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Foundry United Rev. |
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The State of the Church: Jesus’ Bottom Line Sunday, November 12,
2006 |
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Luke 10: 25-37 Rev. |
“A
lawyer stood up to test Jesus.” Wouldn’t you know it? The
question the lawyer asked was one lawyers often ask, Jesus, what’s the bottom
line? What must we do to inherit eternal life? The lawyer already knew
the answer: “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as
yourself.” (Luke 10: 28) Love of
God and love of neighbor…it is Jesus’ bottom line. It was John Wesley’s
bottom line when he founded the Methodist movement…his golden text. Love of
God and neighbor. This
morning I want to take a look at the state of Here
are a few celebrations: First: Love
of God. In 2006 we have beautified our sanctuary and made Foundry a more worshipful,
a healthier and safer place. There
is a historic tension in the life of this congregation which pits the
building and mission against each other. Luise
Gray, who died just a week and a half ago, was chair of the church board in
1984, and the meetings were, I understand, stormy. The argument was that we
should not be spending money on our building which benefits ourselves but on
mission which benefits others. This
tension has been part of our life ever since, and, as Charlie Berardesco, our
Council Chair, says, “It is a good tension, part of what makes Foundry
unique.” But we
have not spent the money we needed to spend to take care of our building. Alan
Zabel tells me, for example, that all the heating/air conditioning valves in
this building, when they broke over the years, not one was replaced, but they
were simply frozen in the open position. Not a single one was ever replaced.
It is one reason the heating and cooling in this building is so difficult to
control and so very inefficient, Alan tells me. And this is only the tip of
all the things we’ve chosen not to fix since 1984. I
relish this church’s commitment to mission. I relish it. But, of course, we should
not have been paying for mission by deferring the maintenance of our
building. So I am
greatly appreciative for all of those who participated in the capital
campaign 5 or 6 years ago that paid for some of the work we have done on the
building this year. I am grateful to the Trustees, Building Committee,
Finance Committee, and Church Council who made very difficult decisions this
year to spend money we needed to spend to make our building more accessible
and safer. And I
am grateful that our proposed 2007 budget includes more resources for
building maintenance. I am grateful that our leaders are facing all the additional
work that will need to be done in this building to make and keep it a safe,
healthful, and beautiful place to work, study, worship and serve. I was
appointed to my first church as pastor 38 years ago, and in those 38 years I
have learned this about church buildings – pay now or pay later. Pay now or
pay MORE later. So it is good we are paying now. Second:
Love of God and neighbor. We are planning. This is very exciting. We are in
the second phase of a three-phase planning/self-study process asking three
questions: Who are we? Who is our neighbor? And what is God calling us to do?
And then we will address a fourth question: How do we need to be organized to
do what God is calling us to do. I am
grateful for the various study groups who have done this work so far, and to
all of you who have participated in study/listening sessions. Loving
God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind includes being intentional
in our planning for ministry. I
believe we will need to be open to new structures and new ways of organizing
ourselves. Each year the Lay Leadership Committee nominates 200 people to
fill 200 offices. They do a great job but I believe we need to figure out how
we can free you up, support you, and empower you to do the ministry and mission
God is leading you to do rather than recruit you to fill offices. So I am
excited about Thirdly:
Love of neighbor. What you – This
past year and a half has seen the birth of a new ministry with our neighbors
that is as exciting as any ministry any church is doing anywhere. It
started with our minister of mission Eventually
some of the day-laborers began meeting with some of our volunteers here in Helen
Harris Parlor on Thursday evenings to ask how their lives might become
better. Eventually they invited others, like the Mayor’s Office for Latino
Affairs, the Employment Justice Center, the Columbia Heights Shaw
Collaborative to meet with them, and the Union de Trabajadores of Washington
DC was born in Helen Harris parlor, under the watchful eyes of Helen Harris’ and
Lucy Hayes’ portraits. The workers have now incorporated, held a membership
drive, and have registered over 100 workers. Our
relationship with the day laborers at 15th and P brought us into
relationship with the day laborers at Home Depot. Jana and our volunteers
have done great work facilitating dialog between the workers, business
owners, and the community. The ministry has also developed health and legal
components. Yadira has helped workers sign up for the Our relationship with the day laborers at 15th
and P then led to us becoming involved in efforts in seeking justice for
immigrants. It was wonderful to see members of Foundry, like Jane
Northern and TC Morrow, walking alongside our worker friends in immigration
marches this year. All this also led to the rebirth of our
English-As-A-Second Language mission. Jana
asked me to be sure to tell you that the ministry is not perfect. It is a
ministry of building the bridge while you walk on it. I am grateful to everyone
who has pioneered this ministry. It is an amazing example of love for God and
love for neighbor. It is as exciting as any ministry any church is doing
anywhere. *** There
is much more I could say about 2006. In 2006, after months of study, our
Council made a very difficult and painful decision to discontinue our I am very grateful that our CDC cots and other
materials have been shipped to a United Methodist-related day care center in We have
continued to wrestle with our denomination, and to pull our hair out about
denominational policies that discriminate against gay and lesbian people. I
am appreciative of the leadership that Foundry continues to provide in this
area. We are committed to the full and equal inclusion of gay and lesbian
persons in the life of the church, not just at Foundry, but throughout United
Methodism. I am
grateful for the growing presence of children and youth in our church’s life
and for all those who work with children and youth. I am grateful for those
who sing, for those who teach, for those who serve on committees, for those
who evangelize, for those who lead fellowship groups, and for our competent, caring
and committed staff. I want
to say a word about three specific ways I believe we are being led to love
God and neighbor in 2007. First: Love
of God and neighbor: I am asking our Church Council to lead us in a process
of addressing the question of same-sex unions here at Foundry. We are part of
a denomination I love, but which has been wrong in the past –wrong on race
and wrong on the ordination of women, and it is wrong again. Currently our
denomination has a rule which says: “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual
unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in
our churches.”[i]
A study
group has been considering options about the next steps of how to handle this
prohibition. While the decision to do a wedding or not is ultimately the
decision of clergy, Dee and I do not want to move without a sense of your support. So we
are asking the Council and the entire congregation to deliberate with us
about this issue. I do want to say this: My conscience will not allow me to
continue indefinitely to not celebrate the love of gay and lesbian partners
who want their church’s blessing. Something has to happen. Second:
Love of God and neighbor: We need to reflect more of the glory of the
diversity of the humanity God has created. We need to become more global. We’d
like our worship to become more global. Eileen is committed to this. One of
her goals is to include music from non-European cultures in almost every
worship service in 2007. I’ve said to her, why not every worship service? Why
not? We want
everyone who walks through these days to see some of their culture in our shared
worship. No one does global music better than Eileen, and I hope we all
support her as she leads us even more deeply into a multi-cultural experience
of worship and music. Our
staff needs to be more global and diverse. Our Staff Parish Relations
Committee is determined to create and fill a new Racial-Ethnic Minority
Fellowship and we are asking council to create an issues working group to
help us build a staff and congregation that reflects the cultural and racial
richness of God’s good creation. The
third big way of loving God and neighbor in 2007 is this: We used
our new ramp that we are going to dedicate today for the first time this past
Friday for the Concert for Life. Nancy Blasdel, who has been attending But let
me say this: There are barriers of all kinds that the We can
be the church that breaks down every barrier between people and Christ. I am
convinced that we are living in a time of Our
staff is working hard to develop plans and goals to strengthen our making and
growing disciples of Jesus Christ. We want to increase our worship attendance
by 5 percent in 2007, to increase the number of new members by 5 percent in
2007, and to increase the numbers of those of us actively engaged in ministry
and mission by 5 percent in 2007. Each staff member has developed 4 to 6
goals that will help accomplish this. We want
to help you go deeper spiritually. We want to invite others into the
adventure of being disciples of Jesus Christ. We
can’t love neighbors we exclude or ignore or don’t make feel welcomed or open
our hearts to. We can’t love neighbors when we walk by on the other side of
the street. Let’s
let God break every barrier down in our hearts, in our church, in our world. Let’s
go deeper, let’s build ramps in our souls in 2007. www.foundryumc.org |
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