Exodus 33:18-19

I begin each morning

with the same sweep

of the arm, drawing back

the curtains to let

the light in,

 

even if it’s just a sliver

of the sunrise, winking, blinking,

rubbing its own crusty, sleepy eyes,

 

even if the clouds are dark

and looming, gloomy and pouty

and promising rain,

 

because even if the daylight

is cloaked and shrouded,

a somber monk appearing

for morning vespers,

 

it is still enough—

the light of day is still enough

to fight back against the night,

to drive the shadows away,

 

to open the window to my soul

and air out all the troubles of yesterday,

allowing them to flit and flutter

and fly up and out, along with the night.

 

And so I pull back the curtain

to the back door to check

on the robin’s nest—she has been

gone for days and I know

how nature works, but still

I hope, and in that moment

of hope, with the house finches singing

their joyful hymn—yes it’s a new day,

a new morning, a new dawn—

 

in that moment, a deer steps out

hoof by hoof by hoof by hoof

onto my back patio.

 

The cat has wrapped himself around

my ankles and I call to him,

“Look, look, look,” because I want to—

 

I need to—I have to share this second,

this breath, this wonder with someone

as the adrenaline pours into me

and then out, surging through my fingertips.

Every part of me tingles.

 

“Look,” I say.

 

And the cat does.

He chirps, he chirrups,

he chortles and the deer

turns her head to me,

and suddenly all three

of us are frozen,

unable to move.

 

She is not ten feet away,

only the window separating us,

but she perceives me,

watches me, unblinking.

 

Yes, time can stand still.

Oh yes, it can and it does,

and in that moment,

in that space between breaths

when all things are possible

and visible and knowable,

 

in that moment,

I am Moses

watching the glory

and the goodness of God

pass me by.

 

And I am alive.

I am wholly alive,

in a holy time that did

not exist just a second ago,

before I dared to let the light in.

 

Where will you catch a glimpse

of God’s glory today?

 

Amen.

Listen

Two years ago, when I was house hunting, I put an offer on the very first house I saw.  The offer was accepted, but after inspections, I decided to pass on the house.

Several houses later, I found another house I liked.  I put an offer on that house but was outbid.

Strike two.

I took a deep breath and began the search again.  But this time, I did something I should have done from the beginning.  I prayed.  I asked God to help me with my search and to direct me to the right house.

And so, when my realtor and I pulled up to this one particular house—almost a last chance house—one of the first things I noticed was that there was a church across the street and a sign on the front that said, “House of God.”

And I said to myself—well there you go.  It’s a literal sign from God.

Oh, we human beings love our free will, but we always look for help when it comes to making decisions.  Ideally, we would look for help from God, but often we turn to other sources, something as simple as checking in with our friends and family and getting their opinions, sometimes something as silly as taking out the good ole’ Magic Eight Ball.

But the key to discernment truly lies in honest prayer.  It means taking a good deep breath, exhaling long and slow, and then turning inward in prayer, beginning by asking yourself this question.

“Is God speaking to me?”

Or maybe this question.

“How is God speaking to me?”

Followed by the obvious.

“What is God trying to tell me?”

Today’s two readings from Exodus and Matthew show two very contrasting ways that God speaks to people.  In Exodus 19:16-25, God descends on Mount Sinai in a dark, smoky, fiery cloud.  There is an earthquake.  The ground shakes.  Moses speaks to God and God answers Moses with thunder.  God calls Moses to the mountain peak and warns him that if anyone else should make that climb, if anyone else should try and break through the cloud to get a look at God for themselves—they will die.

Contrast that to our reading from Matthew 3:13-17 which tells the story of Jesus’ baptism.  The Spirit of God descends not as a fiery cloud, not in thunder, but in the form of a dove.  And when God speaks, it is not just to one person, an intermediary like Moses but to everyone with ears as He declares, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

How things change!  Right?

Maybe not as much as you think.

Because God speaks to a lot of people in the Old Testament in a variety of different ways.  He speaks to Moses first in a burning bush.  He speaks to Hagar in the wilderness twice.  He speaks to Elijah as that still, small voice.  He calls out to Samuel while Samuel is sleeping.  He even speaks to Balaam through Balaam’s donkey who is literally given a voice.  God appears to the prophets like Ezekiel through visions.  Sometimes God’s voice is silent, but His actions speak louder than words—so to speak—like when Jonah is swallowed by a giant fish after refusing to obey God’s word and go to Ninevah.

And when God speaks to these people it is for reasons like “calling.” He wants to lead people to their vocation—people like Moses and Samuel.  He speaks to Hagar and Balaam to set them back on the right path—He effectively keeps them alive, when they would otherwise die.  He speaks to comfort like He does when Elijah is deep in a depression after being on the run from Jezebel who wants to kill him.  And He sends Jonah a powerful message, putting Jonah in “time-out” until Jonah realizes he must do what God has commanded him in order that the Ninevites might have one more chance to repent.  Otherwise, a whole civilization might die.

And when God speaks at Jesus’ baptism, it is for very similar reasons.  God’s words that Jesus is His son, the appearance of the Spirit of God as a dove, all send an earthshaking message.  It’s a message of peace, renewal, and promise.  God has called His son for a very specific role and in that role, Jesus will save the human race. 

So you see, God has always been speaking to us.

Always. 

I remember when I was going through the discernment process for becoming a priest, someone else who had already been through the process warned me to never say that God speaks to me.

And I know what she meant, but it was funny, because, like I said, God speaks to all of us.

He speaks to us in prayer.

He speaks to us in signs.

He speaks to us in dreams.

He will speak to us in whatever way we are most likely to hear Him.

Again, though, the key is discernment.  Is that God speaking or is it my anxious soul beaten down by a very loud world?

How do we pick out God’s voice, how do we identify His voice in the chaotic cacophony that assaults our ears every day with social media and phone alerts and a 24/7 news cycle that seems to warn us every five minutes that the world is about to end?

It begins with prayer.

Honest prayer.

And honest prayer begins with this—taking a breath, living in that breath and then breathing out, exhaling, returning that breath over and over.  Our breath is our offering because the Breath of God, the Spirit of God lives within each of us.  And so we breathe in and out remembering that His light and love flow within us.

And then we listen.

Amen.

Hopecore

The other day, I was sitting in the recliner with Pippin when something thumped on the side of the house and at almost the exact same time, my watch buzzed and my phone displayed an alert that there was someone on my back patio.

I immediately leapt up and raced to the back door.

There was no one.

So I went to the front door and stepped out onto the front porch.  Again, there was no one.

Judging by the video taken by my Ring camera, several boys had raced across my back patio and down the narrow path that is overgrown with honeysuckle, grapevine and poison ivy.  Only the deer dare walk that path.  I have a small fence at the street side entrance as a deterrent.  It doesn’t stop the deer and apparently it also doesn’t stop middle school boys.

I went back inside and pulled back the curtain to the window that overlooks that small fence, and there, sure enough, were two boys, their backs to me, crouching behind the fence.  I mean, I don’t know why they were crouching—anyone could see them.

There was a third boy out on the street hunched behind the neighbor’s car.

I didn’t even think—I rapped my knuckle on the window.  Immediately the boys jumped and looked at me.  I gave them my “I’m not impressed teacher face” and made a motion with my hand, shooing them away.

And off they ran.

When I told this story to a friend the other day, she was laughing, but not because my story was funny, but because it reminded her of a scene from Project Hail Mary where the main character, Ryland, is attempting to communicate with an alien (and I will leave it at that as to avoid spoilers—I have read the book but not seen the movie personally).

But my friend’s reaction to the movie, days after she had seen it, is evidence of a movie that is really connecting to and sticking with moviegoers.  My friend was still tickled thinking of the movie.  The movie was still bringing her joy. 

I was reading an article the other day that appeared in The Hollywood Reporter about the resurgence of what is called “hopecore” in movies, specifically Project Hail Mary and the Pixar movie, Hoppers.  Hopecore is simply a feelgood movie.  It makes us laugh, probably, but it also touches that part of us, our hearts, if you’re secular, our souls, if you are spiritual, that makes us take a deep breath.  It releases the tension inside of us that we hadn’t even known we were holding.  Hopecore makes us feel seen and held and as the name suggests, it fills us with hope and hope frequently leads to optimistic thoughts, thoughts like, “Yeah, the world is in rough place right now, but it’s going to be okay.”

In fact, of the ten highest earning movies so far this year, at least half of them, I would call hopecore.  They include: The Super Mario Galaxy movie; Project Hail Mary; Hoppers; GOAT and Zootopia 2.  Four of these are marketed as kids’ movies, but it’s clear a lot of adults enjoy them, perhaps because it reminds them of a time when things were less complicated.

Even in books, you will find people drawn recently to hopecore.  On the New York Times bestseller lists, you will find books like Raising Hare (one of my top books for 2025) about a woman who raises a wild hare.  Also on the non-fiction list a recently released book When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World.  Among fiction books you will find, once again, Project Hail Mary, but also Theo of Golden, both of which seem to be on everyone’s bookclub lists.

People’s need for hopecore has led to the sudden popularity of cozy mysteries and cozy fantasies.  Basically if Hallmark had written a mystery or fantasy novel.

People are choosing hopecore because it’s the literary and/or visual equivalent of comfort food.

We need to be reminded—we desperately need to be reminded—that there is goodness in this world and that innocence and empathy and peacefulness are not faults but virtues.

We need to be reminded to abide in radical love.

To turn our back to cynicism and pessimism and nihilism. 

We need to be reminded that Jesus’ words in today’s reading from John 15:1-11—His invitation to abide in Him, to abide in His love is not something we should reject.

“Abide” Jesus says eleven times in today’s reading.

“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

Abiding in Jesus is to lean into Him, is to be protected by Him, by His love, because—we need protecting.

But it’s not just abiding in Jesus, it’s letting Him in to abide in you, to strengthen you, to encourage you, to drive darkness out and replace it with His light and His love. 

What is it that gives you hope these days?

For me, I get a lot of hope from the natural world. 

I am left in awe every time I look out my back door and see the chickadee and robin who have made nests almost right on top of each other, unafraid to share space, tolerant of each other’s cries and songs.  Those nests are filled with potential.

I also have hope whenever I walk down the street and see the weeds, yes even the dandelions, because that means there is life.  Winter is over.  Spring’s roots are growing deep and much of what looks forsaken now will be overflowing with color and movement and life very soon.

But I also get hope from each of you, from the people in my life, from strangers and friends, from family to new friends.  Yes, I even get hope from the two boys hiding behind the fence in my yard.  Why?  Because they were playing and, for a lot of kids these days, play is luxury.

People give me hope because I see the light in each of you.  And if you only knew how bright your light shined, you would never fear the dark.  It is the light of Jesus abiding in each of you.

Now complete the circuit.

Abide in Him.  Only then can our joy be complete.

Amen.

 

 

The Lady or the Tiger

Let me set the scene for you.

Many years ago, a king has come up with a new way to put people on trial.  It is a trial by fate.  The accused is sent into an arena where they come upon two doors.  Behind one door is a ravenous tiger and behind the other is a lady, specifically chosen to be a good mate to the accused.

If the accused chooses the door with the tiger behind it, he is clearly guilty and the tiger kills him.

If he chooses the door with the lady behind it, he is innocent and must marry the woman.

As it happens, the king’s daughter has fallen in love with a man who the king feels is not worthy of her.  So he puts the man in the arena to face the two doors.

Now, the princess knows the location of both the lady and the tiger.

And her lover knows that she knows.

And now she has a choice.  She can direct him to the door with the lady behind it, saving his life or, she can direct him to the door with the tiger behind it because she cannot bear to see him with another woman.

I think we can agree a decent human being directs him to the door with the lady behind it.

She nods to him, directing him to the door to his right.

But while it may be an easy choice for us, is it an easy choice for the princess?  Has she saved his life or ended it?

Holy Week is a week of choices.

Today is Wednesday of Holy Week and though it doesn’t have a specific Liturgical Calendar designation, traditionally it is called Spy Wednesday, as in the day when Judas chooses to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, another day of choices.  It is here at the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus, after asking God to take away the cup of suffering, chooses to submit to God’s will.

And then, of course, Good Friday, where Pilate offers the crowd what he thinks is an easy choice.  Jesus or Barabbas?

Keep in mind that Pilate really wanted nothing to do with Jesus, and that was before his wife told him to have nothing to do with Jesus because of a dream she had.  Pilate could see what was happening, the behind-the-scenes machinations that would lead to Jesus’ death.  Pilate was being used, and he knew it, and being a prideful Roman, he resented it.

So, he gave the crowd what should have been an easy choice.  Free Jesus or free Barabbas. 

All of my life I have given very little thought to who Barabbas was.  Only in my book Witnesses to the Passion of Christ, did I think to give him a voice at all.  I thought honestly Barabbas was a placeholder.  He could have been anyone provided that for the sake of the plot, he was clearly the wrong choice.

Barabbas was a known insurrectionist, a murderer.

But for years, I have thought, Pilate could have chosen anyone or anything to pit against Jesus in this scenario.  Pilate could have said, “Will you free Jesus of Nazareth who has reportedly healed the blind and the sick, fed the hungry and even raised the dead OR will you free this man-eating tiger who has already killed twenty of your widows and young children, and who, if you choose to set free, I will release directly into the crowd here and let me just say, he is a very hungry tiger?  Now who will you set free?”

And the crowd raises their fists into the air and says, “The tiger!!”

This past Sunday, in his sermon, Reverend Greg looked at this choice of Jesus versus Barabbas and it gave me new insight.  First of all, our reading from Matthew 27:16–17 tells us that Barabbas’ full name was Jesus Barabbas.  And if you think giving the people a choice between two Jesuses is a bit on the nose, consider that, as Reverend Greg pointed out, Barabbas means “son of the father.”

Jesus Barabbas was, as I said, an insurrectionist and as Reverend Greg stated in his sermon, Barabbas was someone who fought Rome on Roman terms.  He used the tools and the weapons of Rome to fight Rome.

Or, I could sum it up simply as Barabbas fought fire with fire.

Jesus, on the other hand, our Jesus, Messiah, Son of God, did not fight fire with fire—in fact, He was not fighting Rome at all.

When we wonder how a crowd could have chosen Barabbas over Jesus, we are thinking like Pilate.  We are oversimplifying things.  We are thinking that the choice is simply choosing a good guy over a bad guy.

But the choice is more nuanced than that.

To choose Jesus over Barabbas in this situation is to choose mystery, is to choose the unknown over Barabbas, who everyone knows.

Jesus, who flipped the tables in the temple, upsets the natural order of things.  He heals on the sabbath.  He forgives sins.  Everything Jesus does is brand new to people.  He is a wild force in the world.  I keep thinking to the Narnia books where it is said of the great lion Aslan (a Jesus stand-in) that Aslan is not a tame lion.

Jesus is not a tame lion.  You could look at someone like John the Baptist and the way he dressed and what he ate (those yummy wild locusts) and say yes this man is a wild man.

But Jesus—to choose Jesus—is to choose someone so wild, He rewrites the universe every time He speaks.  To follow Jesus takes such a leap of faith—because you are following Him into the unknown.  And there is no telling what will happen next.

It is very easy to fault the crowd, to judge them, for choosing Barabbas.

It is very easy to say that we would not have made that decision.

Over the years, whenever the passion play has been read aloud in church and the congregation has been asked to yell out, “Crucify Him!” I have stayed silent.

I won’t say those words.

But as Reverend Greg was preaching on Sunday, I was sitting there thinking, “Crap, two thousand years later and we are still choosing the wrong Jesus, aren’t we?”

We’re still fighting the same wars in the same ways rather than choosing another way, rather than wondering how the radical love of the other Jesus might change the world.

We are so quick to judge those who chose Barabbas, to point out the splinter in their eyes, without acknowledging the wood plank in our own eyes.

Earlier I was sharing with you the very well-known story of The Lady or the Tiger, but I didn’t tell you how it ended.  The story ends in the unknown.  The author never tells us what was behind the door, the lady or the tiger.  The point of the story is self-reflection.  Are we the cynic who thinks the tiger is behind the door, or the optimist who thinks the lady is behind the door?  Do we believe the best in people or the worst?  What if the man had not chosen either door?  What if he had refused to play the game?

What if … what if … what if … can we ever be comfortable in the unknown?

Can we ever be comfortable in the mystery?

Because if we can, we may find that the world, the universe, is more wild and wonderful and amazing than anything we could have ever imagined.

Amen.