Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Peacemakers: A Sermon Preached by Rev. Ben Roberts at Foundry UMC, August 12, 2018

Peacemakers

Matthew 5:1-11

A sermon preached by Rev. Ben Roberts at Foundry United Methodist Church, Sunday, August 12, 2018

 

N-A-T-S, NATS, NATS, NATS, WOOOOOOO!

A run is scored, the people sitting in (formerly Gwenda Martin’s Section) and around Larry Slagle's section extend their arms holding hat in hand, with the top of the hat pointed downward. They begin to chant; N-a-t-s, then what? NATS, NATS, NATS WOOOOO.

What if someone new was near by? They have question; you explain it to them, this is what we do when a run is scored. For each run we do this. N-A-T-S, NATS, NATS, NATS, WOOOOOOO!

A run is scored, someone else joins in, N-a-t-s, NATS, NATS, NATS,  AHUUUGA!

What do you do? You would correct them, hard...it's not ahuuuuga! It's woo, pronounced WOOOOO. What are you doing get with the program?

They inquire, what's the difference, it's still jubilation? No, it's woo. Maybe you are a tolerant person, you let it slide...the first two times, but tonight the Nats decide to score 25 for some reason not thinking about spacing the blessed runs out maybe, want to win some other games occasionally? Other games need runs Nats, all games matter!!!!

You don't let ahugahhh slide, certainly not 24 of them. You call the usher. “This person is saying ahugaa not woo, they need to go. Get them out of here.” Usher totally gets it being there day in day out, they get rid of this person. Figure out the rules and participate or go.

We teach (sometimes), we correct, this is how racismworks...I mean baseball, this is how baseball works. Slipped up there.

But you get it, you understand how culture and cultural norms work. We teach we correct. We do it with gusto. We do it as duty. We do it as doing our jobs. We do it because we've been taught too, and whether we believe it or not, we find it important and normal to do so.

This is how racism works, this is how racism works too.

Rev. Dr. Shively Smith introduced for us a few weeks ago concept of “Sankofa.” She told us about the symbol, the Sankofa bird, with its feet planted forward and its head turned back. The word comes from the Akan people in Ghana. Sankofa is a Twi word meaning to go back and get it. One of the ideas around it being, the future can be planned by learning from the past. It’s important to go back and retrieve what’s at risk of being lost. A week before that Rev. Dr. Serene Jones told us of the power of faith communities to help their people be happier by sharing stories that also include hardship and difficulty. Those stories can make us more resilient. And so, this is what I have for you today. It’s just the sharing of story with the hopes it can help us live forward better together.

Rev. Dr. Robert Brewer teacher, friend, and Th.D. in Homiletics, that is the craft of preaching advises this. “Don’t start a sermon with a question, because then the congregation will just be thinking about the question rather than what you’re saying. So, When did you first notice something was wrong with race or racism in the world?

 

Battlefields and historic sites were our playgrounds for good part of my childhood. From revolutionary war sites, to the many Civil War sites, and the battleship memorial in Wilmington, NC. These were the road trips we would take as a family and it was also our back yard. We would learn history through those places, we would learn the stories of the battels and the wars which occurred in those places. Cortney can tell you that I still enjoy going to those places when take trips. As a child, one of the best things about those places were the gift shops. What kid doesn’t love a gift shop. We would end up with little army men to play with when we got home.

These toy soldiers were usually little blue men, and little gray men. The little blue men being the north and the little gray men being the south. We were young when we had these. Somewhere in the range of 4-8 years of age. I was not processing all that the blue and gray meant. History of the civil war and the history of the state of North Carolina, and the history of my family were very intertwined, not always processed, but intertwined.

In addition to these battlefields we’d also visit cemeteries where relatives were buried like my grandfather, great grandparents and many cousins. They are all together in a little family plot near an old federal style house called Dalkeith where my family still gathers for Thanksgiving each year. The family bought the house in the late 1880’s, but it was built in 1825. We are confident there was enslaved African people present on that farm through 1865. We aren’t confident if the enslaved Africans were housed on the land or housed nearby with their labor being forced on multiple farms in the area. But that’s not really talked about at Thanksgiving.

The family plot at the cemetery is at Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Arcola, NC. At the foot of my immigrant, WW 2 United States Navy Veteran, grandfather Brodie’s grave is a little emblem they give to retired Methodist Pastors, it’s a circuit rider. At the foot of a number of my older relative’s graves, are little metal crosses with letters C.S.V. on different points of the cross. C.S.V., Confederate States Veterans. I knew what the C.S.V letters stood for this even when I was little, but again the privilege of not having to process was very real. I do think I knew enough to know that that meant they were the little gray men, the toys we would play with.

We’d go to museums like the North Carolina History where two small artifacts are kept. Both carved from beef bone, one is a bird clutching a snake, the other is a book surrounded by what resembles a horseshoe shape. They were carved by George W. Davis, a cousin, while he was a prisoner of war, a little gray man, held in a prison in Elmira, New York. We were in museums.

In Lexington, Virginia, home of the Red Hen, is also home of the cemetery where my father’s parents are buried. And Just a stone’s throw from my WW 2 United States Army veteran Grandfather Roberts, is the grave and statue of General Stonewall Jackson, C.S.V. Lexington is also home to my father’s alma mater and the place where my grandfather taught, cytology and histology, Washington and Lee University. Home of Lee Chapel where Robert E. Lee is buried, and where Confederate Battle flags hung just beyond an opening at the front of the chapel space.

These were our playgrounds and our toys. Me, my brothers, my parents and theirs. These where spaces we learned stories both from the family and from history. Some stories incomplete, few stories reflected upon in the moment. When did you first realize something was wrong?

In 2^nd grade, so when I was 8 years old. I recall specifically and vividly the moment I realized something was wrong. It’s stuck with me ever since. It is possible I’m not remembering this perfectly, but here it goes. We were sitting in the rear section of our classroom on the floor. That meant that whatever we were doing it didn’t involve desk work and there’s a good chance we were watching a movie as part of our discussion. Mrs. Adams was my teacher. Mrs. Adams was an African American woman and had responsibility for teaching young children multiple subject. I won’t be able to stress the significances of this enough, but having her as a teacher in the state of North Carolina is proving more and more invaluable.

On to our subject, through whatever medium, we were learning about the civil war. I don’t remember the film and I don’t remember any other aspect of the discussion. However, enough was said to finally articulate that slavery, was one, a thing, and two was a central to the civil war. Thankfully, I had a teacher (or teachers) who could say plainly enough that slavery meant black people were owned as property. And this was largely (not exclusively) the case in the South (my playground) and with the people of the gray team as owners (my team), and fighting to preserve this right to own and force people into labor.

Eight-year-old Ben’s head (and probably heart) nearly exploded at this point. All of what I knew about my family and the gray team was coming into focus in a new way. Deep processing and unpacking was not necessary at this point, but I knew enough thanks to good parenting that this slavery thing, this owning people thing, this working people against their will, this abusing people thing, this violence, this denigration of an entire group of people thing, this separating of families, mothers from children, husbands from wives, sisters from brothers, peoples from land thing; was not a good thing.

No time, much less capacity, to think though because, my God! My friend Meghan is sitting right beside me. Holy crap! Our whole existence has a new meaning, and what on earth shall I say to my black friend Meghan who was, I’m sure, more disturbed by all this than I was.

So, I did what any 8-year-old would do when confronted about a truth of history indicating a form of responsibility for a bad thing. I lied! I lied my tail-off! Bold face falsity as a means of self-preservation, friend console-ment, but mostly self-console-ment.

An example of what I mean here: you say to a young child knowing the answer is yes, “Did you take the cookie when we told you not to?” What’s the answer? “No.” Same for pretty much every kid, and far too many adults.

I turned to my friend Megan, I leaned over and I said, I remember this clear as day, “My family was on the blue team.” Such a little liar.

If you’re finding yourself having sympathy for 8-year-old Ben, don’t. Eight is a pretty late age to be learning something is wrong with racism in America. Maybe it doesn’t seem old for a white kid, but black boys and girls at that age are learning, as a matter of life and death how to navigate what they already knew was a problem.

This was it, this was the first time I think I realized something was wrong. I’m embarrassed it took so long. Even up to last week I was still trying to change it because it presents racism as binary (white and black) and related to  tangible institutions like slavery or segregation when we know it’s so much more than that. But it’s my story and it’s mine to grapple with. The tendency, however, to deny our story, to lie to ourselves or others about the conditions of the world and our culture is not mine alone.

When did you realize something was wrong? Do you remember your story? Is there something that you need to go retrieve from it before it’s lost? Is there something in that can help us live forward better and be more resilient in difficult times?

We read the same texts they are reading at the worship service on the Mall today. The focus for is on the Matthew 5 text, verse 9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” It’s either a hard or very appropriate day to think of peacemaking when there are planned gatherings celebrating and encouraging violence.

Our key verse begs the question, “Really? With them?” I’d say, “yes” and “no.” With the people of all the various groups that gather today? “Yes.” With the ideas that white supremacist espouse? No, never. Resist always evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.

What a lot of us need to do today is begin making peace with our stories. Make peace with their incompleteness and their privilege. Make peace with them so our reaction to them isn’t what 8-year-old Ben did, lie about it, be embarrassed by it, feel guilty about it, re-write the history of it. You can’t change it, but you can learn from it. Ignoring the fullness of our stories isn’t helpful and only prolongs our inaction on the ways racism persists in our collective daily story.

I’ll give you another story Foundry Church. When this congregation began 1814 it was over 50% African enslaved and free. But we were segregated in our seating and leadership. By 1836 Asbury Chapel was formed and the black constituency of Foundry made their way to that space further entrenching the forced racial divide that for Foundry persisted roughly another 130 years. In 1965 Norman and Francis Prince joined Foundry as members becoming the first black members of the church since the early 1800’s. It would be another 30 years before we became a reconciling congregation, committing ourselves to welcoming all people.

Then between 2000 and 2001 a group of Foundry members decided it was time to make peace with our own story. I’m deeply grateful they did too. A congregation wide study on racism and white privilege took place over the course of at least a year. Joint classes and discussions were held with both Asbury and Foundry members. Through that Foundry was able to put together a formal act of repentance for the sins of racism through the church. Asbury received that and there were marches back and forth between our two buildings; of course, there was food. But these were the steps taken to make peace with our own story and culpability. To learn more from them and examine the deeper roots of entrenched systemic racism. Since then we’ve been able to collaborate in ministry in our downtown area. And we’ll stand together today on the mall against all forms of hate.

Those Foundry and Asbury groups took a risk. They risked admitting to not knowing everything. They risked publicly acknowledging ways we have collectively and individually participated in systems of racism. They risked having others’ opinions about them being lowered. They put in work to make peace with a story, so that we could live forward better.

Our verse today, “peacemakers;” one French translation uses “répandent (autour d'eux la paix).” I like this one, “it’s to spread peace around them.” It makes peace something you possess and spread all around you. In English though, peacemakers ends up essentially meaning peace is created. A peacemaker’s work is to reconcile two or more adversarial parties. That’s more appropriate for us today. There’s work to be done; with our own stories, so that we can alter the trajectory of our current shared narrative.

Every second Sunday, the racial justice ministry team gathers for discussion, field trips, lectures or some other activity. We do something every month. Take advantage of that, it can easily help reframe your story and what you’re seeing around. This fall we’ll be working through writings of Howard Thurman. I’ll recommend you get involved with that group. I’ll also recommend to you the book “Waking up White, and Finding my self in the Story of Race,” by Debby Irving.  It’s a good baseline consciousness raising narrative of the author’s own figuring out of how racism is operating in systems of our culture and how she was operating within and perpetuating them, as a nice person, as well.

Today if you’re wanting to go to the rally, but don’t want to get “yelled at” or something like that know this; if they only time you choose to show up is when the white nationalist come to town or shortly after another unarmed black or brown person is killed, you’re probably going to hear some yelling. Show up any way. Don’t ask someone who has an embodied experience of racism to sanitize their emotion or feelings for your comfort. Just show up. Then show up the next day and every day in between.

Go ahead and make peace with the fact that you are going to make mistakes on this journey. That you are not all knowing and that there are ways that even you, good as I know you are, still participate in racist systems. Don’t let some sense of guilt or shame hold you back from engage the work, that is one of the subtlest yet most effective ways evil works to perpetuate this whole mess. Risk your public reputation as good a good person who has it all figured out, so that you can engage in the real work of peacemaking, of reconciliation; the work God calls us to.

Soon you’ll begin to realize that the real conversations don’t happen in 3-hour blocks at rallies. Soon you’ll realize that the real work of breaking down your own privilege happens as you draw closer to one another, not in groups of thousands, but in groups of 2 or 3 or 4. This is where the real work of peace happens.

Maya Angelou says this, “if we face the past with courage we don't have to repeat it.” There is peace making work to do friends, let’s commit ourselves this day.

 

 

Coming Home: A Sermon Preached by Rev. Malcolm Frazier at Foundry UMC, August 5, 2018

Coming Home

                                                                          Luke 7:36-50

                         A Sermon preached by Rev. Malcolm Frazier, Foundry United Methodist Church August 5, 2018

One of our most endearing sentiments is that of “Coming Home.”  It has a universal appeal and touches us in a special way.  Some of our most popular movies are about coming home.  You might recall some of these:

 Movies:

1. Argo – Ben Affleck plays a CIA agent who launches a plan to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the US hostage crisis in Iran in 1979.
2. Lion – starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman. The story of a 5-year old Indian boy who gets lost in the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home.  He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia.  25 years later he sets out to find his lost family.
3. The Martian – Matt Damon and Jessica Chastian.. Matt plays an astronaut who becomes stranded on Mars after his team assumed he was dead.
4. The Trip to Bountiful – stars the late Geraldine Page as a woman who wants to return to her home during the post-World War II 1940s. When she gets there she finds that the town is deserted. She is moved to tears as she surveys her father’s land and the remains of the family home. Accepting this reality she is at peace – she had gone back home before she died.
5. Lassie Come Home – starring Roddy McDowall, Elizabeth Taylor, and the canine actor, Pal. The movie is set in Depression-era Yorkshire, England.  Lassie’s owners are poor, so they sell their dog to a rich Duke.  His granddaughter knows that the dog is unhappy so arranges for her to escape. Lassie sets off to go home and escapes many dangers before returning to her home.
6. 12 Years A Slave – Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northrup, a free African-American man who is 1841 is kidnapped in Saratoga Springs, New York and enslaved again. After some intervention by key people, he is restored to freedom and returns to his family after 12 years. As he walks into his home, he sees his wife with their son and daughter (fully grown) and her husband, who present him with his grandson and namesake, Solomon Northrup Staunton.  Northrup apologizes for his long absence while his family comforts him.
7. Rabbit-Proof Fence – an Australian film set in 1931, about 3 mixed-race Aboriginal young girls who are kidnapped and placed in a camp where they are to be trained to be servants to white families. The three girls escape, one is captured again, and the other two follow a rabbit-proof fence and walk 1500 miles in nine weeks to get back home.

 Personal stories of coming home

1. When I came home from college
2. Coming home from England as a first-year student
3. Homecoming in the Black Church
4. Homecoming on Howard’s campus
5. 50-year high school reunion
6. Whenever I came home for the holidays I would drive through my hometown.

 Sharon Daloz Parks writes in Big Questions Worthy Dreams that it has been said that home is the most powerful word in the English language.  It is where we start from.  It is what we aspire to. 

To be at home is to have a place where we are comfortable; know that we belong, can be who we are; and can honor, protect, and create what we truly love. 

To be home within one’s self, place, community, and the cosmos is to feel whole and centered in a way that yields a sense of power and participation. 

(To be at home is to be in a special rhythm of life, engaging in patterns of work, play, and diverse relationships.  We have a support system, etc)

 Diana Butler Bass in Grounded writes that home happens in numerous geographies and in a number of different dwellings. Home is more than a house. It is a sacred location, a place of aspiration and dreams, of learning and habit, of relationships and heart. People are out of place.  Transient moderns make their homes in new places.

 I have been a transient.  When I accepted a position with Global Ministries in New York, I sat in an empty apartment in Maryland the day before and cried and cried and cried.  When the Board moved its headquarters from New York to Atlanta, I moved with it and sat in an empty apartment prior to leaving and cried and cried and cried.  When I was informed that my appointment with the Board was ending, I accepted an appointment in Washington, DC.  The day before I left Atlanta, I sat in an empty apartment and cried and cried and cried.  I cried because I had established a strong relationship in each place and the people had made me feel at home.

 

TRANSITION

 Diana reminds us that home can be a place of horror as well. Too many people have experiences of a home that shelters sickness and addiction, of homes that deteriorate from carelessness and neglect, or homes broken apart through willful violations of the relationships in them, resulting in reports of domestic violence.  I would add reports of incest.  Some social scientists refer to home-centered violence as intimate terrorism.

 

Those who have no home:

1. The homeless in our midst – mention the ID ministry
2. Those kids kicked out of their homes because they are LGBQT
3. Those who are part of the global migration crisis
4. A recent report from the GBCS share that an estimated 65.3 million people were displaced from their homes by conflict and persecution.
5. Tens of thousands of unaccompanied children are annually apprehended at U. S. borders.
6. For refugees Church World Service reports that the wait in a refugee camp is at least 10 years.
7. Church World Service reports that the vetting process for refugees can take up to two years.
8. Only the most vulnerable are referred, accounting for less than 1% of refugees worldwide being resettled.

 TRANSITION

 Now let’s look at the Lucan passage that was read this morning. Explore with me how this text informs our theme of Coming Home. While the themes of sin and forgiveness are important, I will focus on how the three main characters relate to each other. This story is set in Galilee early in Jesus’ ministry.

1. Simon the Pharisee – a member of the group of Jewish people who followed a strict code of religious laws. They play the role of Jesus’ opponents, practicing a lifestyle of separation from unbelievers or Jews outside of their own group. The word Pharisee means “separated.” They consider themselves more holy and righteous than ordinary men. In fact, Luke reports in the 30^th verse that the Pharisees refused to be baptized by John and rejected God’s purpose for themselves.
2. So why did the Pharisee invite Jesus to his house for dinner?
3. Let’s begin with the fact he could. He had the wealth and thus the power to do so.
4. And he could be selective about who he invited.
5. His attitude is ambivalent – he addresses Jesus as Teacher but did not show hospitality. Why not? Perhaps because he was busy hosting his other guests that he was trying to impress.
6. Simon was perhaps giving Jesus an assessment, trying to determine his credentials.
7. The Pharisee, with his arrogance, represents those who look down on others. (talk about the scene in “Philadelphia” when the librarian looks with disdain on Tom Hanks’ character)
8. The woman – who is referred to as a sinner
9. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza in an essay from In Memory of Her points out that the story does not say what kind of sinner the woman was. A sinner could be a criminal, a ritually unclean or a morally bad person, a prostitute, or simply the “wife of a notorious sinner.”  (Jesus was always in the company of people like her and others)
10. Look at her actions – she enters the dinner scene uninvited, ignoring the boundaries of class and patriarchy.
11. She washes Jesus’ feet and dries them with her hair. Touching or caressing a man’s feet could have sexual implications, as did letting one’s hair down in public.
12. She created quite a scene.
13. Jesus – so what does he do?
14. Jesus challenges us to confront the Pharisees in our society.
15. He exposes Simon’s lack of hospitality (he did not greet him with a kiss, offer him water to wash his feet, or offer to put oil on his head)
16. In the Middle East the importance of honor and shame is very high.
17. Jesus showed bad table manners by insulting his host and in doing so becomes the host, as evidenced by his encounter with the woman.
18. I would like to suggest that Jesus presents a model for how we should confront people and structures that prevent everyone from being included, feel wanted, affirmed and protected.
19. We say NO to immigration policies that prevent us from welcoming the neighbor.
20. We say NO to the Book of Discipline that would deny T. C. Morrow the privilege of serving as an elder.
21. We say NO to institutions that tolerate the abuse of the elderly, the mentally challenged or other vulnerable
22. We say NO to the racism in our penal system, causing a disproportional number of black and brown persons in mass incarceration.
23. We say NO to sexism in Corporate America and our churches.
24. We say NO to white supremacists, participating in love rallies.
25. We say NO to racial profiling.
26. We say NO to schools that pass kids through who cannot read.

 TRANSITION

 As I approach my conclusion, let’s look at the importance of the scene being one of a dinner.

I frame this again around the work of Diana Butler Bass, who writes in Grounded about John Wesley’s emphasis on holy habits and declares:

Home is a training ground for spiritual and ethical habits that we take out into the world, with the door and table being the school for holy habits.

1. It is around tables where we learn what to eat and how, ways to set a table for special meals or guests, how to share customs and traditions, and how to serve others. (share personal story about Cambodia or China)
2. The table is the earthly manifestation of God’s presence, the “heavenly feast,” where all are fed and sustained and no one suffers from the lack of anything.
3. This closely aligns with the Pacific Islanders practices of reciprocity and mutuality.
4. Times of fellowships and meals are inherently spiritual as they promote the body’s growth by making the mundane sacred.
5. Meals are never just a time of eating, it is always a time of sharing the journey.
6. Meal times are times of celebration and feasting.
7. The abundant display of food affirms the bountiful providence of God, a celebration of what God is able to do in the midst of scarcity. (share about my meals with them)

 As I reflect on this text, I marvel at how Jesus, by assuming the role as host, transforms this home into a sacred place where all are welcome.

All means all.

Larry Stookey writes in Eucharist that Jesus’ fellowship is a manifestation of a new creation, which embraces all who are discriminated against in the course of human activity.

To this feast, all are invited by God on equal terms.

No one approaches the feast by means of merit, but all are invited by grace. There no one can boast or dominate or exclude, for this is Christ’s feast.  Christ is the host and the one who sets the rules (of acceptance, mutuality, and inclusion).

Maya Angelou writes that the ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

Foundry UMC, as I come home to my annual conference, I will partner with you to welcome anyone who wants to join our family – anyone who wants to make Foundry UMC their home.  No one will be excluded.

 

Summer Preaching Series -Drop The Mic: What Do You See From a Distance? A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Shively Smith at Foundry UMC, July 29, 2018

Summer Preaching Series -Drop The Mic: The Out Back Looks Back, A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Serene Jones at Foundry UMC, July 22, 2018

Summer Preaching Series-Drop The Mic: The Already and They Not Yet; A sermon preached by Bishop LaTrelle Easterling at Foundry UMC, July 15, 2018