St. Dolly of Appalachia

Sermon for Aug. 30, 2026
Romans 12:9-21

Like probably 80 or 90 percent of the rest of American preachers this morning, I want to reflect a little on the passing of Dolly Parton.  Now, I am only a marginal Dolly Parton fan; for years, I’ve admired and respected her artistic and philanthropic work, but I couldn’t name more than a handful of her songs.  But, like many of the rest of us, I did stop in my tracks on Tuesday as a staff member called out from his desk that Dolly had died.

          What’s really struck me this week has been the response to her passing.  It hasn’t been so much a surprise as a holy reassurance.  Across social media, we’ve seen post after post praising Dolly’s giftedness, her heart, and her faith.  People lauded her stunning artistic achievements, in quality and quantity – I can’t imagine writing more than 3,000 songs.  People praised her literacy initiative, the Imagination Library, which puts books in the hands of 3 million children each month.¹  People thanked her for giving away millions of dollars in other ways, too, including funding COVID research, AIDS research and awareness, and recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene – as well as supporting individuals who lost their homes in Tennessee wildfires.  People also witnessed to her unshakable faith and her commitment to living it out.  One post quoted Dolly saying, “We’re supposed to love one another and love our neighbors as ourselves. It doesn’t take much to be kind.”  Several posts named her as St. Dolly of Appalachia, complete with icons.  A post from the satirical Babylon Bee captured the moment nicely:  It read, “Apocalypse Draws Near as Last Remaining Universally Beloved Human Being Passes Away.”²

Of course, despite the way people have come together around Dolly’s passing, our world is still on fire, in a hundred ways.  Or, more precisely this week, it’s under water.  One day after Dolly Parton’s death came news of astonishing flooding and landslides in Tibet and Nepal.  The video takes your breath away as water, mud, and rocks roll over Himalayan villages, and people scatter like ants before the wave.  Initially, reports said an earthquake had triggered a melting glacier to give way.  Later, the U.S. government confirmed that, instead, the rush of water, mud, and rocks was so powerful as to mimic a 4.4-magnitude earthquake.³  As of this morning, about 800 are confirmed dead and 3,000 still are missing – mostly residents of the villages, as well as pilgrims and hikers from around the world.⁴  It’s devastation on a scale I can barely comprehend.

This isn’t really a why-bad-things-happen-to-good-people sermon, but I do think it’s worth saying this much:  The theological term that applies in situations like this is “theodicy.”  Interestingly, that word doesn’t mean, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  It means a defense of God, in a legal sense.  It’s less “why?” and more “how could you allow that?”  So, taking the presumptuous position of rising as God’s defense attorney, I’d just say this:  It wasn’t God who melted that glacier enough to collapse.

Of course, the world is burning in many other ways, too.  And we could burn a lot of time debating who’s to blame for this or that particular dumpster fire.  I think it’s more productive, and more holy, to turn instead toward how we might put them out.  

But solutions can’t come without first having the right orientation, the right relationship.  To put out the fires raging around us, we first have to turn and face them together.  And that tremendous change of orientation begins with an even bigger change of heart – deciding to see ourselves, first and foremost, as children of God called to love the other children of God around us … whether we like them or not.

The apostle Paul lays it out for us in today’s reading from Romans.  Now, remember, Paul is the guy who first committed his life to judging those who disagreed with him, literally locking them up, even stoning them.  Paul was the original true believer in the worst possible sense, the kind of person you want to stay as far away from as you can.  But in this soaring statement of just how far his heart had turned, Paul says to the believers in Rome:  Put Love first, and let it guide everything.

Of course that’s true about relating to other followers of Jesus.  “Let love be genuine,” Paul says to the Roman Christians.  “[L]ove one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor” (12:10).  Cool; we can get behind that.  It’s even true about those beyond the boundary of your faith:  “[E]xtend hospitality to strangers,” Paul adds (12:13).  OK, that’s fine.

But then comes the crazy talk.  “Bless those who persecute you” (12:14).  Wait, what?  No, really, Paul says; “Do not repay anyone evil for evil….  Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.” (12:17,19)  Want to see your enemies suffer?  Here’s how, Paul says:  “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing that you will heap burning coals on their heads” (12:20).  Paul’s point is this:  Don’t follow the world’s model by trying to destroy those who oppose you.  Instead, fight back with the strongest weapon there is, the weapon of Love.  “[O]vercome evil with good,” Paul says (12:21).

One of the things I really admire about Dolly Parton is the way she embodied this countercultural ethic St. Paul lays out.  Now, most of us don’t have $500 million to donate to the work of Love in the world, so how it looks for us to overcome evil with good probably won’t bring us internet sainthood when we die.  But we can each take inspiration from St. Dolly of Appalachia, as well as St. Paul of Tarsus, and look for ways to overcome evil with good in our own lives.

Maybe that’s through gifts of time.  Maybe it’s through gifts of talent.  Maybe it’s through gifts of treasure.  Or maybe it’s through another “T”: telling the truth.  And I don’t mean that in the sense of using your truth to bludgeon others.  I mean following the model of the Old Testament prophets: telling truth that points people toward a divine reality.  That’s the prophet’s calling, after all – to be the one to speak for God, the one with the guts to say, “Look, this path we’re on is leading to our destruction.  Let’s turn back.  Let’s go another way – God’s way.”

That’s what I hear St. Paul saying in today’s reading from Romans, too.  I imagine him grilling a witness for the world’s model of destroying those who oppose you, the old us-versus-them:  St. Paul asks, how’s retribution working out for you?  How effectively is vengeance solving your problems?  Just maybe there’s a better road.  How about this? “Live in harmony with one another; … do not claim to be wiser than you are….  [S]o far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” (Romans 12:16,18)  And, for St. Paul, “all” incudes even them – whoever qualifies as “them” to you.  

It’s not just in Scripture that we find God’s prophets.  We find one in our saint of the week, Blessed Dolly of Appalachia.  Dolly Parton didn’t just have a great voice; she had a divine voice.  She refused to get drawn into us-versus-them debates; instead, she insisted on speaking and acting in love.  Doing that, St. Dolly spoke for God, the One who made her and redeemed her and sustained her.  That didn’t mean being a sweet Southern girl.  It meant shining light into the darkness we create for ourselves.

So, I want to give St. Dolly the last word this morning.  Now, I’d like to play a song for you; but last time I did that, the gods of the internet shut off our livestream.  So, I’ll just leave you with prophetic words from St. Dolly’s 2023 song, “World on Fire”:

Liar, liar, the world’s on fire,
Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?
Fire, fire burning higher,
Still got time to turn it all around. 

I ain’t one for speaking out much,
But that don’t mean I don’t stay in touch.
Everybody’s tripping over this or that –
What we gonna do when we all fall flat? …

Don’t get me started on politics.
How are we to live in a world like this?
Greedy politicians present and past –
They wouldn't know the truth if it bit ’em in the ass.

What is truth?  Have we all lost sight
Of common decency, of wrong and right?
How do we heal this great divide?
Do we care enough to try? …

Can we rise up? Can we show some love?
Do we just give up – or make a change?
We know all too well we’ve all been through hell.
Time to break the spell, in heaven’s name.⁵ 

1.        “The World’s Largest Study of Shared Book Reading Reaffirms: Early Literacy Begins at Birth.” Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Available at: https://imaginationlibrary.com/international-research/. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

2.        “Apocalypse Draws Near As Last Remaining Universally Beloved Human Being Passes Away.” The Babylon Bee. Available at: https://babylonbee.com/news/apocalypse-draws-near-as-last-remaining-universally-beloved-human-being-passes-away?fbclid=IwZnRzaAT9MEpwZG9mBWZkaWQWUNR_GGBjmd2CrthRFmLC72QcPVWDFmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7RIhOLk0U-IDY-8Zc-GdNO3RqW9S6H4YCZ4Qs2JMV4WireZy7NoOLzqBY2EA_aem_eRq-LBTHrbE-2ZcfGIwUtA. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

3.        “Nearly 1,400 missing, mostly tourists, after Nepal-Tibet flash flood kills at least 356.” The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/27/what-caused-nepal-flash-flood-glacial-collapse-tibet-border. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.

4.        “Nepal flood death toll reaches 800, with more than 3,000 missing, as poor weather hampers rescues.” CBS News. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nepal-flash-flood-death-missing-americans-rescue/. Accessed Aug. 30, 2026.

5.        Parton, Dolly. “World on Fire.” Available at: https://tasteofcountry.com/dolly-parton-world-on-fire-lyrics/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral. Accessed Aug. 29, 2026.