Episodes
Sunday Apr 14, 2019
We Could Have Had It All
Sunday Apr 14, 2019
Sunday Apr 14, 2019
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, April 14, 2019, Palm Sunday.
Text: Luke 19:28-48
Anthony and I recently spent a few days in Philadelphia, the fulfillment of Anthony’s Christmas gift—he, as a history buff, wanted to explore the Museum of the American Revolution, visit Independence Hall, and soak up the American history that lives everywhere in the old city. I was interested, too, though I must admit that a more contemporary piece of history made me giddy: getting to traverse Rocky Balboa’s triumphal steps and experience that iconic view from the top of the Philadelphia Art Museum steps in person.
A number of things struck me as I took in the history of how we came to be a nation. I noticed that debates then and now are the same: big or small government, state’s rights and individual liberty relative to federal laws, tensions between those in industrial, urban centers and rural, farming communities…I was sad to see how opportunities to do right by Native American communities and enslaved Africans were either not recognized or dismissed, how the manners and customs and culture of the day were so ingrained that even in a time of great upheaval and revolution, some things were placed outside the bounds of what might be even discussed, much less changed.
The critical questions of the American revolution also sound very familiar to me in the context of what is happening in the United Methodist Church. My colleague, James Howell, made the connection between the American Revolution and our current church struggle explicit in a recent article in The Washington Post as he spoke of the current increase of sacred resistance and protest against the exclusion without representation forces as our “tea party moment.”[i] He says this moment is just beginning.
Like the days in this country following the “Boston tea party,” we United Methodists find ourselves in a moment of new creation, of radical change, of looking toward forming a new expression of Methodism for the future that might offer an inspiring opportunity to be the church we believe we’re called to be, a new way of living together that is more inclusive and just, and that can potentially encompass all those who, for whatever reason, stand against the action of General Conference. Just as those debating how to create something new at the beginning of these United States, I’ve heard the following questions arise:
- Who is included in the conversation and in leadership?
- Who’s writing the story? Who is controlling the narrative?
- Will we be loosely affiliated or centrally governed?
- What will our relationships be internationally?
- Who are our allies? And are we using them or truly engaging as mutual partners?
- If we become a new entity, what current practices will we want to change?
- How do we care for those who have been abused? Will we recognize and honor the full humanity of all people?
How these questions get answered makes a difference not only in the moment they are initially asked, but in all the days to follow. The weight of our decisions lands heavily on generations to come—for better or for worse.
Some of you may be wondering what any of this has to do with Palm Sunday. Well, it occurs to me that Jesus came into the world—and into Jerusalem on this day—because some things needed to be different. Jesus came with a vision for how to live together in peace with justice, a vision that challenged the status quo, a vision that was revolutionary in its emphasis on humble service, mercy, solidarity with the poor and oppressed, and liberating love. The Jesus movement was always a peaceful resistance movement, a sacred resistance movement, a movement focused on the real human lives encountered at any given moment; a movement that challenged the power-mongering, cruel, dehumanizing, greed-serving policies of imperial Rome and also challenged a religious institution that seemed to focus on human rules and hierarchies in such a way that it brought harm to the vulnerable and ignored the cries of the needy.
Jesus came preaching good news of God’s Kin-dom. And at the center of that good news is the “omni-vulnerable” love of God (as Bishop Robinson preached several weeks ago)—a love that is so vulnerable and so steadfast and so determined to never let us go, that God will suffer disappointment after disappointment—really will suffer anything—to stay close to us. And Jesus shows us this in person.
In two places in the book of Luke, we hear Jesus lament over Jerusalem. The first is found in chapter 13, where Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!...And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Lk 13:34-35)
Today, the crowds cry out this refrain—Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!—but Jesus knows that he is still entering a community unwilling to receive what he offers. He weeps over the city saying, “If you… had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes… you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” (Lk 19:42-44, excerpt)
When Jesus came to Jerusalem it was a moment of decision, a time when those in power, those doing harm, those not paying attention, those sitting on the sidelines—when those and all people could have turned toward Jesus with open hearts and minds and arms. It was a revolutionary moment, a moment when something different could have happened. A new creation was being offered. A new vision of loving and just community was revealed. Jesus offered us the very heart of God. We had it all in that moment. And we didn’t recognize it. We weren’t willing to receive it. Long before he entered the city, Jesus knew what he was walking into, knew the outcome. I wonder, though, if he kept hoping that he might be wrong, kept hoping that maybe people would finally see that money and violence and status and control were truly no match for the power of love and mercy and humble service and friendship. // Any hope Jesus may have held seems to dissolve when, as he rode into town, some of the religious leaders demanded that he silence the cries of hope rising from those on the margins… It was after that, we’re told, that Jesus wept.
I have this fantasy of Jesus lamenting for a third time, a lament that emerges as he remembers what happened on that day he rode a donkey into Jerusalem and in the week that followed, as he remembers those who claimed to love him and yet turned away and denied him, those to whom he had entrusted the most who fell away and fell asleep… And I hear him in my mind picking up the broken-hearted words of Adele and making them his own: “The scars of your love remind me of us / They keep me thinking that we almost had it all / The scars of your love they leave me breathless, I can’t help feeling / We could have had it all / Rolling in the deep / You had my heart inside of your hand / And you played it to the beat”[ii]
This imaginary third lament is, in some ways, even more heartbreaking than the first two because it is not only directed toward those days we read about in the Bible, but continues right up until today. Because imperial values of money, violence, status, and control are still seen as the superpowers in most quarters. Because religious institutions continue to do harm to the most vulnerable and ignore or try to silence the voices of those on the margins. Jesus’ third lament continues because, even though we know all that transpires during Holy Week, even after thousands of Easters, we still find ourselves in moments of new creation and revolution and sacred resistance—in the church and in society—having to wonder whether we will finally this time recognize the visitation of the Lord, whether we will perceive God’s alternative vision for a new thing, whether we will honor the full humanity of all God’s beloved children, whether we will do things not just differently, but more justly and thoughtfully and lovingly than we have done in the past, whether we will stay awake and not fall away from the vulnerable and the brave or from the hard task to which we are called, whether we will encourage rather than silence those whose voices have not been heard, whether we will risk following Jesus even into the most dangerous places of confrontation because God has put God’s own heart inside our hand and it’s up to us to hold it with tenderness and fierceness and courage.
We are in a moment here at Foundry and in the UMC and really in the nation, when we are being confronted with the brokenness of our world in very clear ways—we’re being challenged to grapple with the ways that religious institutions have driven people away from God, with the continued scourge of white supremacy, with the apathy toward the plight of the poor and of the creation gasping for air, and with the determination of well-funded hate-mongers to deny and punish the beautiful created nature of LGBTQ people. I believe God is up to something in this crucible time… In moments like the one we’re in, we have a beautiful possibility to participate in God’s loving and saving work of mending and making new. We—collectively—have a history of blowing it.
The good news, however, is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow: no matter how we falter and fail, God’s love, revealed to us most fully in Jesus, remains steadfast. God is going to keep loving us and reaching out to us and trying to get through to us until Christ comes again in final victory, love, and justice and we truly “have it all.”
We hold God’s heart in our hands. What are we going to do with it this time? I pray we don’t crucify.
[i] https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/03/29/us-methodist-leaders-lay-plans-resist-anti-gay-marriage-vote/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3afdcfb60e9f
[ii] Adele Adkins, Paul Richard Epworth, https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/adele/rollinginthedeep.html
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