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Bound in Covenant by the Returning Light

Posted on by Fr. Peter / 0 Comment

The United Church of Christ dares to confess something both ancient and urgently contemporary:

“He bestows upon us his Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.”

These words are not a summary of belief; they are a vision of the Church as God intends it to be. It tells us who acts, how the Church comes into being, what holds us together, and why our differences are not an accident but a gift. It is, in many ways, a Candlemas confession, a statement meant to be held up to the light and trusted even when the world still feels cold.

We gather in a season shaped by thresholds. Candlemas marks the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Imbolc marks the stirring of life beneath winter’s surface. And the witness of St. Brigid stands between them, holding fire in one hand and bread in the other. These are not competing traditions. They are converging testimonies to a God who works slowly, bodily, and relationally.

We begin where the Statement of Faith begins, not with us, but with God.

“He bestows upon us his Holy Spirit.”

The Church does not create itself. We do not vote the Spirit into existence, manage it through committees, or confine it to buildings or doctrines. The Spirit is bestowed, given freely, unpredictably, generously. Like breath. Like fire. Like light.

At Candlemas, we see this bestowal clearly. Mary and Joseph do not arrive at the Temple with answers or influence. They arrive with a child, with obedience, with poverty. And yet Simeon recognizes what others miss. He sees that the Spirit has already been at work, guiding him to this moment. He takes the child in his arms and speaks words that still shape the Church’s imagination: “My eyes have seen your salvation… a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:30–32).

This light is not seized; it is received just as the Spirit is not earned, but bestowed.

This is where Imbolc quietly deepens our understanding. Imbolc names the truth that life begins before it is visible. The land does not announce its readiness. Milk returns to the fields before spring arrives. Lambs are born while snow still covers the ground. The Spirit works like that, bestowed beneath the surface, stirring what cannot yet be proven.

The Church, then, is not built on certainty. It is born of trust.

The Statement of Faith continues:

“…creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ.”

Creation and renewal are not the same thing, and the Spirit does both.

Creation is about origins: Pentecost, baptism, the first yes to faith. Renewal is about what happens when the Church grows tired, compromised, or afraid. Renewal is what God does when we have lost our way but not our calling.

Candlemas reminds us that renewal begins early. Jesus has barely been born, and already his life is being oriented toward purpose, sacrifice, and promise. Simeon’s blessing contains both praise and warning. Light is named, but so is the cost. “A sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Renewal is never sentimental.

Here, St. Brigid becomes essential to our understanding. Brigid’s faith was not abstract or protected from the world. It was embodied, expressed through hospitality, healing, and justice. She renewed the Church not by consolidating power, but by tending flame. The perpetual fire at Kildare was not a symbol of domination; it was a sign of vigilance. Fire kept alive by care.

This is how renewal happens. Not through force, but through faithfulness. Not through spectacle, but through attention.

The Spirit creates the Church, but the Spirit also renews it when it forgets why it exists.

Then the Statement of Faith gives us one of its most radical claims:

“…binding in covenant faithful people…”

Not organizing. Not controlling. Binding.

Covenant is not a contract. A contract is conditional and transactional. A covenant is relational and enduring. It holds even when one party falters. Covenant assumes difference and commits anyway.

At Candlemas, covenant looks like elders and infants sharing the same space. Simeon and Anna recognize what the parents cannot yet fully understand. Faith passes across generations not as certainty, but as trust.

Imbolc teaches the same truth. The land does not hurry itself. It trusts the rhythm it has been given. Covenant is patience sanctified.

Brigid lived covenant by refusing to separate prayer from justice, spirituality from material need. Her generosity, sometimes legendary, sometimes inconvenient, was not recklessness. It was covenantal confidence. A belief that God’s abundance is not diminished by sharing.

This has consequences for how we understand the Church.

The Statement of Faith does not say the Spirit binds like-minded people. It says:

“…faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.”

This is not aspirational language. It is descriptive. This is what the Church looks like when the Spirit is allowed to lead.

In the New Testament, the Greek term pneuma continues this theme of divine breath and movement.

Pentecost (Acts 2) is foundational for a Christian understanding of the Spirit. The Spirit is poured out universally, crossing linguistic and cultural boundaries. With this in mind, theologians often emphasize Pentecost as a symbol of radical inclusion and pluralism.

Theologian Luke Timothy Johnson writes:

“Pentecost represents not uniformity but Spirit-enabled diversity within community.” —Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (1992)

The Johannine tradition highlights the Spirit as Paraclete, comforter, advocate, and teacher (John 14–16). The Spirit guides believers into evolving truth rather than static doctrinal finality.

Difference is not a problem to be solved; it is a sign of the Spirit’s presence. Pentecost did not eliminate language. It made understanding possible. Communion does not erase bodies. It makes them one without making them the same.

In a world that confuses unity with uniformity, this confession matters deeply.

Racism, nationalism, and exclusion are not merely social failures; they are theological failures. They deny the Spirit’s work. They fracture the covenant. They extinguish light rather than tending it.

St. Brigid’s life stands as a rebuke to such distortions. She did not ask who deserved warmth before lighting the fire. She did not calculate worthiness before sharing bread. She trusted that holiness expressed through mercy reveals the truth of God.

Candlemas light exposes the Church’s temptation to control who belongs. Simeon’s words stretch beyond Israel. The light is for the nations. The Spirit’s work is always wider than our comfort.

Imbolc reminds us that such widening happens slowly. Hearts change before structures do. Renewal stirs beneath resistance.

So, what does this mean for us, here and now?

It means the Church is constantly being created and continually being renewed. Always being bound together, sometimes despite itself. The Church is not and cannot be static, for God is still speaking.

It means we are not called to preserve an institution, but to tend a flame. It means our task is not to dominate the darkness, but to walk faithfully within it, trusting that light returns.

It means the Spirit is already at work, in the young and the old, in familiar voices and unsettling ones, in places we would rather avoid.

Beloved, the Statement of Faith is not something we recite and move past. It is something we live into.

The Spirit has been bestowed. The Church is still being created and renewed.
The covenant still binds us—across difference, across fear, across time.

The question is not whether the light is real. The question is whether we will tend it.

Candlemas places the light in our hands.
Imbolc teaches us to trust what is becoming.
Brigid shows us how to live as keepers of the flame.

May we have the courage to be that Church, patient enough to wait, bold enough to love, and faithful enough to believe that God is not finished with us yet. Amen.

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This is a Moral Moment

Posted on by Fr. Peter / 0 Comment

There are times in the life of a nation when history comes close, when events don’t just happen around us but seem to question us directly. These are moments when remaining neutral becomes impossible, when silence itself speaks. Senator Raphael Warnock, speaking this past week in Minneapolis, has named such a time with clarity and moral urgency, reminding us that this is a moral moment. I believe he is right. This is not simply a political moment or a cultural moment; it is a profoundly moral one, and people of faith are being asked, gently but insistently, to respond.

In recent weeks, many of us have experienced grief as violence has once again claimed lives in our communities. The killings in Minnesota have reopened deep wounds, wounds shaped by racial injustice, mistrust, fear, and a long history of unresolved pain. Families mourn. Communities ache. And once again, we find ourselves grappling with familiar questions: How did we get here? Who is responsible? What must change?

Before we can find answers, the Church must first pause and pray. Our pastoral calling begins not with explanation, but with compassion. We must stand with those who grieve. We must lament lives cut short. We must acknowledge and name the fear that many live with daily, the fear of violence, of invisibility, of being treated as expendable. In such moments, the Gospel calls us not to distance ourselves, but to draw closer.

Senator Warnock’s words echo a tradition that runs deep in Scripture. The prophets did not speak because the times were easy, but because the times were urgent. A moral moment is not one we choose; it chooses us. It asks whether we will respond with courage or look the other way, whether we will allow our consciences to be formed by the Gospel or dulled by repetition and fatigue.

Alongside Senator Warnock’s words is another question, quieter but no less demanding. Cardinal Joseph Tobin, of Newark, New Jersey, speaking to a gathering of faith leaders, asks, “How will you say your no?” He asked, “How will you say ‘no?’ How? How will you help restore a culture of life in the midst of death? “How will you say no this week, when an appropriations bill is going to be considered in Congress? “We ask, for the love of God and the love of human beings, which can’t be separated, vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.”

It is not a political question but a question of discipleship. Not whether we will object, but how. Not whether we will draw moral lines, but whether we will do so in a way that reflects the heart of Christ.

As Christians, we are people who believe in the sacred dignity of every human life. This belief is not abstract; it has consequences. It shapes how we view the use of force and how we respond to suffering. When lives are lost through violence, whether on our streets or through the actions of the state, we are compelled to ask hard questions, not out of hostility, but out of fidelity to the Gospel of life.

But the no Cardinal Tobin speaks of is never just negation. Every faithful no must be grounded in a deeper yes. Yes, to the dignity of the human person. Yes, to accountability shaped by justice rather than vengeance. Yes, to policies and practices that protect life while honoring the common good. Yes, to listening, especially to voices that have too often been ignored.

This is where pastoral wisdom matters. Our nation is fractured not only by ideology but by fear and fatigue. Many are weary. Many feel unheard. Many no longer trust institutions, including the Church. In such a moment, our witness must be marked by humility, patience, hope, and most of all, love.

To do this work, we must be prayerful. We must speak with conviction, but without contempt. We must engage public life not as soldiers, but as servants of reconciliation. Jesus did not shy away from naming injustice, but he never abandoned compassion. He confronted power, and there was always room for repentance and healing. That is the pattern we are called to follow.

This moral moment will not be resolved quickly. It will require sustained attention; we can no longer look away, and hope things change on their own. We cannot pray for God to move a mountain if we are not willing to pick up a shovel and get to work. People of all faiths are coming together and speaking with one voice; it’s time to join with those voices and make them even louder.

This is a moral moment. May we meet it not with fear, but with faith; not with despair, but with hope; and not with silence, but with lives shaped by the Gospel we proclaim.

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He has come to us

Posted on by Fr. Peter / 0 Comment

Before we turn our hearts and minds to the life of Jesus Christ, who shared our common lot and reconciled the world to God, we must name a profound moral failure that has grieved our national conscience. Yesterday in Minneapolis, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive-care nurse and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a federal immigration enforcement operation. Mr. Pretti, remembered by family and colleagues as a compassionate caregiver who devoted his life to healing others, was killed on a city street amid protests and a broader federal crackdown. Video accounts and eyewitness testimony raise serious questions about what truly happened in those moments before his death, and many who knew him and witnessed the scene dispute the initial official narrative.

This is not a distant story of “somebody else somewhere else.” Rather, it marks a moral and political rupture in the fabric of our community. As people of faith, we cannot allow this to be reduced to Democrat vs. Republican, or to “us vs. them” rhetoric. This, simply and clearly, is a matter of right and wrong, of justice and injustice, of whether the lives of those who walk among us, who care for our sick and stand in defense of their neighbors, are held sacred or are expendable in the name of policy or power.

We must speak plainly: a policy that causes the loss of life on our streets is not simply a logistical failure but a moral one. The death of a healer cannot be normalized or reduced to political talking points. As people of faith and conscience, we must declare: this is wrong. We demand truth and transparency, holding fast that God’s love never sanctions violence against the vulnerable or compassionate.

This is not merely “politics.” This is a moral accountability that must be voiced by the church, not because we belong to one party or another, but because the Gospel summons us to stand with the suffering, to oppose violence in all its forms, and to proclaim that every human life bears God’s image.

With that conviction, let us turn now to what it means to confess Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Lord, the one who enters into human suffering and calls us to a life of justice, mercy, and peace.

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At the heart of the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith is a sentence that is both daring and deeply grounded:

“In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, he has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to himself.”

This confession does not ask us to believe in a God who rescues humanity from a distance. It proclaims a God who comes close, close enough to be misunderstood, rejected, and ultimately crucified.

We begin where the Statement begins: Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth. Not an abstraction. Not a mythic hero. A human life shaped by history, culture, poverty, politics, and faith. As the Gospel of John declares, “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). God does not save the world by bypassing humanity, but by entering it fully.

This is a central affirmation of both liberal theology and Catholic faith. Friedrich Schleiermacher understood Jesus as the one in whom humanity’s openness to God was fully realized, the one whose life was wholly oriented toward God (The Christian Faith, §94). In Jesus, we do not see a denial of humanity, but its fulfillment.

The Statement tells us that Christ “shared our common lot.” That phrase carries enormous theological weight. Jesus knew hunger and fatigue, joy and grief, friendship and betrayal, the whole range of human emotion. He did not float above human suffering; he entered it. Paul, in the letter to the Hebrews, writes, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” (Hebrews 4:15).

But this shared humanity did not stop there. It led somewhere. It led to the cross.

Here we must speak carefully and truthfully about why Jesus had to die.

From my theological perspective, Jesus did not die because God required a violent sacrifice to forgive humanity. The Gospels know nothing of a God who demands blood to love. Jesus forgives freely, heals without precondition, and tells stories of mercy that precede repentance (Luke 15). Any theology that turns the cross into a transaction required by divine wrath misunderstands both God and the Gospel.

Jesus had to die because of the way he lived.

He proclaimed a reign of God that overturned religious exclusivism, economic exploitation, and political domination (Luke 4:18–19). He ate with those deemed unworthy, challenged systems of purity and power, and spoke truth to institutions invested in control. Like the prophets before him, Jesus discovered that faithfulness carries consequences.

The cross, then, reveals not God’s need for sacrifice, but humanity’s resistance to love. As James Alison observes, “The cross does not reveal God’s demand for violence, but our addiction to it” (The Joy of Being Wrong, 1998). Jesus was executed not to satisfy God, but because unjust systems cannot tolerate a love that exposes them.

This is why the Statement calls him “our crucified and risen Lord.” The crucifixion is not an interruption of Jesus’ mission; it is its consequence. As Dorothee Sölle reminds us, “Christ did not die so that we would not suffer; he died so that we would know how to live in the midst of suffering” (Suffering, 1975). God does not explain suffering away. God enters it.

And yet, the cross is not the end.

The resurrection is God’s verdict on Jesus’ life and death. “God raised him from the dead,” Peter proclaims, “because it was impossible for him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:24). Resurrection is not the reversal of Jesus’ humanity, but the vindication of it. It is God’s refusal to allow violence, injustice, and death to have the final word.

This is what the Statement means when it speaks of “conquering sin and death.” Sin, as I have already mentioned, is not inherited guilt but estrangement, what Paul Tillich called “separation” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II). We are separated from God, from one another, and from our own deepest truth. Jesus conquers sin not by condemnation, but by reconciliation.

“In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,” Paul writes to the church at Corinth, “not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Notice the scope: the world. Not just individuals. Not just the church. The whole creation. Colossians dares to say that through Christ, God seeks “to reconcile all things” (Colossians 1:20).

This is salvation not as escape, but as healing.

And this confession carries a calling. If Christ has shared our common lot, then no part of human life is beneath God’s concern. If Christ was crucified by systems of fear and domination, then the church must examine its own complicity. If resurrection is God’s “yes” to life, then we are called to live as witnesses to that life, publicly, courageously, and compassionately.

The Statement of Faith does not ask us merely to believe this. It asks us to embody it.

To confess that “he has come to us” is to trust that God has not abandoned the world, even now. To proclaim the crucified and risen Christ is to stand with those who suffer unjustly and to hope stubbornly for a future shaped by grace.

This is not cheap hope. It is resurrection hope.

And it is enough.

Amen.

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A True Pro-Life Ethic Includes the Poor, the Prisoner, the Immigrant

Posted on by Fr. Peter / 0 Comment

A few years after my ordination, I traveled to Washington, DC, to attend the March for Life. This annual event in DC arose in response to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. Marchers, who do not consider themselves protesters, arrive from across the country, many staying in churches overnight.

After gathering the night before, the day begins with a Mass at the National Shrine. From there, participants walk together to the Supreme Court, where several Roman Catholic and Orthodox Bishops speak to the assembly about the evils of abortion and the ongoing fight to overturn what they see as a stain on the American soul.

At that time, I was a young (ish) priest, uncertain of my theological position on many social issues. Serving in the Romanian Orthodox Church, which had no defined social gospel and did not think it needed one, I sought a sense of belonging. In retrospect, my opposition to abortion and other social issues seemed to follow an easier, more accepted path, rather than a firmly discerned conviction.

Following the crowd is one of the easiest things to do. Taking a stand, even an unpopular one, is difficult, but that is what we are called to do.

Contemporary religious discourse has reduced the term pro-life ” to a single moral claim: opposition to abortion grounded in the assertion that life begins at conception. While concern for unborn life deserves moral seriousness, this reduction represents a profound narrowing of Christian ethical vision. Such single-issue moralism stands in tension with Scripture, theological anthropology, and the Gospel’s expansive understanding of life.

Christian faith does not call us to protect only biological origins. It calls us to honor life as relational (existing in connection with others), social (formed in community), historical (shaped over time), and moral (involving right and wrong actions)—a reality sustained not only by birth but also by justice, compassion, and community.

There is no single biblical doctrine that declares that life begins at conception. Life is presented as something animated by divine breath and sustained in relationships. In the Book of Genesis, humanity becomes alive when God breathes life into the body: “Then the Lord God formed the human from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the human became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7) Life here is ruach, spirit, and breath, not merely a biological process.

Ezekiel’s dry bones remain lifeless until God’s Spirit enters them. (Ezekiel 37:14) The risen Christ breathes on the disciples, imparting life and vocation. (John 20:22) Biblically, life is not reducible to cellular existence; it is dynamic, God-given, and sustained within community.

Texts frequently cited to support conception-based definitions of life, such as Psalm 139 or Jeremiah 1:5, are poetic affirmations of divine knowledge and care, not biological claims. Liberal biblical scholarship has long recognized these passages as confessions of trust in God’s providence rather than metaphysical assertions about fetal personhood. (Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament)

The Liberal theological position understands that life is a process of becoming, not a static moment fixed in time. Friedrich Schleiermacher grounded human worth not in biological status but in consciousness of absolute dependence upon God. (The Christian Faith) From this perspective, life unfolds relationally, morally, and spiritually rather than beginning as a fully formed moral subject at conception.

Paul Tillich defined life as participation in “being-itself,” insisting that ethical judgments must attend to actual existence, power, and vulnerability, rather than to abstract biological thresholds. (Systematic Theology, Vol. 3) Tillich warned that moral absolutism detached from lived reality becomes demonic, elevating partial truths into total claims. (The Courage to Be)

Richard Niebuhr taught that Christian ethics must pay attention to history and relationships. Moral responsibility arises from discernment in real relationships. Ethical concern for pregnancy must include women’s agency, social context, and shared responsibility, not just embryology. (The Responsible Self)

Christian ethics does not speculate about the biological beginnings of life, but about the life and teaching of Jesus. Jesus defines life not by origin but by abundance: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) Abundant life requires nourishment, healing, dignity, and liberation from oppressive systems.

The judgment scene of Matthew 25 offers no concern for ideological purity or metaphysical certainty. Instead, Matthew presents the teaching of Jesus as embodied care for the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, and the stranger. Life is affirmed where human beings are sustained in dignity, and it is denied where neglect, violence, or indifference prevail.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer insisted that ethical faithfulness must be lived “in the penultimate,” amid ambiguity and risk. (Ethics) Bonhoeffer rejected moral systems that insulated believers from responsibility through rigid rules. For Bonhoeffer, Christian ethics demanded courageous discernment in the face of complex human realities, a stance deeply at odds with simplistic pro-life frameworks that ignore social consequence.

Reduction of the pro-life identity to being simply anti-abortion allows Christians to claim moral certainty while at the same time supporting systems that destroy life in other forms. Reinhold Niebuhr warned precisely against such moral self-righteousness, noting that the greatest ethical danger lies in confusing partial moral insight with divine righteousness. (Moral Man and Immoral Society)

A theology that defends embryonic life while tolerating child poverty, racialized violence, inadequate healthcare, environmental degradation, mass incarceration, or war reveals not moral consistency but moral fragmentation. The prophet Amos’ rebuke is loud on this point: “I hate, I despise your festivals… but let justice roll down like waters.” (Amos 5:21, 24) Justice, not a selective moral position, is the biblical measure of fidelity.

James Cone, writing from the Black liberation tradition, exposed the deadly consequences of moral abstraction separated from lived suffering. Cone insisted that any Christian ethic that fails to confront systemic injustice is not merely incomplete but complicit in that injustice. (A Black Theology of Liberation) From this point, a pro-life ethic that ignores racialized death, state violence, and economic abandonment cannot claim allegiance to the God of life.

From a Liberal Catholic perspective, to say that life does not simply begin at conception is not to deny moral value to prenatal life. It is to affirm that life is relational, developmental, and morally complex. Ethical seriousness increases as relational capacity, vulnerability, and relationships increase.

Such a position demands more, not less, moral responsibility. It calls for robust support for women, children, families, and communities; for healthcare, education, and economic justice; for peacemaking and environmental stewardship. Life is diminished wherever human beings are treated as expendable, whether in the womb, at the border, in prison, or in neglected neighborhoods.

A Christian ethic of life must be larger than a single issue and humbler than absolute claims. It must be rooted in Scripture read historically, theology formed by experience, and conscience shaped in community. To be pro-life, in any meaningful Christian sense, is to be pro-justice, pro-compassion, and pro-human flourishing.

As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6) A theology animated by the Spirit will always resist reductionism, attend to suffering, and insist that life is sacred not only because it begins, but because it is sustained, shared, and redeemed.

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Holy Love and Righteous Judgment

Posted on by Fr. Peter

This morning, we finish the section about God. These lines from the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith are said so often that they risk becoming familiar without being fully heard. We are invited to linger with these words:

“He seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.
He judged men and nations by his righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.”

These lines may sound like they are pulling us in two different directions. Holy love sounds welcoming, gentle, and reassuring. Judgment makes many of us uncomfortable. And sin, well, that word carries a great deal of baggage. But the Statement of Faith does not shy away from holding these realities together, because Scripture itself refuses to separate love from truth, or grace from moral seriousness.

The Statement of Faith refuses to let us separate what God has joined together. Love without truth becomes sentimentality. Judgment without love becomes cruelty. The faith we proclaim insists that God’s love is strong enough to tell the truth, and God’s judgment is rooted in a desire to heal rather than to harm.

My theological position is not to speak of sin as inherited guilt or human worthlessness. I don’t believe that people are born condemned, broken beyond repair, or separated from God by some ancient biological failure. I believe we need to acknowledge something far more recognizable and honest: that to be human is to be finite, fragile, and vulnerable to distortion.

We are not born sinful in the sense of being morally corrupt from birth. But we are born into a world already bent out of shape, into histories of injustice, systems of inequality, patterns of fear and violence that predate us and shape us long before we are aware of them. We arrive not guilty, but conditioned. Not damned but disoriented.

Theologian Paul Tillich named this condition estrangement. Sin, he said, is separation, from God, from others, from us, not a moral defect passed down through biology, but an existential condition that arises from freedom and fear.

In this light, sin is real, but it is not the denial of human worth. It is the distortion of human freedom. We are not sinners because we are human; we sin because we are human and afraid.

God’s response is not rejection but seeking love.

“He seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.”

Aimlessness is a profoundly pastoral word. It acknowledges something deeply human: the experience of drifting, of losing our center, of waking up one day unsure how we got where we are or what our lives are oriented towards.

Before sin becomes willful wrongdoing, it is often a loss of direction. It is forgetting who we are, whose we are, and what we are for. Scripture names this: sheep without a shepherd, people wandering, hearts that have lost their way.

Long before sin becomes deliberate wrongdoing, it is often disorientation. Augustine understood this well. He described sin not first as lawbreaking, but as disordered love. In his Confessions, Augustine wrote that the human heart is restless until it rests in God, not because humans are evil by nature, but because we so easily love the wrong things in the wrong order. Aimlessness, in this sense, is loving lesser things as though they were ultimate.

God’s holy love addresses that condition first. God seeks not to condemn, but to reorient. To save us from aimlessness is to call us back to purpose, to restore our capacity to live in right relationship with God, neighbor, and the world.

But love does not stop at reassurance. Love also tells the truth. And so, the Statement continues: “He judged men and nations by his righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.” Here is where we need to pay close attention to the scope of that judgment. Not just individuals. Not just private morality. Men and nations.

God’s judgment is not about tallying personal failures or policing moral purity. It is about naming where human freedom has gone wrong, where fear has overtaken trust, where self-interest has eclipsed responsibility, where systems we benefit from harming others.

The prophets were relentless on this point. They did not accuse people of being born sinful; they accused nations of becoming unjust. They did not judge humanity’s existence, but humanity’s choices. They named economic exploitation, political violence, religious hypocrisy, and indifference to suffering as violations of God’s righteousness.

Ezekiel 16:49, “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

Baptist theologian and Pastor Walter Rauschenbusch would later say that the doctrine of sin is the religious interpretation of a universal social fact. Sin is not only personal; it is structural. It is embedded in systems that reward greed, excuse violence, and render suffering invisible. And God’s judgment is not directed at human existence itself, but at the ways we organize our common life.

This is where many of us become uncomfortable. We are often willing to accept a God who forgives individual shortcomings. We are less comfortable with a God who judges nations, who asks hard questions about policies, priorities, and power.

Scripture insists that God’s righteousness is not confined to private virtue. The apostles carried this witness forward. Mary’s song announces a God who brings down the powerful and lifts the lowly. Jesus speaks more harshly to those who benefit from unjust systems than to those who struggle within them. The poor are not the problem; the system that keeps them poor is. And those who benefit are.

In this view, sin is not so much a stain as it is an estrangement. We are estranged from God when we forget our dependence. We are estranged from one another when we allow difference to become hierarchy. And we are estranged from ourselves when fear shapes our lives more than love.

And God’s judgment, declared through prophets and apostles, is not meant to crush us, but to awaken us. Judgment is clarity. It is the moment when the truth breaks through our justifications and calls us back to what is real and life-giving.

Judgment, then, is not about punishment. It is about truth. It is what happens when God’s holy love refuses to lie about the cost of our choices.

Reinhold Niebuhr captured this tension beautifully when he said that humans are both capable of justice and inclined toward injustice. That is why love must be joined to accountability. Without judgment, love becomes naïve. Without love, judgment becomes destructive.

And here is the crucial point: the God who judges is the same God who seeks to save. Judgment is not the final word; it is a necessary word along the way. God exposes brokenness not to shame us, but to heal us. God names injustice not to condemn humanity, but to call us back to responsibility.

Friends, this is a faith that takes humanity seriously, our freedom, our responsibility, and our capacity for change. It refuses to despair about human nature, even as it refuses to deny human failure. It trusts that grace is stronger than estrangement, and that love is more powerful than fear.

We are not saved from being human. We are saved into our humanity, called to live awake, purposeful, and accountable in a world God refuses to abandon.

May we hear God’s judgment not as a threat, but as an invitation. May we receive God’s love not as permission to remain unchanged, but as courage to live differently.

For the One who seeks us in holy love is still calling people and nations toward righteousness, justice, and life.

Amen.

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Living Awake: Romans 13 and Faithful Resistance

Posted on by Fr. Peter

For the last year, Romans 13 has been a hot topic amongst Evangelical Christians who believe Americans are required to just obey the law. After Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by masked agents of the federal government, Evangelical influencers took to social media saying, “If she had only obeyed, she would probably still be alive.” As an aid to the argument, they will add, “Romans 13:1” to the end.

Romans 13 has long been read as a command to unquestioningly obey civil authority. It is often invoked in moments of social tension to quiet dissent, discourage protest, or sanctify the status quo. But this elementary reading is not only incomplete, it is deeply at odds with both the broader witness of Scripture and Paul’s own life.

Paul begins this chapter by acknowledging the role of government in maintaining order. Social structures matter. Chaos does not serve the common good, and Scripture does not romanticize anarchy. But Paul does not endorse every law or every ruler. He is describing how authority should function, serving justice, restraining harm, and promoting the well-being of the community.

Paul was no stranger to resistance and the brutality that unchecked authority can cause. He was imprisoned, beaten, and ultimately executed by the authorities he names. Paul also proclaimed that “we must obey God rather than human authorities” when conflicts arise (Acts 5:29). Scripture cannot be divided against itself. Any reading of Romans 13 that demands uncritical obedience ignores the larger biblical story.

Romans 13 is not about unquestioning obedience, but conscience. Paul writes that submission to authority is not motivated by fear of punishment, but by an awareness of what is right. The standard is not just what is legal, but also what is morally responsible. For followers of Jesus, authority is legitimate only if that authority aligns with God’s purpose for life.

Paul makes that purpose clear: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Love, not law, is the final measure. Any civil command that violates love, any policy that harms the vulnerable, denies dignity, or embeds injustice, fails the test that Paul establishes.

Romans 13 is not black-and-white; it profoundly challenges the reader. Paul does not invite passive compliance; he calls believers to moral discernment. For the follower of Jesus to live faithfully is to ask hard questions: Does this law protect life or diminish it? Does it foster justice or reinforce inequality? Does it serve the common good, or does it give privilege to the powerful at the expense of the powerless?

There is a sense of urgency in Paul’s writing that sharpens the challenge: “You know what time it is… now is the moment to wake from sleep.” To be awake is to refuse the comfort of moral laziness. Doing nothing is easy. But Paul asks us to recognize that neutrality often sides with injustice, and silence can become a form of consent.

Throughout its complicated history, the church has used this passage not to justify obedience, but to inspire courage. Those who opposed slavery, resisted fascism, marched for civil rights, and sheltered refugees often did so in direct violation of civil law, but in faithful obedience to the law of love. These patriots understood what Paul understood: authority exists for the sake of justice, not justice for the sake of authority. And without an authority based on morality and love, there is no justice.

Romans 13 does not require followers of Jesus to sanctify every law. It demands that we take responsibility for how we live within, and sometimes against, them. Paul’s vision is not of quiet submission but of awakened lives shaped by integrity, compassion, and courage. Romans 13 demands that we ask the hard questions and hold those in authority accountable when they wield their power unjustly.

Romans 13 requires followers of Jesus to act when we see injustice, for silence equals consent.

If we are to live “as people of the day,” we must live visibly, ethically, and intentionally. It is to clothe ourselves not in fear or compliance, but in hope and responsibility. It is to trust that love is not only our calling, but our highest allegiance.

Romans 13 does not ask us to surrender our conscience or morality; it asks us to sharpen it.

And in a world where power often confuses itself with righteousness, that may be one of the most faithful acts of all.

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What Is Liberal Catholic Theology? An Incarnational, Sacramental, and Critical Tradition

Posted on by Fr. Peter

Now, before you stop reading because I said the word ” liberal, let me explain what that word means from a theological perspective. It begins by, in a sense, separating the partisan political meaning from the theological.

The English word liberal derives from the Latin liber, meaning ‘free’. From a theological perspective, liberalism is about freedom of inquiry, the freedom to ask questions, wrestle with doubt, and allow faith to grow rather than remain fixed. At its heart, religious liberalism trusts that faith deepens through engagement, not through fear. Allowing God’s voice to continue to speak in and through the Church is a primary action of the Liberal Theological Position.

Liberal catholic Theology is more of a posture than a single system. Rooted in the Anglican/Catholic and sacramental tradition, Liberal Catholic Theology remains open to historical development, critical inquiry, and the lived experience of humanity. Liberal Catholic Theology seeks to remain faithful to the core of the Christian faith while leaving space for honest intellectual discovery and pastoral sensibilities with confidence in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.

The central belief of Liberal Catholic Theology is that God is truly revealed in Jesus Christ, genuinely present in the sacraments, and actively at work within history, culture, and human reason.

Rather than using strict doctrinal boundaries to define positions, Liberal Catholic Theology is best understood through its method, sources, and aims.

Theological Method: Faith Seeking Understanding

Liberal Catholic Theology fits within the classical Christian conviction that faith and reason are not opposed to one another. It shares Anselm’s conviction that theology is fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking understanding, but also states that doctrine is not static or immune from historical context.

Archbishop William Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury 1942-1944) stated this approach clearly when he wrote, “Theology is the effort to understand the revelation which has been given, and to express that understanding in terms of the thought of the age.” (Nature, Man and God, 1934)

Liberal Catholic Theology does not reject advancements in biblical scholarship, historical criticism, philosophy, and the natural sciences, and does not perceive those advancements as threats to faith but as tools for deeper comprehension.

Keeping intellectual honesty at the heart of theological discovery distinguishes Liberal Catholic theology from both ends of theological inquiry, rigid dogmatism and doctrinal minimalism. Tradition is neither dismissed nor idolized. Doctrine is respected as the accumulated wisdom of the Church, but is always interpreted through the lens of its historical formation and pastoral purpose.

Sources of Authority: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience

Liberal Catholic theology finds itself within a broad understanding of authority, Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience, often called the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” The Anglo-Catholic view understands authority from the perspective of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. Wesley, and therefore Liberal Catholic Theology, added the point of view of Experience and how the Church has experienced authority.

Scripture is understood as being inspired and authoritative, but is read critically and in context. Scripture was written at a particular time in history to a particular group of people, having a particular experience. Understanding who, what, when, where, and why helps to better understand what is written.

Bishop Charles Gore wrote, “The Bible is not itself the revelation, but the record of the revelation.” (The Reconstruction of Belief) Liberal Catholic Theology is able, then, to affirm biblical authority without denying historical development, literary diversity, or ethical complexity.

Tradition is the living memory of the Church, particularly as expressed in the early ecumenical councils, the Church Fathers, and the sacramental life. As Yves Congar later phrased it, tradition is “the living transmission of the Gospel in the Church,” not mere repetition of past formulas.

Reason and experience function in competition with revelation but as ways in which revelation is received, tested, and embodied. Liberal Catholic theology assumes that truth is coherent and that God’s self-disclosure cannot contradict the realities of the created world.

This brings me to a definition of Liberal Catholic theology:

A sacramental and incarnational approach to Christian faith that affirms the historic catholic tradition while engaging critically with history, reason, and experience, understanding doctrine as living truth ordered toward communion, healing, and participation in the life of God.

Liberal Catholic Theology is catholic without being rigid, liberal without being relativistic, and faithful without being fearful.

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God Calls, God Creates, God Entrusts

Posted on by Fr. Peter

Matthew 3:13-17

In the passage from Matthew’s Gospel we heard this morning, Jesus comes to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. John hesitates. John knows that something holy is unfolding and is unsure whether he is worthy to participate. But Jesus insists. He steps into the water, not above it, not apart from it, but fully within it.

And in that moment, the heavens open. The Spirit descends like a dove. A voice declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

This is not just about Jesus’ personal spirituality. This is a revelation about who God is and how God chooses to act in the world. God does not save humanity from a distance. God does not bypass the waters of human life. God enters them.

This moment on the banks of the Jordan belongs alongside the words of our Statement of Faith: “He calls the worlds into being, creates man in his own image, and sets before him the ways of life and death.” In Jesus’ baptism, we see all three truths embodied at once. Creation itself participates: the river, the sky, the dove. Humanity is affirmed, the Beloved stands in solidarity with all who come seeking repentance and renewal. And a choice is made, not toward power or separation, but toward life shared with the vulnerable.

In Jesus’ baptism, we see that the image of God is not found in distance or domination, but in solidarity. It tells us that choosing life means stepping into the waters of the world as it is, its pain, its injustice, its hope, and trusting that God is present there. When the voice from heaven speaks delight over Jesus, it is also a word spoken over humanity itself: You are beloved.

If Jesus’ baptism shows us anything, it is that God’s work begins not with escape from the world, but with engagement in it. From the waters of the Jordan, Jesus does not retreat into safety or silence; he steps forward into ministry, into conflict, into the full complexity of human life. In the same way, our Statement of Faith does not begin with doctrine for doctrine’s sake, but with action, with a God who calls the worlds into being. Creation itself is God’s first act of love, and it is into that living, breathing world that we are called to respond. To understand what it means to choose life, we must begin where God begins: with the call that brings all things into existence.

The Statement of Faith gives us words that are both simple and profound: “He calls the worlds into being, creates man in his own image, and sets before him the ways of life and death.” Three clauses, three truths. Three invitations. And yet, they call us into a lifetime of reflection and action.

I hear in these words a God who refuses to be distant. A God who calls, creates, and entrusts us with the profound responsibility of life itself. This is not a God who dictates in rigid rules or abstracts our existence into moral formulas. This is a God who calls us to notice, to respond, and to participate in the ongoing work of creation, reconciliation, and justice. I hear a God who does it all with us.

Today, we must also consider the reality of our world, the ways we encounter violence, oppression, and brokenness. The Incarnation teaches us that God enters our fragile, human life. And in this light, our choices, our commitments, and our actions are sacred.

The first clause is cosmic: “He calls the worlds into being.” God speaks, and life responds. God calls the stars into formation, the oceans into motion, and the earth into balance. God calls life itself, and we, as part of that life, respond.

Creation is not a mechanism, a chain of cause and effect. It is an ongoing act of invitation. When God calls the worlds into being, God affirms that life is not inert matter but living, sacred, and relational. Each of us, as part of creation, is invited to co-create, to participate in life, to respond to God’s call.

This call is not abstract. It is incarnational. It comes to us in flesh and blood, in the life of Jesus Christ, in our neighbors, and in the needs of the world. Every act of justice, every effort to care for the vulnerable, every movement for ecological stewardship is a response to this divine call.

The second clause moves from the cosmos to the human heart: “Creates man in his own image.” Being made in God’s image is not a license for pride or domination. It is an invitation to reflect God’s love, mercy, and justice.

This was a profound revelation to me. Think about it. In the creation story, God spoke, and things happened, but when it came to creating humanity, God got their hands dirty.

Genesis tells us that God formed humanity from the dust of the earth, but that is not the most profound part. The most profound part is that after God created humanity, God breathed God’s breath into humanity. Imagine, the very breath we breathe, the first breath we take as newborns, is God’s breath.

God is present in every human being from the moment we take that first breath.

Every human being, regardless of race, gender, immigration status, or social standing, bears this image and breath. And when we fail to see it, to honor it, or to protect it, we distort creation itself.

In Minneapolis, in recent tragedies, communities have experienced the denial of this divine image, acts of violence that remind us that life is fragile, that some bodies are treated as expendable, that our systems sometimes fail the people they were designed to protect.

Being made in God’s image demands that we stand with those whose humanity is denied. It calls us to advocacy: supporting criminal justice reform, ensuring fair treatment for immigrants, protecting children from hunger and neglect, and affirming the dignity of all lives threatened by violence or discrimination.

Former Connecticut Conference Minister Rev. Ken Salidi recently said, “The UCC was not founded to be respectable. We were founded to be dangerous to injustice.”

And yet, it also calls us inward. To see God’s image in ourselves, our biases, our fears, and our impulses to harm or neglect. We all have them, I have them, and those are the things we need to bring to confession. To live faithfully is to notice, to name, and to align ourselves with the ways of life God sets before us. We cannot stand by and watch; just like God, we must get our hands dirty.

The third clause is a profound statement of human freedom and responsibility: “He sets before him the ways of life and death.” God does not coerce. God does not dictate outcomes. God sets before us the paths that bring flourishing and those that bring destruction.

Life is a gift, but it comes with a sacred responsibility. We are entrusted with choices that affect not only ourselves but our communities, our neighbors, and creation itself.

Yesterday, Nicky and I met with a woman from the local watershed association. Our house is built on a hill and, as you know, water runs downhill. We talked about ways to mitigate water by moving it around our house, and we also discussed creating rain gardens.

Rain gardens collect and filter water that falls off roofs, driveways, lawns, and other impermeable surfaces. As the water moves, it collects all the stuff we leave behind. If I spray chemicals on my lawn, they will end up in our drinking water. If my car leaks oil or gas, those products will find their way into our drinking water. The decision I made to spray my lawn could have an impact, downstream, on people I do not know.

Mayor Jacob Frey captured something essential when he said, “This is our moment to face a whole lot of hate with a whole lot of love.” Love is not passive. Love is active. Love means standing against systems of violence, speaking truth to power, advocating for the oppressed, and protecting the vulnerable. Love is being aware and asking the question, How will this decision affect others?

My theological lens emphasizes that God does not remain apart from the world. In Jesus Christ, God fully enters human life. God suffers with us, grieves with us, and calls us into participation in God’s reconciling work.

When we witness violence, oppression, or environmental devastation, the Incarnation calls us not only to lament but to act. It is a theological principle: God took on human flesh so that human life is sacred, so that our bodies, our communities, and our choices matter.

Choosing life, and by that I don’t just mean being anti-abortion, but life all across the spectrum, this choice is not optional. It is a moral, spiritual, and incarnational vocation. Whether we advocate for justice in our courts, feed the hungry, protect the planet, or speak out against violence, we participate in God’s work of creation, healing, and reconciliation.

Because I like to always offer practical ways our faith applies to our lives, here are a few ways we can live out this call.

Engage the community, support local organizations that fight violence, poverty, and systemic injustice. Show up. Speak out. Educate yourself on what is going on in the world.

Advocate for public policy that values life, all life, equity, and environmental stewardship. It is okay for your faith to engage with your politics.

Practice daily reflection, notice where your own actions either honor or harm the divine image in others. At the end of the day, ask yourself what have I done to others through my actions, or my inactions, and how will I try to do better.

Commit to reconciliation, seek forgiveness, and offer it where relationships have been fractured. For me, this is key in our spirituality. Offering forgiveness when harm has taken place is central to our spiritual life. As a reminder, hanging on the cross, Jesus asked God to forgive those who had done this to him.

Live sacramentally, recognize God’s presence in ordinary acts of care and in our communal worship. God is present in all of creation, including the people we do not like. Every choice, every effort, every act of love affirms the sacredness of life.

God calls the worlds into being. God creates us in God’s own image. God sets before us the ways of life and death.

We are free, and we are responsible. In a world marked by violence, fear, and injustice, the call to choose life is urgent and costly, but it is also deeply faithful. Choosing life means choosing justice, reconciliation, and love. It means seeing God in every human being and responding with courage, compassion, and integrity.

My prayer today is that we answer God’s call faithfully. May we embody the divine image in all our actions. May we face hate with love, darkness with light, and death with life. And may our lives, in word and deed, bear witness to the God who calls, creates, and invites us into the sacred work of living fully.

Amen.

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An Incarnational Call to Truth, Accountability, and Peace

Posted on by Fr. Peter

It has taken me a few days to put into words what I am feeling at this moment. Knowing myself as I do, I needed to wait a few days for my emotions to settle a bit, but I have found that settling my emotions at this time is impossible. Government-sponsored violence seems to be the new norm, whether it is bombing Iran, invading Venezuela, or the killing of Renee Nicole Good on the streets in Minneapolis. I will not and I cannot allow this violence to become the new normal. So, it is at times like these that I turn to faith.

My faith proclaims that God does not remain distant from human suffering. In the Incarnation, God takes on human flesh in Jesus Christ, declaring every human life sacred, worthy of dignity, and deserving of protection. Bodies matter. Lives matter. What God assumes, God honors.

That truth compels us to speak plainly today as we continue to grieve the heinous shooting in Minneapolis and the death of Renee Nicole Good. When violence is carried out, especially by agents of authority, it demands more than prayers alone. It demands truth, accountability, and a sober reckoning with how power is exercised in our common life.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said it clearly: “This is our moment to face a whole lot of hate with a whole lot of love.” For people shaped by the Incarnation, love is not silence, avoidance, or denial. Love insists that every life be treated with dignity. Love demands transparency, restraint, and justice. Love refuses to allow fear or hatred to determine whose lives are protected and whose are placed at risk. Love takes to the streets and demands!

The Incarnation stands in judgment over systems and practices that normalize violence or excuse it as inevitable. God-with-us does not hover above human pain; God stands with the wounded, the grieving, and those who cry out for and demand change. In Jesus Christ, God knows what it is to be overpowered by the machinery of human fear and control and exposes it for what it is.

At the same time, the Incarnation calls us toward hope and responsibility. We are not condemned to repeat this cycle. We are called to build a community where accountability is real, where human dignity is non-negotiable, and where the use of force is never detached from moral restraint. We are called to form God’s kingdom here on earth.

As a people of faith, we grieve, we pray, we speak, and we act. We commit ourselves to facing hatred with love that seeks justice, truth, and peace, not as abstractions, but as concrete, lived realities. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That truth demands more of us now.

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La Befana – A Legend of Sacred Wisdom

Posted on by Fr. Peter

There is a legend of a witch that dates to Pagan times and is an integral part of Italian folklore. The legend of La Befana draws together Pagan and Christian theology in celebration of the Epiphany that speaks to us today with her sacred wisdom.

The origin of the name Befana comes from the Greek word Epiphaneia, meaning “manifestation” or “appearance,” and refers to the visit of the Magi to Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Over centuries, Epifania became Befania, then Befana in popular speech.

In Roman and pre-Roman times, figures resembling La Befana have appeared in agricultural traditions. La Befana is linked to ancient fertility goddesses and earth mothers who represent the earth’s cycles.

In Roman Times, La Befana made appearances at festivals around the solstice and would be included in rituals honoring the spirits, ensuring the fertility of the coming year. La Befana, often depicted as an old woman, would fly through the night symbolizing the passing of the old year.

As Christianity began to spread, La Befana became part of the Epiphany story. While journeying to see the Christ Child, the Magi stopped at the home of La Befana, where she offered them food and shelter but declined to join them.

She later regretted her decision not to join the Magi, and so she gathered gifts she could bring to the Child and set off, flying through the night in search of the Magi and the Child. Unable to find the child, La Befana gave the gifts to the children she did find in the hopes that one of them might be Jesus.

Today, the legend has it that La Befana visits children on the night of January 5th, leaving candy and presents for the good children and coal for the, well, not-so-good. She is depicted as an old woman flying on a broom, part grandmother, part witch, and part holy pilgrim. There are major celebrations in Rome that combine religious observance with folk festivals.

There is a tremendous amount of symbolic meaning in La Befana. The legend combines the folk with the theological, the Pagan with the Christian, in such a way that shows how traditions can come together to tell a story. La Befana shows the wisdom of age rather than youthful beauty. La Befana points towards the truth that one is never too old to seek the things that are holy. And most importantly, La Befana shows that we do not have to be perfect; she is flawed, human, and still beloved.

And there is a deep, theological symbolism to La Befana as she reminds us that those on the margins carry sacred wisdom, a reminder that God’s revelation is not just for the rich and powerful but for everyone, and La Befana reminds us to continue to search even after missing opportunities.

La Befana is not merely an Italian “Christmas witch,” but a rich symbol of memory, repentance, generosity, hospitality, hope, and second chances standing at the crossroads of ancient ritual and Christian faith.

Let us Pray:

Holy God of wandering stars and open doors, you met the Magi on the road and you meet us in moments we almost miss.

We remember the one who stayed behind, who hesitated, who later went searching, carrying gifts, hope, and regret in her hands.

Forgive us when we delay love, when fear or comfort keeps us from the journey. Bless our second chances, our late beginnings, our imperfect faith.

Teach us to recognize Christ in every child we meet, in every stranger we welcome, in every door we dare to open.

As La Befana shared her gifts along the way, may we give freely, not only from certainty, but from longing and compassion.

Sweep away what no longer gives life. Make room for wonder. Lead us by your light, even when the road is long and the hour is late.

For it is never too late to seek the Holy One. Amen.

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