Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

The God at the End of .Com - Rev. Will Ed Green - July 11th, 2021

“The God at the End of .Com”

2nd Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 — preached at Foundry United Methodist Church July 11th, 2021

I am always amazed at the richness and depth of Scripture. You can return to a passage over and over again and, invariably, each reading raises more questions than it answers. Fresh examination of our most beloved passages brings new insight and deeper dialogue with every encounter.

Contrary to popular belief, Scripture is not a roadmap which always lays out clear boundaries and mile markers for a to-scale spiritual journey. Nor is its prophecy a predictive panacea, or cure, that explains away our uncertainty about the future .

It is rather, I think, a divine invitation. In its words, we meet God at the intersections of our collective past, the present, and the future to receive God’s word for us right now. In it we recognize and remember that God shows up, over and over again at the intersections of our faith and doubt, our hope and fear, our joy and our sorrow. And when we accept the invitation to meet God at those intersections // new joy and abundant life often await us around every corner. As we meet God today where our story intersects with that of David, Michal and the people of Israel, let us pray:

Come Holy Spirit, Living Light of Love, and illuminate our lives anew. Grant us fresh grace, so that as we ponder the possibilities of your leading through THESE words, we might receive and welcome their comfort and challenge. Take the humble offering of this preacher and make of it what it needs to be so that—whether through me or in spite of me—you might be glorified, your people edified, and together we might draw a little closer to Your Kin-dom come. Amen.

It was a new day in Israel! The people were turning the corner of a past rife with internal division, political anarchy, and war with the Philistines. These changes culminated in the return of the Ark of the Covenant—the physical representation of God’s power, presence, and preference for the people of Israel—to the center of their social awareness as it is escorted out of obscurity in backwater Balle- Judah and into their new capital city of Jerusalem.

What unfolds, on the one hand, is prime political theater. David represented a radical change in leadership from his predecessor, King Saul. A popular military hero with a keen sense of how to rule, he threatened familiar institutions and power structures, along with those who benefited from them. By intertwining his kingship with the unifying religious symbol of the Ark, David appeals to the peoples’ religious devotion and offers proof in his procession, into HIS capital city, that his reign and leadership are blessed by God.

But, while there are certainly political motivations for David’s decision, the ark of the covenant is no mere political symbol. Sincere and raucous joy accompany its arrival in the city. The Ark, after all was proof that God was with them even as they turned the corner toward a new way of being Israel together. Proof that God was able to take moments of unprecedented change // and leadership from surprising and unexpected places // and new rituals and ways of gathering together and make of them opportunities for healing, hope, and wholeness.

David is one of the Bible’s more complicated figures. A egomaniac with a seemingly insatiable bloodlust and a penchant for pursuing his own best interests most of the time. But here takes advantage of a strategic opportunity to usher people into the healing presence of God following decades of communal trauma. And his reckless joy, his willingness to literally dance like a fool in front of his people, abandons assumptions about how a king should behave and invites people to consider new ways of recognizing and responding to God’s presence.

Whatever David’s political motivations, the Spirit of God moves in them and maybe in spite of them, creating much needed space for people to remember, recognize, and embrace the hope of God’s abiding presence, the true source of their strength and joy.

In his dancing David becomes, a conduit and conductor of hope, his ecstatic joy an invitation for everyone watching to recognize the presence of God in their midst, and to celebrate, even when it means risking what is familiar and comfortable as we do.

Like so many of you, I’m anxious for the day that this sanctuary again swells with the sounds of “To God be the Glory” and cries of newborns freshly washed in baptismal waters. For chance to be with one another and return to the sacred space we share on the corner of 16th and P. Yet, even as we prepare to re-enter in person worship on Wednesday of this week, my mind can’t help but regularly return to the earliest days of the pandemic.

I remember the fear and anxiety we faced, unsure of how we would remain connected to God and one another, let alone our sanity. Questions and confusion were common; about the science, about our safety. Questions about what online platforms we should use and what happens when they aren’t failproof? We all wondered how, and I’m guessing at multiple points doubted we could, stay socially and spiritually connected using technology designed for workplace? Would our neighbors file a noise complaint by the time we start singing the fifth verse of ‘O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” at our dining room table. Could we find God in the isolation? Could we find God at the end of .com?

Like the Ark’s arrival on the streets of Jerusalem all those years ago, this season has opened to new paradigms for being the people of God together. We have been led by choir members who recorded audio tracks and then lip synced videos, all while trying to listen to themselves and a recorded piece of music for our virtual choir pieces. We have been encouraged by teachers and preachers and new members who, because of this virtual format, have joined our us in worship and learning from hundreds of miles away.

We were nourished and nurtured by folks like Rosa, who packed communion cups and wafers in Ziploc bags and small group leaders who showed up faithfully, even when they were Zoom-weary, to create space for support and prayer. We were challenged by our Confirmands, who refused to join The United Methodist Church without challenging its complicity in harm and injustice, and comforted by voices who reminded us over and over again that it was ok not to be ok—and then gave us the space for that to be true.

Like David so many of you have stepped into this season and risked being made a fool—as we figured out how to mute ourselves and watched our best laid virtual plans fall apart when our wifi signal just wasn't strong enough.

And somehow, often despite our expectations, we found the presence of God was with us. Not just in our sanctuaries or familiar rhythms and rituals, but with us in the silence and stillness of the stay-at-home orders so many at first feared. In the closets and quiet spaces where we lifted praise and lament and listened for the voice of God. In flowerbeds and lush, loamy vegetable gardens that would never have been tended if we weren’t working from home and bowls of water and boxes of supplies we used to adorn our home altars.

God was on the end of—I’m loathe to admit it—many a group text and long, lingering phone call. God was in the chat rooms where we celebrated sacred moments and grieved what was lost. God was in backyard baptisms and clear plastic baggies that became conduits of God’s living love at communion.

We have witnessed and remembered these last 15 months what is possible when we’re willing to risk doing the unfamiliar, uncomfortable, or unexpected for the sake of opening our hearts and lives to Spirit’s leading. That God’s presence is ever-available and dynamic, moving not only in familiar modalities, but also through new ad unfamiliar technologies and ways of being Church so joy, hope, healing, and—sometimes, maybe most of the time—just plain old survival was possible. We’ve learned, and re-learned, and been reminded that God is with us, always, even at the end of .com. And because of it lives have been changed. Communities have grown. People have fallen headfirst into God’s love. Deepened their capacity to love one another. Even as we’ve done all of this in an unfamiliar, often uncomfortable way, the world has been changed because we accepted the invitation and took the rest.

Sandwiched into this Scripture story of celebration is another story, single line about David's wife Michal. Michal was the daughter of King Saul and betrothed to David when he was first anointed by Samuel. Before he was king, she risked her life to save David’s when he earned the ire of her father, was forcibly married off to someone else to enrage David, and is then ripped from her home following the brutal death of her father and brother to be remarried to the newly anointed King David.

While today's reading only says that she saw David’s dancing and despised him in her heart, a few verses later we encounter a painful exchange between David and Michal about his dancing. She upbraids him for his unbecoming behavior, suggesting that it waas self-serving and un-kinglike. We have to be careful before we assign mal-intent or ill will to Michal’s behavior. Perhaps, after years of being passed between kings and pretenders to the throne, she realized David’s actions were risky and threatened her stability and security. It’s possible she’d simply seen the politics of power corrupt one too many people that she loved and had no more capacity to put up with David’s pomp and circumstance and BS.

The trauma and violence inflicted on her as the daughter of a dead despot and wife of an emerging demagogue was profound. It’s no wonder she wasn’t ready to join the party! She was grieving. She was, I imagine, braced for impact, not ready to embrace joy. David, who a few moments before had created space for people to encounter what God’s presence could do, missed the moment. He dismissed her. Demeaned her arguments. And abandoned her as he danced the merry band around the corner and into what came next. Michal’s place in scripture terminates here, and we’re told she died without children The implication is that she was abandoned by David as he moved into this new season of Israel’s history without her.

I wonder if this brief encounter, informed by but left out of today’s lectionary reading, offers us a cautionary tale of how we turn the corner of this pandemic season. David’s ecstatic dancing reminds us how important it is to seize every opportunity to open space for others to encounter the living, healing presence of God after 15 months of deferred trauma and grief—even when it risks what we’re familiar or comfortable with. Michal’s story asks us to explore our unexpressed grief and trauma and the ways the keep us from recognizing God’s presence in our lives—even in unexpected places and from unexpected sources. She invites to remain open to the possibility of healing and hope it offers, and challenges us to help others do what David did not for her. Together, they remind us that God shows up in both our ecstatic joy and overwhelming sorrow.

And that its easy to leave folks behind if we insist that it’s our way or the highway. In the end, they both seem miss the point and an opportunity for them turn this corner together: that God shows up.

And that’s really the point of this story, isn’t it? God shows up, whether in the Ark of the Covenant or the wild dancing of David or Michal’s profound pain and fear. God shows up in our anticipation and celebration, when we’re ready to move full steam ahead into the possibilities of what comes next and as when we’re mired in profound grief and sorrow . God shows up even as we cling to our pre- conceived notions and assumptions of what is and is not proper, or when our intentions or motives might not be the most pure, when we’re lost in grief and ensnared by fear.

Spirit—as the story of David, Michal, and Ark proves—is always revealing herself in new ways, moving in unexpected places, and opening up fresh opportunities for people to recognize and receive the promise of God’s abiding presence and love. It may not come in behavior we deem becoming or in packages we prefer, but nevertheless the presence of God enters into the midst of our moments and movements, interrupts our expectations, and invites us to be free. All we have to do is answer the invitation.

We are invited together, as Foundry Church, as the body of Christ to be for others conduits and conductors through which they can experience the profound joy and abundant life God desires for all of us. To risk hope and receiving joy even as we feel lost in fear and awash in grief. To be open to peoples pain and fear as we re-enter life together—even when we aren’t— and to remain present as a source of comfort until they’re ready to embrace joy. To challenge our preconceived notions and assumptions about what proper, right or acceptable in such encounters, and to risk being made a fool for the sake of others’ opportunity to know and experience the liberating love of God.

Today’s reading reminds us that we have a profound opportunity as we turn this corner, together, to continue creating space where people can encounter God’s liberating love. Our role isn’t to be gatekeepers carefully deciding and defining for others the “right” way to find that or the appropriate methods by which they will . Nor is it to shame others into joy. Our job is to show up, together, again and again and remain open to how God might meet us when we do—so that no one, as we enter into this new season—gets left as we go.

As we stand at the intersection of where we've been and what comes next we are faced with a crucial question: Will we embrace and celebrate the new ways and means we have known God’s love, grown in faith, healed from old wounds and discovered new dimensions of discipleship? Will we risk discomfort, distaste, and even foolishness for the sake of extending to others the life giving presence of God?

Will we meet one another wherever we are—ready to dance or still braced for impact—and work, and witness, and wait with each other so that together we might be a conductor of joy, a conduit of hope, living love through whose light the whole world is set free.

The choice, my beloved, is ours. Let us choose well. Amen.

www.foundryumc.org

At the Public Square - Rev. Ben Roberts - July 4th, 2021

Mark 6: 1-13 July 4, 2021
At the Public Square. Rev. Ben Roberts for Foundry UMC

It could be the type of situation where someone goes home, and they just know you too well to take you seriously. The kind of place where any time you start talking about something serious, someone responds with a story like, “I remember when you were just a little feller running around bonking a giant yellow bowl on your head. You’d just run around saying “bonk, bonk, bonk.” Tapping the bowl on your head like a giant hat.” It can be hard to lead those who know you or know you best.

In Jesus’ case today, the problem was less an issue with lovingly nostalgic family members and more an issue of proper place. Dr. Emerson Powery in his commentary on this week’s text reminds us of the functions of honor and shame in Mark’s society. He Points out that the crowd in this sequence question and point to Jesus’ brothers, sisters, and mother. No mention of a father, which is the clue showing the crowd challenges his authority by shaming him based on his perceived illegitimate conception, affirming his low standing in the community. 

This “direct insult” is first and foremost an effort to end the conversation or teachings. Some, or at least enough of the crowd, center their feelings and objections to his teachings and use the insult to scandalize and discredit this otherwise powerful, wise teacher. The community as a function of structured life together has deemed this uncontrollable aspect of Jesus’ identity to be sufficient cause for him to have low standing or no authority.

Overly familiar neighbors or truly scandalous public assertiveness, the point is to stop hearing this prophetic teaching. So often in Mark, it is Jesus’ actions and teachings that are the real offense and scandal for anyone hearing or watching. This is especially true for those holding power and privileged positions of leadership such as the Priests (who twisted systems of purity and debt to their own advantage), Roman colonizers and collaborators (who benefited from the taking of land, labor, and goods, if say tributes/tax weren’t/couldn’t be paid), or even the Zealots (whose efforts were more geared to a militaristic takeover of the system for their own advantage). Jesus seems to have had a very annoying stance of nonalignment with any of those groups and strategies and very often criticized them if not outright undermined them. This is how Jesus brought his faith and message into the intersections of the public square, and I suppose it could have gone better.

Hearing a challenging message this age or any age, does not seem to produce such a different result. A queer voice in the United Methodist Church (if they’re out), a homeless voice for housing (if it means higher taxes), a black voice for police reform (if it’s too loud), latinx voice for citizenship (if they weren’t straight A students), a resident of public housing’s voice (really for anything anywhere), saying anything (if it’s sounds political); while not comprehensive or perfect as a metaphor we still see voices like these muted or not prioritized in the public square. The crowd of the public square is still adept at finding a reason not to act upon or even receive a message from or about the vulnerable, and I am often in the crowd. But the consequences of a lack of openness to prophetic messages for liberation, in any age, remain too deadly to hold our silence or maintain our refusal to receive a word of challenge.

“Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house” (Mk 6: 4). 

Again, Powery points out that operating within an honor/shame society, prophets were generally ones who would receive honor, but prophets are usually operating where they are less known. However, for that to be true in someone’s hometown, it likely, and for Jesus in this case, means taking a space or share of honor from someone else and above their appointed or birth share. Or so the norms and perceptions go. It remains that the point here was to keep Jesus’ message from taking root and Jesus himself, and anyone else, from moving up or potentially down the ladder.

I’m struck at the notion of the message and ministry doing better outside one’s hometown. I’m left with the thought how different or perhaps impossible it would have been if James Baldwin wasn’t writing from Paris or how that the “Ripple of Hope” speech Robert Kennedy gave in South Africa wouldn’t have the same reception in South Boston. This was not a right time right place thing in Jesus’ case.

“He could do no deed of power” (Mk 6: 5)

He could do no deed of power, fine, but he was still making his way around and curing sick people it seems despite the crowd’s “unbelief.” These acts of healing are made to sound almost small in our narrative, but I assure they were community shifting in nature. 

Last week Pastor Kelly’s sermon included the story of the woman with a 12 year hemorrhage. But for anyone who was ill or unclean they became subject to purity laws and rituals. They were held out of communal participation. And as a matter of becoming hopefully clean again or to attempt to atone for transgressing the purity laws, would have render payment or sacrifice. For the woman with the hemorrhage and for someone like a farm worker coming in contact almost daily with blood or manure, they could be in a repetitious state of uncleanliness and relentlessly subject to requirements of payment and sacrifice or be excluded. I’ll oversimplify here, these medical bills could drive and keep already vulnerable people in a cycle of poverty and further sickness because their work or personhood simply exposed them more often and they couldn’t afford to get out.

There was a system meant to help in a hardship situation; a required debt system where some goods from everyone were put into a centralized place (synagogue/temple) which could be re-distributed to should the need arise. The goods could be sent out in times of famine, war, or community need. However, it was controlled by the same religious leaders as the purity systems, and either from apathy, corruption, or a perverse incentive to maintain their own financial flow; the debt system meant to help started to contribute further to people’s suffering. James Newton Poling in “Render unto God” notes that “Restoring purity was expensive. When Jesus healed such people, he was bypassing the purity system and objecting to the debt system that contributed to the poverty of the poor.” So let’s try this again.

Jesus goes into his home synagogue, a public square for all manner of activity; religious, political, economic. He begins teaching to anyone listening including those in charge. Those whose responsibility it is to see to the wellbeing of the community. Whose responsibility it is to care for the sick per the purity laws. To care for the poor per the law and through the reciprocity and debt systems. Those who often found themselves called upon to maintain order under threat or on behalf of the Romans. And everyone else including some likely harmed directly by the ways those systems had been twisted. He spoke with authority, he taught with wisdom. He talked about systems of oppression. He was insulted, and likely run out.

So he started messing with people’s money, healed a few sick people. He was astounded at their unbelief. But he couldn’t open them up, that’s my phrasing, he could do no deed of power.

Jesus’ faith is rooted in that baseline understanding, love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself. In so doing we ensure that the good creation indeed has enough to meet every economic, physical, or spiritual need anyone might have. Jesus’ faith is one of liberation for those who suffer. That liberation doesn’t come from prayers to the Donkey, or Elephant, or to the bronze eagle of the Roman Empire, but in a powerful and vulnerable act of opening oneself to the possibility of God’s work in the world. Opening to the prophetic messages already and always out there. Opening ourselves up to the possibility that we might be part of the crowd and beneficiaries of twisted systems, recognizing there’s grace even for us. Opening ourselves up to the fact that God calls and can use us, no matter what anyone else may deem insufficient about your personhood or what names they want to call you.

God is interested in the discourses and systems at play at the public square. Jesus’ ministry is at once and always spiritual and political, in that it cares for how we have life and how we have life together. This encounter at the synagogue becomes the play book for the sending out of the disciples. 

Hometown ministry or anywhere else, the final verses Jesus instructs the disciples to pare themselves down in dress and resources, “no bag, no money.” Essentially, take no pretense, no high or low expectation, keep yourself open to what you will encounter. Be organized with partners go to places and build relationships. Listen and help name what is broken, what is unjust, and what needs healing…even to the powerful of the public square. And if the crowd refuses to be open, move on; to the next leader, the next house, the next day or opportunity to speak words of life in spaces where they’re desperately needed.

God is interested in the discourses and systems at play at the public square. God asks us to live our faith at this intersection. God knows twisted power’s effect intimately, living and experiencing it through Jesus’ life. God knows intimately how the crowd reacts, rejects, and finds excuses. But none of that can stop God’s power for healing and liberation. Be of good courage, because the God who knows and loves this whole creation, knows, and loves you, and goes ever before you.

https://foundryumc.org/

Reversing Otherhood - Rev. Kelly Grimes - June 27th, 2021

Reversing Otherhood

Text: Mark 5:21

Rev. Kelly Grimes

June 27, 2021

Foundry United Methodist Church, Washington DC

There is a Way - Rev. T.C. Morrow - June 20th, 2021

There is a Way

Text: 1 Samuel 17: 32-49

T.C. Morrow

June 20, 2021

Foundry United Methodist Church, Washington DC

We are in the middle of a sermon series on “The Call: Good Trouble.”  Last week Pastor Ginger spoke on a passage earlier in the book of 1 Samuel, the identification of David as the one God has picked out to be the king.  Picking the eighth and youngest son of a not particularly remarkable family is an unexpected choice.  Yet God again and again throughout our scriptures empowers leaders who defy societal expectations for leadership.

The late Representative John Lewis used the phrase “good trouble” to refer to activities for positive social change that push against unjust social norms or laws.  With pressure to follow the racist policies of the Jim Crow South, Rep. Lewis remembered his parents saying when he asked about “white only” signs, “That’s the way it is, don’t get in the way, don’t get in trouble.”  But inspired by leaders like Dr. King and Rosa Parks, Rep. Lewis says he did get in trouble, in “good trouble.”  Today we continue the story of the young David, his community under threat and divine inspiration for David to get involved.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

“The Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.”  

The audacity to imagine that you can go from tending sheep to besting the biggest, strongest warrior in the Philistine army.  It’s improbable, it’s impossible.  The young David beating the experienced and physically stronger Goliath?  No way.

Yet there is a way.  For David there is a way through a leader who finally accepts young David’s offer but then tries to push the leader’s own way for how to proceed, and a way through an opponent who seemingly has every advantage.

For you and for me, there is a way.  Whatever the obstacles, there is a way “to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves” as we are called to in our baptismal vows.  It may not be in our time, it may not be how we want it, it surely will not be easy.  But through the power of the Holy Spirit there is always a way to turn those places where we are outraged over “that’s the way it is” into the next faithful step in being the body of Christ in the world.

In whatever situations where we are called to be about #GoodTrouble, God is with us drawing on our experiences and providing the tools and resources to face our obstacles.  As we look at today’s text, you’re welcome to have out your Bible or Bible App to 1 Samuel 17.  Let’s see what David encounters and what we might learn for our own journeys.

The stories of David in the books of 1 & 2 Samuel help the Israelites tell the story of their beginnings as a more cohesive entity from multiple tribes.  Importantly these books of the Bible show later generations the role of God in the lives of their ancestors, and therefore give hope that God is with them as well.  Like the passage last week of Samuel’s anointing of David, this story of David and Goliath shows that Yahweh -- “the Lord” as translated in the New Revised Standard Version -- Yahweh is with the unlikely protagonist David.  David has been sent by his father with food for his brothers who are part of Saul’s army facing the Philistines, a main external opponent to the Israelites in the narrative of 1 & 2 Samuel.  One of the Philistines, Goliath, has offered to fight a representative of the Israelites.  40 days – or a really long time – go by and no one from amongst the Israelites goes forward.  Goliath is described as tall and decked out with heavy armor (he’s gotten called a giant, but the point is that he is a formidable, seasoned warrior).  

As we pick up the story in verse 32, young David, fresh from tending the sheep flocks and serving as the food delivery service of the day, offers to be the one to go fight Goliath.  The reply is hardly a surprise.  The Israelite leader, Saul, dismissively says, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”  David is confronted with Saul’s lack of imagination for an outside the box solution even as apparently no one else is equipped to fight Goliath one-on-one.

How many times have we heard: you’re not the right age, you don’t have the right degree, you’re not the right fit.

David might have given in to the dismissal but instead he asserts his credentials and trust in God.  In the course of his shepherding duties, he has saved lambs from bears and lions.  Fuller examination of the word “saved” here is for another sermon or perhaps your own study this week, but I’ll note that it runs along the lines of delivered from or snatched away from.  David is convicted that it is through the power of a saving God that he has been brought through his prior experiences with fearsome foes and likewise God will be with him this time as he faces Goliath.  

 

“The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” 

David assesses the situation and knows he can offer himself.  God has equipped him for just such a moment.  God empowers us to draw on our own particular strengths and abilities for the sake of Kindom-building.  In return, we are called to trust that God will continue to carry us through.

With David’s clear articulation of readiness, Saul finally agrees that David can be the one to go out against Goliath.  Saul says, “Go, and may the Lord be with you!”  However, even as he seems to understand Yahweh’s presence with David, Saul clings to what he knows and remains blind to the true gift of service that David is offering.  As Walter Brueggeman says, “Saul does not understand anything.  He has uttered Yahweh’s name.  But he wants to outdo Goliath on Goaliath’s terms...” 

Saul foolishly tries to make David into the type of warrior that he knows about - fits him up in armor and a helmet and a sword.  However, for David, armor and a sword are not the tools he knows; they are not where God has given him strength.  David tries to walk around, but unable to do so he casts aside the amor.  In this, David reminds us that we need to resist bending to other people’s expectations and norms when they are not what will allow us to best use our God-given talents and passions and convictions.  When facing the Goliath’s of our lives, we must remember with confidence that God has been nurturing and shaping us since the day we were born.  Let God’s prevenient grace be what is molding you, not the dictates of other’s unholy expectations.

As we look at this passage, I must mention that there will likely be times when we are in Saul’s place.  Let Saul’s failure in his hasty attempt to shape David into a warrior serve as a warning.  We must avoid trying to mold others into “our image.”  Teaching and mentorship are one thing.  Demanding that there is only one way to live, insisting there is only one way to fight for justice will lead to failure every time.  We need to honor how every human being is made in the image of God.  We need to honor how we are called to bring our full beings and God-given gifts to the places where we find ourselves for the sake of the transformation of the world.  

David resists Saul’s attempts to control things.  David gathers 5 smooth stones and goes to face Goliath with tools that give him an advantage, his sling and his practiced arm.  Goliath comes with trash talk, but David responds with the claim that Yahweh has equipped David to meet Goliath and indeed to gain victory.  With the skills that he has honed as a shepherd, David does the unthinkable and overcomes Goliath’s greater physical strength.  

And so ends 40 days of Goliath coming out every day to challenge the Israelites.  A young shepherd comes along, assured that God will be with him just like God has been with him before.  God has not only provided the young shepherd with tools and resources to help his community but the discernment to know when they can be put to good use.

This June as we mark Pride month we also celebrate the anniversaries of several landmark Supreme Court decisions impacting LGBTQ people.  A year ago the Court held that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”  One of the cases involved in that decision was that of Aimee Stephens, a trans woman who was fired after she told her employer that she would be transitioning from male to female.  Aimee sought to live openly as who she was and continue in her profession, instead she lost her livelihood.  

In a January 2020 interview with NBC, when asked about her feelings in advance of a decision, she said, “We’re going to keep fighting regardless of what the decision is.”  Aimee was someone willing to get in #GoodTrouble.  She was seeking to authentically live her life and ended up becoming an activist, apparently quite accidentally.  Instead of taking an offered severance package she contacted the ACLU of Michigan.  She knew there was a way to fight the bigotry she faced, but there were true costs as well.  As she also noted in that NBC interview, “It is my life, but it’s also a lot of other people’s lives”  

Aimee Stephens stepped up when an opportunity that none of us would ask for presented itself.  She took the opportunity to fight the injustice of her firing and the effects will be felt in our country for years to come.

When you look around your community, your workplace, your family, the world, where is God calling you?  Where is God calling you to get into some #GoodTrouble?

If you are not sure where God is calling you, I encourage you to set apart some time to be in prayer.  Set apart some time to reflect on where you see brokenness and are nudged to think, “Hey, I’ve got this, with God I’ve got this!”  There will be opportunities when you are paying attention to the world around you and all the ways that God has already provided you with tools and resources.  People will try to get you off track, but I encourage you to remain confident in where God has already been with you and where you feel complete trust that God will be with you again.  It may seem completely improbable, but you might be the one that brings just that slightly different perspective or experience that can get things moving.

“The Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” 

The Gospels tell time and again of Jesus breaking the boundaries of “that’s the way it is” thinking.  He eats with and talks to and heals people that others deem unclean.  Jesus drives out the money changers from the Temple, interrupting a financial system taking advantage of worshippers coming in from out of town.  

With all the brokenness and evil of this world, the good news is that we do not have to be stuck. We don’t have to be stuck in our personal lives.  We don’t have to be stuck in our collective life.  We are called to follow Jesus in bringing fullness of life to all the places that need it, from the front steps of our church, to kitchen tables, to corporate offices, to the Oval Office.  

May God continue to shape you and shape me.

May God continue to surprise us with unexpected grace and opportunities.

May God continue to equip leaders with the right skills for the moment to step forward.

With God, there is a way!

Wherever, whenever you find yourself responding to God’s call to #GoodTrouble, as Saul said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you!”

Amen.

https://foundryumc.org/

Unexpected Blessings - Confirmation Sunday June 13th, 2021

Unexpected Blessings

A meditation shared by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC June 13, 2021, third Sunday after Pentecost, Confirmation Sunday and Pride Sunday. “The Call: Good Trouble” series.

    Text: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Jesse didn’t expect the prophet Samuel to come calling. And he certainly wasn’t expecting Samuel to come with a horn of oil to anoint one of his sons as the future king of Israel. Jesse didn’t expect that his youngest son, the one who shepherded the flocks, would be required at the family gathering for the sacrifice since the youngest—and shepherds generally—weren’t included in such things. 

But God has a way of challenging our expectations. God sent Samuel and his horn-full of oil to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, to anoint NOT the first-born, the one who may have looked tall and kingly, Eliab. Instead God chose the youngest, David the shepherd, who had to be fetched from among the sheep. And, of course, young, handsome David didn’t expect ANY of what happened!

God challenges expectations. And in this story God does that in two very specific ways. First, God breaks the family expectation of giving blessing or honor to the first born son. And second, God breaks the cultural expectation by lifting up a youth—who even though described as handsome—perhaps didn’t have the physical appearance or “stature” that people of the time would consider “kingly.” 

God explains these surprising choices by saying to Samuel, “God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the Lord sees into the heart.” (16:7, CEB) 

Samuel, in response, models faithfulness through trusting that God knows what they’re doing, that God perceives things that Samuel cannot, and then through being obedient to the spiritual leading to anoint the least likely future king in Jesse’s family.

On this Sunday when we celebrate both Confirmation and Pride, I give thanks for this story that affirms God’s habit of breaking our human-made, cultural rules in ways that lift up, celebrate, and anoint the gifts of unexpected people.

We know all too well that human rules have demonized and excluded LGBTQ people and that legislated discrimination continues to be supported in many places in both church and state.

Limited human perception has silenced, ignored, or belittled the leadership and insight of children and youth.

Human ways of discerning a person’s worth or leadership capacity, based on “stature” or appearance have meant that countless people have not been allowed to fully share their gifts or contribute as meaningfully as they could.

But God isn’t limited by human ways of perceiving or discerning. Centuries after David was anointed the future king of Israel, on the day of Pentecost, God’s intention was made plain and the prophecies were made manifest: Spirit fell upon ALL FLESH and the human gatekeeping rules and old assumptions and expectations were consumed in the fire of new creation and new community. 

And Spirit continues to fall not just upon the “usual suspects” according to human ways of perceiving. Spirit falls on all flesh… and where hearts, hands, and minds are open, She stirs us to get into “good trouble” as we love and serve and are formed by the Way of Jesus Christ in union with the church and in advocacy and service to the world.

We see Spirit’s stirring in the ways that members of Foundry youth group have formed brave space and are building Beloved Community together. Throughout the pandemic, they have met regularly on ZOOM. Recently, the grandparent of a transgender teen found Foundry online and—encouraged by our welcome and message—reached out to see how their grandchild might connect. The youth joined the next ZOOM, at first with their video off. After five minutes, they showed their face. Within 20 minutes, they felt safe enough to share their journey as trans. The youth group surrounded and celebrated their sibling and new friend. Think for just a moment about this. A church youth group…

We see Spirit stirring as, even with the UMC in the unjust tangle we’re in, more and more queer clergy are speaking up and out, and LGBTQ siblings are being affirmed by churches, boards of ordained ministry, and annual conferences, not just locally but in places across the connection. We lament and renounce the continued attacks and cruel rejection of LGBTQ pastors, clergy candidates, and allies here and abroad. But we celebrate the breakthroughs and the blessings we receive through the gifts of our own queer clergy here at Foundry. We celebrate those at turning points in the ordination process. T.C. Morrow will be preaching next week the sermon she will submit to the BWC Board of Ordained Ministry for her final examination toward full membership as an ordained Deacon in the UMC. And Foundry member Chet Jechura, recommended by the BOOM for commissioning as a provisional Elder this year, has received an appointment to serve as pastor of Good Shepherd UMC in Baltimore beginning in July. 

We see Spirit stirring in the curiosity of our youth about the work of Foundry’s Board and larger ministry. The Board is actively creating ways for our youth to engage at that level, bringing their ideas, concerns, and leadership to our shared ministry.

And again this year, we see Spirit stirring as our Confirmation class will bring specific additions to their confession of faith and their commitments to God and to the church. And this amazing group of confirmands has requested to continue their study together and Pastor K.C. is working on making that happen.

Thanks be to God that we are given opportunities to continue to witness the ongoing revelation of God’s barrier-breaking revolution of love and grace.

May God give us eyes to perceive, ears to receive, and hearts brave enough to follow the unexpected leadings of Holy Spirit. And may we be open to receive the unexpected blessings of Jesus Christ who is determined to shake us to keep stretching and growing, to stir us to get into good trouble, to love us so much that we might finally be free enough from fear that we can create communities and ultimately a whole world where no one is afraid to show their true face, to tell their story, to offer their gifts. What a wonderful world that will be!

https://foundryumc.org/