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 24, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
The drinking fountain at the end of the hall.
That’s what I dreamed about when I was six. I had come down with some mysterious illness with a high fever and I couldn’t drink or keep anything down and it went on for weeks and weeks. I had to stay home from school. Doctors didn’t know what to do. All I wanted to do was to drink cold water coming from the drinking fountain at church next door. It was tall and gray with the name “Oasis” on it. I needed a footstool to reach it.
The drinking fountain was at the far end of the hall, past my dad’s office and Sunday school classrooms where I first learned about Jesus and sang hokey pokey songs like “You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out . . . then you shake it all about . . . that’s what it’s all about!” What it was all about was I was thirsty and dreamed of drinking again from the fountain. It was the only one anywhere that had cool water.
We never found out what my illness was, but eventually I got better and I returned to school and life went on. Through the years I would visit my old hometown of Wooster and find myself going to the church and heading down the hall to see if the fountain was still there. Each time I would have this memory wash over me, take over me, with the feeling of thirst again, of a long ago trauma now ended. Each time seeing the fountain I would be reminded that I was OK now, no longer thirsty, relieved, better.
On my last trip a few years ago the hall was in disarray and the fountain was behind closed dark wooden doors as if the end of the hallway was now a closet. But the fountain, my fountain, the one in my dreams was still there. I was well still.
Not so for Peter. In our story this Sunday in John 21:15-25 it wasn’t a fountain he saw but a charcoal fire. His reaction was far different than mine. My trauma had ended and the fountain was confirmation of that. Peter’s trauma was as real and flickering as the charcoal fire before him.
Do you know the story? Jesus had prepared breakfast on the beach for Peter and the other disciples who had fished all night long and caught nothing. The story doesn’t show even a slight hesitation as Peter approached the shore, a recognition not noticed by others, a squinting of his eyes as his mind latched onto the scene that has been tailing him for the last few days ever since he denied Jesus three times in the courtyard. Around a charcoal fire in the courtyard while Jesus was being interrogated up above. Here it was again.
The others may not have seen Peter’s trauma, often we don’t know what is behind people’s eyes and lodged in their body, but Jesus did. This has been a story of trauma all along, from those final hours with Jesus to his crucifixion to the guilt and shame of the male disciples because they fled Jesus when he needed them most.
What did Jesus do? He asked Peter three times if he loved him. Peter said yes. Yes. Yes! Each yes making up for each no in the courtyard. Each yes erasing the trauma of his denials. What do we do? Keep images of hope, healing, reconciliation, justice, and compassion ever before us. O, may we keep them alive today. This is our job right now.
This is the final chapter of John and the final verses of all four gospels. Here Jesus reminds the disciples, including us, that trauma cannot keep pace with the extravagant, abundant, healing love of God, an antidote to all that the world throws at us, standing up to every empire then to now, countering casual cruelty and hot charcoal fires with breakfasts on the beach and life-giving-back reconciliation.
Hopefully we all have our own stories and experiences of God’s love but to me it has always been the cool water from a gray drinking fountain at the end of the hall.
Grace and peace,
Harry
Recent Letters
May 17, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
A stained-glass window with my name at the bottom.
My grandpa held several jobs in Wheeling, West Virginia, and one was supervisor of the family coal mine. He later suffered from Black Lung Disease because he had insisted on going down into the mine with the miners. The youngest of three sons in a German family (he was born Heinrich Wilhelm which filtered down to me as Harry William) he later had the opportunity of a lifetime to take a great job in Cleveland in the shipping industry working with the Steinbrenner family (i.e., George of Yankee owner fame) but his older brothers convinced him to stay in Wheeling to take care of their ailing mother. As the younger brother, he did.
May 10, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Doubt upon the mountain.
I would have thought after spending 28 chapters with Jesus, following him, sharing meals, witnessing his healings, hearing his sermons, and breathing in the good news every day the eleven disciples would be on board. Not so. Matthew 28:16-20, the final words of the gospel, says they worshiped him, “but some doubted.” Why doubt then of all times?
Perhaps they doubted Jesus came back after he was crucified. Did they actually see him, as many maintained, or was it the spirit of the Risen Christ? Or were they just alone on the mountain facing an uncertain future?
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.
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.