Episodes
Sunday Oct 09, 2016
We Serve...
Sunday Oct 09, 2016
Sunday Oct 09, 2016
We Serve…
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, October 9, 2016.
Texts: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Luke 17:11-19
We serve God by serving others. We remember the second of Christ’s greatest commandments is to love each other. We make personal commitments to working with people in our neighborhood and around the world.
“In pain today.” That was the subject line of an email I received this week from a member of our Foundry family. “In pain today.” These simple words struck me at a deep place as new reports of the devastation and death toll in Haiti continued to roll in in waves; as fresh news of Christian exclusion and violence to LGBTQ people emerged both within our denomination and from other places like Intervarsity Fellowship; as a participant in the “God and Guns 2016” conference in New York City, listening to the pain-filled stories of survivors of gun violence; as I was again confronted by the intersections of race, poverty, and death by guns; as I caught up on the news I’d missed on Friday during the conference to discover indefensible misogyny and sexual violence being defended and rationalized and normalized for the sake of—what?—winning an election? And then, yesterday, I arrived at Penn Station with a little breathing room to catch my train home only to receive a report that “there is a body on the tracks”…no further story or explanation except that there was a fatality—and so for a couple of hours I settled into a spot on the floor to ponder the words, “In pain today.”
Every day, both near to us and far away, people are in pain. Among the presenters at Friday’s conference was Rev. Alan Storey, South African Methodist pastor and prophet who confessed to us saying, “I numb myself just to keep sane.” That resonated with me. Perhaps it does with some of you, too.
We may need to numb ourselves sometimes in the face of so much tragedy, injustice, and pain. But we need to guard against allowing the numbness to devolve into apathy or despair. We are the people of God, called to be witnesses to God’s extravagant love and mercy in the world. Our particular witness as Foundry Church, the story we tell and seek to embody, is a critically important counter-narrative to what is espoused by some who claim the name “Christian.” There are those who preach that to be Christian is to think you know the very mind of God, that God punishes people through natural disasters and acts of violence, that women should be subservient to men, that “God ‘n country” is one word, that serving God requires exclusion and hate. Alternatively, Foundry affirms that we serve God by serving each other. We are clear in our core values: all people are children of God and should be treated that way; people who feel excluded elsewhere are welcomed and integral to our shared life. When we say “We serve God by serving each other,” the “each other” we serve is not just those who claim Foundry as their faith community. The “each other” we serve is not just those who believe what we believe or vote like we vote or live like we live or love like we love. Our call is to serve each and every other there is! Because every “other” is beloved of God. Every “other” experiences pain. Every “other” has the capacity to more fully know and reflect the divine image that is the birthright and goal of all humankind. We ground this core value of service in Jesus’ teaching that part of the greatest commandment is to love our neighbor. Jesus showed us what that looks like in practice. It is messy and it is political and beautiful and transforming and confrontational; Jesus shows us that loving our neighbor means to lay down our lives for the other. Death and resurrection is always part of the story.
Today we read the prophet Jeremiah who says, “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” I must confess that when I think of this verse of scripture, I often think about my own call to seek the welfare of this city. And certainly that is part of my calling—it is part of our calling. But these words of Jeremiah are not directed to me or to anyone with power and privilege and stability—they are not words telling us with all the power and resources to go and help those poor people in the city. Jeremiah’s words were spoken TO the exiles who were deported when Babylon occupied Judah for the first time (597 BC). Jeremiah is speaking to the poor, the immigrants, to those who had lost their homes and livelihoods, who had been driven out of their country by violence. Several implications come to mind that guide us in our call to serve each other. First, the assumption in this text is that the exiles (those forced from their homes and countries by violence) have gifts to offer that will contribute to the welfare of the place where they make their home. That is not a small detail in our current cultural and political climate. How much of our current rhetoric speaks of what “those people” (immigrants, the poor, LGBTQ people) take away from “us?” But this text suggests just the opposite.
Second, God’s people—in this case, those in exile—are encouraged to seek not just their own welfare in a new place, but also the welfare of their enemies (those who had done them the greatest harm!); for in the welfare of their enemies’ home and community they find their own. This speaks to the interconnectedness of the human family. All the lines we want to draw to keep us from caring for, serving, and loving others—lines of country, gender, culture, politics, race, religion—are not of God. Yes, there are real differences among the human family and there are those who have done us real harm, but we belong to each other! Jesus echoes this teaching when he says we are to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us (Mt 5:44, Lk 6:28). This doesn’t mean that we don’t challenge and fight against actions or policies that do harm, or that we are to overlook greed, injustice, and fear-mongering. Rather, we are called to love our enemies enough to call them out for the ways that they betray their own human dignity through acts of injustice or violence, the ways they distort the image of God by their greed and cruelty. Jesus never minced words with the agents of religious, political, or social injustice. But he never sought to destroy them. The neighbors we are called to love and serve include our enemies.
Another implication for us today from Jeremiah is that, for any here today who are not living in poverty, who are not immigrants, refugees, those dispossessed of home, family, or livelihood due to violence, our duty first and foremost is (as one of the presenters said on Friday) to “close our proximity to pain.” Like Jesus who draws near to those who were feared and shunned by others—for example, the lepers in our Gospel text—our role is to stand in solidarity, to draw close to those who are struggling, who are suffering, who are in pain and to honor the gifts that they are and the gifts that they bring by concretely supporting them…because we belong to each other, because we are family, because our welfares are bound up together.
A recap: First, humble yourself and welcome the stranger. Second, serve your enemies as well as your friends—and that might be through challenging them. Third, be in solidarity, be in real relationship, be on the frontlines with those who are in pain and the victims of exclusion and violence. The welfare of our city, our nation, our world hangs in the balance.
How do we concretely respond to the pain and need that is all around us? I want you to understand today that, insofar as you contribute to Foundry Church (through prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness), you are responding. Together we are serving God through serving others. One way we do this is through being who we are and looking like we look! Another is through the counter-narrative we offer in the world—a narrative of God’s radical hospitality and inclusion, of God’s steadfast love and mercy for all people, a narrative of faith that is relational and personal, that is intellectually rigorous and open to mystery, that is lived out in both personal piety and social justice, that is fueled from start to finish by God’s grace. This in itself is a powerful way that we serve!!
Our witness is also powerfully manifest through our cooking and feeding missions, through our English as a Second Language program, and through our Imago Dei (I.D.) ministry—one of only two in the city that helps the poor and unhoused obtain government IDs and birth certificates. Foundry sent more than 30 people to Portland to build relationships and advocate for full-inclusion of LGBTQ people at General Conference—and Foundry remains absolute in our commitment to welcoming all people and practicing marriage equality. Our Advent and Lenten Justice series help us explore concrete responses to issues such as solitary confinement, gun violence, and environmental justice. Foundry folks serve across the city during our annual Great Days of Service—and this past spring more than 350 volunteers joined together for a Foundry-inspired Greater Washington District meal packing event to feed hungry people on the other side of the world. Foundry actively partners with organizations in DC to end chronic homelessness (like Pathways to Housing whose offices reside in our building) and, this past March hosted a standing-room-only Housing For All Rally in which our own Pastor Ben spoke some serious truth to our Mayor and other city officials in attendance. We have cultivated relationships with Brighter Day UMC in Anacostia and Metropolitan UMC in the Sandtown neighborhood in Baltimore to support initiatives of these communities where poverty and racial inequity do harm. Our Scholar in Residence program this year has challenged us to go deeper into the conversation and discernment around our action for racial justice and, growing out of that, the Racial Justice Ministry Team has clarified its goal: Awareness Raising. Active Dialogue. Action. Books to Prisons, grief support, Prayer and Care Ministries, pastoral counseling, and more…all of these things are among the concrete ways that we serve as Foundry.
“In pain today…” This reality can feel overwhelming and like we can’t make any difference. But you can and do make a difference by your support of Foundry Church. We serve through our prayers. We serve through our presence with one another in worship, study, and fellowship. We serve through our financial gifts. We serve through hands-on ministry and mission. We serve through our witness as bearers of the good news of God’s love for all people.
Our core value of service includes these words: “We make personal commitments to working with people in our neighborhood and around the world.” What personal commitment are you willing to make for the welfare of the world?
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.