You can't sing the blues in Hawaii or Canada. A man with male pattern baldness can't sing the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness can. You can have the blues in an empty bed or at the bottom of a whisky glass, but not at a gallery opening or any Ivy League institution. You can sing the blues if you're older than dirt or you shot a man in Memphis, but you cannot sing the blues if you have all your teeth, you have a retirement plan or the man in Memphis lived.
Muddy water is a blues beverage.
Sparkling water is not. Even though it sometimes seems that we've gotten ourselves too far into the muck to find our way out, I have good news. Because all of this is true, we can be a community of celebration. And because we can celebrate, based on how good God is to us, and because we know that there is still loneliness and suffering in the world, we must be a community of nurture. You may find it odd that for this particular sermon, I've chosen a passage from the narrative of Jesus' crucifixion.