92.4K
Downloads
667
Episodes
Foundry is an historic, progressive United Methodist Church that welcomes all, worships passionately, challenges the status quo, & seeks to transform the world.
Episodes
Monday Jun 08, 2020
Monday Jun 08, 2020
From Beginning to End
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC June 7, 2020, Trinity Sunday. “Living As If…” series.
Text: Genesis 1:1-2, Matthew 28:16-20
In the beginning…to the end of the age. These are the first and last phrases in our two assigned texts for this day. And as we come together on this Sunday following the events of this past week I want to highlight what these words hold. They hold the promise of God’s presence in this world, God’s abiding presence with the whole of creation, God’s steadfast, tender presence with you and with me in the depths of our suffering and the soaring heights of our triumphs—from beginning to end, God is with us. God’s creating and re-creating love was and is and is to come. In the beginning, God created and Spirit blew across the waters, bringing life and flourishing out of formless void and chaos. And at the end, Jesus says, “I will be with you.” Between the beginning and the end, we are commissioned by Jesus to do the work that he himself does—to proclaim the good news of God’s reign, to heal, liberate, and usher in new life (Mt 10:7-8), to baptize, to teach others “to obey everything he commanded,” and to do it all “in the name” of the God whom Jesus reveals most fully. Just as Jesus was the presence of God in flesh, so now we are given power to be Christ’s presence in the world.
The so-called “Treat Commission” we heard today may hang some of us up on certain words that drag around a lot of baggage, words like “authority” or “obey” or “commandment” or even the phrase “make disciples.” These things can conjure images of exclusion, authoritarianism, cultural theft, colonialism, forced “conversion,” and intellectual and physical violence done for the sake of making people conform to “our way.” And all this is due to the fact that the language and teachings of the Bible have been twisted and used to do violence in myriad ways over the centuries.
But I refuse to let the language and life-giving promise of our book be held hostage forever by such abuses. These verses from Matthew provide guidance for the living of these days. So let’s be clear right up front that in this text, the one with authority didn’t take authority away from anyone but has been given that authority from God, our Mother/Father who released him into the world and through the power of Holy Spirit who anoints and fills him. Jesus never used divine authority to manipulate or do violence. To “make disciples” is not to frighten or bludgeon people into some thin profession, but to help people know of God’s liberating love and how to practice the way of life Jesus taught. What we’re asked to teach others to obey are the commandments of Jesus, including the powerful and challenging teachings in the sermon on the mount, like the beatitudes, loving your enemies, and praying for those who persecute you. The parables and teachings of Jesus require careful, prayerful thinking and interpretation—not mindless box-checking. And the greatest commandment in the law according to Jesus is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and your neighbor as yourself. (Mt 22) That, he said, is the heart of it all, the central teaching of our faith. All the law and prophets only make sense when interpreted through the law of love.
This is the “one beautiful law”—this and none other—that governs the lives of those who seek to share in God’s life. The law of love is upheld not primarily through warm feelings. It is not upheld through good intentions. It is not enacted through violence, control, manipulation, or showing off. The law of love is upheld through doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. (Micah 6:8)
From beginning to end God has been with us, is with us, will be with us to help us to live and to serve, to pray and work for the Kin-dom to be ever more manifest on earth as it is in heaven with the law of love at the center.
See how God has shown up in the past: God was with the prophet Miriam as she sang and danced her people’s march from slavery to freedom (Ex 20:20ff). God was with the people as they received the challenge from Moses and then Joshua to choose either life or death (Deut 30:15) and whether to serve the God of liberation or the idols of empire (Josh 24:15). God was with Esther as she defied the law of the land and challenged the king to advocate for the lives of her people (Esther 4:14-16). God was with David as he faced Goliath, with young prophet Jeremiah, with pitiful, tantrum-throwing Jonah, with Ruth and Naomi who had to get creative just to survive, with the women of Bethlehem wailing for their children slain by Herod (Mt 2:16-18). God was with the people who lined the streets as Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, hailing him as the one who comes in the name of the Lord. God was with those who have organized workers to advocate for equity and safety, with those who have fought in the courts for true justice for their neighbors, with the ones who’ve met in church basements and congregation halls for decades, training, praying, and mobilizing to care for the creation, the impoverished, the disenfranchised, and oppressed, with those who have preached and marched and sat in or sat down, who walked out or broke through for the sake of justice. God has been with brilliant scholars who provide critique and vision and with young leaders in the Black Lives Matter and other movements for change across our country, those whose blood, sweat, and tears have helped bring us to the moment we are witnessing now. Jesus was present with every victim of a lynching or murderous hate crime, knowing full well what it feels like to be so abused. See…….God has been with us from the beginning.
And God is with us as we march, as we choose, as we struggle, as we try to release our idols and resist empire. God is with us as we advocate for change that will protect the lives of black and brown people, as we stand up to aggressors and oppressors. God is with us as we cry out in lament and solidarity with all those victimized by racial violence and by injustice in our land. God is with us as we line our streets and kneel for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor the life of George Floyd and to honor all lives lost and to proclaim our commitment to create a world that values human lives more than property, economic gain, or growth in the markets.
God is with us in our bold acts of courage and sacrifice, and in every little act of love, tenderness, mutuality, or care. God is with us in the places where we get hung up, afraid, defensive, angry, or anxious. God is with us in the beautiful, complicated mix of human experience where—did you know?—we can hold many different realities, concerns, and ideas together at the same time! Human life doesn’t exist in either/or categories for is always both/and/and/and… For just one example, you can love and support friends and family who are in the military or police force AND advocate for change—even full-blown overhaul—in those institutions. God is with us in this beautiful mix where today, at one and the same time, we can be proudly celebrating our graduates AND deeply grieving or raging at the systemic racism that plagues our land AND being distracted or distressed by personal issues AND feeling hopeful and inspired by the ways that people in our city and across the nation and world are rising up to say that racist violence must end. God is with us.
And God will be with us in whatever happens next. God will be with us as we not only show up to share in public protest, but show up at the ballot box, respond to calls to organize and build public power for change, and participate in public actions that advocate for new priorities and policies that serve our most vulnerable neighbors and the common good. God will be with us as we pray with and for one another, deepen our awareness of the things that sustain white supremacy in our lives and organizations, (complete our Journey to Racial Justice survey), address the brokenness in our personal lives and relationships, do our part to dismantle unjust systems and to build a society truly founded upon the law of love.
God will be with us when we hurt each other in the process of building a better world. God will be with us as we make mistakes. God will be with us as we struggle to know what to do. God will be with us as we keep trying.
In God’s ongoing re-creation of the world, all the gifts of the people of God are needed: good thinking, deep praying, generous giving, wise visioning, strong leadership, loving agitation, thoughtful parenting, careful administration, strategic organization, inspired artistic expression, smart lawyering, spiritual and physical healing, patient teaching, loyal friendship, and every other gift we have to offer. God will be with us.
I want to say to beloved black and brown members of our family, I see you and have been praying for you and for wisdom to serve and to lead in ways that encourage, strengthen, and honor you as we continue to build beloved community in Foundry and beyond. Now is the time for me and others to not only imagine or dream or pray for a world where you are truly safe, free, celebrated, and honored but to ask for forgiveness for the ways I/we have failed, to listen deeply, humbly do our own work to become anti-racist, discern where we can make the most difference in the cause, and then get busy making it happen. This is my commitment and one I invite other white members of Foundry to affirm. //
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be: God creates, breathes Spirit into matter and calls it good, creating one beautifully diverse human family. God strengthens weak knees and binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted, is compassionate and merciful, scooping us up from the pit to save us. God continues to lift up and anoint every sort of person to participate in the ongoing work of making the world more gentle, more just, more whole, more in the flow of God’s amazing grace. May we be daily baptized into that flow, immersed in that grace, anointed by Spirit, to receive and invite others to share in God’s liberating life and love and to pour out our own lives in humble, loving service after the way of Jesus Christ. And may we do that as steadfastly as our God is with us: namely, from beginning to end.
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Awe and Dread
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC May 31, 2020, Pentecost Sunday. “Life Interrupted” series.
Text: Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, there were gathered online for worship people from many places, shaped by different cultures, inhabiting radically different contexts, each with their own language.
On this day some—like the first disciples of Jesus—are waiting to receive power from on high, the promise of something unexpected that can change everything, turn the tables, make things right, shake the foundations. Among this group, in this moment, in the wake of report after report of the disproportionate toll that COVID-19 has taken on communities of color, added to the daily indignities suffered by racist aggression increasingly caught on film, followed by breaking stories of the racist murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, our black and brown family, friends, colleagues, lovers, and leaders are gutted. Tired. And doubtful that anything will change. White words and outrage—that is, words and outrage from anyone who is not daily at risk—are a day late and a dollar short. A dime a dozen. Choose your idiom. They’re not worth much. Come, Holy Spirit and do something radical!
Others—like the pilgrims in Jerusalem, gathered for the Jewish Festival of Weeks—may come expecting the familiar ritual of a Sunday service and hoping—even desperately needing—to receive a word that helps them simply get through another week with the way things are. Some of these folks have already begun to feel themselves shut down or put defenses up at the naming the most prominent headline of the past few weeks, even some who really care but just want a break. Come, Holy Spirit and give us peace!
Different languages, different expectations, different experiences from within the same world, within the same nation—a world and nation fractured and frayed at every possible level, creation and creature trampled and abused, disease breaking bodies and revealing broken bonds of mutual concern and broken systems, family members and neighbors rejected, despised, and gasping for air.
Who can communicate what is needed in such a reality? Well, let’s look at our story for clues. You’ve got the Galilean disciples—probably around 120 women and men, mostly uneducated, working class folk. What can they possibly say that will connect, for example, with the proselytes from far-flung, rich and powerful Rome? But somehow they all speak in their own language yet communicate God’s power in ways that everyone can understand. And then there’s Peter from among them whose track record for saying the wrong thing is epic, but who, on this occasion seems to have a shining moment. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the primary communicator in every case in this story is Holy Spirit. // It is Spirit I call upon today to make another Pentecost miracle of communication that allows my limited, privileged, white self and my imperfect offering to speak something of the power of God’s liberating and life-giving love into the hearts and minds of so beautifully diverse a gathered body. May it be so. Amen.
The Holy Spirit that is poured out upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost is the same Spirit who moved across the face of the waters at the moment of creation to bring life out of chaos and to separate light from darkness. This Holy Spirit had filled prophets and sages and holy people from the beginning of creation, empowering them with gifts and courage beyond their own. This Holy Spirit is the one who from the dawn of time had been convicting and cajoling and creating and comforting God’s people in order to keep the dream of God’s Kin-dom alive. And this Holy Spirit had been dwelling in a very concentrated way in and around Jesus while Jesus was on earth. And now this self-same Spirit, newly soaked in humanity as a result of indwelling Jesus, is poured out upon the followers of Jesus and the power of God is unleashed in a very new way. From that first day of Pentecost right down to this very moment, Holy Spirit is at work in and through those who seek even in frail and faltering ways to follow Jesus. And that means that Holy Spirit is poured out upon you and upon me.
And let’s pause and consider the fact that in this story She is not coming in gently. The church tends to tame the story, to make fire into crepe paper or felt or a few candles on a birthday cake and makes the mighty wind the gentle breeze of an oscillating fan. But the experience is described as looking and sounding like a violent wind and fire.
This is not a birthday party, this is a revolution igniting a dream. It is not a cotton candy cloud dream, but a cling-tight-to-love, hold-on-to-your-humanity, remember-what-really-matters, things-about-to-get-real, life-and-death turning-point dream. It is the dream perceived and agitated by the prophets, it is the dream kindled in Jesus’ parables of the Kin-dom, stirring our moral imagination and bursting our self-centered bubbles, it is the dream of love, peace, justice, and beauty that Spirit will not let die.
The dream is possible because Spirit is the dream-maker…and Spirit knows all our languages and knows what each one of us needs to hear—not what we want to hear, but what is needed for the dream… Spirit spins the vision of the Kin-dom which is at one and the same time both judgment for some and promise for others—a call to conscience and repentance AND assurance of justice and reparation. And no matter what part you most hear today, the Kin-dom vision is good news for all. It is not just a message of hope for one tribe. Our God is determined by the power of Spirit to draw all into a place of greater dignity and flourishing, oppressor and oppressed, poor and rich, persons of every conceivable design.
It’s a dream where Spirit falls upon all flesh and that breath is not choked out of any because of the color of their skin or the language they speak or whom they love or any other thing; where things that divide and set us at enmity are burned down; where the twisted, learned perceptions that blind us to the humanity and beauty of others are cut away like cataracts; where the layers of resentment, hatred, prejudice, and greed are blown away as in a destructive, Oklahoma tornado. And what is left, the ashes and the wounds and the destruction, provides the raw material and necessity for new creation. The Spirit who moved across the waters to bring order and life out of chaos flows, rains, blows, a mighty storm to stir and move us to do something. I am not suggesting that God is causing violence or desires it. But rather, that Spirit’s power flows to make things new and that always means that things change, really change, are lost, really lost, are sacrificed, really sacrificed from our own lives.
On the day of Pentecost, Spirit comes in hot to set us on fire, to give energy and hope to those exhausted from a lifetime of struggle and to those who are newly awake to the work, to blow out of apathy those whose privilege allows that response, to remove the scales from our proverbial eyes so that we might perceive not only the pain and rage, but the history of which this present moment is but a part. Spirit blows into all the places we are today to move us precisely as She knows we need to be moved.
And here’s the thing. We see in the story today that it’s possible to Spirit-proof yourself. “They’re just drunk!” To Spirit-proof yourself is to allow layers of gack—cynicism, hatred, control, selfishness, defensiveness, bigotry, fear, indifference, distraction and all sorts of other crusty, corroding things—to close your heart and soul from allowing Spirit to dance with you and move you and give you what you need. Spirit flows freely and God’s grace and presence is ever-present, regardless of how closed off we might be, no matter how determined we might be to sneer and scoff at signs of Spirit’s power. But God will not overpower, control, manipulate, or bully us. Part of God’s love is found precisely in restraint that allows for our freedom, our dignity. We are free to choose.
In this moment when things could so easily go even more wrong than they already are, what will you choose?
Will you choose the status quo or will you allow yourself to be open to Spirit’s power and dream? Will you allow yourself to be drawn into the center of God’s activity in the world, to live not only for “you and yours”—your family, your tribe, your nation, your issue, your experience of injustice, your vision, your 401k, your property values, your comfort, but rather to understand that any hope for this beautiful, broken world depends upon our living with and for others, the future flourishing and dignity of all people depends upon our standing in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable and hurting?
In these days, it is very tempting to be reactive instead of responsive. There is too much happening all at once. The pain, the needs, the brokenness, is all too much and it is overwhelming. Fight or flight tends to kick in. Part of the beauty and promise of this day, is that Spirit helps us recalibrate and get perspective. She is determined to move into our hearts to help the brokenness make space for more of the world to be held there. Spirit will take all the broken pieces—the ash, the wounds, the destruction—and guide each one of us to the place where our particular passion, gifts, and energy will best serve the dream of a creation and human family no longer enflamed with hatred and violence and fear, but on fire with love and compassion and with ears to hear, eyes to perceive, and hearts to understand the gift of this life and of life together.
As you are moved by Spirit to respond, I encourage you to connect to the place in Foundry where your passion serves others. The way to begin is to begin and start where you are. Washington Interfaith Network is rebuilding our strength as we imagine a new vision for DC that is more just and equitable for people of color, low-income people, the unhoused, and all residents. In June, I’ll be hosting a ZOOM with Rev. William Barber to share information about how to engage with the Poor People’s Campaign. Project Transformation, ESL, LGBTQ advocacy, Green Ministry Team for environmental justice, and more are all ways that your engagement or financial support will impact the intersections of justice that will fuel the Kin-dom vision.
We are not alone. You are not alone. When Holy Spirit is poured out upon you, you are bathed in love and grace that will hold you in your rage and exhaustion from being a person of color in this racist culture. When Holy Spirit is poured out upon you, you are bathed in love and grace that will hold you as a white person when you risk getting it all wrong while trying to make things right.
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
Restored
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC May 24, 2020, the seventh Sunday of Easter. “Life Interrupted” series.
Texts: Acts 1:1-14, 1 Peter 5:6-11
Months ago, as I developed plans for this Life Interrupted series, I imagined that by today we’d be preparing to begin some kind of re-entry to in-person worship at 16th and P Street, NW. And I was struck by the fact that the word “restore” appeared in two of the assigned readings for today. “That’s a good word as we contemplate a return to some familiar practices,” she thought. As the reality of a much longer period of physical distancing began to sink in, my focus in our texts shifted.
“Wait for the promise…” (Acts 1:4) “It is not for you to know the times… (Acts 1:7) “…in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6) “After you have suffered for a little while…” (1Pet 5:10)
These words land like a thud. Weeks ago during my Wednesday FaceBook message I talked about how disorienting it is to not know how long this is going to last. Even then, I was already crying out with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?!” The fact that we don’t know the answer is among the most distressing and disorienting of the unknowns we’ve been dealing with. We’re such a time-driven culture, marking time with clocks and calendars and watches, with alerts to keep us tracking time and keep us on time.
When Bill Smith and I were working closely to mobilize strategy and witness at General Conference 2019, we would joke with one another that we could do anything for six months, four months, three weeks… We knew the journey wouldn’t end at the close of General Conference, but at least we knew how long that painful and difficult stretch of the journey was going to last. It makes a profound difference in the way we inhabit time right now to not know the time that is set for the end of this painful and difficult experience in our world. The lack of time-boundedness makes it easy to lose focus, to lack motivation, to lose track of things; the lack of time boundary means that things can easily spill out all over, become diffuse, fuzzy, foggy…what day is it today?
All this makes me more compassionate with the disciples’ question: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Now keep in mind that Jesus has suffered, died, rose on the third day, appeared to his disciples over 40 days teaching them more about the Kin-dom of God—topped off with the promise that they can expect to be baptized with the Holy Spirit at some point in the future. If we think we’ve got a lot to process, just think about that community of women and men who were the first disciples of Jesus. They were dealing with a lot of stuff. And in the midst of all the possible questions they could ask, their question is about the time. Is it time for Israel to finally get our power back, to get out from under the oppressive occupation of Rome? Is it time to finally get back to the way things were?
Jesus could have expressed frustration that, after everything, the disciples are still focused there, but instead he simply responds to their question by providing a new frame. It is not a timeframe, so much as a framework. Jesus speaks not of a “when” but of a “what” and a “how.”
The “what” is to be witnesses—to testify to the love and power of Jesus, to tell the story of God’s love, mercy, and liberation extended to all nations, to live as citizens of the Kin-dom even when the empires of this world are still acting as though they are stronger than God. And the “how” is by the power of Holy Spirit at work in and through them. (Acts1:8)
After this reframing, Jesus leaves them to it. “A cloud”—a common image to evoke the presence, guidance, protection, and glory of God in the Bible—appears and takes Jesus up. I tend to think of this moment as a thin place where heaven and earth touch. Here, the Kin-dom of heaven—always near, always “at hand,” but not always visible—opens a door, a cloudy, misty, mysterious door, and welcomes Jesus home. (This past week, I’ve heard some suggest that this story tells of the time when Jesus started working from home.)
So Jesus provides a new framework—not a “when” but a “what” and “how”—and then he makes his exit. The disciples are left there looking up like, “Wait, you’re leaving us again??” Or perhaps, for some, the reaction in the moment was “OK, that was neat, but what NOW??” And two men in white—perhaps the same ones who greeted the grieving women at the empty tomb in Luke 24—emerge to nudge the disciples to grieve as they have need and to begin to adjust their focus: You’ve been given a framework and focus. He will come again just as unexpectedly as he left—you won’t know when. All you need to do now is go to Jerusalem and wait.
I think it’s fair to say that most people don’t like to wait. Perhaps we don’t mind waiting for a while. But when the waiting seems to go past what seems the reasonable amount of time for whatever it is I’m waiting for, I START TO LOSE MY PATIENCE. You? The disciples were given this extraordinary new framework and vision for their lives: they’re going to receive power through the Holy Spirit and will be witnesses in ways and in places they’ve never imagined! And then: wait…
This past Thursday, our Bible study group zeroed in on this. What if the waiting is an important piece of the journey? What if the waiting allows for the disciples to sit with what Jesus has been teaching them all along? What if, in the waiting, they will finally begin to understand that the transformation of which they will be a part is about more than their own lives, their own histories, their own nation? // As difficult as it is to be told to wait, some part of us knows that waiting, being still, allowing space for things to simmer or to settle, is part of what it takes to deepen understanding or gain insight or listen more carefully to what we have already received. The waiting is preparation for what comes next. It may be the case that if we rush forward before waiting for discernment, cultivation of spiritual and emotional resources, and wisdom, we could do damage to ourselves and to others. We might undermine a good idea or project if we try to push it forward before it becomes clear that the time is ripe.
Much of that, however, may seem more applicable to times when we choose to wait. But where we are right now is a forced waiting, at least for those of us paying attention to the science and guidance of public health experts. And it may be that the fact of waiting, of not knowing the timeframe for when we will move from one phase to another in this time of pandemic, is its own spiritual practice. We want to come up with an action plan, to know how to adjust our budgets, to strategize for what’s next. We want to fix a new date for the wedding, the Memorial or Celebration of Life service, the retirement or graduation party, and on it goes. And there is only so much of that we can do. Over these months information has trickled out and changed often, messages have been less than clear and the reality has been emerging and evolving. Without information and a firm end-date, planning simply can’t happen. We are clearly not in control. Many of us struggle mightily in this reality. The invitation is to release constant control, planning, and production mode and just be. WAIT.
The guidance given in our texts today is first to pray—the women and men who waited in Jerusalem prayed, they drew near to God to speak and to listen. And 1 Peter reminds us to humble ourselves, acknowledging our dependence upon God; to let God hold our anxiety, because God cares and wants to help us; to be disciplined and alert—that is, to pay attention, to stay awake and open to God’s presence; to resist the devilish (literally from the Greek “slanderous”) voice that will want to distract you and fill your head with lies and destructive thoughts; to remember our solidarity with others all over the world who are suffering, too. On this last point, I hope that in our waiting we recognize what I’ve been saying for months: we are all in the same storm, but we are not in the same boat. Some of us are in secure situations that will weather the storm. Others are in situational “boats” that have been waiting for generations to receive the resources they need to mend and become more safe and sound.
Perhaps, in our waiting, we might ponder what it means to be “restored.” This word that initially drew my attention, the word translated in the NRSV as “restore” in both Acts 1 and 1 Peter 5, is not actually the same word. What I discovered is that the Greek word used in the disciples’ question, apokathistémi, means “to re-establish, give back, set up again.” It’s a word that looks backward—not necessarily in a bad way—but in a way that longs for a good parts of the past to be restored, perhaps in a way that is more just than before. The word in 1 Peter, katartizó, means “to prepare, to perfect for its full destination or use.” This word leans into the future and tends to evoke a sense of equipping for a whole new reality.
As we grapple with this time of waiting, it is OK to long for good parts of our lives to be restored—singing together, dinner parties, being able to be present with loved ones who are celebrating or suffering, giving and receiving care and service, the list could stretch on. And it is also important to pay attention to the ways God is at work preparing and perfecting us for completely new ways of living together, the ways God is restoring us in ways that will enable us to flourish in a new reality.
Perhaps the message is that we are called to be restored not after the waiting, but in it. God is at work to prepare and perfect our hearts, our minds, our priorities, our awareness, our faith, hope, and love. And for what? To be open to the power of Spirit who comforts us in our pain and struggle, nudges our conscience, stirs our dreaming, touches our hearts and inspires new vision and new life. And through the power of Spirit, to emerge from this time of waiting, isolation, and struggle ready to live more gently and justly, more aware and awake, more committed to addressing the gross inequities and injustices so starkly revealed in this time, and perhaps with a more perfect appreciation for the little things that are so easy to take for granted when time seems more in our control.
Can you actively wait, open to God’s restorative power in the midst of frustration, boredom, anxiety, and grief? The promise is that fresh power, a big vision, and new life will come not just for you, but for all. In due time…
Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
At Home. In God.
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC May 17, 2020, the sixth Sunday of Easter. “Life Interrupted” series.
Text: Acts 17:22-31
In this moment in our shared life, people are suffering in many different ways. People are suffering the ravages of COVID-19 in their bodies, people are grieving deaths of loved ones to the disease, people are losing their jobs, losing their homes, are without access to healthcare or insurance, are falling into addiction, reeling with anxiety, paralyzed by depression. People are grieving losses of all kinds, even as they continue to grapple with everything that comes with being human—messy relationships, vulnerable bodies, weighty responsibilities. Siblings of color have this collective grief compounded by exhaustion and rage in the face of ongoing, often unchecked, acts of racial aggression in our society. People of conscience who have more resources and privilege add guilt to their grief plates as they wonder, in light of what others are going through, whether it’s OK to admit that they’re struggling, too. And as is always the case, the poor and marginalized will continue to carry the brunt of the suffering; the ones already on the edge will be the first ones to fall.
Over the past many weeks, as we’ve been grappling with life interrupted by grief and suffering, I wonder how many times I have proclaimed “we are not alone,” “God is with us,” or “No matter where you are or what you’re holding, God’s with you there.” How or why, with so much that could be argued to the contrary, can I make such an affirmation?
I must admit that, at times over the past months, I’ve felt I needed to explain or even apologize for repeating it so often. I’ve wondered how many folks receive my assurance of God’s abiding presence and just get angry—because they don’t perceive that presence or feel that God has broken the promise and abandoned them. If that resonates with you, be assured of this: you share in a time-honored reaction—at least if our scriptures are any indication. There are moments in our lives when we join an ancient chorus and cry out to God—“Where are you??” “How long will you leave me alone?”
And yet, alongside this refrain, another song rises, telling stories of an ever-present God. This God is not a fairy tale, a narrative projection of the human psyche, a divine ATM machine, a macho bully, or a nebulous ball of energy. This God acts concretely in history, is relational, loving, and involved. Testimonies of this God include: The steadfast love of the Lord is present from generation to generation! God receives and responds to the cries of God’s people! Even if we try, we can’t escape God’s presence! God is with us and loves us and there is nothing we can do about it! This God proves the testimonies true by coming into the world in flesh as Emmanuel, meaning “God is with us.” Jesus reveals that “God is with us” in every experience of human relationship, joy, suffering, even death. And Jesus promises not to leave us orphaned, a promise fulfilled at Pentecost as Spirit appears with fresh energy and power in and among the disciples. It is because this particular God is the one I worship that I’m compelled to assure over and again, “You are not alone.”
The highly educated, philosophically curious people of Athens in the first century of the Common Era knew many gods but not this God. The ancient Greek gods were each connected to different parts and energies of creation. These gods had desirable qualities and special powers but were involved in all sorts of internecine drama among themselves, and—unpredictably—exacted favor or vengeance on each other and upon humans. As with many ancient religious cults, it was a quid pro quo kind of spiritual economy. You wanted to keep your gods happy! So you honor them with statues of their likeness and bring presents to their temples to curry favor. The Greeks also had to grapple with the three goddesses called the “Fates.” Clotho (the spinner) spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis (the alotter) dispensed it, and Atropos (the inflexible) cut the thread (sets the moment of death). This strand of religious philosophy left humans powerless. Your fate was set and you just had to suffer through it. // Buzzing in and around all these idols were many lines of philosophical inquiry, including some mentioned earlier in the story, Stoicism and Epicureanism.
It was into this religious, philosophical, and curious soup that Paul steps. After acknowledging the religiosity of the Athenians, he mentions a monument tucked among the many idols. This monument “To an unknown god,” may seem strange at first. Why would such a monument be needed? Well, if the goal was to keep the gods happy, what if you inadvertently missed one? This provides a space to cover your…bases…
In any case, Paul uses this as his opening to share that while the Athenians may not know this God, this God knows them. Paul paints the picture of this God for them: This is the God who hurled the stars into orbit and stirred the seas to make waves, who gathered stardust into earth, scooped up those crystals into shapes of creatures, breathed into them and chanted, “Live!” This God, whose name you don’t know, has known you by name from the beginning. This God, bidden or unbidden is present with you. This is the God who is not divided into discrete energies of creation, but is the life-giving energy and breath of all things. (17:24-25) This is not a God of one people, one tribe, one nation, but is the Mother and Father of all nations. (17:26) This God knows you as a parent knows their child. This God has been loving and longing for you all along. And this God, as a loving parent, is not playing with you as though your life is a pawn in a game, is not demanding sacrifices in order to give you life and blessing, but freely and joyfully provides all that you need. As a loving parent, this God doesn’t cause you suffering but draws near to you when you suffer and cries with you. And the presence of this loving God, present and at work even without your knowledge, has revealed wisdom to your own philosophers who rightly expressed: “We are God’s offspring” and “In God we live, move, and have our being.” This is the God we search and long for as a child searching for a parent, as a river searching for the sea, as a traveler searching for home.
Paul lays out this vision and then says, in essence, “Now you know! And you can choose to turn toward this God of life-giving love.” (17:30) That, after all, is what it means to “repent,” it means to turn toward love and life and mercy and grace, to turn away from the “idols” of your own making that may be beautiful, interesting, and even helpful in some ways, but that are ultimately unable to sustain you. You can turn away from the quid pro quo ways into which you’ve been indoctrinated, the ways of having to earn favor, grace, love. You can turn toward the God who loves you, whose mercies are new every morning, free of charge. You can turn away from the lie of uncaring Fates before which you have no power. You can turn toward a life of agency and creativity, participating in the mighty works of God’s mending and new creation in the world. You dwell in God and God dwells in you. And because you live and move and have your being in God who has proven to be the God of life through the resurrection of Jesus, you don’t have to fear death—because in life, in death, in life beyond death, we are in God. We are held in that steadfast, everlasting, eternal, present-before-the-world-was-a-thing love of a God who is the Lord of Lords. //
The Athenians got to ponder and wonder about what difference this newly revealed God could make. What we believe about our God—the nature of our God, the presence or absence of our God, the desire of our God—makes a difference in how we live our lives. It determines how we form community and what we do and value together.
If we believe that God is or should be formed in our image instead of the other way around, then our perspectives, desires, and prejudices will consistently, comfortably align with “God’s will!” (magic!) If we believe God is out to get us, we will live in fear and feel like victims. If we believe that God has to be paid off in order to love us, we will likely treat others as transactions, too. If we believe that the ways of God are separate from and hostile to scientific knowledge and the various arts of human discernment and understanding, then we can ignore information coming from those disciplines while claiming to be acting in faith. If we believe that God is our nation’s God and that God has destined our nation to be the best and baddest nation in the world and, further, that our nation is supposed to look, think, and worship one way, then we will dehumanize and devalue anyone or anything that hinders that vision—to the point of destruction—and we will do that in the name of God. I have written elsewhere, “In God we trust” may be written on our money, but our money serves other gods. There is growing proof that plenty of people who call themselves Christian worship at these altars.”
Today we are reminded of the steadfast presence and love and life-giving power of YHWH, the God in whom we ALL live, move, and have our being. The particular God not of one tribe or nation but the God of all, who is not vengeful or prejudiced or partial toward any (Acts 10:34), who freely gives to all love and grace, who endows all of us with minds to use well and hands and hearts to offer one another in lovingkindness. A God who has given us in Jesus an example and teacher of what life in the Kin-dom looks like, and we seek to be formed by that God instead of the other way around.
In this moment, formed in the God we know, and based on science, human study, and the teachings of our faith, our call is to love God and neighbor and that means privileging human health and life over other considerations and erring on the side of safety. This means staying home, wearing masks in public, washing our hands, sharing our resources generously if we have them so as to support those who are struggling in this time, asking for help when we need it, having patience with others, being gentle with ourselves, taking one day at a time, staying connected in healthy ways with other people—for their sakes and for our own, praying for and concretely supporting in any way we can our leaders, essential workers, and folks on the frontlines.
And staying connected with God. That last bit is in some ways the easiest of all since the assurance is that we are always, already in God. There are many unknowns in this moment in our history. But one thing that is known for sure: You are not alone. We are not alone. God is with us. Thanks be to God.
Tuesday May 12, 2020
Tuesday May 12, 2020
Life Lost…and Found
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC May 10, 2020, the fifth Sunday of Easter. “Life Interrupted” series. (and Mother’s Day)
Text: Acts 7:55-60
When I was growing up, Mother’s Day included cutting pink tea roses from the bush at the corner of the house by the garage, affixing them to our Sunday best before going to 1st UMC, Sapulpa (where the tradition was to wear a colorful rose to honor a mother still living, and a white rose to remember a mother who’d died), then, we’d eat out! Churches I’ve served observe a variety of traditions, often involving carnations and honoring mothers in the congregation. These are lovely memories for me and cherished traditions for many in congregations of all stripes.
But other things I experienced over the years—both as a woman and a pastor—are the extraordinarily mixed and often painful emotions that come up on this day for many—for women longing to be mothers, for those whose relationship with their mother or child is broken, for those whose children are suffering or have died, and on it goes.
Further, I’ve come to understand that Mother’s Day didn’t begin as a day to honor mothers at church or as a greeting card industry. Its origins began with Ann Jarvis who lived in Appalachia mid-19th century and founded “Mothers Work Day” to advocate for health and hygiene education to mitigate child mortality. Later, she mobilized women in Appalachia to go into Civil War camps to treat the wounded soldiers on both sides and to teach sanitation and disinfection through “Women’s Friendship Day.” Inspired by Ann Jarvis and deeply affected by the suffering and death experienced in the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe wanted to bring an end to war and equality for all people, regardless of race, religion, gender or nationality. She wrote the Mothers Day Proclamation, calling mothers to leave their homes for one day a year and work for peace in their communities and in 1872 the first “Mother’s Peace Day” was celebrated.
While I certainly honor my mother and all mothers, I will ground my words today in this original spirit of Mother’s Day. Our text helps me to do so. Stephen’s story begins in a conflict in the early church in Jerusalem. Greek-speaking widows weren’t receiving their fair share of the daily food distribution, an “oversight” possibly motivated by prejudice or conflict between the Greek and Aramaic speaking disciples.
The response was to form a ministry team of seven servant leaders to care for this social justice and direct service ministry. Stephen is described as a shining light among this group. His powerful witness in the community is seen as a threat to certain leaders in one or two of the Jerusalem Synagogues and they stir up a slander campaign against Stephen, accusing him of blasphemy, a charge punishable by stoning according to the Levitical Law (Lev. 24:13-14). In Acts 6:13 it’s clear that the whole thing is a set-up, a completely false accusation. But it works. Stephen is brought before the Jerusalem Council and doesn’t mince words when asked what he has to say about the charges. He proceeds to lay out a “history of Israel that identifies two Jewish groups: those who accept God’s message and messengers and those who reject them. The comparison Stephen develops…aligns Stephen and the church with Abraham, Joseph, the prophets, and Jesus. His [accusers] are aligned with the Egyptians, Joseph’s brothers, the rebellious in the wilderness who disobeyed Moses, and the ancestors who killed the prophets.”
If you read the whole sermon of Stephen before the Council, you might start to feel worried about the feelings of the folks he’s calling out. It might seem overly polarized and harsh. And truth is that Stephen’s sermon—along with so many passages of Christian scripture—has been twisted and perverted into a diatribe against the Jewish people as a whole causing untold suffering and loss of life for our Jewish siblings over the centuries. And that is never OK.
What I want to highlight, however, is that in the narrative flow of the story, Stephen’s sermon was simply a prophetic reminder of what Jesus himself had said in various ways. It is a call for God’s people—no matter their religion!—to align with God’s message of love and justice as many had done through the ages. The facts of this case are that Stephen is unjustly accused by those who have power, arrested on a lie, then chooses to speak out in the face of the injustice, and is brutally murdered at the instigation of some religious leaders who manipulate the system to achieve their goal with the sanction of both church (temple) and state. (This doesn’t happen anymore, right?)
Stephen had a mother. I don’t know if she was present at her son’s final sermon or outside the city where he was dragged by people with stopped ears and enraged shouts (7:57)—those who wouldn’t or couldn’t hear the truth or contemplate the painful history that set the stage for this terrible moment. But think for a minute about how many mothers over the centuries have seen their children suffer indignities, violence, and often death in the wake of injustice? /
A “disease” is a particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people. A “pandemic” is a disease that spreads over an entire country, continent, or the whole world. Right now, the COVID-19 pandemic is the reality understandably on everyone’s mind. But I pray we will see that this pandemic highlights another one that has been allowed to fester and grow for ages in our country: the pandemic of racism, a disease from which no U.S. citizen can socially distance themselves. It touches and infects all of us. From the beginning, when the First Nations of this land were betrayed, forcibly removed, and slaughtered, to the horrific and immoral buying and selling of African siblings into slavery, to Jim Crow, to redlining, to voter suppression, and more—the racist “virus” has adapted and morphed as most diseases do in order to thrive. If those of us who feel defensiveness rising as I name these things allow our ears to remain open and our shouts of protest withheld long enough, perhaps we will notice who is bearing the brunt of this current suffering.
It is often said that when white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia. And what we see in the data is that black and brown siblings are disproportionately getting sick and dying from COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outline multiple factors that contribute to the disparity, including housing, work, and health conditions. The CDC states, “Health differences between racial and ethnic groups are often due to economic and social conditions that are more common among some racial and ethnic minorities than whites. In public health emergencies, these conditions can also isolate people from the resources they need to prepare for and respond to outbreaks.” All these “conditions” are the result of a long, painful history that has created fault lines of injustice and inequity throughout our society—from lack of access to health care to food deserts to disparate education and school resources to a broken criminal justice system to voting access to economic divides and obscene inequalities in compensation between what we now call “essential” workers and the folks who make a phone call to make millions while playing another round of golf. Here in D.C., as of May 7th, we have had 304 deaths; 241 of those were black siblings; and 23 identified as Hispanic/Latinx. That is 264 of 304.
I can hear the voices rushing to explain this away, to defend themselves, to rationalize the reality, to blame the victims. Those voices get so much play—those voices of people who look like me, some voices of people I hold dear—and they remind me of my own ongoing, often stumbling journey of waking up to my privilege as a white, educated, cisgender, employed, woman married to a man. I know the arguments but will not give them air here today. What I will lift up is a very basic reminder as one author frames it. “Racism is a form of structural oppression. The most common way to think about racism is to imagine a person who harbors ill will against people of color or who believes stereotypes about people of color…Such discriminatory attitudes are not racism; they are prejudice and bigotry. Racism is not merely a matter of individual feelings and beliefs but also a matter of systemic oppression.” The virus touches every person in the system regardless of where you live or what you look like or what you have.
I keep thinking about Stephen telling the story of a nation—without whitewashing it. He told the good stuff and the ways people had done harm. And the people who felt most threatened by him and what he was saying became enraged, stopped their ears from hearing or seeing what was real, worked him through the system, and got rid of him so that his words and work wouldn’t disrupt whatever it is that they felt was more precious than his life.
Stephen had a mother who knew nothing was more precious than his life. And today I want to honor her and all mothers who know intimately how precious the lives of their children are, in particular mothers of color who—as women—carry the added weight of misogyny on their backs as they navigate racism and all the complicated intersections and mutations and indignities that trail along with it while also being asked to care or worry about the feelings of white people more than their own.
On this Mother’s Day 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I invite us to honor mothers who have been living through the pandemic of racism for generations:
- mothers whose children suffer from diseases due to poverty, pollution, or food deserts
- mothers who fear for their children’s safety every single day because the color of their skin
- mothers seeking asylum from abuse and a better life for their children
- mothers forced to leave their children on their own while they work multiple jobs
- mothers who have to have “the talk” with their sons and daughters
- mothers who stay with abusers or suffer any number of other indignities in order to keep their children housed or fed
- mothers who fear for their children’s safety because of dangers in the neighborhood
- mothers in prison
- mothers who have to help their children unlearn internalized racism and learn to love their black and brown bodies
- mothers whose children have been taken from them at the border
- mothers whose lives get interrupted with the news that their child has been killed by acts of racist violence:
- Mamie Till-Mobley (Emmitt Till)
- Sybrina Fulton (Trayvon Martin)
- Lesley McSpadden (Michael Brown)
- Samaria Rice (Tamir Rice)
- Geneva Read-Veal (Sandra Bland)
- Wanda Cooper-Jones (Ahmaud Arbery)
I especially remember Ms. Wanda today as it was Mother’s Day 26 years ago when her son Ahmaud was born. And as I prepared for today, I was struck by how many of these women I’ve just named have channeled their grief and pain into advocacy, education, and public service. They, like the women who instigated the first expressions of Mother’s Day, are not simply letting a disease—in this case the disease of racism and racist violence—continue as the normal way of things, but are rather tirelessly pressing for new practices and policies, for healing, justice, and peace.
That is the intention of Foundry Church as well. We’re not going to just flare at the outrage of another lynching. We have systematically, consistently, and more slowly than many of us would like, been laboring to arrive at this day, when we enter a time of self-assessment and discernment to identify and address how our words, practices, and both conscious and unconscious bias toward siblings of color may undermine our desire to become beloved community. This work will be akin to Foundry’s “Summer of Great Discernment” around the question of marriage equality. In order for this to have lasting impact and not just be an exercise in massaging our perceived moral highground muscles, I implore all who care about the life and witness of Foundry and truly desire a more intentional and awake expression of beloved community to engage this process even when you don’t feel like it. In a moment you will hear from servant leader, Greg McGruder, to learn more about this initiative.
I want to close by lifting one detail that may be easily overlooked in our text today. Stephen, filled with Holy Spirit as he stood before his accusers, looked up and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Normally, Jesus is seated at God’s right hand. Early interpreters like Ambrose and Augustine picked up on this detail. Ambrose observed, “Jesus stood as a helpmate; he stood as if anxious to help Stephen, his athlete, in the struggle…” “[Jesus] sits as Judge of the quick and the dead; he stands as his people’s Advocate.”
As those who claim to follow Jesus, let’s stand with those he stands for, those who like Stephen are the victims of injustice… Let’s do our own work wherever we are that beloved community might become more than a dream among us strengthening us for the ongoing work to change the world for the better. Let’s let the tragic loss of life wake us up and motivate us to find a new—and so much better—way of life together.