What does it mean to check the foundation of a house, a church, or a life? In the second message of the stewardship series “Our Money Story,” Rev. Rhoda Howell opens with a confession about her complicated history with the Beatitudes. She then invites us to read them differently: not as a pat on our own backs, but as a picture of how Jesus asks us to see and love neighbors who are grieving, overlooked, and searching for hope.

On All Saints Sunday, she traces River Road’s own roots from 1780 in downtown Richmond through its years on Broad Street, including a painful chapter during the Civil War, and asks whether the foundation of loving God, neighbor, and self is still holding. With humor and honesty, and a few stories about the joys of owning a 70-year-old house, Rhoda reminds us that remembering who we were is part of preparing for who we will be.