These letters from Pastor Harry and church leaders explore the challenges we face as people of faith in a complicated and fearful world, not unlike the world that Paul faced, and not unlike the world that Dr. King faced down.
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May 3, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Jesus sits for his portrait.
I did once. Back in my first church when a young woman who painted in oils asked me to sit for my portrait. I was flattered. Until I realized she only wanted me for my black clergy robe because it had folds in the sleeves. She needed to practice her sleeve folds! Fair enough. So I agreed and after many sittings the day arrived for its unveiling. The sleeves looked great. Me? I looked faintly like a young Robert Redford in his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid days, minus the mustache, which means it looked nothing like me at all.
But it got me wondering. What would a portrait of Jesus look like? Oh, I know all about the many versions of the blond and blue-eyed Sundance Kid Jesus, but no, really, what did Jesus really look like? The Gospels never tell us. Not even a paintbrush stroke of a clue.
I suppose each of us have our own image of Jesus, painted by our culture and preferences. A Sri Lankan artist friend at Yale painted Jesus as a Sri Lankan (and to my amazement one of her paintings was hanging up at the church when I arrived and is now in the church office!). I celebrate the idea that people see him within their own culture wherever they are in the world.
Not quite so in our post-Easter story this Sunday, Luke 24:28-35, where the Risen Christ is walking with two traumatized disciples going home from Jerusalem two days after Jesus’ violent crucifixion. They don’t recognize Jesus. Not at all. It’s startling, really, that their friend and mentor they had been with just a few days earlier, and countless days before that, was like a stranger to them. They only recognized him while sharing a meal and the breaking of bread. Then he vanished.
Doesn’t this feel like today? There is no portrait of him. We see him only in our mind’s eye in gospel stories as he heals, teaches, prays, walks, boats, talks, and breaks bread.
Mother Theresa would say she saw Jesus every time she tended the poor and neglected. I would add that we see Jesus any time compassion is offered. Any time justice is attained. Any time mercy is present. Any time we commit ourselves to bettering the world. Any time we embrace nonviolence. Any time we understand the whole world is connected. Any time we break bread with folks who don’t resemble or agree with us. Any time, dare I say, we embrace diversity, equality, and the dis-included (how did these core Gospel values become suddenly taboo?). These become our portraits of him today.
Have you started Jesus’ portrait yet? Is your canvass large enough? Did you get all the colors and nuances of his life, and how his eyes look? Can we believe he is still a factor in our lives?
And can we paint his sleeves? Not the folds but what it looks like when he has his arms wide open welcoming the world into his embrace.
Grace and peace,
Harry
Recent Letters
April 26, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
The Seven Mile Walk.
I remember reading a story years ago about a young high school football player who ran 82 yards for a touchdown. It was a Friday night game under the lights in front of his hometown fans, his parents, and his girlfriend. Eighty-two yards! He was on top of the world that night and he expected his life to be filled with more accomplishments like this. It never was.
How sad to me. Nothing would ever be as good as that Friday night on a football field, that life would never get to the eighty-third yard.
April 19, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
I never thought much about Holy Saturday before.
It has always been a day of preparation, to catch my breath after Holy Week which seems to be more busy and anxiety-provoking than I think. So, I spend my Saturday consumed with the Easter sermon I give the next day. Can I find the right angle? Do I have the right message? Is it good enough? Will anyone remember it?
April 12, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
I thought I heard alleluias.
I really did, every Palm Sunday, year after year, this parade of joy and celebration and waving palms, this recognition finally that Jesus is the man, the one that inexplicably defeats Empire for this one shining day on a donkey.
It’s like Easter without the eggs, without the cross, without the crucifixion. Less messy and more fun. Who doesn’t like a parade?
Yes, it’s time to sing our alleluias!
Arpil 5, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Healing you, me, and the world.
I know this sounds a bit far-fetched, but the Bible doesn’t think so. Page after page is filled with stories of people who are ultimately persuaded that they and the world can be healed, with God’s help. Like our story last Sunday of Naaman, the great commander of the Aramaean army who was healed of a skin ailment. Let’s start there.
What did Naaman do to be healed? Not much really. He got angry. He felt entitled. He thought he could buy his way to healing. Then he listened to his wife who listened to a slave girl who talked about the power of God through the Prophet Elisha. And just as Elijah said, Naaman was healed on the seventh dip. How, again? And what about those first six dips? Here are some ideas, dip by dip . . .
March 29, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
When I get discouraged about church, Christianity, this present day . . .
Yes, you can answer this. Don’t wait for me. But while you are thinking and since I posed the question let me tell you how I would answer. I read John Philip Newell books. The latest one, The Great Search, has been the subject of our current Adult Education series that wraps up this Sunday.
March 22, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
When I think about it I am a bit amused and somewhat surprised.
I never imagined in my early years that I would ever give a sermon, let alone keep giving them for forty-one years! By my rough calculation I have given 1600 sermons and logged around 13,000 hours preparing them.
I cringe thinking about my first sermons and still cringe when I can’t figure out a way to make scripture come alive and grab hold of us and take us to a new address. That’s on me, not scripture. It has plenty of power and resources to change lives.
March 15, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Here I am, Lord.
Have you ever said this? I know we sing the hymn a few times a year with this refrain, but have you ever thought more about what it means?
Be careful if you do. Ask a prophet, any of them, and you’ll learn that a call from God is not all sunbeams on a golden field or fluffy clouds spelling out your name. (Where did we ever get that idea?) Instead, God’s call comes in times of spiritual desolation, religious corruption, political danger, and social upheaval.
March 8, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Jesus wept.
If you want to impress your friends with reciting Bible verses this is the one. It is easy to memorize, yes, but that’s where easy ends. Jesus weeps and it’s hard to watch. The fully divine don’t weep, do they? But the fully human do, I know, those who feel deeply the plight of the human spirit trying to survive in a world turned upside down and sideways.
March 1, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Do I sacrifice my corn dog and let my coke splash to the ground?
Let me back up. It must be told that after all the games I have watched in stadiums across the country, I am yet to catch a foul ball at a major league baseball game.
I came oh-so-close twice. The first when I was twelve and came down with a fever the Sunday I was to go to a Dodger game with my friend and his parents and they gave my ticket to their uncle who sat in my seat. I get a call that afternoon saying that the uncle caught a foul ball! Came right to him, my friend told me. Right to my seat.