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Foundry is an historic, progressive United Methodist Church that welcomes all, worships passionately, challenges the status quo, & seeks to transform the world.
Episodes
Monday Aug 17, 2020
Monday Aug 17, 2020
A sermon preached by Rev. Ben Roberts for Foundry UMC August 16th,
2020. “Close Encounters with the Living God” series.
Monday Aug 10, 2020
Monday Aug 10, 2020
Grappling with God
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC August 9, 2020, tenth Sunday after Pentecost. “Close Encounters with the Living God” series.
Text: Genesis 32:22-31
It’s a scene tailor-made for a movie script or a budding psychoanalyst’s dissertation. The archetypes are stacked one upon another—estranged twin brothers who have different ways of being in the world; a shadowy antagonist; a struggle alongside a river crossing with foreboding heavy on both sides; the thin place that exists in the hours just as day is breaking.
Jacob is at the center of this scene. Over the centuries, he’s become a kind of stock character, a trickster, a hustler—his name is translated “he supplants” or “heel”—for he was born holding the heel of his twin brother Esau. From the beginning of his life he’s engaged in one kind of struggle after another, working angles, trying to get ahead. And he always seems to come out smelling like a rose, always one step ahead of danger. But on this night, Jacob knows that his life may have finally caught up in a way that could be the death of him.
You see, at God’s leading (Gen 31:3), after around 20 years away, Jacob is heading back home after some trouble with his father in law. His brother Esau, still living in their hometown, vowed to kill Jacob back in the day for taking his birthright and his blessing. Jacob sends word to his brother that he’s coming, that he’s done alright for himself, and hopes that they can, you know, make up (Gen 32:3-5). The response is swift: Esau is on the march to meet Jacob with four hundred men. Cue the ominous orchestral theme… Jacob does several things at this point. He prays to God, humbly but directly—“I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown” (32:10)—“I am afraid of him…” (and then, in case God forgot) “Yet you have said ‘I will surely do you good…’” (32:11-12) He sends gifts ahead to try to appease his brother. And he sends his wives and children ahead of him as well, never knowing if he’ll see any of them again.
Jacob has done everything he can, worked the only angles he’s got, he’s prayed, he’s planned, he’s gifted. And now he is alone.
Imagine Jacob, afraid and knowing he may die, reflecting upon his life… The way he came into the world holding on to his brother. The way that relationship got twisted—in part through the actions of their parents. How Jacob developed his own strengths of quick wit and cleverness, so different from his brother’s strength in the hunt and the fields. How he had gone through an elaborate ruse to try to be like his brother so that he might receive blessing from his father. How, in the process, he hurt his brother and humiliated his father and was forced to leave home and his mother’s fierce love and protection. I imagine Jacob remembering all the highs and lows of love and marriage, the complications with Leah and Rachel, and with his father in law, Laban. He might also have played back the dreams and visions he’d been given, images of his children’s faces, the beauty and bounty he’d experienced…as well as all he’d said and done that was unkind, unjust, deceitful and hurtful. I imagine Jacob looking back over his life with gratitude and regret and guilt and fear and hope all tumbling over his mind like a creek flowing over rocks.
And when night fell the wrestling began…
Can you relate? Ever found yourself awake in the wee hours of night in a kind of wrestling match in your mind and heart? Your story won’t include the details of Jacob’s life. But who among us doesn’t grapple with fear? Who among us doesn’t carry things from childhood forward that we are bound to run into on our life’s journey? Who among us is without the marks of our parental or sibling relationships on our psyches? We have all made decisions that led us down one path or another, sometimes into danger and regret and other times into freedom and joy. There are different energies within us, like twins who have different gifts and strengths, all deserving nurture and love—but often it’s difficult to honor it all and hold these energies together with any sense of wholeness. What have you done in order to try to get love? What have you sacrificed in order to try to earn the blessing you crave? Who have you been willing to hurt in order to gain wealth or comfort or pleasure? What losses have you suffered that are yet uncared for, what wounds are untended? What are you proud of in your life and what would you give anything to do over?...
When we are alone, when it is clear we are vulnerable, that things are going to be different one way or another, that we must confront the reality of our life—all our history, our personality, our gifts, our mistakes, our strengths, our woundedness, all our complications—in those moments, there is struggle. There is wrestling.
That’s what happened with Jacob. Is he fighting with himself (like Luke Skywalker in the cave)? Is it a demon? An angel? Is it God? The struggle is intense and it leaves Jacob limping. But he holds on. He holds on even when the man tells him to let go. He holds on even when he doesn’t have a clue who he’s wrestling. He holds on when it seems it would have been a big relief to let the mystery assailant go on his merry way. But Jacob would not let go. And it is here that the story turns.
You can characterize Jacob in all sorts of ways. But the thing that seems consistent throughout his story is that he is determined to fight for the life he longs for. And he’s not afraid to ask for the blessing that he needs. “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The response to Jacob is simple: “What is your name?”
All Jacob has is the name he was given, “Jacob”—the supplanter, the usurper, the “heel.” In speaking his name, Jacob makes a kind of confession, an admission of the mix and mess and striving of his life. Here I am, alone—no “Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham.” Just Jacob. And this one with whom Jacob has been wrestling has something to say to that. “That name, that narrative, is not all of who you are. All the striving of your life—the struggle with humans, with yourself, and with me has led you to this moment. And when you cross the river, when you pass into this new day dawning, when you leave this place walking differently as a result of your hip, I will call you Israel.” Jacob asks the man’s name. And the implication is beginning to get clear—this is God! And God asks, “Do you really need to ask my name?” There God blessed Jacob/Israel. I wonder whether the whole encounter was the blessing, this close encounter with the living God…
What does Jacob’s grappling with self, others, and God teach us about our own?
If Jacob’s story is any indication, we learn that the whole of our lives is held in God—the painful bits and the joyful surprises and the tensions and the triumphs. God is always at work for good—not just in the world around us, but in our world. Paul writes, “all things work together for good for those who love God who are called according to God’s purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Lately, this verse has made more and more sense to me. It isn’t that God causes everything that happens to you, but that God is with you in all of it and desires nothing more than to help you come through, to survive, stronger, wiser, with more compassion and love.
Jacob’s story reminds us that God knows all of you, so you might as well be honest. God knows you better than you know yourself—knows not only what you’ve done, but why. God knows everything you’ve experienced, suffered, offered, achieved, everything you’ve sacrificed, everything you’ve dreamed, how hard you try and how much you’re carrying. God knows what you’ve done that was harmful or hurtful. God knows it all.
If you read the whole of Jacob’s story, you’ll see how God just keeps showing up even when we might think Jacob doesn’t deserve it. Morning by morning, new mercies are received…over and over.
I am increasingly convinced that the most difficult thing for many of us to grapple with is God’s mercy. To acknowledge who you are—all of it—and then to receive God’s mercy is a deeply humbling, awe-full experience because you know you didn’t earn it, but that somehow God believes you’re worthy. Receiving God’s mercy is a blessing that, if fully received, changes us because we begin to recognize the depth of God’s love and the stubbornness of God who is determined to get it through our thick heads that we’re more than the worst thing we’ve done, that we’re more than the self-limiting names that we or others assign to us. We struggle to believe that God cares so much, that God loves us and wants to bless us. Jacob is a champion of demanding the blessing which God always wants to give.
Many among us are metaphorically at the ford of the Jabbok river right now.
Some are facing difficult decisions, perhaps feeling stranded and afraid, uncertain about the future or how to proceed, having worked every angle and done everything you know how to do. Many among us are weary and worn down with grief and rage and loneliness and stress. Some among us are paralyzed with guilt and regret, a sense of unworthiness or emptiness. Others are trying to discern how to step into life as it continues to shift and change all around us, how to adapt and find ways to thrive and to serve and to grow.
As a nation we are standing at the river being asked who we are, being asked to tell the truth about our whitewashed history, being asked if we’re willing to hold on even though it’s painful to acknowledge our nation’s sins, being asked whether we’re willing to meet as siblings and write a new narrative of true liberty and justice for all, whether we’re willing to be substantively changed so that we move together in a new way.
And when we find ourselves at this point, when things get really difficult, when we feel most vulnerable, weary, guilty, wounded, uncertain, angry, and afraid, knowing that things in our lives need to change, the temptation is to just give in—to shut down or let go of our faith, our hope, our love. At this point God always shows up and takes hold of us—sometimes as a parent tenderly holds a child and sometimes like a mysterious wrestling partner. In any case, like Jacob, our part is to hold on, to persevere, to not let go before we step into the new day dawning.
As we hold on to God, trusting God to hold on to us as we step up to face what is before us, we eventually learn to let go of our idols of self-sufficiency, control and comfort, to let go of the names and narratives that hold us back from life God knows is ours to live, to let go of our deepest fears and self-loathing.
As we hold on to God, Jacob teaches us not only to expect but to ask for God’s blessing. That blessing may not be what you imagine, but it will be life for you. Because it will always be some form of God’s tender mercy and liberating love. And that’s something you won’t want to let go—even if you could.
Wednesday Aug 05, 2020
Wednesday Aug 05, 2020
Stepping Out of the Boat
A sermon preached by Rev. Kelly L. Grimes for Foundry UMC August 2nd, 2020.. “Close Encounters with the Living God” series.
Text: Matthew 14:22-33
Monday Jul 27, 2020
Monday Jul 27, 2020
Live Life as if...
Nothing Can Separate You From the Love of God
Foundry UMC DC July 26, 2020
I am so thankful to be with you today. What a privilege! I have been looking forward to being with you in person but well you know what they say about the best laid plans....
We are all getting used to this virtual platform and while it is likely to be with us for a while, I miss being in community, singing hymns – we are built to be in community.
I give thanks every day for this less than perfect option of connecting with people.
I have worshiped in more churches than ever before, attended more meetings and even have enjoyed a meal with family and joined with friends each week for a virtual Happy Hour.
So, here we are together in this unique and what now seems normal way.
Like many of you, I keep looking for something normal, something familiar. One way I have done that is to return to familiar scripture. Scripture that has spoken to me in the past. Scripture like Isaiah 43 – Don’t fear for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name – you are mine.
Or Psalm 139.... you are marvelously and wonderfully made – I actually like this better in Spanish – the passion in some words just doesn’t translate – maravillosas son tus obras – I love the word maravillosa!
So, can you imagine my surprise when I realized that today’s lectionary text was Romans 8:26-39?
The Spirit comes to help our weakness.
When we don’t know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us.
We know that God works all things together
for good
If God is for us who could possibly be against us?
Who will separate us from Christ’s love? Hardship? NO
Distress? NO
Persecution? NO
Famine? NO
Nakedness, peril, sword? NO
Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth no anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Friends, NOTHING. NOT A THING can separate us from the love of Christ. No pandemic, no injustice, no economic uncertainty, no church separation.
NOTHING can separate us from Christ’s love.
Now this doesn’t mean you live a haphazard life – it does mean that you live in the confidence of God’s unfailing, unfaltering, never changing love.
I call that grace!
There is the assurance, the freedom in living as if nothing can separate you from God’s love.
If you follow me long enough you will quickly learn that it is not a Cynthia Harvey sermon without at least one reference to Frederick Buechner.
Here what he says...
We are above all things loved – that is the good news of the gospel – and loved not just the way we turn up on Sundays in our best clothes and on our best behavior and with our best feet forward, but loved as we alone know ourselves to be, the weakest and shabbiest of what we are along with the strongest and gladdest.
To come together as people who believe that just maybe this gospel is actually true // should we come together like people who have just won the Irish Sweepstakes.
It should have us throwing our arms around each other like people who have just discovered that every single man and woman in those pews is not just another familiar or unfamiliar face but is our long-lost brother and our long-lost sister because despite the fact that we have all walked in different gardens and knelt at different graves, we have all, humanly speaking, come from the same place and heading out into the same blessed mystery that awaits us all.
This is the joy that is so apt to be missing, and missing not just from church but from our own lives – the joy of not just managing to believe at least part of the time that it is true that life is holy, but of actually running into holiness head-on.
Ya’ll this captures in my mind the joy that comes from loving and being loved. We run into holiness head-on!
The world is turned upside down and those of you who live in the DC area feel that fragile state perhaps even more.
Hardly anything in our every day life seems familiar. There is the health pandemic, racial pandemic, economic pandemic, political pandemic – things most of us have never seen, heard or experienced.
In the midst of the upsidedowness, it is comforting to imagine the holiness of love – God’s love - in the midst of chaos.
Holiness and love in the midst of injustice. Holiness and love in the midst of uncertainty.
Joe is a wonderful man in our Conference. He is passionate and very active in United Methodist Men. You will not get past him ever – whether he knows you or not – without him asking you perhaps the most important question of the day, “ has anybody told you they love you today?” Then he gives you a giant smile and hug and says, “I love you, God loves you.”
There are days at Annual Conference that I look for Joe because I need to hear those words. Sometimes we need people like Joe to remind us that God loves us.
What if someone stumbled into this livestream.
What would they hear, what would they experience? I know it is a little harder these days but could they experience the love of God?
Would they get a sense that this is a place where they can experience bumping into and falling into holiness? Would they know this is a place where they can be loved no matter what because nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Loving might be next to breathing -- both being most natural and also most difficult both a requirement to be truly alive.
Did the Beatles have it right...All You Need Is Love?
The lyrics for this commissioned piece were intended to be simple since it had to be understood by everyone around the world.
There was actually criticism that the lyrics and the general sentiment were naïve.
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game.
All you need is love....love is all you need.
They really wanted to give the world a message that could not be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything.
We know this to be true. The scriptures are filled with references to love. Not romantic love but the love of God.
The Gospels are chocked full with messages of love that say to people like you and me that love is everything. To love and be loved by another and most importantly by God is everything.
The great commandment, “you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being and with all your mind. You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these Jesus said.
Really? No other commandment!
The Beatles and others might claim that love is easy – we know it is not.
Yet there is no other commandment that is greater than to love as God loves. Love no matter what. Love as if there is nothing can get in the way of it!
Our call is to personify love, to be love to a world that might not know love.
Love is a gift. Love is a verb. It is something that you do - something that you give. Love that is inseparable.
When we love as God loves us we move into a thin place – a threshold place, an entrance, a place filled with possibility, a messy yet fulfilling kind of place, a place where we bump up against the holy.
We have all had those experiences when we find ourselves in those places where we are overtaken by an extraordinary sense of love – running into holiness head on.
The birth of a baby.
The death of a loved one.
A wedding,
Graduation,
Ordination.
You are a gift to the church. At a time when our world and our church is in turmoil, you are here! You keep turning up week after week because somewhere, somehow you know that nothing can separate you from God’s love. You are running into the holiness we call love head-on. There is a whole world out there that needs to know this kind of love.
As the church we love faces possible schism, splintering, and brokenness over LGBTQ matters - you continue to show up and say not on my watch! I love too much. I love like God loves.
You know that everyone deserves to love and be loved. You know that to God there is no distinction – slave or free, greek or jew, male or female – there are no distinctions for we are all made in the image of God.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you ever again that you are incompatible with Christian teaching. How can that even be? If you are a child of God, made in the image of God HOW IN THE WORLD CAN ANYONE SAY THAT ANYONE IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIAN TEACHING???? That would be like saying that you are incompatible with God.
That very statement is antithetical to the gospel. Nothing separates us from the love of God.
But here we are in this unprecedented place. The world, our communities and the United Methodist Church has not ever seen anything like this.
Who knows what will happen?
Yet you are here!
The world has shifted,
the church has shifted!
Yet you are here!
God is still calling people!
God is calling you!
You know that fear and love cannot go together! You know that love casts out all fear.
You have been called by love – God’s love for you and your call to love neighbor.
For our founder, John Wesley all that God is and God does is motivated by love.
Author Mildred Bangs Wynkoop, a Nazarene and holiness scholar said in “A Theology of Love” that to be Wesleyan is to be committed to a theology of love.
Love was probably no easier for Wesley than it is for some of us.
He was not easy to love and I am guessing it wasn’t easy for him TO love.
He was a quite a rebel. He fought the establishment and challenged the status quo.
John Wesley was denied the opportunity to preach in his home church.
So, Wesley went to the only plot of ground that actually belonged to him – his father’s grave and it was from there that he preached - just outside the church.
I would guess that Wesley was not loved by the establishment. He was criticized for his unorthodox ways. He preached outside the church walls which was considered evil to the Anglicans.
As Methodists we are part of a legacy of reluctance and resistance.
Strangely comforting isn’t it?
Remember your baptismal covenant to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
Resistance is baked into each of us!
Our Wesleyan legacy is one of love and an assurance that in all things, God is with us – nothing separates us from the love of God.
There is someone out there waiting for someone just like you to share the unmatchable, unfathomable love of God that can overcome COVID, racial injustice, human sexuality. They are waiting for you!
Right, left, Republican, Democrat, traditionalist, progressive, gay, straight and everything in between – they are waiting for you to show them what living life as if nothing can separate you from the love of God looks like.
They are waiting for you to love them, to help them order their life by love. If you show them love – they will love you. You will teach them and they you that, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Because to disciple is to love and to love is to disciple.
Love is the bedrock of the Gospel. It is the bedrock of who we are and who we are called to be. We are made in the image of God to carry out a life of love.
A love that punches holes in the darkness.
A love that sees the hunger for acceptance in a person’s life.
A love that speaks truth into the world.
This is courageous love.
WE need to be that person to those who are living on life’s ragged edge and yes, even those who seem to have it all together but don’t.
We all need to know that we are not only loved but BE-LOVED. That we are a child of God - chosen by God!
We are God’s beloved sons and daughters - chosen to help mend broken people, broken communities, broken homes. We are God’s beloved chosen to love as God loves.
Our call to love can change the trajectory of the world. Our call to love can change people, situations, and circumstances.
Our call to love can change this church. It can change the United Methodist Church.
Our call to love can change YOU!
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Does It Have to Be This Way?
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC July 19, 2020, seventh Sunday after Pentecost. “Living As If…” series.
Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Invasives. They threaten to devour my yard. They are what my landscape architect friend informs me is destroying so many of our habitats. They may look pretty at first but then proceed to cover over and strangle everything else. Invasives seem to have an uncanny ability to multiply at an alarming rate, to flourish in places they don’t belong.
The Kin-dom, Jesus says in our parable today, is like a cultivated field that has been invaded and planted with seeds that don’t belong. And when this becomes apparent as the plants grow, the farmer counsels letting everything grow together—out of care and concern for the survival of the intended crop—with a sorting out of everything at the appropriate time.
This is a risky proposition, this “growing together,” because invasives are so aggressive, and can do so much damage. But evidently, the planter has confidence that the wheat will be strong enough to thrive and produce its life-giving food even in the midst of struggle and assault.
This metaphor would have made sense to the original audience of Matthew’s Gospel, a community of Jewish Christians who not only had the usual conflicts of religious community within its own ranks, but were also actively engaged in conflict with leaders of the Pharisee-led Judaism that predominated in 80-90 CE. Trying to grow in healthy ways in the midst of attack and surrounded by philosophies, theologies, and practices that don’t fit into the vision of the Kin-dom Jesus taught was difficult. This parable offers a rich image through which to consider how to respond to this reality.
And, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the writer of Matthew took this rich parable and sucked every drop of nuance right out of it in the allegorical “explanation” that follows. When we are in conflict—polarized, defensive, and fearful—it seems common to want to categorize things, to lump people together, to assign absolute values—“good” or “bad”—and to take comfort in our self-appointed “goodness” and the promise that the “bad” people will get what’s coming to them. There is something very emotionally satisfying about imagining our enemies weeping and gnashing their teeth.
But does it have to be this way?
My first reaction when I started praying with our text for today was to notice that in the parable, the enemy appears and plants troubling seeds “while everybody was asleep.” I thought, “If people stayed awake this wouldn’t happen!” See? It doesn’t have to be this way! Perhaps this is true to some degree—constant vigilance could protect the field from destructive invasives. But then I realized that can’t be the core message. Because the truth is we are all planted in a field, born into a world, that has “pre-existing conditions.” No amount of vigilance can undo what’s been already done. Ways of thinking and reacting and treating others are all around. Like seeds of invasive plants that get eaten by birds and then migrate with them, being excreted in all the places they alight, concepts, ideas, philosophies, prejudices, are consumed and carried and shared. For example, Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped From the Beginning illustrates the way the idea of racism moves and morphs and takes root over centuries.
Whether we like it or not, this is the way it is. We are in a proverbial field in which things are all mixed up. There are planted seeds of love and life and there are seeds of harm and death. And seeds want to grow. And they do grow together. In a world of pre-existing conditions we are surrounded not only by creative, gentle, playful, inspiring, soul enhancing energies, but also by aggression, malicious intent, pain, greed, and other potentially soul-damaging stuff. We’re not only surrounded by these things—as though we can remain separate or distant from them—but we soak up and ingest them to varying degrees. Our make-up is affected by the field in which we’re planted—like a wine that tastes a certain way because of where the grapes were cultivated or milk that tastes a certain way because of what the cows ate or the flavor of honey tinged with the flower the bees loved most that season. Within each one of us are the capacities for care and for harm, for love and for hate, for violence and for peace.
With the way things are, we have to choose what way we will respond. How do we navigate this complicated world, this human life, so beautiful and broken? One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is just how tempting it is to do the thing we hear in the allegory today—to assign everyone a label and to tidy things up with hard and fast absolutes. You go into the “children of the kin-dom” camp and you go to the “children of the evil one” camp. The impulse will always be to rip out or cut off or otherwise lay hands on whomever we deem “the evil ones.”
Now some will argue that the text is clear that it’s not up to us to make these assignments or to try to get rid of the “children of the evil one.” But let’s be honest, that’s what people do. And texts like this one have provided handy religious legitimation for doing it. And let’s be honest about how it’s not just those other people who do this, but we do it too. Let’s be honest about how easy it is to fall into this way of thinking even when we try not to (“I hate people who hate people!”). And perhaps we can also be honest about how some of us turn this thinking on ourselves and believe that we are “bad seeds,” deserving of punishment, undeserving of care or love. What we imbibe from the soil in which we grow can be deeply internalized such that it is difficult to extract ourselves or others from these labels.
Lumping people together based on anything—race, accent, education, appearance, political affiliation, orientation, personal style, identity, vocation, whatever!—erases a person’s humanity and identity. You put a person in a category or under a label and all of a sudden they are no longer a person with a story and a family and a body and dreams. They become a thing. They might be a thing you consider good—“wheat”—or a thing you consider bad—“weed”—but they become an object, not a subject. The wheat isn’t expected to have weediness in it and the weed isn’t expected to have any wheatness in it. They can no longer be truly human.
A recent example that is resonant with our current challenge and work: writer Michael Harriot, whose work I’ve come to know on Twitter through The Root wrote, “That ‘anti-white’ sentiment people keep talking about is just the erosion of what I call the ‘privilege of individuality.’ White people aren’t accustomed to being lumped together and being defined by the actions of others. Welcome to the club.” Being lumped together under any label is literally dehumanizing. And it is what our labels, stereotypes, racism and all the isms do. When we have successfully dehumanized people, it is much easier to blame, use, abuse, and kill them.
My guess is that there will be some listening to my words and thinking something like, “But some people are awful! Are we not supposed to get in the way of injustice? Are we not supposed to call out those who harm the vulnerable? Are we not called to get into ‘good trouble’ for the sake of the Kin-dom?” The answer to all of those questions is simply “yes.” That is absolutely part of our work as we engage sacred resistance. I don’t think our parable today is asking us to do nothing or to ignore evil, injustice, and oppression.
I do think it is about being honest about the reality in our world and in our own lives, a reality that is much more complex than the easy dualisms and absolutes so prevalent in our current context. Remember, Jesus calls Peter “Satan” in a moment of hyperbole and then entrusts him with the keys to the Kin-dom; he sees through the small life of despised “tax collector” Zacchaeus to perceive the big things he will do with his generosity; Jesus loves Mary Magdalene and draws her into the inner circle when others exclude her due to her “demons.” In Matthew 5:43-44 Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and in 18:14 says that it’s God’s will that none will be lost. Our parable today uses scary images to highlight that there are consequences for our choices—it is damaging and painful to body and soul to be hateful, cruel, and selfish. But the whole of the Gospel affirms that God’s way of dealing with a broken world and with broken lives is not to abandon or destroy, but to draw ever nearer in love, mercy, and grace—even stepping directly into the mess of the world with us. Jesus shows us what it looks like to be truly human, perfectly reflecting the image of God’s love. Jesus never dehumanizes or allows a label or a mistake or a flaw to define a person.
And thanks be to God for that. Right? We are all human. Not one of us is “weed-free.” We are all trying to find our way. None of us are perfected in love, we all do harm, we all experience pain, we all have tangled up roots from all sorts of seeds, taken on the “flavor” of the soil in which we’ve been planted, we are all complex, unique creations and children of God. As followers of Jesus, our call is to be human with other humans, to be “humanizers” in a world where the seeds of inhumanity and dehumanization want to grow. We are called to be planters and cultivators of love, mercy, and grace and to let those Kin-dom values fuel our resistance, to let those divine gifts live and grow in us and make us and the world more truly human.
It’s never easy to be human. The world, our lives, are beautiful and broken. And God knows, right now everything is hard.
Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way, but this is the way it is right now. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to be in it?
What might happen were we to live as if God’s amazing grace is at work in every single moment, in every single tangle, in every struggle, on every bridge, in every triumph, on every street, in front of every courthouse, along every line, in every weakness and strength, in every mistake, in every life, including our own—determined to strengthen, to mend, to liberate, to save? What if we were to live as if all we are made—planted—cultivated—to do is love?