Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

New Day, New Way

New Day, New Way

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC May 3, 2020, the fourth Sunday of Easter. “Life Interrupted” series.

Text:  Acts 2:42-47

Beloved, we are living through days unlike any we’ve seen before. The interruptions of our lives are significant, the unknowns many, the depth of the fallout at every level—personal, spiritual, economic, political, relational—not yet fully realized. What we are increasingly coming to understand is that things will never be the same. This is a life-, society-, and world-changing moment in history. And here we are in the middle of it. 

 

Our spiritual tradition teaches that whenever there is an outbreak of challenge or change, there is an inbreaking of Holy Spirit. The book of Acts is one place this is clear. This book from which we read today is often called the “Acts of the Apostles”—but from start to finish, it’s really all about the acts of Holy Spirit empowering, emboldening, encouraging, stirring, guiding, challenging, and sending a new community of God’s people to be a living witness to love and justice in the wake of a moment of profound change in the world. 

 

Some folk of the time didn’t realize there was any real change afoot. The corrupt powers of this world thought they had extinguished the hope rising among the citizens of the occupied territory of Palestine when they crucified the one called Jesus of Nazareth. They’d reset their overturned tables, returning to normal, the normal ways of injustice and usury, preparing a feast for themselves while leaving others to live on crumbs. They’d returned to the normal exclusion and neglect based on human constructs of tribe, purity, and policy. The power brokers of church and society, those responsible for the welfare of whole nations likely didn’t give the upstart Jesus movement another thought once they’d accomplished their manipulation of the mob to lynch the so-called King of the Jews. 

 

But God was up to something new. When Jesus got up on that first Easter morning a new day dawned, a new way of being was born. A way that enabled people to trust the promise and power of God’s liberating love to bring life into every place that feels hopeless, courage into fearful hearts, and vision for how to live together in peace with justice.

 

This is the context for our short passage today, a passage that immediately follows

three key moments. The first is the pouring out of Holy Spirit upon the disciples at Pentecost. The second is the bold preaching of Peter among the diverse pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem. Peter proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus and calls folks to receive the promise of forgiveness, new life, and the gift of the Holy Spirit so that they might be “saved from this corrupt generation.” (Acts 2:40) And this brings about the third key event, the conversion of 3,000 people.

 

These new converts—together with the 120 disciples of Jesus who were already together at Pentecost (Acts 1:15)—are the first congregation organized around the new Way of the risen Christ. It is a way of being in relationship and community guided by “the apostles’ teaching” and grounded in prayer (2:42). And to be very clear, the apostles’ teaching is the message of the Kin-dom of God they learned from their Rabbi Jesus (e.g. Acts 1:3). That message was always an invitation to turn from ways of being that hurt and destroy and toward ways that heal and bring new life. Kin-dom living has love of God and neighbor at the center, breaks down barriers, and crosses boundaries to draw the circle ever wider. It is marked by the wonder-working power of Spirit who anointed Jesus and all who follow his Way, to “bring good news to the poor…proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Jubilee!)” (Lk 4:18-19).

 

Formed in the teaching and example of Jesus, this new community seeks to practice the new Way. It is a marked by generosity, radical love and hospitality, mutuality, friendship, and care for neighbors. It is a community grounded in prayer, praise, and worship—both in the Temple/sanctuary and in their homes. The abundance they experience does not just set a bounteous feast on their own tables but flows into the places of need around them. They share what they have to sustain and fuel their life together. This new Way is Spirit-filled and Spirit-sustained. //

 

And it likely never happened in such an idyllic way. This vision—according to scholars—is likely just that: a vision statement for what the writer of Luke and Acts believed the church was called to be. But, even though not without the inherent messiness of human community, this early movement of Jesus followers must have been doing something right because people were drawn to them. “Day by day,” says the text, “the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” (2:47) And saved from what? Peter’s sermon helps us understand—saved “from this corrupt generation.” (2:40)

 

You see, the new Way lived in opposition and resistance to the corrupt, unjust ways of the Roman Empire and the ways of some of the religious leaders who—as Jesus had taught—were more focused on the outward appearances and getting special treatment because of their office than on matters of justice or love of God and neighbor. (Lk 11:37-44) And people longed for justice, for a way to live in friendship and mutuality. In fact, this vision of human community was desired by many in the ancient world. One scholar writes, “Terminology in this passage echoes other Greek philosophical writings that describe an ethic of friendship and mutuality that can be realized through ideal social and political arrangements. Some elements of the text also recall promises made in the [Hebrew scriptures] about the just society that God longs to see established in Israel. Certainly, then, this passage paints an idealistic portrait, proposing to ancient readers that Christian community offers the path to such a desirable vision of human existence.”

 

God’s activity in Jesus Christ and through Spirit’s power gives shape and life to a new thing, a longed-for thing—then and now: a community that is organized around principles and practices that reject any “return to normal”—because the “normal” thing is unjust and broken. I am struck right now by some beautiful and powerful pieces of writing that capture a longing of the human family around the world, a longing to step out of this moment having really learned something that changes the way we live. I’m also struck right now by the disturbing, violent, rage-filled images of unmasked, overwhelmingly white, U.S. citizens with guns screaming in the faces of security officers because they disagree with the actions of their elected governor. This moment highlights the existing clashes between values, the ways that different perspectives and experiences are not honored and considered, but rather used as opportunities for blame, rage, and violence. Our human family knows that things are not as they should be—and people are getting pulled all over the place, fed images and messages from God knows where, messages intended to stir distrust, resentment, fear, and all the reptilian parts of our nature. People are responding in all sorts of ways—some more helpful than others.

 

In this outbreak of challenge, suffering, brokenness, and struggle, there is an inbreaking of Holy Spirit doing something new. And, we know something NEW is needed for reasons we’ll be pondering together for many weeks to come. The world longs for that newness—for a vision and leadership and community with integrity, whose principles and values are not just spoken but lived, whose outrage is not focused on themselves—either selfishly or self-righteously—but rather focused on the powers and policies that systematically deny the needs, dignity, and value of whole swaths of the human family, whose core principle is love of God and love of neighbor and walking gently upon the earth. 

 

And here we are in the middle of it all. Unable to all be together in our “temple” our sanctuary and building (likely for months to come) but filled with Spirit’s wonder-working power to be part of a new thing, a new way of offering the world an alternative vision for what life together can be, a new way of being advocates for and witnesses to the love and justice of Jesus Christ.

 

We begin right where we are, thinking together about what Acts 2 has to say to us today. We see that it’s Holy Spirit who creates and sustains the church, regardless of where or how we gather—in temple or in homes. I imagine that over the coming months as it becomes safe to gather in small groups of 10-20, we may begin to form “house churches” throughout our neighborhoods, with hosts who will welcome people in, using safe practices, for worship “watch parties” and follow-up discussion, fellowship, prayer, and support. As in the Acts 2 vision, we continue to pool our resources to care for the vulnerable neighbors in our region. Servant leaders skilled in public health and medical care are providing leadership for us to plan a multi-step re-entry that is not only safe but also grounded in our core values as a congregation. We are in the process of visioning an online campus for worship, learning, and small group connection that will extend our witness and invitation to those near and far for whom that way of being in community works best even after we are able to resume the full range of activity at 16th and P Street, NW. We are providing ways to reach out in loving kindness to isolated neighbors through making phone calls. We are offering messages from our pastors Monday through Friday that extend our message of love, justice, and inclusive community to the wider world. And we are continuing—even now—our advocacy and social justice work, including critical work to assess the ways Foundry can identify and address obstacles in our becoming a truly beloved community that practices equity and justice for our black and brown siblings and celebrates and multiplies the gifts received from our increasingly racially diverse community.

 

And you are all continuing to be witnesses to how to live with purpose, faith, hope, love, creativity, generosity, care, and good humor—as you share words, images, stories, and practices not only with other Foundry folks but with your friends, colleagues, and families through emails, texts, Zoom gatherings, social media posts, and phone calls. You extend the vision and values of the new ways we are called to be in community together through your acts of love, compassion, generosity, and justice. (#ThisIsHowIFoundry)

 

We are all experiencing a range of emotions, and are all over the map in terms of where we are on coming to terms with the current realities in our world. But the good news today is that God is up to something new and that means that while things will be unsettling and some will be lost, the good news is that, just as Jesus got up and moved out into a new day and a new way of life, that day is coming for us. Let’s pray for Spirit to get us up and ready to participate now and then in something that is truly new—and better than we could ever imagine.

https://foundryumc.org/

Hospitality for Hope

Hospitality for Hope

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC April 26, 2020, the third Sunday of Easter. “Life Interrupted” series.

Text: Luke 24:13-35

In the midst of political and social unrest, class and race divides, gross economic disparities, and alongside religious institutions pickled in this brine and rarely able or willing to acknowledge how deep their collusion, things were beginning to look up. New leadership was emerging. Momentum was building. Resources for a new movement were growing. And though it was sure to continue as an uphill battle, big changes were on the horizon. And then it all got interrupted. Life got interrupted by death. The leaders the people looked to for order, protection, and guidance had not stayed the death sentence, but enabled it. 

 

There are reports, proclamations of great hope, that all is not lost, that what might be imagined as the end is really a new beginning, that death has been overcome, that justice will be done. But the evidence is debatable. What isn’t debatable is the suffering, the loss, the disappointment, the anger, the injustice, the despair, the uncertainty, the fear, the grief.

 

The two of them are walking and talking about all these things, maintaining appropriate social distance, on their way home to Emmaus, Pennsylvania, about five miles southwest of Allentown. It is the third day—the third Sunday, that is—of Easter and the story has been told again, the promise proclaimed. But the death toll rises. The leadership at the top, of government and of some religious institutions is…questionable. The disease is everywhere, unseen until it appears in bodies—whether near or far, known or unknown. And before setting out for their hike home, they’d both spent considerable time on Twitter and reading the news. So they know that essential workers are being treated as expendable. Migrant farm workers, trash collectors, nurses, and so many more, are exposed to unsafe working conditions and struggle to acquire the personal protective equipment they need to be safe as they continue to do their vital work. The travelers have learned not only of jobs lost and long lines at food banks, but also of inequities and injustices upon which our nation has long depended to sustain the economy and the welfare of the privileged, as these have been laid bare in the midst of this pandemic. They’ve read how “Low-income communities are more likely to be exposed to the virus, have higher mortality rates, and suffer economically. In times of economic crisis, these vulnerabilities will be more pronounced for marginal groups – identified by race, gender, and immigration status.” Depression, anxiety, and addiction relapse are triggered. They know that COVID-19 is still not completely understood, that it is acting differently from other viruses and is difficult to track, and that wide-spread testing is not yet available, much less a vaccine. They’ve heard from friends who grieve loved ones who died alone and who suffer due to distance from loved ones who are alone in nursing homes or hospitals. 

 

Easter has been proclaimed, but as they walk along, talking about all these things that are happening, they aren’t feelin’ Easter. They are feeling the strain of the situation and what they’ll walk into when they get home—one of them a marriage on the edge of breakdown, and the other an empty apartment that might be lost if the unemployment doesn’t come through. The things they were looking forward to, the momentum and potential for some movement in a good direction in their work and in the world has been shut down. As they walk along, they aren’t feelin’ Easter. They are overwhelmed with sadness and disappointment. They are distracted and anxious and exhausted. 

 

And then their journey gets interrupted, too. Like the person seated next to you on the plane who decides to strike up a conversation when you’re really not in the mood, a stranger sidles up next to them on the way, asking what they’re talking about. They are noticeably aggravated—as if anyone right now wouldn’t know what was going on… Even so, they lay it all out there—even including the bit about it being the Easter season, new life, resurrection, hope, blah blah blah… And then the stranger also seems to get aggravated and starts schooling them as if that’s ok… “Have you completely missed what the prophets and news reports and the Easter story are saying? Did you think that human vulnerability would magically cease or that consequences of human action or inaction would be erased? That God would all of a sudden be in the business of sidestepping human cruelty, injustice, suffering, and folly instead of meeting us there to wake us up, turn us around, and bring us through? Look at the stories of your faith, from Moses to Esther to Mary Magdalene to the prophets of the 20th and 21st century…God was with them in their weakness and in their strength, was with them in the face of injustice and tyranny, was with them in their particular moments of crisis and suffering, and strengthened them to do difficult things for the cause of right. Look at what Jesus said and did—how he tried to get folks to see what the prophets had been saying all along about the wages of injustice and greed and lust for power, how he told his disciples that he would die and they didn’t believe him, how he didn’t erase vulnerability but took it on himself, how he wept for the ways that those in the power centers (Jerusalem) wouldn’t receive the peace he offered, how he went through it all and emerged alive, offering that life to all of us!  Look—don’t you see?— over centuries, promises are fulfilled right in the midst of crisis, in a constant unfolding, God’s love and mercy and beauty and compassion continue as always, bringing new creation out of chaos, light out of darkness, hope out of despair, life out of death.”

 

Well, all this was a bit much and, at this point, the travelers near home. What will they choose to do? The thing we so often do?—just keep our head down, brush off the hope kindling in our heart, and disengage from the person who has crossed our path? (“K—bye!”)  This time, who knows why, they decide to invite the stranger to join them in one’s back yard where they sit at a distance to share snacks. And as the evening wears on, something happens. Two weary and wounded friends see one another, become conscious of their gratitude for companionship in the midst of struggle. They become aware of how this unexpected new presence among them made this moment happen, how this new presence reminded them of the promises of faith (regardless of whether they can “feel” them). At one point during their evening, with candles on the patio table glowing, when the bread and cheese comes out with shouts of thanksgiving and praise (because bread and cheese are amazing) they begin to realize the person who’d sidled up beside them is gone—because the stranger is no longer a stranger but has become a friend who, like them, is simply trying to hold on to hope and to find her way. //

 

The story of the “road to Emmaus” is well-known in church-going circles. In this last chapter of Luke, the writer wraps up the first book of the series (Acts is the sequel) by pointing out that the Gospel itself is a “sequel,” a continuation and turning point in God’s story of saving grace. Jesus “opens the scriptures” to the travelers on the road, interpreting how the messiah has been promised all along, that the suffering, death, and resurrection should come as no surprise. And when Jesus later appears to the whole gang back in Jerusalem, he opens the door to the ongoing journey, promising to send the power they’ll need to proclaim God’s mercy in the world—a reference to the moment of Pentecost and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. All this context matters because the road we travel today to Emmaus, Pennsylvania and to all our homes in all our contexts is not a different road from the one in the book of Luke. Our lives are a continuation of the story, the next book in the series of God’s redeeming work in the world. Injustice, corruption, greed, disease—all these things were present then and are present now, interrupting our lives in all sorts of ways. Also present then and now are countless travelers trying to find our way, all trying to live, to have what we need for ourselves and families, all at various places on the journey.

 

I imagine that some—maybe many of us—aren’t feelin’ the whole Easter thing right now and for a whole host of different reasons. And that, of course, is OK. As we deal with our own challenges, thoughts, and feelings, aware of the immense suffering of so many both near and far, the thing to be aware of is what those things are doing to our hearts. The travelers in our text today are at different times “slow of heart” and having “burning hearts.” Last fall, in our “Becoming Beloved” series, we pondered the question, “What do you allow your circumstances to do to your heart?” It’s a perennial question. In this intense moment of distress what’s happening to your heart? In moments of pain, the human heart always has a choice—whether to become more tender or hardened by the experience. One choice is an opening and one is wall-building. So often, we hope for something—for love, for newness, for justice—and are disappointed, hurt, humiliated… And, as I’ve heard a loved one say often, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!” It’s difficult to trust when we’ve been hurt. It’s difficult to hope when our hopes have been dashed. It’s difficult to believe a promise when our hearts have been betrayed. It’s difficult to believe life and love and justice will win in the end with so much history bearing witness to the contrary. Are we willing to remain open, hopeful, trusting at all in such a hard, brutal world? Are we willing to open our hearts to hope?

 

What does that even mean? It means allowing ourselves to hope for those things promised in the unfolding story:  freedom, forgiveness, peace, loving and just relationships, joy, new life—for ourselves and for the world. It means claiming the Easter promise—in spite of the facts—that that goodness is stronger than evil, that death doesn’t have the last word, that human life has eternal value, dignity, and meaning, and that love has the power to save someone’s life. Christian hope isn’t just a nice idea. It is embodied in Jesus—made real in flesh and blood—so that we might finally see our hope is not just wishful thinking.  

 

Today in our story, weary, wounded travelers allowed their hearts to be open just enough to unknowingly welcome the risen Christ into their conversation and into their home. And that, in turn, brought insight, gratitude, new relationship, purpose, and identity as part of God’s unfolding story. It allowed them to welcome hope as a companion on their journey.

 

In a world where there is so much despair, cynicism, and suffering, one of the most powerful things we can do is to allow our hearts to remain tender and open, so that hope might find a hospitable home within us. Hope living in us might look like simply getting through another day, trusting that things won’t always be this hard. Sometimes it might look like forgiving someone—maybe yourself. It might look like giving of your surplus so that others might have what they need. It might mean doing the kind thing, the loving thing, the brave thing, the beautiful thing, the creative thing, knowing that these things might be misunderstood, rejected, ignored, destroyed, or make no discernible difference—but they might mean life for others, a sign of hope made flesh.

 

Sometimes, providing hospitality for hope might simply mean trusting that, with Jesus Christ alive in the world, you just never know when something strange and unwanted might bring moments of joy, revelation, purpose, and new relationship, when one thing might turn into another, a stranger into a friend, hunger into satisfaction, mourning into dancing, brokenness into wholeness, fear into trust, death into life. 

 

I don’t know about you, but the story I want to be part of will have hope as a companion (and bread and cheese!). It will be an adventure story about the journey toward God’s promise that love wins. Maybe we can encourage one another to write and live that story together.

https://foundryumc.org/

Locked In

Locked In

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC April 19, 2020, the second Sunday of Easter.

Text:  John 20:19-31

There’s long been a tendency to think of church as a place to go.  And perhaps to think that the work of the church is to go “there” and to get other people to go there… If our understanding of what the church is and is for has to do with a building, a place to gather, then it is easy to think that to be a Christian—a disciple of Jesus—is primarily about going to that place and getting other people to go to that place. This, of course, is overly simplified and few if any would actually say this way of thinking is what it means to be the church. But I think this imbalanced view of what the church is and what the church is for is fairly common—if not intentionally, then at least in practice. 

But on this first Sunday after Easter, not only is the tomb empty, but so are our church buildings. We’re not able to safely “go” to church in our buildings. Out of care for one another, we are staying home and practicing social distancing. But in this moment, the church is newly alive in so many profound ways. We’re being reminded of what the simple song many of us learned as children teaches, “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is a people.” The people who are the church—Foundry Church and countless others all around the world—are finding creative ways to connect, to care, to serve. And in conversation after conversation with colleagues, the trend is clear: new people are being reached and encouraged and supported and inspired by the love of God extended in and through the people and work of our congregations. Generous giving to support direct service and the sustained ministries of our churches is happening. Worship attendance is strong and some folks are describing a sense of feeling closer to our pastors as we “talk” with folks from our homes to yours. New ways of connecting—like our Virtual Coffee Hour—are providing folks an opportunity to meet people and form relationships they’d never have engaged in person. 

Even though we might never admit it, it’s easy to make our spiritual lives about a place. And we at Foundry have a pretty spectacular place so it’s especially tempting. Our place and what it helps facilitate are beautiful gifts, never to be underestimated or devalued. Most of us have been grieving not being able to be in our places of worship and gathered with our friends at church. That is understandable and a sign of the beautiful ways God has been at work in our lives in those places. 

And also, we are being offered a chance to experience what church is and can be when we move outside the walls, we’re given a chance right now to experience all sorts of newness. So often in our congregations, we get locked in to certain ways of doing things. It can be very easy to end up contained, in a holding pattern, even with locked doors, somewhat afraid of going outside our familiar, protective spaces. 

Today we see Jesus come into that place where the disciples have gathered in a locked room out of fear. Mary Magdalene has told them of the empty tomb and her encounter with Jesus, but the rest of the disciples haven’t seen him yet. I’ve often wondered if they weren’t only hiding out because they were afraid of meeting the same fate as Jesus, but also on the off-chance Mary was telling the truth…after all, what would Jesus do to those who’d fallen asleep, denied, and abandoned him when things got real?  In any case, Jesus appears not with words of judgment, but with peace, embodying the forgiveness he commissions the disciples to practice. And he says to them, in essence: “Get out of this locked room!”  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…” And as he sends them out of the building, Jesus breathes Spirit into them—the same Spirit who brings life and order out of chaos at creation.

God sent Jesus into the world out of love to share the gift of life in God, the gift of hope, the gift of peace and forgiveness—these gifts of God that mend, that save, that bring new life. And Jesus sends his disciples—sends us—in the same way. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are a people who are not only gathered into the family of God, but we are also, inherently, a people sent. God breathes into us Spirit, enlivening us to participate in God’s mending and life-giving work in the world. // We often talk about the church having a mission—but as we claim our call to be a “sent people” we will understand that it’s not so much that we, the church, have a mission, but that God’s mission has a church. 

To participate in God’s mission—God’s mending, life-giving work in the world—is at the heart of what it means to practice sacred resistance. As I’ve defined it, Sacred resistance is anything—any word, deed, or stance—that actively counters the forces of hatred, cruelty, selfishness, greed, dehumanization, desolation, and disintegration in God’s beloved world. Today, I want to focus a few moments on the work of mending creation. This Wednesday, April 22nd is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. On that day in 1970, 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States —demonstrated for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. 

Groups that had been fighting individually against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife united on Earth Day around these shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders. By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air Act. Two years later Congress passed the Clean Water Act. A year after that, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act.

Fifty years have passed and even with the efforts of many, the planet, its resources, habitats, and creatures continue to be deeply wounded by human action. The most tender creatures and plants are quietly disappearing. The less obvious effects of climate change are taking their toll. Just because you and I can’t see the shrinking ice caps and the warming of the oceans doesn’t mean these things aren’t happening. Just because our windshields aren’t as splattered with bugs as they once were doesn’t mean this is a good thing. We know the webs and cycles of interconnection on our planet. Things in the web are disrupted and everything is adversely affected. 

Sacred resistance calls us to do something in the face of the disintegration of our planet. Our Judeo-Christian faith specifically calls us to be caretakers of the world and to remember that we are, ourselves, part of the creation. We are creatures, the human animal, made in the image of God.  We are, ourselves, woven into the fabric of this beautiful, broken world. And we are “sent” as the church, sent by God to mend, to care, to nurture, to tend, to protect, to share. I’m always amazed at the tenacity of creation. Even with all we’ve done and continue to do, life is stubborn and continues to find a way to flourish, to flower, to bear fruit. 

As I reflected on this and pondered the Gospel reading for today, I noticed that, like the wounded earth that continues to offer itself to us with visions of renewal and life season after season, Jesus offers his risen, wounded body to Thomas, an invitation to a renewed relationship of mutuality.  The power of life, the power of God, is stubborn, refusing to be destroyed even when we do our worst.  But there, in Jesus’ wounds, we see that there are lasting consequences to our thoughtless, selfish, destructive actions.  We are invited to enter into those wounds, to reach out and touch the brokenness of our created world, brokenness for which we, in part, are responsible.  What does that mean?  It means choosing to do something about it—because it’s simply a cop-out to say that the problem is too big to do anything about.  We can make choices that make a difference. Right now we are seeing what happens when human activity shifts away from practices that do harm. Even after a relatively short time, earth begins to renew itself.  

On Friday Pastor Ben interviewed Rev. Jenny Phillips whose ministry at the General Board of Global Ministries is focused on environmental justice and climate care. Pastor Ben asked Jenny to help us think about what we are seeing and learning about climate care in this moment and what we can do right now in this time of quarantine. She invited us to ponder the ways that shifting to more local economies affects the planet, to notice how shifts in modes of transportation make a difference, and to pay attention to energy and product use in our homes and all our buildings. She emphasized the critical importance of government policies and the need to encourage and hold our legislators accountable for common sense legislation that supports industry and jobs in ways that are sustainable for the planet. And in this moment, even as most of us are at home most of the time, there are things we can do! We can buy less stuff, use what we already have, repurpose what we have, make do with less, and make things at home. It’s a great time to establish new practices for creation care at home… What a gift to realize that in this time when we may feel so helpless to heal the suffering of many, we can do things to bring healing to the earth!

Today we’re reminded that the church is the people of God gathered in God’s love and sent to participate in God’s mending work in the world. To say we are a sent people is to recognize it’s not just about “going to church” only to save or nurture ourselves, but rather that we are to “breathe in” the gifts and grace and love and mercy of God as we are gathered so that we can be breathed out, sent into the world to live our whole life in a way that participates in God’s mission of saving love and mercy in the world.  Rather than just going to church, it’s about being the church all the time and in all the places that we find ourselves.  That means participating in God’s mending work and care for this beautiful, broken world.  

In these days of quarantine, we may feel a bit locked in. But I want to encourage all of us to realize that we are the church no matter where or how we’re gathered. God’s Spirit breathes into us and inspires our response. And though we can’t be “sent” into as many places as we might normally go, through these 50 days of Easter we can care for creation and maybe even participate in the evolution of a new creation—of ourselves, the church, the world… Wouldn’t it be just like God to show up and do a new thing just when we feel most locked in?

https://foundryumc.org/

Raising Expectations

Raising Expectations

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC April 12, 2020, Easter Sunday.

Text: John 20:1-18

I don’t know what I expected. It was my first trip to the Holy Land and I’d seen pictures and heard others share some of what had been most powerful for them, but I didn’t really know what things would be like. Over the years, I’ve seen all sorts of artistic renditions of the holy places, the Jordan River, Jacob’s Well, the Mount of Olives, the garden of Gethsemane, the Sea of Galilee, Calvary, and Jesus’ tomb—so I had all sorts of ideas floating around in my interior image files. 

But somehow it never occurred to me that most of these places are no longer really as they once were. Even though I surely knew better, I think some part of me still imagined that pilgrimage to the place where the first Easter happened would mean walking into an ancient Jewish cemetery to a traditional cave tomb in a garden space outside the walls of Jerusalem. But what you will find instead is that the stone slab where, according to archaeologists and historians, it is highly likely Jesus’ body was laid is now incased in several layers of marble, which is in the highly decorated original cave tomb over which is built an intricate shrine called an “Edicule,” which is encased in the ginormous Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is found within the walls of the expanded city of Jerusalem. Something that was so basic and simple and small is now something ornate and big and complicated. 

I understand some of why this is so. Precious moments and places are important to return to, to remember, to celebrate, to adorn. We humans raise our Ebenezers, our monuments, and remembrance stones at all sorts of places that mark thin places in our experience, turning points, and spaces where we crossed over into new life. What we should know by now is how easy it is to make idols of our monuments, how easy it is to get to wrapped up with guarding the thing or the place or the memory as we picture it to the point that we believe we are in control of all of it, that we know how things should be and be done. Something that began as beautiful and life-giving can so easily sprout division and judgment and exclusion and hatred. 

The place where Jesus laid in the tomb for three days, the place where Jesus and Mary had their Easter encounter, is now guarded by a certain brotherhood of Greek Orthodox priests and the church that surrounds it tenuously “controlled” by three major Christian denominations whose shared history has its high points but has been marked by conflict and division.

And what else would we expect to find? That is our history. That is our world. That is the way things are. 

But can we not—should we not—expect something different? What would we want to find at the place where Easter happens? “Whom are you looking for?” Perhaps we yearn to find someone or something that will mend the torn fabric of human mutuality and cooperation in our world, release our hearts and communities from the bonds of fear and greed and prejudice, restore our capacity for trust and deep commitment to a common good instead of a good that always favors the privileged and wealthy. Perhaps we yearn to receive the capacity to believe that things in the world can really change, that the much-lauded arc of the moral universe will at some point really bend toward justice. Perhaps we yearn to discover at the place of Easter one who offers what we need to fill the empty places within our own souls and what we need to be able to dwell in the empty rooms we inhabit these days without sliding into unhealthy ways, that will give us courage to cling to hope right now when the challenges and bad news and suffering exponentially grow; someone who can assure and console, guide and renew, who will shine a light into this present moment of darkness. Perhaps we yearn for these things… but can we expect them? Do we really expect them?

Mary Magdalene certainly didn’t. “While it was still dark,” the scriptures say, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb grieving, having lost the one person who, according to tradition, had given her life back to her in more ways than one. She had journeyed with Jesus who embodied and offered a truly different way of life marked by love and liberation, compassion and justice. And then she had witnessed the powers of fear and jealousy and control and greed destroy him. If Jesus, so full of love and life and power and hope, Jesus, so wise and brave and strong, Jesus whose intimacy with God granted him extraordinary life-giving power couldn’t overcome the death-dealing ways of the world, then all hope is gone. Mary Magdalene comes to the garden with this expectation: The bullies will always win. Injustice will remain our daily bread. Death and fear of death will continue to paralyze and terrorize and devour. Mary comes expecting death, expecting to find the tomb firmly sealed, as it was when she’d left, because that’s the way things work. 

So when all seems hopeless, with no expectation for anything but death, Mary, alone, simply shows up in the garden with her love and faithfulness and care for Jesus. But things do not meet her expectations on this morning. On this morning, Jesus, alive, shows up with his love and faithfulness and care for her, calling her by name and commissioning her to go and share what has happened. It is just the two of them in this moment…a pretty quiet, simple, intimate encounter…a pretty unexpected Easter.

But simple, intimate, unexpected Easters can change everything. 

Mary Magdalene had watched the Lord of Life humbly buckle, break and fall under the weight of the world’s brutality, humiliation, and injustice. And now sees the Lord Jesus rise, alive…scarred, but standing. What had been dashed hopes and shattered expectations for her life and for the life of the world are raised right along with Jesus. She now knows that even in the midst of the worst the world can do, God has the power to bring unexpected, unimaginable newness and life. Mary comes to the garden expecting to find the dull familiarity of death and is met by a whole new life, a whole new world, a world where Christ is alive.

Even now, even when we forget, can’t believe it, don’t expect it, we live in this world where the living Christ wanders through the grocery aisles and loading docks in the middle of the night checking on the stockers and delivery drivers breathing encouragement, where Jesus moves among the frantic field hospitals and overrun ICUs to touch nurses and doctors and anesthesiologists and all medics with grace, among all those on the front lines of public safety and public care infusing them with courage, into the alleys and entryways where unhoused folk sleep to cover them with presence and to shield their social workers with protection, to all the places where vulnerability and fear and exhaustion and the weight of responsibility cry out for God…at every bedside of those close to death, where a family member is not able in this time to dwell, the living Christ shows up, scarred and standing, to proclaim that we are never alone and not even death gets to have the last word.

Of course we know that powers and principalities continue to rage and roar. We know that empires and those seduced by the power of worldly idols regroup and reassert themselves with a vengeance at any sign of a loosening of their stranglehold of comfort and control. They use all the considerable resources at their disposal to lower our expectations, to convince us that we are powerless, that the best we can do is muddle through and put up with things as they are, to believe that infighting and manipulation and unnecessary violence and injustice are inevitable, and that Easter is a great excuse for a party but doesn’t matter in the big picture, that there is no evidence for hope, that expecting the worst is the wisest option. //  

I’m choosing to side with Mary Magdalene on this one—gonna believe her— because all that other garbage is literally no way to live. Lord knows I struggle to really believe that things in this world will be different, I struggle to expect that we will allow this present moment of suffering and all the things it is revealing to motivate real change in our ways of living together. But, y’all, Jesus has gone through hell to show us the life that is possible—the life that is possible for us and the life that is possible for the world. And today Jesus meets us in all the simple spaces we are with love, faithfulness, and care, calls us by name, and promises that we, like him, can endure the pains of this world and emerge… scarred, but standing. Jesus meets us in all the places we are to raise our expectations for a world that is more gentle and just. And then commissions us to do our part to make it so. 

By the power of God loving us to life in this present moment, we may, from the relative smallness of our spaces, be given a big new vision for how things can and should be. By the power of God loving us to life right now, the better angels of our nature can rise up and reassert our common humanity, the dignity, reciprocity, justice, mercy, and compassion our shared vulnerability requires to survive; can not only show us who and what are essential, but how to reorder values accordingly; can give us the courage to work with instead of against one another; can concretely show us the healing that happens when we walk more gently upon the planet. By the power of God loving us to life, we may learn just how strong we are—and how much stronger we are when we are together. 

These Easter promises have been the same forever. Though it seems that for a very long time thousands upon thousands make their familiar, annual pilgrimages to the holy places to gather for the grand rites of Easter… and then go to their brunches and dinners with no expectation that anything is, can, or should be different in the world or in their lives. It’s almost like what began as a small, intimate, life-changing, purpose-giving, world-shaking, encounter with the living Christ has gotten overshadowed by the monuments we have built around it. 

If that is at all the case, then this is the moment of all moments to shake ourselves loose of anything unessential, to clear away anything that keeps our feet from standing directly on the solid rock of the living Christ, the one through whom and in whom and by whom we are given strength to stand and serve, scarred, but shining, sent into the world to raise expectations and, by the power of God, to meet them.

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Who Is This?

Who Is This?

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli for Foundry UMC April 5, 2020, Palm Sunday. “How Can You Believe This?” series.

Text: Matthew 21:1-11

Just as Jesus passed through a gate into the walled city of ancient Jerusalem, we pass through this day to enter the experience we call Holy Week. Jesus entered a place full of danger and tension. And this day holds the tensions of the week ahead in stark relief. We celebrate along with the many people who on that day long ago, hailed Jesus as the one bringing liberation, justice, and healing. We wave our branches (of all kinds!) as we join the throng through the ages who’ve been drawn to Jesus of Nazareth out of deep hope for things to be different in their lives and communities. And it is tempting to stop there, to shout hosanna and give thanks for the one who comes in the name of the Lord. But we know the story doesn’t stop there. Even in these opening moments, the story pivots quickly from “Hosanna!” to “turmoil.”

“When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.” (Mt 21:10) …the whole city was in turmoil…That line hits a nerve. Because there’s turmoil in the whole city, the whole nation, the whole world… There’s turmoil as a microscopic virus upends life as we have known it, as this global pandemic shines a light on all the fault lines and fissures of human relationships, values, and systems at every level. There’s turmoil not just on a day more than 2000 years ago in the city of Jerusalem. Not just in that place and time where religion and government were in bed together to protect the status quo, to support the power brokers, and the privileged, not just then, when masters of war and industry played their games in palaces and shadowed halls and alleys, not just there, where tribes, cultures, religions, and races mingled and clashed, but also in this place and time where the story is the same, where the context is the same—and not just in this moment of our history, but from the very beginning. There is turmoil…

Was the whole city of Jerusalem in turmoil because Jesus entered on a donkey with “Hosannas” rising? In the old city of Jerusalem, someone entering one of its many gates—even with some flourish—would easily go unnoticed except by those who happened to be there at the time. Though from the walls and rooftops, I imagine things were monitored and word could spread pretty quickly. Jesus came to Jerusalem when pilgrims were gathering for the Feast of the Passover, a time when, according to scholars, “it was the standard practice of the Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem... They did so not out of empathetic reverence for the religious devotion of their Jewish subjects, but to be in the city in case there was trouble. There often was, especially at Passover, a festival that celebrated the Jewish people’s liberation from an earlier empire.” Tension and turmoil would already be stirred at this time, you see. And then here comes Jesus, riding a donkey—not a small detail. It signals fulfillment of well-known prophecy, and the crowds who’d heard he was one to watch hail him as the promised one, the Son of David, a hearkening back to Israel’s beloved King. In that “game of thrones” world (as in this one), agents of the empire would have been watching closely for anything or anyone they might deem a problem to their continued ascendency. Jesus and his ride fit the profile.

In the midst of the turmoil the question arises: “Who is this?” And that is the real question both then and now. 

Between the moment he rides in and the moment of his arrest, Jesus makes clear what he’s about. Jesus turns over tables to challenge the system that takes the money of the poor to prop up a community who values money and power more than prayer or people (21:12-13). He takes the Temple leaders to task for their hypocrisy (23:13-36). Jesus calls out those in power for tying “up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay[ing] them on the shoulders of others” but not being willing to “lift a finger” themselves to help (Mt 23:4). Jesus zeroes in on the way those with money and power throw their weight around to get special treatment at all the trendy spots and ignore matters of justice and mercy and faith. (Mt 23:6-7, 23)  These represent “the way things are,” the status quo. And Jesus is having none of this system in which every transaction is to the benefit of those with wealth and power and to the detriment of the poor and suffering.  That is what Jesus comes to confront—the injustice of the whole system. 

And in the midst of his critique, Jesus continues to practice and preach what inspired the crowds to cry “hosanna” in the first place: Jesus brings healing (21:14), proclaims that the greatest commandment is to love God and love neighbor as self (22:39), teaches and models that the greatest are not the ones who lord over others and throw their weight around but the ones who serve (23:11), and paints a picture of God’s vision for human community: whoever is hungry is fed, whoever thirsty is given a drink, the stranger is welcomed, the naked clothed, the sick and imprisoned visited and cared for (25:31-46).  //

“Who is this Jesus?” The answer is clear through Jesus’ actions and words: Jesus is a prophetic critic of systems and agents of injustice. Jesus is a prophetic companion with impoverished, oppressed, sick, suffering ones. Jesus is a prophetic visionary of a world in which relationships are set right, the idolatries of empire are toppled, and value is placed on things that matter most of all. Jesus is a prophet. And that got Jesus hung on a tree.

What seems true through the ages is that we love our prophets once we’ve killed them. When they’re dead we no longer have to deal with the ways they put before us things we don’t want to perceive or try to change—because those things are too painful, complicated, or beneficial toward our own interests. When the prophets are dead we are free to tidy them up, to manipulate their image, actions, and words so that they can be made to support our positions, so that they no longer really ask anything of us or challenge our pettiness, greed, selfishness, sloth, and all the other things that, in ways large and small, lure us away from the Kin-dom and into the numbed consciousness and habits of empire.

This manipulation of dead prophets allows us to make Jesus only interested in saving souls but not bodies or in saving only bodies and not souls. This allows us to twist the words of Jesus into a crown of thorns we make others wear as we sit in judgment of them. Jesus, the dead prophet, becomes the mouthpiece for pithy quotes that get made into feel-good memes instead of the disruptive and transforming words of the living God. A memory or story of Jesus, the dead prophet, may still occasionally prick our conscience with an awareness of our hypocrisy, but it is no longer that difficult to simply move on with business as usual. Jesus, the dead prophet, can be manipulated so that we don’t have to be moved by his words and actions any more than those who got swept up in the movement to crucify him.

But the good news is that Jesus is more than a prophet. The words proclaimed as he rode into Jerusalem were appropriate not just as acclamation of praise. The “Hosannas” were not just “You go, Jesus!” not just, “Yay, JC!” These are cries of joy because hope is riding into town. One who has proved his worth and power, who has spent years in humble solidarity with people from all walks of life to bring love and justice and healing and renewal and restoration and LIFE—this one is coming—is putting himself at great risk—to take on the things, the powers, the people of this world that do such harm. “Hosanna! (as Pastor K.C. taught us means) Save, please! Deliver us! Save us, we pray!” These cries and prayers for salvation are directed toward the one who has power to save. 

More than once over the years when I’ve taught Confirmation class I’ve done a simple exercise in which I ask the students the question, “Do we need a savior?” We take some time to think about that. And then I lay out magazines and newspapers and ask them to cut out words, images, and phrases that might explain why we need a savior. The collages are always heartbreaking.

Lord knows we need a savior. Think of the collage we could make on this day of all the things so deeply broken in our world, some of which might be mended by human generosity and cooperation, though those are so often in short supply. It is true that the Kin-dom vision is always one in which humans participate in the mending work of God in the world. We have our part to play. But we simply cannot do it alone. We need one another and we need God.

We need a savior to save us from our small-mindedness, our obsession with violence, our tribalism and factionalism that shreds the beautiful fabric of truly human bonds, bonds of friendship, tenderness, compassion, patience, compromise, creativity, and love. We need a savior to restore our vision to perceive what is truly of value, to restore our hearing so that we listen with compassion for understanding, to restore our minds so that we are able to hold ideas in tension as we work together toward solutions, to restore our bodies from centuries of inhumane work demands and stress, to restore our spirits so that we might know lightness and play, to restore our hearts so that we finally see every human as family, to restore our capacity for wonder so that we might not miss the beauty of the world even now. 

We don’t need a dead prophet re-fashioned in our own image. We need a living savior who is able to restore in us God’s image. And we have one—one who doesn’t peddle in manipulation or shame, in violence or fear, but who simply shows us what we need to see and gives us grace to do something about it. And when we falter and fail as we inevitably do (because this stuff is hard), our savior is compassionate and merciful and helps us try again. In the turmoil of our lives, our city, our nation, our world, Jesus the living Christ enters in to move in ways both simple and profound that we might do our part to prepare the way for the fullness of the Lord’s Kin-dom to be manifest on earth as it is in heaven.

Perhaps we can join our voices again and yet again: “Hosanna! Save, please!” And then forever add, “Thanks be to God.”

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