HOMILY: "This Supper of the Suffering Servant"

Isaiah 42:1-9

The First Sunday after the Epiphany
Communion Sunday, January 11, 2026

1.

I was handed this long-stemmed white rose on Thursday night at a huge and raucous protest in Merrimack, by a bright-eyed old woman wearing a neon vest that said PEACEKEEPER across the back. And it’s a plastic rose, of course, but its purpose served the cause. When outrage runs deep—as it does again this week, across the country—dissent stays true to a higher calling. Human dignity. Sweet liberation. True justice. When resistance coalesces quickly—as it does this week, around the martyrdom of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis—leadership draws from the deepest wells of compassion and grace. That Thursday night protest in Merrimack was angry and defiant, and I was angry and defiant too. Still am. But I took the old woman’s rose as an invitation to communion in a secular space, as an offer of wisdom in another moment charged with rage and grief and perhaps even a dose of despair.

Renee Good’s murder in Minneapolis, by a poorly-prepared and sadly emboldened ICE agent, has shaken us all to the core this week. And Thursday’s protest amplified the outrage of all kinds of New Hampshire folk, from all generations and backgrounds, who also worry for the government’s plans to build new warehouses, detention and deportation outposts, in communities like Merrimack. No, no, no, we said. The madness of racism has not only infected the spirit of America, it has now proven dangerous to communities simply standing together in love and solidarity; it has now proven lethal for mothers, fathers, students simply acting in good conscience to protect neighbors from armed vigilantes with government IDs.

But I had this rose in my hand, and I had today’s ‘servant song’ from Isaiah in my mind. And it makes we wonder how it is we couple outrage and compassion in moments like this one; or how it is we yoke the gentle spirit of the ‘suffering servant’ in Isaiah with the resolute, even tenacious commitment I felt in that determined community of protest Thursday night. There was such anger among us, outside that Town Hall; we have been pushed together to some kind of limit, even some kind of breaking point, by a government of such cruelty and callousness it defies all imagination and decency.

And yet this morning the Holy One calls out the servant to bring true justice to the nations, true justice, consequential justice, not by crying out or raising her voice; not by breaking tender reeds or bellowing such bluster as to quench a wavering flame. But by offering light in the darkness. And by opening the eyes of all who struggle to see. And by freeing captives from their prisons, and opening the doors of detention so the frightened can go free again.

Did you catch that in the text? It’s subtle, but it’s deep and provocative, I think. Even that one verse at the end of that first stanza. “So gentle that you do not break a bruised reed, or quench a wavering flame, faithfully you will bring forth true justice.” I wrote this one verse on a scrap of paper and folded it into my coat pocket Thursday night. It’s the first of four defining poems in what’s known as the Second Book of Isaiah, or Second Isaiah, and together they’re called “Servant Songs.”

And this first suggests a kind of faithfulness, a kind of engagement, a kind of advocacy that is nurtured not in defiance and anger, but in trust and prayer; not in outrage, but in tenderness and humility; not only in righteousness over and against evil, but in sacrificial commitment to one another’s liberation. “So gentle that you do not break a bruised reed.”

Becca and Renee Good

I was struck yesterday by the statement released by Renee Good’s grieving wife Becca, who said that her wife lived by an overarching belief that there is “kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow.” She was a Christian, Renee was, who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: “that we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.” Many will imply that she was an anarchist or a zealot; but she was indeed a Christian, Renee Nicole Good, a follower of Jesus. And like him, she carried the cross to the very end.

2.

Over the centuries, some have interpreted the Servant Songs of Isaiah merely as foreshadowing Jesus’ own messianic arrival. But I prefer to believe that Jesus read this poetry early and often, and that he took it to heart as he grew and matured in faith and conscience. And like many faithful Jewish believers and many devoted communities since, Jesus integrated these same Songs into his spirituality and self-understanding. What it means to be God’s servant in the world. What it means to love sacrificially among the brokenhearted of the world. And more importantly, I prefer to believe that Jesus integrated these Songs into his sense of community vocation, congregational mission and discipleship. Let’s not miss this.

Because this first Servant Song, at least, is clearly intended not as a clarion call to individual service, but as a ringing invitation to congregational, even covenantal mission. And as we look forward to our own Annual Meeting in a couple of weeks, it’s significant I think, that we hear in this poetry, God’s “appointment” of a covenant people—not just a superstar messiah, not just a heroic champion, and not one or two amazing souls, but a covenant people, “a light to the nations.” And here, again, is our calling, ours in community: “to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those who sit in darkness from dungeon and detention.” Our covenant calling.

Toward the end of Thursday’s protest, organizers assembled at the door of Merrimack’s Town Hall—where residents of Merrimack would soon file into a town council meeting. There, to register their wholehearted opposition to any kind of ICE warehouse in Merrimack or anywhere else in New Hampshire. Some non-Merrimack folk were understandably disappointed not to be invited in, not to have their own opportunity to speak and express all kinds of outrage for what’s happened across the country of late.

And that’s when our friend, Grace Kindeke took the bullhorn and spoke to the murmuring crowd. Grace has spoken here at the Community Church several times, worked for many years with Maggie Fogarty and the American Friends Service Committee, and serves now as Program Director with the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity. She’s a proud advocate for New Hampshire’s immigrant communities and a brave voice for oppressed peoples everywhere. And with that bullhorn in hand, Grace channeled the wisdom of Isaiah, the spirit of the servant and the grace of God. Surrounded by a restless community, a sad and mad community, she found a way to fuse anger to tenderness, and outrage to hope, and despair to lovingkindness. Her voice did not waver. She was strong and loud. Her invitation was not demur. She was insistent and uncompromising.

But I could see tears in her eyes, and then rolling down her face. And I could hear love in every encouraging word she said. And between thoughts, she’d look around at the crowd on all sides with such kindness and such purpose: “We have to move forward together,” she said. “We have to move forward together, because we are so much stronger and wiser together than when we are apart.” And even as she said these words, I could feel the crowd leaning in towards her, straining to see that power in her eyes, aching to feel what she was feeling, eager to soak up the determination that Grace had gathered like a warm winter shawl around her shoulders. She found a way. To fuse anger to tenderness. To wed outrage and hope. To inspire broken hearts with lovingkindness. And that, my friends, is leadership. Servant leadership of the highest order. I found myself mouthing another line from today’s text: “You will neither waver nor be crushed!” “You will neither waver nor be crushed until justice is established on earth, for the islands await your teaching!” Wow. That was Grace Kindeke Thursday night; but not just her, it was a whole community, a beloved community, right here in New Hampshire, speaking truth to power, with love and gentle hope.

3.

We are wise, my friends, to remember that communion, our sacrament today, is the supper of a suffering servant. It’s not magic, but it surely is transformational. It requires no ‘hocus pocus,’ but it absolutely requires embodiment and intention. This kind of communion does not save us from sadness, but delivers us from isolation, for resilience and living hope and even a kind of imperfect yet holy salvation. I’m thinking about the occasional sandwich I share with Antony at his table downstairs. And I’m thinking about baked pigeon at a family table in Bethlehem last summer, and the laughter around that table as Palestinian friends imagined a future of justice, and liberation, and harvests, and joy. This kind of communion is simple and bountiful. It’s global and it’s not ours alone. It’s God’s greatest gift.

RENEE GOOD: "Say Her Name!"

HOMILY: "Shoulder to Shoulder"

Sunday, January 4, 2026
Matthew 2:1-12
The Second Sunday in Christmastide

1.

"Epiphany" (www.janetmckenzie.com)

Yesterday I visited our dear friend Henry Smith in the hospital. And as some of you know, Henry’s faced a number of setbacks, physical setbacks, you might even call them unnerving setbacks, of late. I know you’ll keep him in your prayers. And sometimes, you know, our physical vulnerabilities prove spiritually challenging, and sometimes they even provoke the deepest kind of contemplation and reflection. So many of us have been there. Our own experience. Or with a loved one.

Henry’s lost a lot of weight. Eating’s become a chore. And his neck is unstable, and sore all the time. All this is startling.  But, instead, what struck me yesterday was this. How fully—even in his diminished condition—how fully Henry trusts in the God who brought him here to you. Many years ago. When he hears me say your names—Diane, Gretchen, Dennis, Donna, Antony—his tired eyes brighten like stars over Bethlehem. You are everything to him. Maybe I can say that in a different way. In his own wonderfully circumspect way, Henry notes that a strange combination of relationships and needs and hunger and hope brought him to this congregation two decades ago. “And I have never been the same,” he said to me yesterday, “because of all the love, and all the friendship I’ve found in this congregation.” And then this: “God has shown me a better way,” he said to me. “Through my friends at church.” “God has shown me a better way.” In his season of tiring, grinding, physical concern, Henry doesn’t have to guess at who God is. He knows who God is. Because of you.

There’s a star, inlaid and polished, in the flooring beneath the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem now. Pilgrims travel to the West Bank from all over the world to kneel before that star, to touch it, as it represents the place, the actual place where Jesus was born more than two centuries ago. While that kind of devotion can be a beautiful and touching thing, it misses the more important point, the more dynamic truth—that the God of Love and Compassion is embodied in ordinary, run of the mill, weirdly composed communities (like this one) where wise guys like Henry Smith meet the mercy and the love they’ve needed all along. And in that meeting, we’re all changed. Every one of us. Changed, redirected and set on a whole new course. Like Henry. Who lies now in a Dover hospital bed. Knowing who God is. And trusting that he will be OK.

You see, this is about the baby born in a Bethlehem cave, and the old man lying in a Dover hospital, and it’s about all of you and what happens here day by day, week after week. You see, your love—and God’s love in you—has revealed in Henry’s life the joy and the wonder at the heart of his own journey, the goodness in his own soul, the grace that will never leave him and walks gladly beside him in good and bad times alike. Like those magi, you see, Henry will never again need the dark, brooding, meanness of Herod in his life. Like those magi, he’s walking a different route. He’s going home by another way. And I’ve got to tell you. It’s a beautiful thing, as tender and vulnerable as he is right now. It's a beautiful thing to see.

2.

What an amazing story, this epiphany story. And how oddly composed, its details and plot twists. How is it—for example—that a Child who comes only to unite, only to bless, inspires such fear in a King like Herod? And how is it that a Child whose ways will feed the hungry and heal the broken and forgive betrayal incites rage and rancor in the halls of power?

The familiar but strange story of Herod—who flat out lies to the magi—reminds us all too well that Jesus’ message of compassion may mean joy and renewal and blessing for some; but it threatens structures of privilege, systems of control and their protective guardians. Maybe it’s always been so. And Herod’s willingness to sacrifice not only his integrity, but the children of his own kingdom, for the preservation of those same systems, of his privilege, is sobering even now, in 2026. Bloody nationalism insists it can do no wrong: whether it plays out in the killing fields of Ukraine, or in a genocidal assault on Gaza, or now even in the streets and oilfields of Venezuela. Our Christmas story does not flinch in the face of it all. It runs right through Herod’s lies. The Love of this Christ will meet the delusions of the mighty with vulnerable grace. The Gospel of this Christ will redirect our politics, our organizing, our commitments to the common good and one another. To transform our shared dreams. To imagine among us a collaborative peace. To reveal among us another way home.

Just as it is with the magi.

As they appear on stage in Matthew’s second chapter, these magi are ready for adventure, open to all manner of signs and portents, excited even by the scriptures of other traditions. They come from afar with dreams and hopes for a better world. “Show us the way.” “Where is the newborn king?” And when King Herod invites their counsel and begs their assistance, initially they are more than willing to collaborate. For how can it be that Love threatens anybody? And how can it be that such a Child would move any monarch to rage and rancor?

But these magi, their spirits are lifted so delightfully by the star shining above the Child’s cave, and their hearts are turned so radically inside out by Mary’s boundless love and the Child’s ordinary beauty, that these magi see in their new dreams the counsel of God, the wisdom of truth. They are changed in community. As we are by the little Christ’s Gospel of peace. And Christ moves now in their minds and in their hearts to send them home by another route. Not through the same tired ways and habits of Herod and Hegseth, Johnson and Trump. Not through the deceptive, duplicitous promises Herod makes, over and over again, to the wise and kind. This Gospel will change the way we travel. This Gospel will shake up our prayers and priorities. This Gospel will turn our hearts inside out. “Because they were warned in [that] dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.”

By another route. By another route.

LEADERSHIP: "Not Power, but Proximitiy"

ACTION NOW: "Stand Up and Speak Out for Beit Sahour"

Settlers are implementing plans to clear Palestinian communities for illegal settlements in Beit Sahour, in the Bethlehem district of Palestine. This is yet another indication of their intention to ethnically cleanse Palestine and enforce apartheid on the ground. Please use this form, and letter below, to put pressure on our U.S. Congress to prevent this next step in the destruction of Palestine.

HOMILY: "The Virginity of Joseph"

Sunday, December 14, 2025
Matthew 1:18-25 (The 3rd Sunday of Deep Advent)

1.

When Joseph wakes up that next morning, having been visited by some kind of an angel, having been roused in a dream to a whole new set of possibilities; when Joseph wakes us that morning, he really has no idea where his life is going. What the cost of it all will be. How radically his heart will be broken. Where this dream will take him. It strikes me now that this may be the most remarkable thing about this remarkable story. That this brother is prepared, by the light of day, to heed some sort of divine direction planted in a dream, defying cultural norms, risking his community’s shame and making a family with Mary and her baby. Without knowing. No guarantees.

There is no question that his life is now wildly complicated. There is no question that faith itself is about to rock his world. And there’s no question that what’s required of Joseph now is more, so much more than he ever imagined having. In his heart. In his bones. In his spirit.

But in his dream, in his sleep, in darkness that is both gracious and true, the angel says to Joseph: “Don’t be afraid.” The angel says to Joseph: “Salvation is at hand.” The angel in his dream says: “Take Mary and love this child and be a family.” And he wakes up. Joseph wakes up. And he does as the angel has asked him to do. Undaunted by all the unknowns, unfazed by fear, and ready to make love the singular purpose of his singular life. Wherever it takes him. And whatever the cost.

It's fascinating, really, that Matthew’s gospel begins not in a sanctuary or temple, with some kind of ancient rite, and not in a synagogue or classroom, with old texts explained—but in a simple man’s dream. God meets Joseph in the shadowy hallways of his unconscious; God visits Joseph in the language of his own uncertainty and bewilderment. “Don’t be afraid.” “Salvation is at hand.” “Take Mary and love this child and be a family.” In other words, resist the shaming energies of tradition, imagine a family made whole by love, and trust in God and God alone. Trust in the sanctuary of spirit you find in your own anointed heart. Where angels speak of fearlessness and salvation.

But it is Joseph’s faithfulness—in the absence of assurance, in the absence of proof—that seems most timely for us this morning. None of this can be easy for him. This kind of faithfulness is never easy for you, or for me either. Convention comes naturally. Codes of purity are predictable, even dependable. Orthodoxy makes sense. And yet, and yet, Joseph bares his heart before that angel in the darkness. He risks his future, his equilibrium, and certainly his reputation for the newness of God. Am I willing to do the same? Are you? Is it possible that this is the gospel challenge before us at Christmas? To bare our hearts before angels in the darkness? To risk our futures, our balance, our reputations for the newness of God?

2.

None of this is easy. In so many ways, doubt dances with belief, confidence with confusion; and Joseph’s heart is shaken by love and then by angst in equal measure. And isn’t this always how it goes when angels come to call? Isn’t this always how it goes when God wanders off our well-worn maps, and insists that we do the same? Whether you’re parenting children whose imagination and creativity break down walls and stereotypes, yet also make them profoundly vulnerable to worry and despair. Whether you’re budgeting for a 21st century church committed to sanctuary ministries, Christ-like inclusion, transformational programming. Whether you’re doing everything humanly possible to protect immigrants in our midst and love them and challenge the cruelty that threatens them. If doubt dances with belief in Joseph’s heart, if confidence spins with confusion in Joseph’s spirit, so it is in us. If his heart is shaken by love and then by angst in equal measure, so too with us.

You know, we have every reason to center Mary’s courage, Mary’s chutzpah, Mary’s incarnational imagination in our reflections around the Christmas story each December. But there’s a place for Joseph in our wondering too, there’s a place for Joseph in our musing around faith and grace and making space for new things. If Mary’s imagination is the generating spirit of Christmas, then Joseph’s vulnerability proves essential to our receptivity and our own awakening.

SOLIDARITY: "In the Words of My Friends"

HOMILY: "Keep It Close"

Sunday, November 30, 2025
Community Church of Durham
Isaiah 43 (The 1st Sunday of Deep Advent)

1.

Baptism 2025

So I’m assuming that some of you, many of you, have been part of our very special celebrations this past month. Celebrations that have, in many ways, lifted the old roof off this sanctuary and released into the universe all kinds of gratitude and grace. You were here two weeks ago for David Ervin’s concert, with a magnificent musical community joining the beloved church community in shared testimony to the power not just of music, but of collaboration and creativity. You bore witness to all the ways one man’s gift lands in the church like a stone in still pond—sending ripples in a thousand directions, year after year, decade after decade. Wow. God is good.

And you were here just last Sunday for the 20th Anniversary of our Open & Affirming Covenant. You wept a little as we sang songs of unity and healing.

For gay and for straight, a place at the table.
Transgender and queer, a rainbow of light,
Many the ways of loving and living:
For gay and for straight, a future that’s bright!

And you smiled broadly as we baptized Margo and Tabitha right out there. I’ve got the pictures to prove it. Water, water and rainbows everywhere! And you felt that surge of courage—as I sure did—as we repurposed that original statement for a new day of service and witness. “We honor human relationships—all of them—that are based on love, responsibility, mutual respect, trust and fidelity.” Again, wow! God is good.

And it’s not simply the case that you’ve been part of the action—you have (in so many ways) dreamed it into being, and you have (in so many ways) invested in it, and you have (in just about every way) made it happen. Through your prayers. By your faithfulness. Because of your energies. And so it is that we have seen the Holy Spirit at work, we have seen the Holy Spirit at play, we have seen the Holy Spirit breathing life and courage into and through a community we love. It has been a very special and memorable month indeed!

2.

So when we read in the ancient scroll that God is doing a “new thing,” we have only to remember what our own eyes have seen, what our own ears have heard, what our own hearts have experienced. In this very place. In just these last weeks. Among these people.

And just as the prophet has imagined, what we’ve seen here is a diverse community of curious seekers and devoted leaders gathering from the east and west, from the north and south, around good news and gladness. Not despair and division. But God’s good news and God’s gladness. “Don’t you recognize it?” That’s the prophet speaking. “Don’t you recognize it?” “I’m making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness.” “I have put water in the desert, and streams in the wilderness.” And these stunning promises, these tender reassurances: framed as they most often are in scripture with, “Don’t fear, for I am with you.” Don’t fear, for I have called you by name. Don’t fear, for you are mine.

So—there is a way in the desert, a path in the wilderness. And we have walked a fair piece already. Baptized and fearless.  Claimed for God's purpose.  Named indeed by God.

And if you’re wondering, by the way, why we’re so lavish with the water (or maybe I should say 'extravagant' with the water) when we baptize Margo and Tabitha as we did last week, it’s because we believe that our symbols have to match our gladness, our liturgies have to correlate with God’s commitments. In the text, our God doesn’t say: “I’m putting a drop of water out there in the desert…so you can grovel and suffer and beg for mercy.” Our God doesn’t say: “I’m setting out a thimble of sustenance in the wilderness…so you can wipe a little on your forehead and be on your way.” No, no, no.

Our God says: “I’m making a way in the desert, so you can get home.” “I’m setting before you holy paths, so you can travel together.” “I’m putting running streams in the wilderness, so you can touch my power and immerse yourselves in my grace and go joyfully into a future of hope and justice and care for one another.” I’m doing a new thing! So, yes, my friends. Your baptism in Christ—and that’s what it means to belong here, to be connected as we are here—your baptism in Christ is a baptism of running streams and hustling rivers, a baptism of plenty and power, a baptism that washes away any hint of shame or inadequacy. Your baptism joins us as one people, to travel these holy paths, to go gladly together, to follow Jesus together, to revel in the love of the One who calls us by name and invites us all home. For singing and praising. For feasting and serving. For making peace and giving thanks. Your baptism, my baptism, Margo’s baptism, Tabitha’s: a way in the desert, running streams and hustling rivers!

3.

It's important to note that this particular text—the extraordinary poetry we find in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah—it’s important to note that it’s conceived in a people’s exile: in a people’s experience of extreme vulnerability and spiritual longing. And this particular people have been forced into exile, driven from their homes and families. They have not gone willingly.

So this 43rd chapter is, in a luminous way, God’s promise to an immigrant community, God’s declaration of solidarity with a community traumatized by the violence of nations, the politics of greed, and their own fears for families left behind. This is a people on the run. This is a people far from home. This is a people without the proper papers, piecing things together, always aware that the next knock on the door could be the last one.

BELOVED COMMUNITY: "Open and Affirming in Durham!"

SILENT GENOCIDE: "Kairos Palestine / Documentary"