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A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC September 20, 2026, the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. “Be Astonished” series. Texts:  Psalm 19:1-4, Matthew 6:25-33                                  “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” I love that phrase. It’s so poetic and so deeply true. The heavens are telling. Day pours forth speech to day. Night declares knowledge to night. The whole creation, the Psalmist imagines, is engaged in this unceasikng testimony to the glory of God. And then comes this: “There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard.” Creation is telling us something without saying a word. The sky is telling. The trees are telling. The oceans and rivers, birds and flowers, creatures we can see and creatures buried in the soil beneath our feet are telling. The question is whether we notice. Perhaps that is why, centuries later, Jesus says: Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Pay attention. In fact, the words Jesus uses are stronger than our English translations sometimes make them sound. When Jesus says “look at the birds,” it’s an invitation to really look, to direct your attention toward them. And the word translated “consider” the lilies means something like observe carefully or learn thoroughly. This makes me feel better about becoming one of “those people” who have a collection of bird books and are constantly recording birdsong in the Merlin app to identify what birds are around. Jesus says not just “look” or notice, but study the birds. There is something here for you to learn. And notice who he says this to. Anxious people. People worried about what they will eat and what they will drink and what they will wear. People preoccupied with all the things that might go wrong. Jesus doesn’t respond to anxiety with an argument or a philosophy. He instead gently redirects attention. Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. For Jesus, the birds and lilies aren’t simply beautiful distractions from anxiety. They are witnesses to a creation—including anxious humans!—held in the care of God. Pay attention, Jesus seems to say, and you may begin to notice not only the wonder of the world, but the faithfulness of the God who’s got the whole world in God’s hands. Jesus teaches this way throughout the gospels. Pay attention to seeds and soil. Watch how yeast works its way through dough. Notice vineyards and fig trees and sheep and weather. Jesus moves through the world as though everything is shimmering with the possibility of revelation. Which suggests that paying attention to creation isn’t a side hustle to the spiritual life. Paying attention to creation is part of how we learn to see. It’s a way we come to learn the wisdom, the love, and the care of God. Annie Dillard, who died this past week, once described coming to a place where you say to the woods, the sea, the mountains: “Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive.” What if awe begins there? Not with some extraordinary experience, but with stopping. With noticing. With allowing something other than our own thoughts, fears, schedules, screens, and preoccupations to claim our attention. The psychologist Dacher Keltner identifies nature as one of the great sources of human awe. He calls it “wild awe.” And wild awe can certainly happen in spectacular places. Standing on the rim of a canyon. Looking across an ocean. Walking among trees that were ancient before any of us were born. Looking up on a clear night and suddenly comprehending—or failing to comprehend—how enormous the universe actually is. But one of the things I appreciate about Keltner’s work is his insistence that awe doesn’t require a plane ticket. We can learn to notice astonishing things happening all around us. We live on a planet where bees use dance to give other bees directions to the next flower. Where crows remember human faces and teach their young which humans to avoid. Where ants beneath our feet build whole communities, carrying many times their own weight. Where birds somehow know when it is time to leave and where to go. Where tiny seeds split themselves open underground and reach toward light they have never seen. Where after a devastating fire, the earth grows flowers again. “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” They have been telling us all along. The question is whether we have stopped noticing. And we have some good reasons for that. There is so much competing for our attention. So much designed to steal our attention. News alerts. Emails. Texts. Advertisements. The infinite scroll. Much of what draws our focus is what frightens or angers us. And I want us to be gentle with ourselves on this point—you know, it isn’t a moral failure to get hooked by upsetting things. Human beings are wired to notice threat. It has helped keep us alive. But if threat is all we notice, it begins to look like threat is all there is. If all I take in are the things that are falling apart, then eventually I begin to believe that falling apart is the truest thing about the world. If all I see is what frightens me, fear begins to determine the size and shape of my world. And this, I think, is why the late Wendell Berry’s beloved poem “The Peace of Wild Things” resonates with so many people. He begins, “When despair for the world grows in me...” You know anything about that? When despair for the world grows in me, Berry wrote, he goes out into the presence of the wild things. He lies down near still water. He looks up into the stars. And by the end he can say, “I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” The problems haven’t gone away. The world hasn’t suddenly gotten sorted. Something has changed in him. His field of vision has widened. He has remembered that the thing causing him despair is real—but it is not everything that is real. This is such an important thread that we will pull through this entire series: paying attention to wonder, learning to notice—these aren’t ways of escaping the world’s pain. They are ways of refusing to let pain become the whole story. Robin Wall Kimmerer says it beautifully in her book Braiding Sweetgrass: “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” Awe helps us hold more than one thing at a time. And Keltner’s research suggests that this does something important to us. Experiences of awe can evoke what researchers sometimes call the “small self.” Honestly, I wasn’t a fan of this phrase when I first saw it. Because our faith certainly doesn’t teach that human beings are insignificant. You bear the image of God. You are beloved. Your life matters. But I came to understand that the “small self” is connected to the spiritual practice of humility. There is a difference between knowing that my life matters and believing that I am the center of everything. Wild awe can remind us of the difference. Stand under a sky filled with stars and you remember: I am small. And I belong here. Stand beside the ocean and remember: I do not control all of this. And I am part of it. Watch some tiny creature making its way through the world and remember: There are lives being lived all around me that have nothing to do with my agenda. And researchers are discovering that this change in perspective has consequences. Awe is associated with greater feelings of connection. It can widen the boundaries of our moral concern—not only toward other people, but toward animals, plants, and the environment. It can make us more generous, more cooperative, more aware that we belong to something larger than ourselves. We are earth creatures, given breath we did not create, dependent upon soil and water and sunlight and the labor and lives of innumerable creatures we rarely even notice. We are part of God’s vast, glorious, good creation. And what a strange thing we human beings have done—to begin imagining that creation is simply the scenery behind the main stage, with us at the center and always in the spotlight. Scripture tells the story differently. “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” Creation isn’t scenery. Creation is revelation. Creation is our teacher, our neighbor. Creation is an astonishing gift. And when we begin to receive it that way, perhaps we also begin to live differently within it. Because reverence changes relationship. It is harder to treat as disposable something you’ve come to know as wonder-full. It is harder to think of the earth merely as a collection of resources when you have begun to perceive yourself as part of its beautiful, intricate community of life. And perhaps it becomes harder to treat other human beings as disposable too. If awe teaches me that I am not the center, then that sets me in a different relationship with my neighbor. Perhaps I can hold my certainty a little more lightly. Perhaps I can become curious again. Perhaps I can recognize that my perspective is one perspective within a world vastly bigger than I can see. Perhaps wonder can loosen some of the fear and defensiveness that separate us from one another. Allowing the experience of wild awe to soften the hard boundaries that grow up among and between people doesn’t mean we stop caring about truth or justice. It does mean we remember our place in the vastness of creation and the human family. We are not insignificant nor are we all-important. We are not powerless nor are we all-powerful. We are beloved, responsible, and deeply interconnected with all beings and the whole creation. Jesus says: Look at the birds. Consider the lilies. Maybe those aren’t just lovely illustrations for a sermon about worry. Maybe Jesus is gi

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC September 13, 2026, the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. “Be Astonished” series. Texts:  Psalm 100, Colossians 3:11-17                               There is something about this Sunday that feels different. Some of it is simply the rhythm of the year. Summer vacations are winding down. School is back in session. Our groups and classes and choirs and ministry teams are coming back to life. Today we kick off another program year at Foundry. And there is an energy that comes with that. You can feel it. There is something that happens when people gather. When we see people we haven’t seen for a while. When a room fills up. When conversation and laughter get louder. When voices join together in song. What is that? Over the next six weeks, we are going to explore that question—and a number of others like it—as we begin a new worship series called “Be Astonished.” The title is inspired by a poem called “Sometimes,” by Mary Oliver, a poet whose work has helped many people pay closer attention to the wonder of this world. Near the end of that poem, Oliver offers what she calls “Instructions for living a life”: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” What a beautiful invitation. And a good reminder in the swirl of life and the distractions that invade our spaces all day every day—so many of which are painful: another act of violence. Another cruelty. Another frightening headline or devastating image. Paying attention to wonder doesn’t ask us to look away from any of that. It asks us to refuse to look only at that. Because every day, even in the midst of all that is heartbreaking and wrong, there is also beauty and goodness and love. There are obvious wonders like a spectacular sunset or the face of a newborn baby. But wonder is also tucked into ordinary places: a song that lifts our spirit, a single flower pressing through pavement, tenderness offered in grief, suddenly seeing something familiar as though for the first time. Pay attention. The pain is real. And so is the beauty. The cruelty and grief are real. But, oh, so are the kindness and the love. We can hold these things together. Perhaps part of what sustains us for faithful life is learning to do exactly that. So for the next several weeks, we’re going to practice paying attention to what inspires awe and ask what it might reveal about God, ourselves, one another, and this beautiful and broken world. And as we begin, there is a beautiful convergence I hadn’t noticed in my initial planning. At sundown this past Friday, our Jewish neighbors began Rosh Hashanah, entering the ten holy days leading to Yom Kippur—days traditionally known as the High Holy Days or the Days of Awe. Days of Awe. Their practice during these days is also about paying attention—to life and relationships, to what has been and what might yet be. They stand in awe before their Creator as they honestly reflect on how they are living, as they seek and offer forgiveness, and turn again toward God and neighbor. What a wonderful reminder: awe isn’t only about fleeting moments of wondrous beauty. Awe can give us perspective, help us see more fully, and remind us that us that even amid pain and brokenness, God’s mercy and love are also part of the story. The social psychologist Dacher Keltner has spent years studying this experience of awe[i] —something poets, artists, and religious traditions have been talking about forever. His research identifies eight common sources of awe, experiences that can pull us out of our preoccupation with ourselves and into deeper connection with others and the wider world. And one of those wonders is, well, look around. It is us. It is other people. More specifically, it’s what can happen when human beings gather together. Keltner uses an old sociological term for this experience: “collective effervescence.” Now, I know. That sounds like something you would order at a fancy bar. But you know the experience. You’ve been at a concert when thousands of people suddenly sing the same words together. (“Sweet Caroline!...) You’ve been at a game and all of a sudden you’re doing the Wave. You’ve been at a vigil when hundreds of people fell silent together. You’ve marched with others for something you believe in. Maybe you’ve been in this sanctuary when we started singing a hymn and somewhere along the way it felt as though you weren’t singing the hymn anymore. The hymn was carrying you. Something happens when human beings gather, when our bodies move together, our voices join together, our attention turns toward the same thing. For a moment, the boundaries of the individual self become a little more porous. The world is not only about me and my concerns and my fears and my little corner of existence. I become part of something larger. Collective effervescence is one, scientific way to describe that. The Psalmist simply says: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness; come into God’s presence with singing.” Psalm 100 is not a solitary song. The verbs are plural. The invitation is communal. Make a joyful noise together. Serve together. Know together. Enter the gates together. Give thanks together. And at the heart of the psalm is this: “Know that the Lord is God. It is God who made us, and we are God’s…” We are God’s. There is an alternate ancient reading of that line that says, “God made us, and not we ourselves.” We are not self-created. We are not self-sufficient. We are not self-made people whose lives belong only to ourselves. We are God’s. And God made us for relationship, for connection, for community. Maybe that is part of what we experience in these extraordinary collective moments. Something deep within us remembers. I am not alone. I am part of something larger than myself. Sometimes the person standing beside you is part of how God reminds you that you are not alone. And God knows we need that reminder right now. There is so much anxiety in the air. Many are carrying deep concern about what the coming months will hold for our nation, for our neighbors, for people we love. And this weekend carries other memories and meanings as well. Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, our nation experienced an almost unimaginable act of violence and loss. We remember those who died, those who ran toward danger to help, families whose lives were forever changed. We remember the fear and grief of those days. And we remember something else too. We remember how powerfully human beings can be drawn together. Some of that drawing together produced extraordinary courage and generosity and care for neighbor. Strangers helped strangers. People lined up to give blood. Communities gathered to grieve and pray. And we also know that fear can draw people together. Fear can create a “we.” So can hatred. So can nationalism. So can the conviction that we will only be safe if they are kept out, silenced, defeated, controlled, destroyed. Collective effervescence is powerful, but it is not automatically holy or healing. Human beings have always been capable of becoming a “we.” The deeper question is: What kind of “we” are we becoming? The small Christian community at Colossae was trying to figure out what it meant to follow Jesus in a world filled with competing claims about who they were and where they belonged. Who was the “we” they were becoming? Their world knew how to categorize people just as well as ours does. Those categories carried judgments about who was civilized, who had status and power, who belonged—and who was looked down on, ignored, kicked out. And into that world comes this astonishing claim: “Christ is all and in all.” Differences don’t disappear. But the categories human beings use to separate and assign value to one another cannot diminish God’s creative design. We are part of something bigger—someone bigger—than ourselves. We are the Body of Christ. And if we are paying attention, if we remember we are created by God to be connected one to another as members of the Body, then we begin to understand how we are called to live and move together in ways that nurture and sustain our shared life. The author of the letter to the Colossians describes it poetically saying to the Body: “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Bear with one another. Forgive one another. And “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Let the peace of Christ be the rule and not the exception among you. Teach, sing, be thankful together. Practice becoming the “we” you are created to be. Practice. Because Christian community doesn’t happen simply by occupying the same sanctuary for an hour on Sunday. It takes practice! Compassion for those we find difficult, humility as we listen to others, forgiveness of those who hurt us, and—Lord have mercy—patience in the midst of all the things…every one of these take practice. And this is why I get excited about a Sunday like this one. Because what we’re beginning today is not simply another year of church programming. All those groups and classes and choirs and ministry teams we are launching again aren’t just things to fill up the calendar. They are places to practice. Places where we learn to pray and serve and forgive and organize and sing and laugh and sometimes disagree and still come back to the table. Places where we practice paying attention, where we experience awe, collective effervescence, the wonder of being together. What kind of “we” will we practice becoming? There will be plenty of forces in the months ahead trying to answer that question for us. There will be voices telling us whom to fear and invitations to construct our “we” by identifying a “th

Indeed. Thank you, choir. That was wonderful, what a wonderful way to be prepared to prepare the people for me to come and share a word with you all. And thank you all for being here. My name is Reverend Scott Bostic. I'm a United Methodist pastor, and I'm currently serving beyond the local church as the deputy director of the Washington Interfaith Network, which Foundry is a part of. For those of you who don't know, the Washington Interfaith Network is a broad based, multi-race, multi-faith organization rooted in congregations and associations across Washington, D.C. Together, when members take public action, they organize their communities, hold decision makers accountable, and build power to create change across D.C. It's a joy for me to be back with you again. I say back because this is not my first time here at Foundry. I recognize many familiar faces among you. I first came here many years ago, over a decade ago, when I was serving at Asbury United Methodist Church, down at 11th and K. For a brief time this was my worshiping home, as my family worshiped here. When I was in between appointments many years ago, I've helped with weddings here, I've helped with celebrations of life, I've helped with special services during Holy Week, and other times when I've gotten a phone call from Pastor Ben or Pastor Ginger saying, hey, are you busy? It's a joy to be with you now on this Sunday morning, with an opportunity to share a word with you all from Nehemiah. So here again, beloved, these words from the book of Nehemiah, chapter six, verses eight and nine: "Then I sent to him, saying, no such things as you say have been done. You are inventing them out of your own mind. For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking their hands would drop from the work and it would not be done. But now, strengthen my hands." Will you pray with me? O God of love, speak to me. God of grace and of mercy, speak through me. God of power and of justice, speak in spite of me, that on this day, in these moments, your will would be done. Speak, O Lord, for your people are listening. Amen. I thought it might be good to start off with a confession. I'm not a huge fan of Dolly Parton's music. Country music just isn't really my thing. I do want to be clear, though, that I have deep respect for her talents as a singer, for her talents on and off screen, and for the mighty work that she has done beyond the stage and behind the microphone. So go back with me in time, if you will, to 1980. There's a movie that Dolly starred in called 9 to 5. Some of you probably just thought it was a song, but oh no, it was so much more. There was a spinoff series and a musical too, though maybe we won't talk about the musical. In this movie, Dolly was one of three legendary actresses who told the story of three frustrated, harassed, and mistreated women whose boss is described as the most sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot on the planet. Sounds familiar. Their response to this hateful person was to work behind him and in spite of him to make changes to their workplace. Now, those of you who have seen the movie know there's some other stuff going on, but we're in church, so if you want to know the rest of the story, go watch the movie. Among the changes they make in their workplace are implementing several programs that the workers love, including in-office daycare, equal pay for everyone (one of them had gotten in trouble for asking what one of their male colleagues made), flexible work hours, and a job-sharing program allowing employees to work part time. The boss didn't know they had made these changes, and when he came back he was furious, but his chairman came in and was elated because the productivity of their department had increased by 20 percent because of these changes. That got me thinking about how these changes came to be, not just in movieland but in our world, through the work of organized labor. That, after all, is what this weekend is all about. Not the unofficial end of summer, not one last trip to the beach or a last chance to wear your boat shoes for the season. It's not about the barbecues or the parties or the days off, well, actually, maybe it is about that last one. Labor Day is about celebrating how those who worked for reform in our workplace and labor laws fought to get people a weekend, time off, to end child labor and send kids to school instead of to factories. Coincidentally, my family watched the news this weekend, which is its own great labor story, about things like paid leave and family leave, unemployment benefits, and rules about hiring and firing, so many things that many of us take for granted, and maybe did until the last two years. It got me thinking about how some people said that these proposed changes, each time, were threats to the status quo which benefited them, those in power, and therefore they hurled their own threats and insults at the people who wanted to make these changes. Those in power were afraid of what might happen if people knew their worth and knew that somebody cared about that. Now, our scripture and story for today picks up in the midst of things in the story of Nehemiah. Some of you know that Nehemiah is a book that is part of the Hebrew Scriptures in the section known as the histories. It's different from some of the other books in the history section, like Esther and Ezra and First and Second Chronicles, in that it is told from the first-person perspective. Scholars call it the Nehemiah memoir, because we're hearing the story from Nehemiah's perspective, so he has moments to add his own commentary, his own personal reflections on what was happening. For those who haven't read the book, or haven't read it in a while, it opens in the first chapter with Nehemiah in Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire, serving as cupbearer to the king, who we think was Artaxerxes the First, for the history buffs in the room. Word comes from Jerusalem about the state of the walls and the troubles of his people. In response, Nehemiah prays to God, praying that God will fulfill the promises God made to Moses to uplift and care for God's people. His prayer includes an important confession, because Nehemiah knew that the people were in exile, that the walls had been destroyed for a reason, and it was because of the people's unfaithfulness. It was because of the people's actions that Jerusalem had fallen and that they were in exile in the first place. But he prays that God would receive their prayer and grant restoration to the people if they would repent and return to the Lord. That is where we get to our first lesson, before we even get to the text from Nehemiah: it starts with God and prayer, but please don't stop there. Too often people go to God and pray. We pray for ourselves, we pray for the people around us, we pray for the world, for the problems going on around us, for tragedies that we hear about, and then we stop. We don't follow up on our prayers with the response that God is calling us to take, the response that God has empowered and emboldened us to take. We, as faithful followers, have a responsibility to pray, to seek God first, and to act in response to the needs of the world around us as God is calling and leading, not as social trends would have us do, or social media influencers or politicians or even some pastors, but as God Almighty is calling us and has shown us again and again that we are called to respond through loving our neighbors, not just with warm, fuzzy feelings and sweet, kind thoughts, but with concrete, tangible actions. So Nehemiah, from his position of power at the hand of the king as cupbearer, requests and is granted permission to travel back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. He's given written permission so that should anyone question whether it was okay for him to do this, they would know he had the blessing of the king. The king was so moved by and behind this effort that he even provided wood from his own forests and cavalry and troops to escort Nehemiah and their resources back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, at that point in time, had already had the temple rebuilt, that was the main thrust of the story in the Book of Ezra, and we learn early on in Nehemiah's adventures that in addition to being a faithful servant of God and a loyal servant in his position to the king, he is also wise. That wisdom would serve him well in the ways he would deal with the many challenges ahead. But humbly, Nehemiah recognizes, as he says several times, that his success, the way things were able to work out, was not because of him. It was because of God's faithfulness, because God's gracious hand was upon him. Now, as you might remember or imagine, Nehemiah showing up on the scene to rebuild the walls upset some people, especially the leaders around Jerusalem, because someone was coming to care for the people of Israel. Remember, not everyone went into exile after the fall of Jerusalem. Many remained in the land but were ruled by others. Some had already returned, as I mentioned, to rebuild the temple, as recounted in the Book of Ezra. But they still did not have a Jewish governor who was steadfast and faithful to God. Throughout the chapters leading up to chapter six, Nehemiah had faced opposition from people outside the city and from some people inside the city, not all of whom were faithful followers of God. It took some wisdom for him to navigate these different challenges in this tricky landscape, as people plotted to disrupt the work and even attack the city. Why? Because they knew the practical and symbolic meaning of the walls being rebuilt. Practically, it meant there would be a place of refuge for the people of Israel, should someone in future days come to attack or try to harm them. Now, I'm not advocating for walls in general, but in those days a walled city was a safer city, because when raiders came, people had a place of shelter and knew they would be safe. Sym

When I was in college, I spent a semester living in London, and I did a lot of solo traveling all over the UK. And one of the things that I loved was when in one of my little wanders, I would stumble across a little ruin. I found some that had clearly been part at one time of a big complex. There was the remains of a tower or stairs, going somewhere that used to be grand. And other times I would just find a few stones, probably the remnants of a simple cottage. What I saw in all of these abandoned little places were simply stones. They were just stones. A sign, however, of life that had once been there, where people had experienced something. And I always wondered, why are these stones here? What stories do they hold? Our story from Joshua today has at its center the building of a stone marker at the Jordan. Many ancient cultures, including our Hebrew ancestors, used stones to signify a meaningful place or a meaningful story. You may have heard of Ebenezer, literally "stones of help," which were stones that our ancestors used to mark a place where God had rescued or helped God's people. And today, Joshua directs the representatives from each of the twelve tribes of Israel to take stones from the River Jordan and create what's called a Gilgal. Have you ever heard of a Gilgal? Some of you might have heard of a Gilgal rune. A Gilgal is a memorial, a reminder not just of a moment, but of the story that gives their lives hope and a sense of identity. The stones are gathered so that in time to come, when children ask, they will see these stones, and as did I in my early travels, they will ask the question, what do these stones mean? What we receive in the text today is the moment when the forty years of wilderness wandering come to their end. Remember that after the people of Israel were brought out of slavery, God gave them a wondrous passage through the Red Sea. From there they were led into the wilderness, where they so journeyed for forty years, guided and sustained by God with a pillar of fire at night, a pillar of smoke by day, and manna from heaven to sustain them. In our story they've now arrived at the Jordan, and just as at the Red Sea, the waters of the Jordan are stopped. This time, as the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant step into the waters and stand in the riverbed, the people cross over to the other side on dry ground and into the land that they understand God has promised them. What happens as Israel takes possession of that land raises difficult questions of violence and displacement, questions that deserve more attention than we can give them today. But here at the river, the story is about a people who have survived the wilderness, and they're remembering the God who brought them through that. That, children, is what the stones mean. They are a reminder for generations to come that God brought the whole people out of bondage, through the wilderness, and to this threshold of new life stretching out before them. God brought all of them through. Every tribe, from the largest to the smallest, is represented. Every tribe carries a stone, and every time they go back to this place, they will see the stones and remember the goodness and the faithfulness of God. Sometimes when I am walking or driving around in this city, or when I'm traveling in other towns and cities, I see beautiful stone buildings with crumbling steeples and their windows boarded up. And I wonder about the stories that those stones could tell. But sadly, just like ancient ruins, the stones no longer have a living community to interpret their meaning. Today we gather in the shelter of the stones that create this sanctuary, the stones that house our mission and study and life together. While the oldest stones in this building are 112 years old, 122, sorry, all my historians were going to check me, even though they are 122 years old, they carry forward the story of this congregation that stretches back 212 years. They are a memorial to the providence of God, who over all those years has brought us out of situations that were unjust or harmful, has brought us through times of struggle and need and pain, and has brought us to this very day. Many of us can tell stories of our recent past. The stories of bold action to end chronic homelessness, and to champion the rights and the dignity of our LGBTQ plus siblings. The times of heartbreak amid bruising general conferences, the moments of transcendent worship, the ways that we persevered through the Covid pandemic. Do you remember how we longed to be in God's dwelling place in those days? "How I long for the courts of the Lord," I remember thinking. Will we ever get to be back in God's dwelling place called Foundry? Do you remember those days, Stanley? There were times when we thought, we'll never get back to the way it was, we'll never have the choir singing the way that we sang. We had those conversations. We did. I'm just telling the truth. We persevered through that, and by God's grace, we emerged, ready to discern how to be the church in a new reality. We can tell those stories, many of us, because we've lived through them. So many more, but there's something in our text today that makes me pause. When you read the text carefully, you'll notice that verses three through eight describe twelve stones being taken out of the Jordan and carried to the place where Israel camps, at Gilgal. But then immediately after that, in verse nine, it suddenly says Joshua has set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant had stood. So where exactly were the stones placed? Inquiring minds want to know. Scholars have long seen this as evidence that different oral stories were woven together when they got written down. Some of those stories remembered the stones in the camp where people lived, and some people remembered the stones out there in the middle of the river. We can wonder about all of that, the textual issue, the historical issue. But what remains in the text as it stands is that there is a memorial where the people live, and there is a memorial where they crossed. One can be viewed, and the other may eventually disappear into or beneath the water. And it makes me think about the stones that tell our story. Some are visible. We can see them. We can remember them. We can tell the stories through our own experience. And some are submerged. There are experiences, people, sacrifices, struggles, prayers, decisions, conflicts, acts of courage and acts of grace, from 212 years of ministry, under the surface, without which the congregation standing here today would not exist. It's poignant to be preaching this message today, as we have shared the news of the death of one of Foundry's faithful ones, Barbara Cambridge. Only God knows all that she gave of herself to provide leadership through moments of difficulty and change in this community of faith. How quietly and effectively she organized so many things. I know how quietly and effectively she organized this little idea I had about having a prayer ministry on Sunday mornings. How she encouraged and taught others through her words and her witness. Barbara is in a long line of saints, many whose names we don't know to say today, whose stories and faithfulness make Foundry who we are. Can we say thanks be to God? Those of us who do make up the Foundry community today will each have our own answer about what these stones mean to you in our own lives. Only you will know the moment when a person prayed with you and it changed everything. Only you will know how you met God in the face of a neighbor as you served. Only you will know that moment in worship when tears cleansed your heart. Only you will know how conversation over coffee saved your sanity. Only you will know the class that blew your mind open to new possibilities about God and about faith. Only you will know how this congregation has given you strength or hope to keep going in this beautiful, broken world. Beloveds, we don't look at the old stones of an old building to look back at the good old days with nostalgia. The stones are not tombstones. These are not tombstones marking lives lost. These stones are a memorial, a reminder of a living God and the living people of God who continue to remember, to testify, to tell the stories of how God has brought Foundry out and how God has brought Foundry through. And we do this not just for ourselves. We do this for those yet to experience the great good news of a God who liberates, sustains, and gives new life. We tell the stories for the children in generations stretching out in front of us, so that they will know what these stones mean, because there are people around to tell them the story so that they can carry the mission forward. And as we gather today for this homecoming service, we come bearing items, prayers, literal or metaphorical stones to mark this moment, to remember how God has been with us over these past months of summer break or summer work, times of travel, and for some times of travail. Wherever we have been so journeying, God has been our sustainer and our guide. And now God has brought us home. But remember this: when the people of Israel crossed the Jordan, they had not reached the end of their journey. They stood at a threshold. Behind them was the wilderness through which God had carried them. Ahead of them was a future they could not yet see. We don't know what's ahead. It was at that point, at that crossing, where they gathered stones and they remembered. Perhaps that's where we are. On this day we gather up the signs of where we've been and what we've been through. We remember those whose faithfulness lies beneath everything we have inherited. We tell the stories of how God has brought Foundry out and brought Foundry through. And then we take up together the journey into the months and years ahead. Lord knows we've got work

I wonder what comes to mind for most people when they think about the Ten Commandments. Studies have shown that most folks are unable to name more than one or two of them. I bet many others would probably have to admit that when they think of the Ten Commandments, and this may just be, you know, thinking about the older generations, but for many of us, I imagine some when they hear about the Ten Commandments, they think of Charlton Heston with a gray bouffant hairdo, wearing a bathrobe, and special effects in the background. Others might have a visceral reaction to a phrase that, for them, conjures up feelings of a threatening, judgmental, angry God. But my guess is that most people probably don't think of the Ten Commandments much at all, which may be what drives some people to make such a fuss about trying to get these things posted in prominent places. Have you noticed the spate of legislation being forwarded in a number of, I will have to say, mostly southern states to place the Ten Commandments in public schools and buildings? Have you been following this? It's a whole situation, friends. It's a whole situation. The youngest among us may think that that sort of thing is a new phenomenon. It is not. A quick search revealed that perhaps the first large scale campaign to mandate public posting was launched in 1950. The first time the Supreme Court took up the matter was 1980. And then there's Roy Moore, the twice elected, twice removed justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, I won't go into all of that, but I can tell you if you're curious, I'm sure. During Moore's first stint on the bench, beginning in 2001, he waged and lost a stubborn fight to keep a Ten Commandments monument in his courthouse. One thing I remember about this episode is the fact that after being removed as Chief Justice, Judge Moore continued this crusade through speaking engagements and would bring along the Ten Commandments monument with him wherever he went to give a talk. Now, I'm all for visuals to help you support your message, but get this: the monument weighs 5,280 pounds, roughly just a little more than 500 pounds a commandment. So Judge Moore would lug this massive thing across the country on the back of a flatbed truck. You cannot make this stuff up. It was reported that even the five-ton crane that was used to move the monument off the truck buckled visibly under its weight. What an amazing mental image, really. I mean, it's so appropriate, since many of us may have a sense that the commandments are heavy and dangerous, that they hang over people like an ominous threat just waiting to crush you with their weight the minute you step out of line. This is the way that some folks use the commandments and the scriptures in general, as a heavy yoke that the masses, regardless of culture or creed, need to have publicly strapped to their backs and nailed to their walls so that they'll get into shape, lift those heavy laws, carry those burdensome commandments, and do three sets of ten repetitions every other day. Weightlifting morality. That's what that is. However, I don't think we have to look too far to find a challenge to this way of thinking. Just look back at the text we read today from Exodus. The recital of the Ten Commandments begins this way: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." This is God's reminder to the people of who God is and what God has done. God is no dictator. God doesn't impose the weight of unfair laws upon people. The commandments are not a mandate to enslave God's people. God is the one who has brought the people out of slavery, who has unburdened them from unjust laws. God is the one who has given the people freedom. But I find that many folk focus less on that and more on the "thou shalt not" of the commandments. Why do they have to be so negative? If God cares enough about us to set us free, I imagine some people thinking, then why does it seem like God is trying to control us, to limit our freedom? Now let's think about it for just a minute. Jesus experienced God as Abba, as father. All you mothers and fathers out there, all of us who have spent significant time caring for children, just think about when the children are very young. They're curious about everything. They want to touch everything. They want to put everything in their mouth. They want to get into anything and everything. And as a loving caregiver, you are trying to keep them alive. You want to do everything you can to keep them safe. And so you set boundaries for your children to keep them safe. However, we do know any parent will tell you that children always push against the boundary. Can I get an amen from anyone? Children will always push against the boundary. I will say as a pastor, people push against the boundary. We really do not like to be told no. But really, only the most naive among us will assume that true freedom means total freedom from restraints. I just think of our dog, Daisy. If Daisy were allowed to run completely free with no restraints, she might catch sight of another dog and dash across our busy street in front of the house to chase it, and that would get Daisy killed for sure. Because we love Daisy, we provide restraints that keep her safe, that help her enjoy the world in ways that are good for her and for the other creatures around her. God, who has brought people out of slavery, is setting some boundaries for the people so that they will remain free, so that they may live in peace and safety together, so that they may experience the fullness of life. And this is the thing about God's commandments: every "thou shalt not," every no, is protecting a yes. God says no to the things that enslave us, that diminish us, or destroy life together, so that we can say yes to the things that make life free and whole for everyone. The no is never the point. "Thou shalt not" is not the point. The life God is protecting, the freedom God is protecting, the dignity God is protecting, that is the point. With this framework in mind, we see that the commandments might sound like this: the no to other gods, the no to idols and their empty promises, protects a yes to trusting the God whose word is good, to trusting the God who sets us free, to recognizing what is truly holy. No to using God's name to manipulate or to threaten or to serve our own agenda means yes to honoring God with humility and with reverence. No to endless work, to treating ourselves or anyone else as machines for production, is a yes to Sabbath, to rest, to delight, recreation, and remembering that the world does not stop turning because you take a break. Remember, a pause here, remember who God is speaking to in these commandments: former slaves, people whose lives had been measured by how much they produced. God says, you're free now, you can stop. No to dishonoring those from whom we have received life means yes to honoring those who came before us, while telling the truth about what we've inherited, and choosing what we will bring forward. No to violence and to the destruction of life is a yes to reverence, to life, and for life. No to betrayal and broken promises and the cheapening of intimacy is a yes to faithfulness to the covenants that we make, yes to trust and intimacy cherished. No to taking what belongs to another is a yes to respecting our neighbors and building a community where theft is unnecessary because all have enough. No to lies, slander, and words that destroy another person is a yes to truth spoken in love and words that build one another up. No to coveting, to allowing someone else's life or possessions to make us dissatisfied with our own, is a yes to gratitude, to generosity, and to rejoicing in our neighbors' good. Every no protects a yes. Every boundary opens space for life to be lived well, and a world shaped by all those yeses, what a wonderful world that would be. That world isn't here yet. We still go so far astray. Think again with me about Sabbath. God says to people who have been slaves, whose worth was measured by their productivity, you can stop. And not only you, did you notice? It's a great part of that commandment. Not just you, your children, your workers, the immigrant living among you. Even your animals get to stop. Give them a break. Everybody gets to rest. Now imagine taking that commandment seriously in a culture where people work multiple jobs and still can't make ends meet, where paid leave is a luxury for many, where productivity so easily becomes a measure of our human worth. It's one thing to post the commandment on a classroom wall, but are we willing to build a society in which people can actually live it? And we could ask that question not just about Sabbath, but about the one about idolatry, or truth telling, or violence, or faithfulness, slander, greed, and whether our neighbors have enough. Even after all this time, we continue to misunderstand. We can turn even the commandments themselves into monuments, into idols, things to display and defend, rather than a way of life to practice. Are we hopeless? Sometimes I just wonder, are we hopeless? Is the answer to be found in posting bigger and heavier versions of the Ten Commandments wherever possible? I don't believe we're hopeless. Newsflash: I don't believe we're hopeless. And I don't think, surprise, surprise, I don't think our hope lies in mandated public posting of the commandments. Our hope is found in the public living of the commandments. Of course, to live the ways of God, we need to know them. We need to learn and study what they really mean for us in our time and place. We need to understand the law of God and teach the law of God in appropriate ways and in appropriate contexts. We need to understand that the commandments set us free to live together in such a way that nobody has to be enslaved, exploited, violated, betrayed, robbed, lied about, or consumed by another person's g

Part III — We Know What We’re About · Calling as Public Witness Date: August 16, 2026.   Text: Ephesians 4:11–1, Isaiah 6:5–8 Yongchi Rhie   Let me begin with a confession from someone I knew, and I suspect it's one that some of you share. “For most of my life, I was a pew warmer. You know the type; maybe you are the type. I had my seat. Not just any seat; my seat, and heaven help the visitor who took it. I knew when to stand and when to sit. I could sing the first and last verse of any hymn and mumble convincingly through the middle. I knew exactly how long a sermon should go, and I would let the preacher know, with my eyebrows, when he had gone over. I gave the building the warmth of my body for one hour a week, and I called that church. I thought my job was to show up, to be moved when the sermon was good, to put something in the plate, and to go home. I thought the church was something that happened to me. Something performed for me. A service I attended, the way you attend a concert.” And Paul writes to the Ephesians to tell us what the church actually is. Listen: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” Did you catch what that does to the pew-warmer’s dream? It calls it what it is: a beautiful, comfortable, church-shaped lie. Now listen closely, because there is a famous comma hiding in this passage, and that comma has done more damage to the church than almost any heresy I know. If you grew up on the King James Bible, you heard it read like this: Christ "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Do you hear those commas? Three tidy tasks, all handed to the professionals. The clergy perfect the saints, and the clergy do the work of the ministry, and the clergy build up the body — and you, the saint, you sit in your pew and receive it. But that comma is not in the Greek. Hear the difference. The King James, with its commas, gives the clergy three jobs: they perfect the saints, and they do the ministry, and they build up the body — three tasks, all landing on the professionals, while you sit and receive. But in the Greek there are no three jobs. There is one sentence that moves, and it moves in a single direction, and it turns on two little words. The first is pros — it means toward. Christ gave the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers toward one thing, and one thing only: the equipping of the saints. That is the whole job of the leaders. To equip. And then the sentence hands off to a second word, eis — it means for the purpose of. Equipped for the purpose of the work of ministry. Do you feel the current change? In the King James, the ministry stops at the clergy. In the Greek, the clergy are just the on-ramp — and the ministry flows on, past them, to you. The gifted leaders are not the ministers. They are the equippers. You are the ministers. The staff is not the church. You are. The building on this corner is not the church. You — the living, breathing, gifted, called people of God — you are the church. One little comma turned the whole church into an audience. And Paul, in the Greek, quietly takes it out. And so this morning I have come to preach against a heresy. Not the heresy you're bracing for. Not a heresy about the Trinity: we'll defend the Trinity another day. Not the prosperity gospel, though God knows it deserves a sermon. Not complementarianism, not any of the usual suspects we love to argue about online. No. The most persistent heresy in the American church is quieter and far more comfortable than any of those. It is the heresy of passivity. The heresy of the spectator. The quiet, respectable belief that faith is something you consume rather than something you carry. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a name for it. He called it cheap grace. "Cheap grace," he wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves … grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." It is grace as a service you attend, grace with no summons attached, grace you can sit inside of and never be changed by. Against that heresy, against that comfortable, safe, spectator faith, the whole witness of Scripture rises up and says: no. Look at the word Paul uses for you. "The saints." Hoi hagioi — the holy ones. And here is the good news buried in that word: you are not holy because of the work you do. You will never do enough work to become holy. You are holy because you have been made holy — set apart, washed, claimed — in the redemption of Christ’s cross. Your holiness is not your achievement; it is Christ's gift. Peter says it plainly: you are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." A priesthood — all of you. Not because you earned the collar, but because Christ tore the curtain. So when I call you a saint this morning, I am not flattering you and I am not burdening you. I am telling you your name. The one God already gave you.   Now hear me, because this can start to sound like a guilt trip and it is not. I am not asking you to become something you are not. I am asking you to own what you already are, and to let it be redefined. And I know that word can sting. So many of you have been “redefined” by a system that never asked — restructured, downsized, quietly shown the door. And when that happens, you feel it: lost, cast aside, no longer valuable, waiting for some new role, a new job, a new title to tell you who you are again. I am not going to stand up here and pretend that struggle isn’t real; it is real, and for some of you it is raw right now. But hear me: God’s redefining runs deeper than any of that. It does not wait on a title the world hands out. It names something about you that has already been claimed and honored by God — that you are a minister, that you are a saint, that your one ordinary life is already woven into the holy work of God. That is the kind of redefining that heals. And it invites you to stop living beneath your own name. Because all of this equipping, Paul says, is "for building up the body of Christ." The body of Christ. Stop there with me. Now, I know exactly where your mind just went. The moment a preacher says "the body of Christ," every good churchgoer's brain jumps to the same passage — Paul's other letter, the one about the one body with many parts. You know the scene. Christ is the head, and the rest of us are the assorted body parts, and everyone's having a little argument. The hand turns to the mouth and sniffs, "I don't need you." The foot is sulking in the corner, jealous of the eyes — because eyes sit up there in a place of honor and the foot spends its whole life down in the dirt, in the sock, in the shoe nobody wants to smell. The nose is having an existential crisis about whether it even counts because it's not an eye. It's a wonderful passage, and it's a little bit of a family squabble, and every one of us has been every one of those body parts. Some of us are the eyes on our good days and the foot on our worst. But hold that picture loosely for a second, because I don't want us to stop at the anatomy lesson. What kind of body do you picture when you hear "the body of Christ"? It is not the glorious, weightless body of some ancestral heavenly being, floating serene above our troubles. And it is not merely our own ordinary body, fragile and failing and afraid. When I hear "the body of Christ," I think of the resurrected body. The body that went down into the cruelest, deadliest battle in human history, and came back. The body that conquered death itself. And here is the thing I cannot get past: that resurrected body still carried its wounds. Christ rose, and he rose scarred. He kept the holes in his hands, the wound in his side. But listen, after the resurrection those scars mean something entirely new. They are no longer the receipt of an unjust system that tortured him. They are now the proof that the body survived; and Jesus holds them out to Thomas, the doubter, and says, "Put your finger here. Reach out your hand. Do not doubt, but believe." That is the body we are being built into. A body that carries its wounds without shame, and offers them to the doubting world as the very evidence that love outlasts death. Which brings me to Isaiah, and to the most important thing I will say all morning about how any of us ends up doing the work of God. Isaiah is in the temple, and the whole place shakes with glory, and his first honest response is not "send me." It is despair. "Woe is me! I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." He knows he is not qualified. He knows the people around him are not qualified. And notice what God does not do. God does not say, "You're right, clean yourself up and come back when you're ready." No. One of the seraphs takes a live coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah's mouth and says, "Your guilt has departed; your sin is blotted out." And only then, only after the cleansing, only after the grace, only after he is justified by a fire he did not light, then comes the question: "Whom shall I send?" And now Isaiah can answer: "Here am I. Send me." Do you see the order? The commissioning did not come before the cleansing. Grace came first. You are not sent because you are qualified. You are sent because you have been called. And that means ministry is not a plan to you have to figure out; Ministry is presence. It is a cleansed and willing person saying, "Here I am." That's all. Here I am. So let me talk about our body. About Found

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, August 2, 2026, tenth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are”series. ​​​   Texts: Romans 15:5-7; Luke 19:1-10​​​​   For days now, I’ve been ruminating on what it means to say of Foundry: “No outsiders here…” The clear intent of the phrase is to suggest that no one will be turned away, ignored, left out, or treated as less than. It’s one of Foundry’s corevalues to “make especially sure that people who feel excluded elsewhere are welcomed and invited to be an integral part of our congregation.” As Guy preached so powerfully last week, our biblically-rooted convictions around inclusion, affirmation, equity, and diversity are clear—regardless of the critiques those convictions draw. Our goal is to practice what we preach—to mean it when we say you are welcome here “no matter what.” As I study our texts for today it becomes clear that, to do that, we can’t rely on our banners outside or the words of welcome we repeat at the beginning of every service to carry all our welcome water. We can’t settle for our core values tucked onto a webpage to be the only communication of our commitment to cultivate a certain kind of community. We can’t get so comfortable that we forget what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land, or to forget that souls tend to be shy and that people carry wounds that are often invisible to the eye. To truly advance our goal of radical welcome, we need a more muscular strategy, theologically and biblically grounded, physically embodied, and embedded in the very DNA of our congregation. And our texts provide the guidance we need. The few verses from Romans 15 that were read aloud today are a summary of at least two chapters of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. That community was experiencing deep tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians—driven by disagreements related to Torah observance, holy days, and dietary practices. These issues were flashpoints for deeper questions: Who belongs? Whose interpretation of Torah is correct? What practices are central to our shared life? Paul writes to a diverse people who are all trying to follow Jesus. They have different backgrounds—some began as highly observant Jews and others as pagan Gentiles. But here’s the thing they have in common: they have all been welcomed “προσλαμβάνω (proslambanō)” by Christ. And because of that, Paul teaches, they need to welcome one another in the same way. The question then, is how does Christ welcome people? Our familiar text from Luke 19 helps us answer the question. For those who may not be familiar with the story of the “wee little man,” Zacchaeus, here’s some context. Just before our story Jesus has welcomed children his disciples tried to send away, taught a rich ruler what it would take for him to enter the kin-dom, and showed mercy to a begger at the roadside who asked Jesus to restore his sight. Then Jesus enters the prosperous city of Jericho where his reputation precedes him. People know he is coming by. And Zacchaeus, a rich, chief tax collector wants to see him. Now to be a tax collector in that time and place was to be associated with the exploitation, violence, and ritual impurity of the Roman empire. A “chief” tax collector was at least in middle management—if not the CEO of collusion. All of that to say, Zacchaeus was not popular or trusted, but rather seen by the general public as an enemy and a threat. The crowds must have been shocked when the CEO climbs a tree— high profile, wealthy men didn’t climb trees. Zacchaeus’ willingness to do so suggests something in him was already stirring. Jesus picks up on that and proceeds to invite himself over. The text says, Zacchaeus “hurried down and was happy to welcome Jesus.” The crowds were not so happy. Why is Jesus going in to share table fellowship with this sinner? Because Jesus makes it his habit to welcome and befriend those whom others want nothing to do with. Children, beggars, the ill and disabled, women; and with those others judged as sinners—including rich tax collectors. Jesus puts it this way: “I came to seek out and save the lost.” And based on the whole story of Jesus, the “lost” include both those who inflict harm and those who suffer it. So which category of “lost” is Zacchaeus? In one sense, he’s the one doing harm as he supports an exploitive and unjust regime. But the crowd has also written him off as unworthy of fellowship with Jesus and beyond the possibility of change. Jesus’ action creates an opportunity for transformation—not only for Zacchaeus, but also for those who have decided that he is nothing more than a hopeless sinner. That day salvation comes because everyone is reminded that Zacchaeus is also a son of Abraham, a beloved child of God, worthy of mercy and care, capable of growth and change. Jesus’ welcome is fueled by the love of God: love strong enough to receive each of us as we are, and strong enough to call us toward growth, change, and restored relationship. That means Jesus’ welcome is not a cheap welcome characterized as indiscriminate acceptance and “anything goes.” Nor is it conditional welcome that requires change as the price of admission. It is welcome offered not simply for comfort, but for transformation through God’s embrace and mercy. So back to us, what does it mean for Foundry to say, “no outsiders here?” We rightly celebrate that people who have been excluded elsewhere often discover a home at Foundry. But every church eventually develops its own insiders and outsiders. We instinctively know whom we trust. And, if we’re honest, we instinctively know whom we’ve already decided not to trust. If Jesus were walking through Washington today who would make us grumble if they showed up to see him? Whose house would surprise and disturb us if Jesus said, “That’s where I’m going to dinner.”? Part of the invitation for us is to consider if there are those we really want to remain “outsiders”—if there are limits to our welcome. // That question leads us to something Fr. Greg Boyle says. After decades in Los Angeles accompanying gang members through violence, incarceration, and new beginnings, Fr. Boyle writes: “Human beings…settle for a puny, vindictive God when we are being nudged always closer to this wildly inclusive, larger-than-any life God. We allow our sense of God to atrophy. We settle for the illusion of separation when we are endlessly asked to enter into kinship with all.” Our wildly inclusive God asks us to enter into kinship with all. Even when it’s hard. Through his journey with those whom others fear, judge, or write off as hopeless cases, Fr. Boyle knows something about that kind of kinship. Paul doesn’t ask the diverse members of the church in Rome to agree on every matter of faith and practice, but to learn how to enter into kinship with one another in the manner of Christ. He asks believers to become more committed to welcoming one another than they are to winning every disputed argument. Jesus creates space for people in Jericho to remember that even public enemy #1 is a sibling and a beloved child of God who is not beyond God’s capacity to save AND that they are also the “lost”—the recipients of harm, the grumblers, the judgy ones—who Jesus came to seek out—and who need some saving as well. That is the pattern of Christ’s welcome. And it is the pattern our welcome is meant to follow. Radical welcome—which is Christ’s welcome—is neither cheap welcome nor conditional welcome. At Foundry, everyone is welcome. No matter what. No conditions required. // But no one is welcome to deny someone else’s belovedness. No one is welcome to demean another child of God. No one is welcome to make this community unsafe for those Christ has welcomed. And no one is welcome to declare a person beyond God’s capacity to save while forgetting that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The boundary, then, is not ideology. The boundary is love. And that means radical welcome asks more of us than hanging banners and opening the doors. It asks us to notice who enters and still feels invisible. It asks us to cross the room, learn a name, make space at the table, and remain curious about a life we do not yet understand. It asks us to confront harm when it occurs—not because we have stopped loving the person doing harm, but because love refuses to abandon either the one being wounded or the one whose soul is being diminished by the wounding. It asks us to believe that transformation is possible, even in people we have given up on. And perhaps most difficult of all, it asks us to remain open to our own transformation—to the possibility that Christ may expose the limits of our welcome, unsettle our assumptions, and lead us into kinship with someone we would never have chosen for ourselves. This is the more muscular welcome to which we are called. Not mere politeness. Not tolerance from a safe distance. Not the pride of believing that we are already the welcoming people and everyone else needs to catch up. It is the patient, courageous, embodied work of becoming a community where strangers become neighbors and neighbors become siblings; where those who have been pushed aside are drawn into the center; where harm is named and interrupted; where repentance is possible; and where grace keeps making more of us than we believed we could become. The measure of our welcome is not whether people like us feel comfortable. The measure is whether people unlike us encounter the welcome of Christ through us. That is a demanding call. But it begins not with what we are able to accomplish. It begins with what Christ has already done. Christ has welcomed us. Christ has come looking for us when we were lost. And C

A sermon preached by Guy Cecil with Foundry UMC, July 26, 2026. “We Know Who We Are” series.

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, July 19, 2026. “We Know Who We Are” series.

A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Yongchi Rhie with Foundry United Methodist Church, July 12, 2026. "Sermon Series Part II: The United Methodist Way". Scripture: Exodus 2:15–22; Hebrews 13:1–2   On a hot July day in 2014, I stood in a long line outside the United States Embassy in Seoul. All around me, people were checking their documents, whispering the latest rumors about American immigration policy. Some were praying. Others were quietly rehearsing their lines. When my number was called, I sat down across from a consular officer who read through my papers, jotting notes, pausing on certain pages longer than I would have liked. My pulse rose with every pause. Finally, he looked up and asked, "Ms. Rhie, I see you have just returned home after living in England for quite some time. You already hold a Ph.D. Why do you wish to study theology in the United States?" He had a fair point. What could I say? That after seven years of dissecting the Bible within an inch of its life, I had finally realized what Scripture is for — not an object of intellectual indulgence, but a word meant to be lived out in the lives of people? Should I describe my grief at preaching to empty pews in an increasingly secular Britain, where so many considered the Bible, faith, and God simply no longer relevant? I had to be careful. I had been denied a visa once before, for this very reason. The officer asked about my story, but he seemed to be working from a script of his own, testing whether my story would hold. Every visa interview requires delicate tuning: you must convince them you have real plans for their country while assuring them you have no intention of staying. I truly desire to come to your country! I see abundant opportunity there! Will you let me in? But don't worry — I will never get comfortable enough to call it home. A month later, my passport came back with a visa stamped inside. It declared me a legal alien. That word “alien” always makes me laugh. Ever since I left my home country, I have been a legal alien. And I have learned that it doesn't take green skin, an oversized head, or extraterrestrial powers to be counted an outsider. Sometimes the way I look, the way I speak, or simply the way I carry myself is enough to register as a threat, or at least a discomfort. I could learn the customs of a new land. But would I ever be permitted to call it home? For most of my adult life, I have lived as a stranger in a strange land. A Man With No Country Moses knew that feeling so intimately that he engraved it into his son's name: "She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for he said, 'I have been an alien residing in a foreign land'" (Exodus 2:22). Hey, Moses, did you ask Gershom about this? Did his mother agree? I feel for the boy. Imagine carrying your father's loneliness as your name. Let's step into the story and meet Moses by a well in Midian. His whole life, up to this moment, has been an exercise in not belonging and his very name tells the story. Pharaoh's daughter called him Moses, "because," she said, "I drew him out of the water" (Exod. 2:10). Drawn out: a Hebrew baby lifted from the Nile, out of a death decree, into a palace that was never quite his. Hebrew by blood, Egyptian by upbringing, Moses grows up belonging to neither world. And when he finally goes out to "his people," as the text pointedly calls them in verse 11, everything unravels. He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and strikes the Egyptian down (2:11–12). The next day he tries to reconcile two Hebrews who are fighting, and one of them turns on him: "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Do you hear the wound in that question? Yes, Moses committed a crime the day before; out of anger, perhaps, but also out of compassion for an enslaved kinsman. Today he steps in again, and his own people read his help as a grab for power: the palace insider playing ruler over the enslaved. His act of deliverance is recast as a threat; his sacrifice, as ambition. When word reaches Pharaoh, the king seeks his life. So Moses flees - rejected by Egypt as a criminal, rejected by the Hebrews as a pretender - a man with no country, no people, and a name that only reminds him he was pulled out of one world without ever being planted in another. That is the man who collapses, exhausted, by a well in Midian. What Happens at a Well Now listen closely to how the text tells what happens there, because every detail is doing holy work. Scripture says, "he sat down by a well" (v. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, nothing significant ever happens by accident at a well. Wells are where Abraham's servant found Rebekah, where Jacob met Rachel, where Jesus met a Samaritan woman: places of encounter where God's providence quietly gathers up displaced people and gives them a future. When the original audience heard "Moses sat down by a well," they leaned in. Something is about to begin. Seven daughters of the priest of Midian come to draw water, and rough shepherds drive them away. Hear the Hebrew: the shepherds vayegarshum — they drove them out. It is the very root, garash, from which Moses will later coin the name Gershom, the driven-out one. And here is what astonishes me: Moses inserts himself again. Consider what meddling has already cost this man- his home, his standing, very nearly his life. The prudent thing would be to keep his head down, drink his water, and let Midian's troubles remain Midian's troubles. He owes these women nothing, and no one in this town even knows his name. Yet the one who has been driven out cannot sit still while others are driven out before his eyes. And what does the text say he does? "Moses stood up and saved them" (v. 17) — vayoshian, from yasha, the root that will one day give us the names Joshua and Jesus. Here, at a foreign well, in a single unrewarded act - defending strangers, drawing water for distressed people and their animals - the fugitive rehearses his calling. This is the man through whom God will save a people. Then comes the irony. The daughters run home and report, "An Egyptian delivered us from the shepherds." An Egyptian! Moses is a Hebrew raised in Pharaoh's house, a man belonging fully to neither world, and even his good deed is credited to the wrong identity. Why Bother? And then the young women are gone, and Moses is alone again. No thank-you. No name asked. Not even a drink of fresh water from the well he had just defended. Three times now he has stretched himself for others, and three times his actions went unacknowledged, his words were rebuked, his authority was denied, his very identity was questioned. Sitting in the dust by that well, Moses might well have wondered: Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I just mind my own business? When your act of hospitality is met with silence — or worse, resentment — the temptation whispers: Why bother? I could just live for my own interest, my own comfort, my own happiness. Going the extra mile only makes you tired and pushes you further from your home. Friends, be honest: have you been there? Why do we help others? What is going on inside us when we stretch ourselves for people who may never stretch back? The One Who Noticed But even in the middle of this mess, someone notices Moses. Hearing what happened at the well, Reuel asks his daughters: "Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread." Reuel is a Midianite priest - a foreigner, an outsider to Israel's story —- and yet he is the one who models the hospitality that the daughters, and Egypt, and even Moses' own people had failed to offer. This foreigner does not interrogate the stranger's papers. He sets a table. And at that table, the fugitive becomes family. Moses marries Zipporah and holds a son whose name tells the truth — ger, stranger. It is no accident that the Torah will later command Israel more than thirty times to protect the ger: "You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." We lament the loss of this entire ethic of welcome in today’s world. And notice: it all happened around the well. The well was already there. Before Moses arrived - before he had done anything right, and long after he had done something terribly wrong - the water was waiting. This is the heartbeat of our United Methodist way. John Wesley called it prevenient grace: the grace that goes before us. Before we repent, before we believe, before we even know God's name, God's love is already at work ahead of us, digging wells in the deserts of our lives. Moses thought he was a fugitive stumbling upon a random watering hole. In truth, grace had arrived before him; with a family, a vocation, and, on a nearby mountain, the God who says, "I have observed the misery of my people, and I have come down to deliver them." Two Loves, One Gospel Our second reading today, the letter to the Hebrews gathers this whole story into two luminous verses: "Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." (Hebrews 13:1-2). The Greek translation is even better than the English here, because it names two different loves. Mutual love is philadelphia — the love of brothers and sisters. Anyone from Philly here? Did you know your city's name means the love of kinship? Philadelphia is the affection we give people who are already ours: family, friends, fellow members — the ones who look like us, pray like us, vote like us. That love matters. "Let it continue," Hebrews says. But then comes the harder word: philoxenia. Literally, love of the xenos — the stranger, the outsider, the one who shares nothing with you but a common humanity. Philadelphia loves the person already inside the circle; philoxenia widens the circle. Any club can manage philadelphia. Only the gospel produces philoxenia. And we know the opposite word all too we

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, July 5, 2026, sixth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are”series. Texts: Jeremiah 22:13–16; Luke 14:12–24   This weekend our nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. This is an occasion for celebration. It’s also an invitation to reflection. Moments like this invite us to look backward with gratitude, to look honestly at who we have become, and to consider what kind of future is still possible. This year those reflections seem incredibly important. Ours is a nation of extraordinary gifts and extraordinary contradictions. We inherit remarkable democratic ideals alongside a history that has too often failed to live up to them. We are living through another season when many of us are deeply concerned about our common life. Because our nation is broken. We see division deepen, neighbors dehumanized, militarism, cruelty and violence normalized, power abused for personal gain, and disregard for the rule of law. Perhaps you’d describe our situation differently, but I can’t imagine anyone would argue that everything’s OK. And while it doesn’t make it any better, I think it’s helpful to remember that what’s happening in our nation and world right now has happened many times before. If the prophet Jeremiah were to wander into our capital city he would feel right at home—surely to his dismay. Let me explain by telling you a story. Jeremiah is preaching in the final decades before Jerusalem falls to Babylon. Assyria has collapsed. Egypt and Babylon are competing for power. Judah is caught in the middle. The world order is shifting dramatically and it is a time of profound national anxiety—about security, identity, economic stability, and the future. In our text, Jeremiah is speaking not to the people, but specifically to the king, Jehoiakim. And he’s none too pleased with what is happening. But to understand why you need some backstory. Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, had been one of Judah’s finest kings. He wasn’t perfect, but he loved God, took the covenant and the laws established during Moses’ time seriously, and sought to govern with justice. As Jeremiah remembers him, he “judged the cause of the poor and needy.” Then Josiah died unexpectedly on the battlefield. It was a devastating national loss. The future suddenly felt uncertain. Egypt quickly asserted control over Judah, deposing one of Josiah’s sons and installing another—Eliakim, whose name Pharaoh changed to Jehoiakim (a classic power play). Jehoiakim wasn’t in an enviable position. He was set up to do the bidding of Pharoah, required to pay tribute, and anxious about survival for himself and his people. Maybe it was the pressure or maybe it was pure opportunism, but Jehoiakim made a choice. Rather than “judging the cause of the poor an needy,” he consolidated power, exploited labor, and built a magnificent cedar palace as a symbol of royal prestige. Jeremiah looked at that palace and didn’t celebrate its magnificence but instead says, “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness...” He asked a different question than everyone else. Not, “Isn't it impressive?” but, “How did it get built? Who paid the price? Who was harmed in the process?” And then this: “Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness?” This may seem a random question, but it reveals that Jeremiah’s critique isn’t about having wealth or a comfortable life. In other words, Josiah wasn’t a monk. He enjoyed the ordinary gifts of life. The difference isn’t that one king denied himself while the other indulged himself. The difference is that one understood leadership as doing justice and practicing right relationship, while the other understood leadership as entitlement. One king governed as someone who knew God, while the other governed as though power itself could save him. Jeremiah continues, clarifying his critique: “Your father judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. ‘Is not this to know me?’ says the Lord.  But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.” Again, the question Jeremiah asks it key: “Is not this to know me?” If someone asked you to finish the sentence, “To know God is...” what would you say? To worship regularly? To believe the right things? To pray? I imagine all of those can be valid answers. But Jeremiah offers this: to know God is to set your eyes and your heart on what God cares about; to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable, to use power wisely, generously, and compassionately, to treat workers with fairness, to do justice. Is not this to know me? In every age there is a dominant story about what will make things in your life “well.” There are temptations and pressures to sacrifice the good of the “we” for the benefit of only “me.” And in every age, God’s faithful are called to offer a counter-testimony. And just to finish storytelling time, Jehoiakim made his choice. He went to a lot of trouble to try to make himself and Judah look strong. He builds his palace, projects confidence, accumulates wealth, uses forced labor. But within about twenty years, Jerusalem is destroyed. His dishonest gain and self-serving choices did not make things well. The palace doesn’t save anybody—not the nation and certainly not the people. Jeremiah saw that writing on the wall. And his message to the king is one we need to hear again and again: A society cannot create security—a nation will never be great—while abandoning God’s call to compassion and justice. There is no separating our love of God from care of our common life. John Wesley would agree wholeheartedly. He insisted there is no holiness but social holiness. He didn’t mean that we’re saved by activism. He meant what we discussed last week: that grace blesses me AND creates “we,” forgives me and sends “us.” Ours is not a private practice. Grace always creates community, reshapes relationships, and spills over into the way we use money, exercise power, welcome neighbors, and seek the common good. Personal holiness overflows into public holiness. That’s one of the gifts of being United Methodist. Our tradition has never imagined that following Jesus ends at the sanctuary door. For more than fifty years we’ve had something called the Social Principles—not as a substitute for Scripture or as a party platform, but as a guide for Christian moral discernment. They are our denomination’s attempt to ask, together, “What does faithful discipleship look like in the complexities of modern life?” And in 2024, our worldwide church thoroughly revised them. That revision wasn’t simply updating language. It reflects the wisdom of the faithful from our whole denomination—disciples from Africa, Europe, the Philippines, the United States, and beyond—asking together how the Gospel speaks into economics, creation care, technology, war and peace, migration, human dignity, and public life. The principles guide our action and advocacy, but we don’t pretend every faithful Christian will reach identical conclusions about every public question. We also refuse to pretend that the Gospel has nothing to say about public life. Our United Methodist Social Principles remind us we don’t have to figure all this out alone. We inherit Scripture. We inherit tradition. We inherit the wisdom of Christians around the world. All helping us answer Jeremiah’s question: What does it mean to know God? Jeremiah says that to know God is to care about what and who God cares about. Again and again Jesus shows us how to live that. He sits down at tables with all kinds of people. And in today’ Gospel, while dining with a prominent Pharisee, he quietly begins rearranging everyone’s assumptions about belonging. “Don't invite only the people who can return the favor,” he says. “Invite those who cannot repay you.” Then he tells a story about a banquet where the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. ...the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. The table is big enough. Grace is abundant enough. And everyone—from the richest to the poorest, from stranger to friend—is invited to be filled. And then things are well. As we celebrate our nation’s birthday, the question before us is not simply what kind of nation we want to be, but what kind of people God is calling us to become. Christians have always loved their country best not by confusing it with God’s reign, but by measuring every nation—including our own—against God’s justice, God’s compassion, and God’s welcome. So we keep listening for Jeremiah's question, “Is not this to know me?” And we keep allowing Jesus to reshape our imagination around his table where there is always another place and the invitation keeps reaching farther than anyone expected. Friends, we’re about to come to that table. Every time we gather here, we embody a different story from the one our world tells. The world teaches us to ask: Who deserves a place? Who has earned it? Who belongs? Jesus asks different questions: Who still needs an invitation? How can we make more room? And then he places bread in our hands and sends us back into the world to live the answer. Amen.   + + + Sending: This week, take one faithful public step. Maybe it is serving. Maybe it is giving. Maybe it is speaking up for someone whose voice is overlooked. Maybe it’s inviting someone who wouldn’t expect an invitation. Maybe it is reading a section of the Social Principles and asking where they challenge or deepen your own thinking. Not because the church is trying to tell you what to think, but because discipleship asks us to think faithfully about the world

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, June 28, 2026, fifth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are” series. ​​​ Texts: Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:28-35​​​​   Humans are storytelling creatures. Our stories help us understand who we are and how life works. They teach us how people have lived and thought and loved and struggled through the ages. They give us a framework for how to be in relationship. Humans are also ritual-making creatures. Just as the stories we tell shape our sense of identity and reality, so too rituals shape our actions and the way we embody our values. Every culture has stories that shape human imagination and understanding. Every culture has rituals that shape human desires and loyalties. While powerful, formative, and often positive, we know stories can be told in ways that distort truth and do harm. And rituals can include habits that are unhealthy or destructive to persons or communities. Consumerism tells a certain story and has its rituals. White Christian Nationalism tells a certain story and has its rituals. Political tribes tell their own stories and have their rituals. Social media…well… All these things and more tell us who we are and what matters most. Christians also tell a story and practice rituals—it’s a story of God’s grace, mercy, and liberating love. And the rituals? Water. Bread. Cup. A few weeks ago, as we began focusing on the United Methodist way of living the Christian story, we thought together about the means of grace and the practices that shape us. We reflected on how we are all being formed by something. The question is: What is forming us? What stories, rituals, and practices are shaping our imagination, our desires, and our values? The sacraments are among the primary ways God shapes us into the people we are called to be. And because these rituals are so familiar, it is easy to participate in them without ever stopping to ask what they mean. Why do we call themsacraments? What do United Methodists actually believe is happening when we baptize someone or come to the Lord’s Table? These are important questions to ask. Because if we are going to know who we are, then we need to understand the practices that have formed Christians for centuries and the theology that stands behind them. Let’s begin with the word sacrament itself. United Methodists define a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” In other words, sacraments are the places where the invisible grace of God takes visible form. I could reasonably argue that, with that definition, every act of beauty, love, tenderness, and justice are sacramental acts. But the two liturgical sacraments recognized by our tradition are those Jesus specifically commanded his followers to practice in the stories recorded in scripture: baptism and communion. Here again, our rituals are embedded in our stories and our stories are embedded in our rituals. Stories and rituals belong together. In many cultures, stories are not merely told. They are enacted. Danced. Sung. The story becomes part of the people through repeated actions that connect memory to the body. Christians do something similar. We do not merely tell the story of God’s grace.We enact it. We embody it. In baptism, we tell not just one story, but many: the story of dying and rising with Christ, of being washed by grace and mercy, and of being claimed and named as God’s beloved and part of the Body of Christ. The beauty of sacrament is that it can hold multiple meanings at once. And we don’t simply talk about those things. We pour water. We listen for the sound of the flow. We feel the water on our skin. In communion, we tell the stories of Christ’s sacrificial, self-giving love, of God’s provision and faithfulness; we reaffirm the story of God's mercy—of forgiveness, reconciliation, and belonging. But we do not simply describe those things. We break bread. We share the cup. The story is embedded in these rituals. The rituals carry the story. And over time, the story carried by the ritual shapes the people who practice it. One United Methodist resource describes the sacraments as God’s “show and tell.” I love that image. If you’ve ever watched a child during show and tell, you know that simply describing something isn’t the same as holding it in your hands. God doesn’t simply tell us that grace is real. God shows us. Think about it: God showed us by drawing near in flesh, in Jesus of Nazareth. Andthat is just the most extraordinary way God has revealed a willingness to work through physical things. The God who came to us in a body still meets us through tangible signs: Water. Bread. Cup. So let’s linger with some of the stories our sacraments tell. First, baptism tells the story of grace that comes before our response. In many churches, baptism is understood primarily as a public declaration of faith—as a person’s decision to accept God’s love and to follow Christ. There is truth in that. But United Methodists begin somewhere else. We begin with God’s action. Before we choose God, God chooses us. Before we respond to grace, grace is already at work in our lives. Before we seek God, God is seeking us. That conviction lies behind one of the practices that often raises questions: infant baptism. Why do we baptize babies who cannot yet profess faith for themselves?Because baptism is first and foremost a story about God’s grace, not our achievement. It is a visible reminder that grace comes first. Before a child can speak a word, God has already spoken a word over them: Beloved. Of course, each person must eventually respond to God’s grace for themselves. But regardless of age, baptism reminds us that the first move always belongs to God. Baptism also tells the story of belonging—to God and to one another. In baptism, God claims me. And God joins us. When we baptize someone, we are not simply celebrating an individual spiritual experience or handing someone a ticket to heaven. We are welcoming a new member into the Body of Christ. That is why the congregation makes promises. We promise to nurture, encourage, teach, pray, and journey alongside one another. Baptism tells us who we are—beloved children of God. And baptism tells us who we are together—a people, a community, a body, a family bound together by grace and by a shared story. Baptism also tells the stories of forgiveness and liberation. The waters are a sign of God’s mercy and cleansing, assuring us that nothing we have done or will do lies beyond God’s capacity to forgive, that we are not bound to the worst things in our past or present, but freed for better things in our future. And the waters tell yet another story. Paul tells us in Romans that in baptism we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection. We die to an old way of being.We are raised into new life. Baptism is not simply about where we have been. It is about who we are becoming. It’s about claiming the freedom and power God gives us to live a new kind of life. So baptism is the sacrament that initiates us into the Christian life both as persons and community. And Communion is the sacrament that nourishes us along the wayand continually reconnects us to Christ, to one another, and to our neighbors. We call it the Lord’s Supper because Christ is the host. We call it Holy Communion because we are united with God and one another. We call it Eucharist (from the Greek word for thanksgiving) because it is an act of thanksgiving. But perhaps the most important thing to understand is that communion is more than remembering a dead prophet. It is being present with a living Christ. Certainly, we remember Jesus at the table. But United Methodists believe something more is happening—that communion is more than merely symbolic. We believe Christ is truly present. We call it a holy mystery precisely because we don’t claim to fully understand how. But we trust that Christ meets us here and offers grace through the sacramental meal. Once again, as with Baptism, the sacrament is both personal and communal. At thetable Christ invites, forgives, and nourishes me. At the table Christ forms, nourishes, and sends us. Personally, we come seeking grace, forgiveness, strength, comfort, courage, and renewal. But communion is never merely about “me and Jesus.” Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 10 that because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. At the table we practice belonging to one another. We remember that our lives are bound together. We learn gratitude, humility, reconciliation, and love. The table does not simply feed individuals. It forms a community. This conviction also helps explain why United Methodists practice an open table.You do not have to be a member of this church, or a United Methodist, or to have everything figured out, or even to be baptized. The invitation belongs to Christ our host. And because grace comes before worthiness, Christ’s table remains open. I will never forget the moment when a committed atheist who had been attendingthe congregation I served with her fiancé for more than a year, presented herself in line to receive the elements saying, “I have no idea why I am here, but I just felt that I needed to come.” People might encounter Christ for the first time in the midst of the gathered Body of Christ around the Table. Because sometimes people are moved to respond before they have language for what is happening. Sometimes grace reaches us before we understand it. John Wesley strongly encouraged frequent communion because he believed it was one of God’s most powerful means of grace. Early American Methodists often received communion only quarterly because circuit-riding preachers and ordained elders were scarce. What began as necessity became habit. The church I grew up in still practiced quarterly communion! But

A sermon preached by Rev. Jonathan Brown with Foundry UMC, June 21, 2026. “We Know Who We Are” series.

A sermon preached by Abby Steele with Foundry UMC, June 14, 2026, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost. "We Know Who We Are" series. Texts: 1 Corinthians 13:8-12; Acts 17:10-15   Good morning! Thank you for coming to Youth Sunday. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be here with you all. My name is Abby Steele, and I have been attending Foundry since I was a little kid, and became a member of the church in 2022. I recently graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. For those of you that don't know, TJ is a regional science and technology public magnet school in Northern Virginia. Many students at my school put emphasis on fact and certainty, which has made navigating my life as both a scientist and a devout Christian a bit challenging. However, throughout my time in high school, I have learned a strong lesson as to how these two identities can coexist together, and I would love to share this with you all. When I was around ten years old, my nana and I were sitting in her 2010 Toyota Camry waiting in the kiss-and-ride line to pick up my younger cousin from school. She always believed there is no such thing as being too young for intense philosophical discussion, so that became the topic of conversation during our wait. I told her, "I read The Great Emergence, like you recommended." This book was a challenging read for my ten-year-old self, filled with words too long for me to interpret and sayings too old for me to comprehend. Nevertheless, I read it with determination. Our conversation centered on the trustworthiness of the Bible—something I never could have imagined discussing with my grandmother, who grew up in a conservative Christian household. However, she had experienced a complete religious transformation later in life, which sparked a new tradition of elaborate spiritual car talks.   We discussed our shared struggle to believe certain biblical stories. Together, we came to see many of them as metaphors rather than historical accounts. I wasn't sure whether they were accurate or not, but I began to realize that the purpose of stories was not necessarily the factual evidence they contained, but the lessons they taught. That ordinary Monday afternoon completely changed the trajectory of my religious life. The conversation left me unafraid to be curious. If we can question and interpret God's word, why not view every experience through the same lens? When I look back on that conversation, I think of the passage from Corinthians we just heard. Paul describes the transition from childhood into adulthood, and he reminds us that, for now, our understanding is only partial as we can only see a reflection in a mirror. We do not see the whole picture.   I've often encountered people in religious contexts that really fear doubt and uncertainty. They worry that asking too many questions will make them appear as being unfaithful and disloyal, but the conversations I've had with my grandmother beg to differ. My faith has been profoundly deepened by allowing myself the space to question and decipher every aspect of Christianity and the bible. I've come to understand that Paul is right - we are only capable of seeing a reflection of our reality. But by learning about and accepting multiple interpretations of religious texts and messages rather than turning a blind eye to the parts that we may disagree with or not fully comprehend, we are capable of conjuring a far greater picture and understanding of our faith. Since childhood, I have struggled with my faith in God, the afterlife, and sometimes even science. How can I know something is true without ever seeing it? I couldn't comprehend how anyone could take the Bible, a collection of ancient texts that have undergone numerous translations, and swear their interpretation was the only truth. Similarly, I found it difficult to believe the science I learned in school was entirely accurate. In my neurobiology class, I found myself staring at diagrams of neurons, wondering how we could know that consciousness comes from neural pathways when we're only inferring from electrical patterns.   I came to recognize that belief in something unseen wasn't limited to faith; science asks for it too. The further I studied science and religion, the more openly acknowledged this uncertainty became. One example came from my physics class, where we learned about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle with perfect accuracy. That night, I was led down an internet rabbit hole on the limits of quantum mechanics, driven by my disbelief that academia could acknowledge doubt so openly.   At first, I saw this principle as a reason to distrust science. But with each new article I read, I realized my perspective on this principle actually mirrored how I like to approach religion. Uncertainty isn't a weakness - It's the beginning of understanding. Scientists do not stop asking questions because they are worried about appearing not knowledgeable or unqualified. They keep investigating. They keep learning. They keep seeking truth.   And that reminds me of the passage from Acts we heard this morning. For some context, Acts 17 details the persecution Paul and Silas faced in Thessalonica and their subsequent escape to Berea, where receptive crowds carefully evaluated their teachings. What stands out so significantly to me about the Bereans is that they didn't completely reject Paul's teachings like in Thessalonica, but they didn't simply accept Paul's words at face value either. They examined the Scriptures for themselves. They researched. They investigated. Not just once, but daily to test whether Paul's teachings were correct. They asked questions. And through that process, many came to believe on their own terms.   Their faith was not built on blind acceptance. It was strengthened through curiosity and discovery. I think this is exactly what I had learned with my nana in that car all those years ago. Faith does not forbid us from thinking critically and investigating what we are receiving. God is not threatened by our questions. He accepts them. I first saw uncertainty as something that threatened both science and faith. Now, I see it as something that connects them.   Even though there is vast unknown knowledge in both religion and science, for me, they are tied together by an innate desire to understand and discover the truth, regardless. So whether you're studying for a test, struggling through a difficult season, wrestling with a Bible verse, or praying a prayer that feels unanswered, remember this: We do not need complete certainty to keep moving forward. We can trust God while still asking questions. We can have faith while still seeking understanding. And sometimes the greatest growth happens not when everything is clear, but when we have the courage to step into the unknown. Thank you, and happy Youth Sunday.