August 31, 2025
Holy Graffiti
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Rev. Shannon Jordan
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
One of my favorite things about Asheville is driving or walking along and seeing glimpses of one of the murals that grace our area. I am usually intrigued by the creativity and often wonder who the artist was, why was that chosen to be there. Last summer a friend and I went down to the River Arts District to photograph some of murals and graffiti there. The art on the cover of the bulletin this week was a photo I took of the side of a large warehouse—there is really no way to describe the scale of these murals and graffiti as we walked around that morning—the layering, the intricacies. Some murals were flaking off, showing old paint. Some were beautiful, some were scary, some were offensive. Some took great planning and work, and some just took a spray can.
When I walk through this building and consider the history of it and the people that have called it their church, it is as if this congregation and building is a type of holy graffiti that generations have been painting since the early 1800s.
Today we are continuing our sermon series Making Room—Living into the Welcome of Christ that Patrick started last week. Today we will explore the theme Making Room Across Generations. Thinking about the generations we have represented this morning in worship—and the generations who have worshipped in this space over the years is humbling and eye opening as we can trace the transmission of our faith through these relationships as they have told their children and their children’s children. Our scriptures today highlight the communal nature of our faith across generations.
It is easy to read our passages this morning and layer these words on our experience—especially of our understanding of the interaction of generations. Today different ages are very separated. We have starter neighborhoods with young families, 55 plus and continuing care communities as well as college dorms. There are few places in our culture that combine people from generations. We hear about the differences between millennials, Gen X, Gen Z, Boomers, and the Silent Generation. I saw a funny reel discussing that you can tell a generation by what socks they wear! Apparently my ankle socks are a millennial give away—thankfully I can switch to more comfortable socks AND seem younger even if I only made it as a millennial by a year!
Walter Brueggeman, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, said that the interconnectedness in this passage is hard for a society that lives with such “economic extravagance”—elders can afford to live in continuing care communities and not be a burden to the next generation. Parents can afford paid childcare and don’t need to rely on grandparents to cover the childcare gap—because we don’t need each other in the same way, we can miss out on the overlap of the generations if we are not careful.
Contrast this to Biblical times where there was not nearly the generational divide there is in our culture. Generations lived together, adding rooms on to houses to accommodate different generations. Families were together for household chores, for their livelihoods—working fields together, taking care of animals, caring for the youngest and the oldest. Life and faith were communal.
Following the commands in our scripture today, the doorways had reminders to love God, and the reminder of the command to love God was seen in the Phylacteries / Tefillin—small leather boxes that contained scrolls of the law tied to people’s foreheads or biceps. It was a visual reminder to love God with your whole heart, mind and strength and to teach our children. It was a visual reminder that God had said teach the law—to love God—to our children and our children’s children, and that all should obey the law. Children and grandchildren saw the adults live their faith, and it in turn shaped their faith.
Our scriptures today highlight the importance of the communal transmission of our faith. When I learn something I should share it with you and when you learn something you share it with me. God’s word isn’t meant to stay in these walls—shared only here in this building, but it is meant to be scrawled across our lives like holy graffiti for others to see.
The miracle of faith is that it is not meant to be a solo practice. God designed it to be transmitted across generations—Those with more birthdays telling the younger the stories, children asking questions, youth bringing fresh eyes, adults modeling and mentoring. When one of us is struggling and our faith is growing weak, another of us is there to cheer us on, to walk beside us, to offer us their own faith in the gap. Without that flow, faith can dry up. When we live our faith together, the story of God never grows old. Each generation is both a recipient of the faith and a storyteller who passes it on.
When I look around our sanctuary, when I walk down the halls, I see a church built by the generosity of the generations. Generation after generation has painted and changed what we look like—while maintaining a focus on God and God’s love. These walls echo with the holy graffiti of people loving God with their heart, soul, and might.
One of my favorite parts of FPCA is that we are a multigenerational church, and we take seriously the scripture when we are told to tell the stories of God to the next generation. There are fewer and fewer multigenerational churches these days. We have babies in the nursery and this fall we will have ages five to over 95 in our choirs leading worship. We intentionally offer intergenerational opportunities to make room for our different generations to be together. In addition to our music program, we have children and youth participating in worship leadership through scripture reading, leading the affirmation of faith, or a prayer, and we invite children three and up to worship in our transept. I love seeing the children telling the stories and engaging in worship in their own ways each week.
Our congregational life team gives us wonderful opportunities to connect over food or festivities. From the Moravian Lovefeast led by our youth with a community dinner to our Cereal Sundae next week where we replace the milk in our cereal with ice cream, all ages come together in community. These times of food and fellowship are an excellent time to sit with those in a different generation—to learn their names and hear their stories. Where else in your life can you do that in our culture?
In faith formation we have opportunities like we did this month where children kindergarten and up and adults of all ages came together to learn scripture and process what they learned and what they wondered together. I will have the mental image of the family of Abraham and Sarah journeying through the desert in costume—with people of all ages acting out the story—showing us that God’s story is a story for all of us. They built towers to remember what God had done for them, and they told the story of God’s love and faithfulness with their actions. It was a powerful moment for all of us.
FPCA also offers opportunities to serve with other generations. On our mission Sunday, Love Asheville, people of all ages worked together to package diapers for Babies Need Bottoms, to clean up Carrier Park, or create welcome signs for Homeward Bound. I know I loved seeing children, youth and adults serving side by side. It was amazing!
Of course one of our most popular intergenerational opportunities is our retreat. People of all ages enjoy one another and the various activities. We play together, learn together, eat together. We learn each other’s names and hear stories. It is a key piece of the fabric of who we are as a congregation. I love the time before meals when people are gathered in the lobby, waiting to eat. It is a beautiful mural of God’s family hanging out in the living room, doing life together. All of the generations together, connecting and blending, painting on each other’s lives.
At FPCA, the different generations come to be the embodiment of Christ to one another…sharing our lives with one another in a way that builds each other up in Christ. No one generation has all of the wisdom, or all of the music, or all of the stories. But when children sing alongside elders, when youth learn from adults and adults are challenged by the youth, the word of Christ truly lives among us. It takes every age and stage to embody the fullness of Christ.
This diversity is why our holy graffiti is a vibrant array of colors and not limited to one hue. Making room across generations is a critical piece of who we are as a congregation.
When we go out into the world, and we are surrounded by the world’s values and vitriol, we can become battered, bruised, and smudged. Like a mural that has weathered seasons of the elements, we can become less than what we want to be or than what God has created us to be. Being in community is a blessing and a responsibility.
When we interact with others, we are leaving a mark with our interactions. These marks can be for the good or for ill. Making room across generations and letting them speak into our lives, we have the opportunity to remind each other who we are in Christ—God’s beloved, Imago deo, made in the image of God. When we pour into the lives of the people in our church who are different than we are, who may not be in our peer group, but simply because they are here, because we may know their family, or where they sit on Sunday mornings, or we sat with them at a meal, or at a table at the retreat, we can write with holy graffiti on their lives, reminding them who they are and that they are loved deeply. We can highlight and celebrate the wisdom and experience of our older congregants, we can watch with joy as our youth begin the transition from childhood to adulthood, and encourage and support our children and their families as they do life in an era very different than previous generations. We can love and support the different generations knowing they are supporting us. This in turn equips us and enables us to go into the world with that same message—you are loved. You are accepted the way you are.
Culture bombards us with messaging—you aren’t smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough, rich enough, successful enough, your kids aren’t good enough, your home is too dated/messy/small/in the wrong neighborhood—and the list goes on.
We need to be reminded of what matters—loving God with our whole hearts, minds, and strength. That we are the Imago Dei–made in the image of God—and that is way more than any flimsy standard set by culture.
If FPCA’s mural were only painted by one generation, it would be flat, monochrome, and unfinished, But when every generation adds their strokes—the wisdom of the elders, the steady faith of those in the middle, the bold imagination of young—the picture becomes breathtaking. We need one another. The beauty of the mural is in its layers, in the colors that only appear when generations blend together and make it holy graffiti. This is why our multigenerational life together is a witness to Asheville. Outside these walls, society separates us, but the church declares a different truth: in Christ every generation belongs to one another. Every generation, from the youngest to the oldest, has value and beauty. That alone is countercultural, and it is part of how we show the world that God’s love makes room across generations.