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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 Nov 03, 2013
Sunday Nov 03, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
Hebrews
12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
--Hebrews 12:1-2
The metaphor in Hebrew 12 is an athletic event … a race. The first century Roman empire was heavily into sports. Every town of any size had a stadium or an arena.
Hebrews 12 talks about our life journey as a race, a marathon perhaps.
One of the interesting things about the Hebrew 12 metaphor is that it assumes that everyone has the capacity to finish their particular race. Finishing this race is not dependent upon athletic ability. Instead it is dependent upon what the runner is willing to lay aside … what we are willing to let go off.
“Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…”
Finishing this race is dependent upon what we are willing to give up … let go of.
Everybody wants to begin a race looking good. We deliberate for weeks about what shirt and shorts we will wear, we visit Pacers or lululemon, and we research over and over what shoes we will buy six weeks before the race to break in.
But no one ends a marathon looking good. The photos in Runners World are photo shopped; they must be. No one ends a marathon looking good. Some of us don’t end up a 5K looking very good.
Somewhere in the course of the race, we stop caring about what we look like. We stop paying attention to our hair, our clothes, our form, our style. We just focus on the next mile. The next block.
The only way to finish this race is to lay aside every pretension, to let go of our dignity and pride, our status and reputation. The only way to finish this race is the way Jesus finished his – almost naked.
I don’t know the weight you carry with you as you run your race. I know something about the weight I don’t want to let go of.
I don’t know what sin clings to you. I know something about the cling that clings to me and that is hard to let go of.
I do know that to run with perseverance the race set before us, I need to lay aside day by day every weight and the sin that clings so closely.
The reason we have any hope of doing this this is because filling the stands of the arena is a great cloud of witnesses who are cheering us on. These are those who have run their races before us, they have finished their races nearly naked, they endured their cross, disregarding its shame, for the sake of the joy on the other side of the finish line.
When you are running the race, the cheering stands look like a cloud, you can’t make out faces, but you know somewhere in the cloud is a parent, a grandparent, an uncle or aunt, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, a pastor, a partner who finished the race before you and who is cheering you on, praying for you to finish your race, praying for you from the cloud.
And there are people in the cloud you or I never knew or
even heard of, but their race made our race possible. They may have finished
their race in anonymity or even antipathy. But their race made our race
possible. So our victory is their victory. They cheer for us and pray for us
from the cloud.
Sunday Oct 27, 2013
Sunday Oct 27, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
Mark 12:38-44
I’ve got a few Foundry community things to share. Ed Koch who has served as Foundry’s Director of Finance for the past 5 years has resigned. We on staff will miss his daily presence among us. We wish Ed all the best in his continuing vocational journey.
Something else: For a second year (note: it is actually the 4th year) in a row the Blade newspaper named Foundry the best house of worship in their best of gay DC awards. So congratulations to you Foundry. The runner up was Bet Mishpachah, an inclusive synagogue who meets at the Jewish Community Center across the street. We should do something together as the best houses of worship in DC.
At the Blade award ceremonies, I had a big surprise. For the first time ever the Blade created a new award, a Lifetime Achievement Award and they presented it to me. It is a great honor and I want to thank the Blade for doing this amazing thing. I couldn’t imagine a more special affirmation to receive.
Let’s take a minute to pray for each other.
For almost two months we’ve been studying Foundry’s core values:
Core value #8: We cherish God's gifts.
God blesses us with time, talent, money, opportunity and the Earth we now call home. We strive to be responsible stewards of God’s great bounty.
When we receive a gift we really, really cherish, we use it well.
All of us here are highly gifted. In different ways, maybe. But highly gifted.
Being responsible stewards means using the gifts we have received well.
One of the gifts is the earth we live on.
I want to mention that we have a Green Mission team here at Foundry.
If you want more information (Steve Dryden will be at the 9:30 service for the Green Mission team. Chris Matthews and Nicole Woo will be at the 11 o’clock service.) Or you can go to the list of ministry teams on our website and there will be contact information there.
Also I want to mention how important operations is here at Foundry. This is the nitty-gritty work that supports our ministry. So I want to mention some operations ministry teams and if you are part of one of these, please rise when I name the team.
Mission Possible Ministry Team
Building Ministry Team
Financial Development Ministry Team
The Stewardship Ministry Team
Planned Giving Ministry Team
Paul Hazen
Larry Slagle
Chuck Hilty
Counting Ministry Team
Job corps
We give thanks for all those who work on the operations ministry teams. Your work is essential.
Core value #8: We cherish God's gifts. We strive to be responsible stewards of God’s great bounty.
I want to suggest that for us who are so greatly gifted, as we are, being responsible stewards means being generous, and I want to talk for a few minutes today about generosity.
I’ve been thinking about why some of us tend to be generous and others of us find it harder. Why does it seem easier for some and harder for others of us to be generous?
I found this verse in Galatians 5:22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity ...”
Generosity is a fruit of the Spirit. That is capital S Spirit, Holy Spirit, God the Spirit.
Generosity is one of the fruits of God’s Spirit within us, and –get this-- all of us have God’s Spirit within us. Every human being has God’s Spirit within him or her. You don’t have to be a Christian to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You don’t even need to be religious.
The Genesis 2 creation account says God formed 'adam, which is the Hebrew word for “human being,” God formed 'adam from the dust of the earth and breathed into ‘adam’s nostrils the Nashamah, the breath or spirit of life and ‘adam become a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
If you are alive the Spirit of God is within you. The Spirit of God is the life within you. If you are alive you have the Holy Spirit.
And one of the fruits of the Spirit is generosity. It is natural to be generous. It is human to be generous. It is our true human nature to be generous. We are created to be generous.
Here is how I think generosity works: It is natural for us to be generous and when we are generous it is natural for us to be generous in all the different aspects of our lives, everything we steward. If we are generous we tend to be generous with our money, our time, the way we vote, (not just voting in our own self-interest but the interest of others especially the vulnerable). If we are generous we will tend to be generous with our love, our friendship, our talent, our abilities, our availability.
If we have a hard time being generous, we will tend to have a hard time being generous in all the different aspects of our lives.
My theory – generosity is a spirit and if we have within us the spirit of generosity we will be generous in every way.
If generosity is part of our human nature, if generosity is part of what we are created for, so why, then, are we all not more generous? Why are we not more generous than we are?
Turn to the person sitting next to you and take 60 seconds to discuss why you think you are not more generous than you are … unless you are perfectly generous. Then you don’t have to talk to anybody but if you are not perfectly generous, take 30 seconds to tell the person next to you why you think you are not more generous.
Here’s what I think. I think I am not more generous than I am because of fear. Because of anxiety, insecurity, and fear.
Fear, anxiety, insecurity pollute the Spirit of God within me. Fear: distrust of God, distrust of others, distrust of community, distrust of Congress. So even though I am created for generosity I am careful not share too much because if I can’t trust God or others and need to take care of myself. In this world, if I don’t take care of myself, who will?
Jesus has this great illustration that he uses in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon in the Valley in Luke.
He says: Do not worry, do not be anxious, do not be fearful about what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. Consider the ravens (the birds of the air): they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than a bird!
Consider the lilies in the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. (Even Molly Cyrus and Robin Thicke don’t look as good.) But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will God clothe you—you of little faith!
(Remember the word faith means trust.) You of little trust!
Do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying.
So Jesus says: Sell your possessions, and give alms. (Portions of Luke 12:22-33.)
Cash out your pension and give the money away to the poor. Trust God to feed and clothe you.
That would be what we would do if the Spirit of God within us were not polluted by fear, worry, anxiety, lack of trust in God and others.
I confess that I am not more generous than I am because I worry about what I will eat and what I will wear and a whole laundry list of other things.
What if I run out of money before I die?
Am I the only one who worries about this? What if I run out of money before I die?
The truth is that I am part of the human population who has to worry the least about what I will eat and what I will wear.
The 2/3rd world is full of people who have to worry what they will eat tomorrow and what they will wear but I am part of the 1/3rd world that has the very least cause to worry about this. Actually globally I am part of the 1 percent that has to worry about it the least.
My experience traveling in the 2/3rd world –Latin America and Africa-- is that people in poverty in the 2/3rd world are more likely to trust God than I am. They are more likely to have a spirit of generosity than I am. They are more likely to share what they have than I am.
A lack of generosity is a spiritual condition. I am not more generous than I am because my relationship with God is not as strong as it might be so as a result I do not trust God. My relationship with others is not as strong as it might be so I do not trust others. I need to stockpile to take care of myself because I do not trust.
Little faith, little trust is what thwarts and diminishes the Spirit of God within us so we become less generous than we are created to be.
Human nature is if we see someone who us hungry we feed them. If we know millions of children around the world are hungry, if we were fully the way we are created to be, we would just cash in our savings and pensions so they could eat and survive. We would trust that down the line 20 years God and others would help us if we needed it.
It is not natural to know someone is hungry and not feed them. That is not the way we are created to be.
But distrust of God and others distorts the Spirit of God within us.
If our relationship with God and others were stronger we would trust more and be more generous.
Our lack of generosity is a spiritual problem.
I have one more point to make and it is based on the Scripture lesson we heard this morning.
It is the story we sometimes call the story of the widow’s mite or the widow’s penny.
One day Jesus sat down opposite the temple treasury … the temple offering plate and he sat and watched people putting money in the offering plate. It is like he followed the ushers up and down the aisle and looked over their shoulders and watched what each of us put in the offering plate.
So Jesus is watching the offering plate. Lots of rich people put in lots of money but a poor widow who had nothing put in two small copper coins and Jesus used it as an object lesson to his disciples. Jesus says to his disciples: This poor widow has put more in the offering plate than everybody else because everybody else gave out of their abundance but she gave out of her poverty. Everybody else gave their extra. She gave out of what she needed to live on.
This little object lesson has several points, but here is what I think one of the points is.
If we have within us a spirit of generosity, we will find a way to be generous no matter how much or how little we have.
Let me say it again: If we have within us a spirit of generosity, we will find a way to be generous no matter how much or how little we have.
You know, years ago when I was just starting out in ministry and my salary was sort of low and I was trying to raise three children, I used to think to myself: When I am earning more money and the kids are through college, I am going to be really, really generous. I am going to tithe. No, I am going to give 20, 30 percent of my income away. When I have more, I will be more generous. It will be easy to give then.
Turns out it does not work that way. Having more than I did then has not made giving easier.
For some reason it seems the more I have the less I trust God and others and the more I need to have in the bank to feel secure. How can that be?
Here’s why: Because a lack of generosity is not a capacity problem but a spiritual problem. A lack of generosity is not a capacity problem; it is a trust problem … a faith problem.
A lack of generosity is not a capacity problem but a spiritual problem.
If I have a spirit of generosity, I will figure out how to share no matter how little I have.
If I have a spirit of insecurity or distrust, it will be hard for me to give no matter how much I have.
It is not a matter of capacity but of spirituality.
Let me add one more thing. I suspect one of the ways we damage the spirit of generosity which is naturally within us is that we choose to live in a world of fear, negative memories and grievances.
Bill Coffin used to say that one of the truly nasty pleasures in life is to rake our garden of grievances.
To rake up day after day all of the ways that life and others have mistreated me, have hurt me, have harmed me. All the ways I have been cheated. All the ways I have been discriminated against or abused. All my remembered pain. All the things I wanted and did not get. To rake my garden of grievances.
The opposite of rehearsing our grievances is the spiritual practice of thanksgiving.
Really now, who is luckier than I am? My parents would consider what I do for a living not working. I have family. I have friends. I have a place to live. I even have a spare bedroom. I actually have more bedrooms than I need to sleep in.
Do I have hurts and grievances in my life? Sure. But as long as I keep the wounds open and don’t let them heal, the harder and harder it will be for me to trust God and others and the less generous I will be.
I am more and more convinced the most important and the most difficult spiritual practice is to forgive. Unless we forgive, we will live in our resentments and grievances and we will not be able to be thankful. And unless we are thankful, we will not trust and be generous.
Remember the widow with her pennies. A lack of generosity is
not a capacity problem. It is a spiritual problem. O, we of little faith. O we
who trust so little but who could if we would because God is not far away or inaccessible
of distant but dwells within us.
Sunday Oct 20, 2013
Sunday Oct 13, 2013
Sunday Oct 13, 2013
Rev Dean Snyder
Luke 18:1-8
We are all concerned about the shutdown of the federal government and its impact on the lives of people who are federal employees or contractors. One of our Foundry leaders has begun a group for persons impacted by the shutdown to get together for support. Contact Pastor Theresa if you are interested in information about that group.
The shutdown is also impacting the most vulnerable people of our nation and city. An article in the Washington Post this week said that our friends at the Latin American Youth Center and Sasha Bruce Youthwork who work with homeless and at risk youth have had to furlough more than half of their staffs and reduce their programming to essential services.
All sorts of services that are dependent upon federal and city money are in crisis. We heard about one crisis as a result of the shutdown that we felt we just had to do something about.
We found out from one of our members that DC Safe’s funding ended last Tuesday. DC SAFE operates the only shelter in the District that provides immediate aid to victims of domestic violence 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
So Ben Roberts, our interim director of social justice ministries, talked to DC Safe this week and Foundry made a contribution of $2,500 to help keep the shelter open during the shutdown. The money came from the Christmas Catalogue’s greatest need fund and the senior pastor’s discretionary fund.
We wish we could help more organizations. We are very grateful that we had some resources available as a result of your generosity to help make sure a woman in Washington, DC, in danger because of domestic violence has someplace to get help during these strange times in our nation.
Prayer
We are studying Foundry’s core values this month. You will find them on the last page inside your bulletin. Today the core value is “We welcome the hard work of prophecy. Our close proximity to power gives us the chance to speak for the powerless. We are mindful that prophets examine themselves closely before sharing their message with the world.”
People of faith do two kinds of ministries to address the needs of the world around us. One we call ministries of mercy. In Foundry’s statement of call we call this active service. Ministries that actively serve people in need in practical and often personal ways.
Sandwich 1000, our Walk-In Mission, our English as a Second Language Classes, our cooking ministry, our service at N Street Village and Christ House are wonderful examples of ministries of mercy. Ministries of mercy are a source of great spiritual growth for those of us who do them because they draw our consciousness toward the poor and vulnerable and, thus, toward Christ who is poor and vulnerable.
We are also called to ministries of justice. Ministries of justice are what Foundry’s statement of call calls prophetic leadership. We are called to change the world.
For many years Foundry provided ministries of mercy to the LGBTQ community here in Dupont Circle and the district. We had LGBTQ potlucks – low key social gatherings. But for more LGBTQ people than you would guess, coming to one of the potlucks was an important part of their coming-out experience. We had and have LGBTQ Bible study and retreats. The focus is personal caring and mercy and relationship.
But Foundry also has a LGBTQ Advocacy ministry … people who are working strategically to end discrimination against gay people in the United Methodist Church and within society. The focus here is justice.
Foundry has ministries of caring and mercy toward the homeless. But it also has a ministry to end homelessness. The focus here is a just society in which no one remains homelessness.
It is like the old metaphor of the place on the highway that had so many accidents that the ambulances became expert at getting there within minutes to get accident victims to the emergency room. Until someone said, “Why don’t we get some engineers to help us figure out why so many accidents are happening here and make changes in the highway to stop the accidents.
As followers of Jesus, we are called to both ministries of mercy and ministries of justice.
As people who are part of the Methodist movement, we are called to both active service and prophetic leadership because that was at the heart of Methodism’s beginning.
The first building Methodists ever owned was a former storehouse for canons and gun powder in London, England, that had been damaged in an explosion. Methodism’s founder John Wesley leased it when he was 36 and named it “The Foundry.”
Richard Heitzenrater says that Wesley and the early Methodists developed five kinds of programs to
serve the poor at the Foundry.
1. Food, clothing and shelter for the most destitute, those physically unable to work.
2. Materials and start-up money to help people start their own small business, like knife sharping or shoe repair.
3. Schools for the children of the poor;
4. Literacy programs for those who did not have Access to other education to learn to read and write;
5. Free medical clinics for those without access to health care.
I am fascinated by how similar many of the ministries of mercy that happen here at this Foundry are to the ones that happened at that Foundry.
Sometimes our board here at Foundry worries that we take too many special offerings. They are afraid you will suffer donor fatigue. So you should know this.
John Wesley. Methodism’s founder, once took seven offerings in one weekend to support ministries with the poor in one day. His brother Charles wrote a letter complaining about it to a friend.
He wrote: “How many collections think you has my brother made between Thursday evening and Sunday? No fewer than seven. Five this one day of the same poor exhausted people. He has no mercy on them.”
Charles goes on in his letter to suggest that if John doesn’t stop taking so many offerings for the poor someone is going to have to take a collection to help the members of the Foundry who will have no money left.
Ministries of mercy were at the heart of Methodism’s beginnings and so were ministries of justice … prophetic leadership.
John Wesley had a particular passion for prison reform. He visited prisons into his 70s and he wrote newspaper op-eds and lobbied for a more humane prison system.
John Wesley was famous for his opposition to gin. His opposition to gin, it turns out, was not solely based on the addiction he discovered among the poor. One of his main arguments against government support of gin distilling was that it increased the price of grains and made bread expensive causing hunger among the poor.
He was a fierce proponent of job creation and criticized severely the wealthy who spent their riches living in luxury rather than creating jobs.
Active service and prophetic leadership.
For me, the biblical hero of prophetic leadership is the widow Jesus talks about in Luke 18.
I love this widow.
In Jesus’ time, widows were the people in all of society with the least power. First, they were women who had no political power at all. Secondly, they had no husband which meant they had no one with power to advocate for them. Widows had the least power of anyone.
The judge whom the widow was trying to influence was not a good person. He did not fear God or respect people.
But the powerless widow just kept bothering him until he acted justly, not because he was committed to justice, but because he knew she would not leave him alone until he did what was right.
The widow of Luke 18 was the heroine of democracy before democracy was invented.
Nationally we seem stuck these days. Capitol Hill seems stuck. Leaders seem to be having a hard time leading.
I don’t know who among our leaders fears God and respects people and who doesn’t.
But I believe justice happens not because of good leaders but because people like the widow of Luke 18 pound away at it day in and day out. When people keep doing the hard day by day work of prophetic leadership even bad leaders who don’t fear God or respect people cannot ignore it forever.
Prophetic leadership is like prayer. The moral of Jesus parable is that we should be persistent in prayer. If the widow of Luke 18 was able to get justice from a bad judge because she was persistent , how much more likely will we, if we pray persistently, get justice from a good God?
Next year when Foundry celebrates our 200th anniversary, it will also be the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. A lot of political leaders have taken credit for the collapse of the Berlin Wall. There are those who believe that the collapse of the Wall did not happen because of political leaders. It happened because of people like the widow of Luke 18 who worked and prayed for years.
It started in the early19 80s, years before the Wall came down, they say. It started in St. Nicholas Church of Leipzig, East Germany.
A small group of people at St. Nicholas started a Monday evening prayer service for peace. The prayer meeting started quite small, just a very few people.
It began to grow. Then people drifted away and the group would become small again. But they continued to gather to pray for peace Monday after Monday.
Then In 1988 attendance began to grow dramatically. Attendance grew so high that East German officials began to worry. They posted roadblocks and detained people to try to prevent them from going to those services.
Finally, on October 8, 1989, the secret police were preparing to shoot and kill in order to stop people from assembling for that prayer service. That night the church was packed with more than 2,000 people, and another 70,000 were on the streets outside.
The crowds left the church and they began to march toward the City Hall, where the armed guards were waiting for them. The troops never opened fire. They retreated inside City Hall and they watched as the marchers placed their candles on the steps of the City Hall and stood there in a silent vigil for peace.
According to Andrew Wolf, the commander of those troops stared out the window at that crowd and he was heard to mutter: “We planned for everything, we prepared for everything, except for candles and prayers.”
On November 9, 1989, history shifted and the wall came down because of a small group of people who had begun praying persistently at St. Nicholas Church.
Even politicians who do not fear God or respect people will do what is right and just, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because of persistent prophetic leaders like the widow of Luke 18.
Sunday Oct 06, 2013