Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

The One Who Is Coming - December 13th, 2020

The One Who Is Coming

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, December 13, 2020, “The Fullness of Time” series.

      Text: John 1:6-8, 19-28

November 4th, 2020 was a Wednesday. It was the day after the election. And, since it was Wednesday, it was a day I set up my stack of boxes on top of an ottoman in the purple parlor of my home, ran an ethernet cable from the second floor interwebs box down the stairs to plug into my laptop perched on the boxes, rigged the stationary sheer curtain on the picture window behind me with a random curtain rod to provide protection from glare, and then sat in on the sofa for a while in the swirl of emotion and thoughts stirred by that particular, historical moment. I was preparing, of course, for my weekly FaceBook Live “ponderings,” my unscripted, mid-week message that has become part of my—and Foundry’s—weekly rhythm through the pandemics of 2020.

What I shared that day was a reminder that our work in the world is the same regardless of who is president—because our God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But what caught me off-guard as I began to speak was the joy I felt and proclaimed in that moment of deep uncertainty. I was surprised to hear myself proclaim “this is the day the Lord has made, let’s rejoice.” Because in addition to uncertainty, I was among those feeling deep disappointment (and maybe some despair) that so many in our nation maintained or added their support for a person whose racism, bullying, narcissism, and ineptitude around not only COVID but other issues and crises continue to cause damage and are well documented—regardless of how vociferously some claim otherwise. I share this not as a jab at those who disagree with me politically, but simply as an example of the way that joy can surprise us sometimes. And, regardless of where you find yourself politically, there has been pretty widespread distress over the chasm that so starkly divides the people of this nation and the ongoing vitriol and violence being perpetrated as a result. I felt strange and perhaps guilty that day proclaiming any message of rejoicing. And yet, in my unscripted sermon, it was joy that emerged.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent—or Gaudete/Rejoice (Latin) Sunday. The traditional focus is on “joy.”  The pink color of the candle we light on this Sunday is a symbol of the joy that emerges as we draw closer to the birth of Christ. And it seems that every year as this Sunday rolls around the tension between the painful realities in the world and the invitation to joy is so taut that it could snap at any moment…  If that has been true in past years, Lord knows it is true in 2020. COVID cases and deaths are surging just as was predicted by scientists; awareness of the U.S.-sanctioned executions of imprisoned siblings is once again making headlines—as if the atrocity of the death penalty is a new thing in our land; the energies of white supremacy continue to roil all around and within us doing ongoing damage to black and brown siblings in every possible way; more than 10 million persons are unemployed in this nation even as the gap between rich and poor continues to grow; a “tsunami” of evictions looms; we see no end in sight for the dog-whistling and mobilization of hate groups to “stand by”; therapists and pastors and social workers are overrun with folk needing their care; so many hearts are lonely and bodies hungry… In the midst of all this and so much more, we are invited to contemplate joy. Joy.

Notice I did not say to feel joy as if we could manufacture it. As with that moment during my livestream, joy appears when it will. And it doesn’t equate to being “happy.” It is something else altogether.

The late Orthodox Christian Priest Alexander Schmemann once wrote, “The knowledge of the fallen world does not kill joy, which emanates in this world, always, constantly, as a bright sorrow.”

I have been captivated by the phrase “a bright sorrow” all the years since first encountering these words. It captures the tension that seems inherent in any honest experience of joy. Describing joy as an emanation of “a bright sorrow” is enigmatic but seems, somehow, true. Within the context of our spiritual tradition, the pain and injustice of this broken world may kill many things, but cannot kill joy.

As I pondered all this I wondered why those who organized the Revised Common Lectionary selected this encore story of John right after last week’s story of John—really just two different gospel accounts of the same story. And why would they select this gospel story for “Rejoice Sunday?” 

Certainly the emphasis is different between the two accounts of John. But do we really need both of these texts so close to each other? Maybe someone remembered how quickly we move on, how easy and typical it is for us to ignore the prophets. 

After all, prophets often rub us the wrong way. They repeat themselves. They won’t let things go. They won’t let us off the hook. They have seen into the depth of pain and suffering around us such that they will not rest until freedom comes. Spirit has touched them so that they care less about their own daily rounds and more about the propagation of food for the hungry, shelter for the unhoused, sustenance for those who are impoverished, friendship with the outcast and the lonely, dignity and equity for the oppressed, and renewal for societies breaking under the weight of shiny, fast things like words and bullets and needles and machines and the siren call of excess. Prophets could give a flip about our respectability politics and are impatient with things that don’t matter to the nourishment of human bodies and spirits and are fearless in advocacy against all that does harm. Prophets are always trying to get up in our business!

Maybe the setup of the lectionary is a way to mimic the actual activity of wilderness criers across the ages, the way they show up again and again and again crying out in hope that someone will finally get the message. This prophet, John, baptizes with water and points to the one who is coming after…the one more powerful, the one who baptizes with Holy Spirit, the one who is the light of the world. Are we paying attention? Are we willing to stay in the flow of the river of grace and mercy long enough to step into a truly new way of being in the world? Are we receiving what John is saying? 

The one who is coming with Holy Spirit power and as light seen by people who walk in darkness is prophesied in the book of Isaiah. And both these prophecies were received in times of temptation to idolatry, times of upheaval and danger for the nation of Israel. Just as we experience today, fear, anxiety, distraction, violence, vulnerability, and discouragement were all part of the picture. So much of the wilderness criers’ message is a warning and a call to repentance…but here and there and now and again, all of a sudden, the prophetic texts are punctuated with lines like these—like joy that bubbles up out of nowhere:

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation,
    you have increased its joy;…
4 For the yoke of their burden,
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken…

6 For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 His authority shall grow continually,
    and there shall be endless peace…

    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness... (Isaiah 9:2-7, selected)

And these…

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
… to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,…
    to comfort all who mourn;…
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins,
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

For I the Lord love justice... (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8, selected)

These ancient words give content to our Advent hope and undergird the prophecy of John centuries later. Notice that the promise is liberation, peace, righteousness, justice. Notice that the anointed one comes to set people free so that they might participate in building up, raising up, repairing what has been devastated over many generations. // And perhaps this is the heart of the matter.

John was raised up—like the prophet Isaiah—as a witness to God and reminds us again and again, Advent after Advent, year after year, (and this year) week after week, that God is at work, that One more powerful is coming to meet us in the wildernesses and tensions and broken places of our lives, and that, with God’s help, we ourselves have a part to play in what God is doing in the world.  

You and I will be baptized with Holy Spirit! You and I will be given light when the night is long so that we might journey through until the storm passes over and the morning comes. And this, so that you and I will be set free and given power to participate with God in God’s mighty acts of salvation, love, justice, and reparation of the devastation of generations… We can be part of God’s work in the world! Our time is connected to God’s time, our history is part of God’s salvation history, our lives—even yours and mine—are called to participate in the prophetic work of God’s mending and movement toward the divine vision of creation restored in all wholeness.

I once wrote, “Prophetic witness will always cry out in grief over the suffering of innocents, the callous inhumanity of so many in power, the greedy destruction of what is good and true and beautiful. Because a prophet looks upon the world and sees beauty and goodness, love and harmony, sees both what is and what can be.” To perceive even in or through the pain of the present moment “what can be” might be described as an emanation of “a bright sorrow”…a longing for that which is possible. To look deeply into the now and yet perceive One who is coming into the world to enfold and energize us with purposeful lives and with a love that, in the final analysis, will always win…that might inspire at least an inkling…of joy.

https://foundryumc.org/

The Beginning of the Good News - December 6th, 2020

The Beginning of the Good News

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, October December 6, 2020, “The Fullness of Time” series.

  Text: Mark 1:1-8

“Once upon a time...” “In the beginning was...” That’s the way it always starts off. Every story, gospel, history, chronicle, myth, legend, folktale, or old wives’ tale blues riff begins with “Woke up this mornin’...” Rock legend Steven Tyler is the source of this little truth nugget. Stories have a beginning. And in the span of human time, every beginning means that something is ending or, at least, changing. If a new story is told, the existing story is amended or released.

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

The beginning of the gospel according to Mark begins with a fragment, a sentence with no ending. I guess I’d always known that, but it struck me in a peculiar way this year. I found myself puzzling over it—probably more than it warrants. Steven Tyler came to the rescue, reminding me that maybe this sentence fragment is simply the way stories begin, a signal of a new chapter in the human story.

And what a gift to receive a new chapter that begins with the promise of good news! // When bad news has been our daily bread, when we’ve had to labor to hold on to hope, when we’ve been bombarded with confusion and gaslighting and reports of violence and abuses of every kind, our bodies and spirits long for a good word, some good news. Bring on the εὐαγγελίου (euangeliou), the “gospel,” of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the anointed one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell!

Lest we get ahead of ourselves, notice that the most ancient account of the good news of Jesus begins in the wilderness. It doesn’t begin in the party hall or throne room. It doesn’t begin in a time of peace and plenty. It doesn’t even begin in a bucolic and potentially sappified setting with a manger and glowing light. No. In Mark’s version the beginning is in the wilderness. The wilderness is where Israel rebelled against God—not once, not twice, but again and again. The wilderness is also where God continued to show up with mercy, sustenance, and guidance bringing water from a rock, manna from heaven, and elemental signs to lead the people forward.

And the Jordan river where John does his baptizing runs through the wilderness and is a symbolic place of crossing over from one life to the next. Having visited that place for the first time in January of this year, I can tell you the Jordan is not a clear, sparkling river. Anthony accidentally drank some of the water I’d set aside to bring home and was afraid he was a goner. Just sayin. That place now as then is a place surrounded by violence and struggle and deep-seated enmity among people and nations.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ starts with a fragment, echoes of prophecy cried out by John, reverberating across the stark wilderness landscape of an occupied land filled with ancient enmities and alighting on the waters of a murky river. The good news begins right where it is needed—in places of struggle and uncertainty.

And then, as now, good news was a draw. We are told that “all the people of Jerusalem were going out” to receive John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Would that be received by us as “good news” today? The words—“repentance”…“sins”—have become heavy with the baggage laid upon them, so heavy that they might sink to the bottom of the river once we have thrown them away. But I hope we won’t throw out the gospel truth with the bath water. And there is gospel—good news—to be found here.

To repent is to acknowledge something is wrong and turn away from it. It is being honest about our sin, about the things that we have done and left undone that separate us from God and other people, things that have done harm. Just imagine if you had to eternally drag around all that baggage…imagine if there was no facility available for clearing our conscience, writing a new chapter, making new choices and commitments about how to live?

A baptism with water, even iffy, murky water as found in today’s Jordan River, is a washing, a cleansing. And that is a good feeling! Think about any time in your life when you’ve not been able to have a bath or shower for a time. Perhaps it was during a hospitalization or on a mission trip or work assignment without the kinds of facilities available to most of us; or perhaps for some of us, it was during a time lived on the street or in our car. Those moments help us understand what a privilege it is to get to take a shower! After many days or weeks, you emerge from the water, feeling like a new person! 

And water baptism is, at its most elemental level, a washing facility. The water baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is an opportunity to remove at least a layer of the gunk that clogs the arteries of our hearts so that love can’t flow freely, the grime of resentment and regret that has built up on our being over the years making us—if we’re being honest—small-minded and ashamed, the prejudicial gack that has been smeared over our proverbial eyes that keeps us from perceiving what is real, from perceiving every human as our family. A water baptism is very good news! Because it means that, should we so choose, we can present ourselves acknowledging we are in need of a scrub… and emerge from the waters lighter, free, and shining…maybe like a new person!

This baptism is not only found at the beginning of the good news but is, itself, the beginning of the good news. It is the necessary preparation for what comes next.

Repentance and forgiveness of our sins, removes all that gunk that gets in the way and takes up space better filled with what Jesus comes to offer. John proclaims that Jesus comes to baptize us with Holy Spirit, the very breath of life and conscience and creativity and prophetic power. Prepare the way of the Lord! Take a bath! A repentance bath…forgiveness and mercy are in the water. And those beautiful, humbling gifts liberate us, open us, to receive and share the life that God promises in and through the one who is coming, Jesus.

What comes next in Jesus is more powerful than our most stubborn excuses and rationalizations, more powerful than empire and all its agents and effects, more powerful than bullies, more powerful than our neuroses and our addictions, more power than the voices in our head trying to convince us we can’t be forgiven, more powerful than prejudices and bigotry encrusted in our psyches through centuries, more powerful than water, that elemental symbol of chaos and destruction, water that Jesus calms with a word, so that it drapes in gentle folds about his feet. //

Writer Kathleen Norris tells of how, in her work as an artist-in-residence at parochial schools, she uses the Psalms as examples of poetry. The children, she says, are often surprised about the Psalms—the way the poetic prayers of the Bible don’t mince words or leave out painful things in human life. And Norris says the children’s writing captures much of that emotional directness and honesty. She goes on to share this:

“Once a little boy wrote a poem called ‘The Monster Who Was Sorry.’ He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him; his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. The poem concludes: ‘Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.’” ‘My messy house’ says it all: with more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave him a way out. If that boy had been a novice in the fourth-century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on the way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human. If the house is messy, they might have said, why not clean it up, why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?”

And there it is. The beginning of the good news is a clean up job, it is a preparation of our “house” to receive Christ who fills us with new life in the power of Spirit. It doesn’t just magically happen. We’ve got to show up and do our work. We’ve got to get into the water with John. Honesty and vulnerability are required of us. Fessing up and Self-love and open hearts are required of us. But even in the wilderness, even in these days of pandemic, even in the swirl and churn of these difficult days in our nation and world, we can do something. We can do those things—honesty, vulnerability, fessing up, self-love, open heartedness—right? We are not powerless.

We can wake up each morning with our minds stayed on Jesus, proclaiming that new every morning is God’s love and mercy, new every morning is a new beginning…We can look around at the mess made after we’ve made it again and say “I shouldn’t have done all that.” And then get busy cleaning it up. And, by doing so…once again, in the wilderness, in the mess, the good news is proclaimed, a new chapter begins…and we prepare the way for Christ to be born again.

https://foundryumc.org/

After That Suffering - November 29th, 2020

After That Suffering

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, October November 29, 2020, “In the Fullness of Time” series.

Text: Mark 13:24-37

Time is a tricky thing. Theoretical physics gives us concepts like absolute or Newtonian time, relativity and the space-time continuum, and loop quantum gravity theory—all different perspectives trying to understand what seems to be the fairly agreed upon belief that time is one of the most difficult things to understand. Yet here we are. And it is whatever time it is. And humans have forever been anxious to try to predict the times, to predict when things will happen—and are, mostly, tragically or hilariously wrong. We join our ancestors in moments of suffering who for centuries cry out “How long, O Lord?” Or with Whitney Houston, “How will I know?” Or with every child anywhere on a family trip, “Are we there yet?” We talk about time as a commodity and often get caught in a scarcity model—as if we don’t have enough. Or we think of time as an empty space that is our duty to fill with activity. When will there come a time that there’s more time? Is that even possible? Is time really a measurable thing? And what about eternity? Does time have a “start time?” And we’re back to physics and question after question.

Time is always a tricky thing. And in this year of disruption and disaster and disease, time—at least my experience of it—has just been plain weird. Sometimes a week feels like a day and a month like a week. The familiar rhythms and markers of our existence have been so thrown off that it feels like we’re floating in some shadowy wrinkle in time. And we don’t know how long all this is going to last and we can’t plan our lives in the little boxes and fields of our calendars that normally give us some sense of control because predictions of vaccines and protocols and tests and all the other stuff surrounding COVID-19 are shrouded in uncertainty wrapped in contingencies.

It’s true that—because human life has often been disrupted with disease and violence—one of the most common refrains of our spiritual tradition is “How long, O Lord??” But in the midst of that outcry, if we’re paying attention, our faith tradition helps us manage and mark time. The seasons of the church year, the liturgical seasons with their assigned symbolic colors and images, are one of the ways that our religious practice orders time. And today we begin a new year with this first Sunday of Advent. Advent is all about waiting, about anticipation, about looking ahead to fulfillment of a promise. But one difference between human experience of time generally and our religious observance is that in church time we’ve got an end date—we know, for example, that we will light a candle on our wreath for four Sundays and then, on December 25th, baby Jesus arrives! It’s like clockwork, like Newtonian time, steady and forward moving and certain. Jesus is gonna get born no matter what items on our holiday to-do list have been completed or left undone, no matter whether we’ve gathered in person with family or in worship on Christmas Eve or not. 

But there’s this whole other kind of time at work underneath our observance of Advent…or maybe above or around… It is the bigger, broader space of time that begins perhaps at creation and certainly by the birth of Jesus and stretches into this present moment and beyond. This time is not predictable or controlled. It is the time between the Alpha and Omega…the beginning and the end. It is the time between when God got this party started and when all reaches its divinely imagined goal. As one scholar describes it, “Jesus’ followers are summoned to faithful vigilance during an arduous, ambiguous time between the inauguration and consummation of the [kin-dom] of God.” The Gospel according to Mark is particularly focused on this “arduous, ambiguous time” and the text we heard today may reflect the particular upheavals happening in the lives and time of Mark’s readers. 

If you read the whole of Mark chapter 13, you will read of a variety of dangers and sufferings: false prophets, wars, famines, persecution, family dissension, and exile. Our passage follows these with, “But in those days, after that suffering…” And it sounds like Jesus is going to tell us when to expect the suffering to end (“after that suffering”). And it sounds like Mark wrote the words of our text as if the end of the story—the “consummation of the kin-dom”—was expected within the times that he was living. I mean it says “when you see these things taking place, you know…” and “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” But then we get that bit that says, “about that day or hour no one knows.” Tricky.

What we receive next is the teaching about staying awake. We’re supposed to stay awake so as not to miss when the big event happens. Now I have become very good at being awake—often in the middle of the night when I really don’t want to be awake. Staying awake for a long period of time can make you exhausted and cranky. And, well, the time between the inauguration and consummation of the kin-dom of God is not over. The suffering is not ended. Perhaps the specific sufferings of Mark’s day are over—that is, the abuse of power by Roman emperor Nero, whose reign was marked with tyranny, extravagance, and debauchery which inspired the Jewish revolt against imperial Rome. At least we don’t have any of that these days, you know, people abusing power for personal gain for themselves and their cronies, not acting with integrity, making decisions that do harm, acting with prejudice and without any sense of cooperation—all within an inherently broken and oppressive imperial system… At least we don’t have any uprising from those who have been marginalized, disenfranchised, oppressed, and overlooked… Oh…wait… This long time of waiting for tyrants be unseated, empires to fall, and peace and justice to take over is exhausting. How long are we expected to stay awake? A human body and spirit can only take so much after all…

“But in those days, after that suffering…” What if this phrase is not meant to mean after a particular suffering in one, specific time? What if the “day or hour” of a divine arrival is not referring to a one-time event? I grant to all of you biblical scholars and theologians out there that Mark is almost certainly reflecting an ancient Jewish hope (found in Daniel and elsewhere) in a “Son of Man” return at the end times to sort everything out the way God wants it. But I beg that you will grant me some interpretive license, some listening underneath the plain meaning or intention of the author in order to receive what Spirit may also want to say. 

In this long waiting time, this long suffering time, this long time of wondering how long the cycles of injustice and cruelty and war and destruction will continue—in this, our time, what if the message in the text, the message of signs and of words that don’t pass away, the message of remaining alert—what if this is a perennial message, a daily message, a message for us after “that suffering” we experienced yesterday or an hour ago or after the suffering we are experiencing right now is passed…What if the message is that after every suffering, large and small, today and every day, we are assured that an inbreaking of God’s love and mercy will surely come. It may come in ways you might miss if you’re not expecting it. That is, most of us will not see a vision of Jesus surfing back to earth on the waves of cloud or anything else so clear and dramatic. The never-passing-away reality of God’s mending, tender love may come to us through the most everyday kinds of moments. As one poet described it:

A certain minor light may still

Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair

As if a celestial burning took

Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—

Thus hallowing an interval

Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,

One might say love. 

Any teaching about staying awake is not, of course, a literal call to sleep deprivation or insomnia (thank God). It is an invitation to remain awake and alert to the present moment, to what is really happening, to each present moment’s beauty and its pain and everything in between. It is an invitation to be always looking for an inbreaking of grace, of divine presence, of visitation.

There have been moments when the way the breeze caressed my face was, for me, a clear sign of God’s embrace. When a random message from a rarely heard-from person came to me as a clarion call to purpose. When a new relationship was revealed as part of God’s liberating work in my life. And in this long year challenging in so many new ways, Jesus has shown up again and again. It would be easy to miss these things—and God knows I’ve missed so much in my distraction and my collusion with our culture’s cult of filling time and calendars with what we think are controllable expectations. We can’t know exactly how or when Jesus will show up except on Christmas and Easter! But the promise is that Jesus will draw near after the suffering, in the suffering, in this present suffering, with love and grace just for you. So make that your expectation. Stay alert to that possibility.

This holy season into which we enter today is a particularly focused practice ground for living this way. It gives us a way to mark the time with intention, to wait on the Lord not in idleness, but in focused activity. And as we move through these days in the earth’s cycle where on this part of the planet, daylight grows short and night stretches on, and in this year when isolation and illness and injustice cast long shadows, we are reminded that we can shine, we can illumine a way for others who are trying to find footing, we can nurture the lives of others through love and care, we can share what we have, we can pray with and for one another, we can do what we can do. And for all that we cannot control, we wait on the Lord, we look for Spirit, we rely on the visitation of the Christ, trusting that the long night will end, that morning is coming. And our waiting will never be in vain, for in each and every day God is Emmanuel, God with us. And in the fullness of time our long-expected Jesus will come into the world to usher in that perfect peace, that divine justice, that ancient hope for the consummation of God’s creation that is the desire of every nation, the joy of every longing heart.

https://foundryumc.org/

The Least of These - November 22nd, 2020

The Least of These - Matthew 25:31-46

Rev. Ben Roberts

A Sermon for Foundry UMC

11-22-20

 

Today is celebrated in our liturgical calendar as Reign of Christ or Christ the King Sunday. And today marks the end of our liturgical year, so that’s nice, 2020 is sort of, over today. Christ the King, enthroned in glory, gives us an assurance of who has final authority and to whom we’re accountable for the power we hold in this life. 

“Just as you did it to one of the least of these” and “just as you did not do it to one of the least of these” is either a reassuring balance that even the smallest acts of mercy we take are received as acts of righteousness in the face of need and injustice. Or It may feel like a maddening judgmental score card where our every action is weighed as good or bad and the side with the highest total determines our fate. That’s a pretty natural place for our minds to go considering that in a contest, other than golf, the side with the highest point total is declared the winner. The judgmental score card is too often accompanied by a paralyzing feeling of “what’s the use in trying” in a complex world of big and small systemic injustice. One thing is very clear…Prince, R.E.M. and Jimmy Buffet all lied to us, this end of the world scene does not sound much like a party at all.

Matthew’s Gospel ends Jesus’ ministry with this series of three teachings. All of them include forms of judgement, only one of them is any sort of party, in the first part of chapter 25 describing being ready for the end with images of entering a wedding banquet. From our story today, we have an image of judgment comparing this end process to sorting out of sheep and goats. From here the Gospel moves on into the passion narrative and the plots to betray and crucify Jesus.

All this feels heavy to me in these waning days of global pandemic Fall with Winter coming. Be reminded, fear not, an inbreaking of hope, peace, love, and joy is, and always is, coming. Tempting as it is, let us not skip this drama in Matthew. It certainly serves a purpose for the author in their communication with their community. Ever the convincer, Matthew dials up the end of time imagery in a continued effort to ground Jesus in the same line with all the other Jewish hero’s and in this case the promised one with authority of Judgement, seemingly a reference to apocalyptic narratives in Daniel, chapter 7:13. The long and short of the message being; this is the one, listen to him.

Here, in our story, Jesus describes not only what a process of judgment might look like (there are multiple), the Son of Man’s role in it as king, but also the default mode of life of the righteous sheep-le (meet the needs as you encounter them), and the goat-y behavior of the unrighteous (qualifying or being asleep to the needs all around).

It could easily be my own agenda here, but I took note as an Ordained Deacon the UMC, that the “accursed” in the story, question Jesus by asking, when did we see you and not diēkonēsamen (minister to, or take care of) you. Admittedly, I read into this Jesus’ underlying conflict with religious leaders who, rather than extend mercy, enforced extra financial burden upon the sick and prevented them from participating in religious and social life until they paid up to become ritually clean. No mercy, until you pay. Maybe they were not religious leaders at all and thought those acts of mercy were reserved only for official roles. The result is the same either way, official role, or none, when they failed to extend mercy to the lest of these, especially those who could not pay, so also, they did not extend it to the king.  

For me today, the biggest temptation of this text might be to just start naming all the goats. Especially right now when it’s so obvious. Like, extremely obvious. Just look at what they are wearing it might as well say “goat.” Look at who they talk to, look at who they do not talk to. Look at the legislation they’re passing, and the legislation they fail to pass. Look at who they voted for. Look at the wild departures from agreed upon norms. Look at their high property values and their low taxes. Look at the conditions of their schools and their neighborhoods. Look how they treat their neighborhood. Look how judge-y they are. They didn’t even post about that thing on social media, but they posted about that other thing without hesitation. Look at what they’re watching and reading, they think that’s news, it’s 100% goat-y. And they’re so mean if you even get one word wrong. They act so entitled. There’s no way this is not clear to everyone, even them, they aren’t even aware.

And of course, in a narrative story, where there are sheep and goats and it’s so incredibly obvious that they are the goats then of course that means… I mean you know, just look at who we voted for. Look at how we do church. Look how caring we are. Look how we support the established agreed up normative system. Look at our school and how smart our kids are. I tip big when I have some faceless person risk their life to bring me food in the pandemic. Look how good I am at naming how goat-y they are. It’s so painfully obvious that they are the goats and that means I…am…the……………….king.

Right, well…yes, so…..hold on, that actually doesn’t sound right at all, that sounds a little goat-y.

I met my now spouse, Cortney, 11 years ago when we were living in Burkina Faso. She was there through Peace Corps and lived in a town called Bogande. I was there with a non-profit living in the capital, Ouagadougou. In a straight line, were about 100 miles away, which of course is an 8 hour bus ride. If you’ve never lived on the edge of the Sahara Dessert, you should know it’s hot. Also, there’s not a whole lot to do out in smaller towns, so you need to think of your own entertainment like books or a game called “goat or kid (human child).” It’s played by listening to random sounds on the other side of your wall that could be either a goat or a kid, then guess which one it was. You may then get up and go look to see which one it was, or, again it’s a very hot place, wait to see if the goat or kid passes within your view so you don’t have to stand. That’s the whole game, plenty of kids, plenty of goats and they make similar sounds when they’re little.

There were also plenty of sheep. Funny thing though, dessert sheep in Burkina don’t look like the sheep we’ve been conditioned to think of here in the west, big wool fluffy coat. Many of the sheep that I encountered had little coat at all. Well, at a distance when they’re all mixed together, and especially since I didn’t know what I was looking for it’s hard to tell which is a sheep and which is a goat. For instance, this photo, which is one of my personal favorites, I took in a place called Bani. I posted this picture to my Facebook page and captioned it “A man with his goat.” And it should be no surprise to you at this point, that that is not a goat. That is a man with his sheep.

Matthew’s point was never to send us in a spiral trying to figure out who’s a sheep and who’s a goat. I don’t even think Matthew’s point was to make those receiving the message spiral on judging ourselves as sheep or goat. Chapter 7 verse 1 and 2, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” No, this story is once again driving home Chapter 3 verse 17, “this is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is also, driving home the point of what the righteous do, like all of the sermon on the mount in chapter 5. Merciful, peacemakers, salt, and light.

Matthew shows us in this story the operating mode of the righteous. It doesn’t come from striving in the sense that their work was somehow forced. They ask the question same as the unrighteous, “when was it that we saw you in need?” Their actions just seem to be the outgrowth of their understanding of the law and their practice of faith. As they encountered those in need, they seem to have met the need through whatever means available. Their whole disposition seemingly oriented to perceive and to respond, however large, however small. Likewise, the so called “accursed” having been similarly instructed and encountering those same needs chose not to respond. Or, and potentially more dramatically, they substituted their own understanding of what a need was by qualifying it on some scale other than God’s justice.

The disposition of the righteous in this story remind me of a sense of encounter with God’s grace as we describe it in the Wesleyan tradition. God’s grace and God’s Spirit continually working in this world. Waking us up to the need, brokenness, and the beauty present in our world and in ourselves. Inviting us to receive and live into a life of relationship with God and one another through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ. Then dwelling and walking so closely with us that works of mercy and justice become a reflex and not a 9-5 occupation or a task list. 

 

My time in Burkina showed me that I lack the skills, knowledge, and love to truly know the difference between a sheep and a goat. I should refrain from inserting myself as King in this story. We aren’t called to render judgment anyway. But we are called to identify and respond to the needs being expressed by our neighbors. Pray that it would be so.

Pray we will respond to the need expressed when black trans women are 7 times more likely be killed than the rest of the population. The need expressed when the prisons are private and exist to turn a profit. The need expressed when an election year means record-high gun sales and this time 40% of those sales are to first-time buyers. The need expressed when a city in a tight budget year can “find” 80 million dollars in relief for businesses, hotels and entertainment but no additional funds to end chronic homelessness and ensure people don’t die on the street. The need expressed when a quarter of a million people have died from a virus in barely 10 months, yet there is still no coherent national leadership for a coordinated response. 

The need expressed when 17% of The District’s population is at risk of eviction proceedings unless protections are extended. The need expressed when 80% of those at risk of eviction are households of color. The need expressed when nationwide the estimates of the number of people at risk of eviction by year’s end stands at 30 million people, translating to 12-13 million rental households and meaning most of the individuals are children. The need expressed when it consistently takes nearly a decade to replace homes resulting in the displacement of public housing residents. The need expressed when Breonna Taylor’s killers are still on the loose.

The need expressed when we can’t even do, the least we can do to help each other in this moment and put on a blessed mask. 

The need expressed, when the needs expressed feel too large and too long standing for us to do anything about it. Respond. 

Some days the response will be giving water to one who is thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner. Some days it will be trying to tear a whole prison down. Some days it will be standing in the street saying look over here these lives matter and they are at risk. Many days it will be ensuring we’ve not substituted our own understanding of what a need is by qualifying it on some scale other than God’s justice. 

The needs expressed, need forgiveness, grace, and accountability. And so do you and I.  

Doesn’t feel like much of a party, but we pray for the end all the same. Yes, of this sermon. But also, the end of this pandemic. The end of uncertain days or at least these next 60 days. The end to our many emergencies. The end to loneliness, destruction, anger, and violence. God can do it. We can do it. Fix your eyes on an enthroned Christ and remember his teach; we can do it. May our response today be letting God work to make us a people of reflexive mercy and justice to serve even the least of these. When that happens, then we can watch the inbreaking of joy, of peace, of hope, of love that comes next. 

https://foundryumc.org/

Awakening - November 15th, 2020

Awakening – 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 

Rev. K.C. Van Atta-Casebier

A Sermon for Foundry UMC

11.15.20

 

Good morning and welcome to those just joining us, you’ll find links for fully engaging in our service in our Facebook and YouTube comments or on our website foundryumc.org. If you are in need of ASL interpretation, you’ll find that info on foundryumc.org/asl.

Let’s Pray. God, for Your wisdom and revelation and hope, we pray now. Amen. 

She stumbled her way through the unenchanted forest, with just a map and a fanciful dream. She didn’t at all find herself enchanted by the reverberating tree chorus or the soft, babbling stream. She kept her head up and, on a swivel, on guard. As her armor clanked, she was reminded of the uncivil. It was hardest to forget, that part. She looked down to see that the trodden path was close to being swallowed by the brush. Just a little bit further to go, a turn here, a twist there, and no need to rush. Only it felt like a race...antagonized by looming darkness, to arrive at peace…. salvation for her life, at too fast a pace. She wrestled with the pain that was much too embedded in every cell to release. 

Her head turned up again, just before a tree collision. She kicked it in anger and consternation. It was so unapologetically big that it blocked her vision. Who does this tree think it is, taking up so much space? She wondered what it must have felt like...you know...to be so firmly rooted in place. Take a break, she heard the forest floor whisper, something to consider on account of the indefatigable mind sparring and her heel was beginning to blister. No, push through, she thought. Don’t quit. The kingdom called peace is at the end of this map that I brought. This is not it. She kept her eyes on the prize so to speak. There was a course laid out before her. She continued to strive and vehemently refused to appear weak. Only she realized...that she hadn’t moved, still face to face with the tree. Who was she kidding? What was she trying to prove? That she was somehow free? She plopped down at its base, took off her armor, pulled her knees to her chest, and with her hands, she buried her face. The forest hummed and rocked and lulled. As she felt herself begin to drift, an inevitable jolt. “This isn’t going to work,” she groaned. She lifted her head once more. Put on her armor and journeyed back out in the dark, ignoring the whispers from the forest floor. She felt lost, certainly not found...as she gazed into the never-ending scape, and with each nightingale tweet, her heart began to pound - a reminder to fear her escape. Shake it off. Going back was not an option. In her rear view, a kingdom standing PROUD, all drunk from the same toxin. Stabbings in the street, a mobbing and delusional crowd. Egomania, narcissism, and gasoline – a potent concoction. 

Security was a funny name for a kingdom of oppression and violence, with a dialect of fear. She traversed through the night with caution, and eventually the forest began to clear. 

The new light of day started to spread out. She gasped. Dejected, her eyes landed on a familiar sight. Had she somehow gotten turned around? Maybe she could tell if it wasn’t so bright. “No, it must be, I followed the map exactly right.” 

…..

Resigned, she traced it with her wet eyes and made mental notes, built of the same stone, same gargantuan size, perhaps a less ostentatious throne, but strikingly similar, this was supposed to be the prize? “This can’t be the kingdom of peace. I didn’t come all this way to be starved at the same feast.” She fell down to her knees. A revelation of a futile attempt to escape this formidable beast. She shook her fists at the sky. “You promised this was it. You gave me this map, why?  You told me I would be safe here, and I’m not one bit.” She crumbled into a cascading cry. 

…..

Then she heard a faint whisper “...up here.” She lifted her head. “Unh Unh,” said the voice. “This time I’m gonna need your heart instead.” Inhale. Exhale. Deep breath. She loosened her shoulders and opened her chest...felt zap after zap...the painful etching of a new map. When the light released her, she turned back toward the forest, this time noticing how very enchanted it was, the trees breathing as they swayed, she must have missed that part. And she ran, with reckless abandon toward something new, her arms spread apart. Once embraced by the strength of the rooted trunks and the magic of life echoing all around her, she felt safe to meander about in her salvation. That sweet Cyprus fragrance and the water rapping against the stones invited her into the intoxicating dance of faith. Her heart and the whimsical, messy, melody settled into the same tone. Ah, yes. Her divinely entangled fate. Soon, the darkness began to creep in, and she decided to look directly into it, a gaping invitation to the unknown. 

“Where is my heart taking me,” she wondered? It was dark and scary, and she started to falter. “A place called awakening,” the forest thundered. “A place where the rocks of the river form an altar.” Deeper into the unknown she went. Until she couldn’t go anymore. Too tired to figure out what this all meant. “Take a break,” whispered the forest floor. Illusory peace and security nowhere to be seen. She sat down to rest, up against a tree. Audaciously big, she thought. She pulled her knees to her chest, buried her face in her hands and wondered what it must feel like to be that free. 

And then she spotted it. A small, almost unsuitable starry gleam. It became so bright that she awoke from her long and arduous dream. She yawned and stretched. She loosened her shoulders and opened her chest. “Ow.” Her heart ached. How could that be? If she wasn’t yet awake. Unless…

…..

She brushed herself off. Parched, she headed to the river for a quaff. The star gave light to the dark path. As she approached, she noticed a pile of stones inviting her into the bath. For awhile she played in the water like she did as a girl. Then she surrendered and let the water toss her about in its whirl. As she melted away, she heard a voice whisper, “remember, you’re a person of the water. And here in the altar bath, you’re not just anyone, you’re my beloved daughter.” The water healed the heart scars. And the sun was starting to scare away the glistening stars.

In the light of the new day, she danced about in the peace and security of being known. Of being held. Of belonging. Of the love she had been shown. Of the freedom she felt. Her heart still throbbing…. here in the in-between. “Perhaps this is a kingdom without a king,” she mused. “Perhaps it's just a kingdom without a g. Yes, a Kin-dom is on the loose.” And now she doesn’t have to wonder how it feels to be that free. 

“An enchanted escape doesn’t have to be my final destiny. But I can never now unsee awakening. It’s a reacquainting place for when the empire starts to get the best of me. An invitation to grow up and grow down, to hold steady in the blustery imperial winds, to remain grounded in the earth matter, to give boundless hope much to our chagrin, to silence the hollow, dusty chatter. To remember that we are water people. That salvation is something for us to meander about in. That empires are not innately peaceful. But we are. Awakening is the place of incarnation and the resurrection and everything unseen

It holds more questions than answers, and gives space to the unknown

And guttural shouts of, “what could this possibly mean?”

If only we can remember what we’ve been shown. We can help others be more free. Our destinations aren’t mirages of peace and security promised by new regimes. In fact, it’s not the destination at all. It’s all in the dream.”

Awakening. 

Now I see.

“You and I aren’t meant to be in separate kingdoms. We’re not meant to be ripped apart.” 

And so she ran with reckless abandon, following the map to awakening that had been painfully etched on her heart. 

Let’s Pray. 

God for assurance of peace and security in the belovedness of our baptismal identity, we pray. Awaken us to ourselves….and to faith, hope, and plentiful love. Remind us that we’ve been given armor and not a weapon. Help us to heed the tiny whispers of Spirit that invite us into rest and open our hearts that we may know more intimately how to be human together in this cosmic accident. Remind us that we are water people, baptized in the sacred river. And that we’ve been splashing around in salvation from the beginning. Remind us that it's in the unknown that we become known. Help us recommit to the vocation of peace-building rather than recruitment. And hold us, call us beloved, dance with us, waft sweet smells under our noses, and mop up the spillage of our hearts. Every day when we wake up, give us a fresh start. In the name of life abundant we pray together, Amen. 

Benediction:

Foundry, may the love of God, the hope of Jesus, and the communion of the Spirit be with us now as we embark anew on our journey to awakening. Amen. 

https://foundryumc.org/