Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Seasons of the Soul

Rev. Dean Snyder Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 “For everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.” This is written by the writer of Ecclesiastes, who is called Qoheleth in Hebrew or, translated into English, the Preacher. The Preacher says there is a season and a time for everything. We like to think in absolutes. If something is good, it is always good. If something is bad, it is always bad. But the Preacher of Ecclesiastes says differently. There are things that are good in one season and bad in another. There are things that may be appropriate in one time or era but inappropriate during another time. The Preacher suggests life is best lived in harmony with the seasons and the times. Life is best when it follows the rhythms of the seasons and times … when it is attuned. Nature has seasons. Seasons are universal in nature. Even the North and South Poles have seasons. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association identifies four seasons at the poles – winter, spring, summer, fall. Answers.com says there are really only two seasons – cold and really, really cold. But there are seasons even at the North and South Poles. The tropics have seasons – usually a dry season and a wet or rainy season, but even the tropics have seasons. Haiti, Jean Paul, has two rainy seasons and two dry seasons. NASA has even identified seasons on other planets in the solar system. Each planet has a winter, spring, summer, fall. The only difference is the length of each season. On earth each season lasts 90 to 93 days. On Jupiter, each season lasts 3 years. On Uranus, each season lasts about 20 years. 20 years of winter, 20 years of spring, 20 years of summer, 20 years of fall. For most of history the seasons shaped human life. The seasons determined when we went to bed and when we got out of bed. The seasons controlled our activities and our work. The seasons determined when we planted, when we reaped, when we ate our fill and when we rationed our portions, when we worked 80 hours a week and when we worked short days and rested more. There is a religious group that sets up a stage at the Chinatown Metro mostly on Friday afternoons and they preach to the people going into and coming out of the Metro stops and others of us passing by. Their preaching seems to have become angrier lately. They used to be more light-hearted. They used to kid commuters that they were not supposed to be working long hours like they do in winter. Winter, they’d said, is a time to work short days and to take long afternoon naps. Spring and fall are the time for long days of hard work. Winter and summer are supposed to be times of rest. This is why you use so much caffeine and nicotine, they’d say, to keep yourself going long hours in wintertime when you are not supposed to be working this many hours., according to the rhythms of nature. You are too skinny, they’d say to some of the people walking past. You are supposed to put on some weight in winter and work it off in spring and fall. They may not be totally wrong. There are seasons in nature to which human beings have had to attune their lives for thousands of years before there were thermostats and electric lights and transportation systems that supply us with the same foods winter, spring, summer, fall. These things may not have erased the impact of the seasons on our bodies, psyches and souls. The seasons may still impact us more than we realize. What is good and appropriate for us in winter may not be the same thing that is good and appropriate for us in spring, summer, or fall. This is worth thinking about in and of itself. Deepak Choprah and the rest of the Oprah crowd are right, I think, when they tell us to listen to our bodies, which are more attuned to nature than our minds. “At this moment your first and most reliable guide to happiness is your body,” Deepak Chopra says. “When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, ‘How do you feel about this?’ If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out. If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed.” The National Eating Disorders Association says the best way to conquer eating dysfunctions is to learn to listen to your body and eat when you are hungry and stop eating when you are full, although this has not worked so well for me personally. My body keeps saying, More potato chips! Winter, spring, summer, fall. We plant in spring. (I spent part of yesterday filling and seeding the pots we keep in the tree box outside our home.) We hoe, water and nurture in summer. We harvest in fall, and let the soil rest and renew itself in winter. What is good and appropriate to do is shaped by the season we are in. Of course, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes is talking about more than the annual cycle of the seasons of the natural world. Beth Norcross who teaches green studies at Wesley Seminary believes that we would treat the earth better if we spent more time closer to nature. She is teaching a course on reconnecting with the natural world. It may be true that part of the environmental crisis we face is caused by our alienation for nature. Living attuned to the natural seasons may be important for our spiritual connection to creation and Creator. *** The span of our lives has seasons that may be inappropriate in another season. Behavior that is cute when we are two may not be so cute when we are 12. What is winsome when we are 16 may become tiresome when we are 30. What is good and healthy at 30 may not be such a good thing at 50. Although I am not sure about this yet, what is appropriate at 55 may not be appropriate at 75. This is not ageism. This is to recognize that life has seasons, times, and stages. We might choose to age according to a different drummer, but we ignore the seasons of life at our own peril. I doubt that anyone should be a sage and wise man or wise woman at 16. Being bawdy and flippant at 65 isn't as attractive. There are seasons in nature. There are seasons in our life spans. There are also season and times in history. For 20 years I have been fascinated by the work of William Strauss and Neil Howe, who wrote the book Generations in 1991. They believe there are saecula, or seasonal cycles of history. They have applied their theory to Anglo-American history. They say that a saeculum, one sweep of history, is about 90 years long. A saeculum can be divided into four “turnings” or seasons. Each generation raised during a turning will be shaped by the season into which it was born. Each saeculum has an awakening and an unraveling and a crisis and a high. I remember that when I read their book Generations in 1991, they predicted that sometime within a few years after the year 2000, some major event would happen to throw America into a great crisis. History has seasons. And what may be right and good in one season of history may not be so good in another season. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes says our lives are shaped by the season and time in which we find ourselves dropped into human history. I often think about my parents and how the dominant historical context for their lives was two world wars. One of my mother’s great fears was that she might lose a child to war. She would never let me near a gun, even though I grew up in a community where –if you didn’t hunt—your masculinity was in question. My older brother reacted by later in his life joining the army. We have fought wars during my lifetime but I feel as if the dominant historical context for the time in which I have lived is freedom and equality movements … the anti-colonial movement and the civil rights movement and the women’s movement and the LGBT movement and the differently-abled movement. I wonder how the lives of our children and grandchild, nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews will be shaped by the historical season in which they live. There are seasons of nature. There are seasons of our lifetimes. There are historical seasons. And there are I am convinced, spiritual seasons. Seasons of our spirit. There are seasons of spiritual growth and seasons of spiritual dormancy. There are seasons of spiritual intimacy and seasons of spiritual distance. There are seasons of spiritual awakening and seasons of spiritual maturing. There are seasons of spiritual crisis and seasons of spiritual steadiness. There are seasons of doing and seasons of waiting. Seasons of prayer and seasons of action. Seasons when believing and trusting are easy and season when they are very hard. The Christian year tries to capture this. There is Advent, a season of waiting; Christmas, a season of joy; Epiphany, a season of awakening; Lent, a season of self-denial and repentance; Easter a season of new life;  And Pentecost, a season of empowerment and mission. The Christian year covers a lot of the bases of spiritual seasons. The only problem is that our own spiritual experience does not always match the calendar. I’ve had years of my life when I lived in the season of Lent all year long. That was no fun. I had at least one year that was Christmas almost all year long. I’d like more of those. I’ve had my own Pentecosts. I suspect that the people who are the most spiritually proficient are the people who develop the ability to discern what spiritual season they are in. I think by listening to our own souls and to God we can learn how to do this. Deepak Choprah is right about the importance of listening to our bodies. Christianity in its beginnings was not an anti-physical, anti-body religion. Easter is about the resurrection of the body. Paul's epistles teach our bodies are temples where the Holy Spirit lives. There was this big debate last year whether Christians should do yoga since yoga is based on another religious system. It might be better to ask whether we can be very good Christians without paying attention to our bodies. But listening to our souls is also critical. How do you listen to your soul? Where is the space in your life when you are not being distracted by external stimulation so that you can listen to what is going on in the depths of your soul? Listening to our souls and listening to God are very similar things. The Preachers says life can not be lived as though every day were just like the day before and the day to come. As though every week and every month and every year were just like the last and just like the next. We live in seasons. Seasons of nature. Seasons of our lifespan. Seasons of history. Seasons of the soul. What worked for us in another season may not work for us in the season we are in now. We learn what season we are in by listening. Listening to our bodies. Listening to nature. Listening to our spirits. Listening to our souls. Listening to God.

Easter Sunday - Forgiveness: Roll the Stone Away

Rev. Dean Snyder I Corinthians 15:12-19 Happy Easter! I want to say a word of thanks to our altar visuals team who has decorated our altar and sanctuary all this season in a profoundly meaningful way. The sanctuary is beautiful today. I want to thank our choir for their ministry of music during this season. Then all of our staff for the hard work they do especially in this season. We are short-staffed right now so everyone has been working particularly hard. On the back page inside the cover of your program this morning there is a form about the Washington Interfaith Networks action for services for homeless youth. Over the past several weeks I have visited two of our youth shelters here in the district and I have met some amazing youth people. Our goal today is to have 300 Washington DC voters fill out this form today. You can fill it out during the sermon or you can fill it out during the anthem. Put it in the offering plate or there will be members of our WIN ministry team holding baskets at the door. I encourage you to join in this action to provide more services to the homeless youth of our city. I want us to consider one verse from First Corinthians today. From the very beginning there were followers of Jesus who found the idea of resurrection difficult, if not impossible, to believe. It was not easier 2000 years ago to believe in the resurrection of the dead than it is today. Some of those who could not bring themselves to believe in resurrection were members of the church in Corinth. In First Corinthians chapter 15, Paul is trying to persuade them to believe in the resurrection of the dead.  In verse 17 of chapter 15, he writes these words: "If Christ has not been raise, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." "If Christ has not been raised, … you are still in your sins." I have decided after much thought that the best way to begin today is to ask you to close your eyes. Close your eyes please and take a minute to think … think about something that somebody has done to you that was wrong. Someone treated you unfairly. Somebody lied about you. Someone insulted you. Someone cheated you or cheated on you. Someone who should have loved you did not act loving toward you. Someone who was supposed to take care of you did not take care of you. Someone was violent and hurt you. Someone was emotionally abusive. Perhaps whatever it was is still going on in your life this very day as we speak. Think. [silence] Let's try to stay here just a little longer. [silence] Long enough. You may open your eyes. I have just taken us back from Easter to Good Friday. I have just taken us back to crucifixion. The things you have been remembering are your Good Friday. They are your crucifixion.  Being unloved and uncared for by the very people who ought to have loved us the most is crucifixion. Being neglected, being discriminated against, being hated, being lied about, being stolen from, being injured, being abused, being cheated on, being insulted. This is your crucifixion. All these things come from a force and power in the universe that I call the force of oppression. There is one source for all of these things. It is the force of oppression. The force of oppression is the root source of all crucifixion. There is nothing the force of oppression wants more than for you to stay crucified. There is nothing the force of oppression wants more than for you to stay buried inside a tomb with a big rock that no person can move pressed up against the opening to the tomb. There is nothing the force of oppression wants more than for you to stay buried in a world that is defined by the wrongs and sins done to you so that these things will control your thinking and your emotions. This is where the force of oppression wants you to be. There is only one way out of the tomb. The only way out of the tomb is forgiveness of those who have participated in crucifying you. "Forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing," Jesus said from the cross. The only way out of the tomb is to forgive those who have crucified you. The only way out of the tomb is to forgive and to accept forgiveness for the times the force of oppression has used you to participate in the crucifixion of others. Forgiveness is the only thing that will roll the stone away from our tomb so that we can rise up and live again. There are two worlds in which we can live. Traditionally they were called heaven and hell. I prefer to call them the world of freedom and the world of oppression. They could also be called the world of grace and the world of sin. We have all lived in the world of oppression and the world of sin. In the world of oppression and the world of sin we are crucified and we crucify back. In the world of freedom and the world of grace we forgive and forgiveness rolls the stone away and we are resurrected. We decide which world we will live in at any given moment, in any given hour, in any given day. And the key that opens the door from one world to another is forgiveness – forgiveness given and forgiveness received. I want to say a few things that forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not willingly being a victim. Forgiveness is not staying a victim. Forgiveness is not allowing others to do to you whatever they want to do to you. Forgiveness is not permissiveness. Forgiveness is not being without limits or boundaries. If someone abuses or violates you and it is possible for you to escape the abuse or to set limits on the violations and you fail to do so that is not forgiveness, that is called stupidity. Forgiveness is when you are crucified, refusing to stay in the tomb of anger and resentment and oppression and sin. Forgiveness is to roll the stone away and rise again. This is why the Apostle Paul says that if Christ has not been raised, we are still in our sins … we are still living in a world of oppression and sin. We are still being defined by our oppressions. If Christ has not been raised. But, no, Christ did not stay inside the tomb of crucifixion, oppression and sin. Christ forgave and rose to new life not defined by the force of oppression but defined by freedom and grace. So what do you think would be harder for God to accomplish … raising someone from the dead or Nelson Mandela forgiving those who imprisoned him for 27 years. Which would be harder for God to accomplish … raising Jesus from the dead or Amish families forgiving the man who shot ten school girls aged 6 to 12 and killed five. Nelson Mandela chose not to stay in a tomb. He let God roll the stone away. The Amish families chose not to let crucifixion define their world or their futures. Christ has been freed from the tomb, raised from the world of oppression and sin to live in a world of freedom and grace. Christ has opened the door, shown us the way so that we can choose to live in the world of freedom and grace with him. And the key is forgiveness – given and received. It is our decision, moment by moment, which world we decide to live in. Which master we choose to serve – the force of oppression and sin or the Lord of freedom and grace. I've been working on forgiveness all this Lent. I've come up with a three step program for myself to give and accept forgiveness. The first step is to pray. God, forgive me my sins and help me forgive those who have sinned against me. The second step is therapy. Dr, help me understand why I am hanging on to this resentment and anger. Dr, help me understand why I am hanging on to this guilt and self-condemnation. Or it maybe it is not a therapist but a friend or my small group. Step 2 is talking it through with someone I trust. The third step in serious cases when I still cannot forgive or accept forgiveness is exorcism. You get some water, not special water, just water from the tap and you sprinkle some on the walls of your house and you say: Force of oppression, spirit of crucifixion and sin, scat. Lord of freedom and grace, fill this home. You sprinkle some of your forehead, and you say Force of oppression, spirit of crucifixion and sin, get out of my head. Jesus of freedom and grace, fill my mind. Occupy my head. You sprinkle some of the water on your chest and you say: Force of oppression and sin, get out of my heart. Christ of freedom and grace, dwell in me. Occupy me. Fill me. You sprinkle some on your desk or in your classroom at the beginning of the day and say Force of oppression and crucifixion and sin, get out of my work. Lord of freedom and grace guide my work. When someone you have a difficult relationship with, someone who seems to make you defensive and wary, when she walks into your office, do not sprinkle her with water, because she is not the problem. The space between you is the problem. Prayer. Therapy. Exorcism. (Ritual. Ritualize it to help you live in the world of freedom and grace.) I want to say a word to those of us who are Americans. It is not an easy word. It was not an easy word for me to hear when it came to me while I was walking between church and home this week. Here is the word: We need to forgive 9/11. America, we need to forgive 9/11. We have fought two wars. We have killed Osama bin Laden and buried his body in the sea. We danced in Lafayette Park when he was killed. We are about to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of orchestrating 9/11. They have said they want to be found guilty and die as martyrs and my prediction is that we will accommodate them. I am not saying that we should not defend ourselves. I am not saying that we should not set limits or protect our boundaries. What I am saying is that so long as we respond to crucifixion with crucifixion we are choosing to live in the world of oppression and sin which is a tomb filled with more and more death. So long as we react to crucifixion with crucifixion we are living in the world of oppression and sin and not the world of freedom and grace. We will not be able to kill everyone who has participated in crucifying us. We need to forgive 9/11. I want to end with two thoughts. Back in Philadelphia I knew a Yugoslavian Methodist minister. There have not been many. There are only about 6,000 Methodists in the region that once was Yugoslavia. Paul Mojzes is his name. Paul was very excited about the Yugoslavian experiment of bringing different cultural, ethnic groups together to live as one people. The experiment failed because the Bosnians and Sebs and Croatians could not live with one another. Paul was devastated when Yugoslavia failed. Paul told me what happened was that men of each ethnic group would gather together on a Saturday night and talk and drink, and they would begin to rehearse grievances against the other ethnics groups that were sometimes a 1,000 years old. By Sunday morning, he said, they were enraged as though it had happened yesterday. Is that the kind of America we want to be? The other memory is from Jane and my trip to Japan. We visited Hiroshima. I don't want to argue whether it was justified or not, but our atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed anywhere as many as a quarter million Japanese civilians. Many of them were vaporized. No remains. We have a Foundry member who is in Hiroshima right now and one of the things he is doing is looking for the youngest living survivor of the bomb to interview, and one of the questions he is asking is how the Japanese people have managed to forgive. Japan has forgiven us. I am not saying every Japanese person has forgiven us but the Japanese people as a people have forgiven us. What kind of America do we want to be? And what kind of person do you want to be? What kind of person do I want to be? Someone who lives in a tomb of oppression and sin? Crucifying those who have crucified us? Or do you choose to live in a world of freedom, grace and resurrection?

Good Friday

Rev. Dean Snyder

James 5:13-16

In some branches of the Christian church anointing with oil is a sacrament as important as baptism and communion. In the Roman Catholic Church anointing with oil unfortunately became known colloquially as "last rites" because it was commonly done only when there were no other alternatives. So the news that the priest is here to anoint you was not usually considered good news. But anointing with oil is not really just about preparing for death. There is a local Anglican church whose ads often for some reason appear on my Facebook page. They offer what they call the "Sacrament of Anointing" every month as part of their worship. Anointing with oil is an ancient ritual, as old as the oldest parts of the Bible A special holy oil made up of mrryh, cinnamon, cassia (another spice), and olive oil was used to ordain priests and as a sort of furniture polish for the furnishings in the tent of meeting.  (Ex. 30:23ff)  Anointing with oil was used as a sign of hospitality, as a sign of being gifted for leadership (Elijah made Saul and David kings by anointing them), and as a means of healing. In the part of the early church that James led, which was the most Jewish part of the church, anointing with oil was used as a ritual for healing and forgiveness. James wrote: "Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven." These verses make some of us nervous today because faith healing has been misused. It has been used to try to heal people who are not sick – differently-abled people and gay people, for example. Then, when they weren't "healed," they were blamed for not having had enough faith. But if you read the text carefully, according to the text, following the logic of the text, it would not be the fault of the person who wasn't healed but the elders who were praying for them. But because being differently-abled or gay is not a sickness, this does not mean that nobody is sick. Some of us are sick. Maybe most of us are sick ….  soul sick. And do not be confused – soul sickness may well have physical consequences. Physical illness is not a sign of spiritual illness … except when it is. I have some physical conditions that I know are the result of my inability to deal with stress in a spiritually healthy way and unresolved spiritual issues in my life. There is no shame in being sick. Being sick is not a sign of sin or a lack of faith. But unresolved sin in our lives and a lack of faith can manifest itself physically. One of the things that can make us sick is not forgiving and not letting ourselves be forgiven. Not forgiving those who have sinned against us, carrying around inside ourselves resentment and unresolved anger, can make us sick. Carrying around inside ourselves guilt and self-condemnation will make us soul sick and maybe even physically weak. Other things in addition to unresolved anger and guilt can make us sick – jealousy, greed, gluttony, lust, not caring, invulnerability. These are, after all, called the seven deadly sins. Let me be clear as I can be. I've sat with people dying of cancer who were not sick. I've known people with heart conditions whose hearts were purer than mine. Physical illness does not mean we are spiritually ill. But our spiritual diseases may weaken our bodies. So today we invited you to follow the advice of St. James. We who are in positions of ministerial leadership here at Foundry will muster all of the faith within us. We will pray for you and anoint you with oil in the confidence that God will save us and raise us up, in the words of James. (This is Easter language on Good Friday.) And our sins will be forgiven as we forgive those who have sinned against us. Our spirits and souls will be healed. And our bodies may even be strengthened as a result. I want to invite couples who are here together to consider coming forward together to be anointed. You don't need to, but no partners or married couples can live long or well together without lots of forgiveness. So praying for the grace to forgive each other and to accept each other's forgiveness and God's forgiveness may be a blessing for your relationship. We will bless the oil, and then invite you forward as you are moved to come. Are any among us sick? Call for the elders of the church and have them pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise you up; and any of us who have committed sins will be forgiven.

Maundy Thursday - Forgiveness: Washing Away

Rev. Dawn M. Hand John 13:1-17; 34-35

MLK Sunday 11am Service

11:00 AM: What to Keep and What to Let Go | Michel Martin