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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 Apr 22, 2018
Sunday Apr 22, 2018
Believer
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, April 22, 2018, the third Sunday after Easter. Polyphony sermon series.
Texts: Psalm 119:64-74, Acts 5:12-21
Describing the process of an infant learning to communicate with the sounds of her voice, author Kathleen Norris writes, “Eventually the rudiments of words come; often ‘Mama,’ Dada,’ ‘Me,’ and the all-powerful ‘No!’ An unqualified ‘Yes’ is a harder sell, to both children and adults. To say ‘yes’ is to make a leap of faith, to risk oneself in a new and often scary relationship. Not being quite sure of what we are doing, or where it will lead us, we try on assent, we commit ourselves to affirmation. With luck, we find that our efforts are rewarded. The vocabulary of faith begins.”[i]
It’s easy to make things more complicated than they are. And when we are talking about God things can really get out of hand. So I love Norris’s reminder that faith—at least its vocabulary—begins with simply saying “yes.” We “try on assent” and “commit ourselves to affirmation” and this risky leap of faith is done in the context of relationship. We all know something about this. Someone says “yes” to me—am I willing to respond with my own “yes?” Someone reaches out to me in relationship, will I affirm that action and that person by reaching back? Such a move will change your life, will lead to new experiences—and to places you’d never imagine. Through the experience of human relationship, we learn about love, trust, commitment, friendship. We also learn the pain of betrayal when our trust is broken, we learn the frailty of our own constancy when we fail to be a good friend or partner, we learn the heartbreak that follows when one we have loved deeply must be released into the arms of death. These experiences teach us about real love and commitment and help us identify what and who is worth risking our “yes” for.
Folks have often said that Jesus is God’s “yes” to us and to the world—that is to say, Jesus is God’s affirmation of us and the sign that God believes in us even with so many good reasons to just pack it in. God, it seems, loves us and is determined to hang in there with us even when we’re at our worst. God, it seems, continues to reach out to us to offer encouragement, friendship, correction, and guidance along our journey. God evidently will forgive us time and again to help us live and love more freely, wisely, and lovingly in relationship with others. That is the Gospel, the good news of this life we share as followers of Jesus.
Kathleen Norris says, such news, such love, such a God “is not readily understandable.” I imagine many would find that an understatement.
One of the great perversions within the Church is the teaching—either explicit or implicit—that if you have doubts you’re supposed to pretend you don’t, that if you struggle with teachings of the faith or with issues in your life, then you don’t really belong in the Church. I can think of nothing further from the truth. Sadly, there are those who stay away from the life-giving experience of Christian community because no one has ever convinced them that they don’t have to have all the answers—or that they don’t have to blindly go along with what they’ve heard or been taught about the Church, about Jesus, about the Bible. Also, sadly, there are those who have been part of the Church for years who have never felt it was OK to admit what they don’t understand. And so they never ask their questions and so they are never able to develop or deepen their faith.
Every week you hear me say “no matter what you believe or doubt” you’re welcome to come and bring it! And even though I say that pretty much without fail, I imagine there are still folks who struggle to trust that their doubts and beliefs are really welcome. There are plenty of good reasons for this difficulty.
Norris writes, “The word ‘belief’ has been impoverished; it has come to mean a head-over-heart intellectual assent. When people ask, ‘What do you believe?’ they are usually asking ‘What do you think?’ I have come to see that my education, even my religious education, left me with a faulty and inadequate sense of religious belief as a kind of suspension of the intellect. Religion, as I came to understand it, was a primitive relic that could not stand up to the advances made in our understanding of human psychological development or the inquiry of higher mathematics and the modern sciences.” She goes on to share “When I first stumbled upon the Benedictine abbey…I was surprised to find the monks so unconcerned with my weighty doubts and intellectual frustrations over Christianity…I was a bit disappointed—I had thought that my doubts were spectacular obstacles to my faith and was confused but intrigued when an old monk blithely stated that doubt is merely the seed of faith, a sign that faith is alive and ready to grow.”[ii]
This is quite different from what lots of folks will imagine or experience of the Christian perspective on doubt and belief. So many who write Christianity off do so because they think, as Norris did, that it requires them to believe ridiculous things. Others reject or abandon the faith because they get a taste of a form of Christianity that is so narrow and legalistic that there is little or no room for questions, for freedom to explore the depths of a wondrous God, for space to wrestle with themselves in the safety of divine love. Some Christian tribes do emphasize strict adherence to their understanding of the Bible or theological concepts as a requirement to be counted among the “believers.” This more legalistic approach can lead to a great deal of fear and guilt that you aren’t thinking right or feeling what you’re supposed to feel or doing the right things. It can end up feeling like a very dysfunctional—if not abusive—relationship. But the word most often translated “believe” in the Bible—pisteuo in the Greek—is not defined as only what you think or as blind surrender to a questionable relationship
Pisteuo means several things including “thinking to be true,” “place confidence in,” and “entrusting or being entrusted with a thing.” One resource says, “The verb πιστεύω works two ways like the English verb ‘commit.’ If you commit yourself to someone, then you are entrusting yourself to them… At the same time you are supporting them. The two sides are really the summary of a covenantal relationship.”[iii] (“I believe in you”…) Kathleen Norris says that “at its Greek root, ‘to believe’ simply means ‘to give one’s heart to.’ Thus, if we can determine what it is we give our heart to, then we will know what it is we believe.”[iv]
What I want to suggest today is that to be a “believer” doesn’t mean you are without doubts or that you’ve sacrificed your critical thinking. To be a believer doesn’t require you to pretend you understand things that baffle you or to act in ways that challenge your sense of integrity. A believer is one who as a result of thinking there is something somehow True about the Gospel message, places confidence in God, and entrusts their heart to God. A “believer” is simply one who—in one way or another—has been drawn to the love of God and has decided to say “yes” to the journey.
The book of Acts in the Bible is the story of the people who first risked saying “yes.” The lives of those who traveled with Jesus had a first-hand experience of what it feels like to be perfectly loved and forgiven. Lord knows the apostles had asked questions, had doubts, missed the point, failed spectacularly in trying to do what Jesus did. And yet because Jesus believed in them and didn’t give up on them and loved them, they kept walking the path, kept trying to follow and to learn. They witnessed the wonders of the risen Jesus who appeared to them, proving they didn’t need to be afraid, even of death. Their changed lives and the story they had to tell and the power of love that flowed from Holy Spirit through them was powerful and healing. It must have been amazing to see them, these simple, uneducated people—without title or standing in the community—risk so much (even jail!) to share their story and to care for those whom others ignored or cast out. This is what the apostles did and, through them, other people learned of the good news of God’s love and mercy and meaning and came alongside to travel the way of Jesus.
An angel (literally messenger) of God comes to the rescue of the imprisoned apostles and relates this charge: “Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this life.” Notice, the angel doesn’t set them free to go and tell the “rules” or the “ideas”…they’re encouraged to tell the whole message about this life.
“This life” is the life they had been given—a life of loving and just relationship with God and other people, a life that is meaningful and purposeful. It’s a life that says “yes” to love, that says “yes” to compassion, that says “yes” to forgiveness, that says “yes” to vulnerability, that says “yes” to risk and trust and generosity and solidarity… For centuries it is this life that has drawn people to embrace the Christian spiritual path. That path is well-worn and there are sign posts along the way in the form of spiritual practices, theologies born out of the crucible of experience, prayers, songs, and stories, all resources to help you grow more strong and free, more wise and kind, to help you discern the ups and downs, twists and turns of this life. We are encouraged to bring our intellect and questions to all of it, to engage the resources and words and images of our faith with the curiosity of an explorer and the wonder of a child.
What if we perceived a “believer” not as someone who has all the answers but who trusts God enough to sit in the ambiguity and frustration of the questions? What if we perceived a “believer” not as someone who thought a certain way, but rather as someone who lived a certain way, as someone who loved a certain way? What if being a “believer” is a willingness to entertain Spirit as a companion along your journey, to make yourself available in the spaces where Jesus reportedly shows up (along the margins, among the poor and disenfranchised, with the sick and grieving), and to sit in the discomfort of uncertainty that is guaranteed when we stumble into places like this one?
What if? I don’t have all the answers. Thanks be to God.
[i] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), 1.
[ii] Ibid., 62-63.
[iii] http://www.torahtimes.org/NewTranslation/concordance/pisteuo_definition.html
[iv] Kathleen Norris, 62.
Sunday Apr 08, 2018
Sunday Apr 08, 2018
Righteousness
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, April 8, 2018, the first Sunday after Easter. Polyphony sermon series. Sunday following the 50th anniversary of MLK’s assassination.
Text: Mark 10:35-45
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” What a pile of hooey. This old saying is just so…untrue. Words can hurt us deeply, leaving wounds much more difficult to heal than even the worst broken bone. As we journey through this Easter season, we’re going to think about some words from the Christian spiritual tradition that have been used in very hurtful ways. We’re calling this series “Polyphony,” a term describing music that includes many parts, voices, or sounds. The words we will explore—abomination, believer, saved, evangelical, born again—are words that get spoken by many different and disparate voices. Our goal is to reclaim some of these words, to listen for the sound the words make when spoken in the context of God’s grace and mercy.
Today we begin with the word “Righteousness.” Growing up as a teenager in the 1980’s I heard the word “righteous” used alongside words like “awesome,” “rad,” “gnarly,” and, I’m slightly ashamed to say this, “tubular.” It generally meant “great” or “neat” or “cool.” But the word “righteousness” in the Christian context has been spoken in ways that are not awesome. Here’s the first definition that popped up in an online search: “Righteousness is the state of moral perfection required by God to enter heaven.” If this is true, we’re all in trouble. That particular site did hasten to add that we are not able to achieve this moral perfection on our own; and then launched into a very legalistic explanation that Jesus’s blood “satisfies God’s justice” by paying the debt for all our sins—like a bloody “get out of jail free” card. I take issue with this theology and, if you are interested in my alternative take, I encourage you to look online at the Good Friday homily I preached last year entitled “Ultimate Witness.” The thing I want to lift up today, however, is the way “righteousness” becomes a tag for the “in” and the “out” crowd the “good” and the “bad” people. If I am righteous, I can judge another for not being righteous. When righteousness is understood as saying certain words or showing up in a certain place at certain times, when righteousness is strict adherence to a list of “do’s and don’ts,” then it is very easy to smoothly slide into self-righteousness.
I submit that righteousness is not about figuring out how to get into the “righteous club,” but rather about faithfully nurturing loving and just relationships that reflect God’s wisdom and way. In the Hebrew scriptures (aka the Old Testament) righteousness is connected to God’s nature and covenant with Israel; in the New Testament, righteousness has to do with the kin-dom of God and life in Christ. Covenant and kin-dom are the ways of living in right relationship with God and with one another. Righteousness is about right relationship.
And that brings me to our text for today. James and John ask to sit at the right hand and the left hand of Jesus in his kingdom. At this point, they don’t understand that Jesus isn’t going to establish the kind of kingdom that the Hebrews had been longing for, an earthly kingdom that would set them free from Roman oppression, that would reestablish the throne of David. They wanted to have cabinet positions in the new administration; after all, they’d earned it, leaving everything to follow Jesus, being devoted and hard-working. Why shouldn’t they sit at his right and left hand in the throne room?
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously preached on this text, pointing out how quickly we might want to condemn James and John for their selfish request but that, if we’re honest, we’ll acknowledge that we have the same basic desire to put ourselves forward so that we can be seen and recognized, so that we can get attention or praise, so that we might feel important. This instinct to be “out front,” to be first, is what King called “The Drum Major Instinct.” You may not want to stand up in front of people to speak or to be in charge of an event or movement or to lead the marching band. But, even for those who are more shy or who like to work behind the scenes, in one way or another, the need for attention and praise and recognition is part of us all. In ways both overt and subtle we try to get the attention that we desire, to put ourselves forward in whatever way we know how to be acknowledged and to feel that we matter.
It is perfectly human to need attention and affirmation, but the drum major instinct can easily become perverted and get in the way of right relationship with God and others. Pitfalls include comparing ourselves to others and being driven to outdo others through our material possessions, through our appearance, through joining this group and that group, through collecting letters after our name or striving to always come in first. A personality distorted by the drum major instinct will begin to boast or may become an “influence peddler,” dropping names and manipulating situations to try to seem more important. King goes on to say, “when one fails to harness this instinct…you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up.”[i]
King also points toward “snobbish exclusivism,” that self-righteous energy that wants to be “in” at the sake of others being “out.” And he calls out the church for the tendency to become focused on the so-called “important people” who attend—the doctors, lawyers, business leaders, presidents, and so on—as if the other folks don’t really count. But he goes on to say, “When the church is true to its nature, it says, ‘Whosoever will, let him come.’ And it does not propose to satisfy the perverted uses of the drum major instinct. It’s the one place where everybody should be the same standing before a common master and savior. And a recognition grows out of this—that all…are [siblings] because they are children of a common [parent].”[ii]
The failure to see this and to embody it in our lives, puts us out of right relationship. This failure opens the door to the destructive tendencies of the drum major instinct, the need to feel superior over others. Dr. King says this “can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he’s a little better than that person that doesn’t have it, or because [she] has some economic security, that [she’s] a little better than the person who doesn’t have it.” And this uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct also leads to “tragic race prejudice.” King says it “is a need that some people have to feel superior…to feel that they are first, that their white skin ordained them to be first” and that is a perversion of the instinct that leads to the “most tragic expressions of…inhumanity”[iii] toward one another. Perversions of the drum major instinct leads nations to endless war and violence, to selfish and cruel policies against other nations and peoples.
Now considering all of this, you’d think that Jesus would lay James and John out for their selfish request. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, Jesus takes the opportunity to offer a lesson, to help these faithful followers grow up a bit more and learn what it really looks like to be in right relationship. Jesus teaches that the relationship we seek should not be that of ruler, but rather of servant. It is the relationship of kin-ship, of mutuality, of humility. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to abandon the drum major instinct. Here’s how King imagines Jesus responding to the brothers:
“‘Oh, I see, you want to be first. You want to be great. You want to be important. You want to be significant. Well you ought to be. If you’re going to be my disciple, you must be.’ But he reordered priorities. And he said, ‘Yes, don’t give up this instinct. It’s a good instinct if you use it right. It’s a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do.’”[iv]
Righteousness, right relationship with God and others, is achieved through the grace of God that helps us to understand that we are all kin, all beloved children of a loving God. Righteousness is about relationships marked by humble service, compassion, and love. Righteousness is about relationships that are just—that are not marred by prejudice, greed, ego, and insecurity. This righteousness isn’t something we can achieve without God’s help. It is so easy to slip into destructive attitudes and actions when we feel even the slightest hint of fear or insecurity.
But the heart of the message from our Gospel is that we are all on the same playing field when it comes to greatness in the kin-dom of God—because all that is required of us is a loving, servant heart that seeks to embrace each and every other as kin. That’s the long and short of it. Anyone can serve. Everyone can serve. Some will choose not to, but the door is open to all. The kin-dom’s message is “whosoever will, let them come.”
It has been intentional to lift up some of the teaching and insight of Dr. King on this Sunday following our remembrances and recommitment to the work he championed for racial and social justice and for an expression of the Christian gospel that truly has integrity. And, as a closing for this reflection, I’ll share some of the final words from his sermon:
“Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life’s final common denominator—that something we call death…Every now and then I ask myself, ‘What is it that I would want said?’ And I leave the word to you…
If any of you are around when I have to meet my day…I’d like somebody to mention…that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others…tried to love somebody… tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked…to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness…Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right side or your left side, not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your best side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition, but I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.”[v]
[i] Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct,” A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington (New York: HarperOne, 1986), 262.
[ii] Ibid., 263.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid., 265.
[v] Ibid., 267.
Monday Mar 26, 2018
Monday Mar 26, 2018
Sacred Resistance
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, March 25, 2018, Palm Sunday.
Text: Mark 11:1-11
It seems like a day that’s all about dramatic gestures. A charged political march, an impending face-off with the ruling administration, dramatic symbols—donkey, palm branches, chanting crowds— carrying the message and the hope. But it occurs to me that driving this scene we commemorate on Palm Sunday is something very simple: a commitment to do the right thing. The grand gesture is only necessary because those with the power and influence won’t do the right thing. The right thing takes so many forms—from legislation that shapes communal life for millions of people to small, everyday acts of kindness. But, as novelist Laura McBride writes, “It all matters.” She shares that little things like someone who “pays at the unattended lot…acknowledges help…wipes the counter…tips the maid…accepts the consequences…lends a hand…goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying…removes the splinter, wipes the tear… touches the lonely, is the whole thing. What is most beautiful is least acknowledged. What is worth dying for is barely noticed.”[i]
In the face of so much fear, violence, chaos, injustice, and uncertainty in our lives and world, I’ve observed folks over the past year or so more intentionally naming the power of simple acts of intentional care and commitment, those things that often get taken for granted. Choosing to do the right thing, the generous thing, the thoughtful thing, the kind thing…choosing to do the loving and just thing with and for others, no matter whether the gesture is large or quite small—this, in our age of slander and spin and selfishness is sacred resistance. To see otherwise unacknowledged beauty, to notice what is truly worth living and dying for, this is sacred resistance.
That is what Jesus is doing as he rides into Jerusalem. The beauty and suffering of the poor and oppressed weigh heavily on his mind and heart. His whole life has been spent seeing, noticing, caring, healing, touching, encouraging those with their backs against the wall, those with others’ boot upon their necks, those simply trying to survive. I imagine that Jesus could tell story after story of his encounters—the look on the face of Simon’s mother-in-law when the fever left her (Mk 1:30), the joy of the leprous man restored to health and who found his voice (Mk 1:42), the energy in the house when the one who’d been lowered in through the roof got up and walked out through the front door (Mk 2:12), that dinner party with Levi and his tax collecting buddies (Mk 2:15), the bleeding woman’s desperate faith that became part of her healing (Mk 5:34), the determined sass of the Syrophoenician woman who was willing to talk back and teach Jesus something for the sake of her child (Mk 7:28), the man who lived in the tombs whose transformation changed not only him but the entire community, Jairus and his daughter, Bartimaeus, the children brought to Jesus for blessing, the faces of the crowds who pressed upon him everywhere he went, hungering and thirsting for healing, for hope, for bread, for someone to see them and to extend any sign of encouragement.
These are the faces, names, and experiences that Jesus carries into Jerusalem on that day so long ago …beautiful and tragic stories of God’s beloved ones…those forgotten on the margins of society and those caught in the snares of privilege, pride, and power. Jesus had the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the heart to understand the realities of this world that crush hope and leave people in desperate situations, to have compassion for those who respond to desperation by doing harm to themselves and others and for those who at least try to be just and kind even when no one is watching. Jesus is determined to do the right thing by them all.
And the creature who carries Jesus into Jerusalem is no accident. A humble king riding the foal of a donkey is not only the fulfillment of a prophecy from Zechariah (9:9), it is a sign of solidarity with the simple, with the poor, with those who bear the burdens that make life possible for others. The donkey is, after all, a simple creature, often called a beast of burden. It is clear from the text that Jesus planned how he would enter the city; I imagine that after the bystanders were told what was happening, word of mouth started to spread and the grassroots organizing kicked in to plan the march. The stuff of this march was what folks could bring from home…cloaks and cut branches…simple things of the people, by the people, and for the people…
Historical studies suggest that another march was taking place on the other side of Jerusalem on the day Jesus arrived. A carefully planned, well-funded military parade, complete with pomp and circumstance, banners flying and shining armor, mounted golden eagles and weapons glinting in the sun.[ii] No donkey here, but rather mighty warhorses streaming in procession. According to scholars, “Pilate’s military procession was a demonstration of both Roman imperial power and Roman imperial theology…it was the standard practice of the Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals. They did so not out of empathetic reverence for the religious devotion of their Jewish subjects, but to be in the city in case there was trouble. There often was, especially at Passover, a festival that celebrated the Jewish people’s liberation from an earlier empire.”[iii]
If we think that empire exists only in the texts of the Bible, the annals of ancient history, the mind of George Lucas, or the drama of Lucious and Cookie Lyon, we are not paying attention. Empire may change faces over the centuries, but its contours remain consistent:
- political oppression (ordinary people are manipulated and suppressed with little or no voice in shaping society)
- economic exploitation (systems and policies keep the wealth flowing to the wealthy)
- religious legitimation (religious leaders assert that the status quo reflects the will of God)[iv]
When voting is suppressed and propaganda goes unchecked, there is political oppression; when legislation favors the rich and money buys votes there is economic exploitation; when religious leaders hypocritically support people and policies that sanction cruelty and oppression there is religious legitimation.
I have lived all 48 years of my life in this country I love, a country that against all its best aspirations has been consistently if not increasingly imperial. This is not a politically partisan statement. Some leaders across disciplines and industries and parties have tried to resist and reform. Not all folks with privilege, wealth, and power are all intentionally oppressive and exploitative. My assertion is that the overarching dynamics, values, and systems that have evolved through human choices across time and have created in our day—as of old—the need for a face-off with the ruling, privileged classes. So we see the peaceful protest vs. the militarized show of force; the traumatized children vs. the radicalized gun lobby; we see Emma González bearing the burden of that trauma, standing before the whole world for 6 minutes of silence as if to say with the biblical prophet, “Look upon the one whom they have pierced” (Zech. 12:10, Jn 19:37); we see T.C. Morrow faithfully walking forward year after year and presenting her life and ministry to a church that continues to say “no”…we see the already iconic image of Ieshia Evans in Baton Rouge in the summer of 2016, calmly and proudly standing before a line of police in riot gear, her long dress gently blowing, her feet firmly planted, as two officers urgently approach as if afraid. Across the ages, in this land and around the world, in one way or another, we see metaphorically the humble, burden-bearing donkey facing up to the powerful warhorse… We see the continued struggle between God’s kin-dom and earthly empire…
And out amid and beyond the crowds swarming at the dramatic events, we see those who are acting with kindness and generosity, who are doing the tasks that are literally “thankless,” who are being patient and present in the midst of flared passions and the misbehavior resulting from despair… If we are paying attention, we will see those unnamed, unsung public servants laboring in government and law enforcement who are trying to do the right thing; we’ll see teachers, school counselors and social workers trying to close the gaps of need, we’ll see journalists who keep at it even as others seek to discredit them, we’ll notice the ones who can’t turn out for the big, dramatic events because they can’t afford to take off work, the ones who bear the burdens of the tasks that make life bearable: trash collectors and those who clean the bathrooms (and all those port-a-potties!), food harvesters, packagers, and preparers, nurses and doctors and hospice staff, help desk staff and administrative assistants, and on and on it goes.
The dramatic face-off captured in iconic photos and unsung service by unnamed people are both sacred resistance insofar as those engaged seek to embody the way of God’s kin-dom. That is our call—to stand for God’s way in the face of all that is not God’s way… To do that when others are looking and when no one but God sees. We are called to see who and what is worth caring about, who and what is worth risking it all for.
That’s what Jesus does for us. Jesus has been #saying her name, his name, your name and mine forever. Jesus, long ago and today, sees the faces of all the children—those living and dead—and knows their story.
Today may seem like a day of dramatic gestures, but let’s be clear about what’s really going on. Jesus doesn’t march into Jerusalem to call attention to himself or for the videos of the march to go viral. Jesus rides into Jerusalem to say to those in power, “See Jairus’ daughter. See Bartimaeus. See Jaelynn Willey and Nikolas Cruz, see Stephon Clark and his two young children. See the victims of gun violence in Newtown and the surviving students and families who carry scars. The victims of gun violence in Parkland and the survivors who carry scars. See the families being ripped apart by inhumane deportation policies, those who are on the edge of losing their homes because they can’t find enough work, those who are spiraling into depression and addiction…” Jesus rides into Jerusalem to challenge the violent ways of empire that leave beloved children vulnerable to trauma and starvation, that steal dignity and hope from those on the margins, that destroy God’s creation for economic gain; to challenge the forces of empire that think they can overpower or outspend the love and mercy of God. Jesus came to remind those in places of religious influence to love God and to love their neighbor as themselves.
Why does it seem radical to simply do the right thing? Because the way of God’s kin-dom flies in the face of what gets sold to us as “just the way it is.” Sacred resistance is what Jesus embodied on this day all those years ago and sacred resistance is what is needed for the living of all our days. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything dramatic. It only means that you have to take seriously your intention to follow Jesus who embodies the wild notion that kindness and care and tenderness and justice and friendship and solidarity and love are the things matter most of all.
[i] Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise, this excerpt was shared on FaceBook by a friend.
[ii][ii] Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 3.
[iii] Ibid., 2.
[iv] Ibid., 7-8.
Sunday Mar 18, 2018
Sunday Mar 18, 2018
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, March 18, 2018, the fifth Sunday in Lent. “Dissonance” sermon series.
Texts: Psalm 51:1-12; Luke 15:1-2, 11-32
“When God Ran…” It’s the provocative title of a duet I sang in church with my mother circa 1988… When God Ran… Generally, we think of God as steadfast, a solid rock, never leaving nor forsaking, going ahead of us to guard and guide, an encircler and protector, ever present. But there was a time when God ran. // “While [the son] was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” (Lk 15:20) Jesus’ parable imbues the father with the characteristics of God—generosity, wisdom, steadfast love— and compassion that sends him running. The father doesn’t turn away or run away. The father has been waiting and watching for any sign of his beloved child’s return and when the son appears, there is no hesitation—he runs toward his precious one and embraces him.
Today we have experienced the story of the prodigal and his brother for the fourth week in a row. Over the course of our reflections, we’ve gazed upon the two sons—and more than a few of you have shared that you see yourself in one or both of them. Henri Nouwen has been our companion on this Lenten journey and his insight reveals that both the younger and the elder son were disconnected from their true home. The younger son intentionally wanders away and breaks all the rules; and the elder son is lost even though he’s remained close and labored to be the good son. The home they struggle to find is that place where they can rest in the love of their father, that place where they can trust that they’ve always been loved—loved even when they were ungrateful, even when they were making terrible choices, even when they were cruel, even when resentment bubbled over, even when pride held them hostage. In the midst of it all, home is waiting, God is watching for any sign of return…and God runs to the elder just as to the younger…God goes out to meet the one on the road and the other outside the feast, entreating each to enter into the love and joy and embrace of home.
Jesus tells this story with an open ending. The invitation and embrace is offered, but we don’t get to hear how it all turns out. The younger and the elder sons may yet fail to truly get home. There remains an open end for us as well. Are we willing to do what it takes to acknowledge and receive what is offered to us? Everything hangs on our answer.
Some weeks ago I shared in a sermon a moment in my life when I realized that I was lugging around all this guilt and shame like a weight, a burden I thought I had to carry forever as my punishment for terrible things I’ve done. Through the grace of God and a good spiritual director I began to release that burden and to move a little closer toward home, toward the freedom that awaits when we can trust that God’s love and compassion are more powerful than even our worst transgressions. It still stuns me to realize just how unaware I was that I was clinging to all that garbage, all those self-punishing thoughts and feelings. Guilt and shame are sneaky and sinister temptations. We get so attached to them—or they to us, like parasites…guilt and shame can start to feel like part of who we are—even though they’re not. I believe Nouwen is correct when he says that “one of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness.”[i]
It seems to me there are lots of reasons for that. First of all, as in my case, we may not even realize that we’re rejecting forgiveness! Maybe we can’t or won’t admit that we’ve done anything that needs forgiving. Perhaps we can’t imagine ever being able to forgive someone who did what we did—and so we can’t forgive ourselves and don’t believe anyone else should either. Maybe we think there needs to be some penalty paid for what we’ve done and being forgiven by God seems like cheap grace. But those ways of thinking fail to account for the way repentance and forgiveness work. God desires our freedom from those things that bind us, that hold us hostage, that keep us from living and loving fully and entering into the joy of home. To repent and receive forgiveness are paths toward that freedom! And real repentance and forgiveness will mean not only seeing our fault and feeling regret, but—with the help of God (and often the help of other people!)— changing our ways. In some ways, it’s easier to keep lugging around all that guilt or to be punished and believe that buys you time to keep on living the same way. William Sloane Coffin said, “It’s hell to be guilty, but it’s worse to be responsible.”[ii] And the invitation is to step into the freedom of a new way of being, a new way of loving, a new place of trust and generosity—both toward yourself and toward others. You are invited to take responsibility for yourself, to take yourself seriously, to see the truth that you matter and that you are worth more than a small life bound up with shame and self-loathing and self-destructive behavior. You are invited to grow up, to see yourself not only as a child, identifying with the younger or elder son, but also to begin to identify with the father. Growing up is the goal—growing in wisdom, vision, patience, courage, and love…being and becoming more like God our father and our mother. The elder son is reminded explicitly: “all that I have is yours.” All the grace, all the steadfast commitment and care, all the generosity…all these gifts are yours for you are God’s beloved child. And any loving parent wants to see her child grow up and develop the gifts within them; God desires that you grow up into the version of your life that most fully reflects God’s own.
Such an assertion may seem absurd to you. In fact, a primary obstacle for many of us on the journey home is a deep sense of insecurity and lack of self-worth. This is often the thing at the heart of alienation in the first place. Perhaps the thing that has led to addiction or betrayal or debilitating secrets, or violence, or prideful defenses, or hardness of heart—whatever it is that keeps you from going “home”—is a conviction that you are not worthy of love or care, that you are not capable of bravery or creativity or responsibility, that no one would ever be proud of you. This may have been beaten into you physically, emotionally, or spiritually through the actions of broken people in your life. Or it may have seeped into you through the manipulations of empire with its consumer economy relentlessly insisting that you need this or that product or experience in order to be cool, attractive, healthy, powerful, or important. We waste so much time chasing after things that will not satisfy the deep longing at our core.
This is not a new phenomenon. In the 6th century, BCE, the prophet known as Second Isaiah wrote:
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?...
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live. (Isaiah 55:2-3)
Saint Augustine in the 4th century of the Common Era famously prayed these words to God: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee…”
In the 14th century CE, English Anchoress and mystic, Julian of Norwich wrote, “we do not know our God who is almighty, all wise and all good… God wishes to be known, and it pleases [God] that we should rest in [God]; for everything which is beneath [God] is not sufficient for us."
In 1980 CE, country singer Johnny Lee recorded a classic for the “Urban Cowboy” soundtrack that included these lyrics, “Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, lookin’ for love in too many faces, searchin’ their eyes, and lookin’ for traces of what I’m dreamin’ of…”
Throughout the ages, we look for our deepest needs to be met in things that are not God—we look to products and substances, other people, and our own force of will—and in so doing, we stay at a distance from the source of all we need. We go in search of that which we think will fix us or help us get right or strong; we go in search of meaning, of satisfaction, of love, even of God—and our search itself can become its own idol. It’s not our search that matters most of all; God’s search for us is what makes the difference; and God is always already looking for us.
God runs out to you wherever you are and invites you to receive and affirm what is real: that God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it…that God sees not only your faults, but also your inherent worth—not because of anything you say or do or prove, but simply because you are YOU. Nouwen contends that when we think of sin we generally focus on our faults and failings but, he says, “the real sin is to deny God’s first love for [you], to ignore [your] original goodness.”[iii] Does anyone really love me? Does anyone really care? How can I keep from being hurt and rejected again? What if I fail or disappoint or relapse, will I lose the love that’s been given? These concerns reveal the ways we struggle to trust God’s presence and love. “The parable of the prodigal son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place. It is the first and everlasting love of a God who is Father as well as Mother. It is the fountain of all true human love, even the most limited. Jesus’ whole life and preaching had only one aim: to reveal this inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of his God and to show the way to let that love guide every part of our daily lives…It is the love that always welcomes home and always wants to celebrate.”[iv]
God is always watching, ready to run to you and welcome you home. The story is unfinished. Will you reject God’s love and deny your original goodness? Or will you allow yourself to be found by God, to be known by God, to be loved by God? Everything hangs on your answer.
[i][i] Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 53.
[ii] William Sloane Coffin, Credo, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 18.
[iii] Ibid., 107.
[iv] Ibid., 108-109.
Sunday Mar 11, 2018
Sunday Mar 11, 2018
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Preacher: Senior Pastor Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli
Sermon: "Bound"
Texts: Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22; Luke 15:1-2, 11-32
Dissonance is a mingling of discordant sounds, a lack of harmony among musical notes. And during this Lenten season at Foundry, we are exploring the dissonance, the lack of harmony, caused by human choices and ways of being. In the traditional language of the church, we’re talking about sin. Using the parable of the prodigal and his brother, we’ve explored things like being led astray by temptations and the destructive effects of ingratitude and resentment. The goal of our reflections through this series is not simply to name things that make us feel bad. The goal is to acknowledge that there are things we need to change—to repent of—in our lives so that we might be more free. As I said on the first Sunday of the season, “Repentance is meant not to bind us or make us shrink in fear. Repentance is the path to freedom, the path to living with courage and assurance!...To repent…is to…trust that walking in the way of God’s kin-dom will lead us not only to closer relationship with God, but will set us free to live, really live our lives and, in so doing, to love and serve other people as well.”
Confession and repentance is about liberation from those things that bind us, that keep us living smaller and less loving lives than the lives we’re made for. The past couple of weeks, we’ve looked first at the younger son in the parable and then the elder son. Today, we’ll reflect on both of them and on one of the things they seem to have in common: pride. The pride they share is not the healthy kind of pride that allows us to acknowledge our own true gifts, strengths, identity, and God-created nature. The pride they share causes dissonance; its the kind of pride that prances across the world stage and hides out in homes both simple and lavish, leading to tragedy, alienation, and senseless violence. The pride the two sons share is the pride that leads us to deceive ourselves, to mask our faults, to hide our fears. Carl Jung, said that even when this pride is most active, “deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.”[i] Dissonance…
The brash young son probably felt free as he set out for a distant land. After all, hadn’t he chosen to seek a home somewhere else? Hadn't he gotten what he wanted and wasn’t he living on his own terms now? But is he really free? What we sometimes think of as freedom—that rock & roll attitude that “I’m free to do what I want any old time”—is in truth not freedom at all, but rather a trap. Selfish pride is deceiving and leads us to make choices that are destructive to ourselves and to others. Who wants a freedom that means losing everyone and everything that really matters? When this son hits rock bottom, starving, an outsider in his current surroundings, broke, alone except for the pigs, he sees just how his perceived freedom has led him to a prison of alienation. He has gotten attention from others so long as he had something to offer, but when he is no longer useful to them, he is ignored and given even less than the pigs. From this place of isolation and suffering, any human might experience the whole world as dark and menacing and cold and untrustworthy. The son perhaps begins to think that he has never really been loved by anyone. But then he “came to his senses.” Many translations say, “He came to himself”... maybe that's who he was running away from in the beginning. We don’t really know of course. But in this moment, he remembers where he can turn; and turn he does. But his return is shrouded in ambiguity; for while he journeys back to the house of his father, he still has a long way to go to reach “home”—that is to acknowledge and trust that his father loves him.
The late priest and teacher, Henri Nouwen describes this saying, “There is repentance, but not a repentance in the light of the immense love of a forgiving God. It is a self-serving repentance that offers the possibility of survival…It is like saying: ‘Well, I couldn’t make it on my own, I have to acknowledge that God is the only resource left to me. I will go to God and ask for forgiveness in the hope that I will receive a minimal punishment and be allowed to survive on the condition of hard labor.’ God remains a harsh, judgmental God. It is this God who makes me feel guilty and worried and calls up in me all these self-serving apologies. Submission to this God does not create true inner freedom, but breeds only bitterness and resentment. One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness.”[ii]
The late pastor and preacher William Sloane Coffin says that “guilt is the last stronghold of pride. ‘Guilty’ represents my opinion of myself. ‘Forgiven’ may represent yours or God’s opinion, and I’m too proud to let others do for me what I cannot do for myself.”[iii] The younger son, in his carefully crafted confession speech, reveals that he still sees himself as guilty, as someone who should be treated as a hired hand, not as someone who is loved, forgiven, and set free to live a new life. When he shows up at home, he is clinging to his pride, his sense of self-determination and self-sufficiency, his insistence that he knows what he is (guilty! unworthy!), the sense that it’s up to him to find freedom and life. He appears, too proud to let his father forgive him when he can’t figure out how to forgive himself.
The elder son, though always at his father’s house is in his own prison of alienation, a duty-bound place, a place where resentment and self-righteous pride make it easy to waste energy on constant comparisons, of sizing everyone up against his own hard work; that work evidently has become shrouded in its own ambiguity. Perhaps initially driven by a sense of healthy responsibility and good intentions, it is now described—is it a Freudian slip?—as working like a slave. In that moment, we see that this son, too, has not claimed the freedom that is his. He isn't freely choosing to work for his father out of love. Instead, he is bound by his sense of duty and a feeling of being trapped. This bondage keeps him from entering into the celebration that engulfs his household at his brother’s return.
He is outside in the dark, seemingly unaware that he needs to be forgiven anything. He’s the oppressed one here, the overlooked one, the one who deserves everything and hasn’t gotten his! The elder son holds on to self-righteousness, perhaps out of a sense that it’s not OK to trust someone else’s perspective or actions—even his father’s—since it’s really only him that gets what is real and “right” and “giving in” would be a sign of weakness. This son is held captive by his pride. He can’t see anything but himself and his grievances. He can’t see his brother. He cannot acknowledge or receive the love of his father. Like his younger brother, he doesn’t trust that his father loves him and always has.
Pride—the kind that is twisted into control and selfishness—is a primary obstacle to both the sons in the story. For both of them, their pride and their clinging to self-motivated and self-focused ways of seeing the world keep them from being able to fully receive what is so clearly offered: the love and compassion of their father. Pride bars them from really arriving home, home understood as the all-embracing love of God. Pride can hold us hostage, too.
Where does pride and an overactive, unhealthy self-sufficiency get in the way of your return “home”? Can you hear the still, small voice deep within you that points to where there is dissonance, where something is out of tune, where pride is deceptively holding you hostage?
Listen…look…real freedom awaits. The all-embracing love of God calls you home.
[i] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/pride
[ii][ii] Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 52-53.
[iii] William Sloane Coffin, Credo, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 16.