Who’s on Your Wall

Reflections from Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

I’m sitting on top of Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn, looking out over the New York City skyline.

Behind me, around me, stretching down the hillsides, are thousands upon thousands of gravestones. Some of the lives remembered here reach back toward the earliest years of our country.

And I’m thinking about all the people who came before us.

People who gave their lives, their courage, their convictions, their hopes, to make this country a better place. Some are buried here. Most are not. Some have monuments and magnificent headstones. Others lived and died without much recognition at all.

But they were here. They mattered. And somehow, we’re standing on their shoulders.

Sitting here, I find myself thinking about the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel.

You know how Matthew starts his story of Jesus?

With a cemetery of sorts.

Not with angels singing or shepherds watching their flocks. Not with a baby crying in a manger.

With a list of names.

Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac the father of Jacob. Jacob the father of Judah.

On and on it goes.

It’s almost as though Matthew is walking through a cemetery, stopping at the gravestones, remembering the people whose lives made the story of Jesus possible.

And then Matthew does something rather remarkable.

He remembers the women.

Who would have thunk?

In a world where genealogies were overwhelmingly about men, Matthew makes room for Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (though he identifies her as the wife of Uriah). And finally, Mary.

And what a collection of stories they carry!

These aren’t necessarily the people you would expect to find in a carefully polished family history. Some were outsiders. Some were caught in terrible circumstances. Some had been mistreated or pushed aside.

But Matthew refuses to forget them.

It’s as if he’s saying, You cannot tell the story of Jesus without telling their stories, too.

I love that.

Earlier today, I stopped at the beautiful chapel here at Green-Wood. Inside is an extraordinary celebration of the Mexican tradition of Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

There are flowers and colors and offerings and places for people to remember those they have loved and lost.

It’s not simply about mourning the dead.

It’s about keeping their stories alive.

About recognizing that the people we have loved don’t simply disappear from our lives when they die. Their laughter, their wisdom, their courage, sometimes even their mistakes, continue to shape us.

And as I walked through that chapel, I found myself remembering one of my preaching professors, Dr. Zan Holmes.

Zan was an extraordinary African American preacher and teacher. Every once in a while, he would invite me into his office to talk through one of my sermons.

Let me tell you, that was a humbling experience!

But I remember something else about those visits.

Behind his desk, on the wall, were pictures. All sorts of people. Martin Luther King Jr. was there, along with others who had shaped his life and ministry. Some were living. Some had died.

Zan called them his saints.

He told me that when he sat down to write a sermon, he wasn’t writing alone.

Those people were with him.

Looking over his shoulder.

Inspiring him.

Challenging him.

Holding him to higher ground.

I have never forgotten that.

And sitting here today, overlooking a cemetery and a city filled with millions of stories, I’m thinking about the people on my own wall.

My dad and mom. People who taught me what courage looked like. Teachers who believed in me when I wasn’t so sure of myself. Friends who loved me enough to tell me the truth. People whose faith stretched mine. People who helped me see a world bigger than the one I had known.

And, yes, people whose lives were complicated and imperfect. Just like those names in Matthew’s genealogy.

I’m thinking, too, about the people we sometimes leave off our walls.

The women whose contributions were overlooked. The people of color whose stories were pushed to the margins. The immigrants, the laborers, the quiet servants, the people who made sacrifices that never earned them a monument.

How much of our lives, and how much of our country, rests on their shoulders?

Perhaps remembering isn’t just about looking backward.

Perhaps it’s about asking what we’re going to do with everything we’ve inherited.

Will we carry forward their courage?

Will we learn from their mistakes?

Will we widen the circle a little more?

Will we make room for the people whose names history has too often forgotten?

I think that’s what Matthew was doing. And what the beautiful Mexican tradition in the chapel invites us to do. And what Zan Holmes was teaching a young preacher sitting nervously in his office all those years ago.

We do not live our lives alone.

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. People who have loved us, challenged us, forgiven us, taught us, and sometimes disturbed us enough to become better versions of ourselves.

Their stories aren’t finished.

Not as long as we’re still carrying them.

So here’s my question for you today, from a hillside in Brooklyn:

Who’s on your wall?

Who are the saints who cheer you on?

Who still looks over your shoulder, calling you toward higher ground?

And perhaps most importantly:

Whose stories are you carrying forward—and how are you bringing those stories to life in something new?

Because maybe the greatest way to honor those who came before us isn’t simply to remember their names.

Maybe it’s to live in such a way that their love, their courage, and their hope keep finding new life in us.