Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Yongchi Rhie with Foundry United Methodist Church, July 12, 2026. "Sermon Series Part II: The United Methodist Way".

Scripture: Exodus 2:15–22; Hebrews 13:1–2

 

On a hot July day in 2014, I stood in a long line outside the United States Embassy in Seoul. All around me, people were checking their documents, whispering the latest rumors about American immigration policy. Some were praying. Others were quietly rehearsing their lines. When my number was called, I sat down across from a consular officer who read through my papers, jotting notes, pausing on certain pages longer than I would have liked. My pulse rose with every pause. Finally, he looked up and asked, "Ms. Rhie, I see you have just returned home after living in England for quite some time. You already hold a Ph.D. Why do you wish to study theology in the United States?"

He had a fair point. What could I say? That after seven years of dissecting the Bible within an inch of its life, I had finally realized what Scripture is for — not an object of intellectual indulgence, but a word meant to be lived out in the lives of people? Should I describe my grief at preaching to empty pews in an increasingly secular Britain, where so many considered the Bible, faith, and God simply no longer relevant?

I had to be careful. I had been denied a visa once before, for this very reason. The officer asked about my story, but he seemed to be working from a script of his own, testing whether my story would hold. Every visa interview requires delicate tuning: you must convince them you have real plans for their country while assuring them you have no intention of staying. I truly desire to come to your country! I see abundant opportunity there! Will you let me in? But don't worry — I will never get comfortable enough to call it home.

A month later, my passport came back with a visa stamped inside. It declared me a legal alien. That word “alien” always makes me laugh. Ever since I left my home country, I have been a legal alien. And I have learned that it doesn't take green skin, an oversized head, or extraterrestrial powers to be counted an outsider. Sometimes the way I look, the way I speak, or simply the way I carry myself is enough to register as a threat, or at least a discomfort. I could learn the customs of a new land. But would I ever be permitted to call it home?

For most of my adult life, I have lived as a stranger in a strange land.

A Man With No Country

Moses knew that feeling so intimately that he engraved it into his son's name: "She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for he said, 'I have been an alien residing in a foreign land'" (Exodus 2:22). Hey, Moses, did you ask Gershom about this? Did his mother agree? I feel for the boy. Imagine carrying your father's loneliness as your name.

Let's step into the story and meet Moses by a well in Midian.

His whole life, up to this moment, has been an exercise in not belonging and his very name tells the story. Pharaoh's daughter called him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water" (Exod. 2:10). Drawn out: a Hebrew baby lifted from the Nile, out of a death decree, into a palace that was never quite his. Hebrew by blood, Egyptian by upbringing, Moses grows up belonging to neither world.

And when he finally goes out to "his people," as the text pointedly calls them in verse 11, everything unravels. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and strikes the Egyptian down (2:11–12). The next day he tries to reconcile two Hebrews who are fighting, and one of them turns on him: "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?"

Do you hear the wound in that question? Yes, Moses committed a crime the day before; out of anger, perhaps, but also out of compassion for an enslaved kinsman. Today he steps in again, and his own people read his help as a grab for power: the palace insider playing ruler over the enslaved. His act of deliverance is recast as a threat; his sacrifice, as ambition. When word reaches Pharaoh, the king seeks his life. So Moses flees - rejected by Egypt as a criminal, rejected by the Hebrews as a pretender - a man with no country, no people, and a name that only reminds him he was pulled out of one world without ever being planted in another.

That is the man who collapses, exhausted, by a well in Midian.

What Happens at a Well

Now listen closely to how the text tells what happens there, because every detail is doing holy work. Scripture says, "he sat down by a well" (v. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, nothing significant ever happens by accident at a well. Wells are where Abraham's servant found Rebekah, where Jacob met Rachel, where Jesus met a Samaritan woman: places of encounter where God's providence quietly gathers up

displaced people and gives them a future. When the original audience heard "Moses sat down by a well," they leaned in. Something is about to begin.

Seven daughters of the priest of Midian come to draw water, and rough shepherds drive them away. Hear the Hebrew: the shepherds vayegarshum — they drove them out. It is the very root, garash, from which Moses will later coin the name Gershom, the driven-out one.

And here is what astonishes me: Moses inserts himself again. Consider what meddling has already cost this man- his home, his standing, very nearly his life. The prudent thing would be to keep his head down, drink his water, and let Midian's troubles remain Midian's troubles. He owes these women nothing, and no one in this town even knows his name. Yet the one who has been driven out cannot sit still while others are driven out before his eyes.

And what does the text say he does? "Moses stood up and saved them" (v. 17) — vayoshian, from yasha, the root that will one day give us the names Joshua and Jesus. Here, at a foreign well, in a single unrewarded act - defending strangers, drawing water for distressed people and their animals - the fugitive rehearses his calling. This is the man through whom God will save a people.

Then comes the irony. The daughters run home and report, "An Egyptian delivered us from the shepherds." An Egyptian! Moses is a Hebrew raised in Pharaoh's house, a man belonging fully to neither world, and even his good deed is credited to the wrong identity.

Why Bother?

And then the young women are gone, and Moses is alone again. No thank-you. No name asked. Not even a drink of fresh water from the well he had just defended. Three times now he has stretched himself for others, and three times his actions went unacknowledged, his words were rebuked, his authority was denied, his very identity was questioned.

Sitting in the dust by that well, Moses might well have wondered: Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I just mind my own business? When your act of hospitality is met with silence — or worse, resentment — the temptation whispers: Why bother? I could just live for my own interest, my own comfort, my own happiness. Going the extra mile only makes you tired and pushes you further from your home.

Friends, be honest: have you been there? Why do we help others? What is going on inside us when we stretch ourselves for people who may never stretch back?

The One Who Noticed

But even in the middle of this mess, someone notices Moses. Hearing what happened at the well, Reuel asks his daughters: "Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread."

Reuel is a Midianite priest - a foreigner, an outsider to Israel's story —- and yet he is the one who models the hospitality that the daughters, and Egypt, and even Moses' own people had failed to offer. This foreigner does not interrogate the stranger's papers.

He sets a table.

And at that table, the fugitive becomes family. Moses marries Zipporah and holds a son whose name tells the truth — ger, stranger. It is no accident that the Torah will later command Israel more than thirty times to protect the ger: "You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." We lament the loss of this entire ethic of welcome in today’s world.

And notice: it all happened around the well. The well was already there. Before Moses arrived - before he had done anything right, and long after he had done something terribly wrong - the water was waiting.

This is the heartbeat of our United Methodist way. John Wesley called it prevenient grace: the grace that goes before us. Before we repent, before we believe, before we even know God's name, God's love is already at work ahead of us, digging wells in the deserts of our lives. Moses thought he was a fugitive stumbling upon a random watering hole. In truth, grace had arrived before him; with a family, a vocation, and, on a nearby mountain, the God who says, "I have observed the misery of my people, and I have come down to deliver them."

Two Loves, One Gospel

Our second reading today, the letter to the Hebrews gathers this whole story into two luminous verses: "Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:1-2).

The Greek translation is even better than the English here, because it names two different loves. Mutual love is philadelphia — the love of brothers and sisters. Anyone from Philly here? Did you know your city's name means the love of kinship? Philadelphia is the affection we give people who are already ours: family, friends, fellow members — the ones who look like us, pray like us, vote like us. That love matters. "Let it continue," Hebrews says.

But then comes the harder word: philoxenia. Literally, love of the xenos — the stranger, the outsider, the one who shares nothing with you but a common humanity. Philadelphia loves the person already inside the circle; philoxenia widens the circle. Any club can manage philadelphia. Only the gospel produces philoxenia.

And we know the opposite word all too well, because it is one of the few Greek words English never bothered to translate: xenophobia — fear of the stranger. We see it whenever an entire people is reduced to a threat:

• when immigrants are spoken of as terrorists and criminals rather than as mothers, fathers, and children of sacred worth;
• when a teenager sits in a church pew and learns to hide who they are, because the sanctuary feels less safe than the street;
• when a synagogue or a mosque must hire armed guards just to gather for prayer;
• when a job application is quietly set aside because the name at the top sounds too foreign.

Xenophobia is the world's oldest sickness. It built Pharaoh's brickyards, and it is still building walls that separate children from their parents today.

But friends, I have also seen philoxenia — and so have you. I have seen it in congregations that furnished apartments and stocked refrigerators for refugee families they had never met. I have seen it right here in this city, when buses of migrants arrived at Union Station with nothing, and churches and neighbors showed up with food, coats, and cots — before the cameras did. I have seen it in church basements turned into English classes and legal clinics, and at kitchen tables where someone simply said to the new family on the block, "Come, eat with us."

Hospitality, Scripture insists, is not charity flowing downhill from host to guest. It is "entertaining angels without knowing it." It is the doorway through which God's love slips into our lives, often unannounced.

Holy Meddling

Now, this is the final Sunday of our series on the United Methodist way. Who are we? What defines us? What is our calling — as Christians, as United Methodists, as members of Foundry?

I want to name something about Moses that we United Methodists have always claimed as our own: Moses meddles. Three times in one chapter he inserts himself into conflicts that were, strictly speaking, none of his business: an enslaved Hebrew, two quarreling kinsmen, seven harassed women at a well. He refuses to stay in his comfort zone.

That holy meddling is our family trait. Our Social Principles declare of our public witness: "The United Methodist Church believes God's love for the world is an active and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty. We cannot just be observers." There is no private faith that hoards grace and calls it piety. As Desmond Tutu warned us: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

Friends, this is who we are. We are the people who refuse to mind our own business when God's children are being driven out — from lunch counters to detention centers, from housing courts to hospital waiting rooms. We wrestle with Scripture, we wrestle with our assumptions, we wrestle with our faith and our calling — and like Moses, we stand up. Because we serve a Lord who said, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me."

From Gershom to Eliezer

Church, watch what grace does with a meddler.

Moses named his first son Gershom: "I have been a stranger in a strange land." But his second son he named Eliezer: "My God is my helper." Between those two names lies an entire conversion. The stranger became a host. The man who once sought water at a well became the one through whom God drew a whole people out of bondage, through mighty waters, into freedom.

God still loves to do this. God takes our Gershom — our alienation, our wounds, our wandering — and rewrites it as Eliezer: my God is my helper.

Helper: not in advancing my ambitions or protecting my own wealth, family, and safety, but in teaching me to love God and to love my neighbor as myself. People often mistake "with God, all things are possible" for a guarantee of personal fulfillment. No. God helps us toward something far greater: to serve higher purposes, to forgive and to love, to give and to build, to lay down our lives for friends

who were once strangers. We can live out the radical, divine, universal love of God — because God is with us, and God helps us.

The Invitation

So here is my invitation: this week, don't leave the town of Philly just yet. It is good to stay connected to the love of kin — philadelphia. But intentionally seek out and practice philoxenia.

Is there a newcomer in the pew near you, or new to your building, your office, your block? Don't wait for the welcome committee - go say hello, learn their name, and remember it. Does someone need prayer? Don't merely promise to pray for them; ask if you may pray with them, right there, for two holy minutes. Is a neighbor navigating a new language, a new diagnosis, a new grief? Set a table, the way Reuel did: "Invite them to break bread." Philadelphia is dinner with your sister; philoxenia is adding a chair for someone whose story you don't yet know.

One helpful discipline for the coming week: each evening, ask yourself two questions. Who did I love today who already loves me? That's philadelphia — good, keep it up. And: Who did I welcome today who could give me nothing back? That's philoxenia — the stretch. If the second column stays empty for a few days, that's the invitation talking.

And now, before we close, one more invitation, because sermons about wells should end at one.

If today you are the one in the wilderness - if you walked in this morning feeling like a stranger in a strange land - hear the good news: the well is already here. Grace arrived before you did. Before you ever learn to love yourself, before you learn to love your neighbor as yourself, you are already loved by the God of living water…not because of anything you have done, but because of whose you are. If you doubt this grace, then as we sing our final hymn, I invite you: come. Come to this altar, and let us pray with you. You don't need the right words; Moses didn't have them either. Just come and stand by the well with us.

And perhaps you came in this morning already full. Then I invite you to consider the many ways you can become a living well for others: a place where people come to know and experience the way of philoxenia, the love of the stranger. The name you have yet to forgive. The prayer you will offer on the spot. The table you will set for the weary. The grace you will give without asking anything in return.

Whether you come forward or stand still, the invitation is the same:

Come to the well, and then go and become one. Amen.

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, July 5, 2026, sixth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are”series.

Texts: Jeremiah 22:13–16; Luke 14:12–24

 

This weekend our nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. This is an occasion for celebration. It’s also an invitation to reflection. Moments like this invite us to look backward with gratitude, to look honestly at who we have become, and to consider what kind of future is still possible. This year those reflections seem incredibly important.

Ours is a nation of extraordinary gifts and extraordinary contradictions. We inherit remarkable democratic ideals alongside a history that has too often failed to live up to them. We are living through another season when many of us are deeply concerned about our common life.

Because our nation is broken. We see division deepen, neighbors dehumanized, militarism, cruelty and violence normalized, power abused for personal gain, and disregard for the rule of law. Perhaps you’d describe our situation differently, but I can’t imagine anyone would argue that everything’s OK.

And while it doesn’t make it any better, I think it’s helpful to remember that what’s happening in our nation and world right now has happened many times before. If the prophet Jeremiah were to wander into our capital city he would feel right at home—surely to his dismay.

Let me explain by telling you a story.

Jeremiah is preaching in the final decades before Jerusalem falls to Babylon. Assyria has collapsed. Egypt and Babylon are competing for power. Judah is caught in the middle. The world order is shifting dramatically and it is a time of profound national anxiety—about security, identity, economic stability, and the future.

In our text, Jeremiah is speaking not to the people, but specifically to the king, Jehoiakim. And he’s none too pleased with what is happening. But to understand why you need some backstory.

Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, had been one of Judah’s finest kings. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved God, took the covenant and the laws established during Moses’ time seriously, and sought to govern with justice. As Jeremiah remembers him, he “judged the cause of the poor and needy.” Then Josiah died unexpectedly on the battlefield. It was a devastating national loss. The future suddenly felt uncertain.

Egypt quickly asserted control over Judah, deposing one of Josiah’s sons and installing another—Eliakim, whose name Pharaoh changed to Jehoiakim (a classic power play). Jehoiakim wasn’t in an enviable position. He was set up to do the bidding of Pharoah, required to pay tribute, and anxious about survival for himself and his people.

Maybe it was the pressure or maybe it was pure opportunism, but Jehoiakim made a choice. Rather than “judging the cause of the poor an needy,” he consolidated power, exploited labor, and built a magnificent cedar palace as a symbol of royal prestige.

Jeremiah looked at that palace and didn’t celebrate its magnificence but instead says, “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness...” He asked a different question than everyone else. Not, “Isn't it impressive?” but, “How did it get built? Who paid the price? Who was harmed in the process?”

And then this: “Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness?” This may seem a random question, but it reveals that Jeremiah’s critique isn’t about having wealth or a comfortable life. In other words, Josiah wasn’t a monk. He enjoyed the ordinary gifts of life. The difference isn’t that one king denied himself while the other indulged himself. The difference is that one understood leadership as doing justice and practicing right relationship, while the other understood leadership as entitlement. One king governed as someone who knew God, while the other governed as though power itself could save him.

Jeremiah continues, clarifying his critique: “Your father judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. ‘Is not this to know me?’ says the Lord.  But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.”

Again, the question Jeremiah asks it key: “Is not this to know me?”

If someone asked you to finish the sentence, “To know God is...” what would you say? To worship regularly? To believe the right things? To pray? I imagine all of those can be valid answers. But Jeremiah offers this: to know God is to set your eyes and your heart on what God cares about; to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable, to use power wisely, generously, and compassionately, to treat workers with fairness, to do justice.

Is not this to know me?

In every age there is a dominant story about what will make things in your life “well.” There are temptations and pressures to sacrifice the good of the “we” for the benefit of only “me.” And in every age, God’s faithful are called to offer a counter-testimony.

And just to finish storytelling time, Jehoiakim made his choice. He went to a lot of trouble to try to make himself and Judah look strong. He builds his palace, projects confidence, accumulates wealth, uses forced labor. But within about twenty years, Jerusalem is destroyed. His dishonest gain and self-serving choices did not make things well.

The palace doesn’t save anybody—not the nation and certainly not the people. Jeremiah saw that writing on the wall. And his message to the king is one we need to hear again and again: A society cannot create security—a nation will never be great—while abandoning God’s call to compassion and justice. There is no separating our love of God from care of our common life.

John Wesley would agree wholeheartedly. He insisted there is no holiness but social holiness. He didn’t mean that we’re saved by activism. He meant what we discussed last week: that grace blesses me AND creates “we,” forgives me and sends “us.” Ours is not a private practice. Grace always creates community, reshapes relationships, and spills over into the way we use money, exercise power, welcome neighbors, and seek the common good. Personal holiness overflows into public holiness.

That’s one of the gifts of being United Methodist. Our tradition has never imagined that following Jesus ends at the sanctuary door. For more than fifty years we’ve had something called the Social Principles—not as a substitute for Scripture or as a party platform, but as a guide for Christian moral discernment. They are our denomination’s attempt to ask, together, “What does faithful discipleship look like in the complexities of modern life?”

And in 2024, our worldwide church thoroughly revised them. That revision wasn’t simply updating language. It reflects the wisdom of the faithful from our whole denomination—disciples from Africa, Europe, the Philippines, the United States, and beyond—asking together how the Gospel speaks into economics, creation care, technology, war and peace, migration, human dignity, and public life.

The principles guide our action and advocacy, but we don’t pretend every faithful Christian will reach identical conclusions about every public question. We also refuse to pretend that the Gospel has nothing to say about public life. Our United Methodist Social Principles remind us we don’t have to figure all this out alone. We inherit Scripture. We inherit tradition. We inherit the wisdom of Christians around the world. All helping us answer Jeremiah’s question:

What does it mean to know God?

Jeremiah says that to know God is to care about what and who God cares about.

Again and again Jesus shows us how to live that.

He sits down at tables with all kinds of people. And in today’ Gospel, while dining with a prominent Pharisee, he quietly begins rearranging everyone’s assumptions about belonging. “Don't invite only the people who can return the favor,” he says. “Invite those who cannot repay you.” Then he tells a story about a banquet where the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. ...the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. The table is big enough. Grace is abundant enough. And everyone—from the richest to the poorest, from stranger to friend—is invited to be filled. And then things are well.

As we celebrate our nation’s birthday, the question before us is not simply what kind of nation we want to be, but what kind of people God is calling us to become. Christians have always loved their country best not by confusing it with God’s reign, but by measuring every nation—including our own—against God’s justice, God’s compassion, and God’s welcome. So we keep listening for Jeremiah's question, “Is not this to know me?” And we keep allowing Jesus to reshape our imagination around his table where there is always another place and the invitation keeps reaching farther than anyone expected.

Friends, we’re about to come to that table. Every time we gather here, we embody a different story from the one our world tells. The world teaches us to ask: Who deserves a place? Who has earned it? Who belongs?

Jesus asks different questions: Who still needs an invitation? How can we make more room? And then he places bread in our hands and sends us back into the world to live the answer. Amen.

 

+ + +

Sending:

This week, take one faithful public step. Maybe it is serving. Maybe it is giving. Maybe it is speaking up for someone whose voice is overlooked. Maybe it’s inviting someone who wouldn’t expect an invitation. Maybe it is reading a section of the Social Principles and asking where they challenge or deepen your own thinking. Not because the church is trying to tell you what to think, but because discipleship asks us to think faithfully about the world God loves.

Just take one step. Because that’s where holiness always begins.

God in peace and power…

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, June 28, 2026, fifth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are” series.

​​​ Texts: Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:28-35​​​​

 

Humans are storytelling creatures. Our stories help us understand who we are and how life works. They teach us how people have lived and thought and loved and struggled through the ages. They give us a framework for how to be in relationship.

Humans are also ritual-making creatures. Just as the stories we tell shape our sense of identity and reality, so too rituals shape our actions and the way we embody our values.

Every culture has stories that shape human imagination and understanding. Every culture has rituals that shape human desires and loyalties. While powerful, formative, and often positive, we know stories can be told in ways that distort truth and do harm. And rituals can include habits that are unhealthy or destructive to persons or communities.

Consumerism tells a certain story and has its rituals. White Christian Nationalism tells a certain story and has its rituals. Political tribes tell their own stories and have their rituals. Social media…well…

All these things and more tell us who we are and what matters most.

Christians also tell a story and practice rituals—it’s a story of God’s grace, mercy, and liberating love. And the rituals? Water. Bread. Cup.

A few weeks ago, as we began focusing on the United Methodist way of living the Christian story, we thought together about the means of grace and the practices that shape us. We reflected on how we are all being formed by something. The question is: What is forming us? What stories, rituals, and practices are shaping our imagination, our desires, and our values?

The sacraments are among the primary ways God shapes us into the people we are called to be. And because these rituals are so familiar, it is easy to participate in them without ever stopping to ask what they mean. Why do we call themsacraments? What do United Methodists actually believe is happening when we baptize someone or come to the Lord’s Table?

These are important questions to ask. Because if we are going to know who we are, then we need to understand the practices that have formed Christians for centuries and the theology that stands behind them.

Let’s begin with the word sacrament itself. United Methodists define a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” In other words, sacraments are the places where the invisible grace of God takes visible form. I could reasonably argue that, with that definition, every act of beauty, love, tenderness, and justice are sacramental acts. But the two liturgical sacraments recognized by our tradition are those Jesus specifically commanded his followers to practice in the stories recorded in scripture: baptism and communion.

Here again, our rituals are embedded in our stories and our stories are embedded in our rituals. Stories and rituals belong together.

In many cultures, stories are not merely told. They are enacted. Danced. Sung. The story becomes part of the people through repeated actions that connect memory to the body.

Christians do something similar. We do not merely tell the story of God’s grace.We enact it. We embody it.

In baptism, we tell not just one story, but many: the story of dying and rising with Christ, of being washed by grace and mercy, and of being claimed and named as God’s beloved and part of the Body of Christ. The beauty of sacrament is that it can hold multiple meanings at once. And we don’t simply talk about those things. We pour water. We listen for the sound of the flow. We feel the water on our skin.

In communion, we tell the stories of Christ’s sacrificial, self-giving love, of God’s provision and faithfulness; we reaffirm the story of God's mercy—of forgiveness, reconciliation, and belonging. But we do not simply describe those things. We break bread. We share the cup.

The story is embedded in these rituals. The rituals carry the story. And over time, the story carried by the ritual shapes the people who practice it.

One United Methodist resource describes the sacraments as God’s “show and tell.” I love that image. If you’ve ever watched a child during show and tell, you know that simply describing something isn’t the same as holding it in your hands. God doesn’t simply tell us that grace is real. God shows us.

Think about it: God showed us by drawing near in flesh, in Jesus of Nazareth. Andthat is just the most extraordinary way God has revealed a willingness to work through physical things. The God who came to us in a body still meets us through tangible signs: Water. Bread. Cup.

So let’s linger with some of the stories our sacraments tell.

First, baptism tells the story of grace that comes before our response. In many churches, baptism is understood primarily as a public declaration of faith—as a person’s decision to accept God’s love and to follow Christ. There is truth in that. But United Methodists begin somewhere else. We begin with God’s action. Before we choose God, God chooses us. Before we respond to grace, grace is already at work in our lives. Before we seek God, God is seeking us.

That conviction lies behind one of the practices that often raises questions: infant baptism. Why do we baptize babies who cannot yet profess faith for themselves?Because baptism is first and foremost a story about God’s grace, not our achievement. It is a visible reminder that grace comes first. Before a child can speak a word, God has already spoken a word over them: Beloved.

Of course, each person must eventually respond to God’s grace for themselves. But regardless of age, baptism reminds us that the first move always belongs to God.

Baptism also tells the story of belonging—to God and to one another. In baptism, God claims me. And God joins us. When we baptize someone, we are not simply celebrating an individual spiritual experience or handing someone a ticket to heaven. We are welcoming a new member into the Body of Christ. That is why the congregation makes promises. We promise to nurture, encourage, teach, pray, and journey alongside one another. Baptism tells us who we are—beloved children of God. And baptism tells us who we are together—a people, a community, a body, a family bound together by grace and by a shared story.

Baptism also tells the stories of forgiveness and liberation. The waters are a sign of God’s mercy and cleansing, assuring us that nothing we have done or will do lies beyond God’s capacity to forgive, that we are not bound to the worst things in our past or present, but freed for better things in our future.

And the waters tell yet another story. Paul tells us in Romans that in baptism we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection. We die to an old way of being.We are raised into new life. Baptism is not simply about where we have been. It is about who we are becoming. It’s about claiming the freedom and power God gives us to live a new kind of life.

So baptism is the sacrament that initiates us into the Christian life both as persons and community. And Communion is the sacrament that nourishes us along the wayand continually reconnects us to Christ, to one another, and to our neighbors.

We call it the Lord’s Supper because Christ is the host. We call it Holy Communion because we are united with God and one another. We call it Eucharist (from the Greek word for thanksgiving) because it is an act of thanksgiving.

But perhaps the most important thing to understand is that communion is more than remembering a dead prophet. It is being present with a living Christ.

Certainly, we remember Jesus at the table. But United Methodists believe something more is happening—that communion is more than merely symbolic. We believe Christ is truly present. We call it a holy mystery precisely because we don’t claim to fully understand how. But we trust that Christ meets us here and offers grace through the sacramental meal.

Once again, as with Baptism, the sacrament is both personal and communal. At thetable Christ invites, forgives, and nourishes me. At the table Christ forms, nourishes, and sends us. Personally, we come seeking grace, forgiveness, strength, comfort, courage, and renewal. But communion is never merely about “me and Jesus.” Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 10 that because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.

At the table we practice belonging to one another. We remember that our lives are bound together. We learn gratitude, humility, reconciliation, and love. The table does not simply feed individuals. It forms a community.

This conviction also helps explain why United Methodists practice an open table.You do not have to be a member of this church, or a United Methodist, or to have everything figured out, or even to be baptized. The invitation belongs to Christ our host. And because grace comes before worthiness, Christ’s table remains open.

I will never forget the moment when a committed atheist who had been attendingthe congregation I served with her fiancé for more than a year, presented herself in line to receive the elements saying, “I have no idea why I am here, but I just felt that I needed to come.” People might encounter Christ for the first time in the midst of the gathered Body of Christ around the Table. Because sometimes people are moved to respond before they have language for what is happening. Sometimes grace reaches us before we understand it.

John Wesley strongly encouraged frequent communion because he believed it was one of God’s most powerful means of grace. Early American Methodists often received communion only quarterly because circuit-riding preachers and ordained elders were scarce. What began as necessity became habit. The church I grew up in still practiced quarterly communion! But in recent decades we have reclaimed Wesley’s conviction that we need all the sacramental grace we can get!

And so we return again and again to water, bread, and cup. Simple, ordinary things.Yet through them the story of God’s grace is told, embodied, and practiced.Through them God reminds us who we are. Through them God reminds us whose we are. And through them God continues to shape us—both as individuals and as a community—into the likeness of Christ. Because over time, the stories embodied in our rituals become the lives we learn to lead. Thanks be to God.

Thanks be to God.

A sermon preached by Rev. Jonathan Brown with Foundry UMC, June 21, 2026. “We Know Who We Are” series.

A sermon preached by Abby Steele with Foundry UMC, June 14, 2026, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost. "We Know Who We Are" series.

Texts: 1 Corinthians 13:8-12; Acts 17:10-15

 

Good morning! Thank you for coming to Youth Sunday. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be here with you all. My name is Abby Steele, and I have been attending Foundry since I was a little kid, and became a member of the church in 2022. I recently graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. For those of you that don't know, TJ is a regional science and technology public magnet school in Northern Virginia. Many students at my school put emphasis on fact and certainty, which has made navigating my life as both a scientist and a devout Christian a bit challenging. However, throughout my time in high school, I have learned a strong lesson as to how these two identities can coexist together, and I would love to share this with you all.

When I was around ten years old, my nana and I were sitting in her 2010 Toyota Camry waiting in the kiss-and-ride line to pick up my younger cousin from school. She always believed there is no such thing as being too young for intense philosophical discussion, so that became the topic of conversation during our wait.

I told her, "I read The Great Emergence, like you recommended." This book was a challenging read for my ten-year-old self, filled with words too long for me to interpret and sayings too old for me to comprehend. Nevertheless, I read it with determination. Our conversation centered on the trustworthiness of the Bible—something I never could have imagined discussing with my grandmother, who grew up in a conservative Christian household. However, she had experienced a complete religious transformation later in life, which sparked a new tradition of elaborate spiritual car talks.

 

We discussed our shared struggle to believe certain biblical stories. Together, we came to see many of them as metaphors rather than historical accounts. I wasn't sure whether they were accurate or not, but I began to realize that the purpose of stories was not necessarily the factual evidence they contained, but the lessons they taught.

That ordinary Monday afternoon completely changed the trajectory of my religious life. The conversation left me unafraid to be curious. If we can question and interpret God's word, why not view every experience through the same lens?

When I look back on that conversation, I think of the passage from Corinthians we just heard. Paul describes the transition from childhood into adulthood, and he reminds us that, for now, our understanding is only partial as we can only see a reflection in a mirror. We do not see the whole picture.

 

I've often encountered people in religious contexts that really fear doubt and uncertainty. They worry that asking too many questions will make them appear as being unfaithful and disloyal, but the conversations I've had with my grandmother beg to differ. My faith has been profoundly deepened by allowing myself the space to question and decipher every aspect of Christianity and the bible. I've come to understand that Paul is right - we are only capable of seeing a reflection of our reality. But by learning about and accepting multiple interpretations of religious texts and messages rather than turning a blind eye to the parts that we may disagree with or not fully comprehend, we are capable of conjuring a far greater picture and understanding of our faith.

Since childhood, I have struggled with my faith in God, the afterlife, and sometimes even science. How can I know something is true without ever seeing it? I couldn't comprehend how anyone could take the Bible, a collection of ancient texts that have undergone numerous translations, and swear their interpretation was the only truth.

Similarly, I found it difficult to believe the science I learned in school was entirely accurate. In my neurobiology class, I found myself staring at diagrams of neurons, wondering how we could know that consciousness comes from neural pathways when we're only inferring from electrical patterns.

 

I came to recognize that belief in something unseen wasn't limited to faith; science asks for it too. The further I studied science and religion, the more openly acknowledged this uncertainty became.

One example came from my physics class, where we learned about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle with perfect accuracy.

That night, I was led down an internet rabbit hole on the limits of quantum mechanics, driven by my disbelief that academia could acknowledge doubt so openly.

 

At first, I saw this principle as a reason to distrust science. But with each new article I read, I realized my perspective on this principle actually mirrored how I like to approach religion.

Uncertainty isn't a weakness - It's the beginning of understanding.

Scientists do not stop asking questions because they are worried about appearing not knowledgeable or unqualified. They keep investigating. They keep learning. They keep seeking truth.

 

And that reminds me of the passage from Acts we heard this morning.

For some context, Acts 17 details the persecution Paul and Silas faced in Thessalonica and their subsequent escape to Berea, where receptive crowds carefully evaluated their teachings. What stands out so significantly to me about the Bereans is that they didn't completely reject Paul's teachings like in Thessalonica, but they didn't simply accept Paul's words at face value either.

They examined the Scriptures for themselves. They researched. They investigated. Not just once, but daily to test whether Paul's teachings were correct. They asked questions. And through that process, many came to believe on their own terms.

 

Their faith was not built on blind acceptance. It was strengthened through curiosity and discovery.

I think this is exactly what I had learned with my nana in that car all those years ago. Faith does not forbid us from thinking critically and investigating what we are receiving. God is not threatened by our questions. He accepts them.

I first saw uncertainty as something that threatened both science and faith. Now, I see it as something that connects them.

 

Even though there is vast unknown knowledge in both religion and science, for me, they are tied together by an innate desire to understand and discover the truth, regardless. So whether you're studying for a test, struggling through a difficult season, wrestling with a Bible verse, or praying a prayer that feels unanswered, remember this: We do not need complete certainty to keep moving forward. We can trust God while still asking questions. We can have faith while still seeking understanding. And sometimes the greatest growth happens not when everything is clear, but when we have the courage to step into the unknown.

Thank you, and happy Youth Sunday.