Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

When I was in seminary, I participated in a Liberation Theology seminar tour in South India. During those two weeks, we soaked up the beautiful, radical otherness of the culture. We learned from profound teachers who opened our minds and our hearts to new ways of thinking about theology and about Christian witness in a place where only 2% of the population is Christian.

We stayed primarily in Dalit communities, communities made up of those who were previously called “untouchables” in the Indian caste system. One night we stayed in a village of Dalit Christians. After a service filled with music and singing, the community poured out of the small church at the center of the village and began gathering. Imagine any given Sunday here at Foundry after worship, with groups gathered here and there outside the sanctuary. It was kind of like that. At a certain moment, we noticed that some kind of ritual seemed to be happening. People were gathered together, and members of the community were going around distributing something.

We didn’t know what was happening. Then someone came up to us and put some pea pods in our hands. They reminded me of what you might think of as edamame. We tried to ask what this was, but it was tricky since none of us spoke Tamil. One young man simply said, as best he could, “Peas for the people.” Or maybe he was saying “peace for the people.” We weren’t sure. But we wondered whether this was the way that this poor village celebrated communion. Everyone received the same simple food, and it was for all the people. Food and peace for all.

To this day, I don’t know exactly what was happening, and maybe that’s one reason I still remember it so clearly. There are experiences in life that resist being neatly explained. Something happens, and we know there is more going on than we can name. We feel ourselves caught up in something larger than ourselves. Throughout this series, we are exploring those experiences that interrupt our ordinary ways of seeing and remind us that the world is larger, stranger, more beautiful, and more interconnected than we usually remember.

Dr. Keltner writes about the way experiences of awe often lie at the heart of spiritual life. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Across cultures and traditions, people encounter what he calls a kind of fundamental “it,” something larger than ourselves that we may experience as God or mystery, spirit, sacred presence, or connection. We don’t always know how to explain it, but intellectual explanation is not the only way human beings know that something is true.

And I think there are few places where that becomes clearer than at the table we gather around today. Paul asks the church in Corinth, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” The word translated “sharing” is koinonia: communion, participation, fellowship. Paul is saying that this is more than just remembering Jesus. Somehow, in this meal, we participate in Christ. And because we participate in Christ, Paul says, “we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” In what United Methodists call this holy mystery, we take a little piece of bread and we receive from the cup, and somehow this ordinary meal reveals something extraordinary about who we are. We belong to Christ, and therefore we belong to one another.

Jesus speaks of the same mystery in his prayer in John’s Gospel. He prays not only for the disciples who are with him, but also on behalf of “those who will believe in me through their word.” And that means us: all of those who came before us and all of those who will come after. Jesus prays, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.” I in you, you in me, they in us, we in them. Is there a Venn diagram for this? We can try to wrap our minds around this language of eternal, dynamic, life-giving, interdependent, indwelling love, but it’s the language of mystery. It is the attempt to describe a belonging deeper than proximity or agreement, deeper than nationality or culture or language, or even time itself.

On this World Communion Sunday, we are invited to pay attention to the vastness of this belonging. Today, Christians are coming to tables all over the world, in cathedrals and storefront churches, in tiny villages and crowded cities. People are receiving wafers and pieces of bread, wine and juice, or whatever is available. Perhaps somewhere, something as simple as peas. Peace for the people. They pray in languages we don’t understand. They sing songs we’ve never heard. Their lives may look nothing like ours. And yet we make the astonishing claim that there is not a “their” table and an “our” table. There is God’s table: one table, one bread, one body.

And the table stretches not only around the world, but through time. We share this meal with the generations who received it before us, with the saints whose names we know and the ones whose names we don’t. And one day, others will gather around the table when our own names have joined that great communion. There is more happening at this table than we can explain.

But the mystery of the sacrament is not only beautiful or sentimental. If there is one table, if there is truly a sharing in the body and blood of Christ, then here at this table with us is the innocent man suffering in El Salvador’s secret prison, and his mother, still praying to God for him to come home. Here at this table is the four-year-old who has been orphaned by AIDS because funding was cut off. Here is the toddler orphaned because their parents were killed in war. At this table, right here, are all the women around the world carrying the scars of sexual abuse.

To say that we are one body gathered at one table means the suffering of another part of the body is never just someone else’s problem. Paul was writing, after all, to a church divided by status and privilege, a community in which some had more than enough and others went hungry. Paul’s teaching here is not just a pretty mystery. It is a call to responsibility. And not just responsibility, by the way, toward those who call themselves Christian. Because we belong to Christ, we are responsible to attend to the suffering world that Christ loves.

Jesus shows us how to manifest the love of God: through mending the broken places in human lives and communities, through feeding hungry bodies, through restoring the outcast and setting people free. The small communities of Jesus followers in India showed us how their belonging in Christ called them to advocate for and serve any neighbor who was suffering. Their participation in Christ led them to bear witness to a love that breaks down barriers. I in you, and you in me, and they in us, and we in them.

I think about that Dalit village, people whose community had for generations been told that some were pure and others impure, some worthy and others untouchable. And there they were, passing food from hand to hand. Peace for the people. Peace for the people. Something simple for everybody.

This is a holy mystery of God’s love made manifest. We will never fully explain what happens here: how bread and cup join us to Christ, how Christ joins us to one another, how a little table here in Washington somehow becomes part of a table that circles the earth and stretches through generations. It’s more than we can explain. But what if we simply receive it?

The promise of the table is still food for the people, justice for the people, belonging for the people. Peace for all the people. Our invitation today is simply to pay attention to what this table reveals, to be astonished by the love of God that makes us one, and to tell about it not just with our pretty words and our songs, but with our lives.

May it be so. Amen.

This is a little different view from the one that I'm used to when I'm here. So welcome and thank you for the opportunity.

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. I love those words from Mary Oliver, and I love being here to talk about the music of our movement. Making music is an act of creation. What draws us to its sound? On this reconciling Sunday, we celebrate what we have learned from our music. You've heard some of it already this morning, and it really preaches.

It was really easy to write the sermon because the songs kind of do it for you. I will always be grateful to people like Julie and Rush and Mark Millar and the many others, who have lent their gifts to this movement. We associate music we like with where we were when we first heard the songs. Linda and I frequently talk about snack bar songs.

And what we mean is those songs from the 1970s that played on the jukebox in the Wesleyan College snack bar.

Every time we hear one, it brings back this image of this small college snack bar with a jukebox over in the corner that served the best bagels in cream cheese you will ever have. And where we made and met some lifelong friends.

More recently, my siblings and I have been going through my mom's belongings. We came across some records a few weeks ago that have to have been her mother's, because they weren't people my parents ever listened to. We laughed at Lawrence Welk and Charley Pride and other memories of things that we heard at my grandparents house. The image it brings is of 15 plus relatives in my grandparents five room house, most of us pre-teens, and lots of noise and laughter.

We pulled out the Kate Smith Christmas album to play this Christmas.

Music accompanies us throughout life. No matter the occasion, it gathers us in and holds us. It feeds our memories, offers solace, and provides great joy. It reminds us that we are not alone in a way that words cannot. It takes us out of ourselves and places us inside something larger, larger, a congregation, a movement, a denomination.

A people, and a promise. That feeling of being part of something larger than ourselves is what we call all. And this movement is no stranger to that. Or I don't know what Charles Wesley would have had to say about today's LGBTQ justice movement, but we Methodists should not be surprised that movements have a soundtrack. We inherited a theology that was sung.

Charles Wesley didn't simply write songs for people who already knew what God was doing. He gave people language to imagine the freedom that God was calling them toward as Methodists. Justice movement might just be a part of our DNA. So in Ginger sent me the theme and the scriptures for the day. I was kind of excited, but I also wondered how I could fit it all into one sermon.

I'm still a little worried about that. There's material for a sermon series in this scripture, so I took a step back. The first thing I did was write down everything that the music of movements, plural, meant to me.

And the one thing that stood out from all of that, from all of the words I wrote down, is the word connection. Because the music of a movement helps people, individuals, become a people, a people with a common vision and a common goal.

The music of the movement is part of the connection that I was just referencing. It teaches us to hear a future that is not here yet. For the reconciling movement. It was imagining a church where queer folks called the ministry could authentically respond to that call, and where same gender couples could be married in church sanctuaries by their pastors.

At foundry, we can celebrate that our own Reverend T.C. Morris or Morrow. Excuse me. Tse is serving her first appointment today. Her path from seminary to appointment was long, and I remember the year that she and Joey Heath Mason were told no. Linda and I were fortunate to be married here ten years ago, as gender just mentioned ten years ago this November.

Not everyone in all United Methodist churches was that fortunate. In 2016, after the 2024 General Conference. The knows are happening less frequently and we can be grateful for that. The texts we read this morning, taken together, are powerful, creating a kind of theology. In my words, that theology is remember, our stories, resist structures of oppression, belong and create something new.

The Psalm draws us in with its promise of new life. Sometimes we sing because something has changed, and sometimes we sing because we believe something must change. The invitation is to sing a new song. The music of the reconciling movement connects us through the hard work and exhaustion that movements bring, captures our spirits, gives hope, loves us, and has long provided the strength needed to keep going.

For some, that road has been over half a century long.

We sang. All are welcome. Before we were draw the circle wide. While the welcome was still narrowing. A place at the table while we stood on the other side of locked doors. I am a child of God. While this church was telling us we were less worthy, we sang The Future before the United Methodist Church was ready to hear it.

And we weren't always particularly patient. The letter to Ephesus was written to Gentiles, not to Jews. Verse 14 connects Jews and Gentiles in one group under Christ Jesus, breaking down a wall of hatred and hostility. Paul's, or more probably Paul's disciples letter, brings up an image of breaking down walls. But the author doesn't say that Christ convinced the people on one side to be nicer to the people on the other.

And it doesn't say that they formed a committee to study the wall, to see if it needed to come down or stay up. It doesn't say that they created a strategy group to refine legislation to get removal of the wall approved. He doesn't say that. They put up a sign that says, all are welcome on this side of the wall.

Paul says Christ broke down the wall. And then he says something that's even more notable. He talked about why did it to create one humanity, not a slightly improved version of what was already there, but something that was inclusive of Jew and of Gentile. So if you try to make a corollary to our movement, our wall was doctrine, policy, tradition, fear, being told we were welcome as long as we left part of ourselves at the door.

And finally, the all too familiar. Just wait one more quadrant and will help you get the language removed.

I think we heard that during my time for two quadrant.

Some of those walls came down in 2024. We celebrated. We're healing from the wounds of the last 50 plus years. The rest of the walls are crumbling. The hostility within and between parts of the church is crumbling with them.

The denomination has recently launched a new vision with three parts love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously. The invitation from our Scripture today and from this new vision is to come into this place and let your presence change us. The welcome is extended from just. Hello. We're glad you're here to. Hello. We need you. The church needs your gifts, your voice, your experience, your theology, and your questions.

No matter who you are and God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy. As we celebrate our reconciling anniversary this morning, our halls are full of LGBTQ plus Christians who have willingly shared their gifts, often within a local church or denomination that was unwilling to acknowledge their humanity, their full humanity. Yet we remain full of hope, joy and love, and willing to serve in other capacities for decades.

Our music has its roots and movements that have long been going on much longer. Every time I pick up the African American heritage him in a lot of Sunday, that foundry uses it. I know that the songs we sing will bring as much of a message to the world as the sermon that morning.

Movement. New music teaches us. It inspires us to continue showing up through the exhaustion and tears, reminds us that walls will crumble and that freedom will break through. There isn't a reconciling United Methodist, who can't name multiple Mark Millar songs, or who doesn't check to see if all the verses of a place at the table that is being sung that morning has all the verses in it.

For gay and for straight a place at the table a covenant shared a welcoming place, a rainbow of race and gender and color. For gay and for straight. The chalice of grace. It is exasperating at times to realize how freely LGBTQ plus Christians gave of their gifts, and how freely the church accepted those they needed or wanted.

But withheld the acceptance of others.

When Lindy and I were attending a church in Florida. They decided that as lesbians, we could not serve in leadership roles. It couldn't define a leadership role, but they decided we couldn't serve in one. They then decided that Lindy's leadership of the shut in ministry was not a leadership role, so she could continue leading that team. What that really meant was we tried for three weeks to find somebody else and nobody said they would do it.

So will you please keep doing this?

I wish I could tell you we were the only people who had experiences anything like that. But with the General Conference in 2024, God created in the United Methodist Church a new community in which the old divisions no longer decide who's welcome and who belongs. Congregations are admittedly still adapting and will be for a while. We're an institution, and it takes time to shift institutions.

Collectively, though, we are creating a church that cannot imagine itself without all of us. Instead of a church that welcomes all of us but only tolerates some of us, an authentic welcome is intentional, unstated, and stated visible part of the DNA of the congregation, not dependent on budgets or ministry priorities.

It doesn't tell the oppressed to wait just one more quadrennial or one more budget cycle, and will do something about it.

With the actions of the General Conference in 2024. The image of bringing down the wall became real. I can hear the lyrics to Marty Hogan's All are welcome. All are welcome. All are welcome in this place. And now the work must evolve. From extending a welcome to anyone coming through the doors. To creating a new church. One where the welcome is radical and authentic.

Connection gives us a strength to remember and name injustice. The courage to keep advocating for those on the margins and creates a community that makes us strong.
It makes me wonder what music will sing us into the future.

Our music is really already doing just that. We may need to write a couple new verses for some of our hymns, but our music is already doing that. We're still drawing the circle wide, and we always will be. There's not a point where we are going to check the box and be done. No matter how much we want to, that moment will never arrive.

The music of the reconciling movement has helped us remember who we are. Resist what denies God's love. Connect us to one another and imagine the church we have not yet become for over 50 years. So we're pretty good at this.

And look at thinking about the new song we need now. We should be asking us ourselves some questions. What does justice look like? We've been talking about it for 50 years, but what does it look like? What does reconciliation look like when we are helping create the church? So we're not just asking to be included. We're helping to build something new.
What does love look like when it isn't asking for permission?

Let that sink in. I and foundry my question for all of us is how will we engage in creating that new church?

We had a large impact on what got us here. But how will we engage in creating the new church?

When we open the service today, Ginger referenced Mary's song A Song of Liberation, about a reordered world. Mary's really singing about a revolution. Freedom is the promise, the hope for the future. Mary is still singing and we have much work left to do. The letter to Ephesians isn't just about tearing down a wall. It is also about building something new, creating a new thing, a new thing that cannot be built without all of us.

You cannot simply mean the same church with different paragraphs in the Book of Discipline. If it did. If so, all we did in 2024 was erase some paragraphs, some book. Then we have a new book.

But if the people who were once separated by the wall now build the church together, God will change all of us.

Foundry. For 31 years you helped sing this wall down. I am grateful for all of you. The wall did not crumble by itself. We all spent many long hours in strategy groups and legislative sessions. But I am grateful for this congregation. I'm grateful for the invitation to be here today.

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC September 20, 2026, the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. “Be Astonished” series.

Texts:  Psalm 19:1-4, Matthew 6:25-33                               

 

“The heavens are telling the glory of God.”

I love that phrase. It’s so poetic and so deeply true. The heavens are telling.

Day pours forth speech to day. Night declares knowledge to night. The whole creation, the Psalmist imagines, is engaged in this unceasikng testimony to the glory of God. And then comes this: “There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard.”

Creation is telling us something without saying a word. The sky is telling. The trees are telling. The oceans and rivers, birds and flowers, creatures we can see and creatures buried in the soil beneath our feet are telling.

The question is whether we notice.

Perhaps that is why, centuries later, Jesus says: Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Pay attention. In fact, the words Jesus uses are stronger than our English translations sometimes make them sound. When Jesus says “look at the birds,” it’s an invitation to really look, to direct your attention toward them. And the word translated “consider” the lilies means something like observe carefully or learn thoroughly. This makes me feel better about becoming one of “those people” who have a collection of bird books and are constantly recording birdsong in the Merlin app to identify what birds are around.

Jesus says not just “look” or notice, but study the birds. There is something here for you to learn.

And notice who he says this to. Anxious people. People worried about what they will eat and what they will drink and what they will wear. People preoccupied with all the things that might go wrong.

Jesus doesn’t respond to anxiety with an argument or a philosophy. He instead gently redirects attention. Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. For Jesus, the birds and lilies aren’t simply beautiful distractions from anxiety. They are witnesses to a creation—including anxious humans!—held in the care of God. Pay attention, Jesus seems to say, and you may begin to notice not only the wonder of the world, but the faithfulness of the God who’s got the whole world in God’s hands.

Jesus teaches this way throughout the gospels. Pay attention to seeds and soil. Watch how yeast works its way through dough. Notice vineyards and fig trees and sheep and weather. Jesus moves through the world as though everything is shimmering with the possibility of revelation.

Which suggests that paying attention to creation isn’t a side hustle to the spiritual life. Paying attention to creation is part of how we learn to see. It’s a way we come to learn the wisdom, the love, and the care of God.

Annie Dillard, who died this past week, once described coming to a place where you say to the woods, the sea, the mountains: “Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive.”

What if awe begins there? Not with some extraordinary experience, but with stopping. With noticing. With allowing something other than our own thoughts, fears, schedules, screens, and preoccupations to claim our attention.

The psychologist Dacher Keltner identifies nature as one of the great sources of human awe. He calls it “wild awe.” And wild awe can certainly happen in spectacular places. Standing on the rim of a canyon. Looking across an ocean. Walking among trees that were ancient before any of us were born. Looking up on a clear night and suddenly comprehending—or failing to comprehend—how enormous the universe actually is.

But one of the things I appreciate about Keltner’s work is his insistence that awe doesn’t require a plane ticket. We can learn to notice astonishing things happening all around us. We live on a planet where bees use dance to give other bees directions to the next flower. Where crows remember human faces and teach their young which humans to avoid. Where ants beneath our feet build whole communities, carrying many times their own weight. Where birds somehow know when it is time to leave and where to go. Where tiny seeds split themselves open underground and reach toward light they have never seen. Where after a devastating fire, the earth grows flowers again.

“The heavens are telling the glory of God.”

They have been telling us all along. The question is whether we have stopped noticing.

And we have some good reasons for that. There is so much competing for our attention. So much designed to steal our attention. News alerts. Emails. Texts. Advertisements. The infinite scroll. Much of what draws our focus is what frightens or angers us. And I want us to be gentle with ourselves on this point—you know, it isn’t a moral failure to get hooked by upsetting things. Human beings are wired to notice threat. It has helped keep us alive. But if threat is all we notice, it begins to look like threat is all there is. If all I take in are the things that are falling apart, then eventually I begin to believe that falling apart is the truest thing about the world. If all I see is what frightens me, fear begins to determine the size and shape of my world.

And this, I think, is why the late Wendell Berry’s beloved poem “The Peace of Wild Things” resonates with so many people. He begins, “When despair for the world grows in me...” You know anything about that?

When despair for the world grows in me, Berry wrote, he goes out into the presence of the wild things. He lies down near still water. He looks up into the stars. And by the end he can say, “I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

The problems haven’t gone away. The world hasn’t suddenly gotten sorted.

Something has changed in him. His field of vision has widened. He has remembered that the thing causing him despair is real—but it is not everything that is real. This is such an important thread that we will pull through this entire series: paying attention to wonder, learning to notice—these aren’t ways of escaping the world’s pain. They are ways of refusing to let pain become the whole story.

Robin Wall Kimmerer says it beautifully in her book Braiding Sweetgrass: “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”

Awe helps us hold more than one thing at a time.

And Keltner’s research suggests that this does something important to us.

Experiences of awe can evoke what researchers sometimes call the “small self.” Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of this phrase when I first saw it. Because our faith certainly doesn’t teach that human beings are insignificant. You bear the image of God. You are beloved. Your life matters.

But I came to understand that the “small self” is connected to the spiritual practice of humility. There is a difference between knowing that my life matters and believing that I am the center of everything. Wild awe can remind us of the difference.

Stand under a sky filled with stars and you remember: I am small. And I belong here. Stand beside the ocean and remember: I do not control all of this. And I am part of it. Watch some tiny creature making its way through the world and remember: There are lives being lived all around me that have nothing to do with my agenda.

And researchers are discovering that this change in perspective has consequences. Awe is associated with greater feelings of connection. It can widen the boundaries of our moral concern—not only toward other people, but toward animals, plants, and the environment. It can make us more generous, more cooperative, more aware that we belong to something larger than ourselves.

We are earth creatures, given breath we did not create, dependent upon soil and water and sunlight and the labor and lives of innumerable creatures we rarely even notice. We are part of God’s vast, glorious, good creation.

And what a strange thing we human beings have done—to begin imagining that creation is simply the scenery behind the main stage, with us at the center and always in the spotlight.

Scripture tells the story differently. “The heavens are telling the glory of God.”

Creation isn’t scenery. Creation is revelation. Creation is our teacher, our neighbor. Creation is an astonishing gift. And when we begin to receive it that way, perhaps we also begin to live differently within it. Because reverence changes relationship. It is harder to treat as disposable something you’ve come to know as wonder-full. It is harder to think of the earth merely as a collection of resources when you have begun to perceive yourself as part of its beautiful, intricate community of life.

And perhaps it becomes harder to treat other human beings as disposable too. If awe teaches me that I am not the center, then that sets me in a different relationship with my neighbor. Perhaps I can hold my certainty a little more lightly. Perhaps I can become curious again. Perhaps I can recognize that my perspective is one perspective within a world vastly bigger than I can see. Perhaps wonder can loosen some of the fear and defensiveness that separate us from one another.

Allowing the experience of wild awe to soften the hard boundaries that grow up among and between people doesn’t mean we stop caring about truth or justice.

It does mean we remember our place in the vastness of creation and the human family. We are not insignificant nor are we all-important. We are not powerless nor are we all-powerful. We are beloved, responsible, and deeply interconnected with all beings and the whole creation.

Jesus says: Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Maybe those aren’t just lovely illustrations for a sermon about worry. Maybe Jesus is giving us a spiritual practice: Learn to notice. Go outside and look at something long enough that it becomes more than background. Take a walk without filling your ears with something. Look up. Learn the name of a bird or the sound of its song. Watch clouds move. Notice the astonishing architecture of a leaf. Find water and sit beside it. Look at the moon long enough to remember that generations upon generations of human beings have looked at that same moon. Attend to something that does not need anything from you.

And perhaps, once in a while, allow yourself to be astonished. Not as an escape from this wounded world, but for the sake of your own well-being and for the sake of this beautiful, broken world.

Because we need people able to see beyond the crisis immediately in front of them and remember that God’s world is wider, older, stranger, more beautiful, and more resilient than any one terrible moment.

The heavens are still telling. Day to day still pours forth speech. Night to night still declares knowledge. The testimony has not stopped.

Maybe our practice this week is simply to learn to notice. Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Slow down.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

And discover what this beautiful and broken world has been trying to tell us all along.

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC September 13, 2026, the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. “Be Astonished” series.

Texts:  Psalm 100, Colossians 3:11-17                            

 

There is something about this Sunday that feels different. Some of it is simply the rhythm of the year. Summer vacations are winding down. School is back in session. Our groups and classes and choirs and ministry teams are coming back to life. Today we kick off another program year at Foundry.

And there is an energy that comes with that. You can feel it. There is something that happens when people gather. When we see people we haven’t seen for a while. When a room fills up. When conversation and laughter get louder. When voices join together in song. What is that?

Over the next six weeks, we are going to explore that question—and a number of others like it—as we begin a new worship series called “Be Astonished.” The title is inspired by a poem called “Sometimes,” by Mary Oliver, a poet whose work has helped many people pay closer attention to the wonder of this world. Near the end of that poem, Oliver offers what she calls “Instructions for living a life”:

“Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.”

What a beautiful invitation. And a good reminder in the swirl of life and the distractions that invade our spaces all day every day—so many of which are painful: another act of violence. Another cruelty. Another frightening headline or devastating image. Paying attention to wonder doesn’t ask us to look away from any of that. It asks us to refuse to look only at that.

Because every day, even in the midst of all that is heartbreaking and wrong, there is also beauty and goodness and love. There are obvious wonders like a spectacular sunset or the face of a newborn baby. But wonder is also tucked into ordinary places: a song that lifts our spirit, a single flower pressing through pavement, tenderness offered in grief, suddenly seeing something familiar as though for the first time.

Pay attention. The pain is real. And so is the beauty. The cruelty and grief are real. But, oh, so are the kindness and the love. We can hold these things together. Perhaps part of what sustains us for faithful life is learning to do exactly that.

So for the next several weeks, we’re going to practice paying attention to what inspires awe and ask what it might reveal about God, ourselves, one another, and this beautiful and broken world.

And as we begin, there is a beautiful convergence I hadn’t noticed in my initial planning. At sundown this past Friday, our Jewish neighbors began Rosh Hashanah, entering the ten holy days leading to Yom Kippur—days traditionally known as the High Holy Days or the Days of Awe.

Days of Awe. Their practice during these days is also about paying attention—to life and relationships, to what has been and what might yet be. They stand in awe before their Creator as they honestly reflect on how they are living, as they seek and offer forgiveness, and turn again toward God and neighbor.

What a wonderful reminder: awe isn’t only about fleeting moments of wondrous beauty. Awe can give us perspective, help us see more fully, and remind us that us that even amid pain and brokenness, God’s mercy and love are also part of the story.

The social psychologist Dacher Keltner has spent years studying this experience of awe[i] —something poets, artists, and religious traditions have been talking about forever. His research identifies eight common sources of awe, experiences that can pull us out of our preoccupation with ourselves and into deeper connection with others and the wider world.

And one of those wonders is, well, look around. It is us. It is other people. More specifically, it’s what can happen when human beings gather together. Keltner uses an old sociological term for this experience: “collective effervescence.” Now, I know. That sounds like something you would order at a fancy bar. But you know the experience.

You’ve been at a concert when thousands of people suddenly sing the same words together. (“Sweet Caroline!...) You’ve been at a game and all of a sudden you’re doing the Wave. You’ve been at a vigil when hundreds of people fell silent together. You’ve marched with others for something you believe in. Maybe you’ve been in this sanctuary when we started singing a hymn and somewhere along the way it felt as though you weren’t singing the hymn anymore. The hymn was carrying you.

Something happens when human beings gather, when our bodies move together, our voices join together, our attention turns toward the same thing. For a moment, the boundaries of the individual self become a little more porous. The world is not only about me and my concerns and my fears and my little corner of existence. I become part of something larger. Collective effervescence is one, scientific way to describe that.

The Psalmist simply says:

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Worship the Lord with gladness;
come into God’s presence with singing.”

Psalm 100 is not a solitary song. The verbs are plural. The invitation is communal. Make a joyful noise together. Serve together. Know together. Enter the gates together. Give thanks together. And at the heart of the psalm is this:

“Know that the Lord is God.
It is God who made us, and we are God’s…”

We are God’s. There is an alternate ancient reading of that line that says, “God made us, and not we ourselves.” We are not self-created. We are not self-sufficient. We are not self-made people whose lives belong only to ourselves. We are God’s. And God made us for relationship, for connection, for community.

Maybe that is part of what we experience in these extraordinary collective moments. Something deep within us remembers. I am not alone. I am part of something larger than myself. Sometimes the person standing beside you is part of how God reminds you that you are not alone.

And God knows we need that reminder right now. There is so much anxiety in the air. Many are carrying deep concern about what the coming months will hold for our nation, for our neighbors, for people we love.

And this weekend carries other memories and meanings as well. Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, our nation experienced an almost unimaginable act of violence and loss. We remember those who died, those who ran toward danger to help, families whose lives were forever changed. We remember the fear and grief of those days. And we remember something else too.

We remember how powerfully human beings can be drawn together. Some of that drawing together produced extraordinary courage and generosity and care for neighbor. Strangers helped strangers. People lined up to give blood. Communities gathered to grieve and pray.

And we also know that fear can draw people together. Fear can create a “we.” So can hatred. So can nationalism. So can the conviction that we will only be safe if they are kept out, silenced, defeated, controlled, destroyed. Collective effervescence is powerful, but it is not automatically holy or healing. Human beings have always been capable of becoming a “we.” The deeper question is: What kind of “we” are we becoming?

The small Christian community at Colossae was trying to figure out what it meant to follow Jesus in a world filled with competing claims about who they were and where they belonged. Who was the “we” they were becoming?

Their world knew how to categorize people just as well as ours does. Those categories carried judgments about who was civilized, who had status and power, who belonged—and who was looked down on, ignored, kicked out.

And into that world comes this astonishing claim: “Christ is all and in all.”

Differences don’t disappear. But the categories human beings use to separate and assign value to one another cannot diminish God’s creative design. We are part of something bigger—someone bigger—than ourselves. We are the Body of Christ.

And if we are paying attention, if we remember we are created by God to be connected one to another as members of the Body, then we begin to understand how we are called to live and move together in ways that nurture and sustain our shared life. The author of the letter to the Colossians describes it poetically saying to the Body: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Bear with one another. Forgive one another. And “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Let the peace of Christ be the rule and not the exception among you. Teach, sing, be thankful together. Practice becoming the “we” you are created to be. Practice.

Because Christian community doesn’t happen simply by occupying the same sanctuary for an hour on Sunday. It takes practice! Compassion for those we find difficult, humility as we listen to others, forgiveness of those who hurt us, and—Lord have mercy—patience in the midst of all the things…every one of these take practice.

And this is why I get excited about a Sunday like this one. Because what we’re beginning today is not simply another year of church programming. All those groups and classes and choirs and ministry teams we are launching again aren’t just things to fill up the calendar. They are places to practice. Places where we learn to pray and serve and forgive and organize and sing and laugh and sometimes disagree and still come back to the table. Places where we practice paying attention, where we experience awe, collective effervescence, the wonder of being together.

What kind of “we” will we practice becoming? There will be plenty of forces in the months ahead trying to answer that question for us. There will be voices telling us whom to fear and invitations to construct our “we” by identifying a “them.”

But we are given grace to become another kind of “we.” We are, astonishingly, the Body of Christ. We are given grace to pay attention to the beautiful diversities that make up the human family and the creation as a whole. We are given grace to pay attention to the opportunities for learning and growth all around us. To pay attention to the energy that flows when we move together in the ways of Jesus Christ, when we practice the fruits of the Spirit, when we nurture and honor every member of the Body, when we clothe every thought, word, and deed in love.

So pay attention when this room begins to sing. Pay attention when children race through these hallways and somebody greets them by name. Pay attention when people gather around a table and strangers slowly become friends. Pay attention when a group of people decides that someone else’s suffering is their concern and figures out what to do about it. Pay attention when someone else’s faith carries you because yours isn’t quite strong enough that day.

Pay attention. Be astonished. Because through it all, beneath it all, within it all, is the goodness of the Lord, whose steadfast love endures forever, whose faithfulness flows to all generations.

And that, Beloved, is something worth telling about.

 

[i]Dacher Keltner, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, Penguin Books, 2023.

Indeed. Thank you, choir. That was wonderful, what a wonderful way to be prepared to prepare the people for me to come and share a word with you all. And thank you all for being here. My name is Reverend Scott Bostic. I'm a United Methodist pastor, and I'm currently serving beyond the local church as the deputy director of the Washington Interfaith Network, which Foundry is a part of. For those of you who don't know, the Washington Interfaith Network is a broad based, multi-race, multi-faith organization rooted in congregations and associations across Washington, D.C. Together, when members take public action, they organize their communities, hold decision makers accountable, and build power to create change across D.C. It's a joy for me to be back with you again.

I say back because this is not my first time here at Foundry. I recognize many familiar faces among you. I first came here many years ago, over a decade ago, when I was serving at Asbury United Methodist Church, down at 11th and K. For a brief time this was my worshiping home, as my family worshiped here. When I was in between appointments many years ago, I've helped with weddings here, I've helped with celebrations of life, I've helped with special services during Holy Week, and other times when I've gotten a phone call from Pastor Ben or Pastor Ginger saying, hey, are you busy?

It's a joy to be with you now on this Sunday morning, with an opportunity to share a word with you all from Nehemiah. So here again, beloved, these words from the book of Nehemiah, chapter six, verses eight and nine: "Then I sent to him, saying, no such things as you say have been done. You are inventing them out of your own mind. For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands would drop from the work and it would not be done. But now, strengthen my hands."

Will you pray with me? O God of love, speak to me. God of grace and of mercy, speak through me. God of power and of justice, speak in spite of me, that on this day, in these moments, your will would be done. Speak, O Lord, for your people are listening. Amen.

I thought it might be good to start off with a confession. I'm not a huge fan of Dolly Parton's music. Country music just isn't really my thing. I do want to be clear, though, that I have deep respect for her talents as a singer, for her talents on and off screen, and for the mighty work that she has done beyond the stage and behind the microphone.

So go back with me in time, if you will, to 1980. There's a movie that Dolly starred in called 9 to 5. Some of you probably just thought it was a song, but oh no, it was so much more. There was a spinoff series and a musical too, though maybe we won't talk about the musical. In this movie, Dolly was one of three legendary actresses who told the story of three frustrated, harassed, and mistreated women whose boss is described as the most sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot on the planet. Sounds familiar. Their response to this hateful person was to work behind him and in spite of him to make changes to their workplace. Now, those of you who have seen the movie know there's some other stuff going on, but we're in church, so if you want to know the rest of the story, go watch the movie.

Among the changes they make in their workplace are implementing several programs that the workers love, including in-office daycare, equal pay for everyone (one of them had gotten in trouble for asking what one of their male colleagues made), flexible work hours, and a job-sharing program allowing employees to work part time. The boss didn't know they had made these changes, and when he came back he was furious, but his chairman came in and was elated because the productivity of their department had increased by 20 percent because of these changes.

That got me thinking about how these changes came to be, not just in movieland but in our world, through the work of organized labor. That, after all, is what this weekend is all about. Not the unofficial end of summer, not one last trip to the beach or a last chance to wear your boat shoes for the season. It's not about the barbecues or the parties or the days off, well, actually, maybe it is about that last one. Labor Day is about celebrating how those who worked for reform in our workplace and labor laws fought to get people a weekend, time off, to end child labor and send kids to school instead of to factories. Coincidentally, my family watched the news this weekend, which is its own great labor story, about things like paid leave and family leave, unemployment benefits, and rules about hiring and firing, so many things that many of us take for granted, and maybe did until the last two years. It got me thinking about how some people said that these proposed changes, each time, were threats to the status quo which benefited them, those in power, and therefore they hurled their own threats and insults at the people who wanted to make these changes. Those in power were afraid of what might happen if people knew their worth and knew that somebody cared about that.

Now, our scripture and story for today picks up in the midst of things in the story of Nehemiah. Some of you know that Nehemiah is a book that is part of the Hebrew Scriptures in the section known as the histories. It's different from some of the other books in the history section, like Esther and Ezra and First and Second Chronicles, in that it is told from the first-person perspective. Scholars call it the Nehemiah memoir, because we're hearing the story from Nehemiah's perspective, so he has moments to add his own commentary, his own personal reflections on what was happening.

For those who haven't read the book, or haven't read it in a while, it opens in the first chapter with Nehemiah in Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire, serving as cupbearer to the king, who we think was Artaxerxes the First, for the history buffs in the room. Word comes from Jerusalem about the state of the walls and the troubles of his people. In response, Nehemiah prays to God, praying that God will fulfill the promises God made to Moses to uplift and care for God's people. His prayer includes an important confession, because Nehemiah knew that the people were in exile, that the walls had been destroyed for a reason, and it was because of the people's unfaithfulness. It was because of the people's actions that Jerusalem had fallen and that they were in exile in the first place. But he prays that God would receive their prayer and grant restoration to the people if they would repent and return to the Lord.

That is where we get to our first lesson, before we even get to the text from Nehemiah: it starts with God and prayer, but please don't stop there. Too often people go to God and pray. We pray for ourselves, we pray for the people around us, we pray for the world, for the problems going on around us, for tragedies that we hear about, and then we stop. We don't follow up on our prayers with the response that God is calling us to take, the response that God has empowered and emboldened us to take. We, as faithful followers, have a responsibility to pray, to seek God first, and to act in response to the needs of the world around us as God is calling and leading, not as social trends would have us do, or social media influencers or politicians or even some pastors, but as God Almighty is calling us and has shown us again and again that we are called to respond through loving our neighbors, not just with warm, fuzzy feelings and sweet, kind thoughts, but with concrete, tangible actions.

So Nehemiah, from his position of power at the hand of the king as cupbearer, requests and is granted permission to travel back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. He's given written permission so that should anyone question whether it was okay for him to do this, they would know he had the blessing of the king. The king was so moved by and behind this effort that he even provided wood from his own forests and cavalry and troops to escort Nehemiah and their resources back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, at that point in time, had already had the temple rebuilt, that was the main thrust of the story in the Book of Ezra, and we learn early on in Nehemiah's adventures that in addition to being a faithful servant of God and a loyal servant in his position to the king, he is also wise. That wisdom would serve him well in the ways he would deal with the many challenges ahead. But humbly, Nehemiah recognizes, as he says several times, that his success, the way things were able to work out, was not because of him. It was because of God's faithfulness, because God's gracious hand was upon him.

Now, as you might remember or imagine, Nehemiah showing up on the scene to rebuild the walls upset some people, especially the leaders around Jerusalem, because someone was coming to care for the people of Israel. Remember, not everyone went into exile after the fall of Jerusalem. Many remained in the land but were ruled by others. Some had already returned, as I mentioned, to rebuild the temple, as recounted in the Book of Ezra. But they still did not have a Jewish governor who was steadfast and faithful to God. Throughout the chapters leading up to chapter six, Nehemiah had faced opposition from people outside the city and from some people inside the city, not all of whom were faithful followers of God. It took some wisdom for him to navigate these different challenges in this tricky landscape, as people plotted to disrupt the work and even attack the city.

Why? Because they knew the practical and symbolic meaning of the walls being rebuilt. Practically, it meant there would be a place of refuge for the people of Israel, should someone in future days come to attack or try to harm them. Now, I'm not advocating for walls in general, but in those days a walled city was a safer city, because when raiders came, people had a place of shelter and knew they would be safe. Symbolically, it marked the return of this space to being a city that was looking out for the Hebrew people. It symbolized strength and protection and care.

Nehemiah's return to Jerusalem to build the walls was so zealously supported that people came together, not just in Jerusalem but from across Judah, because they believed that Nehemiah cared for them, and through him they were reminded of God's care for them. That gave them the courage to work, even though it was dangerous and upsetting to their enemies, even though it caused internal challenges for them as a people, because coming together to do the work of rebuilding the walls meant fewer people in the fields, fewer people to guard the city. And yet, in spite of all of this, Nehemiah, in his wisdom and in his seeking of God, was able to create a more caring and loving society, and they were able to get the work done.

This may surprise you, but in the midst of their work there were people taking advantage of those who were less fortunate. Can you imagine that? People coming together to do work, things not going well, and somebody trying to profit off of that? It's absurd. People were troubled, wondering how they would be able to get it all done, how they would build the wall, how they would keep one another safe, how they would bring in the harvest. Let me be clear, there wasn't some fast-track, no-bid contract that went out and the wall just got built. It was the people themselves who had to come together, many of whom were not masons and builders, to rebuild the wall, to care for their own safety. Nehemiah's wisdom and God's gracious hand guided him through the internal and external challenges to complete the work he set out to do.

So now we're at Nehemiah chapter six. The walls are complete, the gates are not yet built, but they've got everything they need to build them. And here come again the enemies from outside. They've seen how the people have come together to complete this work, and they know once the gates go up, they'll have problems. So enter Sanballat and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arab, and all the neighbors who were displeased when Nehemiah showed up in the first place, back in chapter four, when the wall was only half its height.

They sent word to Nehemiah, saying, come, let's meet and talk about this work you're doing. Nehemiah's wisdom told him that nothing good could come from meeting with them, because they wanted him to go twenty-five miles outside the city to talk. So he responded, saying, I must focus on my work, why would I stop to come and meet with you? Three more times they sent him the same message, saying, come meet us in this deserted place outside the city so we can talk, and three more times he sent the same reply: I'm working, talk to you later. He was focused on what he needed to do.

So they tried to switch it up, using a tactic that may seem familiar to some of you. They set up an information campaign to discredit Nehemiah, sharing it with anyone who would listen, that's what the open letter refers to, instead of a sealed letter there was an open letter, a town crier walking around telling everybody what was in this letter being delivered to Nehemiah. Moreover, Sanballat and his crew paid people to go into the city and pretend to be prophets, to spread rumors that Nehemiah wanted to set himself up as king. They did this even knowing that Nehemiah had received letters from the King of Persia himself approving this work. But they were troubled, because they knew Nehemiah cared about the people, and he wanted to put an end to their ability to exploit the people of Jerusalem. They thought that if they could get rid of Nehemiah, the work would falter and they could go back to doing things the way they liked.

Beloved, there are people in our world today, just as then, who count on cities and communities and states having weak and ineffective leadership, on people not having the things they need to care for those under their charge. We see it all the time here in D.C., we've seen it even more in the past two years. Think back to last year's attempt to take a billion dollars out of D.C.'s balanced budget, a balanced budget, from a Congress that hasn't passed one of its own in twenty-five years. The weakness of others was what they were relying on to give them a sense of power and control, and that is at the core of most, if not all, oppressive thinking: the thinking that someone else has to be down in order for me to be up, that someone has to be of low state, dehumanized and dismissed, in order for me to feel powerful and strong. This, of course, dismisses the teachings of the Torah and of Christ, perpetuating the fear that comes with feelings of scarcity.

But Nehemiah doesn't give in to his own potential for fear as these lies and falsehoods are spread about him and the work of the people. He responds flatly and plainly with the truth, and then gets back to work. Verse eight, he begins: "Then I sent to him, saying, no such things as you say have been done, you are inventing them out of your own mind, for they are all wanting to frighten us, thinking their hands will drop from the work and it will not be done." And then comes Nehemiah's prayer: "But now, strengthen my hands." The late Reverend Doctor Ralph Klein, the former dean and professor emeritus of Old Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, says it might be better translated, "but in fact, I redoubled my resolve." I redoubled my resolve. Whether it was an explicit prayer by Nehemiah or an act of faith built upon his steadfast faith in the God who had brought him thus far, Nehemiah resolved, in the face of hate and oppression, threats of violence, and attempts to demean him, with resolve and fortitude.

We need that kind of resolve and fortitude today, beloved, because there are gaps in the walls meant to protect us, and in some places the walls have been torn down to the ground. That means we have work to do. From the pervasive and perverse actions of gangs of federal agents, with the assistance of our own MPD, roaming through the streets of our city, attacking people based on their ethnicity, as well as those who step out to protect them, to the National Guard troops whose planned presence here until 2029 is intended to normalize something that, as a veteran, I assure you is far from normal, through fear and intimidation, to keep people from exercising their rights and looking out for their neighbors. With all that, there are gaps in the walls and we have work to do. From threats by the executive branch of our federal government to refuse to allow whoever the people of D.C. elect as their mayor to take power, to the past refusal by certain leaders to swear in members of Congress because they didn't want them to take office, to the continually unfolding attacks on our electoral process here and across our country, beloved, there are gaps in the walls and we have work to do.

From the continued objectification and domestic terrorism being wrought on Black and brown communities, to the emboldened, systematic efforts to create a permanent caste system of people living in poverty without the resources they need to survive, let alone thrive, we have work to do. When people who are experiencing homelessness and those who are housing insecure can't get an ID because a couple of people in the D.C. government don't see a problem, when people can't pay their healthcare bills or their utility bills or the gas in their car or the groceries they need to feed their families, there are gaps in the walls and we have work to do. I know it can seem overwhelming, because it is overwhelming. But I know that we're not alone, that we have one another to do this work together, some working, some watching over us, like they did in chapter four of Nehemiah, some working and some caring.

I know that we have wise leaders, like your pastors and so many others throughout our city, our region, our country and our world, who are not just telling us but showing us with their actions what it means to show up and care for others, and how important it is for us to continue building those muscles of care for one another, especially in these moments when the threats are not just real but at the gates and inside the city. As it says in Galatians 6:9, "let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at the harvest time if we do not give up." If we do not give up, beloved, don't give up.

Paul and Nehemiah knew a thing or two about the good and necessary work they had to do. They knew a thing or two about the challenges of working in dangerous and oppressive environments. They knew a thing or two about internal and external threats to their work, and they certainly knew a thing or two about having something that God put on their hearts, that they knew, that they knew, that they had to accomplish. I think if Paul had been around in Nehemiah's time, he might have sent him a note similar to the one he sent to the church in Philippi, where he says, in chapter one, verse six, "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it."

The same is true for us today, that the one who began this great work will see it through. Paul says, "I am confident of this." Given all that he had seen, all that he knew, all that had happened around him, given the threats that were levied against him, given the fact that his very occupation and his work was illegal and punishable by death, he was confident, not pretty sure, not "I think" or "I'm hopeful," but confident that the one who began a good work in you, he said. The one who began a good work in you, choir. The one who began a good work in you, Sarah. The one who began a good work in you, and you, and all of you, and all of us, would see that work continue to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Beloved, there's trouble in our city, there's trouble in our nation, and we have work to do. And we are not alone. So may we go forth from this day with the courage and the resolve, like Nehemiah, to finish the good work that is before us. May it be so. Amen.