Sorrow & Consolation (Lectionary for August, wk 3)

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Week 3 of BLC’s August church-culture experiment following the ”Revised Common Lectionary” for our inspiration. This week, we talk about one of the main reasons churches are meant to exist. (Photo by Olga Kovalski on Unsplash)

SPEAKER NOTES

Sorrow & Consolation (Lectionary for August, wk 3)

Intro

These Sundays in August, I’ve been sharing little anecdotes on culture in churches. Every group of people doing anything together (churches included) develop culture.

That’s not a bad thing. That’s a human thing, that we can be self-aware about and humbled by, without any shame.

We have a culture here, as a church that meets at a movie theater, as a church where Hayley and I as the pastors are wearing everyday clothes, not collars or robes, as a church that plays contemporary music, as a church of this number of people when we gather — all these things play into our culture.

One cultural thing I have often been humbled by when people point it out is that I, Vince Brackett, over-explain things. I give context for everything we’re doing, over and over again. I give long preambles to things. If there’s an inside joke or reference I explain it, I am incessantly interrupting myself to say “why” I’m saying whatever it is I’m saying.

I’m literally doing this right now!

I’ve learned to laugh at myself for this cultural thing about me and about our church when people point it out and rib me for it, and not to get defensive. It IS quirky.

AND I try to lead our church this way for a reason. It’s important to me we are what’s called a “low-context” cultural space — that is, you do NOT have to have a high contextual knowledge to participate here — you don’t have to know the lingo or references or nonverbal cues ahead of time.

One of our values as a church is “centering the outsider experience” — increasingly Americans identify as “non-religious” or as “nothing in particular”, but even so still report desire for meaningful, communal spiritual experience — church settings tend to reward religious privilege and “insider” knowledge, but, I want us to ask here, what if a church centered the outsider experience?

I think there’s a lot of benefit to that! I know many of you who are here have benefited from that value of ours.

But, yes, it does mean we’re constantly explaining context, and we might get made fun of for that. I’m okay with it!

Ahh, culture!

Context

And guess what I’m about to do? Explain some context!

So why am I telling little anecdotes about culture in churches these Sundays in August?

Because we’ve intentionally been trying something culturally different for our messages this month — as a little experiment.

As some of you may know, we are following what’s called the Lectionary —

  • a church culture thing some of us will know; others won’t, and that’s no problem.
  • The Lectionary is a curated listing of Scripture readings for each Sunday of the year in the Christian Calendar.
  • It is used every Sunday in many Christian denominations, Protestant and Catholic, all over the world.
  • If a church follows the Lectionary, then over the course of three years they will encounter the entire Bible.

In general, non-denominational churches (like ours) don’t follow the Lectionary.

  • Hayley and I usually bring our community through the Bible more topically,
  • But I wonder if you see, like me, the beauty to…
    • Engaging the same scriptures that millions of others all over the world are engaging
    • And giving ourselves for a bit to the wisdom of tradition. lectionary off
  • So, this month, we’ve been following the Lectionary, as a little experiment — to see how it goes.
    • It’s more reading-dense than we usually are, which has plusses and minuses. So tell us how this has gone for you, in Discord or an email!
  • We picked this month, August 2025, because I was invited to contribute for the month to an online Lectionary Commentary called “Process & Faith”
    • It’s a resource for ministers who preach from the Lectionary regularly, and are hoping to represent the particular perspective on God and life that we teach from here: Open & Relational Theology.
      • A minority but robust perspective within Christianity and beyond,
      • That I think makes the best sense of everyday experience for people,
      • And it coheres with Science better than more popular views of God.
    • The quick overview is to keep in mind those two words: Open and Relational
      • Open meaning…
        • The future is not predetermined by “a distant God outside of time”
        • The future is open, always in the process of unfolding, and God is alongside us in the flow of time.
      • Relational meaning…
        • God can’t just independently control outcomes in life from above or from afar.
        • Because God is relationally intertwined with the world,
        • God is always influencing all things toward the most goodness, beauty, justice possible,
        • BUT God is met with varying levels of cooperation and partnership on the part of the world. Our choices, and the world’s complexity, and randomness, and evil can frustrate God’s aims.
        • As Jesus taught his disciples, God’s will is not always done on earth as it is in heaven.
        • That reality doesn’t mean a good God doesn’t exist; it just means an all-controlling God doesn’t exist. process & faith off

Alright, let's dive in — today’s reader from our online BLC community, joining us via video, is Maria Santillan…

Readings: August 24, 2025

A reading from the prophet Isaiah

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;

if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable;

if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;

then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;

I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

A reading from Psalm 103

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul, * and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.

2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, * and forget not all his benefits.

3 He forgives all your sins * and heals all your infirmities;

4 He redeems your life from the grave * and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

5 He satisfies you with good things, * and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

6 The Lord executes righteousness * and judgment for all who are oppressed.

7 He made his ways known to Moses [not Pharaoh]* and his works to the children of Israel [not mighty Egypt].

8 The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, * slow to anger and of great kindness.

A reading from the letter to the Hebrews

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death." Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear.")

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking.

A reading from the Gospel according to Luke

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day."

But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

scripture off

Commentary

Okay, once again, we have a Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) passage, a Psalm, a passage from a New Testament letter, and then something from the Gospels about Jesus. Let’s see how they all connect…

This week, I want to start with the letter to the Hebrews (we’ve had a bit of this letter each of these weeks we’ve been using the Lectionary — moving through probably the most famous bit of it: chapters 11 and 12.)

Hebrews was written roughly a generation or two after Jesus’ ministry, so like end of the 1st century of the common era. And throughout the letter, Jesus is related to the Jewish legacy that preceded him. The writer moves between compare and contrast, embrace and departure. Jesus and Jesus’ ministry is of-a-piece with ancient Jewish tradition, and yet, in some ways, Jesus is different.

Unfortunately, over the 2000 years of Christian history, the letter to the Hebrews has at times been used to support anti-semitism, over-emphasizing the departures of the early Jesus movement from its Jewish beginnings, and as a result demonizing Judaism. It’s important to be honest about that stain on some historical Christian interpretation, so we can turn to more responsible reads of this letter.

Today’s passage in Hebrews 12 offers a heartbeat for a more responsible read:

  • Jesus’ mountain is like Moses’ mountain (where Moses received the Torah) — so praise God for Moses! — BUT, for the writer, Jesus’ mountain is more approachable — so praise God for Jesus!
    • It’s not, down with Moses, up with Jesus. It’s praise God for both!
  • Jesus’ blood speaks a word just like Abel’s blood (when his brother Cain killed him) — praise God for the important story of Abel! — BUT, for the writer, Jesus’ blood speaks even stronger — so praise God for the important story of Jesus!
    • It’s not down with Abel, up with Jesus. It’s praise God for both.

Tying Jesus’ blood to the unjustly murdered Abel’s blood is what I find most powerful here. I think of the story of one of the most important historical articulators of this open and relational perspective on God and life I’ve mentioned: the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.

Whitehead lost his son in WWI, and, as a result, gave up on the Christianity he had inherited out of grief and rage. But then later in life, having experienced some much needed space, he was moved anew by Jesus’ testimony about God, because Jesus presented God as, in Whitehead’s words: “The Fellow Sufferer who understands.”

Who is God? Whitehead considered — some say a Conquering King, some say an Impersonal Unmoved Mover, some say a Ruthless Moralist — but, for Whitehead, none of those made sense to a father in grief over losing his son to war. But Jesus’ God was “a Fellow Sufferer who understands”.

There is such power in God, our Fellow Sufferer, speaking through blood-stained land — after Abel’s death, after Jesus’ death, after the death of Whitehead’s son, after the death of any of our ancestors or loved ones lost to violence.

Indigenous religions with strong ties to their land have always understood matters like this better than popular Western religions that have increasingly through the ages portrayed God as in the clouds, far away from the ground.

The open and relational perspective, where God is relationally intertwined with the world, connects well with the wisdom of so many indigenous wisdom traditions — showing us that God is in the land and the land is in God. So of course the land can speak to us God’s word! Even more so land that has known violence!

From this perspective, Hebrews’ exhortation that Maria read “see that you do not refuse the one who is speaking” hits home — more to the point: “see that you do not refuse the (suffering) one who is speaking”.

We do indeed, in every moment, have the freedom to refuse the (suffering) one who is speaking. And, unfortunately, the status quo engines of the world actually fire best when we are distracted from doing so.

  • “You don’t have time!”
  • “It would be too uncomfortable or awkward!"
  • “What can you do? Someone else is probably there for them.”

But part of what it means to really be alive — not just a flat, empty existence, but truly alive — is choosing to listen, at any given moment, to sorrow — to the suffering one who is speaking.

The sorrows of those around us (and our own) are not contagions to be avoided or neutralized at all costs; sorrow is actually an avenue to the deep connection with others we all long for.

How can we train ourselves to honor and not refuse sorrow? To more readily choose to listen to it?

(PAUSE)

Jesus of course eventually contributes himself on the Cross to the collective voice of “the (suffering) one who is speaking”, and so, unsurprisingly, along his way he had many experiences that validated the power of honoring sorrow, like today’s Gospel passage from Luke 13.

This vulnerable moment of sorrow for a woman who is unable to stand up straight (and marginalized for that) exposes that the inertia making it hard to listen to the (suffering) one who is speaking often comes cloaked in “best practices” we’ve inherited from our traditions or cultures — like the received sabbath rules in Jesus’ time condemning work on the seventh day.

Jesus is able to confidently interpret his tradition and culture in a more life-giving way than the leaders of the synagogue because he chooses to listen to the woman’s pain calling out to him, and, we can imply, he hears God’s voice in that act of listening.

The fellow sufferer God’s voice says that tending to this woman's sorrow is precisely what it means to heed Jewish law about the Sabbath, (to use the phrasing from Isaiah we heard) about “not trampling the Sabbath” and “not pursuing your own affairs” on the “Holy day of the Lord”. It is pursuing our own affairs to refuse to help this woman!

Don’t get Jesus wrong; rules and boundaries aren’t pointless or never helpful. Again, he’s not saying: down with the Sabbath! Or for our own application today: Jesus is not against having boundaries for the sake of self-care or rest, but we have a problem when the drive to keep to our rules or boundaries becomes so inflexible that they cause us to betray our deepest values.

Jesus had learned: Sorrow is not a contagion we need to fearfully avoid or frantically neutralize for fear of contamination. Sorrow is an avenue to the deep connection with others we all long for. It is where we find God, the Fellow Sufferer who understands.

(PAUSE)

Today’s Psalm, Psalm 103, is a great way to train ourselves to choose to honor and not refuse sorrow, to find in it the connection we long for.

The Psalms are meant to be prayed, not just read, and I particularly love psalms that pray over one’s own soul.

To be honest, partly this is for comedic value. Psalms like Psalm 103 feel like you can really ham them up, : “so I says to my soul, I says: soul, listen here, soul...”

But, seriously, I love the idea that part of prayer is encouraging my own soul. As if my soul is unwieldy, bigger than I can handle; I’m not in total control of it; I can sometimes be an unreliable narrator about my own soul.

So we need to embrace coming to the end of ourselves, praying over our souls, to help ourselves find the Always-Good God, the Fellow Sufferer who understands — especially when popular images abound of a false, uninspiring puppet-master-God asleep on the job.

We must remind our souls, in the words of Psalm 103: Forget not all the true God’s benefits. Forget not all the benefits of the God who speaks through Abel’s and Jesus’ blood, through the experience of the oppressed (like we talked about last week), through a woman's pain and marginalization and sorrow. Forget not all the benefits of the God who listens whenever we are the voice of the (suffering) one.

In a word, we’re talking about consolation. That is the deep kind of connection life runs on, that gets you up in the morning. Not a fleeting or superficial happiness, but something resilient, mature, life-transforming.

If God is relationally intertwined with our world, with all of us (as I believe), and cannot just magically snap reality into something different, then we all play a part in bringing about the possibilities for this Fellow Sufferer God’s consoling work in the world. This is one of the reasons for church: a place where sorrow doesn’t short circuit things; rather sorrow is our most welcome guest, because it’s an avenue to consolation. I’ve heard it said: If you can’t cry in a church, where can you cry?

Pretty much everywhere else in the modern world, sorrow is…

  • avoided — because it feels uncomfortable —
  • or we try to fix it — because it feels inefficient, not optimized
  • or the opposite, we lean into it big time instrumentalizing it for the dopamine hit of online recognition — because it feels so confusing and the immediacy of getting metrics on social media reactions distracts us from that.

But sorrow is meant to be consoled. That’s a different thing, that metrics won’t capture.

And we know it when we experience it — it’s unmistakably transcendent — you feel opened up, met by a presence, ministered to with love.

  • When I was 15, and my mom died of cancer, I didn’t know how to define “consolation”, but I knew it when I experienced it. I had my first ever spiritual experiences of a God who was carrying me through my grief because of the consistency of the people who loved and cared for me and my family. You know who showed up the most for us? People who went to church. Some of those churches those various friends and family relations went to I would, honestly, never go to myself today, for various reasons… but, I gotta say, one thing those church people had going for them was: they weren’t afraid of my family’s sorrow. They stayed with us.
  • When I felt like a failure during my experiences as a school teacher, several friends it felt like let me down. But a couple friends in particular, who I knew from church, they were so present to me. It was because of them I was able to feel God with me, telling me I’m not a failure, during that horrible season.

This is what a church that is shaped like Jesus and looks to the Fellow Sufferer God is meant to do — console. Not avoid or fix or instrumentalize sorrow; console it, hold it, transform it.

This is why people cry in church even though they’re not always sure why. Because for all of the many ways churches can screw up, there is one beautiful virtue that will develop if you truly worship a suffering God — a willingness to be around sorrow. This is the call before all of us. Can we do that for each other, for our friends and families, for our neighbors, for our world? Can we be people who follow Jesus into sorrow?

Prayer

Hebrews, Luke, Psalms, IsaiahVincent BrackettLectionary 2025Comment