Stars
April 1, 2025
On Christmas Eve I was served communion by a twelve-year-old girl wearing a crown of silver stars.
It was magical.
The truth is, I struggle with boundaries. Who is able to pray for healing, hands laying on the head of one broken and longing for something different. Who can pray a prayer of blessing for someone at a crossroads, preparing for a life of new and possible. Or healing from a life of old and grief-filled. Who can marry you or me. Who can baptize.
And who can serve communion.
These sacraments that seem almost common. Water, bread, body, cotton.. Wrapped up in rules. Bound in control.
I know what you will say when I ask this question: Why can’t we be served communion by a 12 year old girl wearing a crown of silver stars?
Rules. Scripture. Authority.
But it seems to me, that’s exactly who should be sharing sacrament with us, broken and weary. She, shiny and new.
In this time, in the life of the country in which I live, boundaries are drawn every day. Tighter and tighter. Soon we will suffocate. Some already have and I must bear witness to this trauma and tragedy.
I have the privilege of knowing I will not be deported. Of knowing I didn’t need to talk with my white son about what he should do if pulled over by police. Of knowing that my marriage will not be stripped from me because of who I love. Of not being denied an abortion and dying on the table of someone who pretends to know what they’re doing, underground, in the shadows. Of not worrying that I will lose hormone therapy or take my life because of my trans-ness. Because of my pronouns. Because of who I am. Of not losing my home because the rent is raised.
I have the privilege of being able to buy eggs.
And so, it’s time for queerness. For eccentricity. For breaking walls. It is time for resistance. For dancing.
It is time for communion.
The sacrament of communion is a space of blessing that is open to all of you. It takes what is common, bread and wine, and it puts it in little bits and little cups and you pick a bit up and sip the small cup and something magic happens.
You are forgiven.
You are forgiven for not leaving the house to march in protest. You are forgiven for buying fast fashion. You are forgiven for judging someone walking down the street. You are forgiven for not calling your representative, for watching DEI burn to the ground under the weight of sin and power.
You are forgiven for not knowing what to do to make a difference in the world and, so, binging a show on Hulu that makes you numb. Something about cooking. Or home improvement. Or housewives.
But, here’s the thing, when a twelve year old girl serves you communion, everyone else is forgiven too.
Everyone.
What a disappointment, what confusion, what a challenge to understand, much less believe.
I still don’t believe it. But despite my disbelief, I think it’s true.
This is what it means to be a person who follows the way of Jesus.
Everyone belongs in the beauty of the story. Everyone is beautiful. Even when we see them and know that, for now, to us, they look really, really ugly.
I’m not a fan of this truth, to be honest. It seems like we are choosing sides when we say everyone belongs. The side of the oppressor. It seems like we are saying power and control win.
But is there a way to be bold in our beliefs, to stand for equity and justice, to speak truth to power, to be loud and take up space and demand peace – is there a way to do this and still hold space for everyone?
Dear powerholders. Dear 47. Dear those who assault someone today. Dear misogynists and racists and those who are trans and homophobic. Dear sexist assholes. Dear you who is literally binding someone right now to deport them.
You are on notice.
The space I am holding for you is small and you are going to have to stop, confess, and repent from your sin. That’s my rule. I guess that’s the boundary I believe in because I don’t think there’s any other way.
I suggest you start by going to Christ the Servant Lutheran in Louisville, CO on Christmas Eve and take communion from a twelve-year-old girl in a crown of stars.
I know it’s months away but if you go now, you’ll be able to reserve your seat.
If you don’t mind, could you run and not walk?
This girl, who will offer you communion, was sent to 2025 to show us that there is possibility and magic all around.
That in the everyday life-ness of our everyday life, we can be blessed and loved and known and we can belong.
I think that’s beautiful, and I am preparing for the Christmas Eve sacrament even now. I don’t know how else to make sense of this world as it burns.
I’m hoping bread and wine will help.
I’m not perfect – and I know it. None of us are. Lots to confess and repent for. But I know it and I’m working on it. I do this because the world of twelve-year-olds is important. I do it so they can see that we know we’ve created disaster, that we’ve ignored the impulse of peace and created war. So that they know how sorry I am even as I struggle to know how to begin to fix it.
I do it because I want, desperately, for there to be a world for her. For her children. For my grand-nephew Little L. A world that is full of beauty more than destruction. Growth more than devastation. Peace more than whatever it is we are waking up to every morning right now.
The world right now feels impossibly broken. Everyone I know feels it and, if you don’t feel it, I’m thinking you might be numb. I have more questions than answers, and not the good kinds of questions like “What can we imagine for our future?” or “How can we make a difference in our communities?”
These are questions that belong to a world of hope, not a world of trauma.
But we are in a world of trauma.
I have to think that maybe, if we look very closely, we will find hope in those elements of sacredness that tie us together as beings and creatures of the earth: water, breath, berries, dreams. I have to think that something is possible. Anything. Like forgiveness. Like hope. And like twelve year olds at church wearing shiny crowns with silver stars.