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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
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Monday Apr 04, 2022
A Strengthening Word
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC April 3rd, 2022. “Roots of Resistance” series.
Texts: JOHN 12:1-8
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Monday Mar 28, 2022
Monday Mar 28, 2022
Orchestrated Sermon Sacred Tenderness: Love, Home Sacrifice
An Orchestrated Sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC March 27, 2022. “Roots of Resistance” series.
Texts: Luke 15:1-3, 11B-32
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Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Untwisted Perspective
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC March 20, 2022, Third Sunday in Lent. “Roots of Resistance” series.
Texts: Luke 13:1-9
From a recent article in the New York Times highlighted the news that people in Russia are receiving about the war in Ukraine. “The narrative disseminated online through state-run and unofficial channels has helped create an alternate reality where the invasion is justified and Ukrainians are to blame for violence.” For many in Russia, this is the only story they receive, the only perspective given for what is happening. In our own context, we have more perspectives to sort through than we can manage. If we’re wise, we are careful about the mix of our sources for news of the day, finding some semblance of balance about what’s really going on.
But a balanced diet of perspectives doesn’t keep us from losing the most important one. As people of faith, there is always a larger perspective, a more profound frame through which to read the headlines. And it’s easy to lose that larger vision and “get twisted” in our perspective. I believe that keeping a nuanced faith perspective in times of crisis and challenge is among the most important spiritual practices we can nurture. Without it, we become unmoored from the story of God’s mercy, compassion, justice, and love. We lose the assurance that we are part of a great cloud of witnesses who continue to participate with God who is always at work for good in the world. We forget that we have a responsibility to participate in God’s good work. And that, as in every other time of crisis, from the beginning of all things, God will help us.
The classic liberal protestant notion is that we should read the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other; that is, read the headlines of our lives and of our day with a Spirit-led, Jesus-focused lens so that we might find some guidance about how we are called to respond.
Today our Gospel gives us an example of how Jesus reads the news. Jesus responds to two headlines of disaster: both were news stories of people who died unjustly and tragically, one in a political massacre and the other through a tower collapsing. One way our ancestors—and many in our modern world—try to make sense of these painful and confusing events is by assigning cause and effect. For example, those folks who were brutally killed by Pilate must have been worse sinners than others or must have done something to deserve that kind of punishment. According to this way of thinking, if you are killed unjustly or randomly or tragically, it’s your fault. God is punishing you.
Jesus reads it differently, saying, “do you really think these people were being singled out because of their sins, or that they died because they’re worse than anyone else? Of course not!” With both examples, Jesus unequivocally denies the cause-effect nature of the deaths. But there is also a “but…” But if you don’t repent, if you don’t change, then you can expect consequences. When Jesus says that unless we repent, we will perish just as those in the Biblical examples did, he is not saying that God is out to get you and is going to make you a victim of some awful tragedy if you don’t shape up. After all, he has just rejected that kind of response. So what is Jesus talking about?
Just before what we receive today in Luke, Jesus teaches about the need to trust God and to live a life according to the love, care, mercy, justice, and humility of the Kin-dom of God (Luke 12:13-48). Jesus tells the story of a rich man building bigger barns to store his crops and then dying with no “treasure stored in heaven.” Jesus teaches about attendants who need to be ready, keeping their lamps lit, as they await the bridegroom’s return. Jesus teaches about the servants who have been given responsibility for their master’s possessions, but who are cruel and frivolous and thoughtless; the master will show up when they least expect it and will see what they are doing (or not doing). In all of this, the teaching is: do what matters most today; live a life of deeper trust and surrender today; do justice today; be prepared to meet your maker, be ready to come face to face with God. This is what leads up to Jesus’s reaction to the news in our passage today.
The people who perished died in different ways—one was an act of brutal violence the other a “natural” catastrophe. The thing that both scenarios have in common was that the deaths were not expected—they came upon people unaware. When Jesus says that unless we repent, we will perish just as those in the Biblical examples did, it seems to me that the point is that no matter how long we live and no matter how we die, we might very well come to the end of our days without being ready to go.
Perhaps some folks will hear this as a fearful message. But it is really an invitation. Jesus is calling us to repent—to turn away from—anything that keeps us from living each day as one who is “ready to go,” as a person who has their relationships cared for, who has as little unfinished business as possible, as one who is living a life they wouldn’t be embarrassed to lay before God.
Jesus encourages us to “read the news” of crisis or challenge in our lives and world not with an eye to placing blame, finding a scapegoat, and identifying upon whom our vengeance should fall (common responses!). Instead, Jesus wants us to take responsibility for our own selves. We are challenged to respond to the injustice, pain and need in the world with honesty and conviction about what we can or should do, about where things need to change in our own lives, about what we need to learn from what has happened so that we might incorporate that learning into our lives.
Jesus follows up the questions about untimely deaths with the parable of the unfruitful fig tree. A couple of notes about fig trees: fig trees absorb an especially large amount of nourishment and therefore can drain the earth of nutrients, depriving other plants of sustenance. Further, according to Levitical Law (Lev. 19:23), fig trees were given three years’ growth in order to become “clean.” We are told that the gardener has been looking for fruit on the tree in question for three years. That means it’s been six years and this tree has produced no fruit. It is alive, but it’s not doing anything much or being anything much. It’s just taking up space, wasting the soil. Japanese poet and Christian peace activist, Toyohiko Kagawa wrote:
I read
In a book
That a man called
Christ
Went about doing good.
It is very disconcerting to me
That I am so easily
Satisfied
With just
Going about.
The fig tree is “just going about” and, therefore, is in danger of being cut down before it has really lived the life it was created for. This tree, all of a sudden, becomes a symbol of us in all the ways that we waste our chance to flourish, the ways we live that may leave us at our end not being “ready to go.” But does the tree get destroyed by a vengeful God? The story Jesus tells here is one of grace. The tree is not destroyed, but rather is given a second chance and more—it is given “fertilizer,” given what it needs to be able to bear fruit.
As we confront difficult realities in our lives and in our world—imagine reading the news through the lens of the Jesus who tells this and so many stories of grace, who reminds us that every day—every moment—of life is precious and an opportunity live with love and care. Read the news with the Jesus who came to preach good news to the poor and to set the prisoners free, who broke religious rules for the sake of love, who crossed all the boundaries of race and tribe, who hung out with those whom others despised, the Jesus who was himself unhoused and an asylum-seeker from a murderous political tyrant. Read the news with the Jesus who loved children, who railed against the tyranny of empire, who saw the gifts and potential of every person, who practiced what he preached, who forgave even those who had betrayed, denied, and killed him. As we “read” the painful and troubling headlines of our lives, look through the eyes of Jesus. Doing so will not only highlight the need for repentance in our lives and in the world, but it will also ground our response in the grace and mercy that flows from God’s self-giving love. God’s grace and mercy enfolds us through every circumstance of our lives, giving us strength and courage to persevere, to change, to hope, to go about doing good, to live each day “ready to go.” And that is Good News after all…
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Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Sunday Mar 13, 2022
Fear Met With Love
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC March 13th, 2022. “The Roots of Resistance” series.
Text: Luke 13:31-35
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Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
A Strengthening Word
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC March 6th, 2022. “The Roots of Resistance” series.
Text: Luke 4:1-13