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Foundry is an historic, progressive United Methodist Church that welcomes all, worships passionately, challenges the status quo, & seeks to transform the world.
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Sunday Dec 15, 2019
Sunday Dec 15, 2019
Awaken to Joy
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, December 15, 2019,
third Sunday of Advent, “Awaken!” series.
Text: Isaiah 35:1-10
I have a weekly covenant group, monthly clergy group, annual 8 day silent retreat—and I pay a therapist a lot of money—all to help me keep perspective. I need the help. Because I can lose perspective at the drop of a bomb or at news of another brutalized body. I can lose perspective when another real fact is treated as “alternative.” I can lose perspective when another species is thoughtlessly voted off the survivor island. Heck, I can lose perspective at much less: my overstimulated, overscheduled life paired with the truly ridiculous expectations I place on myself and pretty much everything and everyone around me is plenty to skew my vision of what is.
In the Bible, chaos (tohu) in is understood as formlessness, confusion, unreality. I think it’s safe to say there’s plenty of that to go around these days. When chaos threatens to draw me into a vortex of confusion, numbness, fear, or life-sucking overfunctioning, I get my money’s worth through a therapeutic vision shift. The gentle nudge comes: What is the frame through which you are perceiving this moment? What image is driving the reptilian brain reaction? Often, the question interrupts the inner spin. I try to identify and hold a different—more true—frame or image. And that shift in my “seeing” helps me shift my “being.” I awaken to what’s more really real.
Perspective is how we “hold” reality, how we frame it and understand it in any given moment. If, for example, our framework is God’s saving love always at work for the healing and wholeness of the world, we hold moments of chaos differently than we might within another frame. It is profoundly helpful for us as human animals to have words or images or narratives that—as we identify or connect with them personally—provide a sense of connection when we feel untethered, a sense of freedom and agency when we feel bound and powerless, a sense of purpose when we feel apathetic or adrift. As Jesus followers, we have a story, we have words from the prophets, we have images—burning sand becoming a pool, the desert blossoming, a humble baby whose life and love save the world. All these things provide a frame, an anchor to hold onto in the chaos all around. //
About a year ago, I encountered a poem by Jewish poet, Yehuda Amichai, that has been knocking around in my head ever since.
The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy. I'm thinking
how precise people are when they describe their pain in a doctor’s office.
Even those who haven't learned to read and write are precise:
“This one's a throbbing pain, that one’s a wrenching pain,
this one gnaws, that one burns, this is a sharp pain
and that––a dull one. Right here. Precisely here,
yes, yes.” Joy blurs everything, I've heard people say
after nights of love and feasting, “It was great,
I was in seventh heaven.” Even the spaceman who floated
in outer space, tethered to a spaceship, could say only, “Great,
wonderful, I have no words.”
The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain––
I want to describe, with a sharp pain’s precision, happiness
and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains.
I don’t believe the poet is alone. Don’t we all learn to speak among the pains?
Longing, pain, and joy are all jumbled up in our human experience. And what of those gets most of our collective psychic attention? I don’t believe it’s joy. It’s not that we don’t appreciate joy when it appears or that we intend to race past the grace of joy as if it were a thing of beauty outside a racing train. It’s just that there’s so much of everything else clawing for our attention. And, in the mix, we somehow find all sorts of ways to name, describe, catalogue our pains. Most folks I know would admit, if they’re being honest, that the painful stuff in life provokes their inner spin cycles much more than the graces and joys. I have been known to cogitate for days on the things that are broken, unfinished, unjust, failures in my life and work—all the while largely ignoring the extraordinary beauty, power, grace and new life all around me. But really…
I want to describe, with a sharp pain’s precision, happiness
and blurry joy.
// From DC, to the middle of the country where I was raised, to all the far-flung places my colleagues and friends now reside—most people I know are deeply disturbed by the current state of our nation and world. Here at Foundry, I hardly need name all the tragedies, absurdities, and specific systemic sins that leave people weary and worn and angry and afraid and sad and numb. People all around us—and especially the young and marginalized—are more vulnerable than ever to poverty, violence, loneliness, mental illnesses, and addictions. It is important for us as followers of Jesus to stand in solidarity with all who suffer and are oppressed and to name the pain with all the precision and boldness we can muster.
AND it is critical that we also find a way to proclaim with some level of precision and boldness the joy that Isaiah describes in our text today. It’s a vision of hope for Jews who had long been exiled in Babylon. There is promise of sustenance and beauty and a clearly marked path—a “highway”—across the desert. Such a “straight shot” across the desert with the promise of water and safety is no small gift. Consider that it is incredibly easy to get lost in the desert where any “path” is quickly covered over by blown sand and everything looks the same. Consider also that the route from Babylon back to Jerusalem could be up to 1600 miles if you traveled the northerly route that kept you closer to water sources and civilization. But a highway as the crow flies that’s a fraction of that distance—with everything you need?! What a gift! Isaiah says, “no lion shall be there”—a promise that makes even more sense when we realize that the lion is the symbol of ancient Babylon. You see this is a promise that the redeemed will be free from the dangers, humiliations, and oppressions of empire and exile. This is a precise description of hope and of JOY!
And yet this word and promise is out of place. Scholars reveal that these words about a return from Babylon are cut and pasted into the middle of a whole other disaster—the Assyrian threat and conflict that happened hundreds of years earlier. And our text is not only out of chronological place. Imagine you’re watching a movie and you’re in the middle of the scene where everything is falling apart—fear, destruction, chaos running rampant—and all of a sudden it’s like someone has spliced the film with flowering fields and frolicking puppies: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” ??!! Scholars disagree about why this poetic prophecy shows up precisely here. But one suggests, “The Spirit hovered over the text and over the scribes: ‘Put it here,’ breathed the Spirit, ‘before anyone is ready. Interrupt the narrative of despair.’ So, here it is: a word that couldn’t wait until it might make more sense.”
This is what we celebrate in this season: a word that breaks into this beautiful, broken world to “interrupt the narrative of despair.” Oh! Don’t we need this interruption? In my life and work I hear people longing for peace, for a release from the pains of the day to day and the struggle to get by. I observe folk longing for someone to receive them in all their particularity and fullness; for connection, for friendship, for a way to contribute to the common good, to be part of something meaningful. I perceive people longing for beauty, wonder, love, encouragement, justice, liberation, and hope. People long for a world less brutal and broken. These longings are deep and not new. This is the cry of the human heart from the beginning. The story we tell affirms that God receives the longings of God’s people and responds. Prophet and teacher are raised up by God through the ages to show us a way to live in community instead of isolation, with justice rather than iniquity, and with meaning that saves from despair; God’s prophets call us to choose peace rather than violence, love rather than fear, life and not death. The story goes that, again and again, we rejected those whom God sent. And in the fullness of time, God once again interrupted the narrative of despair, speaking a Word into the pain of a raging world and his name was Jesus who came into the world as life and light. And even after we rejected God’s good gift again, the light shines…the light will not be overcome!
This is our story, our song, our hope. It is our anchor. We need this story, this word, this wonder, this counter-narrative to the world’s crazy. We need it and the world needs it. And we are called to share and to live our story, to speak into the chaos of our world, to act in ways that align with God’s vision. Isaiah writes, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, Be strong, do not fear!” We are called to speak truth to power and to powerless alike. To speak words and act in ways that bring hope and encouragement to the downtrodden and impoverished and exiled.
I want (us) to describe, with a sharp pain’s precision, happiness
and blurry joy.
We who know Jesus know something about blurry joy, don’t we? It is the moment we realize that though we see now in a mirror dimly, then we will see face to face. Isn’t there something of blurry joy in the times when we, like the first disciples, perceive only after the fact that Jesus was with us on the road? Blurry joy is the ark breaking through clouds into rainbow, it’s the Israelites marching from slavery to liberation, it’s a blurry figure dancing in the fire alongside Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it’s Esther risking her life and saving her people in just such a time as this. Blurry joy is the tax collector—the agent of empire—on the same team as the zealot and freedom fighter because of Jesus. Blurry joy is that time in the garden… when it was still very dark…and, with eyes likely bleary from tears, Mary has a blurry vision of Jesus alive. We are a people who proclaim the promise of new life. And we know that wilderness wandering and incarnate vulnerability and cross and the tomb are the path to get there. We know that we falter and fail again and again. We know that the arc bends toward justice at a pace slower than we think we can tolerate. But we also know that precisely at the moment it seems the world is coming to no good, God comes to the world again. Every single time. We know that God makes a highway out of no way. We know that God brings life out of death. And—if we are able to keep from being lulled to sleep by the pains of this world—we know the good news, the God-with-us, resurrection news, that weeping may last for a night, but JOY comes as you rub the sleep out of your eyes and wake up. Joy comes in the morning…
---------------------
[i] Yehuda Amichai, Open Closed Open, “The Precision of Pain and the Blurriness of Joy: The Touch of Longing Is Everywhere: 16,” Orlando: A Harvest Book/Harcourt, Inc., 2000, p. 105.
[ii] https://www.ancient.eu/image/293/lion-of-babylon-detail/
[iii] Barbara Lundblad, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1941
Sunday Dec 08, 2019
Sunday Dec 08, 2019
Awaken to Peace
A homily preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, December 8, 2019,
second Sunday of Advent, “Awaken!” series.
Text: Isaiah 11:1-10
I enjoy relative safety and stability in life. Many within the sound of my voice can say the same. It’s important to consider how easy it is to take this reality for granted. I have been thinking about how easy it is to take for granted that I wake up and go to sleep every night in a sheltered place that is clean and secure and comfortable and private, with running water and hygienic facilities; that there is abundant food in my home and ample resources to get more; that my dogs and cat have their own beds and a cabinet full of food.
When I have needed to move from one place to another, it has been because I chose to pursue a new opportunity. The “challenge” involved in the move was all the time it took to sort through, pack, and unpack all my possessions as I transferred them via automobile from one secure place to the next secure place. I have never been denied a place to live or the means to secure housing because of the color of my skin, the language or accent of my voice, or my gender identity or sexual orientation.
And while we are all finite and vulnerable creatures in a world where accidents happen, illness falls, and violence can erupt anywhere and to anyone, I am among those in this country and world who do not daily fear for my life or the life of my loved ones due to an abusive partner or due to stray bullets or bombs or “disappearances.” I do not have to fear the wolf, the leopard, the lion, the asp who lurk and lie in wait to do harm in the alleys or intersections, who strut and spew poison in marbled halls and paneled courts. I am not the target of those who take away food stamps and deny health coverage and cage children and steal children and allow children to languish in filth and to die alone. I am not among the terrorized and terrified denied shelter and safety at our borders.
I live in peace. And I’m not alone. To be clear, I’m not talking about inner peace. Many of us may struggle with various levels of anxiety and stress—some at truly debilitating levels—and it often gets worse this time of year. What I’m talking about today is the kind of peace that Jesus and his parents did not experience—the kind of peace that is freedom from threat of violence, the freedom to dwell in safety, the freedom to stay in their homeland without fear. I’m talking about the kind of peace that allows parents of any race or class or creed to trust that their children can be who they are, can play in public spaces. without being hurt or destroyed.
The vision cast by the prophet Isaiah in our text today is an ancient hope for the vulnerable in every age. In this vision a way is made for difference to dwell together in peace, for those with certain kinds of power to use that power to care and protect rather than to destroy. Lions and bears and asps and leopards and wolves continue to be who they are but don’t devour the little ones. And in this vision, the power of gentleness and playfulness and innocence and humility is recognized and allowed to lead the way.
Jesus came into the world to show us what that looks like. Jesus is born among the humble animals and, like them, is vulnerable to those whose hungry power would destroy him. Jesus from the very beginning crosses borders and boundaries, in solidarity with refugees everywhere, carried by his parents into unknown lands to try to find a place of sanctuary and safety. The holy family receives shelter and hope for their future from persons who could have turned them away.
In this world, still so far from the vision Isaiah saw, in this world still so plagued with violence, fear, and abuses of power, Jesus comes to awaken us to what is real: You and I live in relative peace. Countless others do not. Peace is denied so many of our human family and yet it is the promise heralded at our savior’s birth. Human actions at home and abroad, actions fueled by greed and fear, are responsible for stealing the peace and safety of God’s children. You and I can’t solve the global migration crisis or end wars in the world or on our streets on our own, but we are called to be peacemakers, to do what we can do. Educate yourselves; you can begin by participating in our Advent Justice Series focused on immigration. Contribute to our Advent Appeal which supports Foundry’s advocacy work for peace and justice and also the work of CARACEN, a local partner in our work with I.D. Ministry clients who are immigrants. Don’t take your peace for granted and do what you can to make peace for those hungering and thirsting for rest, for safety, for home.
By God’s grace and the example of Jesus we can be agents of peaceful change in the world. So be encouraged. May fresh hope and peace now comfort your soul…
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.
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[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.