The Summons of the Via Dolorosa
Today, my issue of the Living Church arrived and on the front cover was a picture of the “Harrowing of Hell.” This image is from the Icon Museum in Recklinghausen, Germany, artist unknown.
In the Apostles Creed, one line reads, “he descended to the Underworld” – which we interpret to mean “to the dead” – or to “Hell.” This is taken from the verse in 1 Peter, 4:6. The Harrowing of Hell is commemorated on Holy Saturday.
I take this observance to mean that, ultimately, no one is beyond the saving grace of the Good News. Yes, even Judas.
When Jai and I were in Jerusalem, that city was so commercialized that It was difficult to get into the mind of the auspicious and seminal events of Holy Week. Among all the stalls offering everything from tourist trinkets to lentils, dates and melons, nothing seemed to have remained from the time of Jesus’ last days.
It wasn’t until we got to the Wailing Wall – the only remains of the second temple wall begun by Herod the Great — and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that I began to feel some of the ambiance of that ancient City of David. Yet I had no idea where the path of sorrow was which Jesus took from his trial to the Cross on Golgotha — the Via Dolorosa –I had no idea of how it might have wended its way through the city to that fateful end.
It is during this time of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, that even the non-believing world becomes aware of the Christian story. With the reenactment of the pageantry of the processions of the palms around the world, the world becomes acutely aware of that Man for Others. The one who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”[1]
In our milieu of hyper-partisan Christianity, many – especially our younger generations — are repulsed by the vulgar sensationalizing of the message by right-wing Christian Nationalists. Whatever their mental picture of Jesus, THIS IS NOT IT.
In his book, Evangelism in the Age of Despair,[2] Andrew Root makes the point that the substance of the Good News can mostly be conveyed by those who come to others as a servant, in humility, entering the suffering of this age.
The only Christ that neighbor might ever encounter is in that neighbor, friend, who becomes vulnerable to their pain, their great despair. Just as Christ descended to the dead with Good News – for in his or her despair, overwhelming grief, that friend was indeed dead to themselves and those around.
Dr. Root tells a prototypical story, drawn from a number of experiences of such a contemporary encounter.[3]
The story begins with Mary Ann, who had landed a job with a trucking company outside of San Diego, California. Her new boss, Bud, the owner, of this small operation, was most supportive, though a somewhat gruff personality.
As the company grew, Bud realized that he needed someone to manage personnel, a Human Resources manager. He offered the new position to Mary Ann, though she’d had no experience in such work. But Mary Ann was a quick learner even though she had no college background. By attending conferences, seminars and through reading, she was soon up to speed. The company was still small and the demands for the new HR position were not overwhelming.
It finally looked like everything in her life was clicking. She had two wonderful children, a home in a nice neighborhood and a great job she loved.
Until, out of the blue, her husband announced he wanted a divorce.
She might have seen this coming. She and her husband more and more frequently bickered over money and pretty much everything else. Mary Ann figured that more money from her increased salary would resolve the tension. Not so.
There she was, now on her own with two children under ten without a father. Grief, self-doubt and depression became the order of her days. The emotional pain shook her to her core. She could barely be there for her children or her job.
She poured herself into her job and that helped somewhat. But busyness could not take away the shame, the anxiety and the sorrow. The sorrow, more than anything else, settled about her as a dense fog. No sunshine to her days.
Mary Ann’s father, like many from the 60s counter culture had drifted to the West Coast. Some in Los Angeles, others to the Bay Area around San Francisco and Berkeley. Unlike her father, she didn’t hate the church, she just never gave it much thought.
Her father was a “tough-it-through” kind of guy. Never admit your hurt.
One day, a coworker, Valentina, who had been noticing Mary Ann’s slow decline into despair, approached her and asked her if she was okay. “I’ve noticing that you seem to be carrying a lot of weight on your shoulders – a pretty heavy load.”
Those words caused an emotional dam to burst in Mary Ann. She, for the first time, unloaded her burden. For two hours they talked. Mary Ann felt that she had been held in a way she never had before. Yes, she needed a friend.
Valentina, also, had known loss. Her son had been arrested and sentenced to jail for theft, which led to addiction. She told Mary Ann how the people of her church had come to the courtroom and sat with her during the trial. They fed her for three weeks afterward.
Because of that experience Valentina was walking a nearby horse-trail with Mary Ann three times a week.
Valentina’s pastor was constantly telling the congregation that the followers of Jesus know sorrow. She saw that example through the depths of her own depression. Because of that, she was now out on this horse-trail with Mary Ann three times a week.
Valentina may be the only image of Christ that Mary Ann would ever know. And that is sufficient. In that friendship was born the entire message of the Gospel. Now vibrantly alive in Mary Ann’s heart as well as she walked her own Via Dolorosa.
I never found out where that ancient trail of tears led through Jerusalem, but I am well acquainted with that Via Dolorosa in my own heart. And it has been a saving grace at needed times to have had trusted companions along that way.
Yes, together we navigate that path as it has wound its way through our lives, through the lives of friends and family for in faith we know it leads to an Easter Sunrise.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, for Christ in our friends will join us along the way to lift and to sustain. Just as Christ does three times a week on that horse-trail in the guise of Mary Ann’s dear friend. Amen.
[1] Philippians 2:8, NRSV.
[2] Andrew Root, Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic).
[3] Ibid, the story which follows is from pages 4-7.
March 29, 2026
Palm Sunday, 2026
“The Summons of the Via Dolorosa”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Liturgy of the Psalms: Matthew 21:1-11
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16;
Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14-54
I Only Know That…
There’s an old song from the 80s by Boxcar Willie. Born as Lecil Travis Martin, one day sitting at a railroad crossing he saw a boxcar go by and in the door was a fellow who looked like his loading master in the Air Force. Willie Wilson became the inspiration for a second career as Boxcar Willie. And for many years during the Korean War, he had a full-time gig with the Air force, retiring as a Master Sargant.
One of his signature hits was “Hey Mister Can You Spare a Dime.” Like many of his songs, this one showed great empathy for the down-and-out – the hobos cast adrift.
During times of adversity and social dislocation, many families were splintered, often as the men went looking for work in far-away places, or sometimes out of guilt they felt their families would be better off without them. They didn’t want to be a burden, or were too ashamed to stick around. Or they became stuck in the bottle.
These days, it is often addiction that shreds families. Or mental illness. Sometimes, it’s losing or being priced out of housing. Or the loss of a job. Right now, so many Americans are living on the margin. One little unexpected expense throws many families into financial chaos.
In John’s gospel we encounter a barrage of dysfunction occasioned by the completely unexpected.
Jesus encounters a blind man on the side of the road. The disciples first instinct is to cast blame. “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Who’s to blame? Often, it’s blame the victim. That’s how racism works.
When Jesus dismisses such scapegoating, he then proceeds to heal the man with spit and mud. Then tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam.
The man, to his astonishment, sees. The unexpected, the unexplained.
The man’s neighbors who had only known the fellow as a beggar, now begin to argue among themselves. The blind do NOT see. Their fellow villager could not possibly be now seeing. They refuse to accept what their own eyes see – this guy now seeing must have just looked like the beggar they had know at the side of the road.
When the man explained how it was that Jesus had healed him, he can’t rightly explain where that man presently was.
And since this was done on the Sabbath, the religious authorities are now involved in this community-wide imbroglio. This Jesus must be a sinner since he had done the deed on the Day of Rest, the Sabbath.
But no one who is a sinner, one group argued, could have done such a deed. Yet most of the pious folks cannot believe this man. They ask him to explain again and again what had actually happened.
They now call the man’s parents. Out of fear they mumble, ask our son. He is of age. Yes, even the man’s parents deny him.
When the formerly blind man is again hauled before the righteous religious leaders, they now tell the man to give Glory to God, not Jesus – for he is a sinner.
All the seeing man can say is, “I only know that … I only know that I once was blind but now I see.”
In the Gospel of John, this event was considered much more than a healing miracle. It is a sign – a sign that in Jesus and his work, God is in this place. It as a sign of the Divine Will for redemption and salvation. Indeed, God is working God’s purpose out step by step as our Lord trods the sacrificial path to Jerusalem. Step by step with wonders along the way.
And we, when the most astonishing things transpire, can only say… in open-mouthed amazement — can only say, “Thanks be to God.”
What exactly happened, and how it happened we cannot rightly say. As my Methodist friends would say, “My heart was strangely warmed.”
In response, we with warm hearts respond as best we can and thank God we have breath and life, and capacity to make some meaningful response.
My friend Dick came upon a fellow just by chance, or maybe not by chance. Who knows, he can only say that… he can only say that this man was a gift of God as he lay on his cot.
Over the months Dick got to know Tom and his little dog. Dick helped Tom find a living situation that would accept his little dog. When the shelter demanded that the dog be licensed and given his shots, Dick hit me up to help foot the bill. In that way I got to know Tom and his dog.
No, the dog was not blind but now sees. But he was licensed and vaccinated. And for Tom, that was miracle enough. Tom had been on his own, no known family but that little dog. And the people who rallied around the two to keep them safe, housed and fed. Miracle enough for Tom.
Did God direct Dick to Tom in that first shelter? I only know that… a mystery. And a blessing to all involved.
Ohers would have blamed him for his shabby circumstances. Or have run Tom out of their communities. Many of our communities would not have behaved any better towards Tom and the other homeless on our city streets than had that beggar’s village regarded him. Sweep them off the streets. They’re a big inconvenience. Bad for business.
But as debilitated as he was, Tom was doing the best he able to do with his mental health issues. In and through friends of the Jesus Movement healing happened in some small way for Tom and his dog.
Such healing, call them miracles if you will, is wrought through human agency and the real stuff of creation – even spit, mud and water. Through the solid voice of compassion and encouragement.
How often have you felt that gentle nudge, that silent voice propelling you as an agent of mystery, of compassion?
During the Great Depression on many nights my grandma who lived in Lodi, CA, would set some of the supper she had made for the family out on the back porch with a ladle and paper bowls. This was for the vagrants who came through her’s and grandpa’s back alley at night hunting for any sustenance, anything useful that might have been thrown away.
She was well aware, since her husband was the postmaster of Lodi, that they were going to be okay. Unlike the many who trod that back alley.
Her hands and bowls of supper on her back porch were signs that in some small way God was in this place. You may be down-and-out, but a kind, gentle woman has remembered you. Sacrament of God’s Remembrance. A sign that in some small way God was in this place.
Under the tyranny of the ruling religious leaders and the pressure of the Roman empire, we have the story of an entire community fractured – a family, a village, a faith community.
And the only fully functioning person in this melodrama is the beggar, the one considered of no account. He speaks the truth, “All I know is that…that I once was blind but now I see.” A sign of God’s will for the healing and restoration of all creation – into a community of love.
Amid all the chaos and incompetence, the horror of masked goons dragging Americans and others off the streets. Killing with impunity on our nation’s city streets, I cannot blame those who are totally bummed out and would rather withdraw in a warm cocoon. Thankfully, we have those amongst us who are opening the eyes of an electorate gone blind.
One of these healing persons is the United Methodist Bishop, Grant Hagiya. Bishop Hagiya, now retired, is presently the president of Claremont School of Theology – my alma mater. The bishop, in his episcopal letter, gives us sound instruction on how to survive the next three years. With our souls intact.
- Focus only on that which we have control over in our lives. We can’t personally stop this insane war. We can’t stop the predations of the grifters around this president. But we can support candidates we believe in. We can make sure our friends and family vote in November. Save the date – November 3rd.
- We can take our baptismal vows seriously. Resist evil, and when you fall into the sin of complacency and accommodation, repent. Rely on the One who empowers you to resist evil and oppression.
- Speak the truth to the erasure of our history by Trump. Have the moral courage to embrace the total American journey, its glorious people of all races and nationalities that have made their contributions. Have the courage to accept open-eyed the worst we have done and been. Speak that truth to those who would whitewash our errors.
- Take time to enjoy the ordinary activities of the day, whether washing dishes, playing cards with you kids or reading them a book. Take time to enjoy a lunch with a cherished friend or making dinner. Delight in these pieces of our lives.
The bishop’s letter draws on the wisdom of a Zen monk who counsels us to look at the day’s activities as a string of beads. Some large, some small. Some eye-catching, others dull. From the broad perspective of time, all beads are equally important. They’re all pieces of our lives. Rejoice and be glad that they are given to your hands and heart. The appropriate response here is, “Thanks be to God.”
This is clear-eyed wisdom for getting through the next three years with equanimity and graciousness. And your sanity.
The Serenity Prayer is a fitting close here.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
With this calming of mind, like that ancient beggar, we can rightly say, I only know that…that God is in this place. A sign indeed! Amen
March 15, 2026
Lent 4 – Mothering Sunday
“I Only Know That…”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
1Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23;
Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
The Invitation of Living Water
One of the most foreboding places on this earth is a scorching, dry desert.
I remember my first church off the 395 Highway in Randsburg, California. Randsburg in the 1890s had been a thriving gold mining community of over 6000. More gold was taken out of the Yellow Aster Mine on the outskirts of that town than from any other mine in California.
A number of citizens of that town had banded together to build a Methodist church and from stories of the old timers — those pews for some 80 persons were mostly filled on any given Sunday.
By the time I arrived as pastor, some 80 years later the town had dwindled down to some 200 souls and the remnant congregation was comprised of 4 persons. That’s right, just 4.
My assignment was to follow up on a major bequest that had been given the church, collect the money for the denomination and then close the church.
What I soon discovered was that my predecessor had been a rather cranky personality who alienated many in that community and the other adjacent communities of Red Mountain and Johannesburg. He also hated visiting folks. He was uniquely ill-at-ease with people.
I also discovered that if I spent a couple of days a week visiting around the three towns, all about a mile apart, there were a number of folks interested in having a vital alternative to the bars and TV.
Within weeks we had a little congregation of 10, then 20-some.
When I had first arrived, besides the minute congregation – the most depressing thing was that there was no water. The water had been shut off a couple of years ago to save money.
Out in that scorching desert without water – I desperately wanted it to flow for our little group. Another new member of the church and I did the repairs to the plumbing, paid the fees and got the water flowing. The next Sunday was a real celebration. Water was the sacramental sign that the Spirit was alive in this place.
We did a lot of other things in the six years I served there: Started a senior citizen’s lunch program in the community hall in Johannesburg, started a youth group, had a church breakfast before the Sunday services began. Even built the first indoor flush toilets. Previously it had been taking your chances with the black widow spiders in the outhouse.
But I always felt that getting the water running was the sign of the real beginning. The proof that there was life in that place. That small community of faith was Living Water for those three towns.
In our lectionary readings appointed for this Sunday we have two passages where water is front and center.
In Exodus we read of the grumbling of the parched Israelites as they travel the desert wilderness under the leadership of Moses. In fact, they are at the point of mutiny, about to stone Moses. Their complaint was about the lack of water to drink.
“But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’”
The upshot was that God instructed Moses to take some elders and go to the rock at Horeb. Strike it with the staff used to strike the Nile. Moses did as told and water flowed from that rock.
Water, the precious substance of life, was the sure sign, the answer to the people’s quarrel with the Lord, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
In our passage from John, this gift of water is also life itself. What Jesus provided at the well for that Samaritan woman was Living Water, the very substance of Eternity itself. In those few moments at that well Jesus reveals her to herself at the deepest level.
With amazement she leaves her water jug and runs back to her village, summoning one and all. “Come and see.” This Living Water is Jesus himself. “Come and see.” And all in that town made their way to him. She had come upon the very substance of Life Everlasting – and her life overflowed with it as well.
“Living Water” is a metaphor – a word-symbol that connotates multiple meanings. That is its richness.
When those words become sacramental – a physical substance revealing a spiritual reality – they are just that, real.
That woman at the well experienced a profound reality in the truth Jesus revealed about her life. And in his lack of judgement, he freed her. She became a living witness to his reality. In her being that soulful exuberance was Living Water.
In this passage from John’s gospel, he is not only speaking to that woman long ago, but he’s speaking to us. As we drink deeply of what Jesus is offering, we become “Living Water.”
We live in a parched land. Hate and division are the weeds of this desert landscape. Greed and racism the tumbleweeds that are blown by an ill wind. We have a politics that feeds on it all. And billionaire grifters that profit from it.
So, where in our deepest souls do we encounter that saving “Living Water.”
One theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, identified that essential life-giving substance as Truth.
When I immerse myself in my Book of Hours, prayerbook readings for traditional times of daily prayer for each day of the week, I find myself before a Centering Reality. There I find the redeeming truth that God loves me and all of creation – that you and I are persons of worth, persons who matter, bound up together in a life-affirming mutuality.
These prayers are a needed reminder that no matter my pitiful state of mind, that’s not the final story. Yes, God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them. End of story.
These passages from scripture are Living Water.
Yesterday, in my dialysis chair I had the opportunity to watch the funeral service for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The eulogies and singing – a huge gospel choir – they were a gusher of Living Water.
Remember his signature mantra. “Keep Hope Alive. Keep Hope Alive.”
As former president Obama cautioned, in our day, given the outrages of this current administration, that’s a difficult task.
Every day we are assaulted by new disasters, new incompetencies. Lies upon lies that give the “Father of all Lies” a run for his money.
We were not going to have anymore “Forever Wars” was the pledge, yet with no congressional approval we’ve committed American forces to a debacle that is now consuming the entire Middle East. Americans are being slaughtered in our city streets by ICE thugs right out of a Gestapo play book. The planet continues to heat up and the response of White House incompetents who seem to have never read a science book is, “Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill.” And fire all the people at EPA who had previously monitored the increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses. Yeah, what’s that burning smell?
All this to avoid the fallout and consequences of the Jeffrey Epstein files? All to distract us from the testimony of an underage thirteen-year-old girl who had allegedly been sexually assaulted by Trump at an Epstein party? Any FBI investigation into her story? Nothing! All swept under the rug. Nothing to see here, folks. Just move on. Just move on.
Every day a new outrage. Yes, it’s difficult under such a barrage of sewage to Keep Hope Alive.
Yet, Jackson’s memorial service was a tonic for the soul. An overflowing fountain of Living Water. A river of Gospel Goodness straight from our Lord, running down through the centuries to that church auditorium yesterday.
President Obama laid out the challenge facing the community of faith these coming days. The temptation is just to keep our heads down and hope this would all go away or pass us by.
Rev. Al Sharpton, in the midst of this debilitating chaos, gave us our assignment. Much as Jesse Jackson would hand out assignments at his rallies. Our assignment is to be that Living Water, nourishing all we lift up, all we sustain by Holy Resistance, uniting not dividing. Rev. Al gave us our commission to Keep Hope Alive in whatever small ways we can. He buoyed up our faith that Hope might flow through us.
That service was a healing balm to the souls of all who witnessed it. You can catch the entire event on MSNOW YouTube.
And so the community is gathered in around this life-enhancing Word, a bountiful spring of Living Water. We share stories of family and of hardship. Stories of grandchildren. We share stories of adventure and joy. And the stories of such legends as Jesse Jackson.
And the garden just outside our parish hall that feeds 470 persons each week with nutritious vegetables and fruit – that also is Living Water for those who come to St. John’s Food Bank every Wednesday.
We are a community of Living Water that nourishes not only the soul but our real-life neighbors in need. Those veggies are Spirit made flesh.
Here is the Living Water we thirst for in this barren desert now called America. Our assignment is to pass along those stories, to be those stories of Living Water in word and deed.
I close with a favorite story from my dear friend Dick Bunce. A story flowing with pure Grace. Living Water.
Early in the last century, a minister boarded a train and went looking for a seat. The train was crowded and he felt fortunate to land a seat. He found himself sitting next to a young man who seemed disinterested in conversation. As the train got underway, the minister saw that the young man seemed burdened and preoccupied. The minister found a way to get a light conversation started, and this led to a question to the young man about the purpose of his trip.
Somehow, the youthful man sensed that this older fellow was trustworthy and genuinely interested. So he shared his story.
A couple of years prior, while in his late teens, he had become rebellious. He wanted more freedom and pursued it in a lot of the wrong ways. One evening, when confronted by his parents, he exploded with anger and shouted over his shoulder as he strutted out that he was leaving and would not be coming back.
He held to that for two years. He hitchhiked, took odd jobs, and made no attempt to reach out to his parents.
During his self-imposed exile, he matured. One day, at long last, he sat down to write a letter – perhaps the hardest letter he’d ever attempted to write. He stated that he been wrong and that he would like to see them again. He said he’d be on the 4:30 afternoon special and gave the date.
This was the train he was on as he talked to the minister. It happened to pass the backyard of his parent’s home. By simply looking out he’d be able to get a good view of the yard.
After writing the date and time, he said to his parents that if they wanted to see him, simply hang something white on the Sycamore tree. He was quick to add that he would understand if they preferred not to see him considering how rudely and irresponsibly he had behaved.
Eventually, the train neared his old neighborhood. The minister and young man fell silent as the train rounded a wide curve that would bring the yard into view. The yard appeared. And there was something white hanging from the tree.
Oh yes! White towels, sheets, blankets, pillow cases, you name it – a blizzard of white hanging from the tree, eaves of the house, even the telephone wires.
The minister watched as this young fellow stepped off the train at the station just a mile or so from the house. As soon as he was off the train, he ran.
He ran toward the open arms of his mother and dad.
Just as, at our end, when our journey’s over, we run into the open arms of our Lord Jesus Christ – Living Water for all who thirst for something of eternity.
Amen
March 8, 2026
Lent 3
“The Invitation of Living Water”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95;
Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
Journey into the Unknown
The beginnings of ambitious journeys are often beset by missteps and bad luck. Or sometimes splendid serendipity. Nothing certain here – that’s definitely the case with any Lenten journey taken in deep prayerful seriousness.
It was certainly the case for one man’s most ambitious journey to capture the presidency of the United States – a journey into the unknown.
It should have been a slam dunk. George H. W. Bush, a former pitcher in college, would be throwing out the first ball at Game One of the National Leage Championship Series. All he would have had to have done was to take a taxi to the game, buy his hot dog, walk out onto the pitcher’s mound and throw out the first ball at Game One on the National League Championship Series.
It would have been a friendly crowd of some 40,000 fans, many of whom would have been his fans as well. Seated with beers and hot dogs in hand at the Houston Astrodome – a solid GOP crowd of Bush’s hometown. Many more looking on through the magic of TV.[1]
BUT, NO!
Plans and arrangements are meticulous, byzantine even. Every moment scripted. A huge motorcade. A black, handsome book with the seal of the Vice President noted every event down to the minute with diagrams – from the seating on the plane, the order of cars in the motorcade, staffing, every division of the staffing party, their phone numbers, every word that Bush would speak. Everything. The whole enchilada – planned down to a T. Down to the minute. A cast of hundreds.
Everything accounted for. Except one thing.
It had been a loooong time since Bush had last thrown a ball. A long while – back when he had played for Yale.
In his windup he couldn’t get his arms over his head so they ended up in front of his face. “…he sort of swivels to his left, and his arm flies back—but it won’t go back, so he gets it back even with his shoulder, and starts forward while his right lace-up feels for the dirt on the downslope, and he can tell it’s short while the throw is still in his hand, and he’s trying to get that little extra with his hand, which ends up, fingers splayed, almost waving, as he lands on his right foot, and lists to the left, towards first-base line.”
The upshot? The ball bobbles, then lands in the dirt many feet from the catcher and slowly rolls into his mitt. All on nationwide TV.
One just never knows how it will turn out with such a shaky beginning. Definitely, nothing certain. Not in this case. Yet we all know how that race turned out.
This was the inauspicious beginning of the most improbable journey any man or woman might undertake – the journey to be elected president of the United States of America. For a man or woman to leap from the belief that he or she should be president to actually saying in the back of their mind, “I am going to be president,” is a most improbable journey, fraught with many chance moments of disaster, moments of glory, and moments of missed opportunity. A journey into a great unknown.
Abram and Sarai likewise embarked on a great, fraught adventure, a most improbable journey into an unknown future. No guarantee as to the outcome. Nothing certain, but by faith alone.
“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…’ So, Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”
Went. Went to where? Literally, only God knows. Sarai must have been ready to institutionalize her husband. He and his little band could have easily perished following this phantom of his own mind. The wackadoodle voices of mental illness. Delusional promptings of an unwell mind. No one would have ever heard from him again – as tragic as the Donner Party that perished in 1846 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.
And yet, most unlikely, three of the world’s great religions – Jewish, Muslim, Christian — look to Abraham as a forefather of their faiths. And don’t forget Sarah, though the men left her out. Biblical note: Abram’s and Sarai’s names were changed in Genesis 17 to signify their acceptance of a new covenant with God.
Lent is also a time of journey, embracing an unknown and uncertain future. It’s in our face, right there as ICE pulls terrified immigrants from their houses, workplaces and cars. People whose perilous journeys to the US in search of safety or fleeing hunger or opportunity have led them to travel on foot thousands of miles.
This time of Lent invites us also to embark on such a incredible journey with all its perils and promise. A journey without maps as Graham Greene called it in 1936 – a travelogue based on his journey into the heart of Africa.
Instead of passively listening to the lessons of this Lenten season – what my boys would label as blizz-blaz, floating over distracted minds at 10,000 feet as it is read on any given Sunday morning. In our book of Lenten readings, focus on one or two passages that grab your mind. Or a hymn. Ask yourself in prayer, how does my life and my spiritual journey relate to the inner truth of this reading, this song?
What might it be saying to me personally? What might it be saying to my faith community? Finally, what might it be saying to the world? Trust that if this really is the Word of God, it has hidden power to restore, to change your life. Yes, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. It will feed your soul.
In open, unguarded prayer with that passage, you might discover some wonderful surprises. You might discover some needed correction. You might find opportunities to be part of something greater than yourself. All, an open door to eternity.
The unexamined, closed up and guarded life goes nowhere. I’ve been reading a new book on the life of Robert McNamara, McNamara at War.[2]
McNamara had been a whiz kid. He had a superior intellect that he believed could solve virtually anything he put his mind to, whether it was running the Ford Motor Company or the World Bank. And mostly, he had succeeded.
But when he served as Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, he came upon a problem that utterly confounded him.
At first, he thought that if he could just produce a high enough enemy body count, the numbers would vindicate his efforts. In his hubris he vastly underestimated his foe and their willingness to sacrifice for their own country. He also underestimated their inventiveness and the assistance they were getting from the Soviet Union and China.
We all know how that ill-fated journey ended. The authors of McNamara at War dramatically portray how the folly of Vietnam consumed Robert McNamara in guilt and self-reproach. It ate him alive.
Though at his life’s end he could confess his role in the many mistakes that led to the final debacle, with fleeing citizens scrambling to board helicopters taking off from the US embassy roof — many falling to their deaths, losing their finger-holds on the sides of those crafts as they became airborne – He could accept responsibility for all this, in the end he could not answer the primary question – why were we there in the first place?
The tragic end of McNamara’s life is portrayed as that of a doddering, disheveled old man, wandering the well-worn trek from donated office space to his Watergate apartment in Washington, D.C. Though some folks recognized that old man, when they greeted him, he kept his head down and plodded on. He no longer had that youthful powerwalk. “Some thought he looked more like “’Ichabod Crane,’ hunched over, old and shaky, wearing a shabby trench coat with is belt hanging down” [3]
McNamara’s ill-fated journey into that war was one unexamined by any deeper spiritual values. A journey emotionally kept bottled up inside his depressed, tormented psyche.
In the end, his second wife would recall, “Throughout his life he had surmounted almost every challenge he and encountered. But not this one ‘It was the big heavy albatross around his neck…and he couldn’t get rid of it. It was suffocating him. It was killing him.’”[4]
Such are the dangers of any life’s journey when wrapped up in oneself.
Any journey into the unknown is chockablock full of dangers and opportunities. Discernment is critical. As well as trusted companions who will speak the truth to you as well as encouragement. Unexamined through a lens of any lasting values, disaster often waits.
We begin our Lenten journey with the eternal guidance of the Word of God, the traditions of our church, and the companionship of a gathered community. Fed and nurtured by the Body of Christ and the Cup of Salvation, we do not stumble into the darkness of unexamined imaginings and folly.
While we do not know what the future holds, we do know who holds the future. With the Lord as our guide, as we step into a Lenten journey we step smack dab into the need of the world. And into our own deep inner spiritual needs.
As Fleetwood Mac sang, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Yesterday’s gone. Yesterday’s gone. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”
We boldly step out into that tomorrow in faith, not knowing the twists and turns, but confident in the Promise. Amen.
[1] Richard Ben Cramer, What it Takes: The Way to the White House (New York: Random House, 1992), 3-29.
[2] Philip Taubman and William Taubman, McNamara at War: A New History (New York: Norton, 1925).
[3] Op. cit., 1.
[4] Op. cit., 2.
March 1, 2026
Lent 2
“Journey into the Unknown” The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121;
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
How is it With Your Soul?
Philip Roth wrote a novel set in the 1990s, The Human Stain, being the last of a trilogy on American life. It looks at the messiness of human existence, and how, in finality, there are no complete remakes, no ultimate do-overs. The American myth of self-reinvention is just that – a myth. In many ways, we’re stuck with who we are. And this year we feel so stuck.
I’m reminded of a high school friend telling me the story of his first and last motorcycle ride. Several of us were standing around at my good friend Jerry Weisner’s house talking big bikes when he told us why he didn’t ride one anymore.
He had come to a friend’s house to admire his new Harley-Davison and the friend asked if he wanted to try it out. Of course, he knew how to ride it. What kind of sissy did his friend think he was, anyway? Of course, he knew! Though he did have some considerable trouble in getting it fired up.
As he listened to the deep bass of the muffler, revving the engine, he popped the clutch accidentally. The bike shot across the street at very high speed. Jumped the curb and roared across a neighbor’s front lawn on the opposite corner. When he came to, he was lying sprawled out on the remnants of a coffee table in the front room. Cut to ribbons. Shards of broken glass and lamps all around. Did I mention blood? Lots of it.
When a hysterical woman ran in screaming, my friend said that all he could mumble was, “Lady, I’ve really screwed myself up.” Although “screwed” was not the word he used.
My friend’s plight vividly describes our situation, personally and nationally.
As Ricky Ricardo, upon coming home to the latest domestic disaster, would, in exasperation upbraid Lucy, “Lucy, you’ve got a lot of ‘splaining to do”. We all do. And life is short. Eventually, ashes to ashes we all end up.
O Lord, teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom.
We’re cooking the planet. We in America are awash in a sea of guns. Poverty stalks the streets of our cities and rural countryside. You know the litany. Got a lot of ‘splaining to do. And then there are our personal failings: lethargy, our half-truths, pretended helplessness, frivolity, cowardice — pretending that the evil all about us is none of our concern.
What’s left? What’s left is an opportune time for some deep soul searching. Taking a moral inventory.
As we receive these ashes, let us remember that we are but a moment of sunlight fading on the grass. In the passages we read in these forty days, we are again presented with the opportunity to allow them to sink deeply into our being.
During these forty days we are presented with the opportunity to allow the Spirit to move us beyond ourselves, to move us to something greater, something of eternity.
Time to take stock.
What’s left is “in the meantime.” Only to come before our Maker with the words of that old gospel song: “It’s me, It’s me, It’s me, O lord. Standing in the need of prayer.”
Answered with another hymn: “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy like the wideness of the sea.”
In and through faith we find restoration. We are lifted beyond the muck and distracting voices that we might hear that “Still, Small Voice.” This is what a Holy Lent is all about.
As we pray every Sunday, “It’s in giving that we receive, and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.” In the Christ let loose in creation, we also shall rise. Amen.”
February 18, 2026
Ash Wednesday
“How is it With Your Soul?”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 103;
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
