Sermon | The Rev. Luk De Volder | October 19, 2025
Welcome to Trinity this morning. My appearance may feel like a surprise this morning. As it turns out, my name is Luk De Volder, and I am the Rector here at Trinity on the Green. I am so excited to be back after a very rewarding sabbatical that started last June.
I am so grateful to all the staff, wardens, vestry, and especially to my clergy colleagues who have been standing at the helm of this beautiful vessel Trinity Church, our spiritual home. Thank you so much, especially to Heidi for all her leadership over the past few months.
I have missed you and look forward to connecting with you. I very much would like to know how you are feeling today, to hear from you how beautiful your summer was, so peaceful. Life has been beautiful. “What a Wonderful World”, like in Louis Amstrong's song: seeing trees of green, red roses blooming. Friends shaking hands.
Hearing me talk you probably think, “This guy has been on sabbatical way too long. Have you been living under a rock?” I gladly confess: yes, I have been living under a rock. And part of me would like to stay there, with all that is happening in our world. But, it is true, even under my precious rock, I could hear the beat of the war drums that are sounding louder and louder these days. I could feel the ground beneath changing into sinking sand. If healing and reconciliation are the measure of civilization, then it seems that we have lost it at the moment. Hope is flowing down the drain. Maybe Louis Amstrong could still see the trees and the wonderful world. Or maybe a bigger challenge his song is pointing to, is how to really see. But who can see straight in this mess?
In my sermons in the upcoming weeks I will draw from my sabbatical time, comment on where we are as Americans, and address one aspect at a time from the myriad of todays crises. Today is about seeing. How we have lost vision. That is the ability to read, to watch, to imagine or to critically evaluate, the ability to hope. I don’t mean to imply that all things are falling apart today only because you or I can’t see straight. We all know there is more going on. Collectively, we are undergoing a crisis that has deep roots.
During my sabbatical this summer I shared wonderful time with my family, Tiffany and Audrey. Together we visited many exceptional places, like the Rijksmuseum or the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. Or the National Gallery in London. They each exhibit famous paintings such as Rembrandt’s night watch, Vermeer’s Girl with the pearl earring, Van Gogh’s Bedroom, or at the National Gallery we saw the Arnolfini Portrait or Monet’s Waterlilies. What a Wonderful World. And yet, while every visitor to these world class museums is invited to come and see with the eyes of their souls wide open, it was shocking to witness what people actually do open; how they look at these world-class paintings. Over and over again we witnessed people arrive at a painting, as stunning as Van Gogh’s bedroom or Monet’s Waterlilies, they pause for a fraction of a second only to turn their back to the painting. They must have psychic capacities. Then they raise one of their arms, switch their smartphone camera to themselves and … take a selfie. Their personal exposure to the world class artwork was barely longer than the speed of their camera’s shutter. They look but do not see. Actually, they barely look. God knows if they see. What they mostly stare at, is themselves.
True, the bulk of the paintings came into existence long before the age of T.V., Youtube or TikTok. Paintings expect a very different attention span but also a slower way of seeing. All the 30 seconds reels and shorts have damage our capacity to really see. The American Poet and 2025 Pulitzer Price winner Marie Howe recently made the remark that, “Today we are distracted to such an extent that we can’t come home to that place of deepest eternity. It is a difficult world, there are so many distractions, there are so many emergencies, there so many instagrams. And this might be the most difficult task for us in post-modern life, not to look away from what is actually happening. To put down the iPad and the email, and the iPhone and to look long enough and look through it, like a window. It is so tempting to look away.” (Tricycle Talks Podcast: The Work of Not Knowing with Mary Howe, July 23, 2025, min. 16-17.) We can’t see, sense, nor contemplate Life anymore. Our attention has been scattered, overstimulated, hijacked. We have so much reason to look away. It is too much.
Unless, unless we don’t look away, unless we take ourselves out of the picture. And we look long and slow enough, look into that window and come home to that place of deepest eternity. This seeing is getting your eyes used to calm, to patience, to letting things come to you. (Byung-Chul Hun, quoting Nietzsche in The Burnout Society, p. 21.) It is a seeing where you do not lose heart, as the Lord is mentioning. It is a seeing where hope is budding, unfolding, blooming.
Today, we may have lost hope, perspective, vision. It feels like hope is gone, sleeping under a rock. But the Lord is saying, do not lose heart. We need to renew vision, the window to renewal. It is not surprising that Jesus’ opening proclamation was, “Come and See.” That is the inside of renewal. Come and SEE: To see how God is here to us all of us who labor and are heavy laden. God is here, gentle of heart to carry our burdens with us. This is how Christ makes hope spring, renews vision.
We have to be honest that it is hard to see God’s loving presence when the world as we know it is falling apart. The stress and violence and hate and bigotry surrounding us block our vision. The blindness is most flagrant when we see Christianity mixed with guns and vengeance and war. That’s not renewal or revival. It took me a while, it does take a while to sense God in all of this. To go back to the boat in the storm and be still to know that God is, to see how God is with us, in the storm. To come to that place of deepest eternity, that Marie Howe mentioned, where you can see again what matters and what doesn’t, what is perishable and what is imperishable.
Sure, together, you and I, our neighbors and friends, we all can build hope for each other. But we have come to such a point of discord, where we can no longer dismiss the need for the Source of Life, Christ who support everything, where we can land with all our fight or flight or freeze, with all our blinding distractions and tensions and where we can abide in a peace that surpasses all commotions, violations, and strive. God is here and says: I’ve got you. What may sounds trite or corny, as if I am about to take a selfie in front of a masterpiece, is pointing to the most glorious art of Gospel wisdom that goes beyond most words. Whatever strive or pain or frustration or regret or oppression there is in your body or soul, God’s peace is surrounding it. Christ is whispering in our hearts: Come to me. Come and See. And slowly we will see the trees of green again. And maybe the red roses too. But there is more: The future of our country depends partly, but it is an essential part, on our ability to restore peace in our hearts, in each others hearts, so that we can see again.
The eye may be the window to our soul, but opening our eyes to really see makes the heart into a window to sense God’s hope and God’s comforting peace. May our hearts more and more see and abide in Christ’s hope and peace.