What Time is it?

A mediation by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 17, 2021, Lent 1, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

            Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 / Reading by Josiane Blackman

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Lament as Agency

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 21, 2021, Lent 1, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.

            Text: Jeremiah 12:1-4

For some cultures, lament is simply part of life. This shows up sometimes in the personal and communal rituals of people’s faith traditions. Sometimes, lament emerges as music rising from a people’s soul, art formed from the lived reality of their lives. The Black Spirituals that many of us know well in the church and their cousin, the blues, are examples of this. The late, venerable Black Liberation Theologian James Cone says plainly, “I am the blues and my life is a spiritual. Without them, I cannot be.” 

However, for many people, there is a natural aversion to the idea of lament. This arises from a variety of influences, religious and cultural. 

In many churches, it is communicated mostly through un-written rules that tension, anger, and really any emotion identified as “negative” are not appropriate or welcome. I’ve heard often over the years that someone stayed away from church when they were suffering—because they might cry or because they felt they couldn’t be the way they thought they needed to be in church. And in an effort to 

balance what was (and still is in some places) an overwhelming focus in the church on sin and guilt, the tendency is to avoid the “downer” topics of failure and fear or the practice of confession. Stadiums and sanctuaries fill up where the “power of positive thinking theology” and “happy, clappy” worship downplays, denies, or distracts from the deep pain, loss, struggle, injustice, and feelings of confusion and powerlessness that many experience every day.

One author writes, “It seems safe to say that within American culture there are deeply conflicting attitudes toward expressions of grief, rage, and other negative emotions. On the one hand, there is the oft-noted tendency in our culture to cover up experiences of loss and failure in both personal and public life and to uphold what has been called official American optimism. On the other hand, there is a strong counterpressure in therapeutic American society, often encouraged by the mass media, to ‘let it all hang out,’ to demand that all emotions be immediately and publicly vented.” 

The “let it all hang out” impulse, without any safe or guided channel, simply spews painful emotions in every direction in ways that don’t lead to healing, but rather do more damage. This is not what the spiritual practice of Judeo-Christian lament is. I was tempted to pre-empt a variety of concerns by sharing a whole list of things lament is not. However, I have chosen to simply say that over the course of this Lenten season, we will explore some of what the spiritual practice of Christian lament is. As I said this past week in our Ash Wednesday service, if ever a time called for lament, this is it. //

Over the years in pastoral conversations, I have discovered that often, the key question, the question that loosens knots of confusion and stuckness is this: Who is God to you? How do you think about God? What is God like in your experience?

The answer affects how we feel and act in relationship with God. If we think of God as remote and “hands-off”—a benevolent but uninvolved creator, that will affect our engagement. If God is understood as controlling all things in a micro-managing kind of way, that will evoke a different kind of relationship. If our conception is that God fixates on our mistakes or is mostly about punishment, well, you can imagine that makes a difference in how we feel about God and about ourselves. 

In these common ways of thinking about God we are left in a pretty crummy place. We are on our own and left to our own devices, powerless and manipulated on the gameboard of “God’s plan,” or fearful, never feeling we measure up, and weighed down with guilt. And these feelings may hit closer to home than we care to admit. None are appealing or hel

Creative Extremists

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 14, 2021, Transfiguration Sunday. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.

      Text: Mark 9:2-9

Months ago, in a conversation among the staff team related to our Journey to Racial Justice initiative, an African American staff member asked, “Is the goal for us to simply become a nicer, kinder, more well-informed version of white supremacy? Or are we trying to really change things?” This, for me, is an important set of clarifying questions as we move more deeply into this pivotal year as a congregation, denomination, and nation. And the questions may find some response on this Transfiguration Sunday.

Six days prior to the extraordinary events we read about today in our Gospel, Jesus told his disciples what was going to happen to him—that he would suffer, be rejected, killed, and then after three days rise again. Peter didn’t want to hear it.  And Jesus’ response was, “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Mk. 8:31ff.)  Jesus goes on to speak to the disciples and the larger crowds about what a “divine thing” looks like:  deny self, take up your cross, lose your life for Christ’s sake and for the sake of the gospel, because that is the only way to truly have or save or keep your life. And six days after Jesus shares these words, he takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray. And then things got weird and wondrous and scary. Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the prophet show up and talk with Jesus who is, himself, a fulfillment of both law and prophecy. Jesus’ appearance changes in a “dazzling” display, and not, by the way in a way that makes his brown eyes blue, but in a way as amazing as if I could keep using environmentally friendly detergent and get my whites to come out of the laundry like new-fallen snow (that would be a miracle for sure!). Peter, unable to simply receive what was happening, offers a suggestion for what they should do. And just then, out of the foggy cloud, there comes one very clear message of exactly what they should do: “This is my Beloved child.  LISTEN to him.”  Listen.

One would think that such an amazing experience coupled with this clear message would have an impact on those present. But it seems that listening was just as hard for the first disciples as it is for us. Because Jesus has to keep repeating himself. The text records that Jesus speaks of his suffering, death, and resurrection two more times (9:31, 10:34). The disciples must not have been listening in their active listening workshop because they completely miss the point. The first time, they respond by playing that best-selling game “Who’s The Greatest?” And the next time James and John—who witnessed the vision on the mountain and heard the voice from the cloud—ask for plum positions in Jesus’ Cabinet after he wins the election. Both times, Jesus responds with the same message: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mk. 9:35, 10:44) Die to self so that you can rise to a new life in God’s love, a life that manifests in self-giving service to others. Three times this pattern plays out; three times Jesus speaks of dying and rising. Why was it so hard for the first disciples to listen and to truly comprehend this? Why is it so difficult for us?  

First of all, it’s often difficult to get ourselves out of the way so that God can get through to us, so that we can truly receive a voice that is not just the echo of our own voice. And then, if we are able to grow quiet or still enough to receive what God is saying, the message—especially this core message!—presents its own challenge. Because who really wants to hear about losing yourself, being humbled, giving something up? Jesus’ teaching about dying to self and rising to a new life of loving service threatens the status quo of our lives—it requires change. Jesus’ words about denying the self is in direct opposition t

How Will We Be Known?

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, February 7, 2020, fifth Sunday after the Epiphany. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.

      Texts: Isaiah 40:27-31, Mark 1:32-39

Let’s talk about demons. What comes up in you when you hear the word? Perhaps it’s an image from a story or movie. Perhaps it’s a feeling of fear or anxiety. Maybe it’s a particular person or group. Perhaps the word “demon” raises curiosity or maybe a description or explanation of what a demon is from previous study. I imagine that many will understand that things we now explain through medical science may very well have been called the work of demons in the 1st century. 

In verse 32 of our Gospel text, people bring to Jesus “those possessed with demons.” To be possessed is to be influenced or controlled by something. Demons—or fallen angels—are generally understood as spiritual beings who are against God, literally “anti-Christ.” The Greek word in verse 32 is daimonizomenous, meaning to fall under the power of a demon. So one way to think of demon possession is a person who willingly or unwillingly has a malevolent spirit in their lives in a way that controls or influences them. As a result, these persons do harm to themselves and others. I wonder what comes to mind as potential current examples or experiences of this… 

The same word daimonizomenous, can be translated “demonized.” Consider: to “fall under the power of a demon or fallen angel” may also be understood as a life owned, curtailed, damaged by anti-God beings outside the self (beings acting upon you, not within you). Hear the story with this way of translating the word: “That evening, at sundown, they brought to Jesus all who were sick or demonized…” Those who are “demonized” may have been named as evil, or worthy of contempt or blame. Why? Well, why are people demonized today? Because of who they are, what they look like, what they have, what they’ve done, what they’ve said. Scapegoating, blaming, tribal hatreds, prejudice, all of this is both ancient and ever new. Right now there’s a lot of demonization going on. I wager many if not most of us will have a person we could slap the word “demon” on right now. 

In any and all the ways we think about demon possession, make no mistake that it affects the whole of a person’s life. In the culture of Jesus’ time, both illness and daimonizomenous meant separation from community, exclusion, isolation, and often harsh treatment. 

For those who find the whole idea of “demons” hocus-pocusy or simply distasteful, let me suggest that you don’t have to buy in to the notion that there are angelic beings who serve Sauron or Voldemort or Satan in order to acknowledge that evil is real and a powerful force that affects human lives and relationships. Wherever it comes from, there are powers that take hold of humans and lead us to do terrible things. This is not to say that we have no culpability for the harms we commit—in “a devil made me do it,” get-out-of-jail-free-card kind of way. But it is to simply be honest about the forces that tempt us and that bind us.

Here’s a personal example. Over the years, I have grown increasingly aware of and angry about the way that as a white person I’ve been soaked in ways of perceiving, thinking, assuming, acting from the moment I was born—ways informed by white supremacy. 

And let’s pause a minute for some definition of what I’m talking about when I speak of “white supremacy.” (with thanks to Dr. Izetta Mobley for sharing her expertise and resources) “While most people associate white supremacy with extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis, white supremacy is ever-present in our institutional and cultural assumptions that assign value, morality, goodness, and humanity to the white group while casting people and communities of color as worthless, immoral, bad, inhuman and ‘undeserving.’” Legendary scholar Barbara Smith writes, “Toxic as such belief

It’s Time

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, January 31, 2020, fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.

    Text: Mark 1:14-28

Next month will mark 9 years since 18 year-old Trayvon Martin was murdered. July of this year will mark 8 years since the acquittal of the man who shot Trayvon and the outcry that spurred the Black Lives Matter movement that continues to mobilize the fight to end State-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy. July will also mark 7 years since I began my ministry at Foundry. My appointment began in July of 2014, the month that Eric Garner was strangled to death by police in New York City. A month after my arrival, 18 year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. In those first months as the Senior Pastor of Foundry, I was reading as much commentary on these events as I could get my hands on, was praying a lot, and was in conversation with the Foundry clergy team—then consisting of Pastors Dawn, Theresa, Al, and Ben—about how to faithfully respond and position Foundry in the struggle. There was so much I didn’t know—I knew enough to know that! 

In November of 2014, 12 year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police in Cleveland. A couple of weeks later, the second week of Advent, 2014, I preached a sermon in which I proclaimed “black lives matter” aloud for the first time in worship. I confessed my own failures as an ally in the struggle. And I encouraged our mostly white congregation to not use our privilege to “opt out” but to engage, to recommit to the concrete work of what we now call anti-racism. 

Over the next year, a new Racial Justice Ministry Team offered regular studies and opportunities to engage in learning and advocacy. In 2016, our first Scholar in Residence was the Rev. Dr. Alton B. Pollard, III, then Dean of Howard Divinity School who challenged and taught us through a series of book studies, films, and facilitated conversations. I mention some of this history in my book, Sacred Resistance, particularly referencing the debate about whether and why to hang a banner outside Foundry—a debate that began in the summer of 2014. As I wrote in the book: 

Some in the congregation wanted to immediately hang a large banner emblazoned with #BlackLivesMatter outside the church building. In an intense moment during a workshop with the Rev. Dr. Alton Pollard, Dean of Howard Divinity School, African American members expressed concern about hanging a banner without the engagement and commitment of the whole congregation. To publicly communicate a commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement without knowing the form our solidarity would take—actions, relationships, money, tangible support—smacked for many of an attempt to “check the box” and say we’d done our work on white supremacy without having to engage the same kind of deep work that had taken place around marriage equality. Dr. Pollard also made it quite clear that if the congregation chose to step out with such clear advocacy for racial equity and justice, there would be negative consequences. “Just get ready,” he said. Stories abound not only of the defacement of signs and banners proclaiming Black Lives Matter, but also the ongoing violence against black and brown bodies and those who stand with them. Foundry’s intentional work of engagement and advocacy continues unabated. But at the time of this writing, there is no banner.

The book was published in 2018. Last summer, we hung a banner proclaiming Black Lives Matter and littered our lawn with signs saying so as well. It was time. It was time because we had both committed to the Journey to Racial Justice and were well underway in the work when the blood of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd cried out from the ground for justice. Today, we have a 21 foot banner across our lawn with the words proclaiming our commitment. We are acti

Don’t Run Away From Tension

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, January 24, 2020, third Sunday after the Epiphany. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.

    Text: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Considering how much people love a good fish story, it is curious that in the whole of the three-year lectionary cycle, the book of Jonah is included on only two Sundays—and neither of those selections include the fish! Today’s passage is certainly a key moment in the story. But the short book—totaling just four chapters—is such a rich wisdom parable, layered with symbol, satire, and surprises it merits not only a full read, but also repeated, probing reflection. Likely written in the sixth or fifth century B.C.E., Jonah, like any good satire, is both entertaining and sharp in its critique. The Jewish people in this period—either toward the end of the Babylonian exile or newly returned—were struggling to navigate how best to relate as a minority population among the nations of the surrounding lands. There were tensions and concerns about assimilation and about losing their cultural and religious identity. These religious, tribal, national tensions are certainly part of the backdrop for the story of Jonah. And the primary characters—the reluctant Hebrew prophet Jonah, the city of Nineveh, and God—all play their parts brilliantly. The tension is palpable from the beginning.

God calls Jonah to cry out against the wickedness of Nineveh. Jonah’s response was to flee in the opposite direction. Historical side note: Jonah is mentioned in one other place in scripture (2 Kings 14:23-27) as a prophet who supported the Northern Kingdom (Israel) in the 8th century B.C.E. Nineveh is a large city in Assyria, the nation that brutally conquered the Northern Kingdom during that same period. The last place Jonah wanted to go was into the belly of the beast, Assyria. 

But in trying to get away, Jonah lands in the belly of another beast, the great fish provided by God who provides a strange, comic shelter for him within the waters of chaos and danger. In that place, Jonah cries out to God. And after three days and nights, Jonah is returned to dry land, changed. He is now not only a prophet, but fish vomit.

This is where our text picks up. God calls Jonah again and this time, Jonah doesn’t run away. He walks about a third of the way into Nineveh and delivers his prophecy, the shortest sermon on record, just 5 words in Hebrew: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And immediately, in a magical realism kind of way, the people “believed God,” their fasting and putting on sackcloth were signs of their repentance. The king of Nineveh ups the ante, proclaiming that all people and animals will fast and be covered with sackcloth and turn from their evil ways and violence.

And looking upon this rather absurd scene of people and their cows and sheep covered in sackcloth and ashes, God’s mind changed and the calamity Jonah had announced did not happen.

One might think that Jonah would be pleased that his 5 word sermon had such a transformative effect on the people. What we didn’t hear today, however, is that Jonah’s reaction is rage and despair. He goes so far as to say he’d rather die than live with this outcome. Why might Jonah be displeased at God’s mercy upon the Assyrians? We know one reason—Jonah hates them. Jonah wants God to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, steadfastly loving and ready to relent from punishment with him but not with them. (4:2) Jonah wanted to end the story with his message of judgment being the last word. Instead, the story ends with Jonah outside the city, pouting under a tree withered by a worm (the kind of image that lends itself to a Bernie Sanders meme).

We don’t know if the people of Nineveh’s repentance was sincere. We don’t know if Jonah withers up like the tree or has a change of mind or heart. A good story doesn’t necessarily tie up all the loose ends. It leaves us in the tensi

You don’t have to be an AutoParent to be a good one. Join Family Pastor and mom of 2, Rev. K.C. Van Atta-Casebier as she openly shares her own hilarious parenting fails, secret cringe-worthy confessions, and some heartwarming parenting wins. If you need some solidarity and hope on this parenting journey, then this is your podcast! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @autoparent!

Guest Preacher, the honorable Cory Booker. Introduction my Senior Pastor Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli.

Human Relations Sunday January 17th, 2021. Tired Feet, Rested Souls Sermon Series

https://foundryumc.org/archive/tired-feet-rested-souls

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, January 10, 2020, Baptism of the Lord. “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” series.

Texts: Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11

Today, we begin a new sermon series, “Tired Feet, Rested Souls” inspired by MLK’s “Letter from the Birmingham City Jail.” Over the next six weeks, I will bring themes from the letter into conversation with the weekly scripture. There is much to explore and to learn together. It feels like a movement of Spirit that this series should begin on this Sunday following the events of this past week. It is to Spirit I turn now as we pray together…

“In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, ‘Those are social issues which the gospel has nothing to do with,’ and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which made a strange distinction between bodies and souls, the sacred and the secular.” 

These words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were written in his “Letter from the Birmingham City Jail,” an open letter in response to eight white religious leaders who publicly critiqued the peaceful protests against racial segregation and violence in Birmingham in 1963. 

It is a common thing in the churches I’ve served—even in Foundry, believe it or not—to hear people say they don’t want politics in church—let’s not grapple with “social issues which the gospel has nothing to do with.” My question is simply, what social issue does the gospel have nothing to do with? As Dr. King notes, it is “strange” for Christians to make a “distinction between bodies and souls, the sacred and the secular.” It’s strange because the God of the Bible doesn’t make these distinctions and most certainly cares about social issues. God cares about “politics,” that is, about the way we live in community, seek to order our common life, and care for the common good. Moses was political. Esther was political. Isaiah and every prophet was political. Jesus was political. All of these engaged and challenged the rulers and powers of the day for the sake of justice and righteousness and care for the suffering and oppressed and ultimately for the good of everyone. I have spent significant time in my life articulating a biblical, theological, and practical vision for the inherent connection between our Christian faith and politics. Sacred Resistance is one evidence of that.

Today, I will simply point out that what we have seen on display this week in our city is not an expression of healthy tension between political points of view. It is not an outcry against systemic violence and oppression for the sake of any justice  or righteousness defensible in holy writ. It is a deep perversion of the connection between Christian faith and politics. 

The insurrection we witnessed is fueled by a white, Christian nationalism not only willing but happy to have “Jesus Saves” signs and crosses paraded alongside the Confederate flag. Before and during the protest, violence was signaled in all the old, familiar, racist ways. In case anyone missed the more subtle signals, a noose was erected near the Capitol. “Religious liberty” another perversion of an otherwise lofty term and ideal is used in this context to defend selfishness, exclusion, inequity, injustice, and outright bigotry. As writer and researcher Robert P. Jones wrote, “This seditious mob was motivated not just by loyalty to Trump, but by an unholy amalgamation of white supremacy and Christianity that has plagued our nation since its inception and is still with us today.” As Jones indicates, this week’s events have been centuries in the making. In recent years, prominent white pastors in our country have spoken of our soon-to-be-former president as a savior, an idol in the old Roman Imperial mold—a sent-from-God ruler who would shut down the liberal aggressors who have the audacity to insist that Black lives matter and