May 17, 2026 Blessing of the Vines

So I maybe ought not to tell this story, but I’m going to anyway. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.

There we were, sitting in our hotel room in Albuquerque after a long day of visiting cultural sites and doing some shopping. I happened to glance over, and Julie was taking some tags off something she bought, otherwise doing something with her hands. I looked over, and there she was, grasping a pair of full-size scissors.

Now, Julie had flown out to Albuquerque with just a carry-on. Somewhat startled, I said, “Where did those come from?” And she said, “Well, after I had gotten through TSA and was at my gate, I felt something weird poking me in the back. I opened my bag to find this pair of scissors from work.” She had made it all the way through security with them hanging out right there in her backpack.

Now, I had brought a checked bag with me, so we had a plan for action for going home. But I tell you this story because when we went back to the Albuquerque airport to leave at the end of our trip, we dutifully went through TSA, and this time my bag was pulled off to the side for further inspection.

And what was in it? Some holy dirt that I was bringing home from El Santuario de Chimayó, one of the most important Christian pilgrimage sites in the United States. I’ll tell you more about that site in a minute.

Julie and I had a good laugh when the TSA agent kind of knowingly looked my way and said, “Do you have some holy dirt with you?” Apparently, a full pair of scissors can make their way through the security apparatus at a Washington airport, but in the small Albuquerque airport in New Mexico, a container of dirt warrants a very fulsome inspection of my luggage. They had to wipe it down with swabs, run it through their machines, and even get approval from higher-ups before I could pack everything back in and move on.

But I think there’s something really profound in this, too—that there’s something really dangerous in the power of this dirt, and in the power of what we believe it to be.

The story starts in a small community in southern Guatemala called Esquipulas, where there is a very famous 500-year-old crucifix called the Black Christ of Esquipulas. The tradition is that this crucifix was found buried in the ground, and not only is it venerated, but the clay soil around it—the soil from which it was dug—is considered to have miraculous healing properties.

Two thousand miles north of there, in the early 1800s, Don Bernardo Abeyta, a pious landowner in what is today New Mexico, established a small chapel in Chimayó dedicated to this miraculous dirt of Esquipulas. There, too, over the centuries, a sense has developed of tierra santa—holy earth—that people come to for nourishment, renewal, and healing.

There is power in that place and in what people seek there.

And why is this all so dangerous? If we remember back to our Ash Wednesday traditions or our burial liturgies, we are reminded that we are dust ourselves. But we are also made in the image of God. We are holy dirt—part of a whole, holy creation.

What we do with this knowledge—what we do when we gather at these special times to sanctify the earth, to bless it, to pray for it—upends one of the most foundational beliefs of the powers and principalities of this world.

To get our hands dirty, to feel the power of the earth around us and on us and in us, is to discover our smallness, to see our interconnectedness with all of creation.

The powers of this world are fixated on control and domination. That is the great temptation—to impose our will and believe we can control everything. This is true whether we hold power or feel marginalized. In either case, we can become anxious, frustrated, and driven by a desire to take control ourselves.

Now, don’t misunderstand me—acting in the face of injustice is critically important. But what practices like this do is remind us where that action comes from. The true power of our faith is in recognizing that we are not the ones in control. It is not our will, but God’s will working in us.

This connects to another tension in this moment. On Thursday, we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension, when Christ departed from the earth. One might expect this to be a moment of sorrow, but in Luke’s Gospel, the disciples respond with joy. They return to Jerusalem with gladness, continuing in worship and prayer.

Even in a time of waiting—before the coming of the Spirit—they are not consumed by anxiety. Instead, they celebrate. They center themselves in worship. They find joy even in uncertainty.

We, too, live in a long season of waiting. Since the earliest days of the Church, there has been an understanding that Christ’s return is not immediate. We journey in a world that is not always hospitable, living as people of faith in a kind of exile.

And yet, again and again, we are reminded that even in this journey, we can have joy. We can laugh in the face of systems that seek control and domination. We can see more clearly our place as part of a greater whole.

Sometimes that grounding happens in physical places—like the temple for the disciples, or like this church, St. Anne’s, for us. These are places of devotion and gathering. But our faith is larger than any one building. It extends into the fullness of the world around us.

We have opportunities like today—to be outside, to experience the goodness of creation. In all of this, we see God at work—not with ourselves at the center, but as part of something larger and more profound.

So this week, and in the weeks and months ahead, I invite you—as individuals and as a community—to practice that awareness. To physically touch the earth. To be present in creation. To remember that we are part of something greater.

In doing so, we discover both the glory and the danger of that truth. Simply recognizing ourselves as part of a larger whole is a powerful antidote to a world obsessed with control and power—forces that are not only insignificant in the long run but often harmful.

Today, we take that larger perspective. We reorient ourselves. We recommit to the soil of this land—to the earth that we inhabit and that forms us. We remember its holiness and its wholeness as part of all creation.

And we honor God in that, praying that God will continue to bless us and draw us more deeply into all that God is doing, now and always.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.