I am a progressive ELCA pastor who is passionate about lots of things, mostly, the liberating nature of God who is known as love, justice, inclusion, and healing from all sorts of trauma, including those inflicted by religion. This is my personal page. The viewpoints are mine. Matthew 25 is a guiding principle for life and ministry, "When did we see you, Jesus, and do?" When did we not?"
Yesterday’ preaching text was Luke’s version of the Lord’ Prayer. I am always taken by the communal nature of the prayer – i.e. “our bread, our trespasses/sins/debts‘ deliver us, lead us not . . .”
I became more aware, sometime in the last 2 decades, while co-leading a Bible study of this text/prayer just how communal it was. I was teaching about “ give us this day our daily bread” in a community where hunger and need for clean drinking water were daily issues. Who was I to have such regular abundance when these new friends, these children of God, these people who also prayed for “our daily bread,” would go hungry more often than not?
There are definitely orchestrated political and economic policies and events which exacerbate (if not institute) these situations. In the US it is frowned upon to mention such things from the pulpit, lest the preacher be deemed “too political.”
I mentioned them from the pulpit yesterday. I spoke of starving children in Gaza and the forces that were letting food ROT rather than let it feed the hungry. That’s about as far as I went with it when I started to note a few people giving each other that look that says “she’s gone about as close to the line as she can without crossing it.” I will respect that look until God calls me to do otherwise. I have been with this beloved congregation nearly 13 years and I love what we are able to do within the constraints of communal decision-making.
So, I started this blog – for those things about which I feel compelled to explore further. It reflects my opinions in the midst of my own calling and discernment to see Jesus “in the least of these.” (Mt 25) and to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with my God.” (Micah 6:8)
I stumbled across this hymn today by a very talented contemporary hymn writer. Musicians, artists, and poets have the ability to take us into places that preachers often cannot. You may recognize the tune from “Oh sacred head now wounded.”
What we have done/not done for the “least of these” is our message on how we have treated Jesus.
Luke 14 – 25 Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.
Paraphrasing Martin Luther.
“What does this even mean?!!!
This passage has been troublesome for me and many for a long time. Our congregation has a Wednesday morning Bible study group that has been together for a while now. We discussed the passage just yesterday. There were as many thoughts as there were people in the group. It is difficult to overlay our admittedly middle-class US lifestyles over this in a way that makes sense in any meaningful way. Though I think “hate” is a strong word for translation, I’m pretty convinced it is a First Commandment situation: You shall have no other gods.”
The first disciples who were called by Jesus literally left their nets, the family business, and everything else to follow Jesus. But we have families. And we have stuff. And we have responsibilities – God knows!
It has been quite a week. My husband and I live in a small city, a college town. Last Friday, we were eating out at a really nice restaurant for the first time in a long time. By “long time,” I mean that our anniversary was on June 1 (40 years – yay us!) and we were having our first nice meal out since before then. I got a call about a church related crisis during the meal. I won’t go into details. We did order dessert. But then, we went and addressed the situation. We were out until 11 pm until things were adequately sorted out for the night.
I spent an afternoon in court related to that event and more time during the week.
A couple of evenings ago, a dear friend, colleague, and parishioner – all in one – had a medical emergency. Because of our relationship, and my husband’s no-nonsense attitude and professional experience, he had been named Power of Attorney for healthcare by this beloved Child of God. That was before dementia started to steal her away from us. We, her out-of-state family, and the nurse at the facility agreed it would be best to have her checked out at the local hospital. This was early evening. She went in by local ambulance. We met her in the Emergency Department. Having worked in hospice for decades, hubby is big on individual dignity and autonomy in healthcare.
We had many conversations with her out-of-state family and her local friends that night. The attending physician wanted to transport her to a larger hospital 45 minutes away, in the opposite direction from all of her support people. If we could take her 45 minutes in the OTHER direction, she would have had many, and I mean MANY people who love her, who could visit and offer support as needed. We all decided that our friend should not be transported until morning because an overnight transport would frighten her and take her out of her support community. And she was at a point in her life where she wished no extraordinary measures be taken to prolong her life. Her wishes had been put in writing quite some time before her memory started going. A transport would temporarily rescind her wishes. If she were in transit, they would be required to resuscitate her by any means necessary. We talked with this friend, who seemed relieved to not travel overnight. We talked to the Dr who seemed to understand. We thought everyone was on the same page, finally. We could weigh more options in the morning. Exhausted by decision fatigue, my husband and I left for home at about 10:45. At 10:58, the ER doc signed orders to have her transferred to the community that no one else agreed to. (Paperwork later showed that this was a “non-emergent” transfer. No lights, siren, or rush.) The ER doc called at 1:30 am to leave that message that she had been transported. We were so exhausted, we did not hear the notification and only found out at about 7 am.
My husband took the next day off work to be with her, answer questions, and communicate with everyone who needed information.
Another friend is with her today.
I will go tomorrow (Friday).
Family
Today is still only Thursday. On Monday, we received notice that my husband’s uncle passed away. This was someone who was in the family business with hubby’s dad and grandpa. They lived in the same small town. The cousins all grew up together, went to Catholic School, mass, and high school together. They had family meals where grandma would make homemade ravioli from scratch – sauce, sausage, dough, and everything! They dropped in on each other’s homes without notice. They were very close. The funeral is on Saturday. We had talked about going. The funeral is a five-hour one-way drive. On a Saturday. We are both preaching on Sunday. I found myself sending this text to hubby’s three sisters this morning.
Even if we could find someone to cover our Sunday responsibilities, we are probably too tired to make the drive. It is one of the many decisions we have had to make in the past 40 years or so in which we have chosen the person in the greatest perceived crisis to direct our attention toward.
I have always felt that to apply this verse from Luke to my own life and ministry would have been self-aggrandizing. Who am I to say I am that unselfish or such a good follower of Jesus. I’m not. I try, but I always fall short of my own expectations. I can only imagine the Almighty frequently doing a facepalm about me. i can twiddle away time with the best of procrastinators. I didn’t always handle our stress in the best way. Sometimes, I just wanted to forget, or not feel. There is an old theological saying that goes back to the Latin which is basically that “we are all saint and sinner at the same time.” Lutheran theology generally leaves us pretty humble.
I know this has often left us letting family down. We have grown children. We tried to make family our priority as much as we possible could, but we couldn’t always. There is no way to take back time we missed with them. We did the best we could as much as we could. We had vacation time, and took some cool vacations, day trips, and adventures in our own home, but when they had weekends off, we usually worked. I’ve missed some big extended family Easter Dinners when we only live a half hour from hubby’s family – because after Easter at church, my energy and ability to socialize were running on empty. Same with Christmas.
We will try our best to pay our respects to Uncle Julius. Somehow. He was a pretty remarkable guy who paid some big prices for being a truth teller. I’m pretty sure he would understand. But, he’s already on the other side of these kinds of worries. RIP.
I don’t think those early disciples that were simply called to “follow me” had any idea what Jesus had in mind when he talked about making choices between following him and family priorities. Certainly, there is a weird balance between self-care/family-care and outward ministry. I do know, that in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus already had his “face set toward Jerusalem” by chapter 14. That means, he was trying to prepare the disciples for the awful things to come.
I am relieved by the Gospel of John’s account (ch 21) in which even though Peter denied even knowing Jesus 3 times during the “night in which he was betrayed,” AFTER the resurrection, Jesus addressed Peter directly.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
God be merciful to all those who are trying to be faithful followers, screw it up, try again, screw it up, try again . . .
Help us to choose our priorities well. Help us to hear your words of absolution when we cannot declare them to ourselves. Give us rest when we need it. And give us clarity of YOUR vision for all your children.
People’s March, January 18, 2025, Keynote Address:Hope, Healing, and Human Rights
Rev Dr Pamela Marolla
Galesburg, IL
I introduce myself, thank the leaders, acknowledged other religions and forms of spirituality.
We find our healing in hope. Hope is that which brings us here together today. Thank you for being here.
This should be no surprise, but we are all humans.
The reason I say that is because it shouldn’t have to be spoken.
Do you know that human rights were not often considered in the history of the world..
But every time people lost that awareness, historically every time we took our eye off of human rights, we became terrible people.
Look at history. Holocausts, genocides, slavery, war
So, I am of German ancestry. I grew up as a child of the 60s and 70s. and I couldn’t imagine, when I started studying history, and learned about WWII, I couldn’t imagine how MY PEOPLE did such evil things.
As an inquisitive person, I started studying. And my husband who was an American Studies Major and loves history–helped me out, and we started taking vacations to places like holocaust museums. That doesn’t sound like much fun. It wasn’t. But what we learned is that people don’t just wake up in the morning and say, “you know, I think I want to be a Nazi, I’m gonna try that on.“
It doesn’t work that way. It takes years, decades, generations of – – grooming.
That grooming starts with something very simple. It starts with dehumanizing language. My husband and I were in the car yesterday and in about 15 minutes we came up with this list* (showed the group my legal pad) of dehumanizing language.)
And this is where I want to talk to even the youngest people here. We can stop that in our own homes, among our closest friends and family.
I’ll tell you, we had a big extended family gathering for Thanksgiving, And someone suggested that we not talk politics. (Seems like a good idea right? I got some amens at the live event.) Well, my transgender niece said “Then I’m not coming!” (crowd laughs)
Because if all you see me as is a political issue, you’re not my family.
I want you to think about some of those dehumanizing words, because if you don’t have practice in calling it out, you don’t know.
People get tagged as body parts, or animals. “That guy is a horses patoot.” “She’s a b****” There was a little child in Galesburg restaurant this morning was called the N word. (groans in crowd)
No! That is dehumanizing. Dogs, pigs, vermin, scum, retard, snowflake, crackhead, towel head. I’m not even going to start with the rest of the words that you are all familiar with.
Just this morning, a child was called the N-word in a local restaurant.
But talk about dehumanizing words in your homes. Because even the smallest child, maybe especially the smallest child, the concrete thinker isn’t scared when telling their friends,
“that’s not nice. That’s a person.” Older kids and adults can flat out say “that’s dehumanizing.” (A tiny kid just said something to their mommy for all of us to hear – it was adorable.)
Dehumanizing is a way to “other” someone you don’t agree with. Or someone who is different than we are.
Or someone in an entirely other country – or neighborhood that is in war, poverty, or squalor
that we just can’t muster up enough empathy to care about
When it’s someone who crosses a border faced with razor wire
their children and ours are the same. They drink the samemilk.They need the same love. The adults do as well.
But To dehumanize someone with words is a step toward legitimizing the treatment of them inhumanely
Note this –
Learn from history because history is repeating itself. And if we don’t stop it in our homes, or in our community,we have no way of stopping it at a larger level (applause)
Kudos to all of you who are running for office and all of you who have held office.
Some of us are getting tired. We need you guys – everybody to do something. Whether you are a seasoned protester, or you’ve never done anything before. Like just this, this is big for you. Congratulations! You’re here!
I see you! We see each other!
But don’t just come out today and say “I did something.” It’s easy to speak out when you are among like-minded people. Step outside your comfort level once in a while. Do something. Stop the dehumanizing language at home and family if that is your first step. Then, start talking to more influential people. Talk to your city council members, county board, or anybody on any board. If they are progressive, they are going to need encouragement! If they are doing terrible things – call them out.
Because of the dark side, Yoda talks about the dark side in one of my favorite quotes– fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.And suffering leads to the dark side.
Instead of using “the dark side” which I don’t like. Use the word inhumanity
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to inhumanity
Inhumanity is putting children in cages
Inhumanity is taking away a woman’s bodily autonomy
Inhumanity is choosing war over diplomacy because rich people can make more money from war.
Our beloved Jimmy Carter used to say “We cannot make peace by killing each other’s children.”
We need to stay strong and stay together. You see when progressives use dehumanizing language, That’s not our wheelhouse. So, when the Right catches us it always ends badly.
Basket full of deplorables? How’d that go?
No. We use humanizing terms with people we disagree with or disrespect deeply. Whether we agree or not, they too were created to be treated as a human.
Let’s show them a better way. Let’s show them what it is to be humane
Do you know that women didn’t have the right to an abuse-less home until someone prosecuted a spouse beater through Humane Society laws?
(That one struck the crowd!)
(people in the crowd – “Yep, your dog had more rights than you.”
Another – “Couldn’t even get a charge card til ‘71”
– “I was born before you could get a checking account”
– or a house
Your grandparents stayed together because your grandpa was an abuser and grandma couldn’t leave him. She didn’t have the ability. She didn’t have the financial ability to leave him.
Your husband could rape you without repercussions
People deserve humanity
The Human Rights commission that was developed by the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt after the horrors of WWII was made up from Nations from all over the world. They realized that things had gotten waaay out of hand. To say the very least.
They came up with a list of things that every human on the planet ought to deserve.
They agreed that people had freedoms – they should be free from torture; free to express themselves; free to educate in PUBLIC SCHOOLS – everybody wanted good public education for all the children. So that our kids could learn critical thinking skills and not get sucked into the vortex of, shall we call it, mis-information.
Some of these Human rights were –
The right to seek asylum,
The right to life, liberty, and privacy
The right to social security
The right to health – and adequate housing
The United States has stepped off of the UN Human Rights Council
The US stepped off
We need to step on
Step on?
(crowd)
Step on – We will step it on. Yes
We Will March it on. (cheering)
Look around you today. Take a look. Take names.
Because the times are not going to get easier.
I am a Christian – for us it is not “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering and inhumanity.” No. For us, we know that suffering leads to endurance, endurance leads to character, and character leads to hope! And hope does not disappoint.
So if you need hope, call a friend. Call someone else that’s here. Because those of us who are considered leaders. We get tired too. And we need so much encouragement. And we need everybody to walk together. Healing comes from community.
Liberals, we are so bad at this. We are not good at this. We say,
“Well, I’m not going to the peoples march because it’s a women’s march.”
“I don’t agree 100% with that person leading it.”
“We don’t do things like that”
No!
(Someone Crowd) – Stand up or shut up.
I repeat yes, “stand up or shut up.” (lots of cheering)
So talk to the people you disagree with
Lean in to the people you agree with
and make this a better Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois, and country.
*The list of dehumanizing names we came up with in 15 minutes –
Animal reference
Body parts, functions
Reversals (calling a good or neutral thing bad) also making illiteracy a good thing
Filthy things
Action slurs
Bitch, jack-ass, vermin, dirty rat, rat bastard, pig, snake, chicken, dog, cur, toad, lousy, ape, monkey, fat cow
Horses patoot, ass, dick, ___head (crack, towel), old fart, shit, heel,
We cannot look away from history but must learn from it.
Human Rights – after the horrors of WWII, countries from all over the world formed the UN owning the atrocities committed during these years. They wanted to establish a global foundation for what it is to be human and what humanity deserves.
If you visit a Holocaust Museum or even their websites – you will understand that wars don’t begin with weapons. They begin with words. Dehumanizing words and orchestrated propaganda. (talk about these words together.)
“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.” Yoda, The Phantom Menace
Instead of “Dark Side,” I would choose the word inhumanity. Let’s talk about those dehumanizing words.
Fear – Anger – hate – suffering – inhumanity
On the other hand, there is another way when things are difficult.
Hope – Is what gives us the motivation to do courageous things – to do what is right and just. We receive hope when we witness others practicing humanity and standing up to those who do not.
Healing – occurs when we find community that stands with us. It does not come without intention or collaboration. We need to show each other that we are all doing our part. Please do not think that just because you don’t consider yourself a community leader, that you don’t have a part to play. Leaders are getting weary. Everyone must do their part as they did after WWII – BEFORE the world becomes completely driven by inhumanity. It’s been repeated throughout recorded history. Find your spiritual grounding. Find like-minded people. Consider what you can do. Do it. Rest. Repeat. Some of my spiritual groundings are printed below.
. . .suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. (Romans 5) . . . but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40)
Resources And Links Below
UN Declaration of Human Rights Adopted: December 10, 1948
Note – the US has rejected many of these rights and has stepped away from the Human Rights Council for many reasons.
Women delegates from various countries played a key role in getting women’s rights included in the Declaration. Hansa Mehta of India (standing above Eleanor Roosevelt) is widely credited with changing the phrase “All men are born free and equal” to “All people.” The UN’s objectives, as outlined by its charter, include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law.[5] At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; as of 2024, it has 193 sovereign states, nearly all of the world’s recognized sovereign states.[6]
RDP WRITES 