclined to attribute the misfortunes of others to divine wrath, we are often quick to attribute their suffering to some mistake, misstep or bad judgment on their part. In fact, there is a tendency to take perverse satisfaction in pointing out how easily the tragedies of others could have been avoided. “What was he thinking of, going into a neighborhood like that in the dark of night?” “What did she expect was going to happen, going to a frat party in that skimpy outfit?” “If he had thought for a single minute before answering that text, he would have recognized it as a scam.” I expect there is more than just meanness at work here. It is, after all, comforting to believe that we live in a universe where wise, good and prudent conduct is always rewarded and foolish, wicked and careless behavior punished. Such belief allows us to indulge in the delusion that we are safe from injury, tragedy and untimely death-if only we practice good sense and a modicum of decency. It blinds us to the reality that our world actually is one in which bombs incinerate teenage girls whose only crime was coming to school; tornados rip through towns leveling indiscriminately both churches and brothels; terminal cancer, starvation and violence afflict innocent children while vicious war criminals live into their nineties and die in peace.

Living in the light, as Jesus calls us to do, forces us to see things to which we might rather remain blind. Witness president Trump’s recent failed attempt to remove from President’s House in Philadelphia an exhibit that honored the lives of the nine people held there who were enslaved by President George Washington. Desperate to maintain the false mythology of a pure and virtuous America and its white founders, many among us would simply erase from our history the terrible legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and ideological racism. We prefer living in the darkness of comforting lies rather than in the harsh light of truth.

There is a price to be paid, however, for such willful blindness. The real world, with all its unpredictable catastrophes, random tragedies and undeserved suffering affords those with eyes to see it opportunities to “work the works of [God] who sent [Jesus].” John 9:4. But for those who choose to remain in the false security afforded by what Jesus calls “darkness,” such opportunities remain forever out of reach. Blindness of willful complacency blunts the capacity for empathy and compassion, thereby deforming our humanity and preventing us from seeing with our hearts. This, not a mere infraction of some moral or religious code, is the biblical understanding of sin. Sin, according to Jesus, is the dangerous habit of willful blindness. It is a refusal to see what makes one uncomfortable, what challenges what one thinks one knows, what invites one into a larger understanding of what it means to be fully human. Jesus does not bother entertaining the disciples’ theoretical questions about the cause of the man’s blindness. Instead, he acts with compassion. He opens the blind man’s eyes and, in so doing, opens the spiritual eyes of his disciples. Unlike the disciples, Jesus sees the man born blind with his heart.

I have had to have my eyes opened numerous times throughout my life. I have had to learn over and over again to see not merely with my eyes, but with my heart. Through my wife’s debilitating injuries, I have come to a new realization of how thoroughly our society excludes persons with mobility challenges from full participation in our common life. Though it has been twenty-six years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, numerous barriers to restaurants, doctors offices, municipal buildings, places of worship, museums, beaches and public parks remain, preventing or making it difficult and dangerous for persons with mobility challenges to access essential services as well as recreational resources-which they support with their taxes as much as the rest of us. In traveling with Sesle on the slow, difficult road of recovery and adaptation, I have learned to see public buildings of all kinds in a new way. I see now the barriers, obstacles and obstructions that make a mockery of signs reading “welcome.” I am also increasingly mindful of others experiencing difficulty with these barriers and opportunities for offering assistance. That to which I was once blind, I can now see.

What will it take to open our eyes? What difference would it make if we could see the Iranian school girls killed by our bombs, not as inevitable “collateral damage,” but as the daughters of dads who beamed with pride as they watched them recite their prayers, moms who dressed them, brushed their hair and sent them off to school with no clue they would never see them again. What difference would it make if enough of us saw the 350,000 Haitian refugees the Trump administration is desperately seeking to deport, not as a mere number, but as parents seeking the same safe environment we seek for our children, young people longing for the opportunity to get a basic education, families who wish only to live free from the scourge of gang violence? What difference would it make if we could see all people with our hearts through the eyes of Jesus?

Here is a poem by Howard Nemerov speaking to the willful blindness against which Jesus warns us and from which he would liberate us.

The Murder of William Remington[1]

It is true, that even in the best-run state

Such things will happen; it is true,

What’s done is done. The law, whereby we hate

Our hatred, sees no fire in the flue

But by the smoke, and not for thought alone

It punishes, but for the thing that’s done.

And yet there is the horror of the fact,

Though we knew not the man. To die in jail,

To be beaten to death, to know the act

Of personal fury before the eyes can fail

And the man die against the cold last wall

Of the lonely world—and neither is that all:

There is the terror too of each man’s thought,

That knows not, but must quietly suspect

His neighbor, friend, or self of being taught

To take an attitude merely correct;

Being frightened of his own cold image in

The glass of government, and his own sin,

Frightened lest senate house and prison wall

Be quarried of one stone, lest righteous and high

Look faintly smiling down and seem to call

A crime the welcome chance of liberty,

And any man an outlaw who aggrieves

The patriotism of a pair of thieves.

Source: The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (c. 1977 by Howard Nemerov, pub. by The University of Chicago Press). Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) was an American poet. He was twice Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. He also won the National Book Award for Poetry, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize. Nemerov was raised in New York City where he attended the Society for Ethical Culture’s Fieldston School. He later commenced studies at Harvard University where he earned his BA. During World War II he served as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force as well as the United State Air Force. He was honorably discharged with the rank of Lieutenant and thereafter returned to New York to resume his writing career. Nemerov began teaching, first at Hamilton College and subsequently at Bennington College and Brandeis University. He ended his teaching career at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was elevated to Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence from 1969 until his death in 1991. Nemerov’s poems demonstrated a consistent emphasis on thought, the process of thinking and on ideas themselves. Nonetheless, his work always displayed the full range of human emotion and experience. You can find out more about Howard Nemerov and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] William Walter Remington (1917–1954) was an American economist who was employed in various United States government positions. His career was interrupted by accusations of communist espionage made by Elizabeth Bentley, a Soviet spy and defector. Remington was tried twice and convicted twice. The first conviction was set aside on legal grounds, but the second conviction on two counts of perjury was upheld. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison. In November 1954, he was murdered in his cell by fellow inmates at Lewisburg Prison.

The Power of Weakness

March 3, 2026UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT

Prayer of the Day: Merciful God, the fountain of living water, you quench our thirst and wash away our sin. Give us this water always. Bring us to drink from the well that flows with the beauty of your truth through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

In this Sunday’s gospel reading we find Jesus slumped against the façade of Jacob’s well, famished, exhausted and thirsty. The journey through hostile Samaritan territory from Galilee to Judea did not afford much in the way of comforts. The Samaritan villages along the way could hardly be expected to offer hospitality or even staples such as food and water to a band of Jewish travelers. It seems the disciples had to go some distance out of their way to get food-perhaps a detour into a more friendly Jewish enclave? In any event, Jesus was evidently too worn out to accompany them.

We are not accustomed to thinking of Jesus as weak, vulnerable and at the mercy of strangers. But that is the way the woman from Samaria found him. I can imagine the smirk on her face as she answered Jesus call for a drink, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” I can hear her thinking to herself or perhaps even saying, “guess you must be pretty thirsty mister high and mighty rabbi to beg a filthy Samaritan woman for a drink.” She must have been amused to hear Jesus offer her living water. “Well isn’t that just like one of you holier than thou Jews. Think you’re the one in control? Think you hold all the cards? Well guess what? I’m the one with the bucket. If anyone here is going to get water, it’s going to come from my bucket.”

Jesus then tells her to call her husband only to be told that she has none. Then, Jesus reveals that he knows her better than she thinks anyone could. It is here that I think the preaching of this story goes off the rails. Too often, the fact that the woman has been married five times and is now living with a man who is not her husband draws moral disapproval from us moderns. We assume that she is a floozie, a loose woman, an adulteress with a torrid sexual history. But that is hardly likely. In the first century, divorce was the sole prerogative of men and, as evidenced by Jesus’ dealings with religious authorities elsewhere in the gospels, there were some who believed that it was “lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause.” Matthew 19:3. The Samaritan woman might have been divorced due to a health condition that made her sexually undesirable. She might have been unable to conceive and bear children and thus incapable of continuing the family line. Or perhaps she was, like the luckless woman described by Jesus’ opponents in the dispute over the resurrection, passed through a succession of brothers, all of whom predeceased her. Mark 12:18-23. Whatever the case may have been it is obvious that this woman has known repeated rejection and her failure to remarry marks her as “damaged goods.” In spite of all this, which is somehow known to Jesus, Jesus is genuinely interested in her. The woman, for her part, is beginning to take an interest in this strange Jewish rabbi.

Now the woman poses a question to Jesus: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” So, which is it? It was hardly an idle question. The subject had been a matter of fierce dispute ever since the northern Israelite tribes broke away from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to become the Northern Kingdom of Israel a millennium ago. Perhaps she was expecting a lengthy dissertation on why the temple in Jerusalem is the only legitimate place of worship and that the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim was an idolatrous sham. What she got was a startling admission on Jesus’ part that neither the Temple in Jerusalem nor the Jewish nation hold a monopoly on genuine worship. “The hour is coming and is now here,” says Jesus, “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.” Did this Jew just say that Samaritans, too, can be genuine worshipers of God? The thought is almost too big to get one’s head around. “I know that Messiah is coming,” says the woman. It seems she wants to be done with this conversation. “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” To this, Jesus replies, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

At this point, the disciples return and wonder why Jesus is speaking with a woman of Samaria and what he could possibly want with her. The woman takes her leave at this point. Significantly, I think, she leaves her bucket behind, thereby enabling Jesus to access the water from Jacob’s well, a small act of compassion toward the one she so recently deemed a de facto enemy. Moreover, she invites the people of her village to come and see this remarkable teacher who saw her, knew her and expressed a passionate interest in her. The Samaritans come out in force to meet Jesus, inviting him and his disciples to stay with them. Jesus “remains” with them for a full two days.

The Greek word “meno” meaning “to remain” is a significant one in John’s gospel. John the Baptizer announces that Jesus was known to him by the witness of the Holy Spirit that both descended and “remained” upon Jesus. John 1:32. In his final words to his disciples, Jesus urged his disciples to “abide in me as I abide in you.” John 15:4. Here the English word “abide” is but another translation of the Greek word, “meno.” Thus, you could translate the verse as “remain in me as I remain in you.” As God loves God’s beloved Son, so the Son loves us and invites us to “abide” or “remain” in God’s love. John 15:9. In Sunday’s gospel, the love of God that stubbornly abides in Jesus penetrates the heart of a women that ought to have been an enemy. The inroads made into her heart opened up a crack in the wall of historic enmity between Jew and Samaritan, allowing the living waters of reconciliation and healing to flow freely and bring new life.

There is an old saying, the source of which I have not been able to ascertain, that “an enemy is a person whose story you have not heard.” Saint Paul reminds us that our “struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12. The weapons we are given to resist them are truthful speech, righteous integrity, the way of peace, prayer and the good news of God’s redemptive intent for our world. Ephesians 6:14-18. We wage peace rather than war, forgiveness rather than retribution, prayer rather than threats. We know that those who display aggressiveness, utter threats and commit violence do so from profound hurt, desperate fear and deep seated insecurity. Loving one’s neighbor (which includes the enemy) as oneself requires that one get inside the other’s skin, try to see the world through their eyes and understand the journey that led them to where they are. Such love requires one to look past whatever harm the other has done, whatever hateful views the other might express and whatever threat they may appear to present in order to touch with a healing hand the places where they are hurting. As Jesus demonstrates, such love requires one to become vulnerable, helpless and open to the other.

As again Saint Paul reminds us, this way of Jesus appears as folly to those who believe that strength consists in raw coercive power. I Corinthians 1:18-25. But we are witnessing today the tragic consequences of employing raw coercive power to achieve justice and peace throughout the middle east. Violence does not end violence. It only begets more violence spiraling out of control and drawing ever more victims into its vortex of death and destruction. Today, as has always been the case, Jesus’ way is the way, the truth and the life. Jesus and his way of the cross are the only way out of our self destructive path. It is not for nothing the Samaritan villagers recognized in Jesus “the savior of the world.”

Here is a brief poetic fragment by Edwin Markham that illustrates in one broad stroke the way of Jesus as it appears in our gospel lesson for this coming Sunday.

He drew a circle that shut me out –

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in.

Source: This poem is in the public domain. Edwin Markham (1852—1940) was born in Oregon City, Oregon and was the youngest of 10 children. At the age of four and following his parent’s divorce, he moved with his mother to Lagoon Valley in Solano County, California. Markham attended San Jose Normal School (now San Jose State University) graduating in 1872. Markham’s most famous poem, “The Man with the Hoe,” which accented laborers’ hardships, was first presented at a public poetry reading in 1898. His main inspiration was a French painting of the same name (in French, L’homme à la houe) by Jean-François Millet. Markham’s poem was published and achieved instant popularity. Throughout Markham’s life, many readers viewed him as an important voice in American poetry, a position signified by honors such as his election in 1908 to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. You can read more about Edwin Markham and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

An Open Letter to My Fellow Christians in Uniform

February 28, 2026Uncategorizedhistory, iran, Israel, middle-east, politicsrevolsen

Dear Siblings in Christ:

I am appealing to you in the name of the Prince of Peace to make a bold witness to peace. You have been schooled, I know, to recognize that Christians may in good conscience participate in wars deemed just. The current attack by the United States on the nation of Iran is not just under any of the criteria established as necessary by the church to justify engagement in military conflict. The requirement of satisfying each of these criteria prior to the grave decision to use lethal military power has been recognized by Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin and continues to govern the church’s thinking today. As people of faith and as soldiers sworn to defend your nation, resistance to this murderous abuse of military power against Iran is critical.

Let me explain more about what I mean by “just war criteria.” In the first place, a just war can only be declared by a “competent authority.” The attack on Iran took place without any legal declaration of war by the United States Congress. It was launched by the unilateral decision of President Trump without any congressional approval or even consultation.

In the second place, lethal military action must never be undertaken unless there is a reasonable “probability of success.” The president has given no indication as to what the goal of this war is, much less any estimation of its probable success. We know from prior experience, however, the consequences of invading another country under the pretext of its having “weapons of mass destruction” and seeking to effect “regime change.” We have seen this movie before. It does not end well. The case has not been made that the attack on Iran will produce a different result or a more just, safe and prosperous world.

In the third place, the case must be made that resort to military action is the last possible resort. Because negotiations were ongoing during this sudden and unprovoked attack, it is impossible to accept any claim that it was a last resort.

Finally, a just war must be fought for a just cause. Of course, every nation always believes that its aggression is justified. However, the rationalization for war from a Christian perspective can never be solely for recapturing things or land taken or for punishing people who have done wrong. The most recent formal statement of the just war tradition given by the U.S. Catholic Conference in 1993 states that force may only be used to repel aggression or to intervene to prevent an imminent and massive violation of basic human rights of whole populations. That is clearly not the rationale for the attack on Iran. The intent is, as was the case in the attack against Iraq decades ago, to address unfounded claims that the enemy possesses weapons of mass destruction and that the government in Iran must be replaced by one amendable to the national interests of the United States and its allies. These aims clearly do not constitute “just cause.”

I am appealing to you because you are powerful. You have agency. You are not merely cogs in the murderous machinery of a corrupt and violent regime. You know that military discipline and ethics amount to more than “just following orders.” I know that you took an oath to defend your country against all enemies foreign and domestic. The way for you to fulfill that oath today is to lay down your arms and refuse to fight. Your duty is to reject and publicly condemn the illegal abuse of military power by our president. That is the only way to stand up for the rule of law. That is the only way to defend the constitutional rights of Americans here at home and to end the needless loss of human life abroad. I know I am asking you to put your reputation, your career and even your freedom on the line. Yet because you have promised to put your very life on the line in defense of your country, I do not hesitate to call upon you to make these lesser sacrifices.

More importantly, you are followers of Jesus, the man who refused to resort to the sword in his defense. For you, the decision to engage in military action always carries with it the fearful knowledge that the persons whose lives are lost in the conflict are people for whom Jesus died. If military action is ever to be justified, it must be carefully, thoughtfully and fully evaluated under the strict criteria I have just discussed. Resort to war under anything less is simply mass murder. In the name of Jesus, I am calling upon you to take a stand for the defense of your country, to take a stand for the rule of law and to take a stand for peace.

Praying for you at this most difficult time in your lives and careers,

Rev. Peter A. Olsen (retired)

Born Anew the Better to See

February 26, 2026UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

Prayer of the Day: O God, our leader and guide, in the waters of baptism you bring us to new birth to live as your children. Strengthen our faith in your promises, that by your Spirit we may lift up your life to all the world through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Sunday’s lessons from Genesis and Romans lift up Abraham as a person of strong faith. The psalm describes in a beautiful, lyrical way what such faith looks like. By contrast, the gospel lesson features Nicodemus-hardly someone that comes to mind when examples of faith are under discussion. We meet Nicodemus three times in John’s gospel. In our gospel lesson, we find him creeping silently through the night to question Jesus under the cover of darkness. John does not tell us specifically why Nicodemus came at night, but we can safely conjecture that he did not want to be publicly associated with Jesus. We know that there were some influential religious leaders who believed in Jesus but were fearful of expressing their faith in him. Evidently, Nicodemus was among them. John 12:42.

Nicodemus comes across as something of a dufus who cannot seem to follow Jesus’ line of thinking. But in all fairness, I have some difficulty with that myself. Jesus declares that no one can see the reign of God unless they are “born anew.” Nicodemus asks, quite reasonably, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” Birth is a traumatic experience. One minute you are in a warm, dark, quiet and safe environment where all your needs are met without any effort on your part. The next you are thrust into realm of novel and unintelligible noise, harsh lights, cold air and new experiences of touch and smell. You have no conceptual tools or prior experience to make sense of everything that is happening to you. It is probably a good thing we cannot remember the experience of birth. If we did, we would probably be spending the rest of our lives in trauma therapy.

In order to be “born anew” or “born from above,” you need to unlearn everything you have ever learned. You must be stripped of all the assumptions, all of the biases, all of the family, religious and national loyalties into which you have been encultured and left psychically and spiritually naked. What, short of a traumatic brain injury, could put you into such a state? Yet according to Jesus, that is what must happen before we can comprehend God’s reign. Rebirth is hard to imagine. A new born infant or even a small child comes into the world without knowing what is possible, what is impossible, what is good or what is evil. For them, the world is all raw, unmediated sensation. Accordingly, they are radically open to learning and learn is what they do! Most of the critical learning we do occurs between infancy and early childhood. The older we get, the less open we are to learning. What we have already learned and believed becomes more deeply ingrained as we age. The older we get, the harder it is to let go of deeply held convictions and beliefs. The longer we have committed blood, sweat, time and effort supporting our religious institutions, our political parties and our familial communities, the harder it is question these loyalties, much less abandon them. Nicodemus was right to wonder how an adult can begin to view the world with the eyes of a child, unclouded by years of learning and experience.

Something like birth from above is what was required of Abraham when God called him to leave his home, his kindred and his tribe and follow God’s leading to some land somewhere he had never seen. His new life would consist of living as a homeless nomad and an alien in an unfamiliar land filled with hidden dangers. Yet this land, God tells the childness and aged Abraham, will one day belong to his descendants. Abraham would have been more than justified in asking, as did Nicodemus, “how can these things be?” John 3:9.

Sarah, Abraham and their descendants are models of faith. Notwithstanding what we moderns might view as their moral failures and shortcomings, they staked their lives on a promise. All the conditions that confronted them weighed against the fulfilment of the promise. As the author of the Letter to the Hebrews points out, their faith was based “on things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. Our nomadic spiritual ancestors’ conviction that the land of Cannan belonged to them was at odds with the hard geopolitical realities of the bronze age. Yet they lived in expectation of its fulfilment as though it were a sure thing.

As professor Stanley Hauerwas has observed, the life disciples of Jesus live makes no practical common sense apart from belief in Jesus’ resurrection. By raising from the dead the man whose life was lived in accord with the impractical, ineffective and hopelessly altruistic precepts of the Sermon on the Mount ending his crucifixion and the dispersion of his followers, God declares that the future belongs to the poor, the meek, the pure in heart, the merciful, the peacemakers and especially those who are most hated, despised and persecuted. The Resurrection places the proud, the wealthy, the war mongers, wall builders, the culture warriors and ethnic cleansers on the wrong side of history. So, because God raised Jesus from death, we continue to pick up the garbage on our streets even though our efforts are dwarfed by the tons of industrial waste dumped all over our planet by commercial interests whose only value is financial gain. We continue advocating for transgender children, racial justice and humane immigration policies even when our political allies plead with us to downplay such matters and focus instead on “kitchen table issues.” We make peace through seeking reconciliation, forgiveness and restorative justice in a world convinced that peace can only be made through the threat, and failing that, the use of military might. None of this makes sense unless you believe that God raised Jesus from death and that therefore the future belongs to the just, gentle and peaceful reign of God.

So how does our friend Nicodemus fit into all of this? As we have noted, he is one of the religious leaders who believed Jesus but was unwilling to associate with him publicly. John the Evangelist has harsh words for such under cover believers. He chides them for loving human praise more than the praise of God. John 12:43. Still, it is worth noting that when the religious authorities were hell bent on arresting Jesus, it was Nicodemus who spoke up and insisted that no such action should be taken without first hearing what Jesus had to say. John 7:45-52. Following Jesus’ crucifixion, his disciples all deserted him and left his body to be pecked at by crows and eaten by dogs at the foot of the cross. But Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, another under cover disciple, sought permission to take down the body of Jesus and give him a proper burial. John 19:38-42. It seems that despite his initial skepticism, Nicodemus may have been born anew. It appears that perhaps he did catch a glimpse of God’s reign. Did it lead him finally to a life of discipleship? John the Evangelist leaves us to wonder about that.

Here is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson that speaks to “a love that in the spirit dwells that panteth after things unseen.” It is to that spirit Jesus appeals when he says to Nicodemus,^“What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘Youmust be born from above.’The windblows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:6-8.

Gnothi Seauton (Know Thyself)

There is in all the sons of men

A love that in the spirit dwells

That panteht after things unseen

And tidings of the future tells

And God hath built his alter here

To keep this fire of faith alive

And set his priests in holy fear

To speak the truth-for truth to survive.

And hither come the pensive train

Of rich & poor of young & old,

Of ardent youths untouched by pain

Of thoughtful maids & manhood bold

They seek a friend to speak the word

Already trembling on their tongue

To touch with prophet’s hand the Chord

Which God in human hearts hath strung

To speak the pain reproof of sin

That sounded in the soul before

And bid them let the angels in

That knock at humble Sorrows door.

They come to hear of faith & hope

That fill the exulting soul

They come to lift the curtain up

That hides the mortal goal

O thou sole source of hope assured

O give thy servant power

So shall he speak to us the word

Thyself dost give forever.

Source: Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 3, edited by William H. Gilman & Alfred R. Ferguson (c. The Bellknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1964) Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25, 1803,^[15] to Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. at age fourteen, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher. Emerson served as Class Poet and, as such, presented an original poem on Harvard’s Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821. In the early 1820s, Emerson was a teacher at the School for Young Ladies. He next spent two years living in a cabin in the Canterbury section of Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he wrote and studied nature.

In 1826, faced with poor health, Emerson went to seek a warmer climate. He first went to Charleston, South Carolina, but found the weather was still too cold. He then went farther south to St. Augustine, Florida. There Emerson had his first encounter with slavery. At one point, he attended a meeting of the Bible Society while a slave auction was taking place in the yard outside. He wrote, “One ear therefore heard the glad tidings of great joy, whilst the other was regaled with ‘Going, gentlemen, going!'” Emerson was staunchly opposed to slavery. In the years leading up to the Civil War he gave a number of lectures on the subject. He welcomed John Brown to his home during Brown’s visits to Concord and voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, whom he later met in person. Starting in 1867, Emerson’s health began to decline. He wrote much less and started experiencing memory problems. Still, he continued to travel widely and lecture in Europe and the United States. He died from complications of pneumonia in 1892. You can read more about Ralph Waldo Emerson and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website

Secretary JFK, Jr. Declares TDS A National Health Emergency

February 17, 2026UncategorizedDonald Trump, history, news, politics, trumprevolsen

Kierkegaard’s Ghost

(News that’s fake, but credible)

This is a public service message from the staff of Kirkegaard’s Ghost. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has declared a recent spike in the spread of Trump Derangement Syndrome to be a national health emergency. As always, the Ghost stands with our government in its efforts to make America healthy again. Accordingly, we are sharing this important announcement with our readers.

We all know that Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is rampant among radical liberal snowflakes, treasonous Democrat politicians and the sick lame stream media talking heads. In case you are assuming that that, as a loyal MAGA Trump supporter, you are immune from this serous mental condition, think again. Lately, there have been troubling signs that TDS is making its way deep into the heart of Red State America and infecting even our most loyal foot soldiers with doubts about our Dear Leader. This threat is too serious to ignore. TDS, also known as sanity, can quickly erode that undivided loyalty to MAGA you have spent decades cultivating. Here are some of the symptoms accompanying the onset of TDS:

You are beginning to doubt that Tylenol and vaccines are responsible for causing autism.

You are wondering how a windmill can possibly cause cancer.

Donald Trump’s sentences are starting to sound logically, grammatically and factually incoherent.

You look at news footage from the love fest at our nation’s capital on January 6, 2020 and see only rioting and vandalism.

You start to question how a dead guy from Venezuela could possibly infect United States state operated voting machines unconnected to the internet with a virus changing presidential votes.

You wander into a Haitian neighborhood and can’t find a single restaurant serving dog or cat meat.

You cannot see the dramatic drop in the prices of food, housing and rent announced by the Trump administration in your neighborhood.

You cannot find the best insurance coverage ever that our Dear Leader’s administration promised on day one of his administration.

You start to think the rambling of that crazy, leftwing, deranged radical cousin of yours is actually making sense.

These are just some of the symptoms indicating that TDS or sanity is beginning to affect your brain. You should not treat any of these symptoms lightly. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to protect yourself against the onset of TDS.

Disconnect from any and all lame stream media. Some well meaning MAGA folk have exposed themselves to these demented talking heads with the misguided notion that listening to and understanding them will help them defeat their arguments. Precisely the opposite has resulted. Never underestimate the power of a new idea! It can stretch your brain and put it on new tracks of thinking that could turn out to be irreversible.

Avoid facts. Nothing undermines the blind faith our Dear Leader requires faster than exposure to facts. Facts only cloud and confuse the issues. They sow doubt and undermine loyalty. If you have been exposed to troubling facts, you need to contact one of our Truth Social stations immediately to arrange for prompt treatment. Fortunately, we have a large store of alternative facts with which we can rewire your brain before the actual facts have a chance to impart irreparable learning.

Break off all communication with your relatives, friends and co-workers who are already infected with TDS. TDS has proven to be highly contagious. Exposure to infected people, even for short periods of time, can lead to cognitive contamination with dangerous thoughts and ideas that can permanently increase your knowledge, vocabulary and understanding.

Protect your children. Public schools are swamps filled with troublesome facts, novel ideas and, above all, dangerous books. The best way to protect your children from infection with TDS is to take them out of school altogether. We highly recommend home schooling where your children will absorb only the truths you drill into them. Discourage reading or, better yet, don’t teach your kids to read. Remember that the best defense against TDS is illiteracy.

Practice MAGA mindfulness. Go to a safe room in your house insulated from all outside influences. Light a candle, put on Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A., wrap yourself in your Trump flag and go into a gentle rock. Empty your head. Imagine your brain shrinking back to its normal pint size as you let go of those troubling facts, challenging ideas and perplexing thoughts.

Of course, the best defense against TDS is simply to avoid contracting it in the first place. That is why we urge all the MAGA faithful to stay inside the bubble. TDS is no laughing matter. Too many of our people have succumbed to it and slipped into the incurable state of sanity. Don’t you be one of them!

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FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen. “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

Joyful Repentance?

February 16, 2026UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm 32

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

Prayer of the Day: Lord God, our strength, the struggle between good and evil rages within and around us, and the devil and all the forces that defy you tempt us with empty promises. Keep us steadfast in your word, and when we fall, raise us again and restore us through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” Psalm 32:1-2.

Our prayer for this first Sunday in Lent rings true with a particular clarity these days. The “struggle between good and evil rages within and around us” and we are tempted with a slew of “empty promises” at every turn. The Lenten challenge is to turn away from the allure of such promises, reject the claims the evil one would assert over our lives and lament our complicity in society’s systemic injustice. But is that really all there is to it? Is repentance only a matter of lamenting sin, turning away from evil and receiving forgiveness for past wrongs? I don’t think so. Over many years of leading my congregations through the season of Lent, the Three Days and celebration of the Resurrection, I have become convinced that we have not gotten repentance completely right.

A member of the worshiping community of which I am a part during the vacation season here on the Outer Cape recently summarized a sermon he heard in which the preacher declared, concerning the oppressive measures of our government against so many vulnerable groups, “I am not part of the so-called resistance. I am not resisting anything. I am struggling to follow Jesus and live into the reign of God he proclaims. They are the resistance.” I heard similar sentiments expressed by a member of one of our churches in Minneapolis involved with providing food assistance to persons afraid to leave home for fear of ICE violence. Disciples of Jesus practice the life of God’s coming reign in the face of resistance from a world unprepared to accept it. To be sure, such an existence takes the form of the cross, but its end is resurrection and a new creation. Thus, repentance is not merely or even chiefly a matter of sorrow for sin and turning away from evil. It is turning toward the imminent reign of God. Rejection of the devil and all his empty promises is not a precondition, but the consequence of this joyful turning.

What happens when we view the temptations Jesus faced in this light? The good news here is that God can be trusted to provide for our most basic human needs-and has so provided. Contrary to what the false apostles of scarcity keep telling us, this earth is capable of feeding, sheltering and caring for all people, notwithstanding the violence we have inflicted upon it. I recall a lecture I once attended led by a leader of my church’s global hunger ministry during which a woman posed the following question: “If God loves us so much, how come there are so many of these hungry people you keep talking about?” Without missing a beat, the speaker replied, “Many theologians and philosophers have struggled with that question and written thousands of books on the subject. But I think part of the solution to the problem is resting right there in your purse.” As the disciples learned when faced with a hungry crowd of five thousand, a little bit goes a long way when placed into the hands of Jesus, who calls us to trust God’s generosity as we practice our own.

The good news is that suffering, loss and even pain need not be feared. The devil would have Jesus believe that the reign of God will come without sacrifice. If you trust God, God will “rapture you away from the great tribulation.” “Your faith plants the seeds and God sends the harvest of prosperity,” “all things work out for good for those who trust God.” Quoting Psalm 91, the devil assures Jesus that he can safely throw himself down from the roof of the temple because,

“God will command his angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

But there is more to this Psalm than the devil is letting on. The author of the psalm is quite possibly a soldier who has known the dangers of combat. Or perhaps he or she is the survivor of a plague. Whoever they may be, they have seen death up close and personal. They know that God “will be with them in trouble.” Psalm 91:15. That is quite different from promising that there will be no trouble for those who trust in God. To the contrary, Jesus knows that his trust in his Heavenly Father will subject him to opposition, suffering and death. But suffering and death, real though they surely are, do not have the last word. For that reason, they have, as Saint Paul says, “lost their sting.” I Corinthians 15:54-55.

The good news is that God’s reign comes without violence, force or coercion of any kind. Jesus has no need for “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Matthew 4:8. He knows that such glory and power are illusionary. As the prophet Isaiah points out, the nations “are like a drop from a bucket.” Isaiah 40:15. As went Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece, so goes Rome, the Third Reich, the Soviet Union and, perhaps soon, the United States of America. Contrary to what much of American Christianity believes, God does not need the United States, democracy or the constitution to implement or prop up God’s reign. Jesus knows that empires have only time to “strut and fret” their “hour upon the stage” and then be “heard no more.” MacBeth, Act 5, Scene 5. God has all eternity with which to work. God’s reign will come with or without our efforts. The only question is, will we accept Jesus’ invitation to participate in that joyous occurrence or throw our lives away in futile resistance?

In sum, I believe repentance to be a joyful opportunity. It is grounded not in angry reaction to the evil around us, but in a thankful response to Jesus’ invitation to live under God’s just and gentle reign. Joyful repentance is on full display in the words of Wendell Berry:

“So, my friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love somebody who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

The flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.”

Repentance is not mere resistance, but an affirmative response to the better live Jesus invites us to share with him. We don’t have to repent. We get to repent.

To be clear, repentance does involve sorrow for the time we have wasted in bitterness, envy, selfishness and greed. There is genuine and proper regret for the harm we have done to others and the wounds we have inflicted on our planet. But the good news of the gospel is that our past need not determine our future. What we have done cannot be undone, but it can be worked into a narrative of redemption. Again, as Wendell Berry urges,

“As soon as the generals and politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go…”

Let this Lenten season be one in which our sober acknowledgement of brokenness nevertheless glows with a measure of Easter joy.

Here is the full poem of Wendell Berry cited above.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Source: The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry, (c. Wendell Berry, 2016; pub. by Penguin Random House, UK). Wendell Berry (b. 1934) is a poet, novelist, farmer and environmental activist. He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He is also a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. You can read more about Wendell Berry and sample more of his works at the Poetry Foundation website.

From Transfiguration to Transformation

February 9, 2026UncategorizedBible, christianity, faith, god, jesusrevolsen

TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD

Psalm 2 or

Prayer of the Day: O God, in the transfiguration of your Son you confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the witness of Moses and Elijah, and in the voice from the bright cloud declaring Jesus your beloved Son, you foreshadowed our adoption as your children. Make us heirs with Christ of your glory, and bring us to enjoy its fullness, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Matthew 17:5.

Just when the disciples think they finally have Jesus figured out, they find out they don’t. Just when they think they understand what the reign of God is all about, they discover they have a lot more to learn. They struggle to comprehend Jesus’ parables, they question his judgment when he tells them they are bound for Jerusalem and they do not know what to make of the Transfiguration but are clearly intent on making it last. The succeeding generations of disciples have fared no better. We are still trying to figure out who Jesus is, what he demands of us and how to follow him. Over the centuries, the church has made some disastrous wrong turns, not the least of which was turning Jesus into the mascot of empire, the tool of colonialism and, most recently, the patron saint of American racism, genocide, misogyny and homophobia. The way of discipleship is, as Jesus characterizes it, “narrow” and “hard.” By contrast, the way leading us away from it is “wide and the road is easy.” Matthew 7:13-14. Thus, the divine imperative: “This is my Son, the Beloved…listen to him.”

How do people like us who are two millennia removed from Jesus’ earthly ministry listen to him? Of course, the most direct witnesses we have to Jesus are the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The Bible, consisting of both documents, is understood in my Lutheran tradition to be the Word of God-but only in a derivative sense. Primarily, the Word of God is the Word made flesh, the incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ. In the not too distant past, we would have said that the Bible is “inerrant and infallible.” The abandonment of these terms in our more recent statements of faith caused quite a stir among folks who felt we were watering down the Bible’s authority. But I think jettisoning these terms was a wise decision. They say both too much and too little. They claim too much because they ascribe everything to the text, suggesting that we disciples of Jesus are a “people of the book.” [1] On the other hand, these two terms say too little because they fail to specify the focus of the Bible’s testimony to the Incarnate Word. In arguing with his opponents, Jesus remarked, “you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf.” John 5:39. I prefer to say that the Bible is a faithful and reliable witness to God’s saving acts toward Israel and God’s redemptive acts for all creation through the obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection of Jesus. Disciples of Jesus read and interpret the scriptures through this lens. That is how the Bible enables us to listen to Jesus.

Still, the fact remains that the Bible has not always functioned as a redemptive text or a faithful witness to Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims. Throughout history the Bible has been cited in support of unspeakable hatred, violence and cruelty. In both the United States and South Africa, the accounts of Israel’s conquest of Canaan were cited as a rationale for invading, conquering and dispossessing indigenous peoples. Saint Paul’s admonition to respect governing authorities as instruments of God’s justice has been cited to justify tyranny and condemn resistance to it. The Bible was regularly invoked to support the institution of slavery in the antebellum United States and afterward to support the systemic racism of Jim Crow. Biblical passages have been employed to demonize, ostracize and incite violence against gay, lesbian and transgender persons. The Bible is a complex, layered and diverse collection of literature filled with rabbit holes leading to dark and frightening places. It is a dangerous book in the hands of the wrong people.

That brings us to our reading from II Peter where the apostle says, “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.” II Peter 1:20. That is not to say the Bible needs no interpretation. As noted above, it clearly does. The operative words in Peter’s remark are “one’s own.” Interpretation of scripture is far too important a task to be left to everyone’s individual conscience. It is too important to be placed solely in the hands of ecclesiastical authorities or left to the outcome of any democratic process. Interpretation of scripture is the task of the whole church. We need the wisdom and experience of bishops, pastors and teachers to school us in the lessons learned by the church over the centuries and the hard won teachings that have guided us. We need prophetic voices of preachers speaking from the margines to warn us when our orthopraxy does not match our orthodoxy and call us back to faithfulness. We need writers, poets, artists and musicians to stretch our imaginations and help us to see and understand in new ways our Lord Jesus and the reign of God he proclaims. I daresay we need even the heretics. While we may reject their claims and teachings, we can thank them for helping us clarify, revise and strengthen our own. (And I hope we are learning to treat them more grace and gentleness than we have in the past!) Through all these witnesses, we discover anew the Jesus we thought we knew as he is constantly transfigured and we are by him transformed.

Here is a poem about perception that transfigures and its transformative potential by Jennifer Jean.

Doors of Perception

My father leapt on stage at the Hollywood Bowl

to grab drum and cymbal sticks

from a star—he wanted to be

a star, a door, a Door. White. Security

thugs dragged him off

John Densmore. He saw doors everywhere, he saw Doors

everywhere—at the Whisky,

the Beanery, the Magic Mountain fest—and

in primary colors

in Windward, Oakwood, or North of Rose. He wanted

to forget war in Venice, to be a door in Venice

and face the faux canals.

Later, he flew to Paris to pay homage to the Door who died

with a head of Alexandrian hair.

He carried huge pale poppies

to the “Poets’ Corner” in the Père Lachaise,

to this stranger under a cream coffin

door nailed shut. He said, Break on through.

He put a poppy in his pocket

like a receipt,

and chased daylight till he landed

in LA, saw a wave of white

stars rippling

on the Pacific on new moon nights,

when the ever-present rust cloud was blown out to sea.

He found a motel room door, particle door, and shut it

on all that he owned

for fifty years. He lived there, adding up primary colors,

hour to hour in Bliss Consciousness—

crossing his legs on the bed, letting electric snow

hush the TV. Hush

gunfire and

blood. He forgot his father’s father’s Cabo Verde

and let himself be Italian there—

a different kind of Venetian—because who he really was was

too close to Black.

Source: Poetry (October 2020). Jennifer Jean is a poet, translator, editor and educator. She was born in Venice, California and lived in foster-care until she was seven. Her ancestors are from the Cape Verde Islands. She grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley. She earned her BA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and her MFA in poetry from Saint Mary’s College. Jean has been awarded fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Disquiet/Dzanc Books, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Kolkata International Poetry Festival. She received the Jean Pedrick Award from the NEPC, and an Ambassador for Peace Award from the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jean is the founder of Free2Write: Poetry Workshops for Trauma Survivors, and has been the poetry editor for Talking Writing Magazine and MER. You can read more about Jennifer Jean and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

[1] My friends who insist on an inerrant Bible find themselves drawn down a thousand rabbit holes, having to defend a literal six day creation, a literal worldwide flood and a literal halt to the earth’s rotation against all scientific evidence. This is necessary because if the Bible is found to be unreliable in any single detail, its credibility is destroyed and faith is undermined. But this is to do exactly what Jesus’ opponents were doing, namely, placing faith in the scriptures rather than the God to whom the scriptures testify.

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(News that’s fake, but credible)

FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen. “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

Joyful Repentance?

From Transfiguration to Transformation

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FAKE NEWS ALERT: The above article is satirical. The events it describes didn’t happen. “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn’t necessarily a lie even if it didn’t necessarily happen.” John Steinbeck

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