Sermon

At a certain point, sometimes
but rarely in churches and temples,
God becomes real.

You push past the bluster and clutter,
past the billboards and brands,
past even the hurt and failures

and discover that all you were taught is wrong,
and there is a God so other in his love
that it’s no wonder we could not grasp him

until that moment we were so alone,
that only he remains with us,
to cry, to heal, to love.

Then we see the truth,
with everything else stripped away
and we have no other choice

than worship.

About this poem

My sermon today is about when Jesus wept, and about his compassion for us in the midst of our own pain, and somehow a mere sermon didn’t seem to say what I really wanted to say. I haven’t quite done it here, but I keep inching closer with each try.

The picture was taken in Rome.

Tom