The First Duty of Love

Posted on April 21, 2024 | 2 comments


“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” (The full readings for today can be found here.) In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Well, good morning, everybody, good morning. You know, I’m not sure…no, I’m not sure at all. I’m not sure that I’m qualified to preach on this Good Shepherd Sunday. You see, my people were cattle people. They weren’t sheep people. And cattle people didn’t always get along with sheep people. By “not always,” I mean they never got along with each other.

And while there are a lot of differences between cattle and sheep, a couple of them come to mind. One of the biggest differences is that you can lead sheep, but you have to drive cattle. Unlike cattle, sheep will learn to follow. They build friendships and will stick up for one another. Like us, they are highly social animals, and when they are under stress or isolation, they become sad, and yes, even depressed. And they are very intelligent creatures; they recognize faces and voices. But like us, they will sometimes stray away from the herd, and need to be watched over.

In Jesus’ time, sheep were a mainstay of survival: they provided milk and cheese, and sometimes meat for the family and for sacrifices. They also provided wool for warm garments. But I think there’s something going on in John’s gospel than a discussion of first-century animal husbandry or livestock. I think this gospel reading is, at its core, about how we love, and how we are loved.

So, I think we should note a couple of things before we go on. And for this, I think we have to go all the way back to the beginning of John’s gospel, back to the very first time we meet this man called Jesus. You may remember that John was baptizing people in the river Jordan when he saw Jesus and shouted out: “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Now, lambs had been used as sacrificial animals for a long time by the Jewish people and were particularly associated with the holy feast of Passover.

We hear this same image, this same symbolic language in the last passage of John’s gospel, where the resurrected Jesus and Peter sit by a charcoal fire after breakfast.  And Jesus makes clear to Peter that Peter’s assurance of love carries with it a tender and sometimes difficult office, an obligation to feed his sheep. So, I want to suggest if we find this image being used in the beginning of John’s gospel, at the end of his gospel, and this morning pretty much in the middle of the gospel, we can probably safely assume that John thought this was important.

But as we read this, we might be forgiven if we have a moment of confusion. Is Jesus the lamb or the shepherd? Why is Peter feeding the sheep? Are we the sheep, or is Jesus the lamb? Quite frankly, it seems a bit complicated, and a little bewildering.

I think at least part of the answer lies, perhaps a bit veiled, in Jesus’ statement: “I am the good shepherd.” It’s one of what’s called the “I am” sayings of Jesus: you know, “I am the Bread of Life”, “I am the Light of the World”, “I am the vine,” and “I am the Good Shepherd.” In doing so, Jesus is aligning himself with a very old understanding of who God is. You remember the story from the Book of Exodus, when Moses asks God his name and God replies, “I am who I am.” For John, there is no difference between God and Jesus, the Word, the Logos. And for John, there is no difference between listening to Jesus and listening to God.

Jesus distinguishes his role from that of a hired hand. And at least part of the distinction has to do with how they react when the wolves come. Whether you’re a cattle person or a sheep person, you know about wolves. Lord have mercy, I believe we all know about wolves. You can find them in any walk of life—in business, in politics, and on our television screens. Sometimes those wolves come disguised as ambition or greed, sometimes as addictions, sometimes as failure, and sometimes as desperation.

You might argue that the distinction between the Good Shepherd and the hired hand is about their level of commitment. Perhaps the hired hand acts out of self-interest, while the Good Shepherd isn’t afraid of the wolves and understands his responsibilities. But I think there’s something more there. I think the Good Shepherd doesn’t run away when the wolves come because he acts out of something much more profound. Love, and only love, hangs around when the wolves come. Love, and only love, is willing to stand its ground when the situation gets risky. Only that kind of love is willing to lay down its life for the beloved.

Now, here’s the good news. We are the beloved. And Jesus is telling us that he loves us like that, that God loves us like that. And that kind of love doesn’t even ask what it costs, because it knows what it’s worth.
Later in this same Chapter of John, Jesus tells us “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” I often wonder how well I’m listening for the voice of Jesus. When I get busy, when I get worried, or when I’m simply careless, it’s hard to hear.

You know, a very famous theologian named Paul Tillich said, “The first duty of love is to listen.” That’s worth repeating: “The first duty of love is to listen.” We have a lot of choices in this world as to which voices we’ll listen to. We can listen to the voices that tell us that our neighbors aren’t like us—voices that tell us that they’re not as smart as we are, or they’re freeloaders, or they’re dangerous. Or we can listen to the voices that tell us this world is full of risk and danger, that we might not have enough, or the voices that tell us that our lives will finally make sense if we just get that new car, that new outfit, that new iPhone, or earn enough to retire. We can listen to those voices that tell us that we’re not quite smart enough, not quite pretty enough, or not quite good enough.  

Or we can listen to the voice of the One who will never run away when the wolves come, the one who offers us forgiveness, the one who came to show us what an abundant life really looks like. We can listen to the One who laid down his life for us, who said he’d never leave us, who says he’s with us always, even to the end of time. That kind of voice, that kind of love, is hard to fathom; in fact, it’s one of life’s deepest mysteries.

We are sometimes told, “You are what you eat.” I think it’s equally true that we are what we listen to. The voices we hear can shape us in powerful ways. Genuine listening is an attitude of the heart, a vulnerability to the holy. If indeed the first duty of love is to listen, the choice we are compelled to make is which voice we are going to listen for. Maybe, just maybe, if we listen in love, we will hear the voice of the One who loves us limitlessly, who loves us fearlessly. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024

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The Border Crisis

Posted on August 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly Matt. 15:28. The full readings for today can be found here.

In the name of the Living God: by whom we are being created, redeemed and sustained.

          You know, I have met a lot of priests. Many of them are my friends. And to be honest with you, I’m really not sure why. Because they treat me so bad. They really do. When it’s time for the Good Samaritan, or the little baby Jesus in the manger, my phone is silent—as silent as a midnight graveyard. But when the lectionary rolls around to Jesus calling a woman with a sick child a dog, all my friends have a conflict: “Brother James, could you come preach for me this Sunday?”  And all the sudden my phone is ringing like the bells of Notre Dame.

          I want to talk about that, but I want to put this story in a bit of context. You know, I love borders. I have spent most of my life near the border, and spent 25 years living right on the border with Mexico. And one of the things I love the most is the intersection of two cultures, the way culture is porous, even when a border may not be. When you live near a border, you come to realize just how fluid and flexible borders can be.

We see it in our meals: I learned very early on that enchiladas and huevos rancheros and carne asada just made life better. We see it in our families, as blended families soften our hard hearts, and all a sudden that’s not just some immigrant, that’s my grandchild, or my uncle, my tio. And we see it in our language: words and phrases cross cultural boundaries with absolute sovereignty, with no constraints. So, in Mexico, if you need to leave your car to go shopping, you’ll look for el parquing, or for breakfast you might have a cereal called los confleis, and the device you use for with your computer is el maus. And it travels in both directions: Our words corral, ranch, stampede all came from Spanish. We have states called Arizona and Florida, and even the name of your own town, Blanco comes from the Spanish. Borders and the confluence of cultures are fascinating.

My favorite border story comes from Mother Teresa, who was crossing one day into Israel. The border guards there asked her if she was carrying any weapons, and she replied, “Oh yes. I have my rosary and I have my prayer books.”

So, this morning, we find Jesus crossing from Jewish territory into the area of Tyre and Sidon, into Gentile country, into the land of the Canaanites. You remember the Canaanites; they were the people in the Old Testament who continually worshipped idols and were always in fights with the people of Israel. They really didn’t get along with the Jewish people, in fact, Jews would routinely refer to these Gentile pagans as “dogs.” It was a commonly used slur for the Canaanites, but it seems shocking when we hear that slur being used by Jesus. We might ask ourselves, “Was Jesus just having a very bad day?” Maybe we begin to get a sense that something more is going on here when we look at Jesus’ family tree and find three Canaanite women there: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. As I said, the border changes things.

We learn just how elastic things are on the border when this woman cries out: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” So, here’s a gentile woman, who calls Jesus “Lord” and the “Son of David.” She may be a pagan, but she’s speaking a pretty solidly Jewish language. In this borderland, this woman doesn’t seem to fit any of the fixed markers of a pagan or a Gentile.

Jesus seems to ignore her, then tells her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” In other words, I’m not here for you; you’re outside my borders. But then, the story begins to shift, and there’s an interesting shift in the plot. This woman, this Canaanite woman, kneels before Jesus and begs, “Lord, help me.” And things begin to change. They enter into a conversation.  It’s worth noting that Matthew says this woman knelt before Jesus.  

Jesus tells her that it wouldn’t be fair to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs. And it’s shocking, and it’s uncomfortable to hear Jesus say that. But maybe we should remember a couple of things here. First, remember from Matthew’s gospel the parable about the workers who showed up early in the morning getting paid the same as those who showed up late in the afternoon? I don’t think Jesus gave a hoot about what’s fair; I think he was fiercely indifferent to our ideas of fairness. I think Jesus knew God’s mercy was lavish, that there was enough of it for everyone. And I think this woman knew it, too. And as for the slur about calling this woman a dog, well, as we observed earlier, Jesus had a little “dog” blood in him, too.

And look at this woman’s response, in the context of how desperate she is for Jesus to help her daughter. She doesn’t get her feelings hurt, she doesn’t lose her nerve or her persistence. She tells Jesus even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table. In other words, there’s enough for everyone to eat—to quote that old hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” In God’s economy, supplies of grace and blessings are not limited. God’s love and mercy cross every border we try to establish, skirt around all our barricades, and break down every wall. Now, here’s the tricky part: none of that was news to Jesus.

So, I want to pause that story and go back to the first part of our gospel today. Jesus is talking about the Jewish dietary laws, which are sometimes called the Purity Codes. And there were lots of these regulations, governing who you couldn’t spend your time with (like tax collectors), who you could and couldn’t touch (like lepers), and what you could eat and what you couldn’t eat. And all these rules operated as a kind of a border, a border between what was holy and the things and people that were not. And Jesus rejects this notion, he challenges this border.

Jesus tells us, it’s not what you put into your mouth, it’s what comes out of it that’s the problem. The problem isn’t what you eat; the problem is the slander and gossip and envy in your heart. So, your borders were all wrong. Holiness has a lot more to do with what’s in your heart than with what you eat. That’s the real border.

So, now we return to this woman, begging for Jesus to help her, to heal her child. And I think Jesus looked into her heart and knew that whatever border separated them, he was going to cross it. He tells her that she has great faith, and here I don’t think faith has anything to do with some intellectual proposition that she’s going to accept. I think it has to do with who she trusts. She is willing to give up her dignity, her pride, and her self-respect because she trusts that Jesus can help her daughter. And Jesus, having looked into her heart, is willing to cross the borders that separate them. He assures her that her prayers have been heard and answered.

So, I think it’s worth asking ourselves, “What are the borders that I have that separate me from God?” A lot of us have created a spiritual ghetto, isolated God and Jesus to an hour on Sunday morning. Jesus, you can have a bit of time while I’m in church, but I don’t want you coming with me to work, or when I’m arguing with my family, and I don’t want you getting into my politics, and I sure don’t want to see you on the golf course.

There’s a fellow named Russell Moore, who used to be a top official with the Southern Baptist Convention and is now the editor of Christianity Today. And he and several other pastors talked about preaching on turning the other cheek and preaching the Sermon on the Mount. And they were accosted by their congregation for preaching on “liberal talking points.” And when these pastors would reply “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ” their congregations would answer “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” Moore concludes that our church today is in a crisis, a crisis in which the teachings of Jesus Christ are considered subversive. I think that happens because some of us have created a border between Jesus and our politics.

And I think Moore may be right: we are in a crisis. But here’s the good news: if we trust Jesus, if we let him into our lives and take him seriously, he will knock down every false border we’ve created until there’s nothing left standing between us and God. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2023

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Lord, Save Me!

Posted on August 13, 2023 | 2 comments

But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Matt. 14:30 (The full text of the readings can be found here.)

In the name of the Living God: by whom we are being created, redeemed, and sustained.

As a boy in West Texas, I grew up as the oldest of four sons. Now, that was in the 60s, and back then, we went through a lot of uncertainty, a good deal of ambiguity. But there’s one thing we all knew with absolute mathematical precision; we knew it to a moral certainty. We knew it because every boy in West Texas knew it. We were sure that if a horny toad shot blood into your eyes, we knew that you would go blind.

So one morning, early in the morning, I woke up to find that my brothers had tied me to my bed. Like Gulliver, these Lilliputians had bound me where I lay, and I knew that nothing good could come of this. But my predicament got even worse when my brother Patrick, my no-good brother Patrick, took out a shoebox containing at least a dozen big fat horny toads. With glee in his eyes, he dumped them onto the bed where I was tied down and screaming like a banshee. Now, I’m not saying that my brothers were intentionally trying to blind me, but they were at least wildly indifferent to the possibility that I would end up sightless. So, I understand exactly how Joseph felt when his brothers threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery in Egypt. And I was sorely tempted to preach on that today, but the Church has given us an even better story.

Oh my, what a story. So today, we hear the story of a man named Peter who is willing to leave his relative comfort and security because he hears the call of Jesus.

If you know anything about my spiritual life, you know that I love Peter. He is my favorite biblical blunderer—overenthusiastic, and terribly underprepared. He is full of bravado and bluster and he clumsily rushes in where angels fear to tread. I think he really wants to follow Jesus, but most of the time, he really doesn’t have a clue about what that might look like. You know, now that I think about it, he’s a lot like…me.

It’s important for us to look at this story in context. This passage follows the feeding of the 5,000 in a deserted place, in the wilderness. Now the writers of scripture use two ways to signal a time and place of trouble and anxiety and danger. They talk about the wilderness, and they talk about the sea. And in this Gospel passage, Jesus has just left the wilderness, and the disciples find themselves on a stormy sea. So, you know there’s going to be some trouble.

One of the consistent metaphors used throughout the Old and New Testaments is the image of the sea as representing trouble or difficulty. These waters represent the nothingness before creation, in the Hebrew the tobu wa-bohu. The sea was perceived as the vortex around which danger and chaos and evil spun. So, in today’s Gospel, we find Jesus calling the disciples, not away from the storm, but into it. In fact, Jesus sends the disciples into the boat while he dismisses the crowds and goes to pray. Jesus goes to the mountain, like Moses, to encounter the God of Abraham. Thus, while he retreats to the mountains, he compels the disciples to face the sea of chaos. Literally translated, they are being tormented by the waves. Jesus compels them to confront their own frailty, their own vulnerability.

This story reminds us of another story in Matthew’s Gospel, in the eighth chapter. If you’ll remember that passage, Jesus was sleeping through the storm while the disciples cried, “Save us, Lord, for we are perishing.” And if you’ll recall, that story ends with the disciples wondering what kind of man Jesus is, if even the wind and the water obey him.

So, in today’s reading, it’s worth noting that the disciples have been out in this storm, on the water, for a long time. They’re sent away before evening, and they don’t see Jesus again until early in the morning. So, like many of us, they’ve been struggling to stay afloat for a good while. It’s not really the storm that frightens them, but they are terrified when they see Jesus. I love the nonchalant way the Gospel writer reports, “he came walking toward them on the sea.” Matthew records it as matter-of-factly as if he were saying that Jesus scratched his head or sat down to eat a tomato sandwich.

The disciples, as is so often the case, fail to recognize Jesus. And maybe, just maybe, it’s their fear that keeps them from knowing Jesus, just like our fear sometimes keeps us from seeing Jesus when he’s right beside us.

While the disciples are initially afraid that they are seeing a ghost, Jesus reassures them it’s him. And our translation really doesn’t do justice to Jesus’ words of comfort. In fact, this is a bad translation; it’s a terrible translation. In the original Greek, Jesus’ announcement is more sparse, succinct, and significant. In the Greek, Jesus says “Ego eimi.”  That phrase, I Am, is the name of God, the name he gave Moses as he told him to confront Pharoah. And so, Jesus assures them: “I Am.” He takes them back all the way to the God of Abraham and Moses, reminding them of the presence of God even on this storm-rocked sea.

And so, Peter sort of invites himself to join Jesus on the water. He calls Jesus “Lord,” but I’m not sure he understands exactly what he’s saying. Jesus is Lord, Lord over the deep and troubled waters, Lord over the wind and waves, Lord over the storms and all the destructive powers that seek to overwhelm our lives.

This is why I love Peter: he is so eager and yet, not quite ready. And he joins our Lord on the water and for a moment….the laws of nature and gravity are suspended. I suspect that, for just a moment, the angels stopped their singing and all heaven held its breath. And then, Peter began to notice the strong winds around him and he began to sink. And, whatever else you can say about Peter, at least he has the presence of mind to know where to turn in trouble. He turns to Jesus. He cries out, “Lord, save me.”

And when Jesus returns to the boat with Peter the wind dies down and the disciples all acknowledge that Jesus, the Jesus who walks across the storm and calms all our troubled seas, is the Son of God. And I don’t think we should judge St. Peter too harshly, in fact, I don’t think we should judge him at all, because he embodies one of the fundamental principles of the Christian life: we are going to fail. We fall down five times, and through God’s grace, we get up six.

Changing our lives is hard. It was hard for Peter and it’s hard for us. If we want to live for Christ, live whole-hearted lives, it’s going to take some time, and we’re going to make mistakes. Living with courage and hope and taking chances means we’re going to fail sometimes, and we need to be prepared for that. And yet, God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who constantly reminds us “I Am”— is always stronger than the sum of all our fears and failures.

Following Jesus is no assurance of smooth sailing. Being disciples does not shield us from the hard knocks of life and death. In fact, the biblical witness would tell us something quite to the contrary: we are assured of the storm.

You see, like St. Peter, God wants more from us than lives of safety and stability. God’s dreams for the world are bigger than that. God has called us to be explorers on an adventure: seeking God in unlikely places and pointing out His presence when others cannot see it. God had wonderful dreams for Peter, and has wonderful dreams for us, too. And so, we join him in stepping out of the boat, sinking sometimes, but always proclaiming the presence of God in the storm. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2023

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Understanding the Risks

Posted on June 25, 2023 | 1 comment

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (The full readings can be found here.)


In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.

Well good morning, good morning. You know, when I was a young man, growing up in West Texas, I always wanted to be a cowboy. My father had been a cowboy and rode a horse to school every morning. And every year, my father would take my brothers and me to the rodeo. And I loved it; I loved the clowns, and the barrel racers, and the calf-roping. But the event that really caught my eye, which fascinated me, was the bull riding.

I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old one year, and the bull riding competition began. And I saw the violence and the rage and the strength of that mammoth animal. And I looked up at my father and said, “Dad, you know who I’d like to meet? I’d like to meet the first man who decided it would be a good idea to crawl on top of an angry bull and ride it.” Well, my father thought about this for a while and then he said, “Yes, son. It would be interesting to meet that first man who rode a bull. But the guy I want to meet is the second man who thought that would be a good idea.”

My father was a wise man, and he had a good point. The more you understand the risks involved in what you’re about to do, the higher the level of commitment you are required to make. And I think that story is related to our gospel for this morning.

So, what are we to do with this challenging passage this morning? How are we to reconcile this Jesus, who frankly seems a little cranky, with the Prince of Peace, who told his disciple to put away his sword because to live that way meant that you would die that way. I think Jesus is talking to his disciples, trying to explain the risks of following him. I’m almost certain that Matthew was trying to help his community understand the risks of the Christian way of life.

We think Matthew’s gospel was written somewhere between 85 A.D. and 130 A.D., possibly in Antioch or somewhere in Syria. If that’s so, it puts Matthew’s gospel, and Matthew’s community, squarely within the onset of the persecutions of Christians. We happen to know a good deal about these persecutions, in part due to the diary of a woman named Perpetua. Now, Perpetua was martyred in 203, so within 70 years or so of Matthew’s gospel. I suspect Matthew’s community was intimately familiar with stories like hers. And hers is a story about the risks of following Jesus.

Now, Perpetua was the daughter of a very prosperous family in Carthage, and the mother of an infant son. Perpetua and four of her friends were all catechumens, that is, candidates for baptism. Unfortunately, the Roman emperor had forbidden conversion to Christianity or Judaism, so Perpetua and her companions were arrested and imprisoned.

At that time, Christians were essentially treated as traitors, which meant not only that you would suffer the death penalty, but also that your family’s wealth and property were subject to seizure. Perpetua’s father became one of her tormentors. He came to visit her in jail and begged her to denounce her faith. When she refused, he flew into a rage and beat her. He returned again to visit her. “Have pity on your father,” he said, “if I am worthy for you to call me father. Don’t make me a subject of scorn. Think about your son too. He can’t live without you.” 

At her trial, when she refused to denounce her Christianity, the procurator ordered that she be beaten with rods and her father carried out that sentence himself. On the birthday of the emperor’s son, she was thrown into the arena with wild beasts. Because their brutal attack did not quite manage to kill her, ultimately a young gladiator killed her with a sword. So, when Matthew wrote about the gospel tearing families apart, I think he was describing the experience of his own community. I think their experience of the resurrected Christ taught them about the risks of following Jesus and taught them that death was not something they should fear. For those who believe in Jesus, who follow Jesus, there are far worse things that can happen to us than dying. By the way, Perpetua’s diary was read aloud in those secret churches in the Empire for many years.

I want to contrast her story with the story of another man, a man named Jakob Wendel. He was only 19 when he fell in with a bad crowd, a crowd of wicked and cruel and sinful men. Now, he may not have done any actual killing, but he stood guard while these men engaged in torture and murder. And when he was brought to trial, he argued that he didn’t have any choice. If he hadn’t done it, they would have killed him. Oh, I forgot to mention that Jakob was a guard in the tower of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. And from that tower, he would have seen the smoke of the crematoria, and seen the trucks pull in with tanks of Zyklon B gas. I suppose in one sense, he saved his life by working at that camp. But in other, much more profound sense, he lost his life.

And I’m in no position to judge him, because Lord knows the worst mistakes I’ve ever made in my life I made because I was afraid. But I think for those of us who follow Jesus, there are far worse things that can happen to us than dying. I’m much more afraid of becoming callous to human suffering, or turning away from it, or living in a world where cruelty is the norm, than I am of dying. The Christian life is not easy, and every day we have to make a choice, and that choice involves a risk, and it involves a struggle. We may not all be called to be martyrs, but we are all called to struggle with the question of who we are going to follow.

Every day, I struggle with that question. There are parts of me that want to follow Jesus. And there are other parts of me that want to follow James. The parts that want to follow James come much easier. They allow me to loose that sharp tongue I inherited from my mother, to decide who is worthy of love, and sometimes, to tell the Almighty Immortal Creator of all that is how the situation down here could be a whole lot better. It doesn’t require nearly as much effort as following Jesus, which asks me to practice forgiveness and grace and compassion. All of these challenge us, and require us to take a risk. There is nothing easy about this Christianity thing.

You know, when we baptize a baby, we give his family a candle, and when we confirm those baptismal promises, we give that person a bible. And those are fine gifts, fine gifts. But sometimes I think if we really wanted to prepare people for the Christian life we would give them seatbelts and a crash helmet, because this walk of faith we are taking with Jesus, it can be a bumpy road.

But we don’t have to be afraid. Just like God told Hagar in the wilderness, just like Jesus told his disciples, just like he’s telling you and me, we don’t have to be afraid. The God who knows even the number of the hairs of our head will not leave us—no matter how dark the times, no matter how difficult the road, no matter how painful the situation. We will never wander so far that we escape the notice or the love of God. Never. So, we don’t have to be afraid anymore. We really don’t.

Amen.
James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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Whom Are You Looking For? (An Easter Sermon)

Posted on April 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Well, good morning, good morning. And, because we haven’t been able to say it during those long 40 days of Lent: Alleluia!

Don’t you hate it when you lose something? It’s very frustrating, it’s unsettling. Say, you have something very precious, or something terribly dangerous, and you lock it up and put it away where no one can get to it. You hide it, or seal it up, or bury it, and when you go back, it’s not there. You search and search, but it’s just not there anymore. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I want us to imagine the desperation of these disciples, particularly Mary Magdalene and the women who go to anoint Jesus’ body. They had lost just about everything you could lose. Some had betrayed him, some had denied him, many had run away, and almost none of them could bear to watch this horror show. They had lost their dreams of a life with God, their vision that finally someone was going to do something about the Romans and their brutal occupation. They had lost their hopes for a better world, and many of them lost their self-image, their idea of who they were. And so, these women come to anoint their dead friend, to honor their dead. As Henry Nouwen wrote, “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts…” Now, I don’t think those women went to the grave that morning out of a sense of religious obligation, or some concept of duty. I think they went there out of love for their friend.

Now, we humans have known something for a very long time. We have known it ever since we crawled or loped out of the savannah, ever since those prehistoric people left their handprints on the Cueva de los Manos in Spain. We have known that “dead is dead.” Science teaches it, our experience teaches it, and our feelings of loss teach it. Dead is dead. Our broken hearts have always instructed us about the finality of death. Death is the end of the story. Or, is it?

Today’s gospel calls that assumption into question. As these women go to mourn their losses, they find that the stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty. Don’t you hate it when you’ve put something away for safekeeping and then it’s missing? And after the other disciples have confirmed that Jesus’ body is gone, Mary remains at the tomb weeping. And she doesn’t recognize Jesus at first. Grief is like that, clouding our vision and consuming our ability to focus on anything but loss. And it’s not until Jesus calls her by name that she recognizes him. My hope, no, my prayer for each of us is that we can hear God calling our names, calling us out of grief and loss and into new life.

Jesus then asks her a very pointed, and very important, question: “Whom are you looking for? In our world of heartache, loss, death, and empire, it takes a good deal of courage to go looking for Jesus. It takes a good deal of hope and strength to entertain the notion that death might not be the end of the story. Love is like that, you see. Love always goes looking for the beloved. Even when it’s scary, even when there are Roman guards there, even when it seems hopeless—love goes looking.

So, I want you to look here at the genius of John’s gospel. If you were with us for the Good Friday service, you’ll remember what John said. “Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.” Our story this morning is also set in that same garden.

If you were with us for the Vigil, you heard that story from Genesis of the very first day, the story of light coming into the world. So, I want us to look carefully at what that masterful poet John is telling us in his gospel this morning. John says these events took place “Early on the first day….” The first day. These events took place in a garden. The story of our creation takes place in a garden. This is no accident. There are no coincidences in John’s gospel. I think John is trying to tell us that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is the story of God recreating the world.  It’s the story of Jesus “making all things new again.”

Now, the forces of empire knew exactly where they had put Jesus. He was sealed in a tomb, safely locked away where he could not cause them any trouble. In this story, the might of empire is represented by the soldiers guarding the tomb. Look at the reversal that takes place when they are confronted with the power of resurrection, the power of new life. John says, “For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.”

God is in the business of creating life where there was no life before. St. Paul notes that the grave has lost its finality, writing: “O death, where is thy sting?” But I probably prefer the formulation of that fine mystic, the English poet John Donne, who said:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

Death is not the end of the story. It’s not even a period, not even a semicolon. Death is nothing more than a comma, a brief pause. You see, when Jesus walked out of the tomb, he didn’t come out alone. God’s love escaped from the tomb, escaped from the grave where the forces of empire tried to contain it.

So, we come back to these stories, these same stories, year after year at about this same time. The church calls them the stories of Jesus’ passion and resurrection. But in a broader sense, they are something more: they are love stories. In fact, they are our love stories. They are stories of God’s love for you and me, of God’s love for humanity.

This is our theology of hope; this is why we call ourselves an Easter People. Our gospel this morning teaches us that the forces of empire do not win. The powers of fear and intimidation and violence do not prevail. Death and grief do not have the last word. Darkness and the forces of hell do not win. Love always wins. Always. And even though we go down to the grave, we make our song: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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In the Beginning Again (Homily for the Great Vigil)

Posted on April 9, 2023 | 1 comment

He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. (The full readings for today can be found here.)

            Good evening, my friends, good evening. And welcome to the Great Vigil of Easter.

Did you notice that opening line of that very first reading? It’s such a fabulous first line, a cardinal statement: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”

But we might well wonder, Why is the Church giving us that story this evening, as we celebrate the great vigil? What does this have to do with Easter—with the empty tomb? It’s almost as if the Church were trying to tell us something, as if the Church were offering a glimpse into the nature of God through the lens of these readings. I think the Church is trying to give us some insight into God’s professional life, God’s business. You see, I think God is in the business of creating life where there was no life before. And there’s only one reason for that sort of creative impulse, that need to form and shape something new. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, I want us to imagine the state of mind of the disciples, particularly these women, going to anoint Jesus’ body for his burial. Not only have they witnessed the brutal horror of Jesus’ death, not only have they lost their friend and teacher, but they’ve also seen a dream die. They had dreamed of a life with Jesus, of a life filled with God’s love; they had dreamed of a better world. So they went to the tomb to honor their friend, to honor their loss, to honor the dead.

But they didn’t find any death there, because our God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Our God, as we said earlier, is in the business of new life. Our God is in the business of calling light out of the darkness, of creating new life out of nothing more than His love.

We see that new life happening this evening, right before our eyes. God is on the loose again tonight at St. Christopher By the Sea, doing that God thing. God is about to make a new thing, another Genesis story, in the baptisms of Addison and Wayne. And, while we don’t know yet what paths they will walk down in their lives to come, we know who will always walk with them.

Looking back to the readings tonight, I’m pretty sure that the forces of empire were certain that the story of Jesus was over. In fact, they were certain he was not only dead, but buried. But God, like love, is never static; neither God nor love will be contained. And I want to suggest to you that something more than Jesus escaped from that grave—pure love rolled away the stone, unadulterated love walked out of that tomb, and love told those dear women that he would meet them again in Galilee.

Many of us have tried to keep God in a box. We try to create a spiritual ghetto—over here is where I keep my work life, and over here is where I keep my family stuff, and this box here is where I keep my religion. That box we try to keep God in, well, it’s nothing more than a grave, a tomb. And if today’s Gospel teaches us anything, it teaches us that God will not stay where we put Him. This is our hope; this is why we call ourselves Easter people, my friends. He is not dead; he is risen. Alleluia!

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022



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What is Truth?(Good Friday)

Posted on April 7, 2023 | 1 comment

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” (The full readings for this morning can be found here.)

In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us.Good evening, good evening. It’s good to be back with you again.

 You know, sometimes, when I look at the readings for a given Sunday, my first thought as a preacher is “There’s just not much there to talk about.”  That is definitely not the case with the readings for tonight. Rather, this is like trying to get a drink from a firehose. So, I want to highlight just a few passages from this story of Jesus’ Passion. As we read the Gospel for today, we cannot help but wince as we recall Jesus’ words: “This is my body. This is my blood.”

 So, we talked yesterday about the wonderful observation of Jürgen Moltmann, who said that all of our thinking about God, especially our theology of hope, must be accomplished “within earshot of the dying Christ.” Well, tonight we can hear Christ all too clearly. In fact, we may want to plug our ears, but we mustn’t do that, or we’ll miss something very important.

Now, I love my friend John’s gospel. John is a poet, and everything is his Gospel is laden with layers of meaning. In this Gospel, there are no accidents, and there are no coincidences. So, we all remember the fabulous story of Moses on Mt. Horeb when he encounters the burning bush. God tells Moses to take off his sandals because he’s standing on holy ground and tells him that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Moses asks him his name, God replies, “I am that I am.” We call this the Great I Am, and it implies that everything that has existence, everything that is, exists because of and through God.

Now, let’s see what this poet John does with that idea. When the soldiers and Pharisees come to the Garden of Gethsemane asking for Jesus, he replies, “I am he.” As Jesus hangs on the cross, dying, he says, “I am thirsty.” Now let’s look at how John treats Peter, Jesus’ close friend. You’ll recall that Peter had sworn, “Even though they all fall away, I will not leave you.” And Peter does follow Jesus—right up to the courtyard of the high priest. But when a woman asks Peter if he’s one of Jesus’ disciples he replies, “ I am not.” I am….not. Again, as he tries to warms himself, the crowd asks if Peter was a disciple of Jesus. Peter again says, “I am not.” Peter’s repudiation is actually a denial of his association with God.

I don’t want to judge Peter too harshly. There have certainly been times in my life when I walked away from God, even pushed God away. Sometimes, we all find our fears to be overpowering. This is especially true when confronted with the power of empire, especially an empire as brutal as the Roman empire. You may recall we talked on Maundy Thursday about Jesus and the great commandment: the notion that people would know we follow Jesus by our love.

But a love like that will stick out like a sore thumb in a place like the Roman Empire. Whether it’s Pharoah or Caesar or Vladimir Putin, empire only wants one thing: more—more bricks, more oil, more guns, more land. Empire concerns itself with expansion and self-preservation. Love is concerned, fiercely, with the other.

We see this distinction exposed in the discussion between Pilate and Jesus. Revealing his primary concern with empire, Pilate begins by asking Jesus if he is a king. Jesus doesn’t answer the question, or rather, answers the question with a question of his own. Pilate then asks “What have you done?” And Jesus doesn’t answer this question. Rather, he now goes back to the first question, and says that he is a king in another place. Jesus tells Pilate that he came into the world to testify to the truth. Now, Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” Later, Pilate asks, “Where are you from?” And Jesus doesn’t answer. In frustration, Pilate then demands, “”Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Do you not know that I have the power to hang you up on a tree like a scarecrow?

Does it seem to you that these two men are having a failure to communicate? Although they may be speaking the same language, they don’t share a common vocabulary or a common point of reference. Pilate asks the question, “What is truth?” He doesn’t seem to know and I’m not sure he really cares. In reality, the Truth is standing right in front of him. The Truth is about to be beaten and crucified—because in a world dominated by empire, truth and love will stand out like a sore thumb. Empire doesn’t have any use for truth, but Pilate reveals his real concern. His concern, and his last question, is about power. That is the nature of empire.

Fear and violence are the principal tools, the fundamental weapons of empire. And the Cross was just such a tool. You know, it’s said that for the first century or so, the fish and not the cross, was the primary symbol of Christianity. And I think that’s because no one who had actually seen a crucifixion could bear to see the Cross used in that way, they could not yet imagine it as an avatar of faith. For them, the Cross marked only terror and brutality. Those forces can only be overcome through the strongest force known to humanity. Only love can overcome them.

We see that love demonstrated as Jesus hangs on the Cross, dying. He looks down upon his mother and the beloved disciple, the only ones who remained with him, or the only people who could bear to watch this horror show. And as he’s dying, he says to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” He tells his disciple, “Here is your mother.” It is a moment of unbelievable tenderness, a moment of redefining family as a community of love and loss, an expression of God’s concern for those left behind even in these final moments of agony.

So, what does this story mean for us as Christians in the 21st century, some two thousand years after these events? Well, among other things, I think it means that God intended to share in the entire human experience: pain, hunger, thirst, weddings, joy, glory, sorrow and loss, and even shame and death. God reached into the entire human experience, knew it firsthand, touched it, and made it sacred. It means that there is no part of our lives that God does not understand and will not share with us.

I want to suggest to you that it was not iron nails that fastened Jesus to the Cross. Rather, Jesus was held there by the love of God for all of humanity. In a real sense, the Cross is God’s statement to the world: do your very worst. You can beat me, mock me, scorn me, betray me, deny me, hang me on a tree like a scarecrow, and even kill me. Do your very worst, and I will still love you. And thus, the Cross was changed, transubstantiated, from an instrument of torture and shame into a symbol of hope and love. God’s love overcomes empire, terror, and death. And that’s got to be “good news.”Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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Maundy Thursday (The Great Commandment)

Posted on April 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. The full readings for today can be found here.)

In the name of the living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Good evening, good evening. And thank you and Father John for inviting me to spend this Holy Week with you at St. Christopher by the Sea. And as we go through these holy days we call the Triduum, I want us to view these days, these sacred days, not as isolated worship services, but as a week-long single service that began last week with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It was a day of joy, a day of laughter, a day when the crowds proclaimed that Jesus was the king. And things would end up so very differently.

One of my favorite theologians, a man named Jürgen Moltmann, said that all theology must be conducted within earshot of the dying Christ. We’re going to come back to that again over the next several days, but it’s worth repeating: all of our thinking about God, especially that which concerns our hope for ourselves and humanity, must take place within earshot of the Cross. Well, in our readings for this evening, the shadow of the Cross looms very large.

So, we’ve all heard the question before, and maybe we’ve even thought about the answer for ourselves: “What would you do if you knew it was your last night on earth?” In this passage from John’s gospel, we see Jesus’ answer to that question. He has a final meal with his closest friends, even those who will betray and deny him. And John tells us, “he loved them to the end.”

And then, Jesus does something astonishing. He washes the feet of his disciples. In that culture, a culture that placed tremendous importance on honor and shame, that was considered the work of a servant, a slave. And this scene is in stark contrast with the entry into Jerusalem in which the crowd proclaimed him a king. This shocking lack of dignity is not the work of a rabbi, let alone the task of a king. But this loss of dignity is nothing compared to that which will come just a few hours later. After all, we are, as Moltmann observed, within earshot of the Cross.

And so, it’s no wonder that Peter suffers from a bit of cognitive dissonance because these two things just can’t go together. Or maybe this scene involves a level of vulnerability that Peter just isn’t comfortable with. Jesus tells Peter that unless he washes his feet, Peter will have no share in him. It’s an unusual phrase. But I think Jesus is telling Peter that we, as disciples, must learn not only to care for each other recklessly, but also to allow others to care for us without regard to our dignity or theirs. We have to learn vulnerability if our love is going to mean anything at all.

You see, I think Jesus came to live among us to show us what God was like. That’s part of the mystery of the Incarnation. And Jesus shows us an image of a God who is willing to take the risk of looking foolish in order to show us what love looks like. We like to think that love is all soft, and cuddly, covered in glitter and bathed in golden light. But if you’ve been around a while, you know that love is more often about taking risks, sometimes terrible risks. And tomorrow, we’ll find out just how high a price God is willing to pay for loving us.

Now comes the lynchpin of this gospel passage. Jesus tells his disciples: “if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” That’s what he said to the disciples; that’s what he’s still saying to you and me. Tonight, we’ll symbolically enact that teaching when we wash each other’s feet. But, when we leave and go into the world, we’ll have a chance to embody, to incarnate that teaching when we show God’s people—especially those who aren’t particularly loveable—that we love them.

That may mean working at a food bank, or offering a meal to a homeless family, or visiting someone who’s terribly ill. It might mean backing away from a party to look for someone who’s left out, who’s friendless, who’s lonely. It might mean going on a medical mission, or working with the water ministry. Through God’s grace, we are offered thousands of chances every day to show God’s people that we love them. Love them when it’s hard, love them when it hurts, love them until the end.

Jesus tells us: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” It’s not a difficult rule to understand, but it’s hard to live out. It’s as hard as the nails of the Cross. Martin Luther King once explained the purpose of this commandment:

“the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

Love is a powerful force. It is the only force that has ever brought about real change in our world. Genuine love does not ask how much this will cost, or what people will think, or whether this person deserves our love.

Jesus tells us that by that kind of love, people will know that we are his disciples. So, it turns out that our identity as Christians has very little to do with sticking a fish decal on our car, or dressing in our Sunday best, or which political party we support. And it isn’t really about feet at all, except that it is. The last thing Jesus wanted his disciples to know, the most important thing he wants us to know, is that love defines our common life, defines our humanity. Tonight, we will strip the altar bare, take away all the finery, remove all the trappings. And if anything remains here in this Church, if anything remains in your heart, let it be love. Amen.

James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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    Seeing with Eyes of Blessing

    Posted on January 29, 2023 | 2 comments

    When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain . . . .Then he began to speak, and taught them. Matt. 5:1. (The full text for this morning’s readings can be found here.)

    In the name of the Living God, who is making all things new. Good morning, good morning. I want to thank Father Holloway for asking me back again and thank you all once more for your generous hospitality.

    You know, there’s an idea floating around in Christianity today, and it’s been around for a while. This notion still has a lot of adherents today, and you can hear many of them on television. But this doctrine is well summed up in a story that Oral Roberts used to tell. It goes back to a time in 1947 when Roberts was going through a time of crisis in his life and ministry.

    Well, around this time, through a friend who owned a Buick dealership, Roberts was able to acquire a brand-new shiny Buick automobile. According to Roberts, the “new car became a symbol to me of what a man can do if he would believe God.” His first book on this topic was entitled “God’s Formula for Success and Prosperity.” Like I said, that notion is still running around today. And that idea, which suggests that God’s love for us can be measured by our financial well-being, is sometimes called the Prosperity Gospel.

    And there’s a theological term for it. We call it poppycock. We call it gibberish; we call it balderdash. If you have any doubts about it, all you need to do is study today’s gospel—because that’s not what Jesus is saying. Not at all.

    Now, this story appears very early in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus is baptized, he calls his disciples and then begins teaching and healing and the crowds start following him. And this story describes Jesus’ very first sermon, the first teaching that Matthew records. And Matthew wants to place Jesus in a historical context and a spiritual context. Like Moses, Jesus ascends to the mountain. Matthew wants to point his readers—us—to the notion that Jesus is the new Moses.

    Rather than a tablet of laws, however, Jesus offers us a set of descriptions or signposts that point the way to the kingdom of heaven. Rather than a set of rules, he describes the surprising people that God treasures, and along the way shows us what a life with God would look like. They describe a divine reality we already live in, but can’t always see.

    When we look at the world, any fool can see that meek don’t look very blessed. They didn’t inherit the earth then, and they’re still not inheriting it. And the merciful, they don’t seem to get much mercy. I’ve known way too many who mourn and they are still looking for their comfort. I’ve seen too many peacemakers laughed at, scorned and called unpatriotic. And those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, well, they’re still hungry and they’re still thirsty.

    If we’re really honest as we look at the world today, we’d say something like blessed are the well-to-do, for they can send their kids to good schools. And blessed are the really attractive people in this world, because their road is going to be a lot easier. Or, too often, blessed are those without much of a conscience, because they will find a way to get it done even when it’s built on deception or hurting good people. If we’re honest, we have to admit that the world Jesus describes is not really the world we’ve made for ourselves.

    But it can be. In one sense, I think these beatitudes are a daring protest against the world around us. Jesus is announcing: this is not how God meant for us to live. This is not how things have to be. God sees this world very differently than most people do. And if we want to share in this kingdom-vision, we can begin by reexamining our values and the people who are down on their luck. Because in God’s story, in God’s story, we find some very surprising heroes.

    These beatitudes teach us that the people that God calls holy, the people that God cherishes, are those who are vulnerable. Not the spiritual whizkids, but the poor in spirit. This world admires those who are strong, follows those who are influential, and marvels at blustery braggarts. But those are not the people that God embraces.  

    We can hear echoes of other parts of the gospel here. When Mary finds out she’s pregnant, she announces that God is going to scatter the proud and lift up the lowly. He will send the rich away empty and fill the bellies of the poor. He will pull the mighty from their seats and raise up the meek. Or maybe we hear the echo of Jesus saying that the first will be last and the last will be first. Or maybe we hear the resonance of Jesus telling us that the stone that the builder has rejected has become the cornerstone. All of us have experienced, at one time or another, that sort of rejection. We have all, at some time, been broken.

    If we look at the people Jesus is talking about, the people this world rejects and calls losers, we find one common trait. They are vulnerable. The beatitudes teach us that the people God calls holy are broken people. And maybe that’s where we’ll find an insight into God’s mercy: it evades the appearance of perfection and reaches into the broken parts of the world to mend it. And maybe, just maybe, if we drink from the deep well of grace, we’ll learn to be like children, who show their scars like medals they’ve won.

    I think that Jesus offered us these beatitudes, these blessings, to show us the world that God sees, to show us a vision that is too often clouded by the cataracts of sin and self-assurance.  The gospel text today begins with the idea that Jesus “saw” the crowds. There’s a world of difference between looking and seeing. I think Jesus turned his penetrating gaze right into the broken hearts and souls of those very ordinary people who were listening to him.

    So maybe that’s the challenge of today’s gospel. Maybe we are called to look upon the broken people—the vulnerable people in this world—and see them as a blessing. Maybe this passage calls out to us to bless them, and be blessed by them. I think Jesus’ vision of the kingdom calls us to see the world through the lens of mercy, through the eyes of those with pure hearts, from the perspective of those who’ve experienced a terrible loss.

    These blessings are a protest against the world-as-it-is, and a call for us to reshape our lives as a people who have experienced the gift of failure. Jesus teaches us that our full humanity lies along the road of loss and the messiness of want and longing. Our deep hope, as opposed to a superficial optimism, lies in learning to live with compassion.

    Sometimes I look at God’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and I think it is the light of the world. And sometimes, I look at it, and I think it’s the Island of Broken Toys. And on my best days, on my very best days, I can look at it and see that it is both. Amen.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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    A Eulogy

    Posted on December 17, 2022 | 9 comments

    Good morning. My name is James Dennis. Sue Patton was my aunt, my father’s baby sister, and my godmother. She lived with my family until I was about four or five years old. She took me to my first movie, which was Bambi. She was crazy about me, and I was crazy about her. She was like a second mother to me, and there were times when I wished she was my mother. That may sound mean, but just so y’all know, there were also times when my mother felt the same way — times when my mom also wished that Sue was my mother.

    And before she passed away, Sue asked if I would speak to y’all this morning. So, before I go much further, on behalf of the family, I want to thank y’all for coming this morning, and to thank you for what you meant to Sue.

    You know, it seems an odd thing, a funeral service during this season of Advent. It’s odd because of the stark contrast between this season of joy and bright ribbons and Christmas carols and our feelings of loss and grief. It hardly seems fair that we would place upon this infant, this child and his mother, not only all our dreams and desires, our hope really, but also our grief and our sorrow. We come here, as though this child and his mother could take away our pain, as though they could make it stop hurting. It seems unfair to ask this child and his mother to bear all that weight. But you know, I think that’s exactly what they intended to do.

    Sue was born in 1941, the youngest daughter of a West Texas ranching family, and raised in Rotan, Texas. Until the family moved to town, she grew up on the ranch. Now, we called it ranch, but it was really just a large piece of scraggly property for the family to collectively starve to death and raise some very skinny cows. And we somehow managed to own what I think was the only real estate in the State of Texas where there was virtually no oil.

    While in school, Sue was a cheerleader and lettered in basketball and tennis. In high school, she also met the central love of her life, my uncle Ed Patton. Somehow, these two have no memory of knowing each other before that, although they lived only 3 blocks apart.

    Now, you need to know something about my family. It is full of scoundrels and scallywags and rascals. To be a full-fledged member of our family you need just a touch of larceny in your heart. And Sue had just the right amount of it. For example, I’m told that she and my uncle Ed occasionally liberated a watermelon or two from the soil of a neighbor’s yard. And every now and then, she would sneak into the swimming pool in Rotan, climbing over the fence at night with her friend Jan after the pool was closed. Like I said, I come from a family of scoundrels so Sue knew exactly when the police would patrol and knew where to hide so that she could avoid the lights of the police. My aunt was fearless.

    Sue and Ed dated through high school, but broke up when Ed went to UT. They resumed dating a couple of years later and were married in 1964. When they married, Ed joked that he married into half of Fisher and Stonewall counties, because the joinder of these two ranching families left them related somehow to just about everyone in the vicinity.

    They had three children, and their daughter Beth is with us today. Beth also remembers my aunt having a rebellious side. For example, when Beth and Edward would beg her, she would race home in their van.  And I want you to imagine my aunt racing through the streets of Abilene in a van, while Beth and Edward jumped up and down in the back, in a competition to see who would fall down first. Beth would tell you that her mom always thought the best of people and was devoted to helping others and making people feel good about themselves.

    In 1968, the family moved to Calgary and my family went to visit them there with my grandmother. While we were there, they Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the Mounties) celebrated their 150th anniversary. The Queen came for the celebration. And somehow, in my 7 year-old mind, I concluded that my aunt must be very special because the Queen of England came to see her. And, I therefore concluded that I must be very special because I came to visit my aunt as well. I was a very confused child. But I was right about two things: my aunt was very special, and I was special because she made me feel that way.

    Mother Teresa of Calcutta famously said, not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. So, I want to talk to you about a few of the things that Sue loved. She loved Ed and Beth fiercely and was devoted to her family and friends. And Olivia. Olivia, you need to know that you were the diamond of her life, and there was not a single day on this earth that she did not treasure you. You could always make her laugh, and just the mention of your name brought an incandescence to her face.

    She loved genealogy and traced the family history of the Dennis family and the Patton family. I think she loved this because she had a promiscuous curiosity. You see, we come from a family of great storytellers, and I think Sue just wanted to know the stories.

    And Sue loved her church, and I think served it well. She was the first female President of the Pastoral Council here at Holy Family. And she found great joy in arranging flowers and creating beauty. And even where the liturgical color of the season was simply white, she often would find a way to slip just a bit of color into the arrangement. Like I said, she was a bit of a rebel.

    Mostly, Sue loved people. And she loved making them feel welcomed and respected and valued and even loved. That was her gift. So, what do we do with this loss?

    Like my aunt, I have known grief, known it too often and known it too well. And I read something really insightful recently by Maria Popova wrote. She wrote:


    “Grief is the shadow love casts in the light of loss. The grander the love, the vaster the shadow. So much of who we are — who we discover ourselves to be — takes shape in that [shadowy] space as we fumble for some edge to hold onto, some point of light to orient by.”

    Sue knew grief and understood loss and having your heart broken. And in her it produced her a remarkable compassion for and understanding of broken hearts and people who were down on their luck. She was fearless in her generosity.

    So, if you find yourself grieving this loss, I want to encourage you to pay attention to your tears. They are a holy spring that tells us how much Sue mattered to us. They tell us about ourselves and about the people that were important to us and the love that we felt. But hopefully, we have something else to remember. You see, just this Thanksgiving, Beth was talking with Sue and asked her to reflect a moment. Beth asked her, “What would you say about your life?” And Sue answered, “I had a wonderful life.” And she did.

                I’ll close with an observation, a kind of prayer, that we sing in my church. We say, “All of us go down to the dust. But even though we go down to the grave we make our song, “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!” And so, I would tell you, this was a wonderful life. Alleluia, my friends.

    James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2022

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