Troubled Hearts? May 3, 2026

Today’s Gospel reading begins with Jesus saying: “Hey all y’all, do not let your hearts be troubled!”  Really Jesus? Have you looked around? I mean I get that because of my privilege and status, I do not have to worry about not being able to pay for my groceries, but that’s not true for many of my neighbors. While I don’t have to worry about my safety and existence, that’s not true for my trans siblings whose very existence is being threatened daily. While I will probably die before climate change makes life unbearable, that may not be true for some of the children I know today or their children. What do you mean, Jesus: Do not let your hearts be troubled?  

Beloved, there is a sense of unease, a sense of tension, that sits quietly in the background of our lives 24/7. Frankly, it is not so quiet. And, it is ever-present. We feel it, with our bodies, with our spirits. According to the  National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 19-31% of adults experience anxiety. In 2024, 43% of American adults reported experiencing more anxiety than they had in the previous year. And our teens, Beloved? 31.9% of folx aged 13-18 years experience anxiety. Regularly. 

This is not a marginal issue; we have a generation growing up with more stress and anxiety than is healthy. Covid, warfare, LGBTQ friends whose existence is threatened, higher prices for everything without higher wages to meet those prices. Climate changes that create wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters. Beloved: our hearts are troubled! As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 55:  I have no peace, because of my cares. I am shaken by the noise of the enemy * and by the pressure of the wicked;

So, what is Jesus saying here? Is he making some kind of sugar-coated, meaningless claim of “Don’t worry; be happy?” Well, let’s look at the context of this claim. Jesus has just told the disciples—who have given up their lives to follow this man, to follow this movement: I am leaving, and where I am going, you can’t come. Wait, what?

And on top of that, the world is still rife with Empire, oppression, disparity between the haves and have nots. And, Jesus himself is about to face betrayal, violence, death. That’s the context of  this proclamation: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  What is Jesus about in this moment? How can he make that claim?

Perhaps because it is connected to another claim: “In my father’s house there are many dwelling places……I go to prepare a place for you (and it’s in the 2nd person plural: I go to prepare a place for all y’all).  In the midst of Empire, uncertainty, suffering and betrayal, what keeps Jesus from losing himself is that he believes and trusts that he belongs to something bigger than the physical world in which he lives. 

And that’s our Christian claim: we belong, all people belong, to something bigger than this worldly existence—we call it God and we also call it Love. We belong to this force, this presence, this energy that cannot be undone by the world’s disasters, life’s suffering, or violence or uncertainty. Because this claim about many dwelling places in God’s house isn’t about assuring us that someday, when we get to heaven, there will be a special room just for us. This is a claim about God and God’s nature.

The Greek word translated as house is oikia, also meaning household. When attributed to God this is not describing a building or an edifice, but it’s describing what might be called God’s commonwealth, God’s kingdom, wherever and whenever we are dwelling in Love, in God’s being. And it isn’t a future location, but a present reality that exists simultaneously with our worldly context—whatever that may be. It exists even when we experience disaster, violence, warfare, uncertainty—God’s oikia is a reality that both contains and supersedes our worldly existence.

We hear about this truth in today’s first reading when Stephen proclaims he can see the heavens being opened. And humanity has seen this lived out in more recent history: Martin Luther King’s insistence of a dream (and its lasting and ongoing effects) even as he crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma; Anne Frank’s insistence from her prison in the attic that humanity is good; Mahatma Ghandi’s refusal to accept his nation’s inhumanity; Alex Pretti’s protection of another in the face of violence that cost him his life; Renee Good’s reply: “That’s fine, dude; I’m not mad at you.”

Faith is trust and belief in something more vast, more lasting, greater and stronger than even this world and reality that we can touch and see—the trust that this kingdom commonwealth exists. It is real. And it has room for everyone. And Beloved, we know, as we see now and throughout history, when one proclaims or witnesses to this greater truth and reality of love, some people find that very threatening. Because this Love, this commonwealth of God, changes everything.  Love’s audacious welcome and insistence of all belonging threatens some people. And too often the response to this threat is violence, cruelty, and inhumanity. Jesus is  speaking to this truth when Jesus says: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Instead Jesus calls us to let our hearts be grounded and rooted in a more expansive reality. A reality that co-exists with this world’s reality. Jesus’ claim and promise begs us to understand that God’s everpresent Love and oikia hold us fast. Even when the world does not. Even when we do not hold fast to God’s Love. This is a bond that cannot be broken. But our emotional and spiritual relief can only come when we can trust and believe in this truth. When we do not believe and trust in Love’s capacity to hold us through it all, that’s when anxiety, fear and all its minions take hold of us. Our place in this life may be at risk, but our place with God and in Love’s oikia is not at risk. We belong. All belong. What is required is our trust, our faith, that this is the Way, the truth, the Life we have been granted.

Beloved, I want to share a story with you that I shared earlier this week in a Substack post: This past Monday I found myself under the control of fear, anxiety and all their minions. It was early evening and I found myself asking: Is this what our life is now?

That’s the question I was asking myself at the end of [the day’s] never-ending cycle of “news.” Bleak. Gray. Clouds overhead. I was even upset with my beloved dog—-for what? For being a dog. That’s what I mean by being “imprisoned” by our national narrative. It can make you lose yourself.

But then, Beloved, then I did this thing. Two wonderful college students shared at our church [last Sunday] that there was a Senior Project dance recital [last Sunday and Monday]. At 7 p.m. For free. I was intending to go (I love these two wonderful young adults!), but the gray clouds and prison bars were having their way with me. But, just at the last minute, I decided to go. Whatever.

As I entered the Fine Arts Hall, (not completely sure of which space the recital was in, but hoping to find it), I saw some folx slipping into the black-box theatre. I slowly opened the door that had a “bumper” on it so it wouldn’t lock. And in the darkened shadows of the theatre vestibule, I saw some young women. They smiled at me and gestured to me to come in.

I whispered, “Is this the dance thing?”

They whispered back, “Yes!”

I entered and found a spot to sit in the back row by myself. It’s a small, intimate space, so I was still very close to the dancers in the back row.

And it began. I am not sure if the narrative that I saw unfolding was the intended narrative; I am willing to bet the sequence of emotions and rhythms of my interpretation and their intention probably matched one another. Even if all the details were not exactly aligned. It was moving. And it was life. Unfolding before me.

Shared life among the dancers and the characters they embodied. Various emotions. Loss. Endurance. Love. Rescue. Attachment. Detachment. Touch. Sight. Sound. Breath.

And these dancers reminded me: This is what our life is now, too. This. Alongside the despairing narrative of national greed and elected servant leaders’ disregard for human life. These bodies, working together to provide all those gathered glimpses of more. Something besides our newsfeeds and social media scrolls. This is what our life is now. And they seemed to be saying to me: Don’t you forget it.

In the first chapter of the first letter of Peter, we are promised : we have a new birth into a living hope; this belief in the reality of God’s commonwealth, having absolute trust in God’s love—God’s energy, presence and force—no matter what life hands you or what this world unfolds before you—this trust in a simultaneous energy and reality that co-exists with life’s suffering and uncertainty is the anchor and grounding that gives us the ability to hope, to experience joy and love in the face of terrifying and ugly realities. Beloved, this is the definition of peace. Shalom. That we can still, somehow, experience wholeness in the midst of great deficiency.

The Gospel of Jesus is not a promise of wealth or an unfettered life or a life without struggle, pain or sorrow. It is not about worldly certainty. The Gospel truth we know in Jesus is  a greater certainty. A not-bound-by-time, everlasting certainty. Love holds this aching, human-wounded Creation in Love’s grasp, continually tending to the cracks and fissures, refusing to lose even one of us because in Love’s commonwealth, all y’all belong. Love is expansive enough to accommodate the diversity of all God’s Beloved. And Love is strong and resilient enough to recover the inhumanity humanity brings to bear on Creation. Believe. Trust. Have faith. Stand on that, Beloved. Stand on that. Do not let your hearts remain troubled.