“Come Home to Love”

A homily preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, September 5, 2021, the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. “Homecoming!” series.

  Texts: Psalm 126, James 2:8, 14-17

Today is a significant day in the history of Foundry United Methodist Church. It is a day we enter a truly new season of life, joining in-person worship here at the corner of 16th and P Street NW in Washington, DC with a robust online congregation gathered from near and far. Amidst the ongoing pandemics of COVID, systemic racism, environmental degradation, poverty, and violence, we have persevered over 18 months, physically distant, but spiritually connected. Together, we’ve suffered job loss and insecurity, virtual school, family stresses, a steady stream of marches and vigils demanding justice following the murder of George Floyd; we’ve suffered isolation, waves of grief, depression, languishing, an assault on our home, this capitol city, denominational stalemate and churn, and political strife that seeps into everything at every level. 

There may have been moments when we doubted this day would ever come, this day when, together, we reconnect to this sacred space and to the sacrament of Holy Communion whether we’re here in person or experiencing the sanctuary and sacrament from a remote location. And, like the Psalmist sings: this restoration is like a “dream.” Our mouths are filled with laughter and our tongues with shouts of joy! God has brought us through so much, has been life-giving water for us along the way, has set us down at this place of turning toward the new stretch of the journey ahead. Today we don’t rejoice because the work is done or because the journey will have no obstacles. We rejoice because we are restored to one another in the flesh and, I pray, restored to our shared task of being and becoming God’s dream for Foundry Church as we continue to lean in to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century and our third century as a congregation. Today we come home. We come home to love.

The image at the heart of our “Homecoming” theme is from Psalm 126, that of the farmer who goes out, weeping, but with lifegiving seed to sow and then returns home with the harvest—the “sheaves”—of grain. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Psalm acknowledges Israel’s joy over God’s restoration in the past and then says:

And now, God, do it again—    bring rains to our drought-stricken livesSo those who planted their crops in despair    will shout “Yes!” at the harvest,So those who went off with heavy hearts    will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

That last phrase, “come home laughing, with armloads of blessing” struck me. I wonder what blessings we’re coming home with from our time out in the wilderness. Perhaps you learned new things about yourself—your own strength, fears, capacities, or priorities. Perhaps we’ve have gained deeper compassion or awareness of the systemic struggles and injustices in our society. Maybe you’ve met God in new ways or had an experience of God’s mercy that has expanded your capacity for faith, hope, and love. What blessing are you bringing as we “come home?” 

One of the things I’ve heard so often these many months is how much persons have yearned to be back in this space, to be re-engaged in the vital ministries we share. I have, over the years since becoming part of the Foundry family, tried to remind us not to take it for granted. Perhaps, we come home with a new appreciation for the power of our spiritual home at Foundry. //

The Psalm is clear that God’s grace is at work in the whole process of restoration and sustenance. But the people “bear the seed for sowing.” We have to do something—as our epistle makes quite clear: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” God is always active, always pro