The God of Surprises (A Sermon Spoiler)

One of my favorite stained glass windows at Duke University Chapel shows the disciples on the road to Emmaus. The disciples are walking down the road, and Jesus is walking up behind them, looking like he’s about to tap one of them on the shoulder: boo! Jesus’ appearance to his friends comes as a surprise-a welcome surprise, a world changing surprise, but a surprise nonetheless.

In our Gospel for Sunday, the disciples find out that the resurrection isn’t just a rumor – it’s real. And they discover that it’s real in a tangible way as Jesus breaks bread with them. In Jesus, God shows himself to us as not just able to be seen, but able to be touched. And God chooses to be known that way. God gains nothing by being seen or touched. God would be God regardless of how we experience God. But God chooses to be with us, to share Scripture and bread with us, to be perceived. The fact that God chooses to be there on the road with us, that God breaks bread with us, shows us that this is a God who can be trusted in the absence of perception as well as in its presence. God chooses to be in that kind of intimate relationship with us, and that tells us how much God loves us, how safe we are in God’s hands. God chooses to invite us into a relationship of new life - a new life of peace.  This is the new life that Jesus invites us to share in, through baptism and every time we share the Eucharist with each other. Our faith isn’t ethereal and theoretical, it’s something that we touch and that touches us.

Join us this Sunday to be surprised once more by grace, and to find out how this story ends!

Yours in Christ, and in Christ alone,

Kara+

Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Dear beloved of Trinity Church,

Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

What a glorious Easter it was! The church was filled, the music was beautiful, and the vibrant, joyful spirit was palpable. I could not have been more proud of our beloved community. Thank you to all who made our Easter celebration so meaningful and radiant.

Now we enter the Great Fifty Days of Easter, leading us to the feast of Pentecost. In these days, I invite us to live more deeply into the fullness of Easter’s power. While the liturgical calendar names this a season, Easter is far more than a moment in time—it is a way of life. It is the defining truth of our faith: that love is stronger than death, and life will have the final word.

Inspired by St. Augustine, Pope John Paul II reminds us, “We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song.”

I invite you to prayerfully consider how you might embody Easter in your daily life. How might resurrection take shape in your words and deeds, in your intentions and desires? Where is God calling new life to emerge in you?

Our world is in deep need of Easter—not only within the Church, but for all people. We long for hope, for renewal, and for the assurance of God’s never-failing love.

Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Easter blessings,

Paul+

Jesus Christ is Risen Today—Alleluia!

Dear Friends,

“Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!” With these joyful words, we awaken once more to the song that has echoed through the centuries—the song of life stronger than death, hope stronger than fear, love stronger than anything that would hold us back.

Easter is not simply a day we celebrate; it is a reality we are invited to enter. As the hymn proclaims, “our triumphant holy day” calls us to lift our hearts and voices, to join creation itself in praise. The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. Christ is alive—and because he lives, we are given new life as well.

Easter joy is not shallow or fleeting. It is born out of the depths of Good Friday and carried through the silence of Holy Saturday. And so our “hymns of praise then let us sing” are not naïve, but courageous—rooted in the promise that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God.

I invite you to join us this Sunday, as we gather to celebrate the resurrection. Come and hear the Good News again. Come and sing “Alleluia.” Come and be renewed in the life that the Risen Christ offers to all.

Easter Blessings,           

Paul+

Blessed Holy Week

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

This Sunday, we begin our Holy Week journey.

We lift our palm branches high, waving and crying out,
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest.”

For a brief moment, we try to place ourselves among the crowd some two thousand years ago—
spirits lifted, hearts full of hope and expectation.
At last, things are turning.
At last, things will be made right.

This must be the beginning—
the long-awaited procession into a kingdom of righteousness and justice.

And yet… how quickly things turn.

Hopes are dashed.
Dreams are shattered.
Expectations crumble.

Life, as we know, is unpredictable.
In a moment, everything can change.
The world can turn upside down in an instant—
like shifting sands beneath our feet,
like winds that rise without warning,
like floods that overwhelm both land and soul.

How, then, do we steady ourselves?

It is for such a world and time as this that our Lord came.
Christ entered into the very heart of instability—
standing on shifting sands,
facing the howling winds of rage,
and walking through the floodwaters of fear.

Yet always, he remained rooted in love.

In him, we find our anchor.
In him, we find life and hope.

And so we, too—fully human, deeply vulnerable—
are invited to walk this path.
With faith in God’s goodness,
and trust in the enduring love revealed in Christ,
we find our way forward.

Beloved, I invite you into this most sacred journey—
not away from uncertainty,
but through it.

Through the trials and travails of life,
held always by the certainty and constancy
of God’s unchanging love,

as revealed to us

in the life, death, and resurrection

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed Holy Week,

Paul+

Holy Week

God’s Chosen Family

Dear friends,

Greetings from Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY, where a group of Trinity folks are enjoying a time of prayer, discussion, and renewal before Holy Week and Easter.  While we have primarily been discussing the Gospels for Holy Week, our conversation has also included the lessons and sermons we have heard in worship with the brothers. Today we observed the Feast of St. Joseph, one of two major feasts that falls during Lent – the other is the Annunciation on March 25. Today’s sermon began with a mention of the Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child in the Book of Common Prayer, a short liturgy to give thanks for a newborn baby or to give thanks for the adoption of a child at any age.  In the case of adoption, the priest presents the child to his or her parents, saying, “As God has made us his children by adoption and grace, may you receive N. as your own son (daughter).” The service then continues with the Magnificat, the Song of Mary.

In Jesus Christ, God configures our relationships in ways that transcend biological heredity. St. Joseph is, of course, a model of this kind of relationship, acting as an adoptive earthly father for Jesus. But each one of us is adopted as a child of God through Jesus Christ our brother. God doesn’t stand at a spiritual or physical distance from us. Rather, he takes on our humanity and names each one of us as beloved children. In doing so, he also gives us to each other as chosen family – chosen by God from before the foundation of the world. As we prepare to walk the way of the cross, there is no better time to contemplate the Church as a family in Christ, a family constituted even from the Cross itself. In St. John’s passion narrative, we read:

‘Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.’

We often think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church, but here on Good Friday, at the very foot of the Cross, Jesus knits his followers together. May we walk these days of Holy Week knowing that we are so much more than a loose affiliation of church members, we are family to each other in a very real sense.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

Kara+

PS On March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, Archbishop Sarah Mullally will be enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral. While the service won’t be available live due to BBC restrictions, you can watch it here after the broadcast.

I’m Sorry, but I Don’t Understand.

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

As I write this letter, I’m sitting in the teachers’ lounge at the school where Sophia is working in Madrid, Spain. My Spanish is elementary at best. The teachers come in and warmly welcome me, but after a brief exchange most conversations quickly and politely come to an end. If we continue, we both have to work very hard because we are, quite literally, speaking different languages with very limited fluency in the other. Two phrases I do know are : “Lo siento, pero no entiendo.” (I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.) “Hablo solo un poco de español.” (I speak only a little Spanish.)

So…it takes work—real work—if we want to engage in conversation. It takes patience, creativity, and a willingness to explore different ways of communicating.

This can also be true at times even when we speak the same language—it can seem as if we don’t. Even if we understand every word being said, we may not truly comprehend one another. We see the world through different eyes. We hold different perspectives and opinions about what is true, or right, or good. We may be speaking the same language, but we still fail to understand—and sometimes, even when we do understand, we simply no longer want to engage.

It takes work and commitment, especially in our current reality, to truly communicate with one another—to genuinely seek understanding and to discern a way forward. Many of us are tempted to take the easier path: to throw up our hands and walk away. After all, it’s so much easier to be with people who speak the same language and think the same way we do.

We must resist, however, that temptation and do the hard work to keep the conversation alive. Only then do we have any real possibility of finding a way forward. And perhaps that way forward, precisely because of our differences, will be richer and more vibrant for everyone.

Peace and blessings,
Paul+

Olga y Marta (Two of Sophia’s co-workers)

Seeing with Fresh Eyes

Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,

 Some weeks ago, I shared that a friend took me to Longwood Gardens for my birthday. It was a cold January day, but within the warmth and beauty of the arboretum, we discovered such color and life. It was an oasis in the middle of the barren landscape of winter.

When I stepped into the first conservatory, my glasses immediately fogged from the dramatic change in temperature and climate. After taking them off and letting my eyes adjust, I simply stood there—eyes wide—slowly turning in place, trying to take it all in. Everywhere I looked there was beauty: vibrant flowers, towering palms, rich greens, and bright colors alive in the middle of winter.

My friend stood nearby with a huge smile on his face and began to laugh.

“I love bringing people here and watching their reaction,” he said. “Because there’s nothing like seeing it for the very first time.”

And he’s right.

There is something sacred about experiencing things for the first time. The first time we taste something delicious, smell the fragrance of a flower, hear a beautiful piece of music, or witness a breathtaking landscape—we are filled with awe, wonder, excitement, and life. But over time, familiarity quietly dulls our awareness. What once filled us with amazement becomes ordinary. What once made us pause becomes something we pass by without noticing.

What a loss.

The French writer Marcel Proust once wrote,
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

And G. K. Chesterton reminds us,
“The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”

In this season, I invite us to awaken our souls again to the gifts of God and life that surround us—to see again, as if for the very first time, the sunrise in the morning sky, the faces of those we love, the taste of our favorite food, the sound of a song that stirs our hearts.

To see again, with fresh eyes, the gift of God’s love alive in the world—so that our hearts may be stirred, our souls nourished, and our spirits enlivened.

Lenten Blessings,

Paul+