Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

SN@F Burning Hearts

Pastor Rev. Kevin Wright delivers a poignant message on "Burning Hearts."

Our burning hearts

Rev. Dean Snyder Luke 24:13-35

The story about two disciples on the road to Emmaus is a story about disappointment. It is a story for the times in our lives when we are experiencing disappointment and defeat.

A romance that had swept us off of our feet begins to go sour. A marriage doesn’t seem to be working anymore. A career we’ve invested years preparing for turns out to be about fund raising rather than changing the world. The God we’d prayed to and trusted lets us down. The justice we had worked for is defeated. The list goes on and on.

Two of Jesus’ disciples were walking on the road from Jerusalem to the little town of Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday afternoon brooding and depressed about their disappointment. They had invested three years of their lives following Jesus whom they had believed would bring the Kingdom of God to Israel.

They expected Jesus to overturn the Roman occupation army who treated the people of Israel unjustly – high taxes, no services, no jobs, no freedom.

But instead Jesus had been executed on Friday. The whole Jesus-movement had collapsed and people had begun to get strange starting rumors that Jesus had risen from the dead.

So these two particular disciples had decided to get out of town … to take a hike … to leave Jerusalem behind, take a walk to the nowhere town of Emmaus where nothing ever happens to wallow in their disappointment and lick their wounds.

It turned out to be a more eventful walk than they’d expected. A stranger joins them on the walk. It turns out the stranger was Jesus but they did not recognize him. The stranger told them a story about human history beginning from Moses that showed how Jesus’ crucifixion would help bring the Kingdom of God not only to Israel but to all creation … not only to the Israelites but to all humanity.

Later, after Jesus had vanished and they could no longer see him, the two disciples said to each other … "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32)

Didn’t our hearts burn within us?

On their walk to Emmaus the disciples went from broken hearts to burning hearts. Can that happen for us when our hearts are broken? Can we go from empty hollow defeated broken hearts to burning hearts?

I want to talk for a few minutes this morning about the beginnings of the Methodist movement of which this church is a part. We are Foundry United Methodist Church.

Methodism had its birth in John Wesley’s broken heart.

John Wesley was a priest in the Church of England in the early 1700s. He was born in 1703. He wanted to do something special for God. He did not want to be an ordinary minister preaching and baptizing and burying. He was driven to do something special for God with his life.

So when he graduated with his divinity degree he volunteered to go to America, to the colony of Georgia, determined to be a missionary to the American Indians. When he got to Georgia instead of being assigned to be a missionary to the Indians, he was made the pastor of a small Anglican Church on Saint Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, where there were no Indians.

In the church on saint Simons Island there was a young woman John Wesley had met on the ship to American. Her name was Sophia Hopkey. He fell in love with her proposed and then changed his mind, then changed his mind again, and then changed his mind again. . Sophia, having realized that John might have some issues, married someone else.

John Wesley, who had apparently changed his mind again, felt jilted and betrayed by Sophia because she had married someone else. So he banned her from the Communion Table. He refused to serve her Communion.

Sophia’s husband sued John Wesley. The trial ended in a mistrial but Wesley’s romantic misadventures had created so much conflict in Georgia that the governor petitioned the bishop to move Wesley back to England as far away from Georgia as soon as possible.

So John Wesley returned to London, his reputation ruin, the punch line of jokes.

My favorite biography of John Wesley is by Roy Hattersley. He is a British labor politician and a journalist in England and he seems to be able to more direct about John Wesley’s romantic and emotional struggles than most Methodist biographers.

Hattersely says that after the Georgia fiasco John Wesley experienced what we would call a nervous breakdown today. The journal shows that he was disappointed, defeated, humiliated and depressed.

It was during this time in his life he happened to attend a little German Moravian Chapel on Aldersgate Street in London. He went because he was so unhappy he was willing to try anything. The chapel had no minister so instead of a sermon someone was reading a passage from Martin Luther’s Commentary on the Book of Romans, which deals with sin and grace.

This is what he wrote about his experience at Aldersgate Chapel that night:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

That was May 24, 1738. John Wesley, defeated and disappointed, felt his heart strangely warmed. May 24^th is considered the birthday of Methodism … the day Methodism began. The day John Wesley’s heart burned within him. The day John Wesley had his Emmaus Road experience and was resurrected.

Most of what God does in the world God does through defeated and discouraged people who have come to the end of their agendas and so they become open to God’s agenda. That is the most important thing I will say today so let me repeat it.

Most of what God does in the world God does through defeated and discouraged people who have come to the end of their agendas and so they become open to God’s agenda.

The two defeated and discouraged disciples on the Road to Emmaus said to each other, "’Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem.”

John Wesley, defeated and discouraged, after his heart was strangely warmed began field preaching to the coal miners of England … a form of ministry considered so unsavory and tacky it was done only by Presbyterians and Quakers.

He wrote in his journal: “At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people.”

Some say Methodism was born the day John Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed. Others say Methodism was born the day John Wesley decided to do something he considered vile and tacky … to preach in a field to the poor people of England who were not welcome in the churches.

The two go together. The disciples burning hearts would have not changed history had they not gotten up and returned to Jerusalem. John Wesley’s strangely warmed heart would not have changed history had not John Wesley decided to preach to the poorest of poor in England.

Actually there are four things that go together. Discouragement when our agendas in life fail. A story that God keeps trying to tell us about how justice and inclusion emerges out of our defeat. Hearts that refuse to dies. And the new thing that often feels vile and beneath us that God calls us to do.

When you are discouraged and defeated and on your road to Emmaus, it just may be the beginning of the great adventure of your life. Listen to your heart.

SN@F The Knowing

Pastor Rev. Kevin Wright delivers a poignant service entitled "The Knowing."

The Knowing

Rev. Dean Snyder Luke 24:28-31

One of my best memories is a few years ago when we did a sermon series on God the potter. We had a potter each Sunday at the front of the sanctuary throwing pots. The potters actually made a communion service. During the sermon you could hear the potter slapping the clay against the wheel. During the prayers you heard the potter working the clay.

All during the series we sang the chorus “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.”

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.

During that series we had a series of house meetings. I forget how many. But quite a few, in the house meetings we asked people to share a time that they had experienced the spirit of God molding them.”

Night after night when I came home from those house meetings I came home staggering because of the stories people told. Encounters with God. Encounters with Christ. Encounters with the divine. Mystical experiences. Thin places. Ordinary events that became holy.

We don’t talk about these kinds of experiences much. Even people who go to church don’t. We are afraid somebody will think we are weird or unstable or unscientific.

A woman who once served with me at a church where we were pastors together is now a spiritual counselor. People pay her to discuss with her religious experiences that they are afraid to admit to anyone else including their therapists for fear they will be suspected to be unstable.

So I want to begin this morning by saying that it is possible to experience the reality of God, the reality of Christ, the reality of the divine and transcendent in our lives. God is knowable. Christ is knowable.

We’ve been looking all this season between Easter and Pentecost at the Easter story of the Road to Emmaus. Easter Sunday afternoon two disciples are walking six miles between Jerusalem and the small nowhere town of Emmaus just to get out of the city. They are confused and discouraged. A stranger joins them on their walk. It is Jesus but they don’t recognize him. They invite him to dinner. When he takes a loaf of bread and breaks it, just for an instance they know him. They recognize the risen Jesus and they know him.

We have such instances in our lives. We encounter the divine, the holy, the Christ and know it. We encounter Christ often without knowing it. But we have instances when we recognize Christ and know him.

We call these moments when we know Christ sacraments. The United Methodist church has two legal sacraments – baptism and Communion. The Roman Catholic Church has seven. (Jane could recite them for you.)

But there are actually more sacraments than we could count. Any moment in which you catch a glimpse of Christ is a sacrament. It may not be a legal Methodist sacrament but not everything God does is legal.

I love sitting on our little side porch and watching the birds in the bushes around our house. Sometimes I experience the presence of the divine in the earthy beauty of a fat robin pulling a worm from the ground. A cardinal can bring a gasp of surprise and joy.

Birds can be a sacrament.

Lunch with a friend can be communion. Changing a diaper can be a baptism.

You know Gerald Manley Hopkin’s poem

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

The world is a sacrament. You are a sacrament. The stories you have to tell can be sacraments.

God can be experience and known.

That is the first truth from this part of the story of the Road to Emmaus.

The second truth is that, if Christ can be known, Christ cannot be captured.

As soon as the disciple’s eyes were opened and they recognized him, he vanished from their sight.

Christ can be known but he cannot be captured.

What an impossible job we ask our communion servers to do. We ask them to serve you communion, to give you bread and to tell you it is the body of Christ, to ask you to dip the bread in the cup and to tell you it is the blood of Christ.

But there is no guarantee at all that you will know Christ in the bread and cup.

Christ can be known. Christ cannot be captured or contained or produced on demand.

As soon as they recognized him, he vanished.

He cannot be nailed down. He cannot be captured. He cannot be produced on demand.

All we can do is to try to live our lives with our eyes and minds wide open. We can share our stories with strangers on the road. We can listen to their stories. We can invite them to supper.

We cannot capture or contain him. But when he reveals himself to us we can know him and receive him with joy.

We’ll understand it better

Rev. Dean Snyder Luke 24: 9-27

We will be having a congregational time together to talk about community business today before the end of the service so I want to do a short sermon this morning.

I want to say a few words about the power of stories … the stories we tell … the stories we live by.

One of the greatest influences parents have on children is through the stories they tell about them. Parents tell a child who he or she is by the stories they choose to tell others about him or her in the child’s hearing.

Fortunately I had parents who told stories about me being smart and courageous. As a result of the stories they told about me I grew up believing I could do well intellectually and academically and that I was brave enough to do what is right.

I wish they had also told stories about me being athletic and coordinated. Unfortunately they told stories about me being clumsy and uncoordinated.

But still … stories about being smart and brave were good stories to hear about myself.

Not every child hears such stories.

It has probably changed now, but I remember hearing some time ago that someone had done a study of tattoos worn by people in prison. At the time the number one tattoo worn by people who ended up in prison was a tattoo that said “Born to lose.” That was the story they had heard told about themselves.

Family stories are also important and formative. The stories I was told about the Snyders growing up were about Snyder family always working hard, stories about the Snyders giving away money to others in need even when they had barely enough themselves, and about Snyder women being in charge and making the Snyder men do what they wanted them to do. These stories about the Snyder family helped shape my understanding of who I am and am supposed to be.

I had a friend who used to love to tell stories about the outlaws in his family history … cattle rustlers and moonshiners and even a bank robber. He loved to tell those family stories. I remember when his children were teenagers how he complaining again and again to me about how hard it was to get his kids to obey the rules. I wanted to say to him that maybe he ought to rethink the stories he keeps telling them.

Stories shape us.

On the first Easter Sunday afternoon two disciples of Jesus were walking on the road to Emmaus. A stranger joined them. It was Jesus but they did not recognize him. They told the stranger the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and death. They told the stranger a story of their disappointment and defeat.

Then the stranger who unknown to them was Jesus “beginning with Moses and all the prophets” told them another story. “He interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” He told them another story.

One of the biggest questions in life that each one of us needs to ask is what essential story we are going to live by? What cosmic story will we live by? What eternal story will we live in?

Jesus invited his disci0ples to live in the story that begins with God listening to the prayers of slaves in Egypt and parting the sea so that they could be free and God sending them prophets and teachers to show them how to live with each other justly and lovingly.

Jesus invites them to understand his story and their story as his disciples in the context of this larger story of a God who enters into the human story to show us how to love.

And the question for you and me is what story will we choose to live in?

The world around us is always trying to sell us a story. Watch TV, explore the internet, listen to the music, read the covers at any magazine stand. On my way into church early this morning I stopped at the 24-hour CVS on P Street. I want to show you the first two magazines I saw on the CVS magazine stand.

Here is the first magazine cover: “From Startup to Millionaire: The 7 best pieces of advice to get you there.”

That is a story the world is trying to sell you.

Here is the other magazine cover: “Bikini Body Now: Flat Abs, Tight Tush, Lean Legs.”

That is a story the world is trying to sell you.

Then there is this book (a Bible) that is trying to sell you another story. It is offering you and me another story.

Nobody can prove their story is true.

The world cannot prove that you will ever become a millionaire no matter what you do. The world cannot prove that you will ever have a tight tush no matter how much you exercise and starve yourself.

The Bible cannot prove that you will find abundant life if you follow Jesus.

We have to choose by faith which story we will live in.

I did not go to seminary because I had a clear call to ministry. I went to seminary because I wanted to believe this story but could not bring myself to do it intellectually. So I went to seminary to read theology to see if Karl Barth and Emil Brunner and Paul Tillich and Jürgen Moltmann and James Cone and Leonardo Boff could convince me that this story is intellectually palatable.

I did not go to seminary because my faith was strong but because my faith was so weak that I needed all of the intellectual support I could get to believe this story.

It is a story that I do not fully understand yet but I believe I will someday.

All I want to say this morning really is that we all need to a story to live by. We can choose the millionaire story, the tight tush story; of we can choose this story … the story of a God who enters human history to bring us freedom, justice, inclusion and love. We choose.