Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons Podcast Por Foundry UMC DC arte de portada

Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

De: Foundry UMC DC
Escúchala gratis

Foundry is an historic, progressive United Methodist Church that welcomes all, worships passionately, challenges the status quo, & seeks to transform the world.Copyright 2012 Foundry UMC. All rights reserved. Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • Light Breaks In

    Light Breaks In
    Apr 14 2026
    A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC April 5,2026. “Ignite the Light” series. Easter Sunday. ​​​ ​ Text: Matthew 28:1-10​​​​​ I remember lying on the floor of our living room when I was a child. Not doing anything in particular—just stretched out on the blue shag carpet, near my dad’s chair. And I remember noticing something I had never seen before. There was a beam of light coming through the window…and in it these tiny particles floating, moving, shimmering. Just… dancing. I didn’t have a name for it.It didn’t occur to me that it was dust, or dirt, or anything undesirable. It felt like magic. Like something had always been there—but I had never seen it before. And suddenly, because of the light, I could. The light didn’t create it. It revealed it. It held it before my eyes. And I remember just lying there…watching. And I think about that sometimes—the way light reveals what we couldn’t see before. The way it catches our attention… draws our eye… Think about how light breaks through clouds… through a canopy of trees… How light refracts through water to make rainbows. How light finds its way through windows—or even cracks in walls— sending a beam of light in which you can see dust dance. It’s beautiful. It’s delicate. And yet—it is so powerful. Because light finds its way in. It beckons. It invites. And if you follow it, it will show you more than you expected to see. I think about that moment in The Lord of the Rings when Galadriel gives Frodo a small vial of light and says: “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” A fragile thing. A small thing. And yet—enough to guide him when everything else fails. And it seems to me that Easter—the reality of it, the story of it, the promise of it—is like that gift. But not small. Not contained. Easter is that kind of light magnified beyond measure. Because there are moments in our lives, in the life of a nation, in the life of the world when it feels like all the lights have gone out. When truth feels buried. When cruelty seems to spread like a virus. When violence feels pervasive. When fear and despair run in packs claiming more and more ground. And into that kind of world, Matthew tells us, the light breaks in. And when it does, it’s not only beautiful. It’s disruptive. The earth shakes. An angel descends. A stone is rolled away—not to let Jesus out—but to let the light in. What was sealed is opened. What was guarded is broken through. What was declared final is no longer final, not just for one life, but for life itself. Because Easter is not consolation after tragedy. It is God interrupting the apparent finality of death, empire, and violence—and revealing how empty their power really is. And Matthew tells the story in a way that makes it unmistakable. This is not a private miracle. This is a public reversal. The guards—sent by empire to secure the tomb—become like dead men. And the one who was dead—executed, sealed, silenced—is alive. Those who represent control collapse. The one who was crushed rises. The whole thing turns upside down. And if you’ve been paying attention, you realize—this is how it’s been all along. Herod tries to kill the child. The child lives. The powerful condemn the innocent.Truth refuses to stay buried. Rome executes the Messiah. And God reverses the verdict. Because resurrection is God saying: The systems that declared this death final—were wrong. And then the disruption continues as God entrusts this breaking news to women, to those who were grieving and heartbroken, those whose testimony would not be trusted in the world. These women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary become the first to hear, the first to see, the first to carry the truth that overturns the world.And they leave the tomb—Matthew says—with fear and great joy. Both. Because the world has not suddenly become safe. The empire is still in power. The cross is still fresh. The risk is still real. And yet something has happened that cannot be undone. And so they run. Not because they understand everything, but because they have seen enough light to start moving. And as they go, Jesus meets them. On the road. And he says, “Greetings”—a word that also means: Rejoice. Not as a command to feel something—but as an invitation to step further into what God has done. Because the news they are carrying is not just that the tomb is empty. It is that the light has broken in—and nothing will ever be the same. And Jesus meets them right there on the road to confirm it. To embody it. To send them on. Rejoice. Even now. Even here. And I think about how hard that may be for us to hear. Because the news we encounter most lights up our phones at all hours. It is breaking, urgent, relentless—and almost always…heavy. Another act of violence. Another abuse of power.Another reminder of how much is ...
    Más Menos
    31 m
  • Where the Light Falls

    Where the Light Falls
    Apr 7 2026
    A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, March 29, 2026. “Ignite the Light” series. Palm Sunday. Text: Matthew 21:1-17 Before the tables are turned; before the coins scatter; before the system is exposed…there is a procession. Crowds gather around Jesus, filling the streets as he makes his way into Jerusalem—waving palm branches, spreading their cloaks on the road, shouting “Hosanna!” But this moment does not begin with the crowd. It begins with Jesus. Everything about the way he enters the city is carefully chosen. He comes from the Mount of Olives—and that isn’t a random detail. Because the prophet Zechariah had long promised that when God finally showed up to set things right, God would arrive from that very place. The Mount of Olives was not just a location—it was a signal. And then there’s the donkey. Not a warhorse. Not a chariot. A donkey. Again, Zechariah: “Look, your king is coming to you; humble, and mounted on a donkey.” This is not accidental. Jesus is enacting the prophecy. And the people respond. They start waving palm branches—which, to us, might just feel festive—but to them meant something more. Palm branches were part of the Festival of Booths—Sukkot—a time when the people remembered how God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. They built shelters from the branches and lived in them for a week, remembering what it meant to depend on God in the wilderness. And they waved branches in joy—a sign of hope that God would do it again. So when the crowds wave palms at Jesus, they are recognizing what he is doing. “This is the one who will set us free, the one we can depend on.” And then they take off their cloaks and lay them on the road—a sign that they receive Jesus as king. But here’s the thing. Jesus lets them do all that—and then immediately begins to redefine what kingship means. Because he doesn’t go to the palace. He doesn’t go to seize the seat of government. He goes to the Temple, the center of religious life, economic life, the place where faith and money and power are all tangled together. And that’s where the light falls. Because when Jesus gets there, he doesn’t bless the system. He disrupts it. Tables get flipped. Coins get scattered. “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” he says, “but you have made it a den of robbers.” It’s important to understand this wasn’t just about a few corrupt individuals. The people changing money and selling doves—they weren’t rogue operators. They were the system. Pilgrims had to exchange their currency into Temple currency. Animals had to be purchased for sacrifice. The whole thing was structured, normalized, accepted. It worked. Unless you were poor. Because doves—the ones Jesus specifically names—were the offering of the poor. Which means the system was set up in such a way that even the most vulnerable had to pay into it. And Jesus walks in and shines a light on all of this. Not just on individual behavior—but on the whole arrangement. Because when the light falls…you start to see things differently. What looks like devotion can actually be exploitation. What looks like order can actually be injustice. When the light hits the money, you start to see what’s really going on. And that pattern doesn’t stay in the Temple. It follows Jesus all the way through the week. A disciple slips away and asks, “What will you give me if I betray him?” Thirty pieces of silver. (Mt 26:14-16) And later—after the cross, after the tomb is found empty—more money changes hands. Coins given to soldiers to keep quiet. To bury the truth. To protect the story that those in power want told. (Mt 28:11-15) Again and again in this story—money is used to control, to betray, to silence. And every time, Jesus shines a light on it. And if we’re honest we recognize that these dynamics don’t just live in this old story. Because Lord knows we are still living in a world where money and power are tangled together in ways that distort truth and burden the most vulnerable. We are living in a moment where those who already have extraordinary wealth are given even more advantage—where access and influence can mean getting a heads-up, an inside track, a chance to profit before anyone else even knows what’s coming. We are living in a moment where war is not only a tragedy—it is also an industry. Where violence can drive markets, and suffering becomes someone else’s gain. We are living in a moment where proximity to power—family ties, loyalty, allegiance—can open doors and secure advantage, while others are told to tighten their belts and make do with less. And all of it has consequences—rising costs, disappearing jobs, communities carrying burdens they did not create. And we know this is not new. We have long lived with systems where incarceration becomes profit, where human beings are turned into revenue streams. And we ...
    Más Menos
    31 m
  • Light in the Depths

    Light in the Depths
    Mar 31 2026
    A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC March 22 2026. “Ignite the Light” series. Text: John 11:1-45 It is Women’s History Month. And right now, there are real reminders that the struggle for women’s full dignity—in society and in the church—is not behind us. Legislation like the SAVE Act (being debated this very weekend in the Senate) threatens to create new barriers to voting, not just for women, but most certainly barriers that will disproportionately affect women, especially those whose legal names no longer match their birth certificates. At the same time, there is a growing movement in some corners of Christianity to restrict women from preaching and leadership. And I know this part isn’t abstract. In the clips of my sermons regularly getting posted these days on social media, it’s common to receive comments discrediting anything I say only because I’m a woman saying it. Arguments against women in church leadership are often justified by appeals to scripture—some reflecting the norms of the time, others drawn from how women show up (or don’t) in the Gospel stories. You know the ones: “All the disciples were men!” // Today, our Gospel story has a lot going on in it. Yes, the big reveal is Lazarus coming out of that tomb. But there is so much more: There is a political crisis. A theological crisis. And—if we look closely—a buried story. A buried female story. Because at the heart of this story is a question about who gets to speak the truth about who Jesus is—and what happens when that truth comes from a voice some would rather not hear. John’s Gospel is organized around seven astonishing “signs.” The raising of Lazarus is the seventh. And it is the one that gets Jesus killed. Right after Lazarus is raised, the religious authorities decide: “He must die.” Which makes me wonder—Jesus has healed before. Fed thousands. Turned water into wine. Why is this sign the turning point? To understand that, we look back to the prophet Ezekiel. In chapter 37, he sees a valley of dry bones—an image of a defeated people. God speaks, breath enters them, and they rise. God says, “I will open your graves… and bring you back to your land.” This is not just about individual resurrection. It is about national restoration. Liberation. The defeat of oppression. Now imagine living under brutal Roman occupation. And then hearing about a man who has just… opened a grave. Do you see the connection? This would not just look like a miracle. It would look like Ezekiel’s vision coming true. A sign that God is about to overturn the order of things. And hope—especially hope among the oppressed—is always dangerous. So when the authorities say, “If we let him go on like this… the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation,” they are not being irrational. They’re being realistic. They’re thinking of how to keep the crowds from “poking the bear” of the empire. Because if the crowds start mobilizing around Jesus as the one who will raise Israel from the dead—Rome will respond with violence. Better, they think, for one man to die than for the whole nation to be destroyed. (John 11:50) This is the political crisis. But there is another layer to this story. Another kind of burial. New Testament scholar Elizabeth Schrader Polczer has spent years studying the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospel—especially this chapter. And what she noticed is that in many of the texts, there are signs of disturbance. In more than one of our oldest copies, there are edits—visible ones. Names changed. Words scratched out. Singular turned into plural. In particular, the name Mary appears to have been altered to Martha. And in some places, what was once a single woman becomes “the sisters.” Schrader Polczer’s careful reconstruction of the text from the most ancient copies suggests that Lazarus had one sister—Mary. One sister, not two. Now, that might sound like a technical detail. A scholarly footnote. But stay with me—because this matters. Schrader Polczer’s claim is this: that the Mary in John 11 may actually be Mary Magdalene—and that her role was later divided by introducing Martha into the story. Not invented out of thin air, but imported—brought in, she suggests, from the Gospel of Luke, where a different Mary and her sister Martha (no mention of Lazarus) appear in a completely different story in a completely different place—Galilee in the north, not Bethany near Jerusalem in the south. In Luke 10, this Mary sits at Jesus’ feet as a disciple while Martha is busy serving. It’s a well-known scene. Early scribes would have known it well. And so, over time, it seems possible that this familiar pair—Mary and Martha—was inserted into John 11. And here’s what that does: It takes one central woman, Mary Magdalene, sister of Lazarus, and turns her into two. It diffuses her presence. It redistributes...
    Más Menos
    33 m
Todavía no hay opiniones