92.9K
Downloads
678
Episodes
Foundry is an historic, progressive United Methodist Church that welcomes all, worships passionately, challenges the status quo, & seeks to transform the world.
Episodes
Sunday Dec 01, 2019
Sunday Dec 01, 2019
“Awaken To Hope”
Written by Rev. Will Ed Green for Foundry United Methodist Church, December 1, 2019,
first Sunday of Advent, “Awaken!” series.
Text: Isaiah 2:1-5
If you’ve ever known a sleepwalker—or walked in your sleep—you’ll know what a peculiar, unsettling, and altogether fascinating phenomena it is.
Somehow, in the deepest states of sleep, our brain can overlay the world around us with an alternate reality so convincing that our bodies can’t help but engage it. What we would otherwise know to be “true” about our reality—the temperature, the setting we find ourselves in, the presence of others around us—is supplanted with a dream state so convincing that the sleepwalker can travel barefoot in subzero weather or step into a noisy room full of people without ever knowing they’re there.
Even more fascinating is the brain’s ability to draw on our knowledge and skills while sleepwalking, allowing sleepwalkers to perform complex tasks like driving, cooking, or carrying on a coherent conversation with someone doesn’t even know they are asleep. And the entire time, the person sleepwalking has no idea what’s real for them is really just a dream. They don’t even know they’re asleep.
As we explore Advent through the lens of our new sermon series—Awaken—sleepwalking seemed like an appropriate place to begin. As Christians, our faith is grounded in the truths that God is good and just, that God’s love endures and is available in all circumstances, that God is faithful to us. But the world—like a sleepwalker’s brain—has a way of layering over that truth with an alternate reality so convincing that we begin to forget what’s real. The wearying dreams of a world fractured by injustice and poverty, the nightmares of violence against and the abuse of black, brown, and queer bodies, the lucid dreams of our news cycle with its always-imminent crises—these become our reality. Like sleepwalkers we wander through the world convinced that these things—not God’s promises of hope, peace, joy, and love—are what’s real. And like a sleepwalker, we may not even realize we’re “asleep.”
But God desires that we become fully awake and alive to the power of God’s active and activating grace. God works to rouse us from the those dreams and liberate us for abundant living that embodies hope, demands and works for peace, claims and cultivates joy and lights up the world with love. And Advent is our wake up call. As we journey through Advent toward Christmas, we’re invited to examine our lives. To remember what’s real. To let go of what’s not. And to re-awaken in ourselves the power of hope, joy, peace, and love that sets us free.
“Optimism and hope,” writes Catholic priest and teacher Henri Nouwen, “are radically different attitudes. Optimism is the expectation that things—the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on—will get better. Hope is the trust that God will fulfill God’s promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom. The optimist speaks about concrete changes in the future. The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.”
“The person of hope lives in the moment with the knowledge and trust that all of life is in good hands.” What would you do if you trusted that your life was in good hands? What would you be liberated from or for? How might you come alive if you were free to believe it?
On this first Sunday in Advent we draw our attention to the Christian virtue of hope. It’s integral to our identity: First Corinthians 13:13 says that above all the other gifts of Spirit, which will fail and falter, “faith, hope, and love abide.” Romans 5:2 tells us that we are to “boast in our hope” of God’s saving mercy and grace and in verse 5 that “hope will not disappoint us.” I Peter 3:15 tell us to “always be ready to make [our] defense to anyone who demands from [us] an accounting for the hope that is in [us].”
As Walter Bruggeman says in his book, The Prophetic Imagination, “…we are ordained of God to be a people of hope.” It’s written into prayers spoken at baptism and communion, proclaimed at the end of every creed, sung out in many, many hymns.
And yet the world for which we hope—in which justice rolls down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, in which implements of war give way to words of peace and the common good outweighs self-centered desire—feels at best unlikely if not all together impossible.
Both for those to whom these words were spoken and to those of us reading them today, this Isaiah’s vision might seem so distant from our present reality that it doesn’t bear hoping for.
It seems like a pipe dream to speak of lasting peace when we can’t even stop the murders on D.C.’s streets. It feels impossible to envision a world where all are free to live abundantly when on this World AIDS Day young people in the District of Columbia are twice as likely as anyone else in our country to contract the virus and we lead the nation in new HIV infection rates. It may come across as crazy to think about God doing a new thing with the people called Methodist when for the last 47 years we’ve argued over and arbitrated the lives of LGBTQIA+ persons and gloss over or ignore our long history of institutional racism. How are we to trust in each moment that our life is in good hands when the world feels so broken?
Hope is a funny thing. We tend to reduce it, as Nouwen says, to concrete changes we desire for our future. I hope for world peace. I hope I pass that test. I hope they like me. I hope I get that job. This is what I like to call a…brittle hope, hope built on a foundation of our own action or desire and bound to outcomes which—despite what we may think —often lie far outside our control. We’re taught to build our hope on the actions of others—politicians who will “make America great again” or who “still believe in a place called hope.” To invest our trust in institutions which will give us what we need to get through. To believe that we have the willpower to make the world in our own image.
This works out well for a time, I suppose. But we all know that people will inevitably disappoint us. That empire uses hope more often as a tool of control than a vision for a better world. That institutions will—despite every good intention—cause harm and hurt. And when what we’ve placed our hope in fails us, this brittle kind of hope buckles and we are lulled into a version of the world in which hope feels like a pretty hopeless endeavor.
The purpose of prophetic proclamation is to awaken us to a different kind of reality. One in which the true rests upon the solid foundation of God’s loving action and justice, rather than the whims of empire or the fragile premise of our own strength. In the vision of the world to come offered by Isaiah, a close reading of the text reminds the listener that our future is not dependent upon our ability, force of will, or political prowess, but upon God who will be faithful to bring about justice and lasting peace. God is arbiter and judge in this new reality. God is the teacher and provider. The listener’s only job is to journey toward that reality in the light of God’s love, remaining true to what they know God is doing and will do on their behalf.
Isaiah wrote to a people, not unlike those of us today, who’s world was being torn apart by war, poverty, and greed. It must have felt truer to their reality to be hopeless than hopeful. But establishing our hope not in the strength of human ingenuity or action but in God’s, Isaiah offers hope that can simultaneously insist God will make a way even when we can’t see a way. By centering the temple—the physical dwelling place of God—in this new reality, Isaiah offers a hope that makes space for the proclamation of impossibility as possibility because we know all things are possible with God.
Today’s lesson reminds us that what we build our hope on matters. And it awakens us from a reality full of brokenness and fear with a “truer” vision of what’s possible when our hope is established on the firm foundation of God’s faithful action in our lives and in the world. Trusting that God is indeed birthing into the world the beloved community we so long for, we are liberated from the places and things which makes it feel impossible. Believing that God’s story is bigger than the dreams of this world can hold. And standing in this strength, with the knowledge of what is real, we are able to work and resist the forces of this world which deny that anything like the anti-racist, anti-colonial beloved community of God we aspire to be is possible.
It’s in the strength of this hope—that God is yet at work—that we are able to resist the schemes of empire and institutions which insist that it is their vision that will bring about the world for which we hope. It’s in the strength of that hope that we can rest, trusting that we do what we can do but in the end God’s got it. It’s in the strength of this hope that we are able to let go of our need for control and to trust in each moment of our lives that we are enough and that God will be faithful when we offer ourselves to make of that offering a blessing to others.
Once awakened, hope becomes less of a thing that we experience or desire that we have than it is an attitude we cultivate in ourselves and in the world, a living hope which is capable of facing our present circumstances with the trust that our lives are in the good hands of a faithful and loving God.
And the good news of this season is that—even as we wait and watch for the world to come—it is breaking into the world around us all the time. We see it—I see it—in the joy of a neighbor’s face when they receive the birth certificate they need to move from homelessness to housing. I see it when LGBTQIA+ people, despite what the church might say, continue to be faithful in claiming their calls to ministry and showing up anyhow. I saw it on Wednesday when John Wesley AME Zion, Foundry and Asbury Churches gathered in worship and for the first time in 183 years—since we were separated by the forces of institutionalized racism—shared communion together. I feel the power of what God is yet doing among us when I realize that people—despite the violence and harm caused by Christianity—continue to walk through those doors and find life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ.
In this season of Advent we celebrate that our hope is built on nothing less than a God that so desired for us freedom and life that God became one of us. That through the surprising birth of one who came from a place which no one thought could produce good things, born of an unwed mother and skeptical father, one who challenged our perceptions of what was acceptable by welcoming those no one would accept, one who would challenge the power of empire not through military might but by self-sacrifice. In Advent we awaken to the possibility that despite what the world might tell us is true, God’s truth in Christ is truer still.
The invitation for us this season, then, is to in the words of First Peter: “prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring [us] when he is revealed.” To cultivate an attitude toward the world that allows us to lay its brittle hopes and to take up the living hope offered to us through God’s love embodied in Jesus Christ. To slow ourselves down enough that we might perceive the ways God’s love, justice, and mercy are breaking into this present moment with the promise of a future with hope—and therefore be strengthened in our ability to embody that hope for others—living light through which the world is set free.
These glimpses of the kin-dom are what give us strength to stay alert and together on the journey toward that world in which all will be might right and good. And in claiming them—in cultivating spaces and times in our lives when we open ourselves to remembering and naming where God is at work—we reject the temptations of brittle hope which leads only to disillusionment—and establish a firm foundation from which we can with joy, peace, love, and hope trust and proclaim that all is in good hands. May God make it so for you, and for us, in this season. Amen
BENEDICTION
Friends, God has given to us a living hope—one which endures despite disappointment, and disillusionment. God has established for us a foundation from which we can anticipate the faithfulness of One who makes a way when there is no way, and who is always working, always working, to bring about good in the world. So go out from this place and be that kind of hope brought to life for others, and “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Sunday Nov 24, 2019
Sunday Nov 24, 2019
Actions Speak…
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, November 24, 2019,
Reign of Christ Sunday, “Becoming Beloved” series.
“But I say to you that listen…Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Throughout this Becoming Beloved series we have heard those two lines from Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. Listen…Do… And while we have not focused on these words specifically, they have been a common thread throughout all the teachings of Jesus that we’ve explored. Today, the final section of teaching in Jesus’ sermon makes the connection between listening and doing explicit. Jesus calls out those who call him “Lord” but don’t do what he teaches. This seems an appropriate text for this day traditionally celebrated as “Reign of Christ” Sunday and on a day when many among us will affirm or reaffirm the promise to “serve [Jesus Christ] as Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, orientations, and races.” What does it mean to call Jesus your “Lord?” It’s a “walk your talk” message we receive today in the Gospel. And walking our talk, of course, is a matter of integrity. Are you taking the teachings of Jesus to heart, into your inward center, and allowing them to shape and inspire your outward actions? Do your words—what you say you value and desire—match what you actually do with your self and your stuff?
I can’t help but think of Stephen Colbert’s statement that “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” As I recall, these words were spoken in the context of those who assert that the United States is “a Christian nation.” Colbert’s words highlight one of many disconnects between our stated values and our actions as a nation—we could name what’s been happening at the border, environmental policy, voter suppression, children going hungry in our backyards, and on and on. Colbert’s words also shine a light on people who call themselves Christian but ignore the teachings of Jesus, acting in ways that directly contradict them.
Whether it is a nation, a church, or an individual, actions speak louder than words.
The metaphor Jesus uses to get the point across is a foundation for a house. Those who listen and act upon Jesus’ words are like one who is willing to do what? Notice that the first thing Jesus says it that the one who acts on what they hear is willing to dig deeply. This is no quick or shallow activity requiring no effort or time. In order to get to the solid place, there’s some digging required, some excavation, a willingness to keep at it and to go deep. This is much of what we have been thinking about together over these past weeks. It is the work of paying attention to how our circumstances affect our hearts. It is the excavation and extraction of bitterness and hatred and prejudice and blinding fear from our inward center, trusting God to do within us what we can’t do ourselves. It is a willingness to get real and own our stuff—as citizens, as faith community, as persons. And all this is not the stuff of shallow study or proof texting scripture or checking a “went-to-church” box. It is the work of allowing the Word of God revealed in Jesus to cut through all our rationalizations and defenses and to change our lives. In the process, the bedrock is discovered, offering a firm foundation. A firm foundation is a foundation based on something real and true, not illusions or empty promises or lies. And, Lord knows, there are plenty of temptations, voices urging us to throw up a house on a shiny patch of sand with a nice water view and to buy the sales pitch that the spot hasn’t been stolen from others and the waters here never rise and the grace of this plot is cheap and will satisfy all you need to thrive without your ever having to do any maintenance or further investment of yourself.
Jesus honors us enough to believe that we’ll see through that garbage. And says in essence, “Listen deeply and let my words and my love and my mercy and my grace give you the courage and strength to be real, to face the truth, and to act in ways that build something that lasts, to build a life on the solid rock of justice and compassion and gentleness and stewardship of the earth and love of God and of neighbor.”
This all matters because when flood waters come—when we’re paddling as fast as we can but can’t keep up, when powerful forces are overwhelming us, when the stuff of life makes us feel like we’re drowning—the house built on that solid foundation will stand; when the waters ebb, we will have come through it whole. Blowing off the words of Jesus, being unwilling to do what it takes to “build our house well,” leaves us vulnerable and weak when trouble comes near.
It’s not that living by the teachings of Jesus to be loving, non-retaliatory, merciful, generous, forgiving, humble, self-aware, and persons of integrity will keep us from getting hurt, disappointed, or damaged. It’s that no matter what happens, our foundation will hold us, our sense of meaning and purpose will help us keep perspective, our “inward center,” full of the love which has been lavished upon us by God, will be solid, keeping us from completely falling apart. Think of anyone you’ve seen persevere with grace and love in the face of persecution. Think not only of the fact that they are able to stand fast with the waters breaking against them, but also of the way that their witness inspires others.
I also think of the Gospel-inspired teaching of MLK who famously taught that “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate… Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Our hateful actions multiply hate… What we do is like fuel. Where we put our energy is like gasoline on whatever fire we throw it on. We can stoke the light and warmth of love and justice and peace or we can stoke the destructive fires of hatred, fear, and greed. Our actions, what we do with our time and energy, affects not only our own selves and household, but also the communities in which we live. Our actions affect the integrity of the household of God. We can burn the house down or light and fuel a warming fire at its center.
Our goal here at Foundry is to create and nurture beloved community—a community that is fully inclusive, anti-racist, anti-colonial, humble, joyful, committed, faithful, generous, peacemaking, just, sacrificial—a community of integrity where love is not just a word we speak but the beating heart of all our actions. We know that in community, this is the work of lifetimes, of generations. Across years, every generation has to make sure the foundation remains sound, needs to check for fissures or erosion, needs to make sure the foundation is solid and sure enough to hold the new structures and challenges and revelations of the age. That is our work in these days. Each one of us has a role to play. We do our part by doing our own work on ourselves and having integrity around our own promises to participate fully in this shared life with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. We do our part by showing up when we are called to stand in solidarity and advocacy with our neighbors. We do our part by taking seriously our mission to love God and love each other. Simply showing up here in community is an important piece of all of these things.
We may tend to think of coming to church or being in worship as something we do for ourselves—and, my hope is that what happens in this place any day of the week is nourishing for your life and growth. But I was recently reminded that our active participation in faith community isn’t ultimately something we do for ourselves. Writer Kathleen Norris remembers a pastor once saying that we “go to church for other people. Because someone may need you there.” Someone may be encouraged just to see your face or to share conversation over coffee or to connect about things you’re trying to manage at work or at home or a health issue, or the complicated realities of the dating scene. Someone may need you to see them, to receive them, to remember their name or to offer a handshake or a hug even if you don’t know their name. Our act of getting ourselves here to Foundry—or whatever faith community we call home—is a concrete act of love for God and for each other. Someone may need you here. If our collective commitment is to show up for each other, it means that others will show up for you. And if all of us come willing own our own stuff, do our work, and offer ourselves in love to God and each other, letting love and justice flow into all our actions in the world then we might be able, with integrity, to call Jesus “Lord,” we might, with integrity, claim we’re actively becoming beloved community. And that kind of community is one that withstands all the storms that rage across the years. That kind of community is one that offers hope and nourishes lives in every season. That kind of community changes the world. By God’s grace may it be so.
i. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/327220-if-this-is-going-to-be-a-christian-nation-that
ii. [1] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, New York: Riverhead Books, 1998, p. 203-204.
Sunday Nov 17, 2019
Sunday Nov 17, 2019
Heart Disease
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC,
November 17, 2019, 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, “Becoming Beloved” series.
Many years ago, I learned to scuba dive. At first, I was worried whether I would be able to do it—because I tend toward claustrophobia and feared that once I had on all that gear and was surrounded by the water I would feel closed-in and panic. What a surprise it was the first time I descended beneath the choppy waters at the surface and had the opportunity to look around. There was a whole world beneath the surface—a landscape that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Parts of it looked like the sands and drifts of an ocean-y desert and then outcrops of hills and mountain ranges would appear in stark contrast. Whole ecosystems live within this world. I should have known this was the case, of course—I watched Jacques Cousteau and the Little Mermaid! (At that point in my life, Nemo and Dory weren’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye).
You and I are like the ocean, holding so much beneath the surface. Much of our lives are spent focused on the outward appearance of things. But over these past couple of weeks as we’ve studied sections of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain the focus has been on “the world beneath the surface,” on our hearts, our “inward center” as Howard Thurman calls it. This introspection helps us become aware of our stuff, it helps us become more awake. But it’s not only self-serving—because, frankly, it would be easier in some ways to ignore what’s going on under the surface. The point of our introspection, ultimately, is to adjust our outward behavior—what we “do unto others.”
The teaching we receive today begins with the metaphor that a certain kind of tree produces a certain kind of fruit. You’re not going to get figs from thorns or grapes from brambles. It’s a matter of integrity—the nature of a living thing conveys that which is inherent to its nature. Having said this, let’s be clear that the metaphor has its limits. We—and our hearts—are not static things; our “human nature” can mature and change; our attitudes can be adjusted; our hearts can grow in love. This, of course, is very good news because we know there are things that need to be different in our lives. We know that things under the surface are complicated and often messy. We know there are ways we hurt others and ourselves in word and deed. We know that—in the traditional language of our faith—we sin.
Once we identify some of what needs to change in our hearts, attitudes, and actions, the question becomes, how does this maturing, adjusting, growing occur?
We live in a country and culture that places a high premium upon individualism, personal responsibility, and initiative. In this context, it should come as no surprise that all the self-help shelves overflow with ways for us to launch a full, frontal offense on whatever it is we want to change. The idea is that by sheer willpower—and whatever strategy whatever guru outlines—we will change. There are several problems with this approach. First, as Richard Foster writes in his book Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, “the moment we feel we can succeed and attain victory over the sin [or whatever we need to change] by the strength of our will alone is the moment we are worshiping the will.” You see, even though we may try to do the right thing by fighting against the behaviors that do harm, we can easily fall into the idolatry of “will worship.” That is, we make our own will our god, believing in the almighty power of the self to “fix” our heart or our lives (or the life of someone else, God help us!).
A second problem with the “full, frontal offense” approach is that it may encourage isolation, a kind of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” or “heal thyself” mode. And the truth is that we cannot heal ourselves alone. We come to know ourselves and are given help to learn and grow through relationship and in community. I can think of so many times in my life when another person helped me see myself—sometimes in painful ways, things I had been denying, was ignorant of, or was doing that were hurtful, and sometimes in hopeful ways, things I was taking for granted or could offer more fully to the world. Without other people around to wake us up, it would be even easier to live in denial and persist in inner attitudes and outward actions that are harmful. And without help from people who love us and will hang in there with us, we have no accountability for when we get lazy and stop trying to do better. The spiritual genius of John Wesley’s organizational model was the formation of small accountability groups where people shared with their peers what was really going on in their hearts and their lives! Consider a few of the questions these groups used regularly: What known sins have you committed since our last meeting? What temptations have you met with? Have you nothing you desire to keep secret? It’s hard to ignore what’s “under the sea” when confronted with questions like those. We need each other to get real, to keep trying, for encouragement and for help.
The third problem with our “willful” approach to fixing our hearts and behaviors is that we may end up in a masquerade. We can figure out a way to make ourselves appear patient, compassionate, generous, inclusive, just, sober, whatever, but at the heart of the matter nothing has really been changed. Today we hear Jesus say, “… it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Richard Foster, makes the connection this way: We can willfully “make a good showing for a time, but sooner or later there will come that unguarded moment when the ‘careless word’ will slip out to reveal the true condition of the heart. If we are full of compassion, it will be revealed; if we are full of bitterness, that also will be revealed. It is not that we plan to be this way. We have no intention of exploding with anger or of parading a sticky arrogance, but when we are with people, what we are comes out. Though we may try with all our might to hide these things, we are betrayed by our eyes, our tongue, our chin, our hands, our whole body language. Willpower has no defense against the careless word, the unguarded moment. The will has the same deficiency as the law—it can only deal with externals. It is incapable of bringing about the necessary transformation of the inner spirit.”
So we see that our own willful choices and striving will not necessarily “fix” us. When we really get this, we are in a position to understand why the news that we speak about as Christians is called “good.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is “good news” especially for those who recognize that they cannot save themselves. I don’t know about you, but I need to be reminded of this over and over again. I can’t save myself, I can’t fix other people, I can’t heal a broken denomination, I can’t make gentle this beautiful, broken world on my own. And as we are learning today, we are incapable of saving ourselves from those destructive things that live deep under the surface. The good news is that the healing of any “disease” in our hearts, and growth in love, compassion, and justice, are the free, gracious gifts of God. Where we are not able, God is able. We need God’s help. In our call to serve, to care, to do all the complicated and important things we do in our lives every day, to persevere, to stand with and for others for the sake of love and justice, we need God’s help. In the short sermon we’re studying this month, we’ve already been challenged to do such hard things. How can we do these hard things without the help and grace of God? How can we love our enemies, have the strength not return violence for violence, stand in the face of persecution without becoming the thing we hate, forgive someone who’s left scars on our heart or body, or have the courage to grapple with our own faults, failures, fears, and shortcomings? Spoiler alert: we can’t do it on our own. Our own willpower isn’t going to get that job done. Patient and loving friends and family can help, but won’t ultimately be enough. Only the grace of God can transform us from the inside out.
Now, at this point we may assume that because our best efforts don’t bring about the result we want and because inner transformation is the gracious work of God alone, that we have no part to play in our growth in holiness. “God will fix me! Thanks be to God!” we cry, as we sit around watching television or busy ourselves with tasks. This is a very real temptation. We can swing from one extreme to another, from “will worship” to abdication of all responsibility. You know that story about the person sitting on the roof of their house in a flood and their neighbor comes by in a canoe and the person says, “God’s going to help me, I’m good.” And then a police boat comes and then a helicopter—all being given the same response until the floodwaters overtook the person and they died. God’s response when asked how this could’ve happened—was: I sent you a canoe, a boat, and a helicopter! You didn’t get in! [For years, I knew that somewhere I had information about the frequent flyer program I’d signed up for—which, if used, would have been very helpful in getting to my family across the country. But for whatever reason, I didn’t keep up with the program, lost the information, the frequent flyer number and all that, so I never got the miles credited to my account. So there was this free gift waiting for me, a benefit, something that would help me. But I was too disorganized or lazy to follow through and receive the gift. It is the same with God’s grace and help.] The grace of God is offered to us freely AND we have our part to play in receiving it.
We may not be able to heal our spiritual heart diseases or change our internal center—even as strong as our willpower may be. But we can use our will to receive and use the good gifts God gives us to live and to serve. We can use our will to surrender to God’s help and put ourselves in the path of God’s grace every single day. We can turn to God in prayer and gratitude. We can worship every week. We can give generously. We can work for justice alongside others. We can be present with folks who are experiencing suffering. When I recognize thoughts and attitudes in myself that are unloving and harmful, I practice confessing in that moment in prayer and asking God to heal my heart and my thoughts, to change and purge those things in me that would lead me to harbor such shadows. We can commit to telling the truth in our small group or in the Rooms of AA or NA or other support groups. In these and so many other practices of will we can turn to God for help, for grace, for healing.
Today, you are invited to spend a little time reflecting on what needs to be healed or held in your inward center. Where do you need to invite God in to help you? What are you trying to carry alone that you can offer to God to hold? What heart sickness needs the Great Physician’s love and healing power today? We’ll spend some time now in prayer and song. You’re invited to come forward to the altar rail to pray and, if you desire, to receive anointing with oil, an ancient symbolic act of healing and divine mercy. Come as Spirit leads.
________________________________
[1] Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, p. 5.
[1] Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, pp. 5-6.
Sunday Nov 10, 2019
Sunday Nov 10, 2019
Know Thyself
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, November 10, 2019, 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, “Becoming Beloved” series.
“I’ve seen better eyes on a potato!” I remember that particularly descriptive critique hurled at a referee during one of my high school basketball games. It’s fun and doesn’t cost a thing to sit on the sidelines and criticize what others are doing. Sometimes the critiques might have some merit. In the case of that ref, he did in fact—in a critical moment in a critical game—call a foul on me I know I didn’t commit. But nevertheless, everybody thinks they could do better than the one in the hotseat when they’re sitting in their comfy chair or even their uncomfortable bleacher with no real skin in the game.
It seems a rather persistent human pastime to look out at the people around us and assess, size up, critique, judge. It might be their behavior, their appearance, their leadership or perceived lack thereof, what they say or don’t say…really, we’re generally equal opportunity judgers. And today we get some truth bombs on this subject from Jesus in this next section of the Sermon on the Plain.
Before we get into that, though, a brief recap: Last week, we wandered into Jesus’ sermon, touching on the difficult teaching to love our enemies, to be merciful as God is merciful and to love as God loves. Key questions were “What do you allow your circumstances to do to your heart?” and “How does the state of your heart affect what you ‘do unto others’?” Today’s teaching flows from those “heart questions” that are really at the core of all the wisdom Jesus imparts in this sermon.
Howard Thurman, in his interpretation of Jesus of Nazareth, explains that “[Jesus’] message focused on the urgency of a radical change in the inner attitude of the people. He recognized fully that out of the heart are the issues of life and that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit against them. ‘To revile because one has been reviled—this is the real evil because it is the evil of the soul itself.’ Jesus saw this with almighty clarity. Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual. With increasing insight and startling accuracy he placed his finger on the ‘inward center’ as the crucial arena where the issues would determine the destiny of his people.”[i] This focus on the inner attitude is not about disconnecting from the real suffering and injustice of the world, but is rather a way of not being utterly destroyed by it. It is a way of maintaining dignity and agency when everything around you wants to steal or destroy those sacred gifts. Thurman highlights Jesus’ focus on our heart, our “inward center,” as the locus of our primary spiritual work. Regardless of our outward circumstances, we have agency of our inner attitude. Our inner attitude affects our outward response and action.
The thing is, we can be pretty clueless about much of what’s swimming around in our “inward center.” In addition to all the shiny, happy people parts of ourselves we more easily claim, there are old hurts, ingrained, unchecked perspectives, cultural assumptions, deep prejudices, resentment, ignorance, unacknowledged complicities, blinding fears, unmet expectations, regrets, longings and all the rest. There’s a lot going on in there.
So before we start identifying someone else’s limitation or trying to remove another’s “issue,” perhaps, Jesus says, we should do what we can to deal with our own stuff. “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”
“Know thyself” is an ancient maxim that has been interpreted in loads of ways—some helpful, others less so. For today’s purposes, my translation of “know thyself” from the ancient Greek is “Own your stuff.” A second translation might be, “Find the courage to face some hard truths.” And a third option, “At least try not to be a hypocrite.”
It has been said that truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. Why is that? Because some truths about ourselves are icky. This is true for us as a nation, as a church, and as individuals.
Shall we start with our nation? The struggle for the soul of America continues as the realities of our historic brutality against Native peoples, enslaved Africans, and earth’s resources manifest in new ways, ways that come into conflict with the well-worn, white-washed narratives that have allowed us to imagine that we are a nation that truly desires life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all. I hope you are aware of the New York Times initiative entitled “The 1619 Project,”[ii] whose aim is to examine the legacy of slavery in the United States, timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival in America of the first enslaved people from West Africa. The 1619 Project is a provocative and powerful resource to explore and wrestle with for anyone as yet unaware of big chunks of history that have not been generally acknowledged or taught beyond black churches and schools—and are even now being labeled by imperial powers as propaganda.[iii] We as Americans—particularly white Americans—need to own our stuff, have the courage to face hard truths, and at least try not to be hypocrites. And that’s just one place that we as a nation need to tell the truth. Because not telling the truth means death and suffering for beloved children of God, members of our human family, our American family. Other questions we could grapple with include: What do we worship in this country? Are policy decisions made based on the needs of the vulnerable or the common good? What really turns out the vote? How can we as citizens embody a patriotism that honors our highest ideals instead of champions imperial domination? The Rev. Dr. William Barber, II has famously preached about the heart of our nation needing a “moral defibrillator.” Are we willing as a nation to “know ourselves” fully, not just the good—of which there is much—but also the bad and the ugly? I understand this isn’t a feel-good word about our country on this weekend when we honor our veterans. But here’s the thing, I’d rather have our veterans serving and dying for a country that has at least tried to live up to its lofty vision instead of pretending that all our actions are somehow moral just because we overlay them with the Stars and Stripes.
When it comes to “the church,” there is no shortage of things we could consider on the topic of judgmentalism and hypocrisy—just imagine all the “specks” we could identify! But it’s “know thyself” day so I’m going to focus on Foundry. “Becoming Beloved” is our theme this month and it reflects our call to beloved community in the Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr. mode. In various ways over many years, Foundry has sought to do the hard work of communal self-awareness, consciousness-raising, and relationship building. This congregation has a long and proud history of social justice advocacy and solidarity. These commitments are at the heart of our shared life. But if we think there isn’t more work to do we aren’t paying attention. And if we truly want to become a fully inclusive, anti-racist, anti-colonial faith community—beloved community!—that will require that we go deeper into our own communal “inward center” to see what gets in the way. Earlier this year results of a congregational survey revealed that in an area that we are known to be “all about”—inclusion—there are concerns that some may not feel included or welcome among us…based on political affiliation, economics, and a variety of other things. How do we truly hold respectful space for persons to have vastly differing theological and political beliefs? This past year, we’ve told again the shameful part of Foundry’s history of full participation in the white supremacist policies of the Methodist Church that led to the formation of Asbury United Methodist Church and John Wesley African Methodist Episcopal, Zion Church. And while we celebrate the relationships and possibility of our current partnership with those churches, there is so much work for us to do to uncover, acknowledge, repent and repair the past and present racism that persists among us. Part of our work in 2020 will be undertaking a significant process to begin that deep work. If we are to be a church that calls for a reformation of the whole UMC as fully inclusive, anti-racist, and anti-colonial, let’s try not to be hypocrites. If we say we love God and love each other, when people walk in our doors, God help us if they don’t see that in flesh. Let’s try not to be hypocrites.
And that of course, leads to our personal lives. We each have to take responsibility for our own stuff, for how we think of others, treat others, speak to others. We need to take advantage of opportunities to learn and to be stretched, to practice receiving information that is painful and uncomfortable, to look honestly at the state of our hearts and seek to uncover the things that try to hide—or that we’ve hidden out of fear or shame or pride.
Many if not most of us are likely intentionally or unintentionally ignoring some stuff in order to feel ok about ourselves or to maintain a narrative about our life we’re comfortable with. Where does racism or colorism hide? Where do we want to deny our personal complicity in the privileges of empire? Where are the unacknowledged gaps between our stated values and our investments of time and money? What does all this do to your heart, to your “inward center”...and to your outward actions?
Years ago, a familiar voice sang the call of the Gospel today in words I imagine many of us still remember:
I'm gonna make a change,
For once I'm my life
It's gonna feel real good,
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right
[As I, turn up the collar on
My favorite winter coat
This wind is blowing my mind
I see the kids in the streets,
With not enough to eat
Who am I to be blind?
Pretending not to see their needs
I've been a victim of a selfish kind of love
It's time that I realize
That there are some with no home, not a nickel to loan
Could it be really me, pretending that they're not alone?]
I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change[iv]
Michael Jackson sang those words; and Jesus said, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
“Knowing yourself”—owning your own stuff, facing hard truths, and trying not to be a hypocrite—is life-long work. The good news is that Jesus begins his sermon by saying, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.” Jesus isn’t saying that your efforts to not judge and condemn will mean other people reciprocate that effort. We know better and so did Jesus. In the teaching, Jesus uses the future passive form of the verbs, indicating that the action here is God’s. When you are trying to be merciful and patient, to refrain from judgy ugliness, God sees you. God knows your heart. God knows when you’re trying. God is merciful. God will not condemn. God loves you.
If you know yourself to be a beloved child of God with inherent dignity and worth you will not need to tear others down in order to build yourself up. If you know yourself to be a beloved child of God, you will know that every other person is God’s beloved, too. If you know yourself to be the beneficiary of an unlimited grace and mercy, you won’t need to deny those gifts to others because you’ll know it’s not a zero-sum game. If deep in your heart you know yourself to be loved by God, you know the most important thing. And that will make all the difference.
[i] Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited, Boston: Beacon Press, 1976, p. 11.
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
[iii] https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/19/20812238/1619-project-slavery-conservatives
[iv] Source: LyricFind, Songwriters: Glen Ballard / Siedah Garrett, Man in the Mirror lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management, Songtrust Ave
Sunday Oct 20, 2019
Sunday Oct 20, 2019
Losing My Religion
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC October 20, 2019, the 19th Sunday after Pentecost. “Fearless Generosity: Deepening Faith” series.
Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Luke 18:1-8
In 1991, a song called “Losing My Religion” was a gigantic hit for the alt-rock band R.E.M. I wasn’t one of those super cool people who already knew the band—but I loved this song and became a fan. It became a thing to try to figure out the images in the music video and what in the world the lyrics meant. There are lots of theories. But this past week, I did some intentional digging to see if there was insight into the original meaning of the lyrics. What I learned is that lyricist Michael Stipe simply wrapped evocative religious and poetic imagery around an old southern expression—“I’m losing my religion.” The expression means being at the end of one’s rope, and the moment when politeness gives way to anger.[i] Imagine a friend recounting an experience at the DMV, for example, in which they’ve carefully prepared all the documents they need to accomplish their task, they explain how they waited in line for over an hour, got checked in, waited in the holding area for an hour, and when their number is finally called, are blandly, dismissively told that they need a document that hadn’t been mentioned anywhere on the website; and your friend closes by saying, “by the time I demanded a supervisor’s intervention, I was losing my religion!”
It is interesting to me that in this southern idiom religion is associated with being polite, with not being angry, with a sense of propriety. Merriam-Webster defines “polite” in these ways: a: showing or characterized by correct social usage b: marked by an appearance of consideration, tact, deference, or courtesy c: marked by a lack of roughness or crudities…
I’m all for being polite when it is in order. But there are times when being polite is decidedly NOT what is needed. A politeness that is more concerned with avoiding conflict than addressing injustice is not religious. Furthermore, a fake “politeness” when what is going on under the surface is judgment and hatred is hypocrisy. And about that the Judeo-Christian prophets, including Jesus, had some choice words.
But it doesn’t surprise me that there is a strain in our culture that would connect religion to being polite. Even though scripture doesn’t support it, so often religion—that is the communal practices and organized gatherings and beliefs of persons of faith—settles into club mentality, a place where the goal is primarily to avoid anything that might create conflict, to be affirmed in already-held positions and ideas, to feel warm feelings, to check some box that is disconnected from any other noticeable part of our lives. We know that what we profess as “religious” people often doesn’t show up in our priorities. How do we spend time? How hard do we work to see others as beloved children of God? Where do we spend our money? Who gets our support and advocacy? With whom do we stand?
Lord knows we’ve got some easy targets in the public square right now on this stuff—it’s enough to make me “lose my religion!” But I want us to be careful to acknowledge that none of us can claim we get it together all the time. Even when we have the best of intentions we fall into the old Pauline conundrum: we don’t do the good we want, but rather the bad we don’t want. (cf. Romans 7:19) We always need to own our own stuff, but we also need to call out the injustice we see around us. The teachings of Jesus to bring good news to the poor, lost, captive, vulnerable, and oppressed—and to do so through solidarity and with humility and generosity—these teachings are being perverted or completely ignored by many “Christian” voices who are influencing masses of people. On top of that too many churches still support theologies and practices that harm people and the creation. Currently on display all over the place are those who publicly tout their hypocrisy and practice serious theological and biblical malfeasance.
I think that these issues contribute in a significant way to the latest studies showing that people really are, literally, losing their religion. The Pew Survey released within the last few days says, “the U.S. is steadily becoming less Christian and less religiously observant as the share of adults who are not religious grows.” The percentage of American adults who describe themselves as Christian has gone from 77 percent to 65 percent, representing a 12 percentage point decrease over the last 10 years. Not only has the number of those who identify as Christians decreased, the number of people who identify as either atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular” has risen from 17 percent to 26 percent over the past decade.[ii]
Politeness that translates into dishonesty and avoidance, hypocrisy, injustice, spiritual violence, and outright scandal—all of this makes it pretty tempting to join those who don’t want to claim the name “Christian.” That name has become, in so many places, a codeword for bigotry, imperial values, and oppression.
Of course, that is the direct opposite of what we find in the Gospel. // Our text from Luke immediately follows a very challenging description by Jesus of false prophets, turmoil, temptations, and distractions, of suffering and confusion both present and to come. “Then,” the story goes, “Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” The parable Jesus tells highlights a widow who is in the midst of suffering herself. And this woman is not hiding behind politeness or propriety. In fact, she breaks all the rules. Understand that at the time Jesus tells this story, the widow would have had no rights and simply because she was a woman wouldn’t have access to a judge in a formal procedure of law. Women were restricted to roles of little to no authority; we weren’t supposed to talk with men who weren’t part of our family, or sometimes even appear in public without a husband or father…With all this background we see that the story Jesus tells is “loaded with ironic fantasy. This woman can only cry out to the judge unofficially. Perhaps she calls to him as he passes her on his way to the city gates to judge the disputes and charges of the men for the day. The cries of the woman eventually sway the cold heart of the judge who gives in to her request.”[iii]
The woman’s actions—I call it her “religious practice” of claiming her sacred worth, claiming her voice, and then breaking the rules and advocating for justice even when things were disheartening and seemingly hopeless—that is what Jesus features in this story. By doing so, Jesus affirms the woman’s worth, her voice, her perseverance, and her demand, deeply undermining the unjust exclusions of the time. In addition, this short parable of Jesus highlights the faithfulness of God to respond. That point is made by comparison—if even a jerk will respond to persistent cries, how much more will our God—who loves us!—respond when we are in need?
It seems to me that if more churches included and affirmed among their religious offerings the kind of subversive, life-affirming, justice-seeking practice we see in our Gospel today, some of the growing numbers of folk who “love Jesus but not the church”[iv] might happily reconnect; some others might discover that religion isn’t, in and of itself, a dirty word…some might even find that religious practice becomes a life-giving and encouraging thing.
The larger question bubbling under the surface for me throughout my reflections is this: what is the connection between religion and faith? As I’ve already mentioned, “religion” that does harm or is hypocritical or makes no connection to their daily lives, has led many people to step off the faith train altogether. For others, they’ve held onto faith, but left the church—sometimes not out of wounding but simply because it seems they can practice their faith without the hassle of “going to church.”
I firmly believe that God is with us wherever we are on the spiritual journey, that detours and spiritual dryness along the journey are to be expected, and that we can experience God and grace in ways that deepen our faith in a wide variety of contexts that have no discernable connection to “religion” or church. AND I’m also stubborn when it comes to my insistence that the church matters. I believe that the regular, intentional, organized/disorganized religious gatherings, observances, and practices of a Jesus-centered community gathered around our sacred story, Baptismal Font, and Communion Table are a powerful and even primary way that persons learn how to love and be loved, to take risks and discern when not to, to forgive and be forgiven, to be humble and powerful. And the fact that church is always messy and imperfect and full of a wide diversity of people is part of the way we practice being and becoming more human and able to function in the world as people of real faith and not just politeness. The yoga I have studied over the years talks about practicing the asanas or postures on the mat, but then taking the practice “off the mat” into your life. Church—our shared, public, communal religious life—is the “mat” where we practice so that we can take that practice off the mat and into the world.
Weeks ago as we were making preparations for this Fearless Generosity: Deepening Faith series, I wrote these words: “My heart’s desire is for Foundry to be for you a wellspring of spiritual nurture, challenge, insight, growth, and encouragement—like waters that go deep to the roots of a tree—to help you stand firm in the face of the storms of life and to feel grounded and strong in moments of calm. Whether you receive sustenance through music and worship, service and advocacy, study and exploration, or trusted friendships and community, Foundry offers resources—concrete practices and opportunities—to help you deepen your faith.” That is one vision of how I understand the connection between religion and faith. It’s not that faith can’t exist outside of communal religious practice, but rather that faith may not receive the full range of sustenance required to go to the deepest levels and highest heights without it.
My hope is that our continued strong support of Foundry will allow this congregation to practice and embody the kind of religion that people don’t “lose” but rather seek out when they’re at the end of their rope. I pray that we will financially and prayerfully support Foundry’s efforts to be impolite when we need to speak truth to power and to resist evil, injustice and oppression. I hope our financial support will strengthen Foundry to even more consistently offer opportunities for persons to come to know that they have sacred worth and are beloved children of an ever-present and faithful God.
I believe that there are so many times when people who have “lost their religion” all of a sudden find themselves needing the church. When that time comes, will they find one that isn’t an embarrassment? Will they find ways to learn and practice faith on earth? What will they find here?
[i] Evan Schlansky, “What is the meaning of R.E.M., ‘Losing My Religion,’” https://americansongwriter.com/2019/10/behind-the-song-r-e-m-losing-my-religion/
[ii] https://churchleaders.com/news/364277-latest-pew-survey-christianity-in-america-is-declining-still.html?fbclid=IwAR3SFah1UYoJmIClBNPNY8_zGVXYG_L0-4tLxupv5x1frlK6S8vAI5J7vmE
[iii] Peter Woods, https://thelisteninghermit.com/2010/10/11/why-god-doesn%e2%80%99t/?t%2F
[iv] https://www.barna.com/research/meet-love-jesus-not-church/