Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:45:21 -0400WeeblyTue, 19 May 2026 19:06:36 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/back-to-the-basics-the-amen“Amen.”
~The Apostle’s Creed


We are in the final week of the Easter season, which concludes this Sunday with the celebration of Pentecost. This event marks the release of the Holy Spirit onto humanity in a new way after Jesus ascends back to God the Creator. Although the Easter season is over, it is far from the end of the story; just like the “amen” at the end of our prayers does not mark an end but rather an exclamation of hope and faith in what God will now do with the prayer we have spoken.     

This “amen” is how we conclude the Apostles’ Creed as well. It is the Hebrew word that means “it is true,” and it is our way of affirming that the words we speak in the Creed represent the truest understanding we have of the Triune God. It is the truth that remains after we have stripped away all the extras humanity has layered onto God—sanctifying our theology, as it were, in the same way sanctification strips us down to our truest selves. To borrow a modern term, it is a deconstruction of our faith back to its foundation. 

In essence, it is much like the work of Jesus Himself or Martin Luther, both of whom confronted the man-made, institutional accoutrements that distract from the core of God and God’s relationship with humanity, sometimes in extremely harmful ways. We opened this blog series with a discussion about how Christianity is in a season of winter when we are called back to the core tenets of our Christian faith. However, we must avoid the temptation to become dormant, our faith dying within us. Rather, we are called to bear witness to the truth of God laid bare like the stark branches in a winter forest, honoring the winter as a necessary reset before planting anew upon the empty garden beds of our hearts and churches. Spring is coming; and with it the breath of the Holy Spirit is breathing life anew into the seeds we plant. So scatter the seeds of faith far and wide and enjoy the colorful bloom!]]>Wed, 13 May 2026 16:40:03 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/back-to-the-basics-the-holy-spirit“I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.”
~The Apostle’s Creed


The Third Person of the Trinity, perhaps the most nebulous of the three, may also be the most understated, maybe because it is difficult to pin down an image of this רוּח (ruach), the breath or wind of God. To quote Billy Graham—“I’ve never seen the wind. I see the effects of the wind, but I’ve never seen the wind.” There is something about us that needs to understand, to see the evidence for ourselves, like the Apostle Thomas, who said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). However, the very nature of the Spirit is that She is like the wind—unseen, uncontained, everywhere all at once. Even in Her shape as a bird or fire, She is the epitome of untamed freedom, and we struggle with things we cannot control. Even the Creed does not provide a satisfactory description of the Spirit as it does of the First and Second Persons of the Trinity, focusing more on the effects of the Spirit rather than Her identity. 

In The Large Chatechism, Martin Luther uses the term “Sanctifier” to describe the Holy Spirit as “the one who has made us holy and still makes us holy.” This Sanctifier has been present since the beginning, when She “swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 2), and is described in Proverbs as “daily [God’s] delight, playing before Him always, playing in His inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (Proverbs 8:30-31). This wild, mischievous, playful Spirit joyfully erupted into the world in a new way at Pentecost (which we will be celebrating this Sunday), the final step in the sanctification of Creation that began with the Incarnation.

But what is sanctification? Most importantly, sanctification is not justification. Where justification is the forgiveness of our sins and the source of our salvation, sanctification is the lifelong process of becoming holy through our gratitude for our justification and the relationship we have with God. In other words, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are the source of our justification that allows us to be free from the bondage of sin. The Holy Spirit’s descent upon the world inspires us to become more like Christ—putting others’ needs before our own and embodying the gifts of the spirit like patience and kindness. 

As members of Christ’s body, baptized with water and fire in the Holy Spirit, we are called to our own personal sanctification as well as the sanctification of all of Creation through the catholic* church’s reflection of God in the world. Like the sanctification of Creation, our own sanctification is impossible outside of community because it is this community of believers, at its healthiest, that helps “one another to see the truth about themselves;” and what is sanctification but the stripping away of all that is not authentically ourselves—our self-deceptions and brokenness—in order to come confidently, yet humbly, into an encounter with God?

This is the work of the Holy Spirit, to provide for us the holy, refining encounters of rubbing up against one another in a community of love, to sanctify and be sanctified. She is the breath of life breathed into Creation at the beginning (Genesis 2:7), and She continues to breathe life anew into us in each and every moment. She is what animates Creation and binds us all up together with one another and with God. She is wholly mysterious and yet ever near and ever present, coaxing us into a deeper relationship with God. 

*Catholic simply means “universal” in this context
​]]>Tue, 05 May 2026 16:30:38 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/back-to-the-basics-the-savior“I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.”
~The Apostles’ Creed


Jesus is the manifestation of God’s desire to be close to God’s creation. This Word made flesh, light in the darkness, was with the Creator in the beginning, bringing life to creation at its Genesis and bringing eternal life to creation in His incarnation (John 1:1-13). Christianity, as distinct from other Abrahamic faiths, hinges on our Christology, which is not without controversy. Arguments abound regarding His divine and human nature as well as the mechanics of humanity’s atonement and redemption through Him. At this time in my faith, I believe that Jesus does not make sense unless He is fully human and divine, enacting an atonement that arises from love, not vindication. 

What does it mean for Jesus to be fully human and fully divine? In his book, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Rowan Williams uses a metaphor for Jesus that I find quite helpful and striking. Rowan avers that Jesus is “the performance of the Word of God,” whose “power and will are the performance of who God is and what God wants.” This allows for Jesus, the human born of Mary, to perform the Word of God as His divine nature, conceived by the Holy Spirit. As any performer knows, performance is an act of transcendence, a moment of channeling or reflecting the Divine into the world, which is why I believe that art is a prophetic act, exhibited in the music of Solomon, the human sculptures of Ezekiel, and the dance of Miriam. If we are but a shadow of the true nature of God in the world, then our artistic act of prophetic transcendence is merely a shadow of the profound reality of the Incarnation, manifesting in perfect transcendence as Jesus, fully human and fully divine.

It is this perfect union of human and divine that allows for an atonement theory based in love. Every aspect of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is imbued with the love God has for all of creation, and each is important in redemption. As such, I find it difficult to ascribe to atonement theories that lean exclusively on the cross and retributive justice that seeks punishment through suffering as a means toward redemption. The most popular theories of atonement are Ransom Theory and Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the former resulting from the work of the early church fathers and the latter by medieval theologians. Ransom Theory, most notably generated by Origen of Alexandria, posits that Jesus’ death paid a ransom to Satan to free humanity. Penal Substitutionary Atonement originated from Satisfaction Theory, developed in Anselm of Canterbury’s great work, Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man). Satisfaction Theory claims that Jesus’ death was necessary to restore God’s honor, which was marred by humanity’s sin. As this theory was passed from a feudal, honor society to a democratic society with a justice system built on retribution, Satisfaction Theory evolved into Penal Substitutionary Atonement, whereby Jesus’ death satisfied God’s justice against sin by paying a legal penalty. 

As the more popular atonement theories, these may sound familiar to you, and may be the only atonement theories you’ve ever been taught. However, there are other atonement theories that have resulted from some of the issues arising from these ancient theories. For example, ransom theory hinges on a belief in a being as powerful as God that he can demand a ransom. Theologians who argue against ransom theory state that God is powerful enough that He could easily reclaim humanity from Satan without paying him anything. Satisfaction Theory and Penal Substitutionary Atonement are problematic because they are rather androcentric—the belief that God’s justice works like our notably flawed human systems. In addition, feminist theologians find the idea of a Father sacrificing His Son rather repugnant, so they lean towards more reparative and redemptive theories of atonement.  

In her book Dancing With God: The Trinity from a Womanist Perspective, Baker-Fletcher asserts “suffering is not redemptive, because it easily leads to bitterness and internalizing one's experience of hatred in the world.” Retributive justice is rarely satisfactory because no victim is fully healed simply by watching their perpetrator suffer. Healing and redemption are more complicated than that. They require more than punishing evil; they require overcoming evil, and I believe that God has been and continues to overcome evil throughout the arc of existence, not just at the moment of the cross. Jesus’ incarnation, however, marked a time of more intense presence and therefore a more concentrated time of victory over evil. 

Jesus was victorious over evil through the humility in His choice to become human and walk among us. Jesus was victorious over evil when He healed people’s brokenness—physical, emotional, and spiritual. Jesus was victorious over evil in holding a mirror up to our brokenness through His own pure goodness. Jesus was victorious over evil in willingly undergoing physical and mental suffering on the cross in order to be in solidarity with all those who suffer. Jesus was victorious over evil when He literally conquered death, rising from the dead and providing a foretaste of our own resurrection. This victory is not the end. The victory of God extends past this moment in history, which has birthed a future that is actively ushering in the fulfillment of God’s plan—the resurrection of all of creation into shalom, into perfect peace and wholeness. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are together the embodiment of God’s power to redeem creation’s brokenness, not just fixing it back to its Genesis but creating it gloriously anew. ]]>Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:45:51 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/back-to-the-basics-god-the-cretor“I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”
~The Apostles’ Creed

Although, as Christians, we believe in a Trinitarian God, I have found that many Christian traditions emphasize the First Person of the Trinity above the others, either as the first to exist or as the most important of the three—both of which are unhelpful at best and heretical at worst. For many, this is the natural result of being raised in a Christian tradition whose oral and community prayers were always directed to the Father (i.e. The Our Father) and rarely, if ever, to Jesus or the Holy Spirit. A notable exception to this would be the Salvation Prayers directed to Jesus popular in Baptist and Evangelical traditions, but even in these churches, prayers to “the Lord” and “God Almighty” dominate from the pulpit and in prayer circles. When prayers focus almost exclusively on God, the Father, it is difficult to have a relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

There are many reasons for the tendency to elevate the First Person of the Trinity—an emphasis in the First Testament, Jesus’ instruction to the disciples to pray to “our Father” (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4), the language of “first,” “second,” and “third persons” for the trinity, and an androcentric theology (and society) that values a pyramidal hierarchy with a leading paternal figure. Even using the non-gendered title “Creator” implies the primacy of this person over Jesus and the Holy Spirit. 

However, even though it lends itself to a hierarchical interpretation, the identity of the First Person of the Trinity as “Creator” is most meaningful to me. God as Creator, lovingly forming all that exists and desiring that we be formed in God’s image from the earth (and star) dust, speaks to God’s nature in a way that is both awesome and comforting. In his book, Tokens of Trust, Rowan Williams writes, 

“God is, in simple terms, sublimely and eternally happy to be God, and the fact that this sublime eternal happiness overflows into the act of creation is itself a way of telling us that God is to be trusted absolutely, that God has no private agenda.”

Awesome because God’s overflowing, contented happiness is what created us; comforting because being in relationship with a being that is wholly content without needing us is the healthiest form of love—a love resulting from choice, not necessity. We exist not because God needs us to be more fully God, “we exist” as Williams asserts, “because of an utterly unconditional generosity.

Understanding this generous nature of our Creator is important when considering the first person of God’s “almighty” nature. God’s omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence would be terrifying if not for God’s omnibenevolence. In all of God’s eternal presence, might, and knowledge, God’s eternal goodness is there as well. So, when we pray Psalm 139, 

“Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to the heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning 
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast”
(Psalm 139:7-10)

We may be content knowing that this Almighty God is not following us around in a threatening, surveilling manner, but rather in a way that speaks to God’s desire to always be near us—ever loving and reliable. Again, not because God needs to be, but rather because God wants to be. 

We, however, do need this relationship with God. As is true of all the created, we as divine image-bearers owe God not only our created existence but also our continuing, evolving nature. As Elizabeth Johnson beautifully describes in her book, Go Ask the Beasts, God creates “not like a sculptor who makes a statue and leaves it alone, but like a singer who keeps her song in existence at all times.” Our relationship with God flows from and continues on in God’s ever-creating nature; and we live into the supreme gift of co-creating our lives alongside the God who formed us, the Savior who renews us, and the Spirit who breathes vitality into us.]]>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 13:08:36 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/back-to-the-basics-the-trinityThe Trinity has always been, and will continue to be, a great mystery in our faith. Difficult to understand and even more difficult to articulate, the Trinitarian God has baffled even the most astute theologians. In addition, many of our Christian traditions have not been helpful in representing the truly equal, collaborative nature of of the Trinity, which exists not as a linear or pyramidal order of importance, but rather as an ever-rotating entanglement of equally powerful, present, knowing, and benevolent persons within our God. Ascribing any kind of hierarchy to the Trinity disrupts the inseparable, mutual indwelling nature of the Trinity, which allows for God to be one and three simultaneously, constantly in relationship within God’s self. In addition, it has contributed to an unhelpful model that supports the dominant power of one over the collaborative, interrelational power of many—think Constantine’s political and religious unification strategy, whose slogan was, “One God, one emperor, one empire,” which lends itself to a theocratic governance that puts our own interests above those of the rest of the world in the name of God (effectively taking the Lord’s name in vain a la the second Commandment).   
    
Instead, we are to view the Trinity as one God, yes, but one God whose existence depends on a relationship among equals. It is what distinguishes Christianity from the other monotheistic, Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Islam) because it recognizes that God’s very nature is a moving, shifting, dance among God the Creator, God the Savior, and God the Holy Spirit. These three are not separate, distinct Gods like the Gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon or like Hinduism, but rather three distinct but inseparable persons or beings within the same God. This creates a model of mutuality that may help us to understand the distinct yet interconnected nature of creation—that everything we do has an impact on other human beings as well as the plants, animals, and inanimate aspects of our universe. None of us, including the distinct persons of the Trinity, exist in a vacuum. We have always been and will always be inter- and intra-dependent. 
    
Understanding the Trinity as a mutual in-dwelling of three distinct but equal, interconnected beings also helps us resist some of the other negative outcomes of believing the Trinity to be hierarchical. A hierarchical God, whose Paternal nature rises above God the Son and God the Spirit, creates a patriarchal model of power which condones the belief that men have primacy and were created to dominate over women, children, marginalized people, and the rest of creation (animals, plants, and inanimate resources). In addition, it promotes a problematic atonement theory that sees God, the Father, willingly sacrificing His Son for Creation’s brokenness (think Abraham’s almost-sacrifice of Isaac), as opposed to a God who willingly sacrifices God’s self, both as the one losing His life (Jesus) and the ones (Creator and Spirit) losing a part of Themselves. Seen in this way, it is a much more profound and complex loss that promotes a reparative justice over a retributive justice. 
    
​Of all the word images and names used throughout the centuries to describe the Trinity, I continue to return to my favorite—St. Augustine’s description of the Trinity as Lover, Beloved, and Love. A lover cannot exist without a beloved and the love the lover gives. A beloved cannot exist without a lover and the love the beloved receives. Love cannot exist without the lover or the beloved, who shares this love between them. This love is so vast that it could not be contained within the Trinity and so has burst and spilled out into creating the universe. Participating in the Trinity, then, means joining in this loving entanglement who has plenty of room for all, from the most powerful beast to the tiniest, microscopic quark. And yes, that means there is space for you too. 

]]>Wed, 15 Apr 2026 12:48:45 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/april-15th-2026I often worry about the state of the mainline church, but I do not worry about Christianity. There is something compelling about the Triune God of Christianity that I believe maintains faith in our collective consciousness, even in the midst of broken human institutions. In her book, Quest for the Living God, Elizabeth Johnson compares the arc of Christianity to the seasons, averring that Christianity has had its high seasons of spring and summer, marked by a flourishing faith and a society that prioritized Christianity as a way of life; but Christianity is now in a season of winter with more and more individuals marking “none” on their census cards in response to their religious affiliation (at least in the Northern hemisphere). For Johnson, this wintering is not cause for alarm, but rather a call to get back to the basics—strip away the frivolities and accoutrements that flourished during peak Christian seasons, and as she says, “return to the center, to the inmost core that alone can nourish and warm the heart.”

When I consider what it means to get to the core of Christianity, I think about what it means to know God—this complex, multi-faceted, too big for human language Divine; this God who is, as Richard Rohr writes, “bigger than the boxes we try to build for God.” In the midst of our attempts to comprehend a God who is so confounding that we may want to give up even trying, it is helpful to get back to the basics—the Creeds by which we attempt to define the Triune God. Over the next few weeks, I will be breaking down the Apostles’ Creed and expounding on its basic tenets of each person of the Trinity—Father (Creator), Son (Savior), and Holy Spirit (Advocate)— the stripped-down, wintery dogma of our Trinitarian faith.  

I would be remiss not to note that the Creeds have their fair share of controversy, beginning with their origin as the product of religio-political battles among Western, male leaders in the first five centuries AD. Over the years, however, some of the other tenets have been called into question as modern theologians have applied modern concepts to the Creed. Throughout the weeks I will bring some of these controversies to light as well. I invite you to embark on this journey with me with an open mind, recognizing that faith, even in its most simplistic form, is often wrought with disagreement. It is this difference of opinion that allows us to fully reflect the differing aspects of God, and in the clash of these ideologies arises a fuller understanding of the Divine in our midst. ​]]>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 23:30:26 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/when-the-women-arent-believedNow it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
~Luke 24:10-11, NRSVUE


In all four accounts of the Gospels, the women were the first witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, and therefore the first to share the Gospel—the Good News that Jesus was the Messiah foretold and that He had come to bring new and everlasting life. There was one little problem. They were women. Well, no, I guess that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that people didn’t believe women. Wait, that’s not quite right either. The problem is that people still don’t believe women. 

When the women ran to tell the disciples about the resurrection, Luke’s account says that the women’s “word seemed to [the disciples] an idle tale.” However, “idle tale” is a generous translation. It would be better translated as something like “BS”…but fully spelled out. This wasn’t a dubious response to equals, it was a scornful response to silly little women who, everyone knew thanks in large part to Aristotle, were just subservient beings to men. 

We may also look to the story of creation and the Fall, and how it has been interpreted over the years. Those who ascribe to complementarianism—the belief that women and men were created with distinct roles, with men in leadership positions in the church and home and women in lesser, supportive roles—believe that living into the divine order is to embody these gender-specific roles of power and subservience. However, let’s look at what the creation story really says.* 

In Genesis 2 when God casts a deep sleep on the adam (not a proper name, by the way, but rather the Hebrew word that means human, from the root word that means ruddy, like the ruddiness of the soil from which humanity was formed), God forms the woman from the adam’s side. Many translations use the English word “rib” here for the Hebrew word, sela; but in the forty-one times sela is used in the Old Testament, this is the only place where it is translated as “rib.” The other thirty-nine times this word appears in the Old Testament, it is translated in the context of architecture to describe a “side,” often one that is fundamental to the architectural integrity of the structure. There is a slight difference in translation from rib to side, but I believe it creates a distinction that speaks to the equality of the woman to the man. If she is taken from man’s side, she is equal, standing beside the man in dignity and worth. 

So, God created men and women as equals, and it isn’t until the Fall that we see this upended. When sin enters the world, the brokenness of humanity develops a gendered hierarchy that was not a part of God’s perfect creation. In Genesis 3 when God discovers the disobedience of the first humans, God says to the woman, 

“Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
(Genesis 3:16b)

The subservience of women is the result of brokenness, not the created order; and as long as we live into this complementarianism, we are choosing to live in that brokenness instead of working towards the Kingdom of God by reclaiming God’s created order that honors women and their voices. If we believe that Jesus put on flesh to walk among us and usher in a new creation, then I think we would do well to consider how He treated women, counting them among His followers, choosing them to be the first witnesses of His resurrection, and sending them out to tell the other disciples. 

God ordained women to be the first preachers. 

God created women to be believed. 

And yet, 2000 years later, women are still not believed. And it is literally killing us.The CDC reports that nearly half of women experience some form of contact sexual violence, intimate partner violence, or stalking in her lifetime; and even more shocking, “over half of female homicide victims are killed by a former or current male intimate partner” (CDC). 

Think of all the women you personally know; half of them have experienced violence  at the hands of someone who claimed to have cared about them. And before you scoff at this statistic that is being reported by a woman (me) from a trusted source (the CDC) and call it an “idle tale,” remember that society has programmed you not to believe women. And if half the women in your life have not told you they have been victimized, I guarantee it’s not because they haven’t been; it’s because women have learned that it is either useless or dangerous to tell their stories. 

We have got to do better. 

Believing women means listening to their stories with compassion. 
Believing women means not blaming them by asking what they were wearing or why they stayed in the relationship.
Believing women means holding accountable those who have harmed them, regardless of their power, prestige, reputation, or wealth.

Believing women means believing them even when their story sounds incredulous to you. 

It makes me wonder what would have happened if Jesus chose not to appear to the men after they refused to believe the women’s account. Would the news of Jesus’ resurrection have died with the first witnesses because they were not believed? 


*For further study on this reading of Genesis, please see these two sources from which I credit the theology in this blog: 

Rev. Dr. Wilda C. Gafney’s Womanist Midrash (Westminster John Knox Press, 2017).

Dr. Susan Niditch’s commentary on Genesis in Women’s Bible Commentary (Westminster John Knox Press, 2017). 
]]>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:00:00 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/good-friday5536705It was the deepest pain I’d ever known.
The darkness washing over me
in suffocating waves. 
How a good God could allow this loss 
was beyond me. 

Or was God responsible? 

Does God take from us?

And if so, what kind of God is that?

Questions battled each other in my mind.
Each one more horrifying than the one before. 
But none of them prompted an adequate answer
to justify this pain. 
To justify God.

And so I wept. 

Until I was too exhausted for questions.
Too exhausted to seek answers.

And then I slept. 

Mercifully dream-free. 

Because the morning had its own horrors,
waking up knowing my world 
was absent one person. 
That pain cracking me open all over again.

How does the world continue to spin 
when my world had stopped? 

How can people laugh 
when I had forgotten how?

Color siphoned from the world
until all I knew was gray.
Shadows swallowing any light 
that dared peek between my blackout curtains.

And I was content to be alone,
raging my war with God,
hurling tear-stained accusations. 

Because it was all that kept me
from questioning God’s very existence. 

And it was in this moment 
I recognized the deep faith of a question 
that has haunted theologians for millennia. 

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The last words that left Jesus’ lips in two Gospels.

A cry of despair
Of grief.

But not a lack of faith.

Jesus did not proclaim “God is dead” 
as Nietzsche would in the face of despair.

From the depths of infinite horrors 
and loneliness 
and betrayal, 
Jesus continued to acknowledge God’s existence and presence, 
but also gave voice to his own questioning.

Like Job before Him.

Like David in his lament psalms.

Because there is deep faith 
embedded in our cries to God.

In our questions. 

Even in our raging accusations.

As long as we’re talking to God, 
We still have faith. 

And we join in that great cloud of witnesses
who acknowledged that life is not always fair 
or easy
or pain-free.

But that God is present in it 
and with us.

Because God knew intimately 
every pain we will ever experience.

He is the only God
who put on flesh 
to walk among us 
to experience poverty
to be betrayed by friends
to be tortured 
and ridiculed
and suffer a painful death.

And it is this union with God
That we remember today.

Our suffering God.
Who chooses to be with us in our own.

]]>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:16:49 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/saints-and-serpentsI hope you enjoyed some Corned Beef and Cabbage with a Guinness or Tullamore D.E.W. this week! It was St. Patrick’s Day after all—the day when everyone attempts to prove their Irish heritage through some distant great-ancestor. Who wouldn’t want to be from this beautiful emerald island, filled with shamrocks, leprechauns, and castles? And famously not filled with snakes.

Legend has it that we can thank St. Patrick for driving out these cringy reptiles, but is there any truth to it? Unfortunately, probably not, though it is a fun story ripe with symbolism and adventure. More than likely, the absence of snakes has more to do with these critters not making it onto this land mass before it broke off from mainland Europe at the end of the Ice Age.

Nevertheless, Christians hold on to the importance of St. Patrick driving out the snakes because of the deep symbolism of the snake in Judeo-Christian mythology. The snake, or serpent, rears its ugly head in the third chapter of Genesis and has historically been linked to HaSatan (הַשָּׂטָן), the Hebrew word meaning “The Satan” or “The Accuser;” but how did we get from nachash (נָחָשׁ), the Hebrew word for serpent, to Satan? Despite what you may have learned in Sunday School, Satan is never actually mentioned in Genesis 3, nor is the serpent explicitly linked to Satan in this chapter. Rather, the association isn’t named until much later in the Biblical text, at the very end in Revelation— “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9a NRSVUE, emphasis mine). 

The concept of Satan as the great adversary of God is absent in the Hebrew Bible, where this figure, HaSatan, is actually depicted as working for God, as in the story of Job, where God sends HaSatan to test Job’s loyalty to God (Job 1:6-12). It isn’t until long after the Old Testament was written that the idea emerged of a ruling demonic being which would come to be known as Satan. However, at the time Genesis was written, this would have been a completely foreign concept. Rather, a more likely interpretation of this crafty serpent would be to associate it with the great enemy of God’s people found elsewhere in the Old Testament—idolatry.

In the Ancient Near East, the pantheons were filled with serpent-gods. These gods were affiliated with eternal life, fertility, and cunning—themes intricately linked to the Genesis story of The Fall. In this light, the serpent in Genesis 3 represents the twisting of all that God offers to humanity. The message is clear—following the deceptive idols of this world that falsely promise life, protection, and abundance will bring death and separation from the One who can actually deliver on these promises.

Another support for this theory is that the verb form of nachash (נָחָשׁ), the Hebrew word for serpent, is Lenachesh (לְנַחֵשׁ), meaning to practice divination or sorcery (think the snake-like hissing whisper of incantations to access hidden knowledge). Often tied to pagan practice, divination is forbidden by God (Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and Acts 19:19) because it makes an idol of knowledge over mystery, control over surrender, and trust in magic over trust in God. 

The serpent’s association with idolatry and pagan practices probably explains why 12th century hagiographers (Saint biographers) created the legend of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. It would have been a great allegory for his missionary work of converting Celtic Druids to Christianity, especially since the serpent is a common symbol in these pagan practices. The good news is that there is no historical evidence that these conversions were violent in nature, despite the tone implied by the image of St. Patrick driving the snakes into the sea to drown. So no need to boycott this worldwide holiday. Enjoy the festivities as we celebrate the Patron Saint of Ireland and his place in the timeless mythology of the crafty serpent.
]]>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:38:41 GMThttps://www.hearthchurch.org/blog/an-insane-request-from-godJesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”
John 2:7-11 NRSVUE

It was a great wedding in the city of Cana, and everyone who was anyone was there. Jesus, the disciples, Jesus’ mom. And whether by poor planning or because everyone was having a little too much fun (if there is such a thing), the wine runs out right in the middle of the festivities. This is a catastrophe at any party, from ancient times until now; and we all know the hero—the friend who is perpetually late but shows up with more booze or the God who turns water into wine. 

Jesus had not yet performed His first miracle when His mom, Mary, comes to him with what can only be described as a mother’s request—“They have no wine.” It’s a mother’s request because it’s not posed as an actual request or question. It’s a simple problem statement with a clear underlying message—“You’re my son and I know what you’re capable of. Now would be a good time to use that power.” Then, turning that mom-power on the servants, she tells them to “Do whatever He tells you.” So, when Jesus makes the most ludicrous request for them to fill six enormous stone jars with water, they comply. 

We have the benefit of hindsight, so it makes sense to us why Jesus wants them to fill the water jars. We know that the water is going to turn into wine. However, the servants did not know this. Mary did not know this. The disciples did not know this. I imagine, then, that when Jesus tells the servants to do the insanely laborious task of trudging back and forth to the water well, which was probably not that close to the wedding venue, to fill six 20-30 gallon stone jars, everyone had some questions. 

When has God asked you to do something utterly ridiculous and illogical? Maybe it was taking a new job or changing your career path. Maybe it was showing up somewhere you needed to be but didn’t know it at the time. I don’t know about you, but every time my life is about to pivot, God asks me to do something utterly insane—like leave my very stable job to lead The Hearth with zero training and go back to school for four years. But everyone I’ve met in seminary has a call story that makes no sense. Many are international students who left everything they know in their home country and are on tenuous student visas, hoping they renew each year so they can finish their program. Many students are in the middle of starting families, attempting to read dry theological discourses on 2-3 hours of sleep because their newborn still isn’t sleeping through the night. However, when God asks you to do something illogical, usually it’s more like a mother Mary request. You don’t say no. Besides, like my sister likes to say, “Asking people to do things that don’t make sense is kind of God’s MO.”    

It may not make sense at the time of the request, and it may not make sense during the days, months, or even years that you’re responding to the request. However, just like the servants at the wedding, God usually reveals God’s purpose after we faithfully follow through. There are no promises that answering God’s call and following the purpose God places on our lives will be easy. There is no promise that it will make sense. In fact, many of the Biblical stories feature people doing really hard things that don’t make sense to them at the time; but through their faith and trust in God, they live into the purpose to which God has called them and are rewarded by being a part of a Divine miracle. ]]>