September 14, 2025 - Impossiblity Becoming Reality: God's Promise to Abraham of Isaac, Sarah's Laugh, and Akedah

Reading: Genesis 18:1-15

There is PPS series Bill Moyers “Genesis-A living Documentary". The pertinent episode for this week is called 107 - The Test.  

After the Creation story, this week's Narrative Lectionary drops us into Genesis in an interesting place. We arrive at Abraham and Sarah without first hearing some of the stories that shaped the world before them.

Genesis stories often narrate what happens and God’s response but leave out the why. This “narrative gap” invites wrestling with their meaning. Focusing on these other "gap" moments can provide context for the story presented in this reading (which has its own gap moments).

First, there is Adam and Eve's Temptation. Is disobedience what God wanted or expected from his creation? There are consequences for their defiance, but the word ḥaṭṭāʾt (sin) is not used. 

Then there are Cain and Abel’s offerings, where God looks with favor on Abel's. There is no reason given as to why Abel's gift is favored over Cain's. When God speaks to Cain before he kills Abel is the first explicit mention of the word “sin” appears in Genesis 4:7, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you  timshel (which either means must, shall, or may) rule over it.”

In the Flood story, why is Noah spared and not others? Scripture only states that he found favor in the eyes of the LORD, but doesn’t explain how Noah's righteousness was defined in comparison to others. And the explicit problem God sees with the construction of the Tower of Babel is left mostly to the reader to conclude. 

All of these stories matter. They set the stage. They remind us that before God called Abraham, human beings were already struggling to live faithfully, already wrestling with violence, already longing for God’s promise to take root in a fractured world.

We know this story about Abraham and Sarah. Scripture also tells the story of Hagar, Sarah's handmaiden, and Ishmael, and the human plan to fulfill God's promise. How God views this plan has everything to do with faith, but it is not directly addressed. 

Their joy at Isaac’s birth is not simply the joy of new parents. It is the joy of watching God bring life where life seemed impossible. Isaac’s very name means laughter, and it is holy laughter, laughter that carries disbelief, grief, resistance, and ultimately joy. Sarah’s laughter is more than comedy; it is her voice. It contains agency, resistance, and a reminder that God’s covenant is not grim obedience but deep, surprising joy mixed, perhaps, with a "realistic" sense of disbelief. 

That joy is what is at stake when we turn the page to Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac, or the Akedah. This story has haunted generations of readers. There is even a famous Jewish midrash (Rabbah Bereishit Rabbah 55:7 ) where there is an imagined dialogue as Abraham questions God over each part of what God commands:

“Take your son.”
“But I have two sons.”
“Your only son.”
“This one is the only child of his mother, and that one is the only child of his mother.”
“Whom you love.”
“I love both of them.”
“Isaac."

However, this emphasis on Abraham’s internal struggle and uncertainty, while making him achingly human, is not written in the Bible. Too often, then, this sacrifice becomes a call to faith that focuses on blind obedience. Yet the real movement here is not primarily about God demanding violence; it is about God interrupting violence. This God of Israel is not like the gods of many nations, who have demanded child sacrifice. The ram caught in the thicket is a sign that God provides life, not death; mercy, not destruction.

because

Yet we should not be tempted to sanitize this story. Isaac is portrayed as silent while bound, and his silence is a reminder that faith is not only a part of Abraham’s story, but also his son’s. Shouldn't Isaac's faith in God and, maybe Sarah's also, be considered and central in the Akedah? 

The vulnerable often bear the cost of religious obedience. Abraham, too, in Genesis, is silent. He once argued with God for the lives of strangers in Sodom. Yet in this account, he says nothing for his own son. Does the dialogue of the above-imagined dialogue change anything in the perception of Abraham's faith?

Many who trust because of the Akedah are convinced that God was finally convinced of Abraham's faith, and/or that this test reveals the true depth of Abraham's faith. They point out that, unlike today, people used to value their children unlike today, as their most treasured wealth. As a result, they are positive that this test would never be repeated now, particularly since no one "hears" the voice of God today. I don't share their confidence.    

I long for Abraham to wrestle here. What if Abraham had protested? What if faith had meant protecting Isaac, the child of promise? Might that, too, have been an act of radical faith?

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard saw in Abraham a “leap of faith”, a paradoxical trust that defies reason. But we are left to ask: "Does true faith transcend ethics, or is faith found in standing for life and compassion?" The prophets, and Jesus himself, show us that faith and protest, faith and mercy, belong together. There are many parallels with this story and what Jesus was to go through.

However, this story will not let us escape its discomfort. Maybe that is a gift. For in the horror of Abraham’s knife, in Isaac’s silence, in Sarah’s laughter, we are asked: What kind of God do we worship? What kind of faith will we claim?

The binding of Isaac turns us toward a God who provides, who interrupts cycles of death, who calls us to resist violence in God’s name. Faith is not simply submission; it is also wrestling, questioning, and even laughing. And perhaps true worship is found not in silent obedience but in daring to trust the ways that God’s promise must find some to overcome death.

God’s command stops Abraham's sacrifice, “Do not lay your hand on the boy.”. That’s all God (through the angel) explicitly says. The ram appears providentially. Abraham sees as a continuation of God’s intervention, but this being an acceptable substitution is not verbally acknowledged. Abraham sacrifices the ram in place of Isaac. Abraham acts her by judgment and choice rather than command, in my opinion. 

Finally, I close by quoting the haunting poem. The author is a World War 1 and this is cited in Moyer's The Test episode.:

"The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" by Wilfred Owen

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

September 11, 2025 - Contemplating Political Violence Being Interrupted and Commerating 9/11

Today is 9/11. The 23rd year anniversary and a solemn date that invites reflection.

Yesterday, Creator's Bible Discussion focused on God testing Abraham's faith by commanding the sacrifice of Isaac. My thoughts linger on Isaac today.

And yesterday in our country, a public figure, Charlie Kirk, was murdered. For some, this was a tragedy; for others, it may have been met with indifference, or even a grim satisfaction. But no matter our political convictions, one truth remains: the murder of a political leader is not only an attack on one life. It is a wound to all of us. It is a mirror of the brokenness of our time. I simply shake my head today.

Whenever violence erupts, we look to the actors: Who did it? Why? What did they believe? But if we stop there, we miss something deeper. Violence is a flare sent up from the soil of our collective life. It signals that something toxic has been allowed to fester. We can't deny the polarization, alienation, and the inability to live together across our differences.

And as the spiral deepens, silence grows. We seldom pause to grieve together. We turn murder into news cycles, political leverage, and content fodder. What we refuse to mourn, we cannot heal.

This is not unlike the silences we encounter reading Genesis. Abraham is silent when God commands him to sacrifice his son. Isaac is silent as he is bound on the altar. Sarah, who once laughed at the promise of life, is silent here as the promise seems to dissolve into death.

And somehow, in that silence, remains the hope that our world is changing and God, somehow, is interrupting. The knife is starting to stop. There is a ram that will appear in the thicket. God provides life, not death; mercy, not destruction. This is a God who interrupts cycles of sacrifice, who breaks the assumption that violence is inevitable.

Ancient Scripture and today’s headlines met yesterday, for our group. Our world is so fragile. Words can turn to bloodshed in an instant. The vulnerable carry the weight. And too often, we are silent.

But God does not remain silent. God interrupts violence. God provides another way. And God calls us to grieve what has been lost, not to exploit it, not to numb ourselves, but to mourn together so that transformation is possible.

At Moriah, God stopped the knife. In Christ, God absorbed the violence of the world and answered with resurrection. And today, in a world that feels overcome by bloodshed and despair, God still speaks:

“Do not lay your hand on the boy.”
“Choose life, that you and your children may live.”

The question is whether we will hear that voice and live as people who continue to believe it.

September 7, 2025 -- Life in this Ongoing Creation from God Speaking

In Peter Brook’s stage adaptation of The Mahabharata, as the performance begins, a boy encounters Vyasa, the sage. Vyasa introduces him to this ancient Sanskrit scripture by saying:

"It's the story of your race, how your ancestors were born, how they grew up, how a vast war arose. It's the poetical history of mankind. If you listen carefully, at the end, you'll be someone else.”

Today Creator starts with the Narrative Lectionary year 4 journey.  We will explore the books of Genesis and John in this coming season.

Sermon

During this morning's worship, the familiar first creation story of Genesis was celebrated, and later in this season, we will explore John's opening verses of another, familiar Biblical creation story starting with, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The poetry John employs these inspired words to illuminate a great, revealed truth.

However, for years, while reading the creation story in Genesis, descriptions like the waters above, the waters below, and the firmament puzzled me. These powerful words are difficult to comprehend when picturing the Earth as the planet in space we see photographed now in space.

However, in the ancient Near Eastern worldview, which was shared in various ways by cultures like the Babylonians, Egyptians, and ancient Hebrews, “the waters above” and “the waters below” were part of a three-tiered cosmic structure, not simply poetic language. This proceeds from a different model of the earth, apart from our current "globe-in-space" model.

The Cosmic Layout consisted of  Above the sky as a vast cosmic ocean (“waters above”) and Beneath the land, was another watery realm (“waters below”), while between them was the earth, floating on, or set above, the watery deep.

In Genesis 1:6–8, God creates the raqia (Hebrew for “expanse” or “firmament”), which functions like a solid dome holding back the upper waters. The ancient beliefs didn’t conceive of empty space. Instead, the blue of the sky was thought to be water seen through the dome. It was not simply rain that came when God “opened the windows of heaven” (Genesis 7:11), but all the cosmic, chaotic waters.

"Waters Above" were heavenly seas, which described a great reservoir above the firmament. In Mesopotamian thought, this concept was associated with the abode of the gods, specifically the god Enlil, who was believed to control the weather. Indeed, this links in with the concept of the "spirit of God" as a word meaning wind or breath. The people of Israel saw this as part of God’s creative force, where the dangerous, chaotic waters were tamed and kept in place.

"Waters Below" were beneath the land. They were the tehom (the deep), a primeval sea.  Springs, rivers, and seas on Earth were fed from this deep..In some texts (like in Job), this underworld sea was also associated with Sheol, the realm of the dead, or with sea monsters like Leviathan and other chaos beings from the deep.

In the biblical imagination, the separation of waters represented God’s ordering of chaos into a habitable world..Flood stories (like Genesis, but also the Epic of Gilgamesh) describe the breakdown of this order, when the waters above and below burst through their boundaries.

Besides a different worldview, different translations may be important to understanding a particular text. I have always heard, one agreed-upon translation for the beginning of Genesis. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Recently, hearing from two Hebrew scholars surprised and persuaded me by their proposal of a better translation for these opening words.

Michael Heiser (follow the link for a complete lecture on the implications of this better translation) and James Tabor both agree that a better English translation of Bereshit (Hebrew for Genesis) is "When God began to create the heavens and the earth."  

This moves the story from "creatio ex nihilo" (creation from nothing) to emphasizing God ordering the existing chaos through God's spirit or voice that was upon the water. When we hear the creation story rather than read it, this strength is made more apparent. 

This also clarifies that God's first act of creation is light, which contains a wondrous beauty. and divine affirmation that itself opens my soul. Something is revealed that wasn't apparent before. This is echoed in the gospel of John's creation story, where light becomes the "Divine Light" named as Jesus in that Gospel's opening words.. 

Examining the Hebrew word Elohim is used here rather than Yahweh. Elohim is actually a plural noun translated as "Gods", which suggests a different understanding we probably have as opposed to the God understanding shared by these ancient authors. This word is like heavens, which is also a plural noun referring to all elements above the land.

In Hebrew, another aspect worth examining is the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (etz ha-da‘at tov va-ra‘). Rather than the moralistic "right vs. wrong," it contains the meaning of comprehensive knowledge, or in other words, the full spectrum of human experience. Some Jewish interpretations emphasize that eating was not so much rebellion as a natural human drive to seek understanding. Humanity’s story begins with an act of curiosity rather than simply "sinning." 

Many rabbis treat these words as more than an explanation of the beginning of the world. There are scholars, steeped in this literature, who now think of Genesis as a directional meditation. It can consistently orient us, as humans, into a full and ongoing relationship with God and the world around us. The scripture stresses that creation is now a partnership between God and humankind, as implied by the fact that there is no "there-was-evening-morning" repetition after the seventh day of the Sabbath.   

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.

In the beginning, light was spoken into darkness.
And still the light shines.
The darkness has not overcome it.

Creation is not finished.
God is still speaking.
The Word still brings life.
The Word still makes all things new.

Every act of love is creation.
Every breath of justice is creation.
Every moment of compassion is creation.

The Word became flesh,
and still dwells among us.
We are bearers of light,
partners in God’s new creation.

Thanks be to God.

Learnings from the Holy Disruptors Narrative Lectionary Series: A Cloud of Witnesses

The first thing to express here is our gratitude to Pastor Siri Stommen for her generosity by choosing to share this series that she organized for this summer. She selected the figures and the appropriate scripture readings we used  

When we place side by side the lives of these Holy Disruptors in this series, a pattern begins to emerge. These people are not perfect saints, but are, rather, fierce truth-tellers.

Each stood in the face of entrenched power, whether a corrupt church, violent regimes, slave systems, or the silence that surrounds powerful oppressions. They refused to be quiet, reminding us that faith and conviction are not comfortable, but costly. 

Harriet Tubman risked capture and death every time she walked enslaved people toward freedom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with what discipleship meant in a world where Hitler ruled. Martin Luther King Jr. carried the dream of the beloved community while knowing he was marked for assassination. Oscar Romero turned from cautious silence to a prophetic cry for the poor, until a bullet struck him at the altar.

Audre Lorde, with words as sharp as light through a prism, insisted that silence never protects us. She insisted that the truth of who we are must be spoken, even when it trembles out of us. Martin Luther, hammering his theses on a church door, never imagined how wide the cracks would spread, yet he trusted that God’s truth must be proclaimed. Desmond Tutu, dancing and laughing in the shadow of apartheid’s cruelty, reminded us that joy itself can be an act of resistance.

What ties them together is not that they “won” in their lifetimes. Most did not. What ties them together is their witness that God’s image in humanity cannot be crushed, that liberation is always stirring beneath the surface. Truth cannot stay buried forever.

Their lives whisper to us: We should speak, even when silence feels safer. We may resist, even when the odds are overwhelming. We can trust each other, even when the outcome is hidden from us. 

We do not need to be Bonhoeffer or Tubman, Romero or Lorde, to join this cloud of witnesses. We only need the courage, in our own place and time, to tell the truth, to live with conviction, and to believe that love is stronger than fear.

Their greatest gift is this: they help us see that history is not moved only by the powerful, but by those who risk love and justice in the face of empire.

And so the question returns to us, and it can, and we should not be intimidated to answer it: That question is "What truth is waiting to be spoken through our own lives?"

August 31, 2025 - Holy Disruptors - Bishop Desmond Tutu: Reconciling in the Midst of the Storm

 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
—2 Corinthians 5:18

Sermon 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s life and ministry illuminate the heart of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:11–21. In this passage, Paul describes the Church’s vocation: to be ambassadors of Christ, entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. For Tutu, this calling was not abstract theology. This ministry was the heartbeat of his witness in the struggle against apartheid and his leadership in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Tutu understood that reconciliation is not about forgetting or smoothing over wounds. It is not a quick word of peace offered while injustice still festers. True reconciliation, as Paul teaches, is rooted in Christ’s work of new creation: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (v. 17). For Tutu, this meant that reconciliation begins with truth-telling, naming the harm done, honoring the pain of victims, and calling oppressors to repentance. Only then can forgiveness and newness emerge.

He often said, “Without forgiveness, there’s no future.” But he also insisted that forgiveness cannot come without justice. In this, Tutu embodied the radical Gospel of reconciliation—one that holds together accountability and mercy, truth and grace.

His theology of ubuntu, the deep African wisdom that “I am because we are”, echoes Paul’s vision of the reconciled community. No one stands alone; our humanity is intertwined. Just as God, through Christ, refuses to count our trespasses against us (v. 19), so too are we invited to live as reconciled people who prepare the bonds of community torn by hatred, racism, or division.

Tutu’s laughter, his courage, and his unwavering faith in God’s justice remind us that reconciliation is not drudgery, but joy. It is the joy of discovering that we are more deeply bound together than we imagined, that love is stronger than fear, and that new creation is already breaking in.

In a world still fractured by inequality, violence, and suspicion, his witness challenges us: Will we be ambassadors for Christ? Will we risk speaking truth with love, extending forgiveness, and daring to live as if God’s reconciliation is real? Tutu shows us that this path is possible. As we remember with our Bonhoeffer commemoration, this path is costly, but full of grace.

Bishop Desmond Tutu, in the long night of apartheid, reminded his people and the watching world:

“Goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate, light is stronger than darkness, life is stronger than death.”

Tutu’s theology was never naïve optimism. He had seen the face of violence, the machinery of injustice, the arrogance of empire. Yet he chose to stand in the stream of God’s justice and mercy, insisting that history bends toward love. His witness reminds us that to resist cruelty is not merely political, but it is profoundly spiritual.

Reflecting on Tutu today calls us back to this soul work. It reminds us that faith is not a private refuge from the storms of history, but a compass that points us toward justice, compassion, and community. Repentance is not about shame but about turning, turning back toward God’s dream for us, toward one another, and toward life. 

Tutu’s life also reminds us that reconciliation is never passive. It is a fierce, tender work, truth-telling with compassion, forgiving without forgetting, confronting injustice while holding out hope. In Christ, God has made peace with us; now, like Bishop Tutu, we are called to carry that peace into the fractures of our world until they shine with the wholeness of God’s new creation.

Tutu Documentary. 

August 24, 2025 - Holy Disruptors - Oscar Romero: Commerated by Maria Olaya's Classical Guitar Music and the Creator Congregation

In most worship services, the piano is the trusted companion. Its bright, resonant tones project confidently through the sanctuary, leading the congregation with strength and clarity. The piano can carry a congregation into shared proclamation, Its chords ringing out like a chorus of voices, its rhythms guiding the body of Christ into unity. On ordinary Sundays, this is the instrument that anchors us, summoning us to “make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth” (Psalm 98:4).

But on this Sunday, commemorating Archbishop Oscar Romero as a Holy Disruptor, the voice of worship shifted. Instead of the commanding presence of the piano, the sanctuary was bathed in the warm, intimate, and gentle tones of a classical guitar. The nylon strings offered a sound at once human and tender, a whisper of grace inviting us not to raise our voices so much in unison but to sit, reflect, and listen.

Our guest musician, María E. Olaya, a Colombian guitarist, composer, and teacher based in the Portland metro area, carried us into this sacred space. María is no ordinary performer; in 2024, her composition “Pasos en Si” (Steps in B) reached the semifinals of the prestigious Fidelio Guitar Composition Competition in Madrid. She once wrote, “For me, music has always been a means for genuine connection with others, a means to experience transcendence and connect to our humanness.” Those words came alive in her playing.

For our Communion Song today, María once again offered the congregation her rendition of Ábrete Corazón by Rosa Glove. In a moment of pure musical grace, the congregation was drawn into deep reflection as each arpeggio rose and fell like a prayer. Every note was played with intention, every phrase imbued with emotional depth. The guitar’s soft resonance became a vessel for mercy, opening our hearts to the Spirit’s quiet invitation.

How fitting this was on a Sunday, where we meditated on the thought that: eternal life is not found in rigid formulas but in love. “You shall love the Lord your God … and your neighbor as yourself.” When Jesus asked who the neighbor was to the wounded man in that famous parable, the lawyer could not say “Samaritan.” He could only stammer, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Ábrete Corazón gave us that mercy in sound. Its lyrics, “Open up, heart … remember how love heals, how the spirit cures, how the tree blossoms and life endures,”. These lyrics carried us deeper than words alone could reach. Where the piano usually proclaims, the guitar whispers instead. Where the piano leads, the guitar invited us to follow today. Where the lawyer hesitated, the guitar sang freely about all this: love, mercy, healing, and endurance.

Pastor Emillie's sermon opened her sermon with the afterward story around the raising of Lazarus and the plot to kill him after Jesus raised him. She pointed out how this shows the Gospel will not be good news for everyone, which led to Oscar Romero's assassination while celebrating the Eucharist.  

On this day, we glimpsed Romero’s prophetic truth, that the Gospel itself is a holy disruption. Sometimes it thunders like a piano, shaking and railing against the walls of injustice. And sometimes it comes as gently as a guitar, planting seeds of mercy in the silence of our hearts.

Thanks be to God for both voices, proclamation and whisper, thunder and tenderness. And thanks be to God for musicians like María Olaya, who remind us that worship is not simply sound, but Spirit.

Today God’s living mercy was made audible among us.

Sermon: https://youtu.be/oJ2Tkifoqcs  

Recording of Today's Service: https://youtube.com/live/okEmiQXyIDo Service begins at 14:30

 

August 24, 2025 - Holy Disruptors - Oscar Romero: Holy Disruptor of Death and Injustice

Scripture:1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Psalms 23:1-4, John 12:23-26 

Sermon: https://youtu.be/oJ2Tkifoqcs  

Service Blog Link

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 that Christ’s resurrection is “the first fruits of those who have died” and that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” For Saint Óscar Romero, this was not an abstract theological idea reserved for the end of time; it was a living, burning truth for the present moment. He believed the resurrection had already broken into history, dismantling the reign of fear and summoning the Church into God’s reign of justice. As Romero said:

“If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.”

These were not words of bravado. They were the steady confidence of someone who knew that death could not stop the work of God, and that resurrection would take root in the courage and faith of the people he served.

Romero’s ministry was shaped by an unflinching honesty about the world’s brokenness. He refused to let the gospel be domesticated into comfort for the powerful. As he put it:

“A church that does not provoke any crisis, a gospel that does not unsettle, a word of God that does not touch the concrete sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what kind of gospel is that?”

This is the voice of a holy disruptor. Romero was one who disturbs false peace so that God’s true peace might come. His words echo Jesus in John 12:23–26, who teaches that the grain of wheat must fall to the earth and die to bear much fruit. For him, the seed of the gospel is meant to crack open injustice and germinate in acts of mercy, courage, and solidarity.

That solidarity always pointed toward the lived experience of the poor and oppressed. Romero would not allow the Church to preach a disembodied spirituality:

“When we preach the gospel, it must be a gospel that speaks to the concrete realities of the poor, that denounces injustice and announces the hope of the kingdom of God.”

In a world where faith is too often privatized, Romero insisted that following Christ is inseparable from confronting systems of death. This is not a distraction from the gospel, rather it is the gospel lived in public.

And yet, for Romero, disruption was never simply destruction. It was animated by love, seeking to build up rather than tear down:

“Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is a duty.”

This peace is the shepherd’s peace of Psalm 23:1–4, the comfort of God’s presence in “the darkest valley,” a presence that walks with the poor and oppressed through danger toward abundant life. Romero’s vision of peace was not passive quiet but active justice.

Romero also knew the work of justice can feel incomplete in our lifetimes. His humility before God’s vast purposes is captured in these words:

“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete… We plant seeds that one day will grow.”

Like Paul, Romero trusted that Christ will “hand over the kingdom to God the Father” when all enemies are defeated, including death itself. Our task now is to plant seeds in hope, to disrupt the world’s death-dealing patterns, and to live so fully in God’s love that even the powers of violence cannot silence us.

Romero was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass, because of his outspoken defense of human rights and denunciation of government violence. He was beatified on May 23, 2015, as a martyr for the faith. and Pope Francis canonized him as a saint on October 14, 2018, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) remembers him in its calendar on March 24, listed as a renewer of society and martyr.Many Lutheran liturgical resources include prayers and hymn suggestions for his commemoration 

Romero’s life teaches us that holy disruption is not chaos for its own sake; it is the Spirit-led refusal to accept anything less than the justice, peace, and abundant life God desires for all. To follow Christ in this way is to risk everything, but it is also to live in the unshakable confidence that love is stronger than death.