Unbound: Stories of Liberation and Letting Go

One of my favorite authors is Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her well-known book I commend to you all, Braiding Sweetgrass, weaves together stories from her life as a scientist, teacher, and Indigenous woman. It explores how the land teaches us about generosity and resilience. In the book she writes, “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy.” We notice this in the stubborn green of the grass, the thawing ice on the pond. In fact, if we really practice noticing, we can see all around us where life is quietly emerging, even when the world is fractured. 

That’s where we find ourselves this Palm Sunday. 

The crowds gather. Palms wave. Jesus enters Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna!” But even in the celebration, there’s tension. This is not a parade of triumph in the way the world understands it. Jesus begins to speak of a seed falling into the ground, of letting go, of a life that comes through death. Liberation, he tells us, will not come through domination or spectacle, but through surrender, courage, and costly love. 

This is where our Lenten journey, Unbound: Stories of Liberation and Letting Go, comes to a head. 

If we’re honest, we know what it is to live bound up. Bound by fear. By shame. By expectations that shrink us. And yes, bound by systems that thrive on control, exclusion, and the distortion of truth.  

But Jesus meets the sin of the world in a different way. Jesus calls us to a deeper freedom. A freedom that asks us to release what is false so that something truer can take root. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth,” he says. Letting go is not failure, it is the way new life begins. 

As Christians we are not called to passive faith, but instead to courageous discipleship. We are called to be rooted in the way of Jesus. Honest about the world as it is, and committed to the world as it could be. 

This Holy Week, we will journey that path together. We will name what binds us, and we will practice letting go. We will follow Jesus not only in the waving of palms, but into the vulnerable love that leads to resurrection. 

The ground is thawing. Something new is already beginning. 

Check out my song of the week to go along with the text! Spirit Come by Laity  

Peace, 

Pastor Katie