Skip to content
First United Methodist Church Schenectady
  • Lenten Photo Show
  • About Us
    • Meet the Pastor
    • Committees
    • Contact Us
    • Calendar
    • Our Building
    • The Pipe Organ
    • FAQs
    • Wedding Guidelines
  • Worship
    • Sermons
    • Online Worship
  • Ministries
    • Music Ministries
    • Children’s Ministries
    • Volunteer In Mission
    • Carl Lecture Series
  • Give Back
    • Electronic Giving
  • Events
    • Family Faith Formation
Uncategorized

“Love” based on Genesis 17:15-22 and Luke 1:39-45

  • December 4, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I’ve
always loved this little interlude in Luke 1, when Mary goes to visit
Elizabeth.  I recognize it to be an early Christian creation, aimed
at connecting John the Baptist and Jesus, while putting them in their
correct order, but there were lots of ways that could have been done
and I appreciate this one.

Now,
I’ve always thought of it as … sweet, nurturing, maternal.
Elizabeth is OLD, a la Sarah, but pregnant, and it is astounding and
wonderful, and it seems Elizabeth has waited a life time for this.
From within the story, it seems likely that Mary was struggling, was
sent away for her pregnancy so people at home wouldn’t know, and was
sent to an older cousin who could be trusted to keep her safe.  Maybe
even one known to be a little less judgmental than others.  Or
perhaps just one known to be able to feed another mouth.  Who knows??

But
I love this idea of this older pregnant woman and this younger
pregnant woman spending months side by side, experiencing new things
in their bodies, developing a deeper trust, maybe even discussing
what God was up to around them.  It has ended up being a model for me
of the value of retreat, the value of mentors, the value of
connections with others who can hold me up when I’m vulnerable.

I
love this story.

This
week I learned that I’ve missed the majority of it’s power.  I need
to give some context warnings here about violence, murder, and sexual
violence.  It is always OK to leave, and stop listening when it isn’t
OK to hear.

Elizabeth
speaks a blessing to Mary, it is particularly familiar to those who
have prayed The Hail Mary, which says:

Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the
Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and
blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of
God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our
death. 
Amen.

Elizabeth’s
words are, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the
fruit of your womb…” (Those are the ones picked up verbatim
in The Hail Mary) “From where does this visit come to me?  That the
mother of my sovereign comes to me?  Look!  As soon as I heard the
sound of your greeting in my ear, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Now blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of
these things spoken to her by the Holy One.”

As
Dr. Wilda Gafney says, “Elizabeth’s greeting comes from scriptures
she well could have known: Judges 5:24 and Judith 13:18.  They invite
speculation on her contact with them orally or in writing…
Elizabeth’s proximity to the temple and its liturgies and her own
priestly lineage may have increased the likelihood of her literacy.”1
So, like you do, I looked up Judges 5:24 and Judith 13:18.  They may
not be what you’d expect.  

The
Judges passage, in context is:

Most blessed of women be
Jael,
   the wife of Heber the Kenite,
   of
tent-dwelling women most blessed.
He asked water and she gave him
milk,
   she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.

She put her hand to the
tent-peg
   and her right hand to the workmen’s
mallet;
she struck Sisera a blow,
   she crushed
his head,
   she shattered and pierced his temple.

He sank, he fell,
   he lay still at her
feet;
at her feet he sank, he fell;
   where he
sank, there he fell dead.

Judith
13:18 is more similar than you might think, “Then Uzziah said to
her, ’O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all
other women on earth, and blessed by the Lord God, who created
the heavens and the earth, who has guided you to cut off the head of
the leader of our enemies.”

This
is… not as cozy as I was thinking.  And, I’m thinking for lots of
you, these are not familiar stories and you might not have any idea
whatsoever is going on with the Bible celebrating murder.

So,
let’s at the very least make ourselves  a little bit familiar with
the stories of these women to whom Mary is being compared.  First
Jael, from the book of Judges.  The book of Judges tells some of the
pre-history of the Ancient Nation of Israel, describing a 400 year
period when the tribes mostly functioned on their own, and when there
were outsider attacks, God raised up leaders – called Judges – to
fight them off and protect the people.  One such judge was a woman
named Deborah, and she worked with a general named Barak when an
attack came from the Canaanites led by their general Sisera.  Deborah
is called a prophetess as well as a judge, and is presented as
capable and impressive.

Her
general Barak is scared because the Sisera and the Canaanites have
more impressive weapons than they do, so he asks Deborah to come with
him into the battle, believing that God would help keep HER safe and
thus keep him safe.  Deborah responds that she’ll go, AND that while
he will “win” the glory will not go to him, but to a woman.

So,
the battle happens, the Israelites win, the Canaanites run away, and
the general is running off on his own trying to save his own life.
He come to the tents of the Kenites, likely a metal working or
artisan tribe with neutrality to both parties, particularly the tent
of Heber the Kenite, who is gone, and Jael the Kenite who is present.
Jael invites him in, makes him comfortable, gives him milk, stands
guard while he goes to sleep, and then drives a tent stake into his
head to kill him.  When the General Barak comes after him, Jael shows
Barak Sisera’s body.

And
then Deborah and Barak sing a song of praise for the winning of the
battle and Jael’s part in it – which is where we get our verses
from Judges.

So,
Judith.  I suspect you are even less likely to know her story, as the
book of Judith is considered part of the Apocrypha (that is,
Protestants don’t consider it part of the Bible).  It is a novel,
written a century or two before Jesus, telling the story of Judith
who saves her village from the Assyrian General Holofernes.  It is a
pretty good story, and I’m a little bit sorry to give you spoilers,
but my goal is to explain Elizabeth and Mary, so shrug.  The
General was attacking Judith’s home town, and the Jews there had
brokered a 5 day peace plan, but the council was hemming and hawing
about what to do, so Judith took things into her own hands.  She does
a lot of praying and asking for God’s help, and she dresses up
beautifully, lies to the army to say she is fleeing to the enemy army
for safety, makes it plain to the General that she is game for
seduction, and then when he seeks to do so, plies him with enough
alcohol that he passes out drunk, beheads him with his own sword,
steals his head, goes off with her maid to pray, and instead of
returning to the war camp, goes back to her village to tell them
she’d solved their problem.  The town magistrate then speaks the
words we heard earlier, praising her and naming her as having
followed God’s guidance.

Now,
we need to take this one more step, back to Dr. Gafney for an
explanation of Elizabeth’s words, “Both forerunners of this
greeting are associated with bloody violence: Deborah’s war against
the Canaanites and Jael’s execution of Sisera, and an Assyrian siege
and Judith’s execution of Holofernes.  Further, both Judith and Jael
are in sexually scandalous situations: attempted rape and assignation
and seduction.  Mary’s own pregnancy is scandalous, hinting at sexual
infidelity.  Elizabeth’s words provide transgenerational support and
comfort.”

That
is, if you were wondering why Jael would have murdered Sisera when
her people were at peace with him, the assumption underlying the
story is that he had or would attempt to rape her.  Deborah ends up
celebrating that she didn’t end up having to seduce the general, but
is is CLEAR that she was going to do what needed to be done to save
her people.

These
women were fierce, to say the least.  They were deadly.  And, at the
same time, they were vulnerable.  Jael was alone her in tent.
Deborah’s people were all at risk of death, and her actions to save
them put her at great risk – and alone in the general’s tent as
well.  These women were praised as being “most blessed of women”
and “you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on
earth.” And they too had scandals.  It is as if the scandals don’t
make them less worthy of the praise they received.

It
is as if what happened to Mary need not define her life either.  It
is as if whatever the world may be saying about Mary, even if her
life is at risk because of the interpretation of infidelity, she is
being connected to some of the fiercest, most active women in the
Bible in protecting God’s people.  It is as if Elizabeth is seeing
her scandal, and giving her a new way to see it.  It is as if
Elizabeth’s words wipe away Mary’s shame and give her a new frame of
reference, one that has been repeated millions of times in history,
praising Mary, and her role in God’s plans.

Friends,
in a world that defines people by their scandals, a world that locks
people up for their worst moments (or presumed worst moments), a
world that cuts people of for mistakes, a world that remembers even
misspoken words – let us be Elizabeths.  Let us see, and have the
power to reframe the shame people hold.  Let us wipe away shame to
make room for love.  Let us see the whole person, even the hero, in
the broken one.  Let us remember the stories of the HUMANITY of God’s
people in the Bible, and make space for HUMANITY in each other and in
ourselves.  Let us be Elizabeths, wiping away shame to make space for
love.  Amen

1Wilda
Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church
(New York, NY: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2021), page 7.

December 4, 2022

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Uncategorized

“Hope” based on Genesis 16:7-13 and Luke 1:26-38

  • November 27, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

This Advent
starts with annunciations – announcements to two women of what life
they are bringing forth into the world.  These are told as God’s
mighty acts, the ways God impacts the world through these women and
their sons.  They set up the anticipation of Advent  – a knowing of
what is coming, an awareness that it is not here yet, and some rather
significant worries about the journey from here to there.  

The
two stories today are united not only by the announcements they
contain, nor the scared young women, nor the extraordinary sons they
will have.  In a way we might not have noticed before, the stories
are united by slavery.

Hagar
IS enslaved.  Mary’s response to God, once it is translated without
attempting to soften it, is  “Here am I, the woman-slave of God;
let it be with me according to your word.”
This response reminds me that Mary was a vulnerable girl, one who was
responding to the STATEMENT (not question or request) from a Powerful
God of what would happen to her.  

Does Mary respond, “I have no
power here, so do what you wish”? Or “I am willing?”  Would it
matter?  The messenger had told her what would be, not asked her if
she was willing.  The response that says, “I am a woman-slave of
God” could be humility and respect, or a desire not to be killed
for disagreeing.  Mary is written into a no win situation.  To say no
to God, when a direct messenger is sent, is known to be a bad idea.
(Yet, many of us do it regularly with only continued nagging to pay
for it… so, there is that.)  To agree to a pregnancy while engaged
and not sleeping with one’s fiance is to become eligible for stoning.
It would be proof of adultery.  

Mary’s response says she is
God’s slave.  Hagar’s life is one of a slave.  These are not the same
thing, but the connection between should be unsettling.  

Hagar
is enslaved.  She is enslaved and endures both physical and sexual
violence.  Before our story begins, she runs away into the
wilderness, which means she was deciding to die rather than endure
more.  Yet, in the wilderness, by spring of water which meant life
could continue, Hagar had an encounter with the Divine.  (She is the
first woman to do so, also the first woman to be told directly she
will bear a child…. one of only three.)  She is addressed, by name,
by the Holy Messenger.  She is told what will happen.

And,
she is told to return to the violence she had run from.  Further,
she is told that the
violence she experiences will become the legacy of the child she
bears, who will struggle against those he will call kin, as well
those who come after him.  (This is an ancestor story, where the
ancestors serve as symbols for the people who claim their names.)
Then Hagar NAMES God, which is a HUGE deal, and calls God, “The God
who sees me.”   Ishmael’s name mean’s God hears.

These indicate a powerful
blessing experience.  These indicate she took hope from this
encounter.  She feels seen, and heard.  Now, of course, an experience
of the Divine IS a blessing, and would be one that she couldn’t have
expected.  EVEN THOUGH she gets sent back to slavery, back to
violence, back to abuse, Hagar calls God, “God who sees me” and
calls her son, “God hears.”

Phew.

I find myself wishing God had
changed things for her, not just sent her back to the same situation
as a slave, experiencing violence.  Yet, I cannot dismiss the power
of her experience.  It wasn’t perfect, it didn’t end with happily
ever after.  Oppression, even, continued.  And, for Hagar, there was
hope.  

But, hope is sturdier than
perfection.  Hope is grounded.  Hope is real and faces the world as
it is.  Hope doesn’t require fairy tale endings, it means us where we
are.  

This is good, because if only
people who know no oppression can have hope, few people could.

Hagar’s story isn’t particularly
unique.  Many people have been enslaved in human history, including
to this day.  Many people have experienced sexual violence.  Many
people have been forced into marriages where sex is expected, but not
truly consented to.  I fear that most women in history can identify
with Hagar.

And yet, there has been hope.

Hagar’s pregnancy was
complicated.  I think maybe Mary’s was too.  And, the Bible says,
their pregnancies changed the world for the better.  We needed
Ishmael.  We needed Jesus.  We needed them raised by their mothers,
who had particular wisdom, particular faith, particular experiences
of the Divine, particular gifts.

This idea of a complicated
pregnancies, ones that threatened the life and well-being of the
mother, ones that changed the course of history, THESE are stories of
Advent.

These are stories of things NOT
being as they should be.

These are stories of waiting for
God to act to make things better.

Hagar felt blessed by her
encounter.  A miracle here is that the people who wrote the book
understood themselves to be Issac’s descendants, but they wrote the
story of Ishmael’s mother.  And they admitted the wrong done to her.
And they thought of her as blessed.  And they perceived in her
experiences of God, EVEN THOUGH they thought of her descendants as
their enemies.  That has a sense of the hand of God in the telling of
the stories to me.  That’s not generally how we tell the stories, the
way the victor’s narrative reigns.

Whatever Mary’s experience of
her pregnancy was, I still believe that the life and faith of Jesus
were formed by his family, and his mother.  And somewhere along the
line I do believe she had profound experiences of God, and was able
to teach them to her son.

Hagar and Mary were people with
limited choices.  These women were on the margins, their sons were on
the margins, but their sons ALSO cared for others on the margins and
in doing so changed human history.  Even encounters with God didn’t
make everything better.  But being HEARD, being SEEN, being CHOSEN,
mattered.  It gave them hope.  It gave them meaning.  It gave them
strength.  

And, I believe, it gave their
sons compassion.  And I note, as well, the power of being heard,
seen, and loved.

That’s another of those weird
things about real hope.  It can take the hard, the horrible, the
ugly, the painful, even the traumatic, and work with it.  Real hope
doesn’t require a pristine, hygienic, sterile environment.  It meets
us where we are, just like God.  And it works from here.  

Hagar being enslaved was not OK.
It has never been OK for any human who was enslaved. And, those who
have lived as enslaved people still had hope.  They had hope for the
end of slavery. They had hope things wouldn’t always be that way.  

Some had hope of escape.  Some
had hope of little moments of connection or compassion with others.
Many had hope in God, the one who never stops caring no matter how
hard things get.

And, changes are pretty high the
mother of Jesus didn’t get pregnant after choosing her marital
partner, experiencing desire, and consenting to intercourse.  This,
too, is not OK.  And, this too happened to many, many, many women.
It continues to happen.  It is not OK.  But it isn’t the end of hope.

I
am now preaching after the most recent attack on the LGBTQIA+
community in the form of a gunman attacking Club Q in Colorado
Springs.  The attack was less deadly than it might have been because
of the actions of a vet and a drag queen, who took down the gunman.
Thank God they stopped him.  And yet 5 people are dead, 19 are
injured, and once again the safety and sanctity of the club has been
violated.  Trauma abounds.  Grief abounds.  The sickening reality of
the danger of being queer or trans is affirmed.  The still present
horrors from the similar attack on Pulse Nightclub are resurgent.

And I wonder about this sticky,
sturdy, real hope I’m talking about.  What does it even look like?
Is this a hope that someday our children will be able to dance in
peace?   Is this a hope that maybe one person who might commit
violence like that could receive love in ways that prevent it?  Is it
a hope that reasonable gun laws might make these shootings harder
accomplish?  

Cause I still want hope to look
perfect.  I want it to be that there is NO more violence against
queer and trans people ever again.  I want an end to gun violence,
and an end to violence.  I want clubs to thump and throb with music,
never again interrupted by gun fire.  I want veterans to come home
without PTSD, and not need to position themselves to see exits, and
not be needed to stop shooters.  Ok, I want there to be no need for
veterans.

And, I’m struck by both God and
hope being more willing to be in this reality than I am.  To know the
brokenness we live in, and not give up.  To see how hard things are,
to see how interconnected the struggles are, and not be overcome.  To
know the grief, the heartache, the violation, the trauma, and not let
it be the only or the final word.

Our God is a God who sees.

A God who hears.

And a God of hope.  

God calls us from this world of
violence into the kindom of peace.  God gives us gifts of peace, love, joy, and hope.
God calls us to be peace-makers, love-sharers, joy-spreaders,
hope-increasers.  May we receive and act on God’s call.  May this
Advent be a time of quiet transformation so that what God is growing
us may soon break forth.  Amen

November 27, 2022

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Uncategorized

“Rejoice” based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Philippians 4:4-9

  • November 20, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I think gratitude is one of the
most important parts of our spiritual lives.  I’ve experienced this,
AND I’ve seen the research, and I love it when both are true.

The challenge is, I’m not sure
what I have to say about gratitude that is new, and I’m rather afraid
of being trite.   This tends to be my problem when I encounter
scriptures I rather agree with, rather than ones I can have a good
debate with.  But, I’ve found time and time again that a conversation
with scriptures can take me to unexpected places, so let’s see where
they lead today.

We can start with Philippians.
With that lovely repetition to “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I
will say, Rejoice.” (4:4)  I am always moved by the people I meet
who are living out this commandment. The ones attending to the good
God is doing, and speaking it with joy.  The ones focused on joy, and
rejoicing, and celebrating God’s goodness.  

I also love the next line,
inviting people to “let your gentleness be known.”  That sounds
like the highest of callings, to be known by gentleness.  I have
known some people to whom that description would apply, and it is a
gift simply to be in their presence.  Their very self-hood changes
the world around them for the better.

But then we get to “don’t
worry, trust God.”  And while it is very good advice, it is very
difficult to apply.  Especially because the world isn’t fair.  But
then again, those who I’ve known who live this are often the ones
with the least amount of worldly goods, who say they trust God
because God has provided.  So, maybe I don’t actually know that much
about this, and I simply have a lot to learn.

Then, focus on the good.  This
is the one that meets me where I am right now. This is the one
that calls for my attention, my reflection, my sharing.  So, here we
are and here we are going to stay.  In Paul’s words, “Finally,
beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if
there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.” (4:8)

Maybe it is because of the work
I do, but it often occurs to me that the resource I spend the most
time managing is my attention.  This isn’t just about if I give my
attention to the good stuff or the hard stuff.

The daily questions start with:
Do I respond first to this email, or that one?  To email or phone
calls?  To texts or facebook messenger?  Do I end this conversation
because I have a meeting, or do I make space for this because it is
more important?  When do I know I’ve found the right poem, or hymn,
or sermon example and it is time to move on, or maybe it isn’t good
enough yet and I could keep searching.  Which book should I read
next?  Do I have time to read?  Should I go visiting?  Which
committee asked me which thing to follow up on?  Which one of those
things needs the most immediate response?  Which one of those things
will take the most preparation?  Is reading the news important so I
know what is going on, or is it a distraction to what is REALLY going
on with God and God’s people?  Do all of the staff have what they
need from me to do their jobs well?  Is it OK to just sit and be with
God before I try to balance any of these things?

(If you found that list
overwhelming, please note that it applies ONLY to my work life, and
doesn’t even touch on other parts of my life.  Also, if you found
that overwhelming, I’d appreciate knowing how you make such
decisions, cause it sounds like you may have wisdom I need.)

That last question about
sitting with God and just being before I try any of the things,
that’s the key one for me.  I’ve known since my early twenties
that I’m at my best when I get quiet time with God, but I’ve
struggled to allow myself to have the thing I need when other things
also clamor for my time and attention.  Someone recently asked me,
“if I already know what I need in order to be the best pastor and
person I can be, why am I not doing it?”  And in the question,  I
was thus reminded that connecting with God, and being centered, is
the thing that makes all the rest of what I do valuable, and it is in
EVERYONE’S best interest for me  to nurture my connection with the
Holy and to have space to hear my own wisdom (even when the wisdom is
hidden under my fears.)

So, I’ve been doing it.  Not
perfectly, but waaaayyyy more.  Sometimes I still feel guilty.
Because I could be using my time and attention for so many other
things!  But, I’m pushing through the guilt.

And the results have been
interesting.  Mostly because my capacity to see the beauty of the
world, the wonder of people, and the mysterious goodness at hand has
changed.  Being quiet in the morning (most mornings), softens me.  It
slows me down.  And it makes things easier.  I’m get hurt less
easily.  I have empathy closer at hand.  I can see details and the
big picture, at the same time, with more ease.  I’m just less
overwhelmed.

But the best part is being able
to see wonder again.  I’m awed by text messages from people, because
they so often contain wisdom and I’m able to be thankful.  The other
day – please don’t judge – I saw a dust particle floating in a
stream of sunshine and it was beautiful, and I had ENTIRELY forgotten
that dust can be awe inspiring and beautiful.  I’m a little more
flexible (don’t expect immediate miracles people), which makes
everything flow easier in … well, parenting, and being a partner,
and in being a pastor.  

image

For me, the key to being able to
bring my attention to “whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is
commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything
worthy of praise” isn’t in just trying harder to focus on
the good things.  For me, at least, the way to bring my attention to
the good is to attend to what I need to be whole, and then the rest
flows.

Now, some of you are great at
letting yourselves have the things you need.  I commend you, and
apologize for this mostly useless sermon as far as you are concerned.
However, for a wide range of reasons (including “capitalism”) a
whole lot of us aren’t great at letting ourselves have what we need.
Sometimes there are external factors that make it hard (or
impossible.)  But often, there are  internal ones.  I can tell you
that I believe God wants you to have your needs met.  I can tell you
that if you stop fighting what you need as too much, or too selfish,
or unreasonable, or … whatever you tell yourself… that other
goodness flows from letting yourself get what you need.

Now, I continue to believe I’m
likely not alone in needing quiet time with God, but I also think
that my need is a little different than other people’s.  This week I
was given the gift of a GREAT descriptor of this church as a group of
people who love kinetic prayer.  That is, many of us around here NEED
to give back.  Some people NEED to hear gorgeous music and just feel
the wonder of it in their bodies.  Some people NEED to move in nature
or their souls start to shrivel up.  Some people NEED connections
with others, regularly.  (I think we all do, but more so for
extroverts.) Some people NEED to create.  I can’t tell you what you
need, but I suspect you already know.  

The key is to let God help you
whittle away at the internal barriers to allowing yourself to
prioritize what you need.  

So, a quick hot take on
Deuteronomy.  This is the story of God giving the people what they
need.  Land to work, food to eat, homes to settle into.  And the
people give back to God of what they have.  That is, they RECIEVE the
gifts of God, and they give back from what they have RECIEVED.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe it’s
just me, and if so I’m sorry for wasting your time but I’m really
happy for you.  That is, maybe I’m the only one still struggling to
receive God’s good gifts, and let myself have what I need.  If not
though.  If you still struggle too, may this be a moment of
assurance.  We have to receive what God gives us before we do
anything else with it.  It is hard, TRUST ME I KNOW, but God wants
goodness for you.

Please don’t stand in God’s way.

And when you let God’s good
gifts fill you up, the gratitude comes on its own.  And it is
amazing.  May you see it too.  Amen

November 20, 2022

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Uncategorized

“God’s Responses to Despair” based on Isaiah 65:17-25 and…

  • November 13, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

The people that walked in darkness have seen a light….
but it is discolored and a little murky.

I think that’s a fair
summary of what the “return” from the exile was actually like.
When Jerusalem was defeated in 587/586 BCE, the city gates were
ripped down, the Temple was destroyed, there was massive death and
destruction, and the remaining leaders, priests, and scribes were
force march to Babylon. The exile. During the time of the exile we
hear emerging stories of great pain and lament, AND prophecies of
great hope in and care of God. The exile and the period right after
it are also the time when the Hebrew Bible started to be written
down.

In 538 BCE those in exile were freed to return home if
they wished. Thank God! And many did, thank God!

And when they came home, it was …. painful.

The Promised Land had been decimated. Those who
remained had been without protection, without resources, without
hope. Many, many had died. I’ve heard as high as 90% of the
population. Those who were alive had now lived in fear and scarcity
for generations. And those who returned weren’t much better off,
except that they’d had hope of return which now turned out to seem to
be misplaced.

I’m going to just throw out here that if we are now in
the “end of the pandemic” it sure doesn’t look like I hoped it
would in March or April of 2020, and I have lots and lots of empathy
for those who “came home from exile” only to find out that home
had changed in the meantime.

In the midst of the struggles of return, and the
conflicts that inevitably emerged between those who’d been left
behind and those who’d been force-ably removed – and even more so
between their children and grandchildren, come the words of our
Hebrew Bible text. In context, Isaiah 65 is still struggling to
answer why things are so bad, and the first part of the chapter
claims that the issue is that people aren’t being faithful to God and
God’s dreams. But this later part of the chapter is focused on the
blessings God has in store for those who do follow the ways of God.
We may like to think of this as the fruits of living out God’s
visions for a just and compassionate society.

And, its pretty great. We’ve talked recently enough
about the part of Jeremiah that urged the exiles to build houses and
live in them, plant gardens and eat from them. This Isaiah passage
reiterates those ideals, but does so BACK AT HOME. Now the command
is not to give up on Jerusalem, but to have hope it can be rebuilt.

I think this might be a good time to remind you that
Jerusalem WAS rebuilt. The Temple was rebuilt. The city walls were
rebuilt. The city gates were rebuilt. The traditions of the people
were rebuilt. The hope in God was rebuilt. It didn’t look the same
as it had before, but it was rebuilt.

In fact, that’s a story we don’t focus on enough, and
I’ve been in initial conversations with people about restarting Bible
Study in January, and I’ve now convinced myself we should read the
book of Ezra, the story of rebuilding Jerusalem. (If you’d like to
study with us, the current question is: what time on Sundays shall we
do it, and I’d LOVE to hear your opinion.)

But now I’m ahead of myself.

In our passage today, we hear of the “new heaven and
new earth” God is preparing. To summarize quickly, I’m turning to
Walter Brueggemann1:

“Yahweh is moving beyond what is troubling and
unresolved to what is wondrously new and life giving. There is a
steady push towards newness in the Isaiah tradition that intends to
override the despair of Israel, especially the despair of exile.”
246

There are thee facets of new city:

“The first quality of the new city, stated negative
then positively, is a stability and order that guarantees long life.
As long as the city is both a practitioner and victim of violence and
brutality, no life is safe and no one will last very long.” (247)
“There will be a reordering of resources so that all may luxuriate
in life as the creator intends.” (248)

“The second facet of the reconstituted city is
economic stability.” Which implies stable society, lack of
invasion, fertility of land, fair taxes, fair laws. “Yahweh will be
the guarantor of a viable, community-sustaining economy.” “No
one is threatened, no one is at risk. No one is in jeopardy because
the new city has policies, practice, and protective structures that
guarantee what must have been envisioned as an egalitarian
possibility.” (248)

“The third provision…concerns an agenda of
well-being for children in the new city.” (249) “These three
accents on guaranteed long life, economic stability, and life under
blessing all attest to a city in which the power for life given by
the creator is fully available and operates in concrete ways. The
poem is a vision, but it is a vision looking to a public practice.”
(249)

That is, Isaiah 65 is written to COUNTERACT despair with
dreaming. It is a vision of hope, but one that would be worth
perusing. Despite the language of new heaven and new earth, this is a
pretty earth-centric vision. It centers on civic stability, economic
sustainability, and God’s tangible presence among those who are
alive. It starts with peace, includes distribution of goods, and
looks towards the well-being of all.

That seems like it would have landed well among the
people in despair, and changed what was possible for them.

Which has me wondering what God is dreaming of here.
How God is counteracting despair here and now. What sort of vision
God is planting among us for our community, state, nation, world
today?

Because I have noticed that God doesn’t give up when
disaster strikes, God just keeps on working towards goodness. This
also strikes me as the narrative of Luke. I think to hear our Luke
passage well requires remembering that Luke was likely written after
the destruction of the SECOND Temple, which coincided with the
destruction of Jerusalem and a horrifying number of her people. It
was a time of great despair, a moment of transformation in our faith
history and the history of our Jewish siblings in faith, a time when
everything changed and new forms of faith practice had to be created.
The transition from the Temple to the Synagogue happened at that
time, the end of the Sadducees and beginning of the leadership of the
Pharisees, etc. Our tradition was so new I can’t point to the same
types changes, but I can see how seismic this experience was.

The passage we read today was written by the early
Christian community, presumably trying to make sense of the
destruction and trying to reassure each other about what Jesus would
say to them in the midst of it. It is probably true that the Holy
Spirit helped them find these words of comfort, but it is probably
ALSO true that Jesus didn’t say this stuff in his life time.

The early Christian imagination produced the hope it
needed to face its reality without shattering into despair.

Which is to say that both of our passages are written to
people in despair, to try to keep them together and focused on hope.
They just sound really different.

Maybe that’s because people need different things at
different times.

Maybe it is because the despair they faced was
different.

Or because the perceived opponent acted differently.

Or the community was struggling in different ways.

But truly there are different ways to respond to despair
with hope, and the Bible is full of them, and we have two solid
examples before us today.

And, I heard a third recently. Bishop Karen Oliveto
shared a quote that I keep thinking about, “I rarely feel such
clear signs of fatigue and anxiety on days that are filled with
travel, meetings and assignments—only when I stop to rest. Without
sabbath, I would be dangerously ignorant of the true condition of my
soul.” ― Andy Crouch

I think in the midst of the struggles I hear today, this
is the one that could make the fastest difference. Right now we have
a lack of sabbath, lack of rest, lack of spaciousness for joy – and
lack of time to face despair. But this is change-able. We can
prioritize sabbath. We can make space for rest. We can sort through
despair instead of running from it. We can make space for joy and
not just distractions. We can even make space for relationships and
not just be ships passing in the night.

Over the past almost 3 years we’ve been exiled. I can’t
tell if we’ve really returned, but if we have, it is still hard.
We’ve seen a lot of destruction and more than our fair share of
death. But based on the Bible we can be sure that God is speaking a
word of hope and a depth of vision into this moment.

Maybe this seems too simple, but I think it is abundant:
take time OFF. Be spacious with your soul. Let your to-do lists
go. Follow what brings you joy. Let your emotions BE, without
judgment. Let God have time to dream in you.

Because as Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may linger for the
night, but joy comes with the morning.” God isn’t done with us,
not yet. May God’s dreams be met with our spaciousness to hear them!
Amen

1Walter
Brueggemann, Isaiah Vo. 2: 40-66 in
Westminster Bible Companion Series, edited by Patrick D. Miller and
David A. Bartlett (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press,
1998).

November 13, 2022

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Uncategorized

“Passing Faith Down Generations” based on Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21…

  • November 6, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

“One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”  So says the Psalm, so say our lives.  When I have
had the opportunity to ask people about their lives of faith, they
are NEVER solo journeys.  Many stories talk about a parent or
grandparent who was a faithful person, and brought a young child
along to church.  Many others talk about a loving person found in
adulthood, and inviting them along.  Every person I’ve talked to
shares about experiences of love and affirmation in the church they
found, and the people they looked up to, and the joy they found among
the saints.  People don’t come to church JUST because they love God.
Loving God happens everywhere.  People are part of the Body of Christ
because other people in the Body of Christ have shown them the love
of God and how it can transform a life.

“One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”  When you think about those people in your life, the
ones who taught you not only that God is good but also that the
community of faith is able to teach you about love and good living,
joy and the delight of service – HOW did they teach you?  

Around
here, I think, the teaching is often indirect.  Or perhaps I should
say embodied.  It sounds more like, “I love sharing love this way,
wanna come” then “let me tell you the story of how God has acted
in my life.”  Inviting people along is GREAT.  Also, I often think
we probably should share those stories of God-moments too though.  I
think we have them, but God-stories are pretty tender, and not always
terribly coherent, and don’t always translate well to words, and more
often than not they’re a little weird.  Because God doesn’t tend to
adhere to cultural norms of acceptable behavior.  And we don’t always
want to trust just anyone with experiences like that.

(It
starts to become clear how it is that so many Bible stories are
written in metaphor, because experiences of God just don’t
communicate well any other way.)

But
I wonder if some of the saints we remember today DID trust us with
their stories.  Maybe those stories are worth passing down.  And I
wonder what would happen if we shared with each other our stories.  I
suspect we’d be doing even a little better with the description “One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”

Now
that I’ve made you squirm a bit – reminding you to share your
stories of God-moments and also passing on the ones you’ve heard, I’m
going to go to Ephesians are look at the other way of doing it.  The
one we are better at around here, which is also the way faith has
been transferred around here most often.  As he often does, Paul
writes to the Ephesians and starts by thanking them for their faith.
The starts of his letters are always filled with gratitude, this one
is quite lovely, “ I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and
your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease
to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

Our
faith in God, our following of Jesus, is expressed in how we share
our love with others.  Paul is happy to hear they are filled with
love, and says that means he can see their faith.

There
is some nuance here that I struggle with a little.  Paul says he
hears of their love “towards all the saints” and there is no
question in the context of Ephesians that “all the saints” means
the believers of Jesus.  That is, the early church.  That is, NOT
everyone.  Just the insiders.

In
first century context, this makes sense.  The church was small, weak,
and under attack.  Supporting each other had to come first to
survive, and fairly radical sharing of resources within the followers
of Christ was normal.  The church modeled the kindom of God, but on a
small scale.  

The
church was not yet  a part of the power structure of society, nor the
status quo.  There weren’t clergy, and they didn’t have special
privileges or tax benefits.  No one had a non-profit designation.

So,
I guess it makes sense that the love was first for the followers of
Christ.  It is also true that many, many, MANY of the followers of
Christ were the people struggling most in the world.  So by offering
care to insiders, God’s vulnerable were being cared for.  

I
struggle to bring this into the 21st century because it is
such a deep both/and, and it requires nuance and care.  I think we
still need to share love with each other, and I am willing to say we
have to do that FIRST.  Because unless we ground each other in God’s
love, we stand on shaky ground.  Because unless we ground each other
in God’s love, we miss out on the shared gifts of the whole.  Because
unless we ground each other in  love, we aren’t sharing God.

AND,
at exactly the same time, the love has to extend beyond “the
communion of saints” beyond the walls of the church, beyond the
faith community.  Because NOW we are a known part of society, now we
have members with power and authority in the world, now we have
privilege and respect, and we need to use it to care for God’s
beloveds, especially those who are vulnerable.  

I’ve
been oddly excited about the new program structure we’re putting into
place in January, because it actually does this.  In addition to the
Worship Committee – which aims to help people connect with God in
community, and the Intersectional Justice committee – which aims to
help people advocate for the vulnerable and understand the ways the
world works so better advocacy can happen – we’re adding TWO new
committees that I think balance them out.  Spiritual Formation aims
to help people connect with the Divine as individuals. And Nurturing
Relationships aims to help people connect with each other.  That is,
to increase the love between the saints. AND to help us experience
God and tell those stories.  It is almost as if it is both parts of
the scriptures we’re playing with today.

We
are trusted with the stories of the Saints who came before us, to
hold in our hearts, and to share when we can.  We are trusted with
the faith of the Saints who came before us, to pass it on to the next
generations.  We are trusted with the love of the Saints who came
before us, to share it in the church and in the  world.  We are
trusted with the resources of the Saints who came before us, to
combine with our own resources to use them to build the kindom of
God.

What
legacies we have from those who came before us.  May God help us to
pass along what we hold to those who will come after us.  Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

November 6, 2022

Uncategorized

“Joy and Protest” based on  Psalm 98:1-6, Isaiah 55:10-13

  • October 30, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

“You shall go out with joy, and be
led forth with peace, the mountains and the hills will break forth
before you, there will be shouts of joy, and all the tress of the
field shall clap (shall clap) their hands.”  So goes our final hymn
today, and so has gone our stewardship campaign this year.

Isaiah 55 for the win.

Joy!

Peace!

Imaginatively imagery of pure delight!

So,  I went to Walter Brueggemann to
understand better what is going on, and the great Prophetic Scholar
did not disappoint.  He reminded me that Isaiah 40, the start of
second Isaiah, begins with
the words, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem.”  The entirety of the passage is written to
the exiles, with affirmation that God is not done with them yet.

That while the worst has come, it will
not be their whole story.  That when things get hard, God still wins.
That God’s love remained with them, and hope continued.

Our passage today is the very last part
of what scholars call 2nd Isaiah – this part of the book
written to the exiles to PREPARE them for God’s work of restoration.
And today’s passage imagines the joy of their homecoming.  The
passage ties together some of the work of the exodus with the work of
restoration.  The rain and snow that can be counted on to produce
crops remind the people of the desert wandering, and God’s
provisions.  The verb even “go out” is a verb of the exodus.  But
here, in the “2nd exodus” it is quite different.  The
first exodus was hasty and fearful.   But the restoration, this “new
exodus” is joy, peace, and well-being.

Bruggemann writes, “Before there can
be any geographical departure from the [Bablyonian] empire, there
must be a liturgical, emotional, and imaginative departure.  Israel
in exile must be able to think and feel and imagine its life out
beyond Babylon’s administration.  Israel must so trust the rhetoric
of assurance and victory that it can flex its muscles of faith and
sense that the cadences of faith are more compelling than the slogans
of the empire.”1

And, this is that imaginative
departure.  It imagines creatures and … well, mountains and hills
and trees gathered on the roadside to watch the spectacle of the
people returning.  As if it is a parade and nature itself is
healed by the
restoration of the people to their homeland.

Instead of thorn and brier – symbols
of judgment and punishment – there are cypress and myrtle – signs
of growth and life and beauty.  The restoration of ancient Israel is
envisioned to be the restoration of sustainable living, of the fair
distribution of goods, the return of the ban on interest, the care
for the vulnerable.  And that means the restoration of God’s values,
which was very significant for people who had been living in the seat
of power of a large empire because empires ALWAYS involve domination,
hierarchies, debt, and oppression of the vulnerable.  Brueggeman
suggests even creation itself would be healed by this restoration
because empire destroys nature, but sustainable equitable living
exists in harmony with nature.  

If it takes dreaming of leaving the
exile in order to prepare the people to actually leave the exile,
this is some excellent writing getting them ready.  This is writing
for life.  This is writing to remind us that life is possible, that
loveliness exists, that hope is reasonable.  As Brueggemann says, in
this writing, “All are now at home, safe, beloved, free, free at
last, Thank God Almighty, free at last.”

As rain and snow leave the sky, to
bring life on earth, and grow food so too is it with God’s word that
accomplishes what it aims at – and it aims at joy, peace, and
restoration.  

In order to be ready to leave the
empire, to leave the exile, to return, to be restored, the people
needed first to dream God’s dreams.  And God sent them dreams.

Before they could leave in fact, they
had work of letting go – I love his phrasing, “there must be a
liturgical, emotional, and imaginative departure.  Israel in exile
must be able to think and feel and imagine its life out beyond
Babylon’s administration.”

I preached a few weeks ago about how
ready I am to NOT resonate with exile literature, and that does mean
that I’m pretty excited to hear “end of the exile, beginning of the
return literature.”  But I keep noticing that leaving the exile
meant not only leaving the exile but ALSO leaving behind the
pre-exile-ancient-Israel.  

Which is to say, I’m all for starting
to vision a post-pandemic life, but I have to keep reminding myself
that to leave the pandemic behind also means finishing the work of
letting go of the pre-pandemic life.  It means seeing with clarity
what has changed, and not FIGHTING it anymore.  It means accepting
this reality as it is, so that God can dream with me and with us HERE
AND NOW without my too-tight-grip on the past keeping me from
listening.

And, to be honest to these passages, it
also means making more space for joy.

Loosening my grip on what was helps me
make space for joy.  Even, loosening my grip on what joy USED TO look
like makes space for how it looks now.  And generally speaking,
loosening my grip  helps with joy 😉

The thing I’ve noticed about joy, the
continuity of it, is that for me is about connection.  I find joy in
connecting with others, in connecting with God, in connecting with
nature.  That is, joy happens in togetherness – at least for me.

Which is probably why I’ve been so
moved by our stewardship campaign this year, “Together for joy.”
I simply adore the order of the words.  For me, I know joy comes in
togetherness, but I love the INTENTION in being together FOR joy.

It is another wonderful take on the
Psalm:

Make a joyful
noise to the Lord, all the earth;
   break forth
into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord with
the lyre,
   with the lyre and the sound of melody.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn
   make
a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.

The normal take is the wonder of making
music to praise God, but I love adding to that meaning by seeing each
of our lives as a piece of the music and our lives together as
creating that joyful noise!  

In many churches, today is Reformation
Sunday, the day when they remember the initial act of Martin Luther
in nailing the 95 thesis on the church door and starting the
Reformation.  We are, curiously enough, a part of Protestantism, but
direct descendants of the Reformation.   Lutheran, Presbyterian,
Reformed, and even most Baptist churches descend from the
Reformation, but we split off of the Church of England, which itself
split from the Roman Catholic Church for rather different reasons.
(The king wanted a divorce, the pope didn’t grant one, so the king
nationalized the church.)  

Our roots are not in the reformation,
but our identity is in Protestantism.  That is, by nature, we PROTEST
the abuses of the church and the world and advocate for God’s people.
Thanks be to God!  We are active in the face of injustice, and we are
actively seeking God’s kindom (although, to be fair, this is true of
more people than protestants, so we claim this but not exclusively.)

We are, together for justice, together
for joy, together for compassion.  We witness the mountains and the
hills breaking forth before us, and the trees of the field clapping
their hands.  

Dear ones, God leads us TO joy.  God
leads us to PEACE.  Not just for ourselves, for all people, but for
ourselves too.  We are blessed with the joy of being together, and we
are together for joy.  Thanks be to God!  Amen

1Walter
Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66, Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p 162.

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

October 30, 2022

Uncategorized

“Pride vs. Humility?” based on Psalm 84:1-7 and Luke…

  • October 23, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

My
favorite seminary class was “Prayer in the Christian Tradition”
and it was kind like a lab class for prayer.   We prayed a lot, in a
lot of different ways, and then we reflected on it.  We read books
about what other people thought of as prayer, and we discussed it,
and then we tried it, and we reflected on it, and then we discussed
it again.  We learned about prayer types, and we had time to assess
which prayer types we tended towards and which ones… well, drove us
nuts.

Most
of the prayer in that class would have qualified as “contemplative
prayer”, in that it sought to be a means of opening ourselves to
God.  Generally speaking I think of contemplative prayer as being a
separate category from “petitionary prayer” where the goal is to
ask God for things, although I admit to that being overly simplified.

So,
anyway, one day in my prayer class we’re given the assignment to pray
“The Jesus Prayer.”  We were supposed to do it for a while, maybe
30 minutes or an hour or something, and the professor suggested that
we actually pray it “as is” for a while before changing it.  So
we got the experience of praying it as it was, and then got to see
how we would change it and how that would feel.  Now, the Jesus
prayer is, “Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

This is not exactly my God
language.  Had the assignment not been clear (and the professor not
had my respect) I would have changed it immediately.  But, I gave it
a try.  And that day at least, it was a moving thing to pray.  

It made space in me for
different things to emerge than in the prayers I tend towards.  It
made space in me for different things to emerge than in the language
I would usually adapt towards.

This week, I was given the gift
of praying the Rosary with someone for whom it is a favorite prayer
practice.  Much of the Rosary is – also – not my preferred
language for God.  (Although some of it is amazing!)

In
both cases, the repetition made meditative space within me for some
insights that otherwise wouldn’t have had a way to be heard.  Which
is one of the great gifts of contemplative prayer, and why I love it
so much.

Now, I can’t hear the Gospel
lesson and the tax collector’s prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a
sinner!” without thinking of how it got adapted by tradition into
the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on
me, a sinner,” and how (eventually) freeing it was to have a
sense of mercy and forgiveness for things I was usually trying to
forget I felt guilty about.  

The Gospel lesson is inverting
expectations.  Normally, the Pharisee would be seen as the one doing
things correctly, Pharisees were famous for their meticulous
commitment to following God’s commandments, and the Pharisee’s prayer
indicates he goes above and beyond even the requirements.  Meanwhile,
many people thought very poorly of tax collectors, and they were
rarely the heroes in any stories.

The Gospel praises the tax
collector, for the humility of his prayer while throwing shade at the
Pharisee for his – which is rough since the prayer the Pharisee
prayed was a pretty well known prayer at the time and he wasn’t the
only one doing it.

Now, the Pharisee’s prayer does
strike my ears as arrogant, but I wonder if nuance could help it.
What if instead of “God, I thank you that I am not like other
people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” he said,
“God, I thank you for what I am able to do, and for your help in
making it possible.  I thank you for the temptations I don’t have.  I
thank you for the ways I’ve learned that spiritual practice helps me,
and the capacity to do it.  I thank you for growing in me a
willingness and capacity to give back.”  And, I mean, I’d like to
add, “I open myself to what you want to do next.”

And then I want to ask Jesus if
that prayer is OK.  Because I’m not really sure.  

I
have been driving by another faith community that has on their sign a
condemnation of self-sufficiency which reads, “You sufficiency is
God’s.”  Now, I think self-sufficiency is a horrid myth that does
great damage and I very much hope that they’re trying to encourage
people towards connections with the Divine.  But I fear that they may
be making the same error that I hear in the Pharisee.

Because I think there is a
temptation in the phrase, “God is your sufficiency” to believe
that what you have in life is a gift from God.  But, the logical
corollary of that position is to believe that what others do NOT have
is a lack of a gift from God.  Thus God chooses who has enough to eat
and who does not, who has safe housing and who does not, who
struggles throughout life from childhood trauma and who does not.
And, it entrenches capitalism as God’s will – that if one is doing
OK that is because of God, if one is not doing OK that is because of
God, and thus no one is responsible for creating a system where
everyone is doing OK as a form of justice and righteousness.

(end rant)

I think though, that there has
to space in prayer for utter truth between us and God.  And
sometimes, I think we can look at another beloved of God who is
struggling and wish for their struggles to be lessened, and be
thankful that we don’t share that struggle.  That might sound like,
“God, I see how horrid it is to live with and fight with addiction,
and I am grateful not to have that challenge.”  Or maybe, “Holy
One, my dear friends are divorcing and their hearts ache, and I’m
feeling a little bit guilty even for the love I have in my life, but
I’m thankful for it anyway.”  

What
I hear in the Pharisee’s prayer is a dismissal of other people, their
lives, their temptations, their struggles, the external factors
facing them.  Scholars tell me that while all tax collectors get
dissed in the Bible and other ancient literature, many of them took
the positions because no other options were open to them, many of
them were honest, and most of them who were dishonest didn’t even
reap the gain from it – their bosses did.  The Pharisee’s prayer
dismissed everything about the tax collector except his job, and
didn’t make space for his humanity, needs, or decision making
process.

I don’t know what Jesus (or
maybe Luke, I think signs point to this one being by Luke) was
offended by in the Pharisee’s prayer, but that’s the struggle I hear.

And, it leads me wondering about
what we can be proud of.  Years ago now I did a Celebration of Life
service for a church member who had lived through plenty of struggles
in his life.  Yet, I was told, he held each of his accomplishments
dear – each certificate of completion, each acknowledgement of
merit, each authorization to try something new.  He had a folder in
his backpack that he always carried with him, and in it he kept the
records of his accomplishments.  I was delighted by this detail of
his life.  I was thrilled that he took what he was able to do
seriously, and made it so that no one could take away from him what
he worked hard to accomplish.

Meanwhile my diplomas and
ordination certificate, et al, sit in a pile in our attic because it
feels pretentious to display them.  This isn’t the only story in the
Bible that urges humility, and celebrates the one who comes to God
and the faith community without pride.  It is a pretty constant
theme.  The urging not to be like this Pharisee is deep seated in our
faith tradition, enough so it can be hard to figure out how to claim
with joy what God is doing in our lives without appearing to brag.

What can we be proud of?  What
are we allowed to celebrate?  Are we stuck only coming to God with
that Jesus prayer?  (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
on me, a sinner.”)

Heavens I hope not!  It is a
viable PIECE of a full prayer life, but it isn’t complete.  I think
when we silence what is good in our lives, we also end up silencing
God.  In fact, I fear it is easier to focus on sin (individual or
communal) than it is to focus on goodness.  And sometimes the urgings
away from pride and towards humility can encourage this.

So,
case in point.  In the next few weeks, there are going to be
elections of Bishops in the United States portion of the United
Methodist Church.  Some people, God love them, are gifted for
administration and willing to take on the pressure and challenge of
attempting to steer a sinking ship.  But conventional wisdom says
that no one who wants to be a Bishop should become one, and those who
wouldn’t ever want the job are the ones who would be best at it. The
ASSUMPTION is that if one admits one’s gifts for administration and
one’s willingness to do truly horrid work, one disqualifies oneself
by lack of humility.  (I would note that women and people of color
pay a higher price for not being “humble” than white men do.)

This seems to fit how many of us
think about politicians as well: that those seeking power shouldn’t
be trusted with it (in case the elections of UMC Bishops seemed too
boring for you, which is fair.)

If we are pushing ourselves into
humility at all costs, we are missing the chance to pay attention to
the gifts we have and how we might use them.  If, say, a person with
a truly brilliant financial brain thinks of themselves as “below
average with numbers” they might not pay attention when there is a
need for… say…. a church treasurer.  (HINT HINT THIS IS NOT
SUBTLE).

Perhaps it will seem ironic to
some of you, I think it does to me, but one of the great gifts of
contemplative prayer for me is the chance to see myself more clearly.
I bring to prayer all the angst, guilt, worry, horror, and fears I
have of how I have erred, failed, and disappointed myself and the
Divine, and then God helps me sort through them.  And, while I am
always afraid of God’s judgement, it has turned out pretty much every
time that my judgement is harsher than God’s who tends to reply, “oh
honey, maybe try out a little compassion on yourself too.”  The
prayer time helps me see myself and others with compassion, which I
think is related to seeing myself and others more clearly.  And
having a clear sense of self involves knowing both strengths and
weaknesses, and admitting them despite the Pharisee.

Or, to share this in a far more
memorable way, this is the poem “God Says Yes To Me” by Kaylin
Haught:

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Dear ones, Yes, Yes, Yes!  Amen

October 23, 2022

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Uncategorized

“Now” based on Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

  • October 9, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

Sometimes,
I get tired of preaching about the exile.  I get tired of thinking
about the exile.  I get tired of the fact that the exile metaphors
resonate with me, and I’d strongly prefer that they didn’t.

But
I’m ahead of myself, because we don’t talk enough about the exile to
assume that people can follow what I mean by it.  So, a quick
historical summary: After King David and King Solomon, the ancient
nation of Israel split into two.  The northern part had the name
Israel and the southern part the name
Judah.  That was stable for a few hundred years, then the northern
nation was subsumed by Assyria in 722 BCE.  The southern
kingdom held on for a while longer (mostly by paying tributes to
larger empires) but was destroyed in 586 BCE.  

At
that point the leaders, the literate, and the priests were forced
marched to Babylon, while the poor, illiterate majority were left in
the ruins of a destroyed Jerusalem without the protection of city
gates.

That’s
what we call “the exile.”  In 539 BCE (47 years later) the first
of the people who’d been exiled were freed to come back.  Meanwhile
the people who stayed had been decimated by famine, disease, and
attackers, and “home” wasn’t what people had remembered or been
told about.

The
reality of the exile is formative in the writing down of the Hebrew
Bible, and the questions that were being asked and answered in how
the stories got written down.  It is also one of the great narrative
arcs of the Bible, and I think that’s true because it was written
down when it was still so vibrant in people’s lives and memories.  I
also think it is true because the sensation of being displaced from
life as we know it and/or life as it should be is quite common, and
having the narrative of the exile helps us make sense of life as we
know it.

And
now we’re back to the beginning.  I appreciate the ways the stories
of the exile make sense of life, but I’m rather tired of identifying
with it.  I’d rather resonate with some stories of stability instead.

But,
here we are.

And
in the midst of this is Jeremiah’s profound, shocking, amazing,
unexpected communication on behalf of God.  He writes to those in
exile, the ones who have been torn from their homes, the ones who are
prevented from going home by exactly the people who tore up their
home and tore them from their homes and he says on behalf of God:

Build houses and live in them;
plant gardens and eat what they produce.
Take wives and have sons
and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in
marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and
do not decrease.
But seek the welfare of the city where I have
sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its
welfare you will find your welfare.

I
can’t imagine that this is what the exiles wanted to hear.  

I
would imagine this was the opposite of what they expected.  Wouldn’t
they want to be ready to leave at any time?  Why settle in?  After
all, the passover celebrates God calling the people from Egypt so
quickly they had to cook unleavened bread!  Build houses and plant
gardens?  That sounds wrong.

Get
married?  Have kids?  Keep on living?  Keep on trying to thrive and
grow?  But, that doesn’t fit either.  They’re in a temporary place,
shouldn’t they wait until they get home and can be in the “Promised
Land” and connected to life as they know it, life as it is supposed
to be?  Why bring kids into the mess of the exile?  I mean, does an
exile marriage even COUNT?

And
then, then God gets INTO it.  This is one of the most shocking things
attributed to God in the Bible, and that’s saying a lot.  God says,
“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find
your welfare.”  Seek the welfare of…. Babylon?  Pray for Bablyon?
Work for the wellbeing of Babylon?  Our well being is correlated
with the well being of our oppressors?

We
aren’t trying to undermine them?  We aren’t trying to destroy them?
We aren’t trying to … at the very least just keep our heads down
until we get to leave?  We’re working for their WELFARE?  (It may be
helpful to know that I don’t think the exiles were slaves, but nor
were they free to leave.)

That’s
about how I think the exiles would have responded.  But maybe I’m
wrong, because while everything God says is counter-intuitive,
everything God says also sounds like God.  And they, too, knew God.
So maybe they knew to expect the unexpected, to know compassion for
others would come at the most annoying times, to experience God’s
reminders about loving everyone when they least wanted to hear it.

I
hear the echos of this message from God when Jesus heals the
senator’s daughter, when Paul has compassion for his jailers, and
when MLK reminded his listeners that the goal was not to harm the
oppressors but transform them so they too could live a more wonderful
life.

This
is a very, very Godly message, this “But seek the welfare of the
city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its
behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

I’m
not sure when it gets easy.

Because,
right now, this feels like a message to settle into this
late-pandemic reality.  Let go of what was, and build houses HERE.
Plant gardens HERE.  Savor relationships and build up families HERE
and NOW.  And, seek the welfare of the city where we now are.

But
most of us still aren’t all the way here yet.  (Maybe the young are?)
We’re still remembering what was.  Maybe, even, we’re still letting
God know that we are ready to bake the bread – even the unleavened
bread – and walk away from this mess right now!  We don’t want to
settle into this reality.  We want to go HOME.  We don’t want to seek
the welfare of this time, we want this time to be different than it
is.

But
God meets us in the now.

Not
the past, the future, nor the time we wish it was.  The now.

That
pre-exilic time never returned.  But there was a vibrant post-exilic
time, which included things like the Bible being written, the Second
Temple being build, the walls of Jerusalem being restored, and as a
thing that is pretty relevant to us, the life of Jesus.

It
seems to me, from where I’m standing, that the temptation of the
exile is the yearning to return to how things used to be.  But God
urges the people to be present in their NOW, which prepares them for
the next things God is going to be up to with them.

I
guess, like the exiles, God is dragging us into the now – sometimes
while we kick and scream like toddlers.  And I think that’s the word
as I hear it today.  God is with us in the now, calling us into the
now, and preparing us for the future.  

And
this is where we meet God.

May
we be open to meeting God here.  Amen

October 9, 2022

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Uncategorized

“Bread of Life” based on Psalm 37:1-9, Habakkuk 1:1-4,…

  • October 2, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

Sometimes I hear people say that they’re angry with God,
but are afraid to let themselves feel it, or express it.  To those
people, I often suggest Biblical reading.  The Bible has no problem
being angry with God nor expressing it.  Habakkuh does a great job
with this.

How long, O God!  

How long shall I cry for help without getting help?

How long will I tell you of the violence I’m living
without you intervening?

Why help me see what’s wrong, without helping me change
it?

Why is trouble all I see?

Why is destruction all around me?

Why is there never justice?

Why are your laws ignored?

Why is everything getting WORSE?

I’m listening God.

I’m standing here, watching and listening, to hear your
response,

waiting for you to acknowledge my complaints.

Right?  Excellent work Habakkuk.

And, way to speak the universal even though you were
speaking to a specific context.  It feels like Habakkuh holds today’s
paper in his hands as he writes!

Now, as much as I like the truth of his words, and as
much as I appreciate him finding words when I can’t always do it, the
great part for me in this reading is that God DOES respond.

God says:

Write down my vision.

Write it so big someone running by will be able to read
it.

I still have a vision for justice.

I’m still working for good.

My visions are not a lie.

If it seems too slow, be patient.

Justice is coming.

It will not always be true that injustice wins, or that
those who do harm prosper.

Keep your eyes on my vision.

That’s what we’re doing here.  We see, we acknowledge,
we name the injustices of the world.  We bemoan them.  We advocate
for change, and we are required to see what’s wrong in order to
change it.  BUT we also have to see what could be in order to change
it.  And we don’t stay with the injustice forever.  We keep our focus
on God’s visions.

We keep our focus on the transformational power of love.

We keep our focus on God’s dreams of a just world.

We keep our focus on hope of what is possible.

We don’t believe the injustices of the world are the
final answer.  We believe God wins, and that love wins.

And that’s the table we gather at together.  The one of
hope, the one of EVERYONE, the one that brings us together to work
for God’s vision.  People in different countries, people in different
denominations, people speaking different languages, people with
different bodies in , people with different theological
understandings of sacrament.  United by vision.  Being fed by the
bread of life so we can be for the world a gift of love.  Receiving
the gifts of God’s love so we can share it.  Remembering hope, so we
can live it.  Expanding the table, because that’s an imperative part
of the vision itself.

We receive the bread of life.

We are the bread of life.


Thanks be to God. Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

October 2, 2022

Uncategorized

“Hell and the Mid-Terms”based on Amos 6:1a, 4-7 and…

  • September 25, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

If
you want to watch me get internally up in arms quickly, you can give
me a Biblical narrative about heaven and hell that directly suggests
that God sends bad people to suffer in hell.  I’ve spent much of my
life trying to counter the narrative that God is someone to be afraid
of, along with countering the idea that God arbitrarily punishes
people with eternal condemnation.  Therefore I can get rather quickly
irritated at scriptures supporting condemnations to hell.  

Enter:
this week’s gospel lesson, in which a rich man and a poor man die and
the poor man is  carried away by the angels to be with Abraham while
the rich man is being tormented in Hades.  HEY BIBLE, I’m trying to
teach people about loving God because God first loved us, NOT trying
to scare people into conformity.  COULD YOU TONE IT DOWN A LITTLE?

Obviously
not.  Getting myself up in arms about a text doesn’t actually make it
go away, so I’m going to have to deal with this story.  I can calmly
remind myself that it is a parable, and parables are meant to help us
break down our assumptions about how the world works, NOT be taken
literally.  That helps some.  I can remind myself that the Jesus
Seminar doesn’t’ think this story goes back to Jesus, but rather to
Luke.  But that doesn’t do too much for me, because I find Luke to be
a pretty significant teacher in his own right.

Or,
I can let the story stand as it is written, try to put my concerns
aside, and see what the story can teach as it is.  Which, I’m pretty
sure, is the best way forward.

So,
who is Lazarus?  He is a poor man, reduced to begging, whose body was
covered in sores.  He was hungry, and he was aching, and the comfort
he received was of dogs licking his wounds for him.  Oh my.  Unlike
in other parables and unlike the rich man, he is given a name.  His
name means “One God has helped.”  In having a name, we are
confronted with his humanity.  We are invited to look at him, and see
his pain.  

Many
of the first followers of Jesus were people like Lazarus.  Or people
one step from being people like Lazarus.  They knew his pain, they
saw his humanity, they could look at him and see his reality because
it was familiar.  They also knew the ways other people looked away
from them, and worked to not see them.  They knew people wanted them
to be invisible so they could go on their merry way.

In
a conversation I once witnessed, a person who had recently been
housed was asked about how to best respond to people begging on the
street.  While only one opinion, hers has stayed with me.  She said
it mattered much less to her if people gave money or not, but it
mattered a lot if they looked at her and acknowledged her.  She often
felt invisible, and dehumanized, and someone responding when she
spoke mattered a whole lot.

Lazarus,
I’m thinking, knew what that was like.

Who
was the rich man?  We know he was rather seriously rich and had 5
brothers.  We also know that he didn’t see Lazarus.  Not in the
beginning of the story, nor in the end.  He thought Lazarus was
disposable, he thought Lazarus should be sent to do his bidding.
Lazarus should be sent to soothe him, Lazarus should be sent to warn
his brothers.  (Not warn EVERYONE, mind you, just his brothers.)  

As
Debbie Thomas, theologian and writer of “Journey with Jesus” puts
it:

But here’s the scariest
part of the story for me: even after death, the rich man fails to see
Lazarus.  Privilege just plain clings to him — even
in Hades!  Though he piously calls on “Father” Abraham,
he refuses to see Lazarus as anything other than an errand boy:
“Bring me water.”  “Go warn my brothers.”  No
wonder Abraham tells him that the “chasm” separating the two
realms is too great to cross.  Let’s be clear: God is not
the one who builds the chasm.  We do that all by
ourselves.1

That
is a scary part, that the things separating us from seeing each
other’s humanity are so powerful that they could remain even beyond
our deaths.

When
I stop myself from having an instantaneous defensive reaction to this
parable, I can see it has some powerful truths.  It rejects the
world’s hierarchies, and humanizes everyone.  Similarly, it
challenges the assumption about who is “good” or “worthy.”
For those who are living in poverty, it showed them that they were
seen in their full humanity.  For those not living in poverty, it
makes people who live in poverty visible.  It also makes clear that
the rich man may have been rich, but he was definitely poor in
understanding.  Finally, we are reminded that this is not a new
teaching brought by Jesus, but the essence of the Hebrew Bible spoken
in a slightly new way.

Now,
I’m always grateful for reminders like those, but I want to also
point what I don’t think we should take from this parable:  I do not
think it should lead us to condeming others to hell; nor to feeling
complacent about this world assuming that what is wrong here will be
fixed “in the next”; I don’t think we should dismiss the rich man
as heartless without looking at who in the world we try not to see;
nor (finally) should we use this parable as permission to dismiss
ANYONE as other – not the rich man, not Lazarus, and not anyone
else either.  

One
of the great costs of a theology that includes hell is the idea that
the division between good and bad people is between PEOPLE, instead
of accepting that all of us are good people and bad people, and
trying to work with God to maximize the good.  That is, a theology of
hell makes space for us to dehumanize and “other” some of God’s
beloveds.

John
Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said, “if your heart
is with my heart, give me  your hand.”  He understood the
difference between disagreements about details and implementation and
disagreements about what matters in the world.  He feared people
would let little things divide them, instead of working together on
the things that really matter.

Similarly,
my colleague Rabbi Matt Culter has invited fellow members of
Schenectady Clergy Against Hate to speak this weekend about divisions
in our society and how to not let them live in our hearts.  We have
an election cycle coming up, and as he said, “Intense rhetoric is
only exacerbating the tensions. We are in a unique role to help
de-escalate the tensions that surely will grow in intensity as
the mid-term elections grow closer.”  (He didn’t even know about
this parable coming up in the lectionary!)

This
weekend, Rabbi Culter will remind his congregation that every voice
matters so no one should be dismissed, that there is a need to
respect each other’s character – which means not speaking of or to
one another in anger, and finally that we are all on the same
journey.

Now,
I have to admit that I struggle with attempts at peace or unity that
do so at the expense of the vulnerable or minoritized.  And I think
there are real differences in vision for our country, ones that
include very different perspectives on – say – Lazarus and the
rich man.  I think those are the sorts of differences that matter,
too.  AND, I think that those whose values are different from mine
also have reasons why they think their system is best over all, they
are also on this journey called life, they are also worthy of respect
and being heard.  (Not the sort of respect that is obedience, the
sort of respect that honors humanity.)  I don’t have to agree with
someone or their values to find them worthy of full humanity, care,
access to health care, enough food to eat, and respect.

Divisions
between us make space for hate.  Dismissing someone because of a
different point of view makes space for hate.  EVEN dismissing
someone for a different set of values makes space for hate.  

NOW,
what about the times when someone else’s “point of view” is one
that, say dismisses the humanity of others?  For me, the answer comes
from Rev. Dr. King’s sermon “Love Your Enemies” (which quite
clearly also goes back to Jesus, but I like how Dr. King says it)

Now there is a final reason I
think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love
has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that
eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love
your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to
redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies,
you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of
redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even
though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a
neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of
that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them.
Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and
they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the
beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because
you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and
sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period,
but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will
break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive,
and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that
builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears
down and is destructive. “love your enemies.”2

I
wonder what would have resolved the parable?  Perhaps, the rich man
seeing Lazarus as a fellow human, another person beloved by God, and
in need of care.  Giving him a blanket, or inviting him to a feast,
cleaning his wounds, offering him a job, maybe just letting the table
scraps fall to him, maybe as much as welcoming him into the household
for care.  Yes, I know that means another person would have replaced
Lazarus at the gate, maybe two if generosity was known.  Because a
single act of mercy doesn’t create social change and prevent people
from being poor.  But until the humanity of the rich and the poor can
be seen TOGETHER, the will to change society can’t be created either.

Oh,
also, a pragmatic suggestion: maybe try to use social media less?  It
is designed to create division, and we want to create space for love.
Thanks be to God, the God of love.

Amen

1https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2374-the-great-chasm

2https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

September 25, 2022

Posts pagination

1 … 11 12 13 14 15 … 41
  • First United Methodist Church
  • 603 State Street
  • Schenectady, NY 12305
  • phone: 518-374-4403
  • alt: 518-374-4404
  • email: fumcschenectady@yahoo.com
  • facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
  • bluesky: @fumcschenectady.bluesky.social
Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress