Hope Starts Here
By: Lindsey Seegers
I’ve always loved collecting quirky art—not the surrealism of Dalí, but pieces that mingle a little humor and conversation-starters. A beloved painting in my kitchen is an owl in a tall chef’s hat, painted by Bishop Susan Goff of Virgina. And the words on the owl’s chef hat read: Who cooks for you? Who?
Another one of my favorite art pieces in my home office is a simple portrait by Scott Erickson of a dog wearing a cone. Written inside the cone are the words: God is. Now the words are curved inside the cone, so we, the viewer, cannot see if there are other words to follow. The message of this dog in her cone is inspired by St. Augustine’s writing: "If you comprehend it, it is not God."
In other words, to be certain we know who God is is to have the sight as narrow as the dog in the cone.
I wanted to set the scene of my quirky art collection so as not to surprise you about one of my weirdest pieces, found appropriately in Austin, Texas. My aesthetic matches my old soul: my 16th birthday gift from my Godmother Jackie was a pink rotary phone, and I was completely obsessed with reruns of I Love Lucy and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. So when I stumbled across this post-war pop art print in an Austin gallery last year, it called to me.
It’s a black-and-white photo of three children: two boys with dorky bowl cuts, a girl in knee socks and a collared sweater. They’re all grinning like they’ve just opened the best birthday gift ever as they hold up an unexpected package.
It’s an oversized cigarette box.
Styled like a 1950s Lucky Strike ad, except instead of Lucky Strike,or the cigarette brand, the box’s label reads: Hope. Starts. Here. And then, in tiny print, where the surgeon general’s warning might be, it says: 11 oz, no artificial ingredients. approved for universal application.
And the kids are screen-printed atop pastel-pink wallpaper with cheerful picnic scenes. The combination feels Leave It To Beaver-ish… until you realize what they’re holding. It’s odd. It’s funny. It’s unsettling.
That piece sits eye-level on my desk, and I find myself staring at it—curious about its contradictions. Lately, it feels like a comment on the myths we’ve been sold: that hope is something packaged and marketable, or achieved by signing up with the right tribe or political party. That Hope comes wrapped in perfection, in whiteness. We’re sold polished pictures of where hope should be found—in nostalgia, in something you can buy.
But we know better.
Hope doesn’t come in a box. Hope isn’t for sale. We Christians believe that hope is found in Jesus alone.
That art piece reminds me of Mary and Martha in a kind of modern-day parable—a reminder not to confuse the appearance of hope with its true presence. With Mary and Martha, we have two sisters, two approaches, one tension we still feel today.
Are we sometimes chasing the look of goodness, while missing its heart? Mary and Martha knew that struggle—between doing and being, preparing and pausing.
Is hope found in sitting still and listening, or in bustling around to serve? In their story, we’re invited to consider not just where hope begins—but how we make space for it.
Mary and Martha—two sisters, two ways of loving Jesus. One at his feet, listening. One in the kitchen, serving. Both faithful. Neither wrong. That’s what moves me: there’s no villain here.
Still, Jesus tells Martha she’s anxious about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary chose the better part—not because stillness is holier than service, but because Martha let distraction and resentment steal her peace.
Their story lingers, asking us the questions we still struggle to answer: Is grace found in doing, or in being? In pouring out, or in sitting still? In the clatter of service, or the hush of presence?
Mary & Martha seem divided by questions that split Christians across denominations today: are we saved by actions or grace? By stillness or service? Contemplation on his word, or action in his name?
I was lucky enough to traverse a winding spiritual road. I was raised Catholic, then welcomed into a Bible church through my teenage years, where scripture was, literally, everything. In my early twenties, I spent six years teaching flute to Mormon students. Early in college, I found myself embraced by Pentecostal friends who prayed in tongues. (I never did get the gift of speaking in tongues, even though I asked the Holy Spirit with polite persistence). Then, junior year, I wandered into an interfaith group called Theology on Tap. There, I discovered the Episcopal way—a faith that holds scripture, tradition, and reason in a kind of sacred tension.
I would not call myself a religious authority. But this unfolding journey has let me glimpse the beauty, the blind spots, and the deep longing that live inside so many ways of seeking Jesus.
As Episcopalians, we’re a people shaped by rhythm—Word and Sacrament, silence and service, liturgy and life. So when Jesus gently says that “Mary has chosen the better part,” what is he really telling us about presence, hospitality, and the sacred balance we’re all still trying to find?
Around the year 100 A.D., Mary and Martha disagreed about what true hospitality looked like. And here in 2025, Christians are still struggling with the same question.
We are divided people. And I don’t know about you—but I’m wrestling with how we got here. It feels clear to me: in our reading today from the book of Amos, the author is writing about the rapacious and fraudulent business practices that victimize the poor. The merchants are impatient for the holy days to pass so they can resume their fraudulent business.
In Psalm 52, His weapons are treacherous, deceitful speech.
In Luke, Jesus shows his openness to and acceptance of women among his followers. Luke is the gospel writer who seems most to focus on how the human Jesus behaved toward prejudice & other dehumanizing forces of his day.
We, my friends, are in peak dehumanizing times.
If we cannot see Christ in the immigrant, we will not find him at the altar.
“For those who profess that their faith is built upon the good news of Jesus, there seems to be much disagreement around what that good news is and who it is for. For a group of people who claim that their faith is built upon Jesus, we seem to forget that he himself was an immigrant and a refugee. Jesus is the God who knocks because he came into the world as a stranger, inviting us into a relationship so that we would be strangers no more.
He knocks on the door, walls, and structures that we have erected to keep others out. Jesus knocks as one who stands in solidarity with those we have rejected. Jesus knocks as every visitor bearing the image of God who approaches our front doors and southern borders.
As we consider refugees and migrants, do we look with eyes filled with compassion and mercy? Do we not allow fear or self-preservation to hinder our ability to extend hospitality and grace?
Today, Jesus is with those we keep out. Whether it be in our homes, schools, places of work, or nation, Jesus is with the outsider. Jesus IS with the refugee and the migrant.” -Tony Huynh, Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice
We are in peak dehumanizing times. If we cannot see Christ in the immigrant, we will not find him at the altar.
Prejudice always violates humanity. If we cannot move beyond the boundaries of fear that cause us to build ourselves, our homes, our wealth, by tearing another down, we can never be fully human. That was and remains the Jesus message.
Luke is the gospel writer showing us how human Jesus behaved towards the dehumanizing forces of his day. Luke knew the holy book of the Torah, which defines the ultimate religious duty to be that of showing compassion toward those who are in need.
Two thousand years later, it seems like Luke is writing of our divisive times. Times where half of the country is convinced the other half is set on the downfall of America. When both sides are struggling to know what to do with their pain, with the unfairness they feel, with the human need to be seen and heard.
Do we condemn the Christians celebrating Alligator Alcatraz? Do we attend every protest? Do we sit safely in our homes and pray? Do we march down to the immigration hearings and put our bodies between masked ICE agents and the fathers the mothers the brothers the sisters the uncles the aunts they are taking away?
WHAT DO WE DO in these divided, dark times? What do we do when we feel paralyzed by fear or indecision? What do I do when my father, mother, brother likely believe I am on the wrong side of history?
The darkness, my friends, is all around us. But it is not in us. There is an ember.
This is where hope starts for me.
I encountered this notion from Dr. Rev. Otis Moss: “Let us consecrate chaos”. The idea of consecrating chaos is cultivating a practice that prepares us for inevitable interruption. To intentionally link an inner life of prayer with an outer life of action.
Consider the ember in the hearth. It doesn’t roar with heat or dazzle with light—but it holds the fire’s memory and the fire’s potential. Our inner life of prayer is much the same. It may not feel loud or visible, but it steadies us. It warms our discernment.
And when we tend that ember—through silence, through Scripture, through simply sitting with God—we are better prepared to step outward with clarity and compassion.
Perhaps the world needs more people “consecrating chaos”, whose action is rooted in stillness, whose doing is born from being. This is the wisdom Mary models, and that Martha—when her service is reoriented by presence—ultimately embodies too.
If only hope was packaged for us in a pocket-size box! In a world that packages certainty and sells illusion, we turn instead to the living God. We bring our questions, our quiet, and our hope to prayer—together.
In the life of faith, we are not called to choose between prayer and action, but to let one feed the other. The ember makes the flame possible.
May you leave this space today with a quieter heart and a steadier step, trusting that the ember of hope is already within you. May your listening be as holy as your doing, your resting as faithful as your serving.
And may your life whisper to the world: hope starts here. Peace begins with me.
Amen.
