Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:47:28 -0700EditMySiteSun, 14 Jun 2026 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/being-disciplesWe live in strange times - times when people who identify as followers of Jesus Christ support violence against anyone who seems different, and what passes as Christian preaching is sometimes veiled white supremacy. It can make us feel ashamed to be called Christians.

In order to resist this mis-portrayal of our faith and of our Savior we get to be very careful that we are living as disciples of Jesus the Christ as he is seen in Scripture. The true gospel, the Good News of Jesus, is a gospel of non-violence, reconciliation and deep love and anything that goes against those values is not of the reign of God.

Today’s gospel reading gives us a long account of Jesus calling and commissioning his disciples. Today is my last Sunday talking with y’all for quite some time, so this is a good Sunday for us as St Peter’s to be thinking about what it means to be disciples of Jesus. Not disciples of me, or Padre Sid or Rev Ollie, but of Jesus the Christ.

Before I get into my ideas, I would like to hear yours. So let’s take a few minutes to pair and share. I would like you to find someone to talk with – you may have to change seats, and please look to see that no-one is alone. Once you have found your conversation partner, please talk about what is most important about being a disciple of Jesus; if you’re not sure you can make it up. So, let’s take a few minutes to talk about what you think is most important about being a disciple of Jesus…
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Last week I talked about the importance of deep love and of accepting God’s love. I described the path of the disciple as learning and living on an ever-deepening level—a seen-in-our-daily-lives, actionable level—learning and living the truth that God is love, that we are loved, and that the only path to wholeness and fulfillment is the doing of that love.

Probably Jesus didn’t talk much about this because his disciples were already experiencing his love and seeing it demonstrated as he healed people. But most of us have personal trauma and grief or generational trauma which can get in the way of us receiving the amazing and unconditional love that God has for us. We still think we have to do something to earn it.  We’re a bit like Sarah laughing in her tent when she hears that she’s going to have a child. “Really?? Me?”

The reality is that those of us who want to learn to give and receive divine tenderness have to deal with our experience of the falsehoods, the wounds, the craziness of love that is not love. Jesus invites us to unlearn ways of life that do not nourish us or strengthen the bonds of beloved community. We cooperate in our own healing, our un-learning and re-learning as we allow the Spirit to lead us into discipleship.

And at the same time, Jesus sends us out.

Discipleship is about learning and living the truth of God’s tenderness, but this is not just a gift for ourselves to cherish. God’s love is not to make us feel good but to share that love even when sharing tears us apart.

God’s tenderness extends to all beings. When Jesus saw the crowds, we heard, he had compassion on them for they were harassed and helpless. When Jesus looks at the people of Morro Bay he has compassion and tenderness- he sees that they are harassed and helpless. Yet Jesus also sees a plentiful harvest for God, waiting for people to harvest.

And Jesus told the disciples to pray.

Before all else, as the disciples of Jesus, we are to pray. It is in prayer that we learn more of the love and tenderness of God; it is in prayer that miracles of healing begin; it is in prayer that we align our wills with Gods and set into motion the possibilities of co-creation. It is in prayer that we unlearn the habits and resentment that prevent us from fully experiencing God’s love. It is a simple prayer to pray that God might graciously and gently remove all the blocks that prevent us from fully experiencing her love. And it is a simple prayer that God might graciously and gently remove all the blocks that prevent our neighbors from fully experiencing his love.

Jesus specifically told the disciples to pray that God might send laborers into the harvest; and then he authorized and commissioned them to be the laborers themselves.

Being disciples of Jesus takes work. It did then and it does now.

But the work is different. Then it meant going from town to town spreading the good news that the reign of God is near. Today we don’t have to travel on foot without any extra food or clothing. But we are still called to spread the good news that the reign of God is near.

And it is good news that God’s tender love is available for everyone, that we can celebrate peace and non-violence, that we can resist the culture of violence which today celebrates the president’s birthday by glorifying ‘ultimate’ fighting.

Our work is less obvious than that of the first century disciples – we don’t get to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.” But through prayer and conversation whether in person or through social media we get to share the truth that God is love, that we are loved, and that the only path to wholeness and fulfillment is the doing of that love.

Jill and I experienced a miracle this week. It’s been over two years since we had a nasty falling out with the young couple who live next door. In the past six months the wife, at least, has begun to acknowledge that we exist and not always look the other way when she sees us. We have struggled with forgiveness. We have smiled and greeted them. And we have prayed. On Monday we saw the mother and her two young sons in the distance down by the bay. We thought they were avoiding us. Later we were working in our yard when the older boy came to tell us that now he is four and they had seen us by the water and picked berries for us but we were gone. His mother joined him and told us where to find berries by the bay and she stayed to chat for a few minutes. A little later the four-year-old returned with a small bowl of berries.

Those berries were a little sour but oh so sweet. Healing is happening. We are deeply grateful to see the reign of God coming near in our driveway.

And maybe that is one way that we go out into the harvest that God is preparing and sending us into. By praying for those who live and work around us, by praying for our neighbors and our friends and our acquaintances that God will remove the blocks that prevent them from fully experiencing God’s tender love. And then listening for how God is sending us out.

And, when we hear the Spirit’s prompting, having the courage to go.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
]]>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 01:24:20 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/divine-tendernessAll preachers stand on the shoulders of others, and this morning I am particularly indebted to Nikki Mathis, a priest in Atlanta, Georgia for the way she expressed the ideas in this sermon.[i]

The Rev. Mathis points out the tenderness of God displayed in the compassion and actions of Jesus the Christ. It is the tenderness that welcomes desperate women who take their healing into their own hands, and irrational fathers who insist that daughters can be raised from the dead. It is the tenderness that calls as disciples people who have acted as traitors to their own people, and which hosts dinner parties that others see, at best, as morally questionable.

With the evidence of such attentive, transformative, and healing love in the gospel this morning, why, she asks, do we find it so hard to truly know divine compassion?

Why is it often so hard for us to do the work of disciples, which is learning and living on an ever-deepening level—a seen-in-our-daily-lives, actionable level—learning and living the truth that God is love, that we are loved, and that the only path to wholeness and fulfillment is the doing of that love? I say “doing love” because love is a verb, and it’s what we’re made for. 

It’s just that simple… but not at all easy.

It sounds great, doesn’t it: falling further into the endless depths of God’s tenderness and sharing that with others (all others). But how exactly are we supposed to do that?

How are we supposed to do that when our own life experiences, or simply watching 15 minutes of any news network, can so quickly plunge us into betrayal, heartbreak, and despair?

How can we believe in “love” when we have been brought up in families, or have had friends or partners, claiming to be Christian whose ability to love is quite poor, even if they are trying their best? 

How do we do “love” when we have suffered systemic injustice, presented to us as the best we deserve—as if any of us deserve racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia. 

If any of you are blessed enough to have had all your family and friends always love you well; if you’ve never had anyone reject you, treat you unfairly or cruelly; if no inexplicable tragedy has ever happened to you; then this sermon is not for you. 

This sermon is for all of us who have experienced depression, fear, and deep loss. This sermon is for all of us who’ve had those with power over us use shame as motivation and exclusion as a way to maintain status quo.

Because the reality is that those of us who want to learn to give and receive divine tenderness are going to have to deal with the falsehoods, the wounds, the craziness of love that is not love. 

Jesus is inviting us to unlearn ways of life that do not nourish us or strengthen the bonds of beloved community. 

We are invited to abandon unquestioning agreement with questionable beliefs and wrestle with the scriptures, exploring the language and values of the cultures from which they came without abandoning faith.

Or we may need to reexamine the history of natural disasters being named “Acts of God,” indicating that divine love is deadly and arbitrary. Or worse, being declared God’s punishment as if God is angry and vindictive.

We may need to unravel the way we have been harmed by others wielding biblical texts or beliefs in divine retribution as being synonymous with how God loves and acts in the lives of God’s beloveds. 
As Jesus calls Matthew the despised tax-collector so Jesus calls us his disciples to practice this re-learning: inviting us to know and extend God’s tenderness beyond our ‘own’ people to all people however different from us.

On Tuesday you’re invited to come to Movie Night. Over a potluck we will watch the film “The Shack”. This is not a great film. It did not win any academy awards. But what it does is explore God’s tenderness, God’s especial love for each one of us as individuals as Mack, the protagonist confronts God, unlearns his anger, and learns about forgiveness and hope and love.

This morning, in God’s tenderness we’re invited to the dinner party of the communion table, surrounded by the motley crew of other fallible human beings. Here we are invited to learn—with the Holy Spirit’s help—to see human dignity and the face of God in all people, even in our enemies, simply because that’s also what God sees in us. 

We’re all receiving healing as we touch the garment of listening to and learning from the stories of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, year after year after year. As we listen and learn, Jesus takes us by the hand, raising us from the living death of settling for anything less than a bone-deep knowing that we’re absolutely adored by the One who made us, regardless of what others might say or what we may think of ourselves. 

Let me repeat that: Jesus takes us by the hand, raising us from the living death of settling for anything less than a bone-deep knowing that we’re absolutely adored by the One who made us, regardless of what others might say or what we may think of ourselves. 

We cooperate in our own healing, our un-learning and re-learning as we allow the Spirit to lead us into discipleship. Discipleship means something different for each of us: learning the tenderness of God perhaps through a contemplative prayer group; perhaps through a group Bible study; and then living our learnings through relationship and service. We cooperate with the Holy Spirit by doing less doom-scrolling and more handholding. It is in relationship that we receive more of who God really is: inexhaustible, relentless, transforming love. 

But let’s not get it wrong… This process of re-learning, receiving, then doing divine love doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t make suffering and evil suddenly cease to exist. Nor will we get satisfactory answers for why life seems unfair, why bad things happen to beloved people, or why our particular and communal roads to forgiving and being forgiven might look different from our neighbors’ roads.

But what we will get is this: the voice of God on a ever-reverberating loop, saying, “I am Love. You are beloved. You are made to love and be loved. And no matter what, I’ll always be with you.” “I am Love. You are beloved. You are made to love and be loved. And no matter what, I’ll always be with you.” 

And that my friends, is enough. That is healing. That is God’s ineffable tenderness.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 


[i] https://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermon/learning-tenderness-proper-5-a-june-7-2026/
]]>Sun, 31 May 2026 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/god-is-a-donutLast Sunday I said that asking the question ‘what does the Bible say?’ about something often doesn’t have a simple, quick answer because the Bible speaks in many voices which do not necessarily agree. It is particularly difficult this morning, Trinity Sunday, since the Bible says nothing explicit about the Trinity, and yet it is a central part of our understanding of the nature of God.

The Bible does not say anything directly about the Trinity because it is a way of thinking about God that gelled in the years after the New Testament books and letters were compiled.

Jesus talked about the Father, and himself as the Son and he promised the gift of the Holy Spirit. In his prayer for his disciples in John 17 he said, ‘I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—  I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.’

Early Christian philosophers and theologians wrestled with how this unity could exist, how three divine persons could be one God. They did not agree and at times the debate was as acrimonious as today’s partisan political divide.

The debate went on for over fifty years before the church in the Roman Empire was declared Trinitarian. Of course there were Christians outside the Roman Empire, and they did not necessarily believe that the Christ was of the same substance as the Father. We use the Nicene Creed to remind ourselves that our ancestors were Trinitarian and that is how we have come to understand God.

By now you’re probably wondering why we care about this ancient history.  When I googled “Christian Heresies” to remind myself of the details of the debate, the listing at the top was for Amazon and its heading was “Early Christian Heresies – Keep Yourself Entertained.”

So we could keep ourselves entertained by talking about early Christian arguments about the nature of God, but what is really important is who is God for us today?

This is a vital question because the way we understand God is reflected in the way we live and love and pray.

If we think of God as hierarchical – as a solid triangle of authority - we will tend to have a rule-based approach to our spiritual lives. If we think of the Trinity as a dancing circle of light then we will be more organic and perhaps more playful in our approach to living with God.

It will come as no surprise to you that the dancing Trinity is the way I like to imagine God. This is no more Biblical than a triangle but I think it reflects the way our understanding of the cosmos increases our understanding of God.

As I understand it, at the atomic level there are tiny things that are in constant motion and their motion looks rather like a dancing sphere. At the other end of the scale, there are planets and galaxies who are also moving in relation to one another. The ancient people imagined that there were celestial spheres in which the stars and planets were embedded. Today we think of orbits through which the heavenly bodies move in space. So there’s been a shift from thinking of solidity to understanding movement as the fundamental nature of matter.

It makes sense then that our understanding of God becomes more fluid. Yes we still want and need God to be the bedrock on which we stand but now we know that that very bedrock is made of particles in motion and so we can think of God as more like water, constantly flowing in and through and around everything.

So I just threw in another metaphor – a few minutes ago I was thinking about God as a dancing sphere of light and now I’m talking about God as water. Which is it? Yes both, and neither because God is God but we can only grasp ideas of God through our own experience, by saying God is like…

There is a story of an old Rabbi who was dying. He was surrounded by a large crowd of family and followers all eager to hear his last words. The old man suddenly spoke and whispered, “God is a donut.” The people behind asked “what did he say?” “God is a donut” Finally the whisper reached the edge of the crowd, “God is a donut”. Then someone asked, “What does that mean, God is a donut?” the question was passed to the front of the crowd, “What does that mean?” “What does that mean?” “What does that mean?” The rabbi’s son bent over and said into the old man’s ear, “What does it mean – God is a donut?” There was a long silence and they all waited. Finally the old rabbi sighed and said “Maybe God is not a donut.”

So how can we know that our ideas of God are true, or at least as true as we can get?

As followers of Jesus, whenever we think about God we do so through the lens of Jesus’ teaching, life, death and resurrection. Jesus Christ is the revelation of God in human terms – in 1st century male human terms. And what we see and hear from Jesus is love. Jesus healed on the sabbath, Jesus ate with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes. Jesus was not caught up in the rules of society, who was in and who was out, Jesus demonstrated love for all beings.

So that is fundamental. God is love. If it is not deeply loving, it is not God.

Regardless of whether God is like a triangle, a dancing sphere, running water or even a donut, God is love. And God is peace.

This has been a new understanding for me this month. God is peace. God is not worried about the things that worry me. God is not worried about the Middle East or the climate crisis or the coming El Nino. God is not worried about suffering and despair. It is not that God does not care about these things, I think God cares very deeply. But God’s peace is before and under and beyond it all.

Today we heard the first story of creation. God created it all and God saw that it was good. And God is working towards the redemption of creation when we will all be reconciled with God and all things brought into balance. And God is perfectly peaceful and relaxed about that process. It is all OK.  God is love and God Is peace.

That doesn’t let us off the hook. As the people of God, our calling is to be clear channels for the blessing of God to bless Creation. We are called to love, to pray, to act as if the Reign of God is here right now. We are called to be God with flesh on. We are called to speak and to act and to vote as we believe God would have us do.

We have a human tendency to make God in our own image. We imagine that God is like us and so we think of an angry vengeful God. We think that God is on our side when we attack other countries, especially if their people are predominately Muslim or Hindu or anything other than ‘Christian.’ We imagine that God wants us to have guns so we can defend ourselves and we can fight the enemy, whoever they may be.

This is not the God we see in Jesus. Jesus was ready to call out hypocrisy and corruption, but he did not fight even when wrongfully arrested; he reminded us that even the despised non-Jewish Samaritan was our neighbor; his compassion extended to lepers and social outcasts.

This is the God we worship. At this time in history our images of God will be more organic, more tied into the web of life than they were in the 4th Century. But whatever images we may use; Mother, Father, dancing Spirit, energy of the Universe – however we imagine God – what is important is that we allow ourselves to be transformed by God rather than transforming God into us.

If your imaginings of God do not pull you closer to the Abba God of Jesus then it is time to change your thinking. Because God is always challenging us to let go of our little ego ways and to be transformed into the Christ-like beings we were made to be. God holds out her arms to us and gathers us to her bosom.

And there we find love, peace and the courage to be more than we ever thought we could be.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall

]]>Sun, 24 May 2026 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/pentecostPeople sometimes ask me, “what does the Bible say about heaven?” or “what does the Bible say about sin?” or whatever. And most often there isn’t a simple answer because the Bible is a collection of writings written at different times for different purposes by different people and those writings don’t always agree. We can’t use the Bible like an instruction manual, it is far too fluid and complex and demanding.

Today’s readings about the coming of the Holy Spirit in a new and personal way are a good example.

In the first reading we heard from the Book of Acts.  It was written to show how the gospel was spread from Jerusalem across the mediterranean world to Rome, the center of the Empire. In today’s exciting account, the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples in wind and fire on a festival day when Jerusalem is full of Jews from across the known world and the disciples go out into the streets speaking in different languages. Then Peter gets up and preaches his first sermon putting the whole thing into the context of God’s Spirit being poured out. This is no inner mystical experience but an exuberant outpouring of God’s energy that touches every life present.

I love this story and I love the kind of Christian experience which is described here and in in our second reading. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, giving them practical instruction for worship. He writes, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

In the mid 1970s there was a charismatic revival in the Anglican and Catholic churches, starting down in Van Nuys.

For me those were exciting times with healing and prophecy and speaking in tongues. I have often wondered why that didn’t continue – why those of you who speak in tongues only do it privately at home and why we no longer lay hands on people and expect them to be healed and why we are almost apologetic when we see visions and dream dreams.

But then I think abut the gospel reading from John. This is also an account of the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit, but a very different one. Jesus appears among the disciples with his customary greeting of “Peace be with you” and then shows them the marks of the crucifixion almost to prove it him just in case they thought he was someone else. Then “he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” You can’t get much more intimate and personal than that. No rushing into the streets, no-one accusing them of being drunk, no speaking in tongues, just the quiet breath of Jesus.

So we have two quite different accounts of what happened and they just sit side by side with no scriptural attempt to compare and contrast or to sync them in some way. Perhaps they happened on different days to different disciples, perhaps the people who wrote these things down were reflecting their own experiences several decades later. We don’t know.

So what does the Bible say about the Holy Spirit?

In the psalm we were reminded that the Spirit was there at the very beginning of creation and continues to be active in renewing the face of the earth.

The Spirit was there at the very beginning, but at Pentecost the Holy Spirit was made available to all followers of Jesus in a new and different way. It empowered them to take on the work that Jesus had been doing. Which is why it is the birthday of the church. On Pentecost the church was born with the mission to be the manifestation of the Christ in the world. Jesus is no longer physically present, but his work continues.

His work has continued through the centuries and continues today.  We are the ones who get to continue Jesus’ work of healing and reconciliation, we are the ones who get to be God with flesh on, and we are given the power of the Holy Spirit to do just that.

But let us not fall into the trap of thinking that the Holy Spirit powers our work like gas or electricity powers our cars. We don’t come to church on Sunday to get our tanks filled with the Holy Spirit and then go off to do God’s work during the week, because the Holy Spirit is not a fuel but a person. And the Holy Spirit is renewing the face of the world outside the walls of the institutional church as well as within it.

We are empowered by the Holy Spirit as we work and live and love in relationship with Spirit. We renew the depth of our relationship as we gather together to worship and praise God, but it is as we work together with the person of the Holy Spirit that miracles happen.

Often we get it the wrong way round. We come up with a plan and ask God to bless it. I’m sure you’ve heard the rather cynical saying, ‘How do you make God laugh? Tell her your plans.’ I don’t believe that God has some fixed plan for creation, or for you and me, or for St Peters – I believe that God’s plans develop in cooperation with what we are doing and thinking – but since God’s plan is to renew the face of the whole earth, we are only part of it.

So the place for us to start is not in a committee meeting, but in deep relationship with the Spirit.  The deeper our relationship with Spirit, the more we are empowered. Now that relationship may be dramatic and filled with miracles or it may be quiet and contemplative or even both. But it is a relationship that brings healing and new life. It is a relationship that as it grows and deepens will demand everything you have and at the same time will fill you with the life of Christ.

For over a year we have prayed every Sunday for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this time of transition. And we believe that the Search Committee and the Vestry have received the guidance of the Holy Spirit in calling Ollie as your next priest.

This is a time of significant change for this congregation; a time of loss as well as a time of joy and hope. People who were worshiping with us regularly eighteen months ago are no longer here. Some have moved, some have stopped coming and some have died. This week we mourn the loss of Bob Swanson and it seems likely that Dorene Hughes will be slipping into her next life very soon.
Pentecost was also a time of significant change for the disciples – they were still integrating Jesus’ death and resurrection and the death by suicide of their friend Judas, and now they get hit with the Holy Spirit to enable them to continue Jesus’ mission. A mission that would lead some of them including Peter to martyrdom.

Yet in Acts 2 we read, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

They devoted themselves to spiritual teaching, to fellowship and prayer; they were filled with joy and gathered together praising God.

May this be our guide, at a time of change, yet another transition; at a time when we alternate between grief and hope; at a time when we long to see the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our life together, let us emulate the early church, devoting ourselves to spiritual teaching, to fellowship and prayer; let us be filled with joy and gather together praising God.

As the psalmist said,

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; *
I will praise my God while I have my being.
May these words of mine please him; *
I will rejoice in the Lord.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. *
Hallelujah!

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 
]]>Sun, 10 May 2026 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/groping-toward-godEvery Sunday we hear three passages of Scripture and a psalm. I wonder how you listen to it? Do you listen carefully trying to understand the meaning of each passage? or do you let it flow over you listening for a few words to stand out? or do you just marinade in it, not too concerned about making sense of it all? I think I do a bit of all three.

This morning as I let it flow over and through me, there was one phrase that stood out. I was struck by Paul saying, “he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” 

I love the idea that God put different people into specific times and places “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him.” Last week Canon Katherine reminded us that we beloved of God and we are enough. This seems to take that idea a bit further. We are the people whom God has called to be here in this time and place – the people of St Peters by the Sea in Morro Bay in 2026 – and God has put us here so that we might ‘search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him.’ And if we are the ones who are called, we are up to the calling, we are enough.

I can’t do much without my glasses and the first thing I do in the morning is to grope for them. I love this image of us groping for God – in the fog of the early morning myopia, we search blindly for God. And God has placed us in a time and a place where we might be successful, where we might find God. These are difficult times. They are difficult times for all creatures on our planet. And our hearts are broken by the pain and suffering we see. And our minds are frustrated by our sense of helplessness. Yet this is where God has put us so that we might ‘search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him.’ And this is where and when God has placed us so that we might show God’s glory and love to the world.

Jumping now to the gospel reading, we are not alone in this time and place. Jesus promises his disciples that although he is no longer physically present, they will still know him. And that promise is for us as well. The Spirit of truth is with us and in us and around us and teaches us about God. Teaches us about God not in a dry academic sense but teaches us to inhabit our place in the inner cosmos. Jesus said, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Let’s try and rephrase that so we get how amazingly personal it is. “Jesus is in the Creator, and we, St Peters, are in Jesus and Jesus is in us.” Or “Jesus is in the Creator and I, Caro, am in Jesus and Jesus is in me.” It’s almost like nesting dolls – Jesus is in the Creator and we are in Jesus – but here’s Jesus again, Jesus is in us.

That’s what the Holy Spirit is here to teach us – as we search for God, groping for the living divine, and finding him so too God is coming toward us because God is already around us and in us.

One of the things I dislike about John’s gospel is that Jesus seems to keep going round in circles. I prefer a good logical linear thought. But now I find myself circling - these things cannot easily be expressed in straight lines. As the poet T. S. Eliot wrote,

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Groping, searching, finding, abiding, loving, then more groping, searching, finding, abiding, loving.

This is our individual spiritual journey. It is also our journey as a faith community. We often interpret Jesus’ words as speaking to us as individuals, and indeed they do, but most often he was talking to his disciples as a group. So, we can also interpret them as meant for us, the Body of Christ whom God has placed in this place, in this time. We are the ones who are called to do the searching and the groping and the loving.

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And he has two great commandments – to love God with everything you’ve got, and to love your neighbor as if they were your very self.  And we all know that the journey towards a mature, self-giving love takes a lifetime. And in faith community we get to love each other as we go through that journey of joy and heartbreak.

We are the people whom God has placed at this time and in this place to be the ones with whom the Holy Spirit abides. We are the ones who are enough for this moment. We are the ones who are called to be God’s heart and hands in this community.

We are the ones who are called to love our neighbor. And unfortunately, Jesus made it very clear that by ‘neighbor’ he didn’t mean the people you like. By ‘neighbor’ he meant the people you have difficulty with, the people you are prejudiced against, the people who don’t like you. This is so counter-cultural that it’s difficult even now, after 2000 years, to wrap our heads around it. And what better moment to practice this God-inspired loving than when we are living in a deeply divided society with a leader who generates division and hatred.

People of God, this is where the rubber hits the road. In a world rife with anger and fear we get to have peace. As the letter of Peter says, “Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

Do not fear what they fear. We do not need to fear because we know the peace of God. God’s peace is not the absence of conflict, nor is it the peace of conflict resolution, it is the peace which is the very nature of God. It is the peace which underlies all things. It is the peace which we know as we understand that we inhabit the nesting dolls - Jesus is in the Creator and we are in Jesus – yet Jesus is in us. The love of God IS peace.

So our circling is not the anxious pedaling of a hamster in a cosmic hamster wheel, rather it is joining in the ever circling, ever dancing life of the Trinity. Because my friends, that IS our place, just as this is our place, this is our time to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. And we are enough.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
]]>Sun, 26 Apr 2026 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/all-our-relationsI’d like you to think back a moment, if you can, to 1970. What were you doing in 1970? It’s a lifetime ago and some of us were not even born then but most of us were. If it helps, 1970 was the year that Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ was at the top of the charts. I was in secondary school and planning to become a missionary in Ethiopia. Anyone else care to share what you were doing?

A few other things happened that year: the US invaded Cambodia, Apollo 13 made it to the moon and back, four students were killed at Kent State, and the Beatles split up.

It was also the year that growing concern about pollution led to the first Earth Day and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, the Clean Air Act and the end of leaded gas have enormously reduced pollution. But at the same time, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 30%,[i]  the average temperature has increased by 2.8 degrees (F), and sea levels have risen by over 6 inches.

Even though we think of God as the Creator and scripture starts with the creation of the cosmos, the Church was slow to catch on to the need to focus on the environment. Although Earth Sunday started to be celebrated in 1970 it wasn’t until twenty years later that churches began a serious focus on Creation each September.

Like everyone else, we pretty much took nature for granted. And some of our ideas have helped to alienate humanity from the rest of Creation. We can see now that these are distortions of the gospel but for generations they have been unexamined. The first is that humanity is in charge of the show – that we were created to dominate the rest of Creation. Although it seems that we have a particular role in Creation, the idea of dominion which comes from Genesis is contradicted by the New Testament and also by our lived reality. The second is that we are just passing through this life and what’s important is what happens next. The implication is that this world simply doesn’t matter. This is directly opposite to Jesus’ teaching.

But we are heirs to a tradition that tells us that humanity is more important than anything else and that takes the natural world for granted, in fact sees it as less important than human flourishing. And so we have failed to see our dependence on insects for pollination and we use insecticides so that we can eat fruit and vegetables without blemishes; we failed to see that when we cut down the rain forest to grow beef for cheap hamburgers or for palm oil we are cutting the very source of our planetary flourishing.

In the 26 years since that first Earth Day we have become increasingly aware of the connections between every part of Creation and we are witnessing devastating effects of our effect on the planet. I don’t need to spell out the effects of climate change or remind you of the decline of non-human species. Since 1970 there has been a decline of 70% in the number of vertebrate wild critters.

The roots of our current environmental crisis are spiritual. And that’s where we come in, as agents of transformation. Yes we are smaller than a mustard seed, but the promise is that the reign of God starts very small, in fact starts very small and hidden in the soil but can grow into a large shrub that provides safe haven for birds and insects and food for animals.

We are coming to realize that the cross is not just a symbol of God’s love and God’s participation in human suffering, it’s not just a symbol of our personal connection to Jesus, but rather it is a symbol of God’s participation in the suffering of all Creation. Wherever there is pain, there is God. And wherever there is resistance to the powers who crucify Creation for their own ends, there is the cross and there is the power of the cross.

And wherever the cross is, there too is the seed of resurrection. And my friends, we are the people of resurrection.

There’s a passage in Romans 8 which was not selected for our readings today because the readings are focused primarily on the importance of non-human animals, but there is a passage which talks about the whole of Creation waiting as if on tiptoe for the people of God to realize their true identity in Christ.

And why is Creation waiting so eagerly for us?

Because we are the mustard seed. The redemption of the cosmos is already secure but is being worked out through us. As we realize our identity as the daughters and sons of the living God we can move ahead without fear, knowing that ultimately nothing can harm us as we are held in the love of the Godhead. And so we can stand up against the powers that are harming this world, just as Jesus did.

And those powers are not hidden. Every day we see them writ large – might is right, we are entitled to take whatever we want. The future of the planet is unimportant in comparison to current desires and industrial growth and growth is limitless.

These, my friends, are not the values of the reign of God. The fruits of the Spirit are non-violence, love, joy, peace, sharing and patience. The people of the Spirit live with open hands, giving and receiving generously, not holding on to what they have, holding everything lightly as a gift from God to be shared.

This is the alternative community we are called to create and to live. One which understands and acknowledges the deep web which connects all of life, all of the cosmos. A community which practices non-violence, love and gentle forbearance. A community which honors the earth and all who live in and on her as members of God’s body just as we are.

A great deal has changed since 1970. And much of it for the better. Women have many more opportunities now than then, and so do LGBTQ folk. Change does happen though it may take a lifetime.

And that gives us hope. It gives us hope that our attempts to bring the reign of God in Morro Bay and beyond, our attempts to embody the Sermon on the Mount, our intention to live in harmony with all beings will bear fruit. That this little church, this faith community might be like that mustard seed.

And that we might grow into something that looks very different, something that may appear to human eyes to be totally separate, but the Spirit will know that it grew out of the mustard seed of a small group of people living the Gospel.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall


​

[i] https://abc7.com/post/earth-day-how-planets-climate-has-changed-first-1970/16222484/#:~:text=It%20is%20now%20rising%20at,Force%20on%20Sea%20Level%20Change.
]]>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 21:58:14 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/we-are-all-mysticsThere are three scenes in the Bible which I find particularly touching.

The first one comes in Genesis 7. Noah and his family have gone into the ark with all the animals. And God shuts the door behind them. Don’t you love that? I imagine God checking them all off – two tarantulas, two bumble bees, and finally two ground squirrels – that’s the lot – and then closing the door gently behind them as the storm darkens and the flood waters rise.

The second one comes from the life of Moses. He’s up the mountain with God – this is in Exodus chapter 33 – he’s up the mountain and he asks to see God’s face. But God says that he is too bright – Moses cannot see him and live. So God puts Moses into a cleft in the rock and covers him with his hand as he passes by. Then he moves his hand and Moses can see his back. Isn’t that wonderful? God gently protects Moses and lets him see his back.

The third scene is from today’s gospel reading. These two disciples don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks the bread, and just as he blesses it and breaks it their eyes and opened and… he disappears.
And isn’t that just like God? Whenever we think we are finally in touch with the living God she turns a corner and all that is left is the scent of her perfume.

Callie shared with me yesterday that she went to meet with a wise monk and, having  carefully laid out for him everything that she was concerned about, she expected him to give her some wisdom that would move her forward. He sat silently for a few minutes and then said, “It is a mystery…”

Darn.

God is so intimately connected with us that he closes the door of the ark and he covers Moses eyes but lets him see his back, and he is known in the simple act of breaking a loaf of bread two thousand years ago and again today in our Eucharist, and yet at the same time God is the ultimate mystery.

Over this past year I have offered a number of workshops on different topics – this last week we talked about the cross, a conversation that was postponed from Lent – and each time we have been groping together towards deeper understanding because God is both intimately knowable and ultimately unknowable - and we approach the things of God through metaphor and symbol and lived experience.

We are all mystics.

The Holy Spirit teaches us and guides us and dances ahead of us always pulling us forward but whenever we think we have arrived, or whenever we think we have grasped a truth there is always more. Our questions and our doubts take us deeper. God reveals Godself to us as we ask the questions, as we wonder and ponder and listen for the answers which themselves lead to more questions.

I have always wished that I could have been on the road to Emmaus that evening. Luke tells us that “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” But I was not there and so I am left with my questions.

In today’s New York Times an elderly nun, Mary Kay, is quoted as saying, “I hear people talk about this beautiful relationship with Jesus… mine is not like that. It is a little more questioning and mystery. That is why it is called faith.”

I think that is true for most of us. We may have experiences of God’s presence, we may have dreams or see visions or just have a deep knowing, but those moments are fleeting. More often we are like the disciples walking along the road dealing with the sadness of life, the grief of friends dying, of hearts broken and we don’t realize that God is walking beside us. We don’t recognize the presence of the Spirit until we invite him in to stay for a while.

And that invitation is important. Jesus would have continued along the road until he was out of sight, and the disciples would never have recognized him. But that’s not what happened because they did invite him in.

My friends, we cannot force the Holy Spirit to reveal God to us but we can invite. We can create the possibility for a deeper knowing of God by our own actions, by our own attention and intention; by taking time to intentionally open ourselves to God, whether in meditation or prayer or by allowing the beauty of nature to touch us and quiet our thoughts.

When we are expecting guests for dinner we prepare; we make food, we set the table. When we are hoping that Jesus will accept the invitation and come in from the road, we set the table of our hearts and we open the door. We sit down and open our inner selves to something and someone bigger, to the God who is always there walking beside us, making sure the door is closed against the storm and our eyes are not hurt by the light.

The mystical experience of God is a gift of grace. It Is not something we can earn or something we can buy. But it is something we can invite. It is something we can prepare ourselves for.

And what an honor when God reveals Godself among us.

That is what leads to deep transformation of life and that is what life everlasting truly is, a life lived in the knowledge of the presence of God. Like the nun, Mary Kay, we may not experience a beautiful life with Jesus – it may be more questioning and mystery, but it was draws us forward. It is what gives us hope and joy and peace.

So today as we come to the Eucharist together, let us consciously invite the presence of the Christ. Let us open ourselves to the possibility that today Jesus will be known to us in the breaking and taking of the bread. Let us allow ourselves to be filled with the Christ and renewed for the work of transformation.

And even if we feel nothing. Even if the bread stubbornly remains just a dry wafer, let us remember that even in the questioning and the mystery, Jesus is still present. That is why it is called faith.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 
 
 
]]>Sun, 05 Apr 2026 19:48:15 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/love-in-the-gooThe Lord is Risen!

He is Risen indeed, Alleluia

The Marys were in shock. The scripture says “they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.” What a mixture – fear and great joy. Something was terribly wrong yet maybe, just maybe, something was terribly right and good. They had been distraught since Friday and now they were finally able to go to the tomb where the remains of their beloved Jesus were… and they’re not there. But there’s an angel. An angel who says that he has been raised. And as they run to tell the other disciples, there he is. Jesus. Alive.

Centuries after that first Easter morning, the world still does not recognize the risen Jesus or understand the empty tomb. It does not recognize the truth that Jesus brought. The truth that violence is not the way forward. That only love conquers violence and ends the cycle of retaliation.
That is the message of Easter.

Jesus died, because of his message of non-violent resistance to oppression of every kind, because of his message of deep love. He was really executed, really dead. And yet, because of the love of God which animates all things he was raised to life again, a new life, a resurrected life.

Love is greater than violence of any kind. Perhaps we do not always remember the power of love because we think of it in terms of close human relationship. We think of the excitement of romantic love or the close bond of parent and child. Yet love is much more than that; it is not a mushy sentimental Hallmark kind of thing but a clear-seeing intentional will-to-good. The deep love that Jesus showed is the love that conquers all things.

But the Marys didn’t know that. They didn’t know it was Easter. They knew great fear, and joy. All the disciples knew was that their lives had been turned upside down. The unthinkable had happened.
Resurrection is not resuscitation. Resurrection does not mean that things go back to the way they were. In fact, it means quite the opposite. Resurrection means that things change. Jesus is changed. We are changed. In the resurrections of our personal lives, in the resurrections of our social and political lives, things change. And it’s often not comfortable.
 
Butterflies are a symbol of resurrection. The caterpillar eats and eats and grows and grows until one day it stops, goes still and apparently dies. Inside the cocoon it auto-digests itself, until it is nothing but green goo. Then, amazingly, its DNA rereads itself and transforms it into an adult butterfly. I can’t imagine what happens to the consciousness of the creature in this process. When it is just protected goo, does it know that it is goo? Does it go into a suspended state of consciousness? Or does it hover somewhere waiting until the goo resolves itself and then re-enters its body?

I have no idea. But what I do know is that we humans do something rather similar. When we are transformed, when disaster hits, when grief happens, we are reduced to a state of goo. Nothing is stable, it’s all like jello. Yet out of the goo comes resurrection.

We don’t know what happened to Jesus after he was placed in the tomb and before the Marys saw him that first Easter morning. Our ancestors believed that he went to hades, perhaps to bring back those who were there, or perhaps to look for his friend Judas. Perhaps Jesus found himself in a state of goo. After the horror and agony of his death, was he ready to just get up and go, already completely the resurrected Christ? Or did he, human as he was, require a time of change, a time of protection in the cave of the tomb, while he transformed and adjusted to his new resurrection body?

Our God is a God of resurrection. After disaster there is always resurrection, if we choose it. But it is rarely immediate, and we often do not recognize it when it comes. In the middle of our pain and confusion, we don’t know that it’s Easter. When we are reduced to goo, we don’t realize that we are being transformed. When we are in great fear we cannot easily find the joy.

It is difficult to look at our world, at the environmental disaster, the devastation of Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the millions starving in Sudan, the plight of immigrants amid politics of hate: it is almost impossible to look at all that and see in it resurrection.

But we are an Easter people and we are called to see, not with rose-tinted glasses but with the perspective of that deep love that Jesus showed us. We must do all we can to alleviate suffering, but we can also know that out of this too, God will bring resurrection. God is already at work in the goo, bringing resurrection.

It doesn’t look that way. It looks as if the tomb is empty and God has deserted God’s people. It looks like a mess from which there will be no deliverance. But we are given hope. We are the Marys coming to the tomb; we can see the stone rolled away and intuit the presence of the angels. We are the ones who know that love conquers; that even when human love fails and we revert to our violent ways, God’s love still triumphs.

For Jesus’ resurrection shows that even when humans do their very worst, even when they betray and lie and torture and kill, God still loves. God still keeps coming back offering a different way. In the middle of the goo we don’t recognize Easter, but it is there, it is here. God is transforming us and the whole of Creation.

And we are called to be a part of it. We are called to keep faith. To know that the resurrected and ascended Christ will one day put all things right. That is part of the movement of Creation – that all will be reconciled with God. Our task is to continue to hold that resurrection hope, to continue to look for the things that God is doing and to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in doing them.

We are a resurrection people, and we serve an Easter God.
Alleluia!

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
]]>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/no-kingsYesterday across the country an estimated 8 million people joined in a protest declaring “No Kings” and this morning we remember the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey fulfilling the prophecy that Zion’s king would come mounted on a donkey. The whole of Jerusalem was in turmoil wondering if he was going to overcome the Romans; and today we also remember that less than a week later, Jesus the Christ hung on a cross with a sign over his head saying “The King of the Jews.”

Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor did not live in Jerusalem. He lived in Caesarea about 50 miles away. Historians think that he may have been in Jerusalem for the Passover because it was a time when the city filled with thousands of people and so it was important for the Roman occupying force to be very present. It would have taken a couple of days to get there and Pilate would have traveled with a military entourage. So when he arrived in Jerusalem he would have been seated on a war horse – probably a white stallion – and there would have been a lot of pageantry and symbols of military might.

In contrast Jesus rode in on a donkey. He not only fulfilled an ancient prophecy that Zion’s king would come riding a donkey but he also set up a significant contrast with Pilate on his stallion. It is as if he were saying, “Choose you this day whom you shall serve – the kingdom of human power, prestige and violence or the kingdom of God in gentle humility?”

And that is still the question before us today.

Jesus chose to continue his course of non-violent resistance. In the week between our two gospel readings he stood in the temple precinct, the very center of religious authority and preached against the religious leaders, he drove out those who were buying and selling and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and he healed the blind and the lame who came to him. Even though he knew he was in danger he publicly resisted the powers of empire.

When we hear the passion gospel and remember we hear how badly this all turned out, it’s like we have our fingers crossed behind our back, because we know Easter is coming. The disciples didn’t know that. When we resist the powers of empire, the dark powers that seek to turn our world into a place of hatred and retribution and power for the less than 1%, then like the disciples, we don’t know how it’s going to turn out in the short term. It is risky.

But it is following the path of Christ. It is following our calling as the people of God.

Our New Testament reading this morning from Philippians is perhaps the key to the reign of God, the kingdom of heaven, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

Let us have the courage to resist the kings, the powers of this world whose paths bring death and destruction and have the same mind as Christ Jesus who brought healing, peace, justice and new resurrection life.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall]]>Sun, 22 Mar 2026 16:15:02 GMThttps://www.stpetersmorrobay.org/sermons/come-outWhat amazing readings we have this morning! First, Ezekiel’s wonderful vision of the valley of dry bones who came back to life and then the long and detailed account of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life.  It’s all about new life in the Spirit, the Good News of transformation and resurrection.

For those of us who identify as LGBTQ this gospel reading has always held a special place in our hearts as Jesus cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, Come Out”!

Coming out is rarely an easy process. Coming out means first acknowledging to oneself that one’s inner self is in some significant way different from the dominant culture. This inner difference may be deeply felt but take a long time to identify and name.

For many years I struggled with my own sense of self and my sexual orientation. The few gay people I saw around me were extravagantly gay men who were not attractive – I didn’t want to be like them – and were not Christian – which I wanted to be. But much as I prayed to be heterosexual It didn’t happen, and I began to feel like a hypocrite because when I went to church everyone thought I was a ‘nice’ Christian girl, they didn’t realize that hidden inside me was a lesbian waiting to come out. And so I stopped going to church. The dissonance between who I knew myself to be and who others expected me to be had become too great and it was yet too dangerous to come out.

And so I was unable to fully live. I was in a real sense dead and bound like Lazarus. The scripture tells us that when he came out “his hands and feet [were] bound with strips of cloth, and his face [was] wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  It was not enough for Lazarus to come out, he also needed to be unbound by his community. LGBTQ people need not just to be accepted but to be seen, celebrated and encouraged by their community before we can be fully free to be the unique people God created us to be.

And it’s not just gay people.

My fifty year old nephew came out last year. Not as gay but as neuro-diverse. For fifty years he tried to fit in, copied the behavior of neuro-normative people. For fifty years he felt trapped in a tomb of normative behavior. Finally, he sought a professional diagnosis and came out as high functioning autistic. This identity has given him new life and new confidence.

There are many things that keep us stuck in the tomb needing to come out and be unbound and find new life.

It is in the interests of the powers of this world to keep us in the closet or in the tomb because the life of the Spirit is a direct threat to the status quo. The life that Jesus offers, the life that Jesus calls us to, the life that Jesus lived led him into direct conflict with the powers of his time. And those powers are very similar to the powers of this 21st century world.

We are caught up in a world where the rich get richer and the poor can’t get ahead. Where the priorities of those in power reduce the power of the rest of us. We have seen immigration raids which entrap and have even killed people who are not criminals, ordinary people who are living their lives and trying to look out for their families the best they can;  we have watched the administration push through the so called Big Beautiful Bill which reduces the ability of as many as 10 million people to afford and access healthcare and which may lead to the closure of as many as 300 rural hospitals[i]; and in the last two weeks the industrial-military complex has led to a war which has killed many people including children in the Middle East, especially in Iran and Lebanon, has cost this country about $22billionand counting, and has released 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – that’s as much as Iceland emits in a whole year[ii].

These are the powers that lead not to human and planetary flourishing but to a society where people are enslaved by the sin matrix and unable to free themselves. And the same powers lead us to feeling powerless, so we turn away and focus on the everyday things of our privileged lives, and we are kept bound in the tomb.

But Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” [And Lazarus heard him] and the dead man came out.

I don’t know what it is that is keeping you in your tomb – it may be fear, it may be grief, it may be past trauma – whatever it is, Jesus is calling you to come out, Jesus is calling you to allow yourself to be healed, to come out into the love and resurrection life of God.

Just like those dry bones.

Ezekiel’s vision came after the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and the conquered people of Judah were exiled. It is a vision of hope, of the renewal of the spirit in a people rendered lifeless and powerless. The story of Lazarus gives us hope as individuals that we can be freed from what holds us back; the valley of the dry bones gives us hope as a community.

St. Peter’s is at a possible turning point. In the year I have been with you we have lost people, some who have died, some who are no longer able to get to church because of health issues and some who have simply stopped coming. There have been few local visitors and those who have come have not returned more than a few times.

We are like a valley of dry bones. We remember vibrant times in the past and it is tempting to think if it could only be like that again everything would be better. But the past is past, and if we allow ourselves to revel in nostalgia we will miss the movement of the Spirit into the future.

We are hopeful that when Rev. Ollie comes, he will prophesy to the bones and new life will come to St. Peter’s. Yet in Ezekiel’s vision, the bones themselves came together and developed sinews and flesh and skin. Yes they were inspired by the prophesy, but they also acted. Inspired by the Spirit of God, they found new life. They found new bodies and new bodies lead to new ways. The Jewish people were never the same after the Babylonian exile.

The church of tomorrow will not be the same as the church of today. We don’t know what it will look like but as long as we cling to our memories of the past we will not be ready to move forward and welcome the breath of the Spirit offering us new life and new possibilities.

Next Sunday we will be entering Holy Week when we walk with Jesus through those dark days before his final confrontation with the powers of this world. But even as we acknowledge the darkness we also know the truth – that Jesus resurrected – that the powers of darkness did not win and will not win – that new life and new hope and new possibility flourish in the reign of God. No doubt the disciples longed for things to be as they had been in the past, but in those few days everything changed. But we know that Easter is coming.

Even in the darkness of these times when the powers of the world seem to be winning, we know that Jesus the Christ is the true light of the world and the darkness cannot overcome the light.

So let us open our ears to hear the cry of Jesus “Come Out!” and let us have the courage to leave behind the tomb of the past and step into the future of the Spirit.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 


https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-truth-about-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-cuts-to-medicaid-and-medicare/

[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/21/middle-east-iran-conflict-environment-climate
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