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 diff

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 “g

A

sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, November 15,

2015, the 25th Sunday after Pentecost.

Text:

Acts 10:9-17, 23-35                                                      

 

I remember hearing or reading

somewhere about a teaching philosophy that was anti-coloring books.  Evidently, the idea was that children should

only be given blank sheets of paper and crayons rather than coloring books with

their prescribed boundaries and images. 

Because a blank sheet of paper allows the child to create her own

images.  This, it seems to me is an

interesting idea.

However, I grew up with lots

of coloring books and with many photocopied (more precisely, mimeographed) sheets of paper in school

to color.  And I distinctly remember the

moment in third grade when I discovered the technique of outlining my coloring

book pictures with black.  I think I

copied the idea from the girl sitting next to me.  I have no idea why I remember this so clearly,

but I do.  It seemed very exciting to me

to be able to manage this technique, using the thick, waxy line to highlight

the other colors I’d chosen.  And there

was this sense of accomplishment for having so clearly demonstrated how well I’d

stayed in the lines.  It seems to me that

there is something we learn as we grow up about staying in the lines—that it’s

a good thing.  A goal to be reached. 

And maybe it’s a stretch, but

it seems to me that this is connected to an accumulated understanding of that very

central human issue of what’s “in” and what’s “out,” WHO’s “in and who’s “out.”  As we grow and develop, this issue of being

in or out is vitally important and quite often affects who we become and how we

relate to the world and to other people. 

Being “in” is the goal.  Our very

existence becomes obsessed with these questions of lines and boundaries and

inside and outside.

We gradually learn to relate

to other people in terms of the contours of what delineates them:  conservative, liberal, religious, atheist,

Republican, Democrat, poor, rich, extrovert, introvert, sensitive,

thick-skinned, black, white, gay, straight, old, young.  Even in this post-modern, deconstructionist,

relativistic age, there's just something about drawing lines around things, something

that seems to soothe our anxieties and to give us a sense of security. 

Whatever the reason for it

and regardless of its appropriateness, it seems that we learn from childhood to

value coloring inside the lines, even highlighting the lines; we are taught to

think this way.  This, of course, is

nothing new.  Throughout the ages, tribal

loyalties and practices have carefully and often violently drawn stark lines

between whole groups of people.  We see

it in our text today as Peter baldly states that it is “unlawful for a Jew to

associate with or to visit a Gentile.” 

We see it in our own country in many forms:  through things like racist lending and real

estate practices that actively work to keep groups segregated[i]; through the often hateful

rhetoric around immigration policy; through instances in which people still

worry about bringing the person they love home to meet the parents for fear of

the reaction.  Written and unwritten laws

still exist that make it difficult to “associate with or to visit” someone

outside the lines of our own “kind,” however that is defined.  And all these things are a modern form of

tribalism; some based firmly in privilege, all based on prejudice and fueled

out of fear and hatr

A

sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, November 8,

2015.

Text:

Haggai 2:3-5                                                                 

Anthony

and I purchased our first home in 2011 and, for the most part, it was perfect. There

were several projects that needed attention and some of them we got sorted

right away. Other projects lurked about in various states of NOT being finished

for YEARS, partly due to lack of funds, and partly due to my feeling stuck and

overwhelmed about what to do. If only I had run into the host of the reality

show, “House Crashers,” as I stumbled around Home Depot!  The host of this DIY network show approaches

unsuspecting shoppers and offers to come to their house and do a remodel

completely free!  I’ve watched various

versions of the “Crashers” series over the years and it always seems odd when

folks refuse this offer.  It is a free

remodel! A whole new space! Why in the world would you not want a large crew of

complete strangers to immediately invade your home and completely disrupt your

environment, your schedule, your control? 

Well…when I put it that way… 

 

Over

the next few weeks, we will be exploring the challenges of new people, new

ideas, new realities in our lives—those times when new may not feel “improved”

and the displacement and disruption can leave us longing for familiarity and ease.

As we continue thinking about how our church building and our own lives are

“Under Construction,” the theme for these next weeks is “Pew Crashers”—after

all, who hasn’t been displaced from time to time by new people who didn’t get

the memo that that spot in the pew has your unwritten name on it (or if you’re

not a regular church-goer—maybe your spot in yoga class or your table in the

coffee shop)?  There are likely those

among us who have squirmed in our seats over something said or done or not said

or not done—about the way things happen or don’t, the way things look or

don’t.  In other words, church life—and

all community life—gives us opportunities to learn how to deal with strangers

and even friends who invade our space and change the way things look and

function, disrupt the flow of our lives, who make us uncomfortable and cranky.  But just as the “house crashers” T.V. reality

show promises something beautiful and useful as a result of the disruption, so

too the “pew crasher” moments of our lives can bring about renewal and

remodeling of life in ways that we might never receive otherwise.

 

Today,

our focus is the challenge of “new.”  Why,

after all, would folks not readily embrace a new thing? The text from the

prophet Haggai provides an opportunity to explore this question a bit more

deeply.  Here’s the context:  In 587 BCE the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem,

destroyed the temple—the center of religious, civic, and communal life for the

Jewish people—and carried the people into captivity and exile. Haggai emerges

as a prophet in 520 BCE at a time when the people have been allowed to come

home to Jerusalem. But the temple has not been rebuilt even after years of

resettlement. Haggai calls the people to make the restoration of the temple a

priority because, he insists, with the renewal of temple life, order and

connection, prosperity and normalcy will finally be truly possible for the

returned exiles.  And as a result of his

prophecy, the people were inspired to start building.  Today’s short passage is spoken as the new

temple is under construction.  Haggai

says, “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former

glory? How does it look to you now?

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E.

Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC November 1, 2015, All Saints Sunday.

 Texts:  Isaiah 25:6-9, John 11:32-44                                      

 

Today’s Gospel is about a funeral, something we all

know something about.  A beloved brother

and friend has died and the family and community has gathered for the rituals

of grief…in the midst of the casseroles and crying and storytelling and

remembering, there hangs the question that so often lurks at funerals—where was

God?  Where was God when my loved one

suffered with tubes coming out of her nose, when my beloved fought for breath,

when the light of my life was wracked with pain, when this beautiful person was

so devastated by her mental illness that she chose to exit this world rather

than suffer any more, when the clot broke and moved into his brain, when my spouse’s

heart, so full of love, attacked and took him from me in an instant?  If God had been here, this wouldn’t have

happened.  Mary gives voice to this

deeply human response to death:  “Lord,

if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Those gathered in grief also mutter under

their breaths, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept

this man from dying?” Alongside these words, so often left unspoken except in

the deep recesses of the human heart, there are also words of hope and

faith.  At funerals we hear words that

speak of God’s light and love, of God’s presence, of hope in the life to

come.  Earlier in the story, Martha

speaks such a word of hope saying, “I know that Lazarus will rise again…” But

Mary, unlike Martha, can’t muster any words of faith or hope.  She just cries.

 

In the midst of grief, the mixture of rage, confusion,

hope, emptiness, gratitude, regret, fear, faith, loneliness, and so much more

leaves us exhausted and numb as we try to adjust to a universe that has been

radically altered by our loss.  A

beautiful prayer in the funeral liturgy of our church speaks of shrinking

before the mystery of death.  And a

mystery it is.  Suffering and death are

THE human mystery, the place before which all our best efforts and all our striving

reach their ultimate limit.  How can we

not shrink before such a mystery? //

 

If you read the whole story, you discover that Jesus

knew that his friend Lazarus was gravely ill but purposely stayed where he was

for two more days—so that by the time he arrived in Bethany Lazarus had been

dead four days (11:6).  But before we get

aggravated by this, thinking that Jesus must be an unfeeling cad, keep in mind

that this Gospel writer, John, is most concerned with telling the story of

Jesus in such a way that something about the nature of God is revealed.  John is a theologian, not a historian.  At the time John wrote, tradition taught that

the soul lingered near the body for three days, after which there was no hope

of life returning.  Jesus waited to

arrive until the fourth day, until things were truly hopeless, when the full

impact of God’s power might be displayed.  And upon seeing the deep grief of his beloved

friend Mary and of those who mourned with her, Jesus reveals one of the most

important things we will ever know about the heart of God.  Far from being unfeeling, Jesus wept; his own

heart broke for the suffering of those around him.  As Jesus cries, we learn that the God whom

Jesus came to reveal is not far removed from our pain and our grief.  Our God shares our pain, weeps with us and is

deeply grieved by anything and everything that threatens human wholeness and

flourishing.

 

But the point of Jesus’ co

A

sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC October 25,

2015,the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, Consecration Sunday.

Texts:

1 Peter 2:4-5, Mark 10:46-52                                                  

There

is a place that Anthony and I love to go for vacation, far, far away on the

west coast in the woods on a river. It is delightful to hike along and

sometimes through the flowing waters, using the larger rocks of the riverbed as

stepping stones.  In that part of the

world it can feel quite remote, as if no one has walked that way before.  But often—sometimes right in the middle of

the river—a cairn appears, an artfully engineered pillar of stone upon stone,

marking the place as one where a pilgrim paused to play, reflect, be. There is something lovely and

encouraging about the appearance of these fragile works of art, as they

represent a sense of shared space, shared experience, a shared path—the

reminder that we are not alone in this life. 

The river stones provide ample material for creating this kind of

monument and I have spent happy hours setting up my own little rock art

sculptures along that river, signs—impermanent as they are—that I was there,

alive, moving through the world.

 

In

the Judeo-Christian tradition—as in many other traditions—there is an ancient

practice of setting up a stone or pile or stones as a signpost, as a memorial,

as a marker of a significant moment. An “Ebenezer,” literally “a stone of help”

is a stone or stones that mark a place in which God has been present in loving

and saving ways.  This is clear in the

line from the beloved hymn to God, Come

Thou Fount of Every Blessing: “Here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by

thy help I’m come; and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.” 

 

Today,

we are literally raising an Ebenezer, a sign and marker of God’s mighty

presence with us—a sign and marker of the ways that God has brought Foundry

through 200 years—a sign and marker of this moment in history when we are being

called and raised up as a congregation to be a living sign of the mighty power

of God to bring about reconciliation, justice, and peace. 

 

Over

the past several weeks, we have heard the verses from 1 Peter that were read

today: “Come to Christ, a living stone, though

rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living

stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…”  This letter to the first century churches in

Asia Minor was written to encourage the people to be strong in the midst of

challenge and persecution.  The call to

those early churches—and to Foundry church today—is to stand in contrast to the

culture as a witness to the power of faith, hope and love. The call is to take

courage through the promise that death and violence and hatred will not have

the last word.  “Come to Christ, a living

stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and

like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…”  God calls you and me to be built into this

church. You are Foundry. I am Foundry. Today, not only do we consecrate the collective

financial support that we bring, but we also baptize one of our precious babies

and welcome folks who are claiming their unique place as part of Foundry

Church, by publicly and prayerfully entering into covenant as professing

members. [There are also those in different places along the journey—committed

to this community, but still discerning the tenets of the Christian faith—and

so, not at a place to be Baptized toda

A

“State of the Church” sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at

Foundry UMC as part of the Financial Stewardship campaign, October 18, 2015.

Texts:

1 Peter 2:4-5, Mark 10:35-45                                                  

 

“What is it you want me

to do for you?” What a question from Jesus! 

If Jesus asked you that question today, what would you say?  What do you want me to do for you?  James and John responded with a request for

positions of power and prestige in Jesus’ administration.  You’d think they would have known better,

having been with Jesus almost from the very beginning.  But over and again, the disciples don’t get

it.  They argue over rank, they try to

deny children and the vulnerable access to Jesus, they aren’t able or willing

to comprehend that the last will be first, that children will inherit the Kin-dom,

that the greatest people will be those who serve, that true life is received

not by what you get but rather by what you give.  What might have been a wiser response to

Jesus’s question? 

 

Today is the day when,

by tradition here at Foundry, we set aside some time to reflect upon the “state

of the church.”  And I found myself

thinking about what we as a congregation might say to Jesus in response to his

most generous question.  What is it you

want me to do for you?  Before

considering our response, however, I want to take a moment to reflect upon the

cultural context in which we find ourselves today. The landscape has changed

and is changing with regard to the ways that people both think about and engage

their spiritual practices.  The pace of

life in our day, the rise of social media, the oversaturation of “information,”

the religious climate in the media, the shrinking of workforces and consequent

increase of work pressures and demands for those lucky enough to have a job,

the competitive nature of American life from childhood on, and many other

factors affect religious participation at many levels. For an increasingly

mobile population, attending worship every week is difficult to achieve. We

also know that weekly worship isn’t the primary way many folks engage—many

prefer instead to participate in spiritual community through a small group or

hands-on mission group.  Others may

connect primarily through online resources. 

And of course there are a growing number of folks who don’t engage the

church at all.  One colleague in New York

City—a pastor who, through his wise leadership, has brought renewal and

strength to his current congregation over more than twenty years—has said on

more than one occasion that he finds doing congregational work in the current

climate more challenging than ever before. 

 

But challenging as it

is, I have some pretty strong convictions about why it is so important for us

to continue to hang in there and to be the church in the world.  First, I believe that the church at its best

can offer people things we are all hungry for: community, friendship, meaning,

purpose, beauty, a sense of wonder, mystery, and transcendence. I believe that

even though so many people are

disconnected from church and say they don’t want anything to do with it,

sometimes those same people discover at some point in their life that they

desperately need the church; and when those folks stumble across our threshold,

we need to show them an authentic, healthy community of care, conviction,

commitment, and integrity.  I believe

that we are responsible to try to mend the broken hearts and the wounds of

persons hurt by the church—even as we seek mending of our own brokenness—and

A

sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, October 11,

2015, the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.

 Texts:

1 Peter 2:4-5, Mark 10:17-31                                                  

 

Have

you ever felt used? It is a crummy feeling to be treated as a pawn or stepping

stone in someone’s plan, as an unwilling object used for another’s benefit or

pleasure. It is dehumanizing and painful. No one wants to be used in that way.

But there is another way to think about being used. The text from 1 Peter is an

invitation to let our lives be like “living stones” that are built into a

“spiritual house.” God wants to use us

in this divine building project that is always under construction. God wants to

use our lives to help build the worldwide household of love, mercy, justice,

and peace that is the Kin-dom. God wants to use us, not in a dehumanizing way, but in a way that makes us partners

(some call it being co-creators) with God, in a way that helps us become more human, more ourselves, more whole.

And, God knows, that humanizing effect happens as we love, as we serve, as we

give.

 

Over

the years, I have heard so many folks—of every age and stage of life—talk about

how they want to find meaning and purpose in their lives. “Why am I here?”—that’s

the big question. And our faith can be a primary resource in discerning an

answer.  I think many, if not most, of us

would like to believe that if God communicated to us clearly and directly an

answer and direction, we would go!—or if God let us know how our lives could be

used for the greater good, we’d do it, even if it was difficult. 

 

And

this week, we encounter a wealthy man who gets what is so rare for most of us:

a clear and unambiguous message and direction. 

The man asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus—out of love (vs.21)—tells him.  And then the man turns away…not full of joy

and purpose…but with grief. 

 

Here

we have someone who knows the way to go, who is told what to do, who is invited

to follow Jesus with specific directions—no ambiguity or guessing games

here—and he turns away grieving. 

Why?  Perhaps because the

direction that Jesus gave him wasn’t something he wanted to hear.  Or maybe because what Jesus asked of him was

something he didn’t feel capable of doing. 

I think it is important to note that this is the only story that Mark

tells of someone who is called to follow Jesus who refuses. 

 

The

story provides clues for us to understand what is really going on here.  We know that the man who approaches Jesus has

“many possessions.”  He is rich.  And the question he asks of Jesus provides

the first clue for us:  “What must I do

to inherit…?”  The question has the sense

of acquiring something, of earning something, perhaps even of buying

something.  The man is functioning within

a market economy mindset: “What will it take to get this other thing that I

want?”  Jesus’ response is to recite the

last six commandments of the Big Ten.  He

doesn’t name the first four—which have to do with our relationship with God—but

rather, focuses on the last six, which are all about our relationship to our

neighbor.  And Jesus edits one of the

commandments—evidently just for the benefit of this man before him.  In verse 19 of our passage, instead of “you

shall not covet” Jesus says, “you shall not defraud.”  Obviously, this rich man probably doesn’t

covet much—he doesn’t really need to! 

The thing that made folks wealthy in Jesus’ day was to own property, so

we can assume that this rich man ha

A sermon preached by

Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC September 27, 2015, the eighteenth

Sunday after Pentecost.

Scripture text:

Mark 9:38-50                                                                

 

We have just journeyed through

several weeks of big events—here at Foundry and in our city and nation.  Following our extraordinary Bicentennial

Homecoming service, Pope Francis arrived in the U.S. and the whole world has

been watching.  I have been observing

with great interest the reactions to the Pope’s words and actions. It is profound

the ways in which persons from all faiths and none respond to Pope Francis’s

humble presence and his message of care, compassion, and service.  And is it not a sad commentary on the state

of the witness of the American church in the public square, that people seem

genuinely surprised by this most powerful Christian leader’s emphasis on peace,

on humility, on welcoming the stranger, on the dignity of every person, and

serving the poor and oppressed?  Isn’t

that what is at the heart of the Christian message?  What has happened to us?

 

I immediately think of Martin

Luther King, Jr.’s words from his Letter from the Birmingham Jail: “The contemporary Church

is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often

the archsupporter of the status quo.”  Today

there are some widely-known Christian voices that, perhaps benignly, encourage a

self-focused faith, voices that strive to never make anyone uncomfortable.  And then there are other voices all over the

media, voices of so-called Christian people that are not weak or ineffectual;

rather the position is strong and more certain than true Christian faith allows;

it is a voice of condemnation, a voice of exclusion, a voice of fear and

control and—at its worst—outright hatred. 

These kinds of “Christian” voices are the ones most associated with the

church by those outside it.  And then add

to that all the various and sundry ways that you and I and other Christian

folks fail in the “walk your talk” category and you’ve got a pretty solid, and very

sad answer for why so many seem surprised by Pope Francis’s words and way. 

 

In the Gospel, the report John

makes to Jesus is that the disciples had seen someone succeeding where they had

failed—and they told him to stop doing it! 

Earlier in this chapter, the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon from

a boy who was brought to them. (9:17-18) 

And just after this epic fail, they (ironically) got all tangled up in

an argument about who was the greatest among them. (9:33-37)  And then today we get John’s comment to

Jesus:  “Teacher, we saw

someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he

was not with us.” (9:38) It’s as if he is saying, “Well, if we couldn’t do it,

we’re hardly going to stand by and let somebody else who isn’t even a disciple

do it!” The disciples failed to appreciate that this person who was not

formally a part of “the church” was calling on the name of Jesus—this

person was on the path perhaps without fully knowing it.  And the disciples’ self-centeredness and

gate-keeping—and need to be the “great” and powerful ones—puts a big old

stumbling block in the way.  What do you

suppose folks thought about the so-called Jesus-followers who said that acts of

healing had to stop because the agent of healing wasn’t in the right club?

 

Jesus doesn’t mince words in his response; his

examples are extreme:  if something you

are doing causes a person to close their mind or heart to the love of God in

Christ, you might as wel

Past Foundry UMC members Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton returned to Foundry as guest speakers, delivering the Bicentennial Homecoming message on Sunday, September 13, 2015.