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Youth Sunday

Youth Sunday

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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...
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