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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 20, 2015
Sunday Dec 20, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC December 20th, 2015, fourth Sunday of Advent.
Texts: Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:39-45
There is a rather cynical perspective that suggests that the light at the end of the tunnel is the front of an oncoming train. But today we are going to use the online “Urban Dictionary” definition of the phrase. According to that site, the light at the end of the tunnel refers to “something that gives you hope for the future after a long and difficult period.” Today we have reached the fourth Sunday in Advent, and are nearing the end of our journey toward Christmas. The journey has been experienced differently among us. Some have literally partied their way through the season, enjoying friendship and festivity with gusto. Some have moved through the season quietly and with intentional (or perhaps unintentional) solitude. Others have been driven through the season by the intricate details of the daily calendar with school programs, concerts, volunteer responsibilities and more. Still others have barely thought about the season due to the burdens of work—or by the stress of searching for a job. And finally others have made the journey accompanied by deep grief or loneliness. Many may check the “all of the above” box. This annual journey toward Bethlehem is often marked by anxieties about money, family relationships, and all the expectations that we (or others) place upon our lives. And due to events in our nation and world this year, the journey has taken us as into the tunnel of tragedy and fear.
Wherever or however you find yourself today, there is a light at the end of the tunnel—and it is not an oncoming train. In the well-known prologue to the Gospel of John, we read, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” (Jn 1:9) The Christ was coming into the world in fullness and flesh to lead us forward in hope, to show us who God is and who we are called to be. That is why we celebrate at this time of year…to commemorate that time when Christ’s coming shifted not only the signposts on the journey, but changed the very path that human history would travel. We celebrate Christ’s life, a life that John calls “the light of all people” (Jn 1:4); we celebrate this life and light that gives us ability to navigate the way forward in a world whose complexity and challenge can so often lead us astray and leave us feeling weary, powerless and sometimes hopeless. At this time of year, we celebrate not only that Christ came into the world once long ago, but that Christ is always “coming into the world.” Christ’s entry into the world happens not in some abstract way. Christ’s presence is always an enfleshed presence. The Christ is always looking for a place to be born—a place to enter into the world again. Your flesh and my flesh, your heart and my heart—our lives—are the “womb” through which Christ wants to be born.
It may seem far-fetched to imagine that your life—in whatever state you find yourself at this point on the journey—is a birthplace for Christ (“I’m too old, too sick, too disorganized, not enough this or that…). And I imagine that Mary had a similar reaction; after all, Mary was just an ordinary kid. She was “lowly”—meaning not just humble but downright poor. She was young, unmarried, poor, and a woman—pretty much NOT one who would have thought that God would see in her the gifts and strength to be the mother of the Christ child. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise that God would choose Mary for this special task. This choice is just one in a long line of choosing the “nobodies” of the world to do holy and transforming things. This is just another example of God’s tendency to single out the ones that everyone else would ignore to bear the saving word. Just look at the prophecy from Micah—humble little Bethlehem, chosen to be the birthplace of a mighty ruler! Israel, Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Esther, Samuel, Ruth, David, Mary—all of them were unlikely players in the drama of God’s salvation. I wonder what any of them thought about what they were doing while they were doing it (maybe they worried that the light they saw ahead was the equivalent of an oncoming train)— because, after all, they were just human. Just like us.
Mary sings a song acknowledging God’s penchant for the unexpected, for turning things upside down, for choosing the “lowly” (the “Magnificat”). She sings, “God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant…God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty…” This song is one of profound hope and joy. And if you just read the record of Mary found in the Gospel according to Luke, you might think she had it all figured out. But let’s face it. She was just a kid who was pregnant for the first time. She was just like us. Just human.
One of the great creative thinkers of our time, writer-director Joss Whedon (of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly” fame) has said, “The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn’t look like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, [they] keep digging, [they are] going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that’s who [they are].” Mary couldn’t have known what was coming, she had no special powers to see the future or to fully understand what was happening to her. But she kept moving. In the midst of an overwhelming task, a circumstance that must have been more than a little scary, Mary didn’t run away, she didn’t turn away. She accepted what God had seen in her…she decided to do her best, to do what she could do, to offer her life to the great mystery even though she may have felt completely inadequate and not up to the task. Mary shows us what it looks like to be that kind of hero, the unlikely kind, the kind that we are all called to be.
The fact is that each and every one of us—YOU—are, like little Bethlehem, chosen to be the birthplace of Christ; we, like Mary, are chosen to bear the Word of God. Don’t panic at the thought of adding something else to an already overwhelmed “to-do” list! What you’re called to may be exactly what you’re doing now: parenting, feeding hungry people, teaching children, being a friend, caring for a chronically ill partner, being generous with your financial gifts, remembering those who are lonely, loving someone who needs love, seeing the gifts in someone who can’t see them themselves, praying for those in need, serving faithfully in whatever work you have been given. Maybe your call is to some new horizon, to some new work. Regardless of where you are in your life with God, the fact is that God calls all of us—yes, even you—to bear Christ, to share Christ—which is love, kindness, mercy, justice, peace—with others. Recently a great sage of our time has re-entered public consciousness (and no, it’s not Thomas Merton). This sage offers encouragement to us in those moments when we feel inadequate, insignificant or small in the face of what we are called to do. In a famous scene with his reckless and impatient apprentice, the very short of stature Jedi Master Yoda says to Luke Skywalker, “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.”
Wise Yoda… “Luminous beings we are.” We are created and called to be bearers of the light that is Christ. Even if you’re feeling frazzled, worn out, stressed out, wondering how you will attend to all that lies before you, remember that God chooses to act through simple, small, normal people like us—just as we are. God—the very source of life and the creator of all that is—is our ally and gives us grace to be and to bear Christ to others. We are called to be the light at the end of someone’s tunnel and, thereby, to bring hope for the future into another’s life. That is something that we can do—even in the midst of all the shadows of the world.
Once upon a time in a Galilee far, far away, because of a willing and brave young woman, the fullness of God’s loving presence came into the world as a light. That light shines as a promise of God’s very-present help in trouble and all along life’s journey, as a promise that our lives are precious and luminous and powerful—worthy of the greatest gift of all, as a promise that there will come a time when Christ’s coming will bring peace and reconciliation to all the earth. These promises are our hope, they are the “Force” that gives us courage and strength, that draws us forward, like a guiding star. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, a light that arises over Bethlehem leading us to that humble place and then on into a new year, assured that we do not travel alone and that our hope is not in vain. Christ our light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not—will not—overcome it (Jn 1:5). Thanks be to God!
Sunday Dec 13, 2015
Sunday Dec 13, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC December 13, 2015, the third Sunday of Advent and the occasion of a performance of J.S. Bach’s “Magnificat.”
Texts: Zephaniah 3:14-20, Luke 3:7-18“Rejoice and exult with all your heart…The Lord has taken away the judgments against you…the Lord is in your midst…do not fear …God will renew you in his love…God says I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth…I will bring you home…I will gather you…I will restore your fortunes before your eyes…” (from Zephaniah 3) The little-known prophet Zephaniah spoke these words to a people whose lives and homes had been destroyed by the conquering Assyrians; faithlessness and despair were running rampant when he spoke them. The invitation to “rejoice,” to not be afraid, and to believe that God would bring healing and restoration must have seemed ludicrous to those who first heard the prophet’s words. And the call to rejoice and not to fear may seem ludicrous to us, knowing all that happening in our world today. Zephaniah’s words may challenge us with their joyful, hopeful tone; but that’s what a prophet is called upon to do much of the time—“to declare an unimaginable hope in a time of unraveling,”[i] to speak a ludicrous word of love and care into the broken hearts that can’t imagine that joy will ever be possible again. This third Sunday is traditionally the day in Advent when we focus on joy. Theologian Karl Barth describes the biblical understanding of joy as a defiant “nonetheless”—that is to say, even in the midst of so much pain and suffering and confusion in the world, nonetheless we shall rejoice in the Lord always. How can we do that? As I pondered the question, I was reminded of Leonard Cohen’s song, “Hallelujah.” Cohen has said, “This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled…But there are moments when we can ... reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’”[ii]
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah[iii]
The “hallelujah” chorus according to Cohen emerges from the confusion and brokenness of human life. And a “Hallelujah that emerges from brokenness is a holy Hallelujah; it is a genuine Hallelujah. That’s why the Book of Psalms is so full of Hallelujahs; those psalms are as much about sadness and loss as they are about hope and victory. They are holy.”[iv] And holy hallelujahs are hope-full and therefore joy-full nonetheless. Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is a holy hallelujah, a rejoicing in God in the midst of the struggle of the people Israel, even midst the radical disruption of Mary’s own life. The Magnificat is an extraordinary proclamation of our hope, a defiant joy in the face of all the injustice and struggle of life. It is a moment, to use Cohen’s words, when Mary was able to “reconcile and embrace the whole mess” by holding it in the light of God’s mercy, strength, and promise. Mary chose hope and joy—just as she chose to say “yes” to God’s astonishing decision that she should be the one to bear the Christ child.
We all have the God-given ability to CHOOSE. Human choices are, to put it mildly, a mixed bag. Human choices lead to brokenness of all kinds—physical, mental, spiritual, societal and systemic. But human choices have also led to beauty and to greater wholeness for persons and communities and to amazing and awe-inspiring acts of self-giving and simplicity and love. It has always been so. And the world will continue to be a place in which we experience extraordinary gentleness, beauty, and kindness AND devastating loss and pain.
“What then should we do?” We cry out with those who came to John in the wilderness… John’s response is quite simply: Do what you know is right. Love other people. Act with justice and mercy. Whatever you are doing, do it with love, do it with care, do it with a conscience. Whatever power you have, use it for the good of others. This word from the prophet John reminds us that our choices, our actions, make a difference not just for ourselves, but for others, no matter who we are or where we find ourselves.
John with all his power and passion knew that there was One coming who had more power still; who had the power to restore a broken humanity; who had the kind of love that could renew the souls of those like us who have grown weary of violence and hatred. John was the first one who pointed to Jesus and said: “there’s the messiah.” And this is what we still do. At this time of year, we Christians tell the story about the time that God looked at the world—a world so lost and broken by sin and violence and forgetfulness—and decided to send God’s own beloved child right into the middle of it to lead us back to life as it was always meant to be, to show us love at its most human and its most divine, to give us hope, and to guide us in the ways of peace. That child, Jesus, born of Mary, was just as vulnerable as any child in the world. Jesus never did anything more violent than turning the tables on those who preyed on the poor and vulnerable. He managed to live for 33 years before the violence of the world broke his body. But on the third day Jesus’ “shame was turned to praise and renown in all the earth…” (Zeph. 3)…his life was restored, he was renewed in God’s love, he was resurrected. And he came and spoke these words to his followers: “Do not fear…peace be with you…” “Hallelujah…hallelujah…hallelujah… hallelujah.”
There are tragedies in the world and things that can’t be undone. There are scars that remain from the hurts that we’ve inflicted and that have been inflicted on us. God knows that well, for God still bears the wounds inflicted on the One who came and loved us best. The promise is not that history will be changed; the promise is that the future can be. And we all can make choices that will make a difference… John said “I am not worthy.” None of us are worthy. The point is not that we are worthy. The point is that we are loved. God’s love, made manifest in Jesus, frees and strengthens us to choose mercy and love and peace and hope again and again—no matter what—and to defiantly claim the life we’ve been given as a gift. What then should we do in this hot mess of a world? Utter a holy and broken hallelujah and proclaim joy nonetheless.
[i] Referenced at http://biblische.blogspot.com/2006/12/preaching-third-sunday-of-advent-part-3.html
[ii]Ashley Fetters, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/12/how-leonard-cohens-hallelujah-became-everybodys-hallelujah/265900/
[iii]Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah” lyrics can be found at: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/hallelujah.html
[iv]The Very Rev. Sam Candler, http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/music/advent_a_holy_and_a_broken_hal.php
Sunday Dec 06, 2015
Sunday Dec 06, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC December 6, 2015, Advent 2.
Texts: Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 3:1-6
Our guiding theme throughout Advent this year is “Coming Soon.” When you see store fronts in the city or in the mall with those words scrawled across the window, you know something new is being built and will be offered there, something different will appear. Here in our own physical plant, we are seeing concrete signs of the new things that are coming; windows and floors (and that funky circular lounge in the parlor) have been removed, scaffolding is up, and dust has started to fly… We knew this was coming soon, this disruption, this mess. What won’t come as soon as we’d like is the final vision, the beautiful new thing, the finished creation. Of course, we’d like the project to be done quickly and to proceed smoothly without incident. But on the way to a new creation there is always a messy middle that often lasts even longer than projected. And in the midst, we grumble and wonder why things aren’t getting done and, perhaps, look for who to blame. I can’t help but think about the process of decorating the house for this season. I know I will enjoy it once everything is up, but oh, the frustration and mess and grumbling that happens on the way—talk about a messy middle! Disruption, messiness, inconvenience, anxiety, hard work, unexpected obstacles, and the need for patience and flexibility should always be expected in the process of creating something new—whether that new thing is building a new space or building new things in community or relationship. But even as we know to expect the challenges that come with being under construction, it would be so nice to be able to take a bypass, a detour, and avoid having to deal.
Today we hear words from prophets of our tradition speaking about repentance and refinement and forgiveness and purification. These are things that likely also make us long for a detour. When we hear words like “sin” and “repentance” many of us may shut down and tune out because, frankly, we don't want to deal with this stuff; it has been a hard week after all! For some of us, we just want to get to the baby Jesus (can’t we just sing some Christmas carols?). For others of us, we're already feeling miserable at this time of year and the last thing we want to hear about is how we need to repent. And for still others, we generally feel that there's too much judgment in the world, judgment of the type that is oppressive and hateful, judgment that has so often been directed at us or at those we love. And, if any of you are like me, we do a fine job of judging ourselves without hearing about it from the scriptures… Where is that orange detour sign?
But as much as we’d like to avoid it, the message of repentance is a necessary stop on our way to the manger, just as disruption, discomfort, and messiness are necessary to create something new. Every year about this time, our tradition forces us to travel into the wilderness and to spend a couple of Sundays with crazy cousin, John. And I'd like to suggest that we do ourselves a disservice if we re-set the spiritual GPS to avoid John or Malachi before him; because ultimately we need to receive what these prophets offer. What they offer is a wake-up call, a chance to acknowledge the reality of things and the need for change. In order for us to get to the place of “peace and goodwill for all” we simply have to travel the road of painful, honest awareness of the sins that need to be forgiven and the reparations that are required to bring healing. Avoidance will only make the journey longer and more painful. But we are very good at avoidance—both individually and as a culture—and sometimes it seems that we are determined to keep the blinders on so that we won’t have to see the painful reality or so that we won’t have to take responsibility or to change.
An example is the way some folks respond to information… Over the past year, I have closely observed statistics and studies and stories being widely circulated that demonstrate the ways that life is experienced differently, based on the color of a persons’ skin or the sound of a persons’ name. I have also observed that, time and again, many white folks respond by questioning the source of the report, the process used to collect the data, the integrity of the person telling their story. There have been reports for years chronicling the effects of climate change on the planet, the dangers to plant, animal, and human communities both in the short term and the long term. And the response from many people is either to make light of these realities or, again, to question the source or the verity of the data. We have seen statistics about gun violence and are being given reports that in the United States there are more days that include mass shootings than not.[i] And countless people again want to argue about the source of the data or the terms being used.
I know that “data” can be skewed and spun for political gain. I’m aware that those with whom I agree and disagree politically or theologically can be equally guilty of emphasizing certain pieces of a story and ignoring others. But immediately questioning the source or critiquing the process is akin to the ways that folks get caught up in debating the pros and cons of Condoleezza’s jacket or Hillary’s pantsuits. That is, the substance—the real issue—gets avoided. And what leaves me absolutely stunned is the way that even in the face of so much violence, death, and harm, we can’t seem to come together across ideological and political lines to acknowledge and work to address what is right in front of our faces: we have a race problem, an environmental problem, and a gun violence problem. We may disagree on the best ways to address these complex issues—and all the other complex issues that we face as a nation and as a world—but so long as “the land of the free and the home of the brave” remains a land in which freedom is seen as the capacity to be as disrespectful and ugly to one another as we like and bravery is measured by how little we compromise, then we will be stuck in this wilderness place with little hope of reaching any kind of new reality. We also have a negative partisanship problem…
You may have seen the provocative front page headline published in the New York Daily News this past week. The headline read: “God isn’t fixing this” and the article attacked those political leaders who, in the wake of the shooting in San Bernardino, offered prayers but didn’t share policy solutions regarding violence or guns. We all know that it is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate thing for folks to express their support for victims of a tragedy through their “thoughts and prayers.” Regardless of whether you agree with the political point being made in the article, the fact that words of condolence were used to attack others is yet another sign of our broken society. We as United Methodists know that the necessary partner of prayer is always action. The headline “God isn’t fixing this” does raise this important issue for people of faith. I remember seeing a cartoon in which a person sits on a park bench with Jesus and asks “So why do you allow things like famine, war, suffering, disease, crime, homelessness, despair, etc. in the world?” And Jesus responds, “Funny you should bring that up as I was about to ask you the same question.” A contemporary Christian song offers this lyric, “I shook my fist at Heaven / Said, “God, why don’t You do something?” / [God] said, “I did, I created you.”[ii]
Today we make our necessary stop in the wilderness to be confronted by the prophetic word of John who, according to the Common English translation of the Bible, called “for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins.” This means that we need to take responsibility for our lives—for what we have done and what we have failed to do. We are challenged to consider what we are avoiding and to look at what needs to change. We are challenged to see how we may use prayer as a cop-out, how we play into the negative partisanship so rampant in our day, how we blame other people, other groups, or God for the state of things in our family, our church, or our world without being willing to do our part to make a positive contribution. In short, we are challenged to repent. And to repent is not just to pray a prayer, but to believe that God will grant grace to help you truly change and grow and live in new ways—and then set about trying to do that hard work.
Today, I want to urge you take notice of opportunities here at Foundry to engage the work of repentance and new life particularly in the realm of social justice (note those visiting or worshiping through live stream). The solitary confinement cell replica will be onsite here through Thursday as a visceral and powerful reminder of the ways that our prison system is broken and does great harm. On December 20th, the Sunday following the anniversary of the Newtown school shooting, our Advent Justice Series continues with a focus on gun violence and the ways that we can work for positive change. In January, the Justice Series continues with an awareness building and strategy session around creation care and stewardship. And finally, on Saturday, January 30th, we kick-off our first scholar-in-residence workshop as part of our Opt In initiative to engage faith for racial justice. On that Saturday in January, Rev. Dr. Alton Pollard, Dean of Howard University Divinity School will lead us in a discussion of Ta Nehisi-Coates’s book Between the World & Me. Without exception, these events will be challenging. We will have different perspectives and reactions. We will likely be made uncomfortable as we grapple with new information, new insights into what is real both in our lives and in the experiences of others. It is difficult stuff we’re dealing with. But in order to move more fully toward peace, toward justice, toward healing, toward goodwill for all, toward the new life that enters into creation at Christmas, we need to be about this work of repentance. We need to take the journey without avoiding prophetic voices and challenging experiences.
It might feel like you’re walking into fire. But the prophet Malachi reminds us that fire is used to purify what is precious. And you are precious to God. We may not want to hear about repentance or sin or judgment, but think about this: God loves us enough to not let us off the hook. God calls us to repent, to change our hearts and our lives because God knows what we’re capable of. God doesn’t call us to repent because we are bad; but because God knows we are good, beautiful and capable of being more healthy, more loving, more reconciled, more faithful, more fully who we are created to be—as persons and as whole communities. God knows we can do better, that we can be better. God also knows that we need help. And that help is always coming soon. Our job is to be willing to enter into the mess and pain and complicated fray and—by the grace of God—to prepare the way…
Sunday Nov 29, 2015
Sunday Nov 29, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC November 29, 2015, Advent 1.
Text: Luke 21:25-36
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress…people will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world…then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’…when these things begin to take place, stand and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
It is always jarring to hear these apocalyptic words at the same time of the year as “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” becomes part of the collective cultural soundtrack. But the strange text we heard today is much more appropriate to the season we enter into today. That season is Advent, the season of preparation for Christmas. The word “Advent” derives from the Latin adventus, which means “coming.” Each year this season calls the community of faith to prepare for the comings of Christ.[1] During Advent, we encounter what has come to be understood as the “already and not-yet” character of God’s transforming presence in the world. The “already” part is that Jesus was born as a historical person who walked on the earth among us in the past, and that Christ is present now through the Spirit; these things are “already” they are “now.” The “not yet” part of God’s coming into the world is clear: we, like Christians before us for over 2000 years, are looking ahead to that future time when the fullness of Christ’s reign will be realized, to that future when Christ’s coming will be complete and all-embracing. And we know quite well that reality of universal love, justice, compassion, and peace is “not yet.”
In the years following Jesus’s death, some early Christian communities, living under tremendous persecution and the despair caused by events like the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, expected the world to end at any moment, they expected Christ to come again with cataclysmic flashes of lightning and all the rest. Yet, as time passed and the world, oppressive as it was, continued, that expectation began to fade. Christians had to learn how to wait, how to not give up on the whole thing, how to remain a people of hopeful expectation in the tension between the historical events of Jesus’ life and the desire that God’s realm be fulfilled on earth. They had to learn to live in the “already” without losing hope in the “not yet.”
“Already and not yet.” It’s one of those pesky Christian paradoxical mysteries. And it is at the heart of our spiritual life during this part of the liturgical year. Advent and Christmas are indeed paradoxical: baby and king; now and not-yet; fully God and fully human; darkness and light. And in a sense this forms the paradox in which we find ourselves: We are who we are now and we are still growing into the not-yet of our future selves—we are always being and becoming; we are so very human and we are also children of God; we are somewhere between the fact of shadow and the hope of light. That is where we are. That is who we are. The spiritual journey invites us to be a people of hopeful expectation in the “in between times,” in the movement and growing from the reality of now to the hopeful vision of our “not yets.”
But sometimes life eats away at our ability to remain a people of hopeful expectation. Sometimes it’s hard to be hopeful that we can grow and change, that the world can be different, or that all that seems so helpless and hopeless can be redeemed. Our Gospel today acknowledges the anxieties of human life and the fact that these anxieties can weigh heavily on our hearts. And so we find ourselves often, in our own lives, expecting the worst; and yet we gather as a people, again and again to expect the best, to experience again the ancient tale of One who came into the world to save it, the one who came to show us that our hope is not in vain. Thousands of years have passed and still we cry out, “Come, thou long-expected Jesus.” We gather this week and the next three weeks to find the courage to hope. We walk into, literally, the darkest days of the earth’s cycle, trying to have our eyes and hearts open to the light that we believe is coming.
Our faith teaches us that what has come and is yet to come fully—is the holiness of God, God’s perfect love in Christ that brings all our hoped-for “not yets” to completion. All the confusion, the brokenness, the fear—these things will be mended and tended and released by the power of God’s love. That love is so powerful that it resonates like a crack of thunder, it sends tremors throughout the world, it seems to shift the sun and moon from their expected courses and makes some stars shine more brightly than they should. To come face to face with the Christ who shows us who we are in all our paradoxical humanity, to be encountered by a love and humility and power so perfect in itself that it can only be divine, to feel ourselves bathed in this Light of holiness even midst the anxieties of our lives, this is what we are waiting for, looking for, longing for.
But most of our lives are lived in ordinary moments of sleep, work, conversation, buying and selling, reading the paper, going to brunch, walking the dog, doing the dishes, getting the kids off to school. Our lives are marked by the routine and mundane, only occasionally being startled out of those patterns by extraordinary circumstance, or by the seasons of the church. Our expectation is for the light and love of Christ to shine in and through all creation and all beings. But today, this year, this Advent, we are not there yet. We still live between times. We still need to figure out how to remain a people of active, hopeful expectation, even as we go about the ordinary stuff of our lives.
Jesus taught the disciples to “Be on guard…to be alert at all times.” This doesn’t mean to be fearful and guarded. I think the invitation is to pay attention, to look for the places where the light of Christ is shining even in the present moment. A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a member of Foundry who said he was having a hard time seeing God working for good in the world. And, God knows, it is a struggle to believe that goodness is stronger than evil, to believe that all day long God is working for good in the world; that struggle is pervasive and real. My response—to myself as much as to my friend—is to keep praying the prayer and, in the midst of all that is wrong, to look for even small signs of love, beauty, courage, and hope. Those gifts are just as present—and they are so much more powerful than the nasty, destructive energies and actions of the world. But in this season when our “ordinary” lives can become overloaded with tasks and emotions and plans, it is perhaps even more difficult than normal to “be alert” to the presence and activity of God. Last week, Pastor Ben prayed about the way that we move at “break neck speed” toward the end of the year. And isn’t that true? Everything moves too fast in the day to day; and our calendars and “to do” lists can take over. In the midst of it all, the challenge is to slow down, to stop when we can, to acknowledge that deep feeling in our center that makes us really listen; to stop and glory in the signs in the sun and the moon and the stars; to use those moments when traffic is slow or the lines are long to look around for the reflections and shimmers of the sacred.
We might need to cultivate a bit more silence in our lives to do this well. Perhaps turning off the radio in the car on the daily commute, or turning off the television or social media at least one full day a week (or even for several hours) during this season is a good idea. To “unplug” from all the noise and distractions—for minutes or days—heightens our ability to see and to hear and to receive what is: what IS is the transforming power and presence of God’s love in Jesus Christ. Because even though Christ’s coming in its fullness is “not yet,” our faith teaches us that the Holy One of God is adventus even now. Be alert. Pay attention. Look for the ways that God is at work—even in small ways. The subtle, glorious and tender fullness of the realm of God is as near as the cold brush of air on your face, always and already about to break open. Live an anticipation so alert that the ordinary hums and cracks and flashes with holiness. Bask in the light that has already come and cling to the promise that someday—probably when you’re busy making other plans—the “not yets” of your life, your relationships, your church, our world, will be fulfilled and redeemed…fully. And…finally!
Sunday Nov 22, 2015
Sunday Nov 22, 2015
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, November 22, 2015, Reign of Christ Sunday.
Text: Mark 7:24-37
Anyone who knows me well can tell you that when I am overtired and haven’t gotten enough sleep, I am a walking nightmare. My capacity for patience and generosity of any kind becomes deeply impaired even as resentment exponentially increases. I snap and lash out. I don’t want to be bothered. It is not a pretty picture. Perhaps you can relate. Or, perhaps different circumstances trigger similar kinds of responses for you. Physical pain, stress, lack of sleep, fear, emotional injury and all sorts of other human experiences can lead to behaviors that we likely regret. Whatever the cause, all of us have to deal with the reality of our own capacity for nastiness—a capacity that shows up in thoughts, words, and deeds. It is part of being a human creature, this susceptibility to the effects of being in a physical body, with feelings and needs and limits.
In the Christian tradition, today is observed as “Reign of Christ” (traditionally, “Christ the King”) Sunday. On this last Sunday of the Christian year, Jesus the Christ is lifted up and celebrated as Lord of all. For many, the primary image is the so-called “Cosmic Christ” seated on the throne in glory high above all the messiness of human life. This image evokes a strong sense of the all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present divine nature of Christ. But the Jesus we encounter in the scripture today is far from that lofty image. Jesus is human, right in the middle of the messiness and struggle and brokenness of the created world. And Jesus’ human, creaturely nature appears to get the better of him in this story with the Syrophoenician woman.
When I was thinking and praying about scriptural texts that might challenge and guide us in this short “Pew Crashers” series, the woman we meet today sprang to mind pretty quickly. After all, she is the one person that, in my opinion, unabashedly crashes Jesus’s pew! Here’s the context:
This section of the Gospel according to Mark is explicitly about opening the traditional boundaries between insiders and outsiders. Earlier in this chapter, Jesus opened a way for including Gentiles in the new community by declaring that the food laws aren’t the end-all be-all that some folks imagined they were. And today Jesus has traveled across the border into foreign territory, to the land of Tyre, a nice “getaway” spot on the Mediterranean Sea. That he didn’t want anyone to know he was there leads me to think that he was trying to have some sabbatical, trying to recuperate from recent events like the murder of his cousin John (6:27) and the constant criticism from the religious leaders (7:1-8). I imagine that Jesus was exhausted from his “whirlwind tour feeding the hungry (6:30-44), healing the sick (6:53-56), and teaching tough crowds (7:9-23). Jesus was bereaved, fatigued, and besieged. No wonder he didn't want anyone to know he was there.”[i] His retreat space gets invaded by the Syrophoenician woman who comes begging at his feet. In addition to this invasion of space, several big lines are crossed here: a woman is addressing a Rabbi, a member of an enemy tribe (Syrophoenicians were long-standing enemies and rivals of Israel) is asking for help, and that enemy woman’s daughter is possessed by a demon. According to the “going” understandings of the day, the woman had three strikes against her: inferior, enemy, evil. Jesus was grieving, tired, under attack and now the recipient of a “pew crash”—and from that very human place, responds with the prevailing socially and culturally nurtured bias and bigotry of his tribe, calling the woman and her daughter dogs, the term of derision commonly used by Jews to refer to Gentiles as unclean.
This story makes many scholars race to rescue Jesus’s reputation. Maybe he was joking or maybe he was intentionally rude to shine a light on the cruelty of the views held by most Jews or maybe he was testing the woman’s faith and always intended to heal her daughter. Far from rescuing Jesus, these alternative readings seem even more cruel in light of the woman’s distress. The hard truth is that that Jesus’s words as they are found in the story are demeaning and bigoted words, likely spoken out of unthinking exhaustion.
The woman who comes to Jesus doesn’t respond in kind, but acknowledges the lines that she is crossing even as she challenges them. “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” I wonder if it was hearing the racial and cultural slur parroted back through the voice of this strong, determined, loving mother that snapped Jesus out of his initial posture. Sometimes, having something you have said repeated by another makes you face with your own stuff. This woman forced the issue, demanded healing, wouldn’t be quiet or stay away. She sought help in the place where she believed it would be found. And in doing so, she perhaps reminded Jesus of what he had wandered over the border to do: to bring good news to those considered “outsiders.” The woman’s faith in the power of God to heal—and in the goodness of Jesus, even when Jesus wasn’t at his best—was extraordinary and, ultimately, healing.
Perhaps Jesus was carrying this experience with him as he continued his travels into Sidon and was intercepted by a group of people who brought a deaf man with a speech impediment before him. We are not told that those in the group are friends of the deaf man, only that they want Jesus to “lay hands on him.” It seems quite possible that “they” were using the man, wanting to see the “traveling Jesus show” perform some magic or miracle. But what did the deaf man want? In conversation with Dr. Kirk VanGilder, Foundry member and professor of religion at Gallaudet University, I have been challenged to consider how this story has been used in ways that justify bigotry and violence against deaf people. When we step back and really look at the story, it does appear that the deaf man is set up as little more than an occasion or “object lesson” for Jesus to show off his divine powers as the messiah. The assumption of the gospel writer—and so many others through the ages—is that of course deaf people want to become like hearing people. This assumption, together with the example of Jesus who lays hands on the man to “heal” him without being asked, has led to all sorts of harm—physical, social, and emotional. So did Jesus step out of one pile of bigotry into another? Did Jesus unwittingly do harm as he sought to do good—“healing” a man who knew himself to be in no need of physical change? Was there undocumented communication that took place between Jesus and the deaf man that gets Jesus off the hook? Or is the blame here on the author of Mark who tells the story in a way that dehumanizes the deaf man and leaves Jesus holding the bag for many years’ worth of bigoted biblical interpretation and untold acts of violence against deaf persons?
As I pondered these questions, I kept coming back to the words used by Jesus in his encounter with the deaf man: ephphatha—be opened. However we answer the questions raised by the text and wherever the fault lies (Jesus, author, interpreters), the word spoken by Jesus—ephphatha—hangs in the air, full of creative power. That is the word we need to receive. That is the word that Jesus had just received himself through the encounter with the woman. That is the word that, perhaps was still trying to get through to Jesus even as he speaks it in the context of opening another man’s ears. I imagine Jesus preaching to himself saying, “Remember that you, Jesus, are to reflect the fullness of God even within the limits and frailties of human flesh—and that means to reflect God’s open arms and open heart for the whole of creation. Ephphatha! Be open!”
It likely makes lots of folks uncomfortable to imagine that Jesus ever made an error or that Jesus needed to deepen understanding or to learn new things. After all, wouldn’t such a suggestion undermine the claim that Jesus was divine? Well, there is much to say in response to this, but the short answer is “no” or, at least, “not necessarily.”
The classic text from the letter to the Hebrews says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” (Heb 4:15) A common interpretation of this is that Jesus never made a mistake—that Jesus, as the perfect God, always knew the right thing to do and to say. That would seem to imply that Jesus came into the world fully formed—like Athena out of the head of Zeus—but that’s not the story we tell. We tell a story of a baby who grew and changed and learned… So that common interpretation that Jesus as the perfect God never made a mistake has always struck me as contradictory—because if Jesus was truly tempted, he had to be able to desire or have the capacity for the “wrong” thing (otherwise it’s not really temptation). But what if the divine nature in the human Jesus was revealed not through some omniscient “perfection” but rather in the capacity to learn and grow through new relationships, new information, through people who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, who pushed back on his healing methods and decisions, and who believed in him even when he wasn’t at his best? What if, for example, in Jesus’s encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, his loving inclusion grew in ways that helped him even more fully embody and express God’s grace? And what if that same encounter allowed Jesus to experience another very human struggle—physical and emotional exhaustion that breaks down patience, kindness, and receptivity—so that when Christ returned to God, God could truly stand in solidarity with us because God really knows what it’s like? What if “without sin” means without stubborn pride, without an unwillingness to change one’s mind, without hardness of heart, without fearful rigidity? Jesus was tempted to all those things, but didn’t give in to any of them. In relationship, Jesus came to completely embody who he always was—fully human and fully divine.
A bigot is defined as “a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” Because the very human Jesus was part of a human tribe the temptation to bigotry was real—and evidently slipped out in at least one encounter. But Jesus was not obstinate or intolerantly devoted to prejudice. Jesus is not a bigot. That Jesus was susceptible to bigotry isn’t a sin, it is a result of being a human creature. Being unwilling to recognize and purge our bigotry is the real sin. And Jesus did not commit that sin. Rather, as we look at the full sweep of Jesus’s life and teaching, he consistently lifts up the poor, the suffering, and the marginalized, those whom others held in contempt. And Jesus took it even further because far from rejecting and hating and doing harm to the “other” as a bigot would do, Jesus became the “other,” the object of scorn, became the one dehumanized, despised and rejected, the one treated like an “object lesson” for what happens when you speak truth to power in the midst of empire, the one crucified for not taking “no” for an answer to the demand for justice and for peace.
Some will reject the vision of Jesus I present today, needing a more perfect, less human version. But it is this very human, perfected in love Jesus I find worthy of calling my Sovereign Lord and it is this Jesus who shows us what it looks like to be truly human—how to live in the Kin-dom. I celebrate that the Christ whom we claim as Sovereign truly knows what it is like to be human, to be challenged, to make mistakes, to grow and to change and to be deepened through relationships with others—that’s a Lord I can follow. I give thanks that Christ our Sovereign has revealed that changing our mind or admitting a mistake can be a sign of divine grace and not necessarily a sign of weakness—that’s a leader I can try to emulate. And I am so grateful that Christ our Lord took to heart the word ephphatha, be opened…for in that open heart, in those open arms, we all reside…eternally.
As the ones who seek to follow this Christ, I pray that we have enough of the divine image upon and within us to be open to those who cry out for justice today, open to those seeking to be treated with dignity, open to the ones who crash our comfortable privileged pews with their insistence that black lives matter, open to the Syrian refugee and illegal immigrant, open to persons with disabilities, open to transgendered folks, open to the unhoused and underserved, open to the ones who interrupt our peace in their need. Ephphatha! Be opened…and be changed; Ephphatha! and become more yourself; Ephphatha! and become more like Jesus, the one who came into the world to be like us so that we might be more like God.