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Foundry is an historic, progressive United Methodist Church that welcomes all, worships passionately, challenges the status quo, & seeks to transform the world.
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Sunday Aug 31, 2014
Sunday Aug 31, 2014
Take It Up Together
A meditation shared by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, August 31, 2014, the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 16:21-26
The call of Jesus to those first disciples is our call today: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Now there is much that can be said about this teaching of Jesus—much more than we have time to explore today. But I’d like for us to consider for a few moments what it means to “take up our cross.”
Let’s begin by identifying some of what it doesn’t mean. This teaching of Jesus is not primarily about an individual’s personal problems. This personal application can lead to a trivialization of the teaching. For example, someone could complain about their crummy commute to work as “the cross they have to bear.” I’m not suggesting that a long, crummy commute isn’t difficult; but I don’t believe that such things are what Jesus had in mind when he asks us to follow him by taking up our cross. The other problem with applying this teaching of Jesus to individuals is that it allows the interpretation of “take up your cross” to be that we are required to endure suffering or abuse, that we must suffer alone, in silence, because this is the “cross” we have been given to bear. This interpretation of Jesus’s teaching can keep persons in situations and cycles of abuse. An abusive relationship is not, in any way, a life-giving, life-affirming situation (which is what Jesus is ultimately describing in the teaching). To “deny yourself” is not about allowing someone to emotionally or physically do you harm. Any interpretation of this word of scripture that suggests otherwise is not of God.
Jesus’ admonition to “deny self and take up our cross and follow” is not ultimately about individuals. It has deeply personal implications, of course. But ultimately what Jesus calls us to do is to see ourselves in relationship to something larger than just our individual daily rounds. The invitation is to follow Jesus into the drama of God’s saving work in the world. And that drama is and always has been played out in community FOR community. The cross is about the saving work of God for all people. From the beginning of what we call salvation history, God has called a holy PEOPLE (for a purpose!). Yes, individual leaders have been called to serve among the people, leaders like Moses and Peter; but the story of God’s saving work has always been about how to live TOGETHER. The cross stands at a crucial point in salvation history. It is the ultimate symbol of God’s self-giving love, and of the lengths to which our God goes to accomplish reconciliation and to restore wholeness—between God and humankind and between broken humanity. Jesus calls people to follow him, and teaches us how to love each other, how to live humbly and justly and peacefully with each other, how to listen for God’s voice of wisdom through prayer so that we would be able to be who we are for each other. God’s saving work is about more than just our individual, personal salvation—God’s salvation is this vision of people being reconciled one to the other and living in peace and mercy and justice TOGETHER. And Jesus took up his cross for the sake of this vision of God’s salvation; he took up his cross every time he challenged the ways of the world that said that people should be ignored because they are poor and when they are blamed for their poverty, when he challenged the powers that taught that the sick and suffering were untouchable, when he loved the despised, when he honored the children as real people worthy of his time, when he chose nonviolence in the face of violence, when he confronted the conceit of those who claimed that they had God all figured out. Jesus was crucified because he loved God’s people and wanted us to learn how to receive that love and then to love and care for each other.
And so the cross that we are called to take up is that same cross. It has everything to do with living together in love and mercy and compassion and justice, with sharing our lives with others generously and freely, with doing the harder thing for the sake of the greater good. This is not something that we do on our own, this taking up our cross. The cross we take up is something that we can only learn, can only achieve in community with each other. // One day, my colleague walked into his church’s fellowship hall as some church members were preparing for a Lenten Passion Play. The place was alive with activity; folks were building props and rehearsing their parts. The pastor looked over to one corner of the room and saw a life-sized cross made of real trunks of trees. Its beams were rough and a bit crooked, as some trees often are. He commented about what a powerful cross it was to the men who were working nearby. One of the men said, “Yeah, I’m going to carry it in the play and I’m glad it really turned out well. But you know we created it out of Styrofoam and paper mache´. If it were the real thing, I’d never be able to manage it.” We, as individuals, would never be able to manage the cross alone. It is simply too heavy. We are called to take up the cross together, which means that we are to follow Jesus’ Way of living and loving and serving.
The church is our primary place to learn how to follow Jesus Christ, not just to learn with our heads, but to learn through what we do, how we act, how we treat one another. We need each other—to support us when we are struggling, to encourage us to take risks and to develop and offer our gifts, to hold us accountable when we lose sight of the larger vision, to celebrate with us when signs of the Kin-dom break in. We get to practice together the ways of giving, loving, serving, risking that Jesus models for us as we create and live in Christian community. And, like Jesus, we will be tempted to “opt out,” to turn away from the hard work of risking love, of being about the work of reconciliation, and of standing up to injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. But, oh, how the world needs us to take up the cross together and continue to carry it with gentleness, with strength, and with love. It has been a long, hard summer in our world. We are so far from living the vision of God’s Reign of peace and justice that Jesus lived and died to establish. But we are assured that as we offer our lives in service to that vision, not only will we gain life if its truest and fullest sense, but we will also ourselves be a sign of hope for others.
The founder of the Taizé community in France, Brother Roger, once said, “Since my youth, I think that I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love, and love alone” (God is Love Alone, GIA Publications, 2014) That is what it means to take up the cross—to be (like the cross itself) a sign that God is love. In a world so broken, let us now enter into a time of extended prayer, through music and word, taking up the cross together, making this Christian community through our prayer today and through all our life a tangible sign for all people that “God is love, and love alone…”
Sunday Aug 24, 2014
Sunday Aug 24, 2014
Bicentennial Inaugural Services
Looking Back, Living Forward
200 years of roots, growth and branching out
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Leslie Griffiths
Scripture: Zechariah 3:1-5 & Matthew 5: 11-16
Sunday Aug 24, 2014
Sunday Aug 24, 2014
Bicentennial Inaugural Services
Looking Back, Living Forward
200 years of roots, growth and branching out
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Leslie Griffiths
Scripture: Zechariah 3:1-5 & Matthew 5: 11-16
Sunday Aug 17, 2014
Sunday Aug 17, 2014
The Benefits of Mud
A homily preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC on August 17, 2014.
Text: John 9:1-41
When I was in college, I spent a semester abroad in London and traveled most every weekend. On one long weekend, I went to Ireland and took the train to the west coast of the island to a little village called Spiddal where all the signs are still in Gaelic and folks speak that language as much as they speak English. I set myself up in a B&B just outside town and figured I’d walk the mile or so back into town for supper at a place I’d noticed featured traditional Irish music each night. Just after dark, I left the B&B and by the time I reached the end of the driveway, I realized there was a problem. It was pitch black and there were no streetlights. There were no other houses between my place and the village. There were no cars on the road. I literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I was young and stupid enough to be traveling without a flashlight, so I figured I’d just feel my way along the road’s edge to keep on the path. While unsettling, I was making out OK until, about half-way on the journey, I heard someone behind me. It didn’t help to turn and look because I couldn’t see anything. But it was clear that it was a man—and he was whistling, that eerie kind of whistling you might imagine in a horror movie when you know what’s about to happen, but the unsuspecting person who ridiculously decided to walk a mile in pitch black with no one even knowing where she is doesn’t have a clue. Well, the whistling was growing closer and I still couldn’t see even the hint of a light from the village; so I picked up the pace, still trying to feel my way along the side of the road as a guide. My heart was pounding and the mystery man was gaining, so eventually, I moved into what I imagined was the middle of the road and broke into a full-on sprint. In the dark. I was terrified. It probably only took a matter of minutes, but it felt like an eternity before I finally reached the edge of town and the sweet relief of light. When I collapsed onto a bench, out of breath and in tears, I waited…waited to see who or what had been following me. After a few minutes, he emerged. A man on a bicycle—probably about 75 years old—amiably pedaling away and whistling to keep himself company, oblivious to my terror.
In the dark we imagine all sorts of things, often the worst possible scenarios. Our deepest fears well up within us and we can’t help but acknowledge the deep insecurity of our lives, the fact that we are vulnerable and that we aren’t in control of the universe and that there are things we don’t know, don’t understand. To be “in the dark” means that we cannot see—can’t see the way forward, can’t see a way out, don’t know where we are, and sometimes, that we cannot even see ourselves, our own hand in front of our faces. What are the things in our lives that keep us in the dark, that keep us from seeing? Preconceived notions about the way things are, prejudices that blind us to others, fear of change, old patterns and habits of seeing and thinking, depression, anxiety, and despair, ignorance, selfishness, cynicism and skepticism. When we are out of some communication loop, we may find ourselves “in the dark,” and more than ready to assume that someone is trying to hide something from us for some dark purpose. The truth is that we all have “blind spots,” those areas in our lives or relationships that we struggle to see with any semblance of clarity.
This past week, we have seen so many tragic examples of the “blind spots” that continue to plague human relationships. The killing of Michael Brown highlights the painful reality that, when encountering a black or brown male body, what many people “see” is a criminal, a threat, instead of a beloved child of God. The decision made by a Tampa church to cancel Julion Evans’ funeral the night before the service once it was discovered that he was a married, gay man, reminds us of how prejudice can blind people to compassion. The suicide of Robin Williams reminds us that there are people whose despair blinds them to any possible hope; it also reminds us that there are those suffering all around us whose pain may be invisible to us, but absolutely real. The ongoing wars and atrocities in the Middle East and all over the world are daily reminders of the ways that the human family cannot see its sisters and brothers as human beings of sacred worth and dignity, but only see the “other” as an enemy to be destroyed.
In our Gospel story today we see that this kind of thing is nothing new. When the man who had formerly been blind is brought to the leaders of the religious establishment, the response is simply stunning: do they rejoice and give thanks to God for the man’s healing? No. In essence they put the man on trial. (What, an act of love, affirmation, and new life getting put on trial? Really? That never happens anymore!) The first response of the Pharisees is to focus on the fact that the healing had been done on the Sabbath—that the rules had been broken. Another response is simple disbelief: the man must be lying—he must not have once been blind. Finally, it becomes clear that the focus of the proceedings is to figure out who is a sinner—and the ultimate verdict is that both the man who now sees AND Jesus are sinners. The result? The man whose life has been changed, whose darkness has been turned to light, who stands as a testimony to the possibility of radical, healing change is driven out of the community. It seems ludicrous really, when we stop and look at what happens in this story. But if we quickly decide that we would never respond to such a wonderful miracle as the Pharisees do, we might hear Jesus saying to us “If you say ‘we see,’ you reveal your blindness.” We all, to some degree, need to check our eyesight.
If we look to Jesus to help us out on this, we need to be prepared for things to get a little messy. Because a very basic truth we learn from our story today is that, between blindness and sight, there is mud. Mud…Imagine God gathering up the dust from the ground, having a vision of a new creation, and forming the mud and clay into the shape of a human being. Remember the Israelites tromping through the mud of the parted Red Sea, making their way from slavery into freedom…See Jesus using mud to transform blindness into vision. Mud is that messy stuff of creation, freedom, vision, and new life. It is an integral part of crossing over from one place to the other. Mud can be the hard conversation that needs to happen to get where we need to be in a community or in a relationship. Mud can be the tragedy that finally opens our eyes to the truth of a deep injustice, or need, or pain. It can be the uncomfortable place we find ourselves in at work or in a love relationship that urges us to figure out what God might be trying to do in us or for us. Mud can also be a playful, creative place in which we are trying something new. Mud is whatever it is that helps us see in a new way. Sometimes we find ourselves in the mud by forces outside our control and sometimes we choose to wander into the mud. But either way, the question is whether we humbly submit to the mud. This is what the Pharisees can’t do. Jesus offers the Pharisees (and us!) the opportunity to gain new vision through the messy, painful, process that follows the miracle: The proverbial mud in the story is the willingness to suspend our disbelief just long enough to catch a glimpse of the radical change that God is always bringing about. Mud is the anxiety-producing dirty work of dealing with our own discomfort that the rules have gotten broken—and being open to the possibility that it will all be OK. Mud is the journey inward where we meet our own fears and prejudices and begin to recognize that until we are transformed by love we will continue to create scapegoats and cast God’s children out of our lives and our faith communities. // The Pharisees struggled to submit to the mud, to let go of what they knew, of what they took for granted, of their need to assign guilt. And, in that struggle, remained in darkness, unable to see the beautiful truth of what had happened right in front of them. In their blindness, they didn’t even realize that they needed new vision.
Today, through this story, we are reminded we all need new vision. Preconceived notions, prejudice, fear of change, old patterns and habits, depression, anxiety, and despair, ignorance, selfishness, cynicism and skepticism, conspiracy theories... We all have our “blind spots” that knowingly or unknowingly keep us in the dark—and then, knowingly or unknowingly, we hurt each other. And I don’t think it is an accident that Jesus uses mud to bring about the new vision that we all need. Mud is made from dirt, humus in the Latin, the root word for “humility.” New vision requires humility, recognition that we have missed some things, that our perspective isn’t the only perspective, that we don’t see as God sees. Humus is also the root of the word “human” which is what we become more of as God grants us the ability to look upon others, the world, and ourselves with more Christ-like eyes. It was out of the humus that God created us…and it is with mud that Jesus does the work of new creation, the humanizing work of opening eyes. It’s not always a miracle cure—as we see with the religious authorities in our Gospel. But when we humbly ask God to use the “mud” of our lives to shed light on our “blind spots,” when we humbly submit and allow God to do something new in us, then the world becomes a little more human, a little less broken, a lot more loving. And that is what we all need.
Monday Aug 11, 2014
Monday Aug 11, 2014
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, August 10, 2014, the ninth Sunday after Pentecost.
Matthew 14:22-33
Crossing over from one place to another—whether the move is geographical, emotional, or intellectual—is never really a simple proposition. Sometimes what we imagine will be a short journey turns into something much more challenging because we encounter obstacles that we couldn’t have expected when we started. I can’t tell you the number of people who have said to me, “Wow, your commute to church has gotten a lot easier and quicker!” Getting from my home in NE Capitol Hill to my former church in Bowie, MD—over 20 miles away—took about 25 minutes door to door. What I have discovered is that getting to Foundry—a little over 3 miles from my home—takes about 20 minutes; and if some huge conference is happening at the Washington Convention Center, then add at least 15 additional minutes to circumnavigate all that mess. The distance—or even the familiarity of the terrain—doesn’t determine the experience of moving from one place to another. The truth is that when you step out from where you have been, you don’t know what you are going to find along the way. You step into a liminal space, an in-between space, a space of unknowing.
Being in-between, in the place of uncertainty, is not a comfortable place to be. We experience this in a variety of ways and circumstances as human beings. Moving your residence to a new place provides a good example; many if not most of you will be familiar with that deeply disorienting experience. Others might resonate more with the experience of stepping into a new vocation or job that requires you to develop new skills or to play a different role than you have played in the past—and how for a while it feels that you don’t really know what to do, or if you do know what to do, you feel uncertain of how to accomplish it. When we are faced with the death of a parent, a child, a partner, we find ourselves in a liminal place between what life has been and of deep uncertainty about how life will be, about who WE will be now. Some live daily in the stressful uncertainty of the space between paychecks or unemployment checks, wondering how to make the dollars stretch to keep food on the table and the lights on. When a debilitating illness strikes and your whole life is forced to adapt, when the company downsizes or the contract doesn’t get renewed, when what has been familiar and comforting in your church changes, when you are responsible for sick or struggling family members who live far away, when you have this nagging suspicion that something isn’t working in your life or when you’ve been trying to get yourself together but just can’t seem to work it out, in these and so many other circumstances, we find ourselves in the middle of challenge, uncertainty, and change.
And that place is deeply uncomfortable. It can feel like you have wandered right into the middle of chaos itself. In our biblical tradition and in the ancient near-eastern traditions that influenced the biblical texts, the sea—and any large body of water—were symbolic of chaos. “In the beginning…the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1.1-2) The “formless void” of the “deep waters” in the original Hebrew is translated tohu wabohu, in effect “formlessness and normlessness.” Chaos. It’s unpredictable, strong, powerful, and potentially destructive…just like the sea. In the face of swirling waters and crashing waves, we become aware of our human vulnerability and impotence with searing clarity.
Today we hear that Jesus “made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side…” Jesus sent his friends to cross over chaos without him. We know from reading the story that Jesus was overdue for some time alone with God in prayer, but why couldn’t he have modeled good ministry delegation and allowed the disciples to manage the dismissal of the crowds so that he could have his prayer time, and they could still make the journey together? Did he really have to make the disciples go it alone? Haven’t they dealt with enough chaos already? Throughout the story, the disciples of Jesus live in a consistently chaotic place. They don’t stay anywhere for very long and they are constantly being asked to step out of their comfort zones and to do new things and to check their egos and to manage their expectations. They leave every familiar thing to make this journey with Jesus and the truth is that they don’t really know where they are going. They have been living in a place of deep uncertainty, revealing with regularity just how clueless they are about what Jesus is up to. And here Jesus makes them move out over the deep waters, the primordial symbol of chaos itself, on their own.
Perhaps Jesus was modeling good ministry delegation. Just last week you explored a story—the feeding of thousands of people—in which Jesus shows the disciples what they are capable of when they trust God’s abundant grace and sustaining power. Perhaps, after all they had been through together, Jesus—desirous that his disciples should grow—thinks they are ready to face this kind of vulnerability alone. And, from the text, we see that the battering waves of the sea aren’t what frighten the disciples this time (maybe they had learned from the first venture in a storm at sea when Jesus had been with them and had rebuked the waters) (Mt. 8.23-27). This time, the vision of Jesus walking toward them on the water is what makes them afraid. But as soon as they cry out, Jesus says to them, “Don’t be afraid. It’s me!” In the original Greek: “Ego eimi: I AM.” And Peter’s response has always struck me as extraordinary. Peter dares Jesus to call him out, to call him to step even closer to the chaos below. I imagine that Jesus is filled with pride at this move on the part of his disciple—because do you see what Peter is doing here? Peter doesn’t say, “OK, Jesus. If it’s you, prove it and get your ghost-lookin’ self into this boat!” Instead, Peter asks to be able to draw near to Jesus. He takes up his agency, his own God-given ability, and asks for grace to go where Jesus goes and to do what Jesus does. Sometimes Peter—in his impulsiveness—gets it right in spite of himself… And so at Jesus’ invitation Peter, already vulnerable to the battering waves, steps out of the relative safety of the boat and, for a brief moment, is empowered to do what Jesus does: to stay above the fray, to not be swallowed up by chaos. It is only when he gets distracted by the strong winds that he allows fear to pull him down. And here I love the commentary of Episcopal priest and spiritual writer, Suzanne Guthrie, who says, “Jesus’ response is often described as a rebuke but it doesn't seem like that at all to me. Playfully, Jesus compliments Peter, ‘Why did you doubt, ye of little faith? You HAD it!’”[1] Peter “HAD it!” But oh, don’t we understand all too well that moment when the strong winds of old habits and ways of thinking pull our focus and make us sink in fear?
Friends, our lives are so often fraught with change and challenge. We constantly have to navigate the in-between places, the crossing-over places. And chaos (with its henchman, fear) threatens to overtake us all the time. This, of course, is nothing new. It is part of the drama of being human. The good news today is that we know the One who is stronger than chaos and whose hand separated the waters “in the beginning” and held them back at the Red Sea; we know the one who has the power to make the seas lie down and to tread upon the deep. This is none other than our God made manifest most fully to us in Jesus the Christ. And Jesus is also the one who sees and knows all that you are facing in your life. Jesus knows where you need to cross over. Jesus knows your struggles; Jesus knows how hard you are trying; Jesus knows your giftedness and strength; Jesus knows what you have sacrificed; Jesus sees your pain; Jesus is aware of your apathy; Jesus knows your confusion; Jesus yearns to be close to you in your loneliness; Jesus grieves as you grieve. In the midst of the change and challenge and in-between places of life, Jesus is the one who draws near and sees you and speaks to you saying, “Don’t be afraid, I AM.” I am here. I am with you. I see you. I believe in you. And then Jesus calls you out, to perhaps move even closer to the chaos out of which new life springs. The good news is that, through the grace and power of Jesus, it is possible to stay above the fray, to keep the waters of chaos under your feet instead of over your head. It takes practice because the weight of our fears and our griefs and our sins—all that keeps us from peace and wholeness—act as anchors trying to pull us down into the abyss of self-doubt, confusion, cynicism, and despair. But Jesus shows us what we are capable of and Peter, for a moment, has enough faith to believe it himself. Long before we know what we are capable of, long before we have a clue about all that God is able to accomplish in us and through us, Jesus has faith in you and in me. It is a farsighted faith, clearly seeing what is far off, but still very real. Jesus sees us whole and healed; Jesus knows that you can “walk on water”—that is, that you can overcome your fears, deepen your faith, become more fully yourself, more fully human, move into deeper healing, live into your calling and into greater freedom—Jesus knows that you can walk toward whatever it is that will bring greater harmony and less chaos into your life. But here’s the thing: to walk on water you have to get out of the boat, you have to step out into a risky place, a place where you can be sure that you won’t always know what to do and where you will probably feel disoriented and where you will be painfully aware of your vulnerability and limitations, a place where you will feel very uncomfortable and where sometimes you’ll be up and other times down. But you won’t be there alone. Jesus has a habit of sending out his beloveds with companions for the journey. And while Jesus may hang back for a little while, when you begin to sink, Jesus will always prove the words of Isaiah true: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” (Isaiah 43:1b-2a)
As we continue to move through this time of transition together as a congregation, as we strive to find the strength and grace to stay above the fray of the daily news and the violent madness of our day, as we seek to make our own personal crossings with gentleness and openness to the new life that God will bring, I pray that God will grant us a farsighted faith, a faith that can see just enough of Jesus to get us out of the boat. Fear not. God brings new life out of chaos. Fear not, by the grace of Jesus, you HAVE this!...and Jesus has you. Thanks be to God.