Episodes
Sunday Oct 04, 2015
Being and Becoming
Sunday Oct 04, 2015
Sunday Oct 04, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC October 4, 2015, the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, World Communion Sunday.
Scripture Texts: 1 Peter:4-5, Mark 10:13-16
Refugee crisis. Racism. School shootings. Chronic war in the Middle East. State executions. Climate change, hurricanes, floods. Misogyny rearing its ugly head in all sorts of ways in the political arena. Polarization and demonization being an accepted form of debate on the national stage. LGBTQ persons and their allies being persecuted in our church and society. And even Pope Francis proving no one is immune to being dragged into scandal… Add to that all the personal and interpersonal challenges and grief we bear—mental illness, addiction, cancer and other life-threatening diseases, relationship struggles, unemployment, and on it goes.
In the midst of so much brokenness and violence, it is easy to fall into despair. It is tempting to allow cynicism to gain the upper hand, to grow numb to the pain of the world, or to retreat into a sense of powerlessness. But there is an alternative response.
My friend and colleague, Matt Berryman, Executive Director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, regularly posts the following prayer on FaceBook: “New every morning is your love, great God of light, and all day long you are working for good in the world.” This prayer is from the United Methodist order for morning prayer; and I don’t know when Matt started posting it, but it’s been long enough that the words have become part of my regular prayer lexicon. “New every morning is your love, great God of light, and all day long you are working for good in the world.” It is the same sentiment that we sing with such gusto here at Foundry—“Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning, new mercies I see!”
We know that some things are broken beyond our capacity to repair. We know our own limits and our own collusion and complicity. But “all day long God is working for good in the world.” And that gives us hope even in the midst of all that is wrong—in our lives and in our nation and in our world. Perhaps that is the greatest gift of our faith, the great hope we have in God’s goodness and in God’s activity in the world. And the promise of course is that God is at work not in some abstract way, but in and through people, in and through the church—imperfect and broken as we are.
Over the next several weeks, we will hear the verses from 1 Peter that were read today. This passage is part of a letter written between 70 and 90 C.E. to churches in five Roman provinces of Asia Minor. At that time and place, Christianity was a despised, foreign religion and the churches were evidently experiencing social tensions and suffering as a result of their faith in Jesus Christ. In the first verses of the letter, the author (a pseudonymous “Peter”) writes these words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…” In the midst of the churches’ struggle to keep the faith in the midst of so much suffering and brokenness, God gives “a new birth into a living hope.” The hope comes from the promise of new life in Christ, a life with love at the center (1 Pet 1:22) and with a deep trust that death and hatred and violence do not have the last word (see 1 Pet 1:23-25). And the churches are called to stand in contrast to the culture around them as a witness to the power of love and mercy. “Come to Christ, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…” The churches are called to become a place for the indwelling of God, a people infused with God’s grace, a welcoming shelter for God’s little ones—right in the midst of the challenge and conflict of the world.
Friends, this is still our call. God is at work, building the Kin-dom, building a spiritual house—out of US—if only we let it be. We are “Under Construction”—as people, as a congregation, as a denomination, as a world-wide church family. Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday when we lift up the fact that we are members of a Christian family that literally reaches around the globe and is expressed through a wide diversity of forms, languages, and cultures. There have been times in my life when I’ve allowed cynicism to creep in around the edges on this day. I have a sermon entitled “Oxymoron Sunday”—where I bemoan the ways that the church—and the world—is far from being communal or connected. We all know the deep brokenness between and within the various Christian denominations. We all know the ways that the church gets twisted up in its own concerns and forgets what it’s really about, the ways we fail to welcome the stranger, the children, the Holy Spirit…We know all the ways that the church gets it wrong.
But all day long God is working for good in the world. All day long God is working on us, working in us, building us and forming us and using us. And that means that even with all that is wrong, there is so much that is right, that is beautiful and powerful. I personally have experienced the church at worship and in service in south India, Mexico, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Greece, Liberia, England, Honduras…I have worshiped and served alongside Christian sisters and brothers from an Apache reservation in Arizona to Park Avenue in Manhattan to the hollers of Appalachia to the suburbs of Maryland. Perhaps you can call to mind some of the diverse ways and places that you have experienced the church. And it is true that in all these places there is the messiness and imperfection that is part of human life and community. But there is also extraordinary devotion to God and to people, there is creativity and commitment, there is generosity and sacrifice, there are folks who dig in and work through obstacles and hurts and disappointments, there are artists and teachers and organizers and healers. There are people laying down their lives in solidarity and love for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. We have such a limited view of all the good that is done in and through God’s church.
And we shouldn’t be surprised that our organized religion is so often terribly disorganized; we shouldn’t be surprised that the church isn’t the model of perfection. Because we are still “under construction!” // John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, talked a lot about growth in holiness—or what he called “going on to perfection.” These days I use the language of “being and becoming.” This phrase captures the dual truths that right now you are absolutely beloved and right where you need to be and just who you need to be; AND you are also not yet perfected in love, not yet completely liberated from the things that bind you, not yet fully integrated and whole. God loves you exactly as you are; AND God loves you enough to not let you stay exactly as you are. We are always being AND becoming. I have spent a lot of time in my life focused exclusively on how I hadn’t gotten all the “becoming” done yet—that is, focused on everything that wasn’t perfect in my life and the world around me. That means that I missed a lot of great stuff on the “being” side…passed right by it while I was busy making other plans. Even when things are hard and messed up—even when I fall so far short of who I desire to be—there is, even then, so much good, so much beauty, so much God in the moment. What I am slowly and stubbornly learning is that in the midst of what will always be a life, a church, a world “in process,” a life and world that is imperfect and messy and often painful, it is possible—with God’s help and a lot of practice—to be in the moment with gratitude, and to trust what is coming. If we can trust that God is at work in the world and in the church and in us and—if we try in every moment to open our hearts and minds and lives and activity to God—then we will grow in holiness, we will become more fully and perfectly the persons God knows is possible. If we close ourselves off or trust in ourselves or other things, well, we will at the very least become someone different—but that is a sermon for next week!
The church as it exists here at Foundry and as a worldwide communion, is, like you and me, being and becoming. The church is both wonderful and far from perfected in love. And in the midst of this world that is so deeply broken, God has called us to stand in contrast to the culture around us as a witness to the power of love and mercy. And God calls you and me to be built into a “spiritual house,” to be built into this church. You are Foundry. I am Foundry. And even though we are very much still under construction, even imperfect as we are, God is at work through us. Just this past week, I have heard testimonies of several people whose lives have been changed and whose faith has been renewed because they have discovered the saving power of God’s steadfast love and embrace through the witness of this church. Our advocacy, our hands-on service, our financial gifts that support mission and ministry through the global connection as well as through what we do locally and within these walls, the soul-nourishing music and worship that we share, and the connections with one another—all of this is our being the best church we can be today even as we trust that God is helping us to become more faithful, more connected, more free, more powerful, more whole.
New every morning is God’s love; and all day long God is working for good in the world. It can be hard to hold on to that promise—but in those moments when you simply can’t see it or believe it, the church holds the promise for you, and holds YOU too. And so we rejoice in the gift and beauty of this moment and we don’t give in to despair and we don’t give up when things are difficult and we continue to strive to be and to become more like Christ, to be living stones, shaped and fit together into a community that is honest about both our strength and our imperfection even as we welcome with joy God’s perfecting love. That love is our hope. And it is a promise. Thanks be to God.
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