Episodes
Sunday Sep 20, 2015
Demolition Benefits
Sunday Sep 20, 2015
Sunday Sep 20, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, September 20, 2015, the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text: Mark 9:30-37
We put our hands in paint and put our hand prints on the wall. We painted the words to our favorite camp songs on another wall. A dear friend wrote a poem that was inscribed under our hands. It was Senior High youth group at 1st Methodist Sapulpa, circa 1986. We were claiming our time and our room and we were awesome! And a number of years back, I got word that it was all coming down. A new vision for children and youth ministry required that all the walls be painted—there were going to be murals in the hallways and each classroom would have a different theme. Neat vision, right? I was a little unhappy about it. At the same time, I heard that the sanctuary was being rearranged, placing the choir and organ and piano in a new location. Ostensibly, this was supposed to be better for sound and would improve logistics for worship. Sounds reasonable, right? I was cranky about it. Did it matter that I hadn’t lived in the same time zone as my home church for more than ten years? No. I didn’t want what I had created to change. I didn’t want the space that I loved and that had held me in worship throughout my childhood and teens to ever be different.
What is that about? Why do so many of us get bogged down in trying to keep things from changing? I imagine it has something to do with our fear of loss, our fear of being disconnected from a place or community that is significant in our lives. Perhaps our death grip on “the way things have always been”—whether that is at church, at home, in a relationship, at work or wherever—has something to do with our fear that the things we value, the things that have given us a sense of meaning, a sense of belonging, will disappear.
Do you hear the common denominator here? Fear. Unfortunately, when we learn that something is going to happen that we find difficult, undesirable, or scary, fear tries to wage a hostile takeover. Fear can paralyze us so that we find ourselves “checking out” of a situation; but it can also kick us into an overzealous campaign to firm up our place and position and safety.
It seems the latter is what happened to Jesus’ disciples when confronted with the fact that Jesus was going to be killed. They didn’t understand what he was talking about when he went on about that dying and rising stuff—and in their confusion or denial or fear they start trying to firm up their own position. Who’s the greatest among us?
The disciples’ response is of course in direct opposition to what Jesus is trying to reveal to them: namely, that everything is changing. Not only is Jesus going to die, but the familiar paradigms of power and honor that they’re busy arguing about—all that is changing too. The impulse to “seize power” or to jockey for position in order to get attention or respect or accolades is a vestige of the old ways. The new vision—or, perhaps better stated, the old vision fully revealed in Jesus—is that real power, life-giving power, is found in vulnerability, in humility, in welcoming and serving those who cannot reciprocate or offer us anything other than themselves. A child—lovingly lifted up by Jesus so as to put flesh and blood on his point—has no power to help us ascend the ladder of success; a child has no clout or pull, can’t get us VIP seats or free tickets; a child doesn’t have the capacity to make us more money or to make us more popular or to improve our polling numbers. What Jesus teaches is that greatness in the Kin-dom is measured not by how we welcome the “important people” but how we welcome those who have nothing to offer; greatness according to Christ is measured not by how high we climb, but how humbly we serve. Regardless of whether we hold a position of power and authority in the world or if we serve in a role that others might deem inconsequential, the call is the same. Greatness in the Kin-dom is to love and welcome and support others—especially the vulnerable—without the expectation that it will get us anything in return.
Wait—it’s not about quid pro quo and what I can get for myself??? It’s not just the first disciples who have a hard time getting it. The feelings I had about the demolition of “my” church spaces were wrapped up in the “it’s all about me” syndrome. It is so easy to get caught in this self-focused, self-serving mode if we lose sight of what it’s really all about. Jesus says that our lives—and most certainly our churches!—are to be focused on loving and serving others. When we forget this, it’s very tempting to think that the church should be focused primarily on serving “ME.” Now that’s not to say that we shouldn’t expect to receive the gifts that we covenant to share when we become part of the church. But the point is that in the church it is never “all about me.” In the church, it is all about Christ—it is about loving and serving others in a way that truly reflects Christ’s way of self-giving, self-sacrificing love and service.
In several months—possibly just in time for Christmas—we at Foundry will begin the transformation of the section of our physical plant that includes our chapel, Pastor Ben’s office, the clothes closet, and parlor into a bright, open, and welcoming multi-purpose space; larger, accessible bathrooms, a new elevator, and a better situated choir room, as well as improvements to the internal systems of the building are also in the plans. The first steps in this process are abatement—that is, getting rid of dangerous or unwanted stuff in the building like asbestos—and then demolition. Things aren’t just getting painted over for Phase I of Mission Possible, walls are coming down! It doesn’t take much to realize that in the midst of all this, community life will become increasingly complicated. We will lose access to things, spaces that hold precious memories will no longer be there in the same way, our comfort will potentially be challenged, things will…well…change.
We got some good practice at managing changes to our routine last weekend as we welcomed so many guests and visitors to Foundry for our Bicentennial Homecoming service. Lines around the corner, metal detectors, areas of the building made inaccessible, strangers inhabiting “our” seats in the pew and other challenges were part of what we both expected and experienced. What I know now—without question—is that we are capable of responding to such change and challenge with grace, warmth, good planning, and self-sacrifice. “Radical hospitality” were words on everybody’s lips last Sunday!
But here’s something to consider: last Sunday we were expecting pretty high-profile folks into our space. We got lots of public attention and praise for our efforts. In that situation, perhaps, it is not easy, but at least understandable, to sacrifice our own familiar habits and seats and comfort. After all, that kind of service gets us the attention we want! But what happens when the changes are happening not for a former Secretary of State or a former U.S. President, but for the unnamed, unknown people in our communities who are looking for hope, for meaning, for purpose in their lives? What happens when we are changing things in order to try to make space and to create opportunities for those who have little to offer in the way of raising our profile as individuals or as a congregation? What happens when the hassle and complication and discomfort of change lasts not for just one Sunday but for months at a time? The answers to those questions reveal what we’re really made of.
We know—don’t we?—that it’s one thing to talk about change and quite another to live through it. The way to travel faithfully through real change—the kind of change that excites our fears and anxiety—is to keep focused on the goal and to remember that it’s all part of a reality much larger than our individual experience. Jesus shows us how it’s done. The goal is humble service, to live with love and compassion, to be willing to sacrifice everything in order to show and share and BE God’s love in the world. The pattern—the big picture—is life, death, and resurrection. In every change, in every loss, in every moment when cherished spaces or even our lives are falling apart, remember that God is brilliant at the whole “new life” thing. We don’t need to be afraid. We don’t need to scurry around trying to secure our place in the world. Our place is already secure in God’s heart. And so our job is to humbly serve. When we focus on serving others, offering our best gifts, extending the welcome and sharing the blessings we ourselves have received, sometimes we have to let go of things. When we make humble service the primary goal, then sometimes our ego has to die, or our great plans have to be surrendered, or our own comfort has to be sacrificed. But Jesus shows us that self-giving love and service leads to new and true life. Life, death, resurrection. NEW LIFE is the benefit of demolition! Clearing out dangerous and unwanted stuff (abatement) leads to greater health and wholeness—in our buildings and in our lives. Tearing down walls and structures and ways of living that no longer serve us or others (demolition) opens up space for new life to emerge. It happens in our lives. It happens in our church. Not just once, but again and again, as we try to live after the example of Jesus.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to walk through the halls and rooms and sanctuary of my childhood church. My handprint was no longer visible on the youth room wall. But what replaced it is a truly inspiring education space that has been welcoming the children of that church for some years now. The space where the repositioned organ used to be was opened up to allow the baptismal font to be placed in front of the stained-glass window depicting Jesus’ own Baptism and to provide space for families to gather around as the child, youth, or adult is baptized. The church has also built an amazing addition with much larger and more exciting spaces for the junior and senior high youth to gather. What amazing benefits have been borne out of the demolition of the old ways for the sake of a new vision focused on welcoming and serving others!
As we move into this new season at Foundry—this third century of ministry, this time when we are welcoming new staff and new ideas, this moment when we are choosing to make changes to our building that will make life difficult for a while—we are invited to remember what it’s all about: it’s about loving and serving others, it’s about letting go of some things in order to create space for new life to emerge, it’s about sacrificing our own comfort for the sake of welcoming all of God’s children. And I trust that we will move into the changes and challenges of this season with generosity and grace and that we will reap the extraordinary benefits of purpose, hope, and even resurrection.
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