Temptation is not about appetite. It is about autonomy. Secure yourself. Define yourself. Prove yourself. And Jesus refuses. “I live by what God speaks.” “I serve God alone.” He does not grab. He entrusts. I am convinced that sin, at its root, is trying to save yourself. And forgiveness is God refusing to abandon you when you cannot.

Forged from his Memphis gospel roots and shaped by Houston’s vibrant jazz scene, Kirk Whalum is a singular voice in contemporary music. Discovered by jazz legend Bob James, Whalum went on to become an in-demand session musician for artists including Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Quincy Jones, and Barbra Streisand—most famously performing the iconic saxophone solo on I Will Always Love You. With more than 30 solo projects, including the chart-topping For You, and the Gospel According to Jazz series, Whalum is a twelve-time Grammy® nominee and 2011 Grammy® winner. He holds a Master’s in Theology and hosts the daily podcast The Bible In Your Ear, blending music, faith, and service.

Every time something has tried to dim this city, the people of Memphis have risen. The culture of Memphis has risen. The stories of Memphis have risen. The faith of this city has risen. I think that God's vision for us, Memphis, is not just for us to survive, but is meant for Memphis to be a pasture. A city where creativity feeds people, where culture nourishes people, and where community restores people.

We all carry personal ashes- grief, addiction, regret, exhaustion. The forgiveness we withhold. The people we quietly despise. And we carry collective ashes -the injustices we lament and the systems we quietly benefit from and prefer not to see.

The same Jesus who was transfigured so magnificently that day taught us that the ones God calls beloved and even speaks through are not limited to a few famous prophets on a mountain a long time ago. Jesus says God's beloved ones are all around us, wherever we are, every day, if only we're given eyes to see our human sisters and brothers as the bearers of God image, God's image that they truly are.

We start by imagining ourselves as more than a bunch of broken-hearted, or just plain broken people. Can we imagine that we are salt? That we are capable of shining? And when we do that, can we imagine that we are salt for others or light for others?

When someone has nothing to prove to us and doesn’t need our approval to validate them, our souls rest a little easier, and we really can see the world a little more clearly for what it is...Maybe that’s meekness. People didn’t find their burdens lightened in the presence of Jesus because he was insecure and told everybody only what they wanted to hear. The meekness of Jesus was, and this is Rowan Williams again, “a habit of calm attentiveness, stillness, freedom from the fretting worry of keeping control.”

"Dr. King said, “There is nothing more majestic than the determined courage of individuals willing to suffer and sacrifice for their freedom and dignity.” He lived out the absurd, but liberating conviction that the only place in a sacrificial system a follower of Jesus will faithfully occupy is as its victim, its lamb...The good news is that there really is abundant life and liberation in the way of Jesus."

As I get older, and lose more of the people I love, I hang much less hope on my rational comprehension of whatever awaits us on the far side of death. Scripture itself isn’t very clear about the details and I haven’t yet been visited by an angel with inside information. But my trust in the truth and the hope of the scriptures somehow has only deepened over the years. And I find myself, if not more certain about the details, so much more confident in the divine Love that awaits us. I do believe that somehow all the vulnerable infants, and all the anxious parents, the hopeful, foreign wise ones and even the violent tyrants, all exist only within the absurdly wide mercy of God. So do you. So do I. So do all of the living. So do all of the dead.

“Let it be unto me according to your will,” was not an act of blind obedience or resignation to a fate. It was an opening of a space in Mary to receive the gift of God. And in doing so, Mary wasn’t setting herself apart from us. She was showing us the way.

What do you need emptying of, dear virgin friends, so that God can prime you with glorious gifts, that your life might be given away with no expectation of return?