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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.
Episodes
Sunday Dec 08, 2013
Sunday Dec 08, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
Luke 1:30–38I want to mention two important Sundays in January so that you have time to protect your schedules. One is MLK Sunday January 19 when our special preacher will be Cheryl Anderson. Dr. Anderson teaches Old Testament at Garrett Seminary in Evanston, IL. She has written a very important book about biblical interpretation and the movement for full inclusion within the church entitled “Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies.”
Cheryl was a lawyer who worked for the federal government in the 1980s when she started attending Foundry. She experienced a call to ministry here, entered seminary, and today she is a teacher and leader in the United States and Africa on studying scripture to hear God’s call to inclusion.
Then I also want to announce this morning that on Sunday Jan. 26, the last Sunday of January, our preacher will be Pastor Frank Schaefer whose trial for conducting his son’s wedding was held last month in Pennsylvania. So I want you to start spreading the word among your friends. Frank will preach at 9:30 and 11 and will answer questions following the 11:00 service.
Prayer
For the next six months we are focusing on the church-wide theme of strengthening our core. In the world of health and exercise, our physical core is the muscles between our hips and our shoulders. Mark Verstegen, author of the Core Performance says there are five reasons to strengthen our physical core: It reduces and prevents pain. It Makes You Look Taller and Thinner. It Delays the Aging Process. It Improves Mental Function. It Improves Performance.
So what is our spiritual core? What are the spiritual muscles we need to strengthen to reduce pain, look taller, delay the aging process, etc.
I think one of the core spiritual muscles is the trust muscle. Trusting God. And developing communities of trust, congregations of trust, where we can trust God and each other enough to live together to change the world.
One of the key biblical personifications of trust is Jesus’ mother Mary who became a symbol for the church.
The church’s job –our job—is to trust God enough so that something of God might be born into the world through us.
Today we want to take just a moment to think about trusting God’s possibilities. God is always stretching our imagination. God is always calling us to a larger vision than we ourselves can imagine.
When the angel calls Mary into the motherhood of Jesus, she responds: How can this be since I am just a young girl?
The angel says: “Nothing will be impossible with God.
And Mary says: “Let it be…”
Mary trusts God’s possibility which is beyond her own imagination. She works her trust muscle.
One of the barriers to us living out God’s call in our lives is our limitations of what we can imagine to be possible. Our inconceivability. We can’t see it.
Amazing things happen in history once our imaginations are stretched. Impossible things happen.
Before 1954 no racer had ever run a mile in less than 4 minutes. Most people believed it was impossible. There were even books written explaining in great depth why running a mile in less than 4 minutes was physiologically impossible given the anatomy of the human body.
Then on May 6, 1954 at Iffley Road Track in Oxford, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, establishing the first world record for running a mile in less than 4 minutes.
Do you know how long his record lasted before someone ran a mile in less time?
46 days. Less than 2 months.
Now the sub-4 minute mile is considered the standard for the mile.
We are called to more than we can imagine. God’s call upon our lives stretches beyond our imagine.
In the spirit of Mary we are invited to step out in trust where we cannot see. The book of Hebrews says faith is the evidence of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1)
So I invite us, each of us and us together, to meditate this Advent about where God might be inviting us to take a step beyond the limitations of our imagination … to serve, to give, to sacrifice, to change ourselves, to change the world.
Many have written this week about the one sentence that Nelson Mandela spoke that shaped his life. It was during his 1962 trial in South Africa. His lawyers urged him not to say it but he did anyway. He said: “Democracy [is] an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
He spent the next 27 years in prison trusting in an ideal that it must have been nearly impossible to see.
Mary said, “How can these things be for I am only a young girl.”
The angel answered: “Nothing will be impossible with God.”
And Mary said “Let it be…”
The church said: “Let it be …”
Sunday Dec 01, 2013
Sunday Nov 24, 2013
Sunday Nov 24, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
Psalm 139:1-12
Just a word about the trial of Pastor Frank Schaefer: I hope you have seen the excellent statement our leaders have written about the trial. Our office sent it out in an email blast this week and it is on our website. I also sent out a pastoral letter. We are in a phase of the struggle for full inclusion right now which will include a number of trials of pastors who perform same-sex weddings and pastors who are openly gay. At least four more trials are in the pipeline. There will probably be more.
As public opinion changes in our society and pews and people increasingly come to see that anti-LGBTQ attitudes are based on a prejudice, I believe this is one last desperate attempt to repress change in the United Methodist Church.
Foundry church, you are such an important sign to the denomination and world that reconciling, inclusive congregations can be vital, growing, passionate, spiritual, strong congregations. So I am asking you to stay strong. Support the work of our LGBTQ Advocacy Team. Help with the letter writing campaign upstairs today. Help our Sunday school and youth ministry and fellowship groups and small groups and missions continue to be strong and vital.
Hang on. Over 1,500 United Methodist pastors and many, many congregations have made a commitment to practice marriage equality. We will not be afraid. We will not stop. We will not disappear.
Now, let us pray for each other.
Some of you have heard me mention in passing from time to time over the years that I am a universalist, and I want to take a few minutes to explain this morning what I mean by this and to make my case for Christian universalism.
I am not arguing that universalism is the consensus view of the Bible. I do argue that universalism is one voice that we find in the conversation between generations and people that we call the Bible.
I am not going to argue that universalism has been the majority opinion of the Christian church during its 2000 year history. I do argue that many Christians throughout the centuries have come to a universalist conclusion, and they did so for good reason … because the Christian gospel points us in this direction.
The way I have chosen to phrase my understanding of universalism is the statement that ultimately hell will be empty.
Let us forget for a few minutes all of the metaphorical descriptions that are used to describe heaven and hell … that heaven will have streets of gold and pearly gates … that hell is a place of flames and sulfur.
Theologically, heaven or the kingdom of heaven means to live in the presence of God according to God’s will and desires and hopes for us. Theologically hell means to live in the absence of God in rebellion against God’s will and desires and hopes for us.
If we believe in human freedom, hell is a necessary theological proposition. If we believe that human beings have the freedom to accept or reject God, a place or state where we can choose to be godless is a logical necessity.
And I believe fully in human freedom. God is never coercive, God never forces us into relationship, God never bullies us.
God is not coercive but God is infinitely and eternally invitational. This is the revelation we have seen in Jesus Christ. God never closes the door on any one of us … not even if our name is Judas or Hitler.
There are some images in the New Testament on this topic I find very compelling. Ephesians 4: 9-10 describe a Jesus who descends into " into the lower parts of the earth” to bring good news to those who are captive there. 1 Peter 3:19 says that Jesus when he was put to death in the flesh went in the spirit to proclaim good news to those who are imprisoned.
The historic Apostle’s Creed says Jesus Christ “was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead…”
I am less concerned about the specific technology of these texts but the spirit of them. Jesus is so commitment to never closing the door on anyone of us that he will willing to go to hell to communicate the good news of God’s love and welcome.
My conviction that hell will eventually be empty is not because I think that all of us are good and do not deserve the consequences of the harmful and destructive things we have done. It is because I think that God’s love is eternal. I think ultimately, because it is barren and empty, we will all come to the end of our rebellion and when we turn back home God will be there waiting for us, even if we’ve been to hell and back. [1]
The strongest argument, in my opinion, against universalism is that if no one is in hell where is the justice in the universe. If Judas and Hitler are not in hell, isn’t the universe ultimately an unjust place? Isn’t God unfair?
So I have to say that I do believe in judgment. In Revelations 14:13 Bishop John hears a voice from heaven and it says:
“Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them."
Our deeds do follow us out of this life.
There will have to be a correction of the injustices of this world. Some of us are born privileged. Some of us born to die of starvation before they have hardly lived. Some of us slave owners; some of us slaves. Some of us abusers; some abused. I don’t need to go on and on. This is a horribly unjust world not because of a Creator’s intention but because of the creation’s radical freedom.
This is why I believe in something like purgatory, not in the crude sense that it is sometimes talked about but in the sense spoken of by the theologian Jurgen Moltmann.
Moltmann says:
An intermediate state of this kind is presupposed by the doctrines of purgatory and reincarnation, but the idea of a great divine judgment also gives a name to something between our death and eternal life. ... For me, God’s judgment means the final putting to rights of the injustice that has been done and suffered, and the final raising up of those who have been bowed down. So I conceive of that intermediate state as a wide space for living, in which God’s history with a human being can come to its flowering and consummation. I imagine that we then come close to that well of life from which we could already here and now draw the power to live and the affirmation of life that was meant for them, for which they were born, and which was taken from them. ...
Those whom we call the dead are not lost. But they are not yet fully saved either. Together with us who are still alive, they are hidden, sheltered, in the same hope, and are hence together with us on the way to God's future. They "watch" with us, and we "watch" with them. That is the community of hope shared by the dead with the living, and by the living with the dead.
This is what I think divine judgment will be like. We will all have to experience our lives from the perspective of others. We are going to have to experience what it was like for those we ignored, those we treated badly, those who suffered and we didn’t care. And it will be hell.
Frankly, I’ve had some of these experiences already without being dead yet … the experience of seeing yourself as you must seem through the eyes of another who has experienced injustice or suffering. It is hell.
But in the end we will all have the opportunity to be part of the kingdom of heaven where the will of God is truly done and we all are loved and included and fulfilled.
I am not a universalist because I think God is required to include all of us in heaven. I am not a universalist because I am trying to tell God what God has to do. If humans are free, so is God.
I am a universalist because I believe including all of us is what God wants to do. And I have ultimate confidence in God being able to accomplish what God want to get done ... not by power or might but by the spirit.
There is so much scripture about God’s passionate love for us and God’s refusal to give up on us that I could quote. But I particularly love this passage form Hosea Chapter 11. God is speaking:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. … My people are bent on turning away from me. … [But] How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? … My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
This is the God of Israel and Jesus. No matter how much we try to turn away, this God who love us and calls us her child will not come in wrath.
Finally, I think that believing that God will ultimately be successful in including all of us in heaven is important for the way we live together now. It means there is no one we can write off. There is no one we can consign to hell.
Sitting and watching Pastor Frank Schaefer’s trial this week was so painful. Frank is without guile. He is just so sincere and he so clearly wants to love everyone.
And on the other side were these men (and they were men) theologically kicking him.
I wanted to hate, but I kept thinking of this sermon I had committed to preach today.
I believe I will be in heaven with those folk someday.
They can condemn and exile Frank but they will be in heaven with Frank and us someday. So we must treat them as fellow citizens of heaven here and now.
It is hard to write somebody off if you believe you will spend eternity in the same place as they are.
In order to persecute others, I suspect we have to convince ourselves that they will spend eternity in a different place than we will be. Perhaps the reason we call people godless or bound for hell is so that our hate is justified in this life.
So the closing words belong to the Psalmist.
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7-10)
The closing words belong to the Apostle Paul:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
The closing words belong to Jesus:
… on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)
The gates of hell will not prevail. The infinite love of the divine and holy One will.
Sunday Nov 17, 2013
Sunday Nov 17, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
John 6:5-13
The story of the feeding of the crowd appears six times in four gospels. Two gospels tell it twice. In one version 5,000 are fed. In another 4,000 but it is still basically the same story.
Jesus and his disciples go into the wilderness, a remote place, to have some down time during their ministry. A crowd of thousands follow them into the wilderness because they are so hungry to hear the teaching of Jesus.
It gets to be meal time and in several versions of the story Jesus’ disciples come to him and tell him to send the crowds away so that they can get themselves something to eat. Instead Jesus’ says to his disciples: “You feed them.”
The disciples say to Jesus: We don’t have the budget for it. It would take six month’s salary to buy enough food for everyone to have even just a little.
One of the disciples says All the food we have is these five barley loaves and two fish that this boy has offered us. But what good is this when we have 5,000 people to feed?
Understand that the barley loaves were not really loaves of bread the way we think of loaves. They were small dinner rolls. And the two fish were not tunas or salmon. They were more the size of sardines.
What good will five dinner rolls and two sardines do when we’ve got five thousand people to feed?
Jesus had the people sit down together on the grass. Jesus took the five dinner rolls and said grace over them and distributed them to the people. He took the sardines and distributed them. When everyone had eaten and was full, the disciples gathered up the left-overs and there were 12 baskets of left-overs.
The early church loved this story. They told it over and over. That is why it appears six times in four gospels. There is no other story about Jesus that was told over and over again like this one. Something about this story takes us to the very heart of what the early Christians loved most about Jesus.
Traditionally there are three interpretations of this story.
One interpretation says that Jesus miraculously multiplies the loaves and fishes. He took five dinner rolls and two sardines and turned them into enough food to fully feed 5,000 people. He took a very little and multiplied the molecules in it to make it a lot.
I am good with this interpretation because it is an affirmation of the New Testament belief that matter does not limit spirit. Spirit transforms the material. The creative power of the Creator God was present in Jesus the Christ.
The second traditional interpretation is called the sacramental interpretation. It says that this story is really about Holy Communion, the Eucharist. Just as we are fed by little pieces of bread and little sips of wine in holy Communion, and are fed until we can eat no more, the 5,000 were fed by little pieces of the loaves and fishes because they were in the presence of Jesus. The 12 baskets of left-overs are a symbolic expression of how Jesus sacramentally fills us to overflowing.
The third interpretation assumes that most everybody had actually brought a lunch with them. People are not so careless as to go into the wilderness, a remote place, without grabbing a lunch to take with them. But when the disciples started looking for food, no one wanted to admit they had a lunch hidden away because if they shared their lunch with such a large crowd they would end up going hungry themselves. Everyone just thought to themselves that they would find a few minutes to sneak away somewhere where no one could see them and scarf down their lunch.
But when Jesus had them sit down together in groups, and showed them the dinner rolls and little fish the boy had offered to share, and Jesus gave thanks for the rolls and fish and thanks for the boy who was willing to share them, people started pulling their lunches out of the places they had hidden them, and they started sharing them with the people sitting to their right and to their left and in g=front of them and in back of them.
When all of the food that people had brought with them had been shared and eaten, when the disciples collected the left-overs, there were 12 baskets left-over.
This is the interpretation of the story I like the best because it suggests that what the early Christians loved most about Jesus is that he helps us become who we really are – generous, sharing, open, loving.
I believe one of the fruits of the spirit is generosity. That when God breathed life into us, the breath God breathed into us was the breath of generosity. I believe it is part of our essential nature to share.
But we become anxious. We become fearful. If I share there may not be enough for me. But the truth is that if we share there will be enough for all of us with 12 baskets left-over!
In the story the one who models this is a child … a child who has not yet learned how to be distrustful and anxious. Jesus if you want my rolls and two little fish, I trust you. Here they are. I trust you that if I give you my lunch I will not go hungry.
Here’s the deal: If we don’t trust Jesus and the crowd around us, no amount of lunch we have hidden away will be enough. If we do not trust God, and the universe and the people who love us, no pension will ever be large enough. If we do not trust, no savings will ever be enough.
And if we hide away what we have when others around us are hungry, we will come to assume that that is what others will do if we are ever hungry and it will cause us to trust less.
It is our essential nature to share but we have become anxious and distrustful, so instead of everybody having enough and there being 12 baskets of food left-over, we are all hungry sitting on our hidden lunches.
This is what the early Christians loved about Jesus. He took a crowd of individuals who were hiding their lunches from each other and turned them into a party where people were sharing food and drink and talking and laughing and having a joyous time together.
Generosity creates community.
This is our stewardship Sunday here at Foundry. We are going to ask you to be the child in the story the early Christians loved the most. We are going to invite you to put your dinner roll and fish on the table.
If you would get out your bulletin and turn to the last page and find our steps of giving chart.
We are asking you to estimate the income you expect to make next year. Figure a proportion of your income to give, and then to fill out a pledge card. If you already pledge we invite you to consider moving up a step toward tithing or beyond.
But our emphasis this year is to invite everyone to the table. If you are not now pledging, we invite you to start somewhere, at whatever level you are willing to risk.
Because this is what I’ve learned. Distrust feed on distrust but generosity feeds on generosity. When one of us is anxious and distrustful it will make someone else more anxious and distrustful. When one of us chooses generosity, it makes someone else more generous.
Jane and my pledge for this year is $365 a week, a tenth of our current income. I forget what we started out at when we first began to pledge. It wasn’t much. But many people over many years of ministry taught me generosity. They helped me to be less anxious and to trust more. To have more faith.
Most of all we want to give everyone a chance to start on this journey this year.
Please pass the pledge cards down the aisle. If you are a visitor this morning we invite you to fill out a pledge card and put it in the offering plate of your home church next Sunday. If Foundry is your church, we invite you to bring it forward this morning.
Stanley will play for us for three minutes. We invite you to prayerfully fill our your pledge card. Then we are going to bring our regular offerings and our pledge cards forward this morning and put them in the baskets as we sing a hymn together.
Let us pray together.
Sunday Nov 10, 2013