As we slide through the last week of Easter and into Pentecost, the lectionary gives us stories of post-Pentecost, of Jesus followers spreading the word and showing what they’ve learned about love.

One of the things they learned about love was that it isn’t always easy! The story we heard in church on Sunday had Paul and Silas beaten and tossed in jail for excising an enslaved girl and preaching the Good News. Not only jailed, but put into the equivalent of maximum security. They were in a dark, underground dungeon with no promise of being released.

I’ve never been imprisoned, and although I know some people who have, most have not. But I wonder if many of us experience circumstances in the 21st century that feel as harsh as a 1st century jail?

For some it might be persecution for sexual orientation or gender identity. In Texas right now, that threat is very real and very dangerous. Those who are able are finding ways to escape, those who can’t probably feel like they are in a dungeon. 

For others it could be their immigration status or even their inability to prove their citizenship. Hiding from authorities who might send you to a very real modern-day equivalent of the Roman jail is a scary way to exist. Hiding from unfair imprisonment might feel like it’s own kind of prison sentence. 

I also wonder about situations that are less political or less obviously dangerous – for instance, the isolation and hopelessness of mental illnesses. I know that for many, depression and anxiety can impose a sense that one is inaccessible to companionship, assistance, or comfort. Those who experience personality disorders or substance abuse or trauma can be imprisoned by shame or physical and psychic pain. 

It is not hard for me to imagine some of the present day circumstances that might be represented by that innermost Roman cell, circumstances that seem inescapable, cruel, and unfair. What may be harder to imagine and identify with is how they responded.

Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. (Acts 16:25)

In the middle of the night, wounded, in a strange city, they were praying and singing. 

Ok, praying I can understand. In their position I would certainly pray! But singing? What an image! In their agony and isolation, they respond by reaching out to God. Their actions seem instinctive to me, not overly thought out, but from the gut. Not a wail or a complaint or a strategy for getting out of the situation. But songs and prayers. 

And the other prisoners were listening to them. Paul and Silas may or may not have known other prisoners could hear them. But they did. 

The theologian Willie James Jennings writes of this passage, “Praying and singing are acts of joining that weave our voices and words with the desperate of this world who cry out to God” (Jennings, Acts, p 163-164)

That’s what Paul and Silas were doing with their songs, joining their voices with the desperate. And that is what we do when we sing about our faith. Singing in the dark, in prison, in hopeless times is a sign of hope. The songs we sing are handed down to us from generation to generation, passing that hope along. And the songs we sing today offer hope to those who aren’t ready to sing yet, who have not found their singing voice.  

There are times in each of our lives separately or all of our lives collectively that we will be oppressed by powers that are greater than our own. Powers of government and empire, powers of violence and poor health, powers of racism and sexism and homophobia. Even powers of self-loathing.

In those times, God is with us. In those times there is a power greater than our, but also greater than that which oppresses us. And in those times we might summon the strength to connect to God through prayer and song. To lift up our concerns to the One who loves us all the time and in every circumstance. We can latch on to the words we say every Sunday and the tunes we repeat throughout the year as a way to remember that Love. 

But if we are not able to summon the will to sing and pray, then we can listen. Listen like the prisoners in jail with Paul and Silas. 

At times of great duress, you or I might be the ones who hear hope in another person’s prayer or song. That song might be lifted up from a jail cell or on the lawn of the Capitol or the side of a highway or the waiting room of a hospital. It might be a song on the radio in your car or the kind greetings of a stranger. It might even be birdsong or the wind through the trees. 

But if you listen you can hear hope in the reminder that God is with with you, is with all of us through the toughest times. 

This past week, the daily lectionary has been allllll about bread. So here I go: 

My love affair with bread started early and blossomed when I learned how to make it in 6th grade Sunday School. I took the recipe and enthusiasm home and got my mom and siblings hooked on baking bread. At church, we had real bread for communion every week and I now knew how it got there. And I was old enough to get the various metaphors bread is for the Christian community – the body of Christ, the many gathered into one, something to be shared. 

When I hear Jesus say, “I am the bread of life,” (John 6:35) I am on board with that image! Yet I also know that, standing here in 2025, there is a lot more to that image that the original audience understood. Ways in which Jesus saying, I am the bread of life, might have had more power. 

Bread is at the root of civilization as we know and experience it. It was the growing and gathering of grains that led humans to settle into villages. Planting, harvesting, milling, and cooking with grains became the heart of family and community life in cultures around the world. Grains became so central to life, in fact, that when we make peace with each other, we say we are breaking bread. In English, when we say we are eating a “meal,” literally, we say we are eating grain. 

When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life” he is tapping into something that was more urgent for the people of his time than for many of us in the developed world today. In the first century, more than 90% of people lived at a subsistence level – constantly in danger of hunger or starvation. Bread literally was life for them. They didn’t have the luxury of being on a low carb diet. 

Jesus makes reference to another way bread was life-giving for his community – he is like manna, the bread from heaven that fed their ancestors in the wilderness. So, bread for the people in Jesus’ community saved their ancestors in the past, and saves them when they eat it in the present. It sustains their bodies, and because it is a gift from God it nourishes their spirits, as well. 

And now, Jesus is taking bread to another level of meaning. If manna from heaven fed their ancestors in the past, and their daily bread feeds them in the present, Jesus now says he is bread that will keep us fed forever. 

This is where the image gets tricky – certainly for me and maybe for those who first heard it. I have a hard time thinking about forever, about eternal life. And I get hungry every day – physically and spiritually. So making those two things meet is hard. 

Forever is an extraordinary concept. It is beyond my capabilities to understand. When I googled “forever is hard to understand” I got a message that said, “An AI Overview is not available for this search.” But while eternity is hard to grasp, bread is not. So, while it might be impossible to understand what eternity is, when Jesus links the bread we share to him and then him to eternity…it becomes, if not easier, more real. 

Maybe that’s why Jesus used the image of bread to talk about forever, about eternal life. Jesus uses this ordinary image from daily life to point us to the extraordinary. Bread contains some of the most common, basic ingredients – grain flour, salt, water, and leavening. When it all comes together, you can share these ingredients in a way you could not before. 

Bread sustains life, for many (even today) it is a matter of life and death to have bread. Yet bread is perishable and so are we. You will perish if you don’t get enough bread, and bread itself perishes if it is not eaten. 

“I am the bread of life,” says Jesus. “I have come down from heaven…”

When eternity comes to us, it looks like bread. Ordinary. Basic. 
When eternity comes to us, it is from creation- grain and salt and water.
When eternity comes to us, it is for sharing. 
When eternity comes to us looking like bread, it becomes part of us and nourishes us. 

Jesus is bread and Jesus is eternal. Therefore – eternity is within our grasp because it has come to us. We don’t have to “get” it. It is not an intellectual concept.

Bread, of course, is a central image in Christian worship – the bread of life broken for us, blessed on the altar and shared. There has been a lot of complex reflection over the last 2000 years about the meaning of the Eucharist and the meaning of the bread we share at the table. But I think it is important to remember how simple and basic this meal is. To remember that bread – one of the oldest foods known to humans – is necessary to our lives. To remember that gathering to break that bread together IS the meaning of it. 

When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” he reminds us he is as basic to our wellbeing as bread. We remember that it is in the ordinary things of life that we will encounter the holy and the eternal. And conversely, we remember that when we are looking for the eternal, we can turn to the ordinary things in our earthly life. The gifts of the earth, the people we know. 

When we gather at the table to break bread together, the bread from heaven shows us how necessary we are to each other as we become the body of Christ. We become that bread, we are unified in that bread. By calling himself bread, Jesus links the past with the present with forever. 

Forever, is a hard concept to grasp. So, God comes to us in ways that are accessible. God comes to us in and through the creation that we are part of. At the communion table, and with Jesus’ words, we are asked to consider how fundamental bread is. The necessity of the fruit of the earth that God gives us – for the wellbeing of our bodies. The necessity of Jesus, the bread at this table, for the wellbeing of our spitis.

This is a lesson I began to learn – and continue to learn – when making bread. Grain from the earth is mixed with water and salt. It is enlivened with leavening. It is worked with the hands and after time and heat is transformed into something to nourish and share. I remember seeing all those tiny particles of flour – so powdery and separate that the smallest puff of air would scatter them – become one solid thing. I remember all the individual ingredients with little or bland taste become something savory and substantial. I remember seeing the loaf on the altar and distributed to hundreds of hands. 

If I never understand anything more about what eternity is, that is enough. 

(Based on a sermon preached at Seminary of the Southwest on 5/7/25)

There is an organization in Austin that takes advantage of two of our region’s unique assets: our relatively large number of professional musicians and also our relatively large number of people who want to be professional musicians. Anthropos Arts, the organization I’m talking about, matches professional musicians with low-income band students for instrument lessons and opportunities to perform in public. It is a genius idea that yields amazing results – because if you are learning to play a musical instrument, having a good teacher who believes in you is important.

And just as important is practicing. You know the old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. So these pairs of adult mentors and students practice regularly – scales and technique and songs. And one of the distinctive things about their program is that they also practice improvisation. 

Now, it might seem counter-intuitive to practice improv. When you improvise you are creating something on the spot, out of the blue, and you will never do that particular thing again. You might think, there is no way to practice that, but there is. You learn to improvise by doing it. And every time you do it, you get better at it. 

That sounds like some kind of crazy, circular logic, but it’s true. You do need to know the basics of how to play your instrument, what musical notes are, and all that. But the only way to really learn to produce a unique musical expression with no notice is to do it. And that is what these students do. 

They practice and know their instruments – and when they perform in public they know that their director might point at them in the middle of a piece and they will be expected to improvise. And in fact each of them performs at least one solo improvisation in public each year. They never know when it will happen. 

There’s something compelling and beautiful that happens when musicians improvise. They get out of their heads and into the music. The rest of the band and the audience root for them. It turns out the beauty of improvising – in music or acting or even in ministry – is that it requires you to be connected to those around you. You have to listen because what you do is connected to what came before and what comes after. Improvisation is all about what you DO, not what you KNOW. And at the same time, when you do it, you will understand what you are doing better. 

I’ve seen this happen with the students in that program. Knowing their own part is not enough. They want to know what all the other kids on stage will play because they might be called upon to take that tune to the next level with a riff that they cannot anticipate. All their preparation individually and as a group prepares them to create something novel at the drop of a hat. 

I think being a disciple of Jesus is a lot like this kind of musical improvisation, and it is the way Jesus models for us what a life following him is like. Certainly no one expected him to get up in the middle of dinner and start washing their feet. But that is what he did, at the drop of a hat, out of the blue. And he told them, 

“You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 

Surely there are lots of times in the Gospels that the ones closest to Jesus, the ones who know him best, don’t understand what he is teaching or what is going on right in front of them. Why does he flip tables in the Temple court? Why does he talk to that Samaritan woman by the well? What did he mean when he said all those things about being bread, a shepherd, a gate, or a vine? 

Jesus confronts their lack of understanding on a daily basis, yet instead of getting frustrated he improvises a way to show them who he is and show them how to follow him. And on their last night together before his arrest, he does it by getting on his knees and washing their feet. Then he tells them to do for each other what he has done for them. He tells them to love one another.

There is no other way to understand what it is to be a follower of Jesus that to do this. Just like there is no other way to learn a musical instrument other than to play it. 

“You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 

We might or might not “get” why Jesus washed the disciples’ feet or told them to wash each others’ feet. It’s possible that we don’t understand why we wash each others’ feet each year on Maundy Thursday. That’s okay. 

The world will know us by how we love one another. And we will show our love for one another in ways large and small that are like washing each others’ feet. 

The love we show by washing each others’ feet is sort of like practicing for musical improvisation. We need to know the basics of how to play our instruments, as it were, our scripture and tradition. We should spend time in worship and fellowship with other believers. We practice sharing a table together and wishing each other peace.

This helps us practice improvising acts of selfless love. Because at any moment Jesus, our band director, might point at any one of us and say,

“You! It’s your turn to improvise! It’s your turn to create an act of humble service at an unexpected place and time!”

To be ready for that time, we practice. We practice by washing each others’ feet so that we know what it feels like to be tender and caring for another and what it feels like to let them take care of us. We practice so we know what it takes for us to be vulnerable and reveal our calloused, ticklish feet that have carried us through this day, this week, this Lent, this lifetime. 

None of us is born knowing how to love this way, we learn it. We learn it from Jesus and we learn it from each other. We practice loving each other as much as we can. At an unexpected time in an expected place you will have the chance to show that love in an unexpected way. At the time, you may not understand why, but it’s okay to understand later. For now, the most important thing is to love others as Jesus loved us.

Have you ever been to a really bad dinner party. Like, really bad. 

One where the guests won’t eat your food – maybe they even insult it! Or the host spends the whole evening bragging about the impressive people they know and business dealings they are part of.  Or someone has too much to drink.  There’s always the classic American dinner party nightmare of the crazy Uncle who ruins Thanksgiving with inappropriate jokes. 

Well, let me tell you about a dinner party that’s worse than any of those. Imagine someone has done your family a really big favor – literally saved the life of your brother – so you invite him over for a thank-you dinner. He arrives with his friends – which is fine because they are a package deal and you were expecting them. 

You cook a nice meal, your now-healthy brother is there, the mood is warm, everyone is feeling grateful. So grateful, in fact that your sister has splurged on some rare imported oil and while everyone is watching she lavishes it on the guest of honor. Now, at our houses, it might be strange to pour oil on your dinner guest, but for this crowd it is a sign of respect and honor of the greatest magnitude. It might be like breaking out the champagne you’ve been saving for a big celebration. 

Just when everyone is feeling the love, one of the guests ruins it. He trashes your sister’s fancy gift and says her money could have been put to better use by giving it to the poor. And then the guest of honor, who you really admire because of his wisdom and his compassion, says, “First of all, leave my friend alone. And second of all, you’ll always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me.”

Mood. Killed. Some people just cannot let a good time go unspoiled. 

This story is, of course about the dinner party Mary and Martha of Bethany gave for Jesus soon after he raised their brother Lazarus from the dead. (You can read all about it in John 12:1-8) The one worried about the poor, the one who could’t let a good time go unspoiled was, of course, Judas. And the one who said the poor would always be with us and he wouldn’t always be with us was Jesus. 

I wonder which part of the friction at this dinner bothered you the most? It’s clearly upsetting that Jesus refers to his death. We know how this story goes from here— toward Jerusalem and the cross. But do the people in the room know this? What a way to find out! 

Maybe it is because I do know the story that the comment about the poor bothers me more. After all, a huge part of Jesus’ earthly ministry, teaching, and preaching is about serving the poor, lifting them up, seeing their humanity. How am I to take this comment that seems to place their needs behind an extravagant show of love for just one person – even if that person is Jesus?

And, because I know the way the story ends, I also know how these words have been used to keep the poor poor. These words of Jesus, “You always have the poor with you” have many times been used to say that poverty is inevitable so we might as well focus on other things. 

Well, I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant at all – it goes against the whole scripture he came to fulfill. I’m also betting that the people in the room at that super uncomfortable dinner party knew what he really meant. 

The first clue is where they are: Bethany.  Bethany means “house of the poor.”

Judas and Jesus have this face-off about how to treat the poor in a town called the “house of the poor.” So Jesus is speaking his words about the poor in the town of the poor. He is with the poor, the poor are with him. 

And the second clue, which those in the room would know but we might need help remembering, is that Jesus didn’t make these words up as a comeback to Judas. He was actually quoting a passage from Deuteronomy that was specifically about how to treat the poor. 

Deuteronomy chapter 15 describes the traditions of sabbatical and jubilee, which were the means by which the people of God were to address poverty. Every 7 years, according to this tradition, the people of God forgave the debts of everyone so that, “there will be no one in need among you.” 

There were no mortgages or credit cards in those days; the debt people accrued in the ancient world covered the costs of living and fees charged by the government. Between the time of planting and the time of harvest, for example, people borrowed money to buy food and get drinking water, then paid it off when their farm yielded its crop. If the weather was bad or they got sick, they stayed in debt for another year. 

During the time between Sabbath years, everyone who had enough to share, did so. Farmers left crops at the edges of their fields for the poor to glean. (Which we read about in the story of Ruth, for example.) Animals sacrificed at the Temple were used at shared meals with the poor. 

The logic of this tradition is that God provides and so that we can share. God provides the land, so we share the fruit of that land with those who need it. And there will be those who need it. The passage says, “since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore commend you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

This is the passage Jesus quoted. 

There is an important difference between the way Judas suggests addressing poverty and the way Jesus does. We are told that Judas is a thief and his concern for the poor is not authentic – but even if we take him at this word, what he is advocating is a system in which some people earn or acquire wealth and then give a portion of that wealth to the poor. This way of addressing poverty doesn’t end it, it relies on some people to choose to donate and other people to be dependent on those donations. In that kind of system, there is no way out of poverty and any relief from it is contingent on the voluntary generosity of donors. 

That sounds really familiar to us, because that is the way, by and large, we address poverty in our society today. If that is what Judas is advocating, then how is Jesus’ idea different? Or better? 

What Jesus reminds his friends – and especially Judas – is that if you observe the plan God has set out, there will be no lifelong poverty. Poverty exists because we have not followed God’s commands. 

When Jesus referenced the Sabbath and Jubilee traditions, he and everyone in the room knew the whole passage. They knew that it was not God’s plan for the poor to rely on the sale of our expensive perfumes in order to eat. God’s plan isn’t for us to give from our largesse, it is to give from God’s largesse. We are supposed to set up our society in such a way that this happens. 

Because the poor will always be with us. After you forgive all the debt in the land, there will again be widows and orphans, famines and wars. So we forgive the debt again. And we feed the hungry and shelter the vulnerable. 

What God asks of us, expects of us, hopes for us is that we establish justice, not charity. And we don’t have to – indeed should not – engage in charity at the expense of worship. Because it is only by acknowledging our God that we will be pointed in the right direction. Generosity is not an either or choice for people of faith – God’s generosity to us begets our generous return of that generosity to God and to each other.  

What does this mean for us? As Christians, we honor Jesus with a dinner party every Sunday. This dinner party – the Eucharist – is in a place like Bethany, it is the house of the poor and yet a place of great generosity. In this house of the poor, we offer the very best we have, wine, bread, and our very selves to Jesus who has literally saved our lives. 

We are not going to sell the candlesticks and vestments to give money to the poor. Instead, we’re going to use these special things to remind us of how blessed we are, how much God has done for us. And then, because God has been so generous to us, we CAN be generous to others. All others. We will take from this dinner party the reminder that we can aim for justice instead of charity.

The poor will always be with us. And so will Jesus. So we will open our hand to share what God has given to us all. We will go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

(Based on a sermon preached at St. Joan of Arc, Pflugerville, 3/6/25)

“And he could do no deed of power there…”

In Mark’s Gospel, there’s a story about Jesus teaching in his hometown. He’s already been going around the countryside calling followers, teaching, and healing. He stilled a storm! Now he’s home with the people who know him best. And their response is…depressing.

The people who heard him that day were astounded at his teaching, wisdom, and deeds of power. And they were offended. Offended! Immediately (as Mark might say) instead of talking about what Jesus said, they started attacking who he is. He’s just a local boy, no one special. We know his family, they aren’t that great.

And then, the Gospel tells us, Jesus could do no deed of power there. He failed.

That’s a depressing story, especially for those of us who are called to teach the message Jesus taught. Because what the Gospel tells us today is that, when teaching that message himself, faced with the disbelief of the people who knew him best, Jesus failed. He was unable to do for them what he had been doing all around the countryside – calling followers, freeing people from unclean spirits, healing the sick.

If Jesus faced this kind of failure, this rejection, what hope is there for us? We, too, are trying to preach the word he preached, to call followers and heal people who are hurting.  When we carry out our various ministries – even just being a good hearted person out in the world – will we face rejection? What if the people who know us best say we’re well spoken and all, but not good enough. Offensive, even. Will that rejection lead to failure?

What about the world around us? The world that claims to want peace and justice? What happens when we go out and try to advocate for those things and…we can do no deeds of power. 

Our professions and educational institutions and businesses usually don’t look too kindly on failure. An effort that doesn’t go as planned is often personalized so that we think of the person themselves as a failure. For most areas of life, failing equals guilt, financial disaster, lack of intelligence, lack of effort, and waste. Failure equals a loss of respect and dignity.

Most people I know have experienced some kind of failure. We know what it feels like when a relationship ends or a project tanks or our health takes a turn for the worse. And if you haven’t yet had those kinds of failures, I’d like to remind you that you were probably once in high school where almost everyone goes through embarrassing failures of one sort or another. 

Those failures are personal, events that makes us feel like we are failed human beings. It’s hard to crawl out of the hole that failures seem to dig for us. 

But the failure of Jesus in his hometown – and our potential failure as we follow in his footsteps as believers –  is worse than personal. It is a rejection of love and justice. A defeat of all that is holy. Where does that leave us? 

When we fall flat, have we let God down? Or, worse, does it mean the whole project of Christianity is a disaster?

Today I am feeling this fear of failure intensely. When the leaders of our nation suspend the observation of Black History Month, at the same time as immigration officers are racially profiling people for deportation, at the same time as gender affirming care for young adults is banned, at the same time as humanitarian aid is being pulled from the most vulnerable people on Earth…it’s hard not to feel like those of us who value the whole of humanity and the dignity of every human being have been ineffective. 

It is depressing. 

But there is hope and here is where I find it:

“And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.”

In the midst of his failure, of the rejection by those who knew him best, Jesus still healed. The power and love and truth that Jesus brought to the world were still active. And right after the hometown rejection, Jesus sent his disciples out and THEY were able to cast out demons and heal the sick. 

Jesus, you might say, kept calm and carried on. In a way, he demonstrated that failure is not the end. He gave his followers permission to try, fail, and keep on trying. 

There is, interestingly, a positive view of failure that has developed in corporate and scientific fields. I wonder if we might benefit from their example in some way. (And I wonder if their optimism about failure didn’t come from religious folk in the first place!)

Some of you know that Post-it Notes are a failure – the inventor was trying to create a super strong adhesive. And failed. It is one of the reasons that 3M, the company that sells Post Its, encourages it’s employees to experiment and fail. 

Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job as a news anchor. 
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. 
Albert Einstein had a failure that is so out of my depth I can’t even describe it to you because it involves math. 

And there are failures closer to home. Like some of you, I bet, I’ve been up to my state capitol to join thousands of people advocating for causes I believe in. If you have ever been part of an effort like that, the atmosphere can be exciting and convivial. You are often surrounded by hundreds of people you’ve never met before who all support the same cause and there is a temptation to feel that success is possible. People give powerful, personal testimony. Crowds chant and sing. It is both rousing and peaceable. 

But much of the time, those efforts do not end well, if “well” means the legislative vote goes my way. Most of the time, at least for me, my colleagues and I fail to change the minds that need changing. 

Yet every time, there are people gathered who needed to know we were with them. Every time, there were people who were not offended by the message we brought and felt a sense of healing knowing that they were not alone and not unloved. 

For scientists and business owners, failing that leads to success is part of an ideology of progress. Personal failures can lead to personal success. Corporate failures can lead to corporate success. Failure is a step along the way. It is a learning process

I suggest that for followers of Jesus, failure is much more than that. Our failures are not simply a lesson on the way to success. There is something holy going on in the midst of failure when you are on a mission for Jesus. Our failures in ministry are evidence that we are with Jesus in preaching the word, sharing wisdom, and reaching out to heal. 

In the midst of failure, of people being offended at our message, there will also be people who need healing. There will be people who need to hear that they are loved and valued. That they are not alone. 

Jesus has equipped us to be the kind of people who are willing to fail, because as long we are are going about the mission of Jesus, there will always be people who need to hear the message we bring. 

Based on a sermon preached at Christ Chapel, Seminary of the Southwest, 2/9/25

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a day when many people I know reflect on the horrors that happened in Nazi Germany, but also on the state of antisemitism up to and including today. I have to say, as a non-Jew, I see and hear it more today than at any other era of my life. Which means it must be pretty loud if I can hear it and it’s not targeted at me. Right? Is it more prevalent or are people just feeling bolder about expressing their hatred? Maybe it’s both. 

This morning, I had a meeting with someone who is wearing a necklace that they won’t take off until all the hostages held by Hamas are released. This person worships in a synagogue that was fire bombed in 2021 – which is not that long ago – here in Austin, Texas. That’s the same year that our community saw antisemitic graffiti pop up around town and some neighborhoods were littered with antisemitic leaflets. 

And it is happening still. 
Our community is not unique. 

It is important to remember the Holocaust, not only to honor the people who suffered and died and those who survived, but also to remember what happens when hatred runs amok. The victims of Nazi hate were not only Jews, although we should never forget that Jews were uniquely brutalized. Other human beings not considered worth living also went to the camps and the ovens. 

As a white Southern woman, I know this kind of remembrance is important. My ancestors perpetrated a different kind of hatred run amok. Their racism and classism caused untold (well, thankfully some of it is told) harm to particular human beings and whole cultures – and to themselves as well. No one fares well in the end when hatred is the governing principle. 

It shouldn’t take a family tie, but I also have Jewish people in my family. When antisemitism flares up, I know they are afraid for their safety in a way that I am not. It is a peculiar thing to be tangentially related to the danger faced by someone so close to you. Peculiar, but not unfamiliar. There are people in my family who are members of other hated groups.

Remembering is a way to re-member people who have been cut off from the community by injustice, fear, hatred, violence. Remembering is essential if we are to restore wholeness to the human family.

One day soon, I hope, my friend will take off her necklace because all the hostages will have been released (although, to be clear, some will be in body bags). One day soon, I hope, antisemitic graffiti and online hate mongering will die down. And still we will need to remember. 

Until that day and all the days after, I try to keep in mind that every person, every household, every community has a role to play in creating, maintaining, and promoting justice. We know from experience that neutrality is not an option. We know from history that when some groups are targeted – Jews, Muslims, women, people of African descent, indigenous people in colonized lands, trans-people, and so many other groups – when these are targeted with violence the rest of us will eventually be enveloped. 

When I was in my mid-20s, I moved across the country from my parents. In part this was an exciting statement of independence. I packed up my Ford Escort and drove more than 1,000 miles from Houston to Charlotte, North Carolina. Granted, I was moving close to cousins, aunts and uncles, but it felt independent – and more important, I thought it made me look independent. 

In my new city, I found a job, got a place to live, connected with college buddies, and made new friends. I felt like I was becoming the adult me. The real me who was different from the old me, leaving behind the me from high school, college, and living in my parents’ house. 

After a couple of years though, I hit a rough patch. My job was unfulfilling and the company was being bought out. I had broken up with a boyfriend and felt lonely. I was not going out with my friends as much, not even my roommate. 

At one low point, I called my mom to complain about my life. She listened to me say how I was the least interesting person in my friend group, I was no fun, my life was not going in the direction I wanted. I felt lost.

My mom could have offered advice on how to get a different job, or lambasted my friends for making me feel like an outsider. Instead, she said, “But you’ve always been so fun and funny. What happened to that Mary?”

That got my attention. She reminded me who I was.

She reminded me that I was known – that even when I forgot myself and felt lost from my dreams and ideals, or even my quirks and practical jokes, there were people who knew me and could call me back to myself. My mom believed in me. 

It worked. I did remember. My journey to become a new, adult Mary circled around to remembering the person I already was. 

I’m thinking about that story today, the sixth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. The journey to get there was long and involved a lot of forgetting who I was, and then being reminded by loved ones, by life around me, and by God. 

Losing yourself can feel like a failure of belief. Am I believing hard enough? Is my sense of where I am going just fake news? At times like those, it might take a “call from Mom,” a reminder of how we are known and loved and believed in to get un-lost. 

Last Sunday, the words of Isaiah reminded me of that call: 

Thus says the Lord,

he who created you O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; 

I have called you by name you are mine. (Isa 43:1)

Over the course of decades, as the sense of my vocation came to me in various voices, it became clear to me that no matter how lost I felt or how distant from that path I wandered, people around me believed in me. And their belief reminded me that God believed in me. 

Here is something interesting about the word “believe.” It comes from the same root as the word “belove.” There is a relationship between believing and beloving. That makes belief more than an assent to an idea. It makes belief holding something precious. 

And it isn’t just about OUR belief. God believes in us, God beloves us. That belief, that belovedness, goes all the way back to the beginning of everything and stretches across time. 

It is because of that belovedness that none of my wandering and doubt have been wasted, they are part of a beloved life. It is because of that belovedness that I can see the loveliness of all those around me, not only those whom I pastor, but those I encounter everywhere. 

Ordination is a rite that sets some of us apart for specific ministry. But my experience is that, because it was an answer to the beloved voices of my community, it feels more like taking my place among them. 

As I enter another year of priesthood, I remember that no matter how sidetracked I get God is always calling me – and all of us –  back to ourselves. God believes in us. We are all beloved. 

On a recent morning, I woke early to see a landscape covered in snow. It was a winter visit to see my mom and the first time I had been to her home for this kind of winter weather. 

While I cooked our breakfast, she wondered at the icy trees and sidewalks. “I was not expecting this! Was it predicted?” Yes, it was. 
We sit down to eat.
“Did you see all that snow?! Did we know it was coming?”
Yes. We watched it fall yesterday. 

My mom has dementia. It has been a mix of emotions (and tasks) going through it with her and my siblings. No one in our family has had it before and I sometimes joke that we’d be better equipped to handle cancer or heart disease. 

It turns out many, if not most, of our friends and family are similarly perplexed. It may be because dementia can affect people differently, or because people are so busy managing their family member’s needs they don’t have time to reflect on it, or any number of other reasons. But once you open the topic, it turns out there is a mix of stereotypes, unfocused sympathy, and “oh, gurl, I’ve been there.”

Mom has been in a plateau for some time now. Her short term memory is…well she can’t remember if it snowed yesterday. But she can do things that I never realized were a measure of health: bathe and dress herself, make her own breakfast, walk to and from a friend’s house without getting lost, remembers the number code to get into her home. She remembers close family names. She is physically and socially more active than I am (for real!) with classes, dances, outdoor walks, and shared meals. She loves to work a puzzle.

There are some very strange things about dementia that I was not expecting and I often get a shared laugh from those in-the-know. She invents stories about her neighbors, how they are divorcing and how their house is being joined with the two next to it. Then the couple walk happily by with their dog. 

But there are elements of her personality that are more evident now than ever before. She is always asking if you have what you need (water? food? a blanket?) or if you need help with whatever you are doing. Always ready with a hug. 

There was an early stage when she could tell what was happening to her mind and that caused a lot of fear and anger. Now, she no longer panics when she realizes her memory is slipping and is more content to exist in the moment. She is almost never anxious about the future or regretful about the past. 

Every night at dinner she said grace from memory. And when she asked if I wanted to say it instead, I always let her because it is a grace to hear her say grace from memory. 

One day her situation will start declining again. We know what the options are and are ready to move to an escalated level of care. For now, her healthcare providers say she is safe and better off where she is with the help she has. 

This journey is a tough one for me and my siblings. We balance the need to attend to all her “business” with the desire to be with her in person as much as we can. (We are grateful for all the helpers that see her every day!) Often it means we see less of each other as we take turns visiting from our various homes around the country and the world. 

Things are not easy and will get harder. We sort of know what is coming, but when it does, I have a feeling we’ll ask, as my mom did this morning, “I wasn’t expecting this! Was it predicted?”