Polka Dots

AM Psalm [120], 121, 122, 123 • PM Psalm 124, 125, 126, [127]  
Num. 22:21-38 • Rom. 7:1-12 • Matt. 21:23-32

I only know a handful of stories about my great-grandparents, who were Mennonite Christians. Supposedly, I’m descended from William Rittenhouse, the first Mennonite minister in what became the United States.

As a Mennonite, my great-grandfather was a pacifist and refused to fight in the First World War. He was extremely hardworking—and also very austere. He didn’t want himself or his family to indulge in anything “worldly.”

When my great-grandfather passed away, my great-grandmother revealed that she’d always wanted a polka-dotted dress. While he was alive, her husband wouldn’t condone such things. Polka dots were worldly and vain. So, my grandmother (her daughter-in-law) took my great-grandmother shopping to buy a polka-dotted dress.

In our second reading today, Paul tries to explain what it means to have “died to the law through the body of Christ.” Paul thinks the law is like marriage: binding only during one’s lifetime. As Paul writes, “a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.” In Paul’s analogy, a woman whose husband has died is free to enter a new relationship. (If her husband were alive, she’d be an adulteress.) But this reading reminded me of my widowed great-grandmother, suddenly set free to wear a polka-dotted dress.

Paul is quick to point out that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just as good.” As far as I know, my great-grandfather lived his faith with integrity and sincerity and demonstrated it with self-sacrificial love for his family. I’m grateful for that.

But I’m also grateful for the new relationships that Christ’s love makes possible. I’m grateful for polka dots. I’m grateful for rainbow stripes.

Written by the Rev. Dr. Lora Walsh, Priest Associate

Lora is passionate about discovering the literary qualities of the Bible, praying the Ignatian examen daily, and deepening our faith through dialogue with other religious traditions. She holds a PhD in Medieval Christianity.