Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

May 17, 2026

Romans 13:8-14

⁸ Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. ¹¹ Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹² the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off^[a] the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; ¹³ let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

–

Last week, we heard from Paul’s letter to the early church at Rome: Love one another.  Let love be genuine. Paul, as a writer, was wordy – so there was more to last week’s passage.  And then we get to this week’s word to the Romans, skipping over just a few slightly tricky verses, and here’s Paul again: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”  “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Taking what Paul and Jesus say are the very most important things, I could say, Love one another, and then stop talking and sit down.   But let’s put a few more details on that. 

First, we need to know the type of love Paul was preaching.    There’s love that is an emotion, and love that is a verb.  Paul’s talking about love as a verb.  This isn’t love that just happens by default, this isn’t love we stumble into, this is love we choose and love we foster through our actions.

There’s a bunch of kinds of love in ancient Greek – there’s romantic love, family love, etc. Paul is preaching Agape love – 

The translation is straightforward, actually: agape is the kind of love that exhibits good will and benevolence toward others. 

Agape love is other-focused and self-giving.  Agape love is the same kind of love Jesus taught in the parable of the good Samaritan: who is our neighbor? Everyone. How shall we treat them? With agape love.

Agape love seeks the wellbeing of all people.  God’s agape love is life-giving and when we know that gift, we are called to practice the same kind of agape. “Because God lives in us, we embody God’s love for the world….[we belong to God.]…[Today,] God’s love is incarnate in us.”  

^“8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ …[all the commandments] are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” 

This is not Paul setting aside the Torah – the Jewish law.  Even though Paul focused a lot of time on Gentile converts to the way of Jesus, he was Jewish.  And as a professor of Jewish studies, Jon Levenson, wrote, “It is not a question of law or love, but law conceived in love, love expressed in law.”

Now, there’s more to the love that Paul’s preaching.  

Agape love is mutual – not hierarchical.  Paul and the church at Rome lived in the midst of a patron-client, hierarchical culture.  Paul’s agape love is egalitarian. 

Agape love is proactive. Love goes beyond obligation.   If you’re loving your neighbor, Paul doesn’t want you to wait until your neighbor wanders by to ask for a cup of sugar.  Ronald Allen says agape love is “impatient to meet the needs of the neighbor.”

Agape love, in Paul’s world, is also urgent. Do you know what time it is?? Wake up!  The day is near!

Paul thinks that Jesus is coming back, like, Tuesday.  So whatever people are going to do as followers of the Way, they have to do right now.  It’s urgent! Get out there!  Jesus is coming, look busy!

And we’ve lived 2000 years, so far, without Jesus coming back.  You could say, what’s the rush, buddy?

Maybe you’d like to take a minute when no one is watching for some licentiousness.  (What a word.)  Maybe you’d like to live according to norms of Roman society rather than the norms of agape love.   This part, by the way, is about how we interact with our neighbors.  Are we kind or are we quarreling, are we generous or are we jealous?  What’s the impact of our behavior on other people?  Does it hurt or help? The way we live impacts not just our own humanity, not just our circle, it impacts our neighbors.  When we live according to agape love – especially when our loving offers a contrast to an unloving world – it matters.  

We lack something crucial without the urgency of love.  We have a responsibility to be proactive, to be out there in the world practicing agape love.  Because every moment a neighbor needs love, it should feel urgent to us.  

And community is the final point I want to make about Paul’s agape love.  Paul is not writing to an individual here.  Dear Kelly, please be kind to Stan.  I know y’all got some stuff to work out.  

Paul is writing to a community.  A group of faithful people.  A congregation.  About how they should practice agape love in the world, communally.  Scholars of Romans think this letter goes back and forth between the way the congregation should operate internally, among one another, and how the community should love the world. This is one of the externally focused sections.  How is the world going to experience this community? How is the world going to be impacted by this Christian congregation? Paul tells the Romans: put on the armor of light, put on Christ and as a community, go into the world to love your neighbors. 

Love is not insular.  Agape love is outward facing.  Love is not passive.  Love blesses its neighbors.

Love makes the world better.  

Owe no one anything, except to love one another.

Love is a verb.

Love is self-giving.

Love is God’s name.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

Love is mutual.

Love is outward facing.

Love is proactive. 

Love goes beyond obligation.

Love is a bright star in the sky.

Love is communal.

Love is urgent.

Love blesses neighbors.

Love is the word.

Amen.

Footnotes

1. Judith Jones, Working Preacher Commentary on 1 John 4:7-21
2. Allen and Williamson, Preaching the Letters without Dismissing the Law, page 85
3.  Yes, we can argue about whether Paul is, overall, egalitarian.
4. Allen and Williamson

Rainbows and the Iron Butterfly

A Sermon for Pride Sunday – reposted in memory of Saint Dolly

Pilgrim Congregational Church, UCC, Lexington

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

June 2, 2024

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

139:18 I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.

–

Well, y’all, it never fails.  I visit Tennessee and I come back praising the great, the one and only, the Saint of the Smoky Mountains, Dolly Parton. It’s not just because I’m surrounded by her music when I’m down there, and it’s not just because my high school – I am not kidding – my high school has a mural of Dolly Parton reading to a child on one side of the school building.*   I stand before you today to preach about the great “Dolly Lama” because she is the kind of person we should all aspire to be.  Set aside the sequins and you get someone who has parlayed her fame and fortune into extraordinary good.  Recognizing how hard it was for members of her own family to learn to read, she’s given books to three million children all over the world. (https://imaginationlibrary.com/) When massive fires went through her area, she helped 900 families recover.  And when scientists were developing the first CoVid vaccines, she donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt’s research with Moderna.  

There is a reason John gave me a T-Shirt that asks, What Would Dolly Do?

Now, you may be puzzled as to why I’m talking about the Queen of Country on Pride Sunday.  Y’all, it’s not just that I still haven’t unpacked from my trip to Music City.  The Queen of Country turns out to be an inspiration for many Queens.  And it’s not just the rhinestones – it’s not just the Rainbow fabrics that make up her Coat of Many Colors.   “The Iron Butterfly” has been an advocate for LGBTQIA+ folks for decades.  She is what queer folks call a Friend of the Family.  She’s advocated for same sex marriage, she’s celebrated with drag queens, and she’s made it clear that her Christian faith leads her to honor the dignity and worth of LGBTQIA+ folks.  While I still have a smidge of my Tennessee accent left from this week I’m going to quote her:  “They know that I completely love and accept them, as I do all people…I’ve struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I’ve had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don’t think we should be judgmental. Lord, I’ve got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.”

“If people want to pass judgment, they’re already sinning. The sin of judging is just as bad as any other sin they might say somebody else is committing. I try to love everybody.”

But Dolly’s a songwriter and one song that came back to me over and over as I was thinking about Pride, thinking about our Open and Affirming commitments, was one that she wrote for a movie about a trans woman.  She sang it onstage at the Oscars in 2005.  Take a second and think about the timing there.  20 years ago the Queen of Country wrote a song affirming the dignity and worth of a trans woman. The song is Travelin’ Thru and here are two of the verses:

“God made me for a reason and nothin’ is in vain

Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain

Oh, sweet Jesus, if you’re listenin’, keep me ever close to you

As I’m stumblin’, tumblin’, wanderin’, as I’m travelin’ through

[Refrain]

I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ through

Oh, sometimes the road is rugged and it’s hard to travel on

But holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly…”

Folks, I wonder if Dolly was reading her Bible when she wrote that song.  It sure sounds inspired by Psalm 139 to me:

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

“God made me for a reason and nothin’ is in vain”

“How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, if you’re listenin’, keep me ever close to you.”

Rev. Michael Streib, from our conference, shared a reminder of the importance of the bold Open and Affirming welcome:

“I remember a story shared by a pastor, whose church I visited. Located in a more rural and conservative area right on a busy street, the church had decided to put out a Pride flag on its property. One day, a dad driving by stopped to tell the pastor: “Thank you so much! This means so much to my child. Your church is on their way to school. They are often struggling with being queer in this area but when we see your flag we know that there are people out there that love us.” The ministry of flying the flag unapologetically as a church let this child know that they are deeply beloved.”

But just having a Pride flag isn’t enough.  I heard a story last week.  It was about a congregation a long way from here.  They had their rainbow flag out and the right words on the website.  But when a non-binary person walked in their door, the congregation wasn’t ready.   They hadn’t talked about pronoun nametags, they hadn’t worked on their welcome.  Folks got a little rude.  They probably didn’t mean to, but the effect was the same.  

When I heard this story, I thought about Pilgrim.  I remembered starting here in 2019, when a high school student came to Church Council and said, we need to talk about pronouns.  We need pronouns for our name tags.  This is for folks who are here, and for visitors.  There was a council member who said (I’ll never forget it) I’m a little puzzled about this but you’re telling me this is one way to tell someone that they’re welcome and they’re loved?  I’m im.  And I remember another high schooler – when we came back into the building from CoVid – who said we’ve got to make sure people know how to do this, which is where the article “Practicing Our Welcome” came from.  It’s still in the Narthex but it occurs to me that we need to run that article in E-Notes again.  What I know about Pilgrim is that we have offered that big, glorious, enthusiastic, beautiful, inclusive welcome within our community and to visitors alike.  We’ve been doing it for 22 years, since 2002.  I also know that we’re on a journey – we’re not perfect at welcome, no one’s perfect at anything, but we’re trying.  

This is important, y’all.  Right now, it’s getting harder and harder to be queer, to be trans, to be non-binary.  Which means spaces of welcome and inclusion are getting more and more important.  

“holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly…”

And if you have questions, or you’re puzzled, Pride Month is a great time to ask yourself, What Would Dolly Do?

A Sermon for Pilgrim Congregational Church, UCC, Lexington

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

August 2, 2026

Romans 12:3-8

³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. 

–

For our summer worship series this year I gave folks an optional preaching prompt:

I thought I should take up my own challenge, so today I want to tell you a story of, literally, the teacher in teaching.  The encourager in encouragement. The leader in diligence and wisdom and hospitality, too.  I want to tell you about Sister Mary Melanie Boyd.  

I knew Sister Melanie for 6 years in the Eighties. Given my background, it might seem strange that when I reviewed my early life for someone I deeply admired, a Roman Catholic nun came immediately to mind.

You have to know something about my childhood in Nashville.  I was raised by serious church goers, Protestant – United Methodist in the headquarters city of the United Methodist Church.  My mom was in UMW – United Methodist Women.  Both my parents were local church leaders and my aunt and uncle, too.  

But my folks had a problem.  Charitably, you could call their little girl precocious.  Uncharitably you could say I bored easily in school.  Mom and Pop kept trying to find a school where I would be challenged, get along with my peers, and get a good education – with tuition that they could afford.  Apparently in Kindergarten, the teacher said I couldn’t move up to first grade because I wasn’t tall enough for the water fountain in the first grade hallway.  So my parents packed me up to another school. I went to three schools between Kindergarten and second grade.  Then they found a promising option. But, GASP, it was a Catholic school literally housed in a convent. 

Enter Sister Mary Melanie Boyd, Principal of St. Bernard’s Non-Graded Academy. 

My parents cautiously sat down with Sister Melanie, sure that this was not the school for little Rebecca.  

Sister Melanie, my mother said, we don’t want our daughter pressured to convert.  Mr. and Mrs. Kavich, Sister Melanie replied, “your daughter won’t be pressured to convert at St. Bernard’s.”  “I believe we all worship the same God.”

She went on to talk about the class I would be part of: a dozen Catholic students, yes.  And several Protestant students, several Jewish students, a Muslim student and a Baha’i student. Yes, St. Bernard’s was Catholic and there would be prayers said and required Masses to attend.  But never with pressure to convert.  No disrespect toward any of the faiths represented in our school community.  

“I believe we all worship the same God.”  Those simple words to my parents in 1982 meant a lot to my folks.  

My folks did not know many people from other religious traditions, and yes, they probably had some distrust of Catholicism.  

Sister Melanie had the spiritual gifts of hospitality, respect, welcome, dignity, inclusion.  She was a great administrator, a terrific teacher, an encourager of children and parents.  She was compassionate and cheerful. 

“⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” 

And she was a leader, setting the tone for every teacher in that school – nuns and secular – to make space for every student and their whole selves, and their whole families.

St. Bernard’s curriculum was flexible so that kids good in math but challenged in reading could find a path.  There were children with physical challenges, intellectual challenges and gifts, rich kids, economically challenged kids, we were all together. 

I stayed there six years. 

And from Sister Melanie and that community, I learned a foundational value: to respect people of all faiths.  I can see that value as a throughline of my Christian journey.  When I look at my history for the first seeds of commitment to interfaith work – I find those seeds in Sister Mary Melanie Boyd.

My parents, trepidatious, asked if their faith would be respected. And Sister Melanie replied,  “I believe we all worship the same God.”

Now, I’d say it differently, today.  I’d say: I respect your faith. I honor the way you seek the divine through your tradition. Your faith journey is holy. Our diverse faith backgrounds can co-exist within the same community and all children of all religions can receive a wonderful education within the same community.

But Sister Melanie said it so simply and so clearly that I know her words by heart more than forty years later.  

Sister Mary Melanie Boyd was a member of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy, and an educator, for seventy years. She died in 2014 at age 86. The Order of the Sisters of Mercy is still active all over the world today, with a focus on “five Critical Concerns: care for the Earth, immigration, nonviolence, racism, and the rights and needs of women and children.”  

Thanks be to God for good role models. Amen.