Father William Danaher delivered a sermon at Christ Church Cranbrook on Easter Day 2026 titled “What Is Your Story.”
In his sermon, Rev. Dr. William Danaher talks about the recent grant-funded project, Faith in Detroit, and the types of storytelling that will be illuminated by it. Check out the full transcript to learn more about Faith in Detroit and be sure to check out the Faith in Detroit website to get involved.
Transcript: Rev. Dr. William Danaher on Easter 2026
I speak to you today as a sinner to sinners, as the beloved of God to God’s beloved, as one called to bear witness to those called to bear witness. Amen.
Late last year, we received the good news that we had been awarded a grant to build an ecosystem of storytelling in Detroit. Of course, Detroit has always had an incredible ecosystem of storytelling, but our job is to help elevate these important stories about Detroit. The grant came from the Lilly Foundation, and we have some wonderful partners — Detroit PBS, Detroit Opera, some startups, some artists, and a seminary.
This grant was built on the relationships that this church has built in Metro Detroit over the past several decades, and I am so grateful that we were able to receive it. There were 1,100 applications and 50 sites chosen, and ours was one of them.
I want to tell you a little bit today about the storytelling practice we’re going to be working to elevate. The title of the grant is called Faith in Detroit. We want to find the people who have a compelling, true, and powerful faith in the city of Detroit and its surrounding suburbs — but also people who have faith in Detroit as a place where change occurs.
There are many different ways people talk about Detroit. There’s a lot of boosterism, and it often follows a certain narrative arc: rise, then ruin, then aftermath. But we wanted to lift up the stories of resilience and resurrection — stories of people who made a determined decision to find God where they were. Those people are incredibly important.
The way you disrupt a grand narrative of rise and ruin is not by elevating one story, but by elevating many stories and releasing them.
One story that captured us during our preparation for the grant was told by Janine Spencer Gilbert of the Church of the Messiah. I came across it while watching a news segment in March of 2025, which traced the journey of 150 Venezuelan asylum seekers who were bused from Houston to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Detroit, where they were placed in a defunct nursing home on West Graham Boulevard. Those 150 Venezuelans arrived without winter clothing — many wearing flip-flops — and without toiletries or adequate clothes. Neighbors told them they could find help at the Church of the Messiah, an Episcopal church right down the street. It’s not a resource-rich church, but it is a church known for caring for its community.
That Sunday, all 150 of them showed up for service — because they had heard there was lunch afterward. The congregation gathered and fed them. A woman named Janine Spencer Gilbert took over their care. She worked the extended network; our church supplied funding and toiletries, as did many others. Janine took the initiative, organized the group, identified who spoke the best English and made that person her co-chair, and they worked tirelessly. Of those 150 people, most have since moved to West Detroit, found housing and jobs, and are living productive lives. Some have remained as members of the Church of the Messiah.
When I saw this news segment, I was curious — not about the pastor, whom I deeply admire — but about the lay person doing the work. As I’ve grown older in ministry, it’s the lay people stepping forward who truly interest me. The stories they tell, and the why behind what they do, matter deeply.
So I reached out to Janine and asked her: Why? Why did you see this as something you could do? Why do you lead all of the community outreach for Messiah? And she shared a bit of her story.
Janine was raised in a home beset by abuse. Her father disappeared at an early age, and when she reunited with him as a teenager — finding him at a club — he gave her a single dollar bill and disappeared again. Her mother struggled with mental health and anger, and Janine would often have to sleep under her bed because her mother would come in during the night. She spent time in and out of foster care.
But her mother gave her one great blessing: she brought her to a church in Detroit called Our Lady of Sorrows, a Catholic church now closed. It was there that Janine was loved. It was there she found sanctuary, safety, and support. And as she made her way through her own challenges, she remembered that love — and felt called by God to carry it on to others.
When Janine and I spoke, I asked her to send me an email with more detail about how it happened. It was clear to me that her relationship with God wasn’t simply gratitude after the fact — it was dynamic, intimate, and often argumentative. This is what she wrote:
“I heard God speaking to me and telling me, ‘This is the work I want you to do.’ I argued with God and told him, ‘No, this is not what I want to do. I just want to be left alone. I just want to be by myself. I’m hurt. I’m angry.’ God and I would have these back-and-forth battles all the time. God would wake me up from my sleep, show me dreams, and tell me, ‘Get up and let’s get going. You can’t be depressed now. You have to move on. This is what I want you to do.’ And I’d say, ‘God, leave me alone. I’m trying to rest here.’ God then reminded me that there’s no rest for the weary. ‘You are blessed, Janine. You are loved. So let’s get up and love on some people.’ And that’s what I do because I was told to do this work.
Joining the Church of the Messiah and doing the work was already in me. I have been president of the Field Street Block Club for more than 20 years. I was a community engagement specialist for Genesis Hope for over 11 years. I ran a business — a hair salon — for over 20 years. I’ve raised two beautiful daughters despite everything I went through. I was a single mom at 16. I took care of my parents and was their main caregiver before they passed. I am newly married and I’m on fire for God. I love God. I love what God is doing in my life because he built me and molded me into the woman I am today. So on the day the Venezuelans came to the Church of the Messiah, I knew from my years of training and organizing that they needed immediate help. God showed me and told me what to do for them.”
Yesterday I called Janine to wish her a happy Easter, and she told me she had published a chapter in a forthcoming book on women religious leaders in Detroit. The end of the chapter — which she shared with me — was an address to all who have struggled, and particularly to women and girls. This is what she wrote:
“If you have been broken, I need you to hear me with your spirit, not your ears. I need you to read this with your soul, not your eyes. You are not broken beyond repair. You are not disqualified. You are not forgotten. You are not alone.
Every crack in you is an opening for God to pour something in. Every fracture is a place where his light can shine through. You are not broken — you are being rebuilt. What people said to break you was a lie. What they did to hurt you will not win. What you lost will be restored in ways you can’t even imagine.
Believe what God whispers, not what trauma shouts. Look at your life the way I had to learn to look at mine — not as a collection of painful pieces, but as a masterpiece with intentional cuts and curves. Just like a puzzle, nothing fits until everything fits. And once it comes together, you will finally see what God was crafting all along.
You are gracefully broken, gracefully healed, gracefully rebuilt, gracefully loved, gracefully chosen — and you will rise, because I did. And if God did that for me, he will surely do it for you.”
I have shared this story with you because I want to lift up how the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the resurrection is itself a three-fold story. It is the story of Easter. It is the story of Jesus — who was both fully God and fully human, who went through trauma, tragedy, transformation, and triumph so that you and I could find our way through those same things. And it is the story of us.
The resurrection is not merely a reward for living a good life. It is not merely a belief to capture your imagination, nor something to be argued about philosophically or theologically. The resurrection becomes real when we see that arc in someone’s life — when we see them move through trauma and tragedy and transformation and triumph.
The story of Easter is about the power of Jesus to bring life out of death. And it is also about us.
The women in today’s Gospel are a perfect example. They go to the tomb — in Mark’s account, bringing spices to anoint the body, following the practices of caring for the dead that had been interrupted after the crucifixion. They are simply doing the next right thing. And they walk past soldiers struck motionless, into a scene where the stone has been rolled away, where they receive an angelic proclamation, and where — on their way to deliver the good news — they encounter Jesus himself.
Matthew’s resurrection account is given to us in high definition: every sight, every sound, every powerful demonstration of God’s power through Christ. But notice: the women follow the same arc as Jesus. They move through trauma, tragedy, transformation, and triumph. Their story is folded within his.
And finally, this Gospel tells the story two or three times to make the point — the work we do when we tell our stories is to bear witness. The witness is repeated again and again. The disciples are told: “Go to Galilee. I’ll meet you there.”
There’s only one problem with those instructions. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus tells them to go to Galilee. In John and Luke, he tells them to go to Jerusalem. So which way do they go?
The reason the Gospel writers kept Galilee is this: they wanted to convey that when Jesus rises from the dead, eternity begins. Which means we will see Jesus everywhere.
The story of the women is our story. When we see Jesus as the resurrected Lord, we are changed. The resurrection is not a mere belief — it is a way of life that begins today.
When you can say with me: Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed.
So my question to you today, as you think about the stories of your faith — and we do want to hear your stories — where is your story of resurrection? Where is that arc of trauma and tragedy and transformation and triumph? Look for that story in your life, and you will find, I promise you, the echo and shadow of our risen Lord.
For he is risen. He is risen indeed. And we have come to bear witness and to tell that story. Amen.
To see more from Rev. Dr. William Danaher and hear more of his sermons, visit the Christ Church Cranbrook website.