Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Abide - May 2nd, 2021

Abide

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, May 2, 2021, the fifth Sunday of Easter.

    Text: John 15:1-8

Her name was Grace.  She was one of the first folks I met as I arrived with my friends in the small village in Tamil Nadu, South India. Though I imagine Grace may very well have died long ago, I’ve thought of her often as I take in the horrific headlines and images from the toll COVID is taking in India right now. In the caste system of India, Grace was an “untouchable.”  She was poor, her skin a deep ebony, and she was literally “out-caste”—out of the caste system…beneath it. Grace also had the unhappy circumstance of being unmarried; her family had no money for a dowry and, as a result, Grace was destined to be on her own, with little or no support from anyone else.  But we learned as we talked with her—in broken English—that she made a way for herself by doing sewing for folks in the village. She shared her home, a ten by ten foot cement dwelling, with six other family members.

In 1994, our Liberation Theology seminar group from Yale Divinity School went to this village to experience an Indian community that was predominantly Christian—a rarity in a country that was at least at that time only 2-3% Christian (and this one was also a community of “untouchables” or “Dalits”).  We were planning to stay overnight in the church building that was on the small dirt square of the community. But late in the day, after we had worshiped at an evening Bible Study, Grace approached me with an astonishing offer. This woman who barely had enough to feed and care for herself, invited me into her home. She invited me to stay with her for the night. And so I did. She gave me tea and shared stories of her life. And that night, I slept on the hard dirt floor of that ten by ten room, with 7 other people and a chicken. In the morning, Grace boiled water (a rare and precious commodity!) for me so that I could brush my teeth. I don’t know that I’ve ever received such an invitation before or since or experienced such sacrificial hospitality and care.  

Grace invited me into her home, into her life. And as I left, she called me “sister.”

Today, Jesus invites us into his life. Jesus says, “Abide in me.”

We learn today that Jesus is like a vine, green, full of life, reaching down into the depths of the earth and soaring upward toward the light of the sun. Jesus is like a vine and we are like branches of the vine. When connected to that strong, green, vital stem, we flourish and grow. We produce fruit. But we know that the branches only bear fruit because they receive nourishment through the stem, through the vine.  If they are cut off from that source of life and strength, they grow dry and lifeless; they die; they produce no fruit. And sometimes, branches need to be pruned—things need to be let go, cleared out, in order for that branch to produce fruit at its full capacity.

This powerful image teaches us about what it means to abide in Jesus Christ.  “Abide” is not a word that we hear that often these days.  And because of that; some modern translations of scripture choose to use other words instead.  But this word “abide” is a great word, a rich word.  To “abide” means more than to “be with,” it also means to “stand with,” to be “faithful to,” to “stand firm,” and “never to leave.” And in the image of the vine and the branches, we hear Jesus’ words to us as an invitation. “Abide in me” and receive everything you need for life and for growth and for fruitfulness. Stand with me, be faithful to me, never leave me, because, if you do, you will cut yourself off from the gracious gifts of God that are your source for strength and life. Stay connected to me, trusting my life-giving support and love even in the midst of change, when you need to let things go.

While it is our choice whether to accept this invitation to stay connected and receive grace and life in Christ—we also learn today that Jesus invites us to do what he is already doing for us.  Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.”  (“We love because God first loved us.”)  Everything we do in relationship with Christ is a response to what Christ has already done or offered to us.  Jesus “abides” in you…Jesus stands with you, in solidarity with your every struggle or suffering; Jesus is faithful to you even when you have lost faith in yourself, others, or God; Jesus will never leave you, even when you turn your back. This is the grace of God. It is nothing that we deserve because of who we are or what we have accomplished. It is just given to us free, this love of God. You didn’t make the first move—God did. And God has invited you to share the bounty, the beauty, the fruitfulness of life in Christ. In United Methodist circles, we talk about the grace of God that is present and active in our lives even before we know anything of God as “prevenient grace.”  This is the grace of God present and active in our lives before—or even if we never!—“confess that Jesus is the Son of God.” (1 Jn. 4:15) Prevenient grace is Holy Spirit nudging and working in our hearts and minds and relationships to encourage us to receive the invitation to life in Christ and all that flows from that life.  

Sometimes, in the course of human life things happen that lead people to disconnect—even to renounce their faith, to renounce God. Jesus doesn’t say such a choice will have no consequence—all our choices have consequences and to deliberately cut ourselves off from the source of life and love will be harmful to us. How could it not be? We can renounce the sacraments, teachings, and relationships of intentional Christian community or just take these things for granted and go through the motions as though they didn’t mean anything. We can choose to do all in our power to ignore or deny God and God’s gifts. But the promise Jesus makes is that grace abides with us no matter what. You may choose not to believe in God, but God believes in you and has chosen to love you. God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it. It won’t change. Ever.

This word comes right on time this week—at least for me. Some of you will have tuned in for this past Wednesday’s FB Live in which I talked about “languishing”—the mental state that hangs out in between flourishing and depression. Languishing is what I have labeled in this season being “COVID fine,” namely doing alright but not really at full capacity. It dulls motivation, disrupts the ability to focus, and increases the odds you’ll not get as much work done without really pushing. I am personally feeling this right now—even as I give thanks that full on depression hasn’t set in, which for me is always a possibility. I know that not all of us have been able to keep depression and anxiety at bay. A reminder for us today as we enter this mental health awareness month: there is help available for you. It is not a moral failure to admit that you need help. We all need help most of the time in one way or another. If you need resources, do not hesitate to reach out to any of your pastors and we will do all we can to help you find the support you need.

While not everyone will be struggling with mental health, I do observe that most people I know both in and out of Foundry are in a pretty volatile place emotionally. The past year with all its pandemics is catching up with all of us in one way or another. And today, we receive this word from Jesus: abide. It is a simple word, an always needed reminder, that the source of our life, flourishing, capacity to bear the fruits of love, compassion, patience, and justice is found in God. Whatever we are feeling, facing, fearing… Christ abides in us, is available right now to give us grace sufficient for every need. All we have to do is stay united with Jesus, in relationship, in solidarity, in faithfulness and love. Abide in Christ as Christ abides in you.

Twenty-seven years ago, as I left that village in South India, I was embraced by Grace. Her love and hospitality and sacrificial giving will forever be for me symbols of the free gifts of God. I didn’t do anything to deserve her attention, her trust, her love, her floorspace. She just offered it all, freely. Grace invited me into her home, into her life. And as I left, she embraced me as family; she called me “sister.” Today, Jesus invites us into his life. Jesus says, “Abide in me.”  And we are embraced by grace. And we are called “children of God,” “siblings in the Beloved clan,” those who are sent into the world to embrace other members of God’s family with the amazing grace of Jesus Christ, and—together—to create a human family in which poverty, skin color, tribe, or faith tradition no longer allows a sibling to be out-caste or “untouchable,” a community in which all needs are met and all know themselves to be truly Beloved.

Prayer: Generous God, thank you for your amazing grace given to us in Jesus. Help us remain united with Jesus through every challenge, change, and pruning season; sustain and renew us, that we might produce the fruits of love, justice, compassion, and care that will nourish others and truly serve your beautiful, broken world. Amen.

https://foundryumc.org/

Less Than Zero with Guest Rev. Jenny Phillips - April 25th, 2021

Foundry UMC Earth Day 2021

The Reverend Jenny Phillips is Senior Technical Advisor for Environmental Sustainability at Global Ministries in Atlanta, GA. Her work integrates sustainability practices into every aspect of mission. She has a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York and is an ordained elder from the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church. 

Sermon Text:

Matthew 25:14-30

Less than Zero 

Please pray with me: Creator God, all of creation sings your praise. Open our hearts that we may hear your call to protect all that you have made. Amen.

I’m so very happy to be here with you today. As Ginger shared, I serve at Global Ministries, which is the worldwide mission and development agency of The United Methodist Church. Global Ministries supports more than 200 missionaries, and has personnel, projects and partners in 115 countries. As a part of Global Ministries, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), is the global humanitarian aid and development arm of The United Methodist Church.  

Much of the work of contemporary mission focuses on addressing problems caused by the broken relationship between God, humans and the earth. We support sustainable agriculture in places that are food insecure and that have histories of conflict and oppression. We provide healthcare in places with deep infrastructure challenges. We provide services for people experiencing forced migration from their homelands. We respond to disaster and support recovery in places hardest hit by weather events exacerbated by climate change. We seek to alleviate suffering. 

Our creation story says that human suffering is rooted in the distorted relationship between God, humans and the earth. In Genesis, God offers the first humans food from an abundant garden. God says they can have as much as they could possibly want to eat from the garden of Eden. But God also sets a boundary. God says to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

 

Well, you know what they do. They cross the boundary God sets--a boundary meant to limit their consumption of the earth’s resources. In doing so, they break our relationship with God. Now pay attention here. That first rupture in relationship, that SIN is not just any kind of sin. It is the sin of overconsumption. God tells them to eat their fill and they say great, thanks very much, and now I’ll have what’s over there. They take more than they need. They take more than God wanted them to have.

Then, even as they are cast out from the garden, their children learn that natural resources are a source of power among humans. They raise generations of humans obsessed with controlling food and land and lives, even as the earth cries out when their blood is spilled and their habitats are ransacked. The shards of colonialism and plunder and racism are embedded in the lattice of our spiritual DNA.

Those of us who are white come from people who have leaned way too hard into that aspect of our spiritual histories. We have built our communities and our wealth and even our churches on the backs of Black people, Indigenous people and People of Color. And we have built our communities and our wealth and our churches on the groaning lands and seas of ravaged ecosystems worldwide. Some of us here today benefit from the fruits of that exploitation. And now we are resistant to breaking the cycle, lest it cost us our places in the world as we know it.

 

But of course, the world as we know it is no Eden. Colonialism left generations of many humans and other creatures poorer, sicker, and weaker. Then exploitation of people and the earth went into hyperdrive with industrialization. And with industrialization came human-induced climate change.

 

Let me take a detour here to tell you how climate change works. When we look up at the sky, it appears to be a limitless expanse. But between us and outer space is a thin blanket of gasses surrounding the planet. This is called the atmosphere. One of the things that the atmosphere does is stabilize earth’s temperature. 

The sun sends energy to the earth in the form of light.

The earth absorbs the energy, but some of that energy is radiated back in the form of heat.

Some of the heat escapes through the atmosphere, but some of it stays in.

As we add more gasses to the atmosphere--we call them greenhouse gasses, more heat gets trapped. The gasses thicken our atmospheric blanket. Just like when you put a thicker blanket on your bed, you get warmer, as we thicken the atmospheric blanket, global temperatures increase. And as temperatures increase, that destabilizes weather systems, leading to the changing weather patterns and extreme weather events we are experiencing more frequently today.

In the DC area, this means hotter summers. Scientists project the number of heat wave days in your area will increase from 10 per year to 60 per year by 2050. Heavy downpours will increase as well, leading to more inland flooding. And on the coast, we expect between 2 and six feet of sea level rise this century.

These changes are creating crises in low-income and high-income communities alike, but like with so many challenges, it is low-income communities and communities of color that suffer the most. This deepens the need for humanitarian intervention. We must ensure that our short-term interventions contribute to long-term environmental health. We have much to do when it comes to addressing the environmental impacts of ministry. We are only just beginning to understand the ways in which we have contributed to the suffering of future generations through practices like building structures without thought to energy efficiency, relying on diesel generators in places with limited energy access, and investing our assets in companies that contribute to the harm. The more we learn, the clearer it is that we must transform the ways we do ministry.

The Global Ministries Theology of Mission says that God’s mission begins with the act of creation and ends with the shared redemption of all creatures and all of creation. This means that Christian mission must begin and end with the mandate to ensure the flourishing of all creation, including both human and nonhuman life. This is why we must address eco-recklessness in our ministries. Eco-recklessness functions in ways that resemble other systems of oppression, maintaining a status quo that privileges certain types of power, behavior, and practices. It pits humans against creation, pretending as though one has no need of the other, or as though it were possible to meet the needs of one without ensuring the health of the other. It affirms the theologically distorted view that God gave humans limitless power to dominate over and consume the resources of the earth at any cost.

While examples of individual eco-heroism and creation-friendly initiatives abound, formal and informal structures of church institutions exhibit eco-recklessness at every level. Not just agencies, but all of us. We need to stop using environmental initiatives as one-off projects to celebrate on Earth Day and start recognizing them as life-saving strategies that are necessary to create a healthy, just world. Given the clear scientific consensus that human activity is the primary driver of climate change (NASA 2020b), it is reckless for churches to dump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere through their ministries without regard for their impacts.

 

Now what would Jesus say about all of this? He doesn’t talk about climate change. But he does talk about resources. While Genesis contains the story of our broken relationship with creation, Jesus presents an alternate vision in an unexpected place--a story known to many as the Parable of the Talents. This story, like other parables, is an allegory--a story with a concealed meaning. Many people immediately assume that this parable should be interpreted as a teaching on how to manage financial resources. Indeed, the version of the text we heard from the Inclusive Bible today refers to not talents, but dollars. Others suggest that the talents symbolize our literal talents--in other words, our gifts and our skills that should be used to support God’s realm.

 

But what if we considered a third possibility: that the talents represent not economic resources, but rather ecological resources that God has placed in our care. Perhaps in this story, the wealthy landowner is God, the owner of all of creation, leaving us each with access to varying levels of resources. God gives us these resources to manage for a while. And if we fail to ensure that they flourish under our care, there will be a lot of suffering.

 

This perspective is consistent with the passage that follows, the one in which Jesus says that those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked and care for the sick are the ones who will inherit God’s kingdom. We can only help the most vulnerable among us flourish when all of creation flourishes. We can’t feed the hungry without affordable food. We can’t give drink to the thirsty without clean water. We aren’t going to welcome the stranger if we feel like we have to compete with her over scarce resources. And by the way, Jesus ends that passage with another promise of suffering for those who do not heed. I think that means he’s serious.

Well, I have some good news. Many of us who manage resources on behalf of the United Methodist Church have decided to get serious too. 11 United Methodist agencies, including Global Ministries, announced on Earth Day that we have committed to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to support a just and equitable transition to renewable energy that builds resilient and flourishing communities. The heart of the commitment is this: We pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 across ministries, facilities, operations and investments and to leverage the gifts of our connection putting equity and justice at the center as we build a net-zero emission economy by 2050.

 

I really want you to hear this. We’re going to eliminate emissions across ministries, facilities, operations, and investments. And we’re going to do it in a way that ensures equity and justice.

 

This is a serious commitment to systemic change. The agencies that are making this commitment are involved with stewarding the global physical, financial, social educational, historical and political infrastructure of the UMC. We are making plans to radically transform our stewardship to ensure that we aren’t contributing to suffering around the world in our efforts to alleviate it. We believe the changes we make in the next 10, 20 and 30 years will reverberate throughout the denomination and will impact people and ecosystems globally.

 

To be clear, we have made this commitment not because we know how to do it, but because we know who we are called to be. 

There is no map for this journey. So we’re starting with questions. Some of the questions we’re asking at Global Ministries include: What does this commitment mean all that travel we do when we’re engaged in work around the world? What does it mean for our disaster response work in places where power grids are destroyed and diesel generators are the norm? What does it mean for our health clinics in low-income places around the world that rely on kerosene lamps because they don’t have electricity? What tools, strategies and technologies do we need, and how will we pay for them?

 

These are questions that we are pretty uncomfortable asking because many of the answers necessarily require significant changes to how we do our work. What we’re saying with our commitment is that it’s time for our agency to face the uncomfortable truths that come with measuring our impact and tolerate the discomfort we feel over the next few decades as we figure out how to ensure our ministries contribute to the flourishing of people and creation in the present and in the future. We have quite a bit of hope this is possible, because we’re working with our partner agencies to leverage each other’s resources and wisdom to support one another. And we are already engaged in pilot projects to help us learn how to do this work better. We’re sending vaccine refrigerators powered by solar panels to health clinics in Liberia and solarizing a hospital in Congo. We’re doing energy studies on health clinics in West Africa. We’re looking at strategies for displacing diesel generators with renewable energy in many contexts where we work. We’re doing the work in our own office as well, with basics like making sure the thermostats are set at the most energy efficient levels possible. And we’re discerning how to measure our current emissions across ministries so we can evaluate our efforts to reduce them.

Scripture suggests that our consumption drives people out of the garden and away from God. Science confirms that it leads to wailing and gnashing of teeth. Ensures hardship through Heat. Drought. Fire. Floods. Super storms. Forced migration. For many vulnerable communities, life as they knew it is already over. If the way we respond to need undermines the flourishing of God’s creation, then we are simply contributing to the suffering we are trying to alleviate. We must do ministry in ways that ensure the impact of the short term good we are doing is actually greater than the footprint we leave behind.

 

I can’t help but read in the Parable of the Talents that even a commitment to net-zero emissions isn’t enough. It’s simply maintaining the status quo. Jesus would have us ensure that not only do we maintain the resources with which God has entrusted us, but also ensure that they flourish. Not simply stop harming God’s creation, but also start restoring it. 

 

What would it look like for The United Methodist Church to be a leader in the restoration and flourishing of God’s creation? Perhaps our churches would look more like a new building that recently opened at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The Kendeda Building for Innovative and Sustainable Design at Georgia Tech was certified as a Living Building this week. This means that it is a regenerative building. With emissions that are less than zero. It doesn’t just harm the environment, it also contributes to its health. It generates excess energy and drinking water for use on other parts of the campus. It is at least 60% more energy efficient than comparable campus buildings. The project included habitat restoration. The property grows food and native plants and is home to honeybees. Friends, these are strategies we can incorporate into our buildings, our properties, our mission and ministries. 

 

What creation most needs from Christians right now is for us to figure out how to tolerate the horrible discomfort that comes with recognizing our brokenness and the ways it has become institutionalized in systems that fail to account for the costs of waste and pollution and destruction. Because it’s only when we can tolerate looking directly at our hypocrisies and our failings that we can confess, repent and call for the collective social, economic and political change that the world needs in order to move toward sustainability.

The change must be systemic. While examples of individual eco-heroism and creation-friendly initiatives abound, formal and informal structures of the church--even the local church--exhibit eco-recklessness at every level. It is reckless for churches to dump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere through their facilities and operations and ministries without taking action to sequester or offset those emissions because they exacerbate SO MUCH SUFFERING. 

 

Look. I know we don’t mean to cause harm. And I know that acknowledging the harm is upsetting and overwhelming. But starting to tell the truth about it is actually kind of liberating. And when you start to look at strategies for making your operations and ministries efficient and regenerative, it’s pretty exciting. 

 

The practices that lead to change are going to look different for everyone. You’ve got to look at the ways in which you’re investing your resources--your time, your energy, your money, your wisdom, your spirit--into helping the world flourish. And you’ve got to look at the ways in which your investments are causing grave harm to God’s creation and consider how new ways of doing ministry can contribute to justice for all God’s people and all of God’s creation. 

This Earth Day Sunday, I ask you to pray for our agencies and support us as we begin this systemic change. And I ask that you begin to consider ways in which Foundry could do even more than you already do to express your commitment to justice, wholeness and flourishing for all God’s people AND all God’s creation. I’m excited for your kids Earth Day totes and I’m excited for your Going Green program. I also believe that you have it in you to do much more. I believe Foundry can be a church that ensures the flourishing of the resources with which it has been entrusted. Not just mitigating harm but cultivating life. That you can be a church to whom the Great Landowner says, Well Done! You are good and faithful workers! Come and share in my joy.

https://foundryumc.org/

 

Have you anything here to eat? - April 18th, 2021

Have you anything here to eat?

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, April 18, 2021, Third Sunday of Easter, “Give Me A Word” series.

            Text: Luke 24:36a-48

“The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.” This line from Native American poet, Joy Harjo, came to mind as I pondered Jesus’ question in our text today: “Have you anything here to eat?” As a member of my Bible Study said this week, these words are so wonderfully human. 

The Jesus we meet today has been through so much—life, friendship, struggle, suffering, death on the cross, time in the tomb, and resurrection. He has walked the seven mile stretch from Jerusalem to Emmaus and shared a meal with some disciples who only recognize him when they’ve all sat down at the table to share a meal. 

Jesus promptly disappears from that table—and while off camera—he appears to Simon Peter. (Lk 24:34) And then, in our text today, Jesus shows up among the disciples in Jerusalem who are busy sharing stories of these encounters.

They were literally talking about having seen Jesus alive and yet, in this moment, they still can’t perceive who is with them. There might be any number of reasons for this—things happening too fast, emotional whiplash, being caught by surprise, seeing someone you’re not expecting in a time or place or way that is out of the ordinary… But whatever the case, Jesus makes very clear that he is really there, no mere apparition. He’s there in the flesh. Just as in the story last week from John, Jesus invites them to see and to touch the wounds in his flesh. And, oh, by the way, do y’all have anything around here to eat? 

Evidently, ushering in a whole new world makes a person hungry! Or perhaps, in his wisdom, Jesus realizes that, as in Emmaus, the way to open eyes and minds is to share a meal together. Isn’t this also wonderfully human? Not only sharing a meal with others, but talking about food helps us know and understand one another in deep ways. It opens up conversations about culture and values and family rituals. Who has the best BBQ? What is appropriately applied to grits? Where can you find the best tamales or dim sum or bulgogi or fried chicken or jollof rice or palm butter? Is lettuce technically “food?” Food is so elemental and formational in our lives. In so many ways “the world begins at a kitchen table”—or its cultural equivalent. Jesus did, in fact, show up at table after table and showed how to make a feast for thousands out of a bagged lunch. Food is key. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to hear Jesus ask, “Have you anything here to eat?”

It’s the question that sticks out of the story in a way that I can’t help but believe is intentional. It seems that resurrection life is not only a head trip or a spiritual experience in some disembodied way. It seems that resurrection life is not something that is experienced only in the hereafter when we have shaken off “this mortal coil.” We so often think of resurrection as only about what happens after physical death. And certainly the life with God and loved ones that awaits and the assurance that we need not be afraid of death are beautiful parts of the resurrection promise.

Yet in our story today Jesus reveals that resurrection life is also experienced in this world and is connected to bodies, to the needs of bodies, to the human lives and everyday concerns of bodies. Flesh and bone need care, need food. Consistently, the Jesus revealed in Luke is clear that the hunger and thirst in the world is not for righteousness, sustenance, and peace only in the next life but for those good gifts in this one. 

Remember it’s in Luke where we find Jesus’s first recorded sermon. He took as his text the words of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
        to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
        to let the oppressed go free,

 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Lk 4:18-19)

//  Please understand, I know Jesus said that thing in the wilderness about how “One does not live by bread alone.” (Lk 4:4) (I often debate Jesus on this point. I’m with Oprah. I love bread.) I am not suggesting that resurrection is only a physical experience. I’m simply amplifying the author of Luke who clearly stresses that God not only has the power to bring new life into this created world and into our own very human lives but is determined to use it.

And this resurrection power—the recreative power of God’s love—is at work in Jesus from the beginning. It’s there in his first sermon proclaiming fulfillment of liberation for the oppressed and restoration of health and economic justice—new life! Resurrection power is at work every time Jesus noticed the ones that others ignored, listened to the ones others shut down, welcomed the ones that others excluded, received the care of the ones others denied, touched the ones others avoided, ate with the ones others called “sinners.” Resurrection power—life-giving power—new creation power—was at work in Jesus’s life on both sides of the grave. 

We tend to focus on how what we do in this life will get us our resurrection ticket. Jesus encourages us to focus on how what is freely given in the resurrection affects what we do in this life. Notice that in our text Jesus doesn’t speak to the disciples about their life beyond the created world, but gives direction for their witness in the created world. 

Jesus reminds them of what he has said and what they have witnessed: 

They were there for the whole story—they experienced Jesus’s love and grace and wisdom and healing power. And they saw Jesus die a martyr’s death, an innocent victim of state violence. They know what happened. Jesus didn’t run. Didn’t get angry. Didn’t resist arrest. He turned toward those who’d decided he was the enemy with open hands and arms outstretched. He had truly done nothing wrong and, in solidarity and in peace he suffered the blows that the poor, oppressed, and victimized have suffered since the beginning. 

And now he stands before them again, a hungry, wounded savior asking, “What do you have here that will care for my body?” And in this, Jesus gently guides his disciples, then and now, toward caring for every hungry, wounded, victimized, oppressed body. Let this be your witness. Let this be part of your proclamation of “repentance and forgiveness of sins” (24:47)… Because the world failed Jesus. We didn’t get it right. But God’s unfailing love and the sacred resistance that is God’s refusal to abandon us, God’s stubborn belief in our capacity to change—is what Jesus confirms when he shows up on the far side of the tomb. We’ve been forgiven our failure and are invited to repent—to do it differently now, to change. 

Again and again, we are offered this grace, we are freely offered the broken body of Jesus… to perceive, to receive. If we are faithful, we will be witnesses not just to the story of Jesus, but also to the ongoing realities in our world for which we need to repent, the places of struggle, suffering, and pain our living Lord calls us to address with love and courage. In perceiving and receiving the risen, wounded Jesus, allow your hearts to be broken open so that love pours forth in concrete new-life making ways: nourishing food, accessible healthcare, safe working conditions, living wages, restorative justice, and dignity and care for bodies of all kinds. Suffering, hungry, wounded, neglected bodies all around us come asking, “Have you anything here to eat?”

This past week, police killed 20 year old Daunte Wright and 13 year old Adam Toledo while the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd, is underway. I cannot help but perceive Daunte, Adam, George, Breonna, Sandra, Ahmaud, Tamir, and a host of other victims of violences of every kind appearing among the disciples of Jesus and saying, “Look at me. Touch my wounds. Do you have anything here that can care for my body? Do you have anything that can give my body life? Can you do better next time?” The resurrection reveals to us more than a future promise for ourselves, it reveals to us a present call to healing, feeding, and justice.

Today we encounter the risen Jesus who extends to us love and friendship and mercy, who embodies the promise that God’s love is stronger than sin and death and who gives us this word for our contemplation and action: Do you have anything here to eat? 

Consider: another chance, new vision, new possibility, new freedom, new hope, a whole new world begins at a table with Jesus. Joy Harjo’s poem is not, as far as I know, meant to describe this particular table. But that’s what I receive when she says:

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

May the world end as we now know it…while we eat together and discover the whole new world God’s always had in store…

https://foundryumc.org/

So That You May Have Life - April 11th, 2021

So That You May Have Life

John 20:19-31

Will Ed Green—Sunday, April 11th, 2021—Foundry United Methodist Church

Good morning, friends. My name is Will Ed Green, and I serve as one of Foundry’s Associate Pastors and our Director of Discipleship. As we move into a time of reflecting on Scripture together we are so glad you’re with us. For those of you who are just tuning in, you’ll find links for fully engaging in our service in our Facebook and YouTube comments or on our website www.foundryumc.org. If you are in need ASL interpretation, we invite you to join us at www.foundryumc.org/asl.

So I want to begin this morning by talking about the “Apophthegmata Patrum,”—no, that wasn’t a sneeze, I said “apophtegmata patrum.” They are the recorded sayings of a group of monks and nuns known as the Desert Mothers and Fathers. They lived in caves, mud huts, and even holes they dug in the ground in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine; sometimes in small communities but, more often than not, alone. There, in the desert, with the busyness of life and the clutter of consumption cleared away, they embarked upon a bold endeavor: through prayer and contemplation, to live more humanely, to become—in modeling their life after Jesus—more human, and thus to become truly alive in the love of God.

The “Apophthegmata”are snippets of stories and parables—preserved from the their own self-reflection, or offered to their disciples and visitors, that often begin with the question: “Amma, Abba, give me a word.”

Their responses are not theological treatises or Christian self-help one-liners. They are plain and practical; unconcerned with right belief or theology and focused on matters of the heart. This simple wisdom cleaves performative spirituality and self-righteous theology from the practical matters of daily discipleship.  And because of this, they force us to address the ways what we profess is actually transforming our hearts and lives. Something John Wesley might have called “personal holiness” or “sanctification.”

During these Great 50 Days—or the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost—our new sermon series invites us, like the Desert Mothers and Fathers, to focus our attention on the work of being and becoming alive. To receive in the fullness of its power the hope of the resurrection we proclaim. To embody, not just in right belief, but in the daily rhythms of our lives the freedom and abundance of life available when we live as those who believe that Jesus IS risen.

So now, as we turn to the words of the Living Word, Jesus, and ask of them as those who traveled to the desert so long ago: “Give us a word” let us pray:

Order our lives in your Word, O God, that everything we do may bear witness to your resurrection life.  Order our words in YOUR word, O God, that everything we say may bring life into a worry-weary world desperately in need of hope. Breathe the anointing of your Holy Spirit upon all those in the sound of my voice, that in this sacred space we now share together we might be transformed by your Living Word, and in that transformation might take our place in kin-dom work to which you’ve called us. And now may the words of this preacher, faulty and fleeting though they may be, fade into the background of the Word which you would have us receive this day. Amen.

I want to begin this morning by acknowledging  that is a sermon about Jesus’ body and our bodies and the way they experience and express trauma. There may be moments when previous experiences of your own trauma rise to conscious awareness, so pay attention to your body. If you find yourself feeling anxious step away or pause and take a break, please know that’s ok.

Today’s reading begins with the disciples in the throes of collective trauma. Their doors are barred in fear of what terror may yet occur. Just days before they witnessed their rabbi ruthlessly murdered, were denied by the disappearance of his body the familiar rhythms and rituals of mourning, and are certainly still trying to make sense of his promised resurrection in light of all these things.

Suddenly, a surprisingly fleshy Jesus—given the doors to this kiki are locked tight—appears in the midst of their uncertainty, fear, and doubt. Showing his wounds. Speaking of peace. Breathing upon them. And it’s the revelation of his resurrected and scarred body—the text tells us—through which they see and know him for who he is, finally able to rejoice.

But Thomas isn’t there to see the wounds and recognize the resurrection. And when told of what happened he insists that his belief will come only when he’s able to touch the wounds, feel the scars, and grasp hold of this body which held the trauma they’d all shared.

When Thomas arrives, we’re not told whether or not he actually digs his hand into Jesus’ wounds, but it’s clear he’s given the chance to. And in this moment of direct confrontation with embodied sorrow and suffering—not just Jesus’ own, but that of the community who loved him— Thomas proclaims, “My Lord and My God,” finally able to see through those wounds the full promise of God’s resurrection power.

John’s Gospel is the only one that makes the wounds of the resurrected Jesus central to the story, mixing the past pain and trauma of the crucifixion with the present rejoicing in and hope for resurrection. I find it fascinating that these encounters are precipitated by recognition of Jesus’ wounds. It’s not his miraculous appearance among them, not his face or voice, but his wounds that confirm his identity.  John’s Jesus isn’t a face-tuned, blemish-less, social media ready Savior fresh off a few days of rejuvenating rest in the tomb, but one who bears the marks of the cross and yet lives.

Over the centuries we’ve conveniently made this a story about Thomas’s doubt. We love the image of one who must root around in the wounds of Jesus to achieve satisfaction—perhaps because we feel the need to excuse our own doubt or to satisfy ourselves with the thought that at least we’ve got more faith than THAT. But this reading also provides a convenient way to ignore the confronting an uncomfortable truth: resurrection doesn’t guarantee instantaneous healing. When the story is more about Thomas’ spiritual faults than wounds he insists on touching, we get to ignore that that resurrected Jesus still bears the marks of the tomb. The life he offers isn’t one in which our past trauma and sorrow is expunged. Instead, John’s resurrection body forces us to confront how they inform and are part of life. Healing cannot be separated from suffering. Resurrection cannot be separated from death.

Let me pause and be clear here: this is not a sermon about redemptive suffering. As a pastor I wholeheartedly reject the idea that suffering is a somehow necessary part of the way we grow in faith or love of God and one another. This is bad theology—no tea, no shade, Paul…but maybe a little. And it’s the root of so many excuses for the continued mass incarceration, torture, and violence perpetuated against our black and brown siblings, too often one which traps women in cycles of abuse and neglect in the name of  “faithfulness,” and is regularly used against my queer siblings as they are subjected to theologies of self-loathing and the horrors of conversion therapy.

But willingness to erase Jesus’ wounds and focus solely on Thomas’s doubt is dangerous. The wounds, and the pain they embody, can’t be overlooked. Far too many people are taught a theology of comparative suffering, where ‘good Christians’ are taught to minimize their suffering—or the suffering of others— because clearly other people have it worse than “you.” We are taught that our doubt, disbelief, heartache and hurt are an expression of faithlessness in God, that these don’t get to exist in tandem with life in a post-Easter world.

Recent developments in psychobiology have given us a deeper understanding of how trauma impacts our brains and bodies. By trauma, I mean any experience which causes acute anxiety, fear, rage, or grief and that activates our desire to “fight or flee”. When this happens, a part of our brain, sometimes called the “lizard brain.” kicks into gear.  This ancient, built-in defense mechanism is tied directly our primary life systems, and can activate them before we consciously pick up on a threat. All of us, I’m sure, can remember moments of acute distress when our heart was pounding out of our chest, our breathing shallow, our palms sweaty, or our stomachs churning.

Evolutionarily, these responses are meant to keep us alive until we can escape and process our experience. But what happens, when like the disciples, we encounter grief we can’t process or explain. A tomb left empty, holding more questions than answers. Night after night spent with the door tightly barred with no end to the threat in sight?

Significant or repeated experiences of trauma, as author Bessel van der Kolk writes in “The Body Keeps the Score,” alter our perception of reality. We get stuck in the lizard brains, constantly reacting to something which our conscious brain might otherwise recognize as innocuous or inane.  Phrases like “Per my previous email” or “Can we talk?” can send us into fits of rage.  News notifications or unexpected phone calls can leave us panicked and breathless.

Left unchecked, these trauma wounds impact nearly every aspect of our lives. We become stuck in cycles of self-sabotage; often in trying to prevent the threat of future trauma, inadvertently causing the very thing we fear.  In real moments of panic or danger, we become unable to distinguish those who want to help from those trying to cause harm, leaving us isolated and suspicious.

These repeated trauma reactions build a new kind of knowledge in our bodies, changing the way we exist in and share space with others. Toxic anxiety—or prolonged periods of unabated anxiety—can kill us. Over time, our lizard brain’s over activation of our bodily systems can cause us to gain weight, makes hearts and arteries age abnormally, or our immune systems fail. We brains become so accustomed to our anxiety or the threat of trauma that we unconsciously create a world in which we constantly feel or create it because it’s the only way we know how to live.  One study comparing patients with untreated or significant past trauma to those without it, found that the brains of persons with PTSD literally shut down areas which control and help us define our sense of self in proximity to others. In an effort to erase their experience of trauma, our brains adapt, shutting off the parts of our brain that help us know perceive the world around us and know ourselves outside of our anxiety or fear of future pain or grief.

          It’s no wonder it took Jesus miraculously appearing in their midst and revealing his wounds, rather than the words of Mary who encountered him just before, to recognize him. And that was just three days later. Thomas spent another week—another week!—living in that terror and fear. Jesus wasn’t the only one wounded in the story. He was just the only one who’s wounds we see.

If you’ve ever read J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, you might remember that goblins are sneaky, burrowing creatures who are terrified of light. Under the cover of darkness however, they leave their caves to wreak havoc and violence on unsuspecting victims, pillaging and plundering everything they can take. I have this image of our unnamed, un-healed trauma operating a little like these goblins. Our trauma goblins burrow just beneath the surface of our conscious awarenness and, hidden by our fear and shame about facing them, co-opt and corrupt our ability to distinguish between despair and hope, life and death, friend and foe. Left unchecked, they impact everyone around us. They change our ability to listen and respond to others. Our capacity to trust and show up authentically, to love and take worthwhile risks. They pillage the wealth of our relationships, our good intentions, and giftedness and in their wake often cause lasting harm to those we love..

But much  like Tolkein’s goblins are terrified of light, of being seen, our trauma goblins lose their agency over us when exposed to the light of conscious awareness. Trauma therapists now understand that the long-term trauma can only be dealt with in our bodies. Employing a variety of mind-body techniques like deep breathing, massage, yoga, and meditation allows survivors of long-term trauma and toxic anxiety to begin to understand how their trauma impacts their bodies, and through their bodies to begin learning what it means to regain control of their lives. By addressing the often-unconscious ways our anxiety and trauma is manifested in our bodies, we’re able to break its control over us.

Perhaps this is why it took the wounded AND resurrected body of Christ to break the the coopting cycle of the disciples’ anxiety, fear, and self-doubt. Breathing new life and strength into bodies weary from trauma that never seems to end. Showing the wounds in all their pain and the promise that that there was yet life beyond them. And when that trauma misshaped and Mal-informed Thomas’s perception of himself and others, Jesus extended his hands, wounds and all, without reproach or shame, allowing Thomas to touch the source of his pain so that he might be free to live beyond its control.

In her book Resurrecting Wounds, Shelley Rambo writes:

“The truth of the resurrection conveyed through the symbols of [Jesus’] scars is that these textures (grief and joy, pain and pleasure) will always be present in life, often simultaneously. Interlaced with joy and pain, a life can be marked as holy even in all this ambiguity.”

Jesus shows us how gentle acknowledgment and awareness of our trauma helps us recognize that God is present both in suffering and healing, in doubt and belief; liberating us from the lie that our past trauma and present wounded-ness is all there is to our story. The wounded and resurrected savior bears witness to the real resurrection promise: not that we will always be ok, or skate past suffering in life through slights of hand like comparative suffering, not some glorified, resurrected future free of all our past trauma and grief, but the freedom to see written in our marks our past trauma leaves that while life guarantees suffering and loss, God guarantees life despite of and beyond it.

Social worker and author Resmaa Menakem notes in his book on racial trauma in America “My Grandmother’s Hands” that, “…we tend to think of healing as something binary: either we’re broken or we’re healed from that brokenness…but healing from trauma occurs [over a long time and] on a continuum.” If Thomas teaches us nothing else, he shows us that we do not need to be embarrassed or controlled our past traumas. His reach teaches us how to reject the temptations of comparative suffering, and gives us permission to be okay not being ok. To doubt. To be a hot mess express. His recognition and acclamation of the resurrection shows us that by naming our wounds they lose the power to define our experience of others and the world. In honoring our wounds,  in refusing to defer or delay our recognition of trauma, we bring into focus a reality too often denied by binary models of healing: that we can be both hurt and healing, broken and being made whole, in the tomb and yet returning to life.In that way, his demand to confront the wounds, to run his fingers over the still-fresh scars of the cruxifixion isn’t an act of doubt. But an experience of his own resurrection. And while Thomas may, in fact, offer us a lesson on doubt, he’s also showing us what it means, in light of the resurrection, to be and become alive.

On my hands is a roadmap of my past only I can read. Here a deep scar, left when a frantic dash out the door pulled artwork off the wall that bit back. There an almost invisible pockmark from chicken pox long healed. Joints left crooked after broken bones, callouses left from picking up heavy things. They may not be pretty, but all those marks and scars on my hands remind me—in all their beauty and brokenness—despite it all I am still alive.

Pentecost will mark the 19th anniversary of the first time I ever preached and publicly acknowledged my call to ministry. It will also mark the beginning of a profound and painful internal struggle with my God-given identity as a gay man and the ordination process of a church which actively told me that identity was incompatible with Christian teaching. There’ve been plenty of wounds along the way. Having to leave my home and family behind in order to be ordained in the church I felt called to. Living in fear of what would happen if a picture of my partner and I got posted on the wrong account or parishioners encountered me holding hands on a first date. Hiding my identity from my colleagues for fear it might be used against me in a court of…well, church law.

Much like looking at my hands reminds me I'm still alive, every day I choose to name them, acknowledge, touch and know them reminds me that it’s ok that  I am healed and still healing. I am broken and almost being made whole. And that I am, in the words of that old Charles Wesley hymn, despite it all, yet alive.  The Abbas and Ammas of the desert often remark on the way has a funny way of entering in through the wounds we bear and slowly, imperceptibly, beginning the work of healing. And though I’m not sure I’ll ever stop fighting those old trauma goblins, God’s grace—new each day—gives me fresh hope that they don’t have to define what comes next.

I know I don’t need to enumerate for you all the ways that we are these days, individually and collectively holding and bearing witness to trauma. But I do know that it’s okay to hold doubt in one hand and hope in the other. That in the light of the resurrection your scars and wounds aren’t proof of your failure or lack of capacity or worthlessness. No, they are proof you’re a badass. You can do and survive hard things. You already survived the worst moments of your lives. No one else has ever done that. No one else could.

Best of all, I know that in the midst of all the trauma past, and all the trauma to come, we are accompanied by a Savior who’s love allows us the grace and space to know that—no matter how broken or wounded we may be—we are loved. And meets us in moments when they in all their death-dealing power threaten to overwhelm or overcome us with open arms, proclaiming peace and promising though our scars may remind us of where we’ve been, and what we’ve been through, they may inform but don’t have to dictate what comes next. I think that may be what it means to become in alive in God’s love. And, for now, at least for me, that’s resurrection enough.

https://foundryumc.org/

Sing a New Song - Easter Sunday April 4th, 2021

Sing a New Song

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, April 4, 2021, Easter Sunday, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

                Text: Mark 16:1-8

Early yesterday morning, as I climbed the stair to my writing chair, the light of a waning moon shining brightly, a single, solitary bird’s voice sang: sing it out, sing it out, sing it out, will you? The melody is familiar, though one I’ve missed. It hibernates, or migrates—I don’t know birdsongs well enough to know which bird was belting out her bright song in the dark—but it appears this time of year, a herald of spring in its fullness, announcing a new moment, a passage from one season to another.

This image reflects my experience through this year of pandemic, singing my song in a defiant, determined commitment to hope in a new moment, new life—all the while, surrounded by the night and shadows, within and without. It may come as a surprise to some, but my cynicism can be as sharp as any. I call my cynicism Shirley (not referencing anyone except the play on words: as in, “surely, you don’t believe that.”) And with each new reflection gone viral on the interwebs early in the pandemic about how we were going to come out of this thing renewed, changed, chastened, wiser and better, I found myself in a near-constant dialogue with Shirley. She really is a broken record of “don’t get your hopes up” ditties. On days when I’m caught between my hope-filled, prophetic self and my Shirley self, I simply flip on autopilot, put up buffers and compartmentalization systems for grief, uncertainty, and trauma, and try to just get through this thing unscathed and doing as little damage as possible.

With each new challenge, each new loss, assault, tragic headline, new number of cases, deaths, shootings, each new instance of injustice over the past year…with each new revelation of how truly broken things are in our lives and relationships and churches and institutions and nations and world, whether I’m in “God’s up to something good,” “we’re doomed,” or “put your head down and get through it” mode I still root about trying to discover what Spirit wants to share. It’s kind of a habit. This past year, a consistent theme is summed up in John Wesley’s last words: “Best of all is, God is with us.”

Some may roll their eyes at so simple a statement, because, after all, what difference does it make for God to be with us when things continue to be so jacked up? Shirley asks that question on the regular, joining the chorus of the Israelites in the desert who complained saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” (Numbers 21:5) Shirley sings alto in the chorus of the disciples who woke Jesus from his sleep on the boat in the storm yelling, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mk 4:38) And she would have wondered the same thing as the Marys and Salome that early morning in the cemetery—“Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (we’re probably on our own!)

Of course, in each of those jacked up moments of wilderness, storm, and the heaviness of death, God was there, leading out of slavery, providing manna and wellspring waters from a rock, soothing the storm with a word, and rolling the stone away so that life might emerge. That’s the story we tell, anyway. Are you buying it? 

Casey Gerald, in his beautiful, painful, artful memoir, There Will Be No Miracles Here (a book I read at some unidentifiable moment in the haze of the COVID pandemic) shares this:

It’s hard enough to get used to a crappy life. But once you do, you see that even crap can be cozy and the coziness becomes important to you. And even the slightest change—in the name of progress or healing or uplift—feels like a threat to your existence, so you ignore it as long as you can…The story has to change, you see, and that’s not only a great deal of work to undertake, but also a real risk, as the new story might not be as marvelous as the old sad one. But the greatest risk [is] hope.” 

It’s not just whether we will believe the stories of God in scripture, but whether we will believe God is anywhere at all. Gerald confesses that his journey led him not to hopelessness, but to “anti-hope.” He writes:

This anti-hope seems to be in vogue, mind you, especially amongst those who consider themselves too brilliant or too secular to believe in silly things like unicorns and hope and God. They say that anti-hope is the natural order of things, that the most obvious stance for the man and woman of reason is the stance of Cool Customer, leaning against the wall of the world while the moral arc of the universe bends down to crush them, as it must.

In any moment of life, we have choices to make about how we will receive and be in the moment, what we will believe about the moment. The oppressive powers of the world want us to believe that every moment is dog-eat-dog, want us to think that hope is for the weak, that crushing others or being crushed by life is inevitable. That the old story is all there is. That people will never learn and that we ourselves are forever stuck. These are the powers of death and control and fear. Choosing to acquiesce will have predictable consequences.

The alternative is to choose even the tiniest bit of openness to the assertion of “God with us,” openness to Spirit’s movement deep down in all things, through all things, under and within our own skin—even when all things appear despairingly broken. 

You may find it ironic that I would focus on “God with us” when, in the Easter story from Mark we received today, Jesus is nowhere to be found. No appearance, no comforting word from the risen Christ. And even the commissioning of the women by the mystery man in white doesn’t lead to the first announcement of Jesus’ resurrection. There is only alarm, terror, amazement, and fear.

Most scholars agree that this is where the original text of Mark ended—fleeing in fear without any assurance that the message given the women was true. And, as much as I love getting to make an Easter quip about women being the first preachers, I also really appreciate this version of the story that leaves all of us standing together at the edge of life and death and new life with nothing but a promise of an unseen Christ beckoning us to follow into uncertainty, daring us to carry on without easy and quick comfort, calling us to grapple with our own fear of something that is truly new and unexpected, encouraging us to come to terms with whether or not we will believe that something so wonderful as resurrection is possible, and whether we will welcome it when it happens.

Casey Gerald tells this story:

[There’s] a village that I heard of not too long ago. The village, somewhere in France, sometime in the seventeenth century, became the site of frequent miracles, according to the peasants there, who were so struck by symptoms of the supernatural that they put down their plows. This, of course, [ticked] off the local officials. They tried to reason with the peasants, to quell the mass hysteria, to no avail. At last, the officials sought an intervention from the highest power in the land, who sent them back with a sign. An actual sign, which was erected in the village square for all to see. It read:

THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE

BY ORDER OF THE KING

Isn’t this the way things go since forever? The proverbial “kings” of the world pass orders and laws, write books and reviews, create budgets, make rulings, and build structures, all the while thinking that they have the power and authority to control the people of God, the movement of God, the freedom of God: “NO MIRACLES HERE!” And, more often than most of us care to admit, they get away with it. Because, after all, human desire, overwhelmingly, is to leave things exactly the way they are. 

We can all talk a big game about hope and new life, but as soon as something really new, a bona fide change gets underway, people race out to buy their yard signs in support of the king: “No miracles here!” The body isn’t where it’s supposed to be! Who voted on movement of the body? Who said that the mystery man could be in the empty tomb? Did Jesus sign off on that before he died? Who ordered a resurrection anyway? There’s no protocol for this and we don’t know what to do. This new situation is not the way we do things around here! So let’s bring the dead body back stat and restore things to the way they’re supposed to be.

Oh, it is tempting to want to stay in the old, familiar ways… We love a new thing as long as it has a perceivable, measurable, reasonable explanation and doesn’t make us uncomfortable. We long for a new life as long as no sacrifice is required of us. We advocate for justice as long as it doesn’t mean that we have to foot the bill. Familiar death is so often more preferable to us than disruptive, costly newness.

And yet that’s not all that is within and among us. If it was, Amanda Gorman’s words wouldn’t have emanated from the podium with such soul-stirring electricity:

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true,
that even as we grieved, we grew,
that even as we hurt, we hoped,
that even as we tired, we tried,
that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat,
but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time,
then victory won’t lie in the blade.
But in all the bridges we’ve made…

In truth, these words are simply a powerful, of-the-now remix of the old vision, the dream of Rev. Dr. King assassinated this day 53 years ago, the dream of Micah and Isaiah, the dream of Mary and her son Jesus, our resurrected Lord. 

Will we continue to defer the dream? My inner Shirley is only so sharp and persistent because she’s trying to help me keep from being hurt and disappointed, she knows that some people in the world have no interest in new things, they want to keep the old, broken, hurtful, hateful things—want to keep ALL the fig trees and vines for themselves and pay less than living wages for others to tend them. Shirley also knows the small and wishful thinking that I sometimes try to pass off as faith and hope to myself.

But as much as I may falter and as much as the powers that be may try, no one gets to forbid miracles, no one gets to control new life, no one gets to kill the dream, no one gets to cancel Easter—not with a sign, not with a virus, not with a cynical eye-roll or self-satisfied smirk or fearful, hateful policy or a noose or a gun or a cross. Today we praise God because Jesus has been set free, let loose, is out in the world, risen, shiny, new—bearing the scars and having sung the laments of this life—but alive and with us—all day long and the whole night through. And where Christ is, miracles happen. Anything is possible…We will get through this. Things can be different and better. We can be different and better. The dream doesn’t have to be deferred forever.

And we stand together at the edge of life, death, and new life and have to choose. Gerald says, “I have a radio. It picks up only two stations: Life and Death. I turn the death off, now that I know the sound.”

What station will you play? What song will you sing even when it is still night and difficult to see? Why not sing together the new song already, eternally begun, the dream of poets and prophets from the beginning, recently sung in Amanda’s key? 

…our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful.
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid,
the new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Sing it out, sing it out, sing it out! Will you? Alleluia!

https://foundryumc.org/