“Opening Our Lives to God at Play”

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019
by Sara Baron

Based on Luke 1:39-55

When I attempt to put myself into Mary’s shoes, I find them quite scary. Mary was a young Jewish woman in Galilee in the last years of the rule of Herod the Great. Can we think about what that meant for a moment?

You’ve likely heard of the Jewish exile, which started with the Babylonian defeat and capture of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE. The exile refers to the subsequent removal of the political, religious, and intellectual leadership to captivity in Babylon. After the Bablyonian empire was defeated by the Persian empire in 539, the Jewish captives were permitted to return, thus ending the exile. That is known as the “return” or “restoration.” It was a time of rebuilding and creation – the walls and gates of Jerusalem were restored, the 2^nd Temple was built, and Jewish identity solidified.

However, from before time of the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem through the life of Jesus, the Jews and their nation of Judah remained a vassal state to some empire or another. The only exception to this is 167 to 160 BCE during the Maccabean revolt from which comes the history of Hanukkah. By the time of Mary, then, the Jews had been living under the dominance of Empires for nearly 600 years straight.

Furthermore, Mary was from GALILEE…. Galilee had been part of the former Northern Kingdom of Israel, which had been captured and defeated in 722 BCE by the Assyrian Empire. During the time of the Maccabees, Jews from Judea resettled the land and claimed it for traditional Jewish living again – at least in the small villages. So, even within Judaism of the 1^st century before the common era, Galilee was second class, almost a colony within an Empire.

Then there was the Galilee’s Galilee-ness. Galilee, which had been part of the Northern Empire, was known for being distrustful of centralized power. (It should shock no one that Jesus was formed there.) When Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, revolts broke out, starting in Sepphoras – the largest city in Galilee.

Marcus Borg describes it like this:

When Herod died in 4BCE, revolts broke out in all parts of the Jewish homeland, indicating how repressive and unpopular his reign had been. Rome responded by sending legions of troops from Syria. In Galilee, the legions reconquered its largest city, Sepphoris, and sold many of the survivors into slavery. Nazareth was nearby, only 4 miles away. Then the Roman legion continued south, reconquering Jerusalem, and crucified two thousand of its defenders as a public demonstration of the consequences of the rebellion. Jesus was an infant or toddler during this time.¹

This wasn’t EXCEPTIONAL, this was life under foreign occupation and the attempts to reconstitute self-rule.

These are the facts of any Galilean’s life. Mary had some additional factors. First of all, she was a young woman, likely pubescent. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are NOT inventions of the 21^st century, and I imagine it was terrifying to be a young woman then as it often is now. Also, puberty is a very hard time for anyone, and I imagine that hasn’t changed. Bodies change, hormones rage, and life is confusing. Let’s add one more piece to the first two: Mary was pregnant. Talk about hormones, bodies changing, and confusion!! Furthermore, in those days it wasn’t uncommon for women to die in childbirth, and being a parent is scary!

So far we have dealt with fact and likely conjecture. I don’t have historical evidence to prove that Mary was young, but it is very likely. There are two more pieces of the story that are unclear – they aren’t likely nor unlikely. The story says that Mary is engaged – that may or may not be so. If she was engaged, that might have been scary since her fiance was likely much older than she was and not someone she picked. Furthermore, if he was not the father of her child, she lived in fear of being found out and ruined. Similarly, if Mary was pregnant and engaged (but not married) then her fiance was not the father – as the marriage WAS the consummation. Then it seems possible that she was pregnant by assault and … sexual assault is terrifying.

Basically, Mary’s experience sounds to me to be similar to how it might feel to be 12 years old, pregnant, and in a Central American caravan trying to seek asylum in the US. The whole thing sounds terrifying.

I wouldn’t expect either young woman to to praising God with words of strength and profound adoration. I would expect either one to be begging God for help with survival. But that isn’t what our passage does today – not at all. Instead, our passage has Mary exclaiming the wonder of God, in ways that DEFY historical context, Jewish history, and even the moment she’s living in her life. Of course, the word were likely penned later by Christians a few generations afterwards, based on the song by Hannah, but that actually doesn’t make them less interesting, it makes them MORE impressive. That means at the time the words were written, the Christians were experiencing serious persecution, and still they wrote, “for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is [God’s] name.” There is something about God that is bigger than individual survival or even communal well being!

The words attributed to Mary in this passage are words of deep and abiding faith. They may not have been her words, but they are an expression of the faith of Jewish women for generations. They sound like what it would take to be the woman who could raise a man like Jesus. They express faith in a God who is trustworthy – and despite MANY reasons to be afraid, they express trust and hope that all matter of all things will be well.

They trust that God is at work, but more than that, that God is at PLAY bringing the world towards justice and wholeness. Now, we’ve reached my major point. I’d think Mary would be afraid, but instead she is delighted and filled with praise. She sees a God of play. One who loves justices and brings it into the world with joy and creativity. So, it is time for a transition – to hear what she said and what it means, but this time I’m going to use someone else’s words and rhythm, and rhyme. Will the children please join me up front?

These words come from Rev. Emmy Kegler, the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Northeast Minneapolis, in her sermon “The Heart of Justice — or, How the Grinch Learned the Magnificat” from 2015.

There are hundreds of carols we sing every year,
celebrating the season when Christmas draws near.
These hymns are familiar and loved very dear,
And we sing loud and proud about midnights so clear.

But some songs get forgotten in the midst of the season,
Songs that have been with us long for a reason.
Songs someone carefully thought up and wrote out,
Songs that are all what the season’s about.

Today’s story is that — the song of sweet Mary,
Who faced some good news exciting and scary.
She was carrying Jesus, God’s very own Son,
And sang today’s story in a-dor-a-tion:

My soul is enraptured, uplifted, fulfilled,
For God has seen me and a purpose has willed.
Though I am quite humble, unimportant and small,
God has chosen me to bear the Savior of all.

But I should not be shocked that God chose a girl —
God’s made unusual choices since the start of the world.
You’d think God would choose big names, the mighty, the strong,
God should rain down power to fight and right wrongs.

But in all the stories I’ve ever been told,
God works in the outsider, the young or the old,
Those who we think are empty-handed and poor
Are the very ones God comes to and loves more and more.

God isn’t impressed by riches or appearance,
God looks at the heart and sees what is nearest.
If your thoughts are un-good or unkind or untrue
God will not let you hurt whoever you choose.

God isn’t excited about rulers and kings,
God knows earthly might is a dangerous thing.
God remembers the promises and seeks out the lost,
God is righting the world, no matter the cost.

All the Whos down in Whoville loved the Magnificat,
but the Grinch, still learning his lesson, did NOT.
“I’m confused,” the Grinch said, “At first it seems sweet
That God looks at the lowly and thinks that they’re neat.

“But Mary says God takes the strength from the strong,
And sends rich away empty, and — well, that seems wrong.
I thought God loved us all, exactly the same.
Choosing some over others sounds like a shame.”

“This isn’t a song we should sing in this season,
This song is confusing and feels without reason.
Life isn’t fair, and I do wish it would be
But now’s not the time to talk about should-be.

“We’ve got to get ready for family and feast!
For singing, and joy, and cooking roast beast!”
Cindy Lou Who, the little Who whom you may remember
Listened kindly to the Grinch’s grumps through December.

“I think,” Cindy said, after thinking a lot,
“There must be a reason for the Magnificat.
Christmas began with the birth of a child,
And while it sounds cute, the scene was quite wild!

“Rich men called magi, who studied the stars,
Packed up their camels and brought gifts from afar.
Expecting a new king to be born very soon,
They checked at the palace, as one ought to do.

“But he was born in a stable, filled with smelly old sheep!
His parents were homeless, had nowhere to sleep.
His dad was a carpenter — not very wealthy,
And I can’t imagine sleeping in hay is healthy.”

“But still,” the Grinch said, “I thought God was fair.
I thought God viewed each of us with just the same care.
If that’s so, why does God feed some and not others?
Shouldn’t we split it between all sisters and brothers?”

“I think,” Cindy said, after thinking a bit,
“That God’s idea isn’t unfair or unfit.
The rich Whos have money. They’re already eating.
But for those on the edges, there is no more seating.

“If God is ensuring the poor get some too,
God isn’t unfair — God’s thinking it through.
God’s evening out what is unfairly done,
Feeding the hungry and forgetting none.”

“This is called justice,” Cindy Lou Who reminded,
“Making things equal and right for all Whomankind.
Some Whos already have more than they need.
God’s concern is for those who are trampled by greed.

“Justice means when something goes wrong, God will right it.
And to that hard work of change we’re invited.
To fixing what’s broken. To righting old wrongs.
I think that is why we sing Mary’s great song.”

“But still,” the Grinch said, “it doesn’t seem fair
To take from one person to even the share.
If I earned it, I keep it. I can give it away
If I want to, but God taking it isn’t okay.

How can I buy gifts if God looks down on money?
Can we cook roast beast if God sends us off hungry?
Once I stole food, but brought it back to you.
Now when I make food, I buy it all new.

If I’m not the one causing any unfairness,
Why am I being charged with justice awareness?”
“I think,” Cindy said, after thinking quite quietly
“God worries how the mighty got so very might-i-ly.

“We’re all loved by God, but not all born the same.
Some Whos get a bonus in life’s complex game.
“I think justice,” said the wise little Cindy Lou Who,
“Is recognizing you’re not just a product of you.

“There are systems in place that we didn’t start,
And some without the tiniest shred of a heart.
The roast beast we eat — were they cared for and fed?
Who stitched the red Santa cap you wear on your head?

“Some Whos are quite wealthy because they make choices
That hurt others, but wealthy Whos silence their voices.
When God questions wealth, it’s because all too frequently
Wealth has been made from Whos who are hurt secretly.

“So I think,” Cindy said, after rubbing her chin,
“The challenge is for us to see the systems we’re in.
We have to ask questions. We have to keep checking.
If Whos do go hungry, it’s time for inspecting.”

“It’s hard to keep learning,” the Grinch grumpily said.
“This information feels like too much for my head.”
“That’s OK,” little Cindy Lou Who let him know.
“You don’t have to change everything by tomorrow.”

“The power of community helps us keep going.
We gather together to share questions and knowing.
By hearing our stories, we change and we grow,
And become a force for justice in the world that we know.”

“Hmm,” hmm’d the Grinch, his grinchy face wrinkling.
“This idea of community has got me thinking.”
He thought of how life had been pre-Cindy Lou.
How he grumbled, and grimaced, and hated the Whos.

He thought of how feeling left out made him feel —
Like he would never sit with a friend for a meal.
“I hated Who Christmas because I felt ignored.
I tried to ruin it and even the score.

“When you sang your Who songs, I was angry and rash.
I stole all of your presents, your gifts, all your stash.
I stole all of the food and the Christmas trees too.
I was so very angry, my dear Cindy Lou.

“But I realized the day when you all still sang songs
That Christmas is all about repairing wrongs.
I wanted to fix all I’d broken and wrecked,
Even if you despised me for the thoughts in my head.

“But you didn’t!” the Grinch grinned. “You invited me in.
You gave me a seat, said I was for-giv-en.
The injustice of me being left out was repaired.
You welcomed me even though I’d been unfair.”

The Grinch smiled. “Thank you, little Cindy Lou Who.
It’s hard to accept, but I know what to do.
I’m part of a problem that’s quite hard to see,
But you know what? I’m stronger than its secrecy.

“Justice is a word I want to keep hearing.
And knowing that fairness is a hope to keep nearing.
When I have been hurt, I want to declare it.
And when I am the hurter, I want to repair it.

“I want to help others. I want to learn lots.
And I want to sing Mary’s Magnificat.
God remembers the promises and seeks out the lost,
God is righting the world, no matter the cost.”²

Amen

Preached by Rev. Sara E. Baron on December 23, 2018

1 Marcus Borg, “Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary” (USA: HarperOne, 2006) page 89.

2http://emmykegler.com/the-heart-of-justice/?fbclid=IwAR2cNbHRV7rF6RkYSqni735oLyF_prEhizVzsl6bM2QPp-LIpGRABSRjNdk

Sermons

Christmas Dawn Meditation 2018 (based on Luke 2:1-16)

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019
by Sara Baron

This year I’ve had two compelling questions regarding the Christmas story. First I’ve been wondering WHY we have a Christmas story, and secondly I’ve been wondering why – given ALL the details missing from the birth story, why on EARTH Luke mentions a MANGER of all things. The two questions are of rather different LEVELS, but they’re the ones I’ve been stuck on.

The gospels of Mark and John lack Christmas stories entirely. Luke and Matthew both have them, but they are very different stories. Many excellent scholars believe that the Christmas stories of Luke and Matthew were added GENERATIONS after the rest of the books were completed. They function as “gospels in miniature”, foreshadowing the major themes each of the gospels focus on. They also function to make the stories of Matthew and Luke conform more to the literature of the day – in which stories of great heroes usually start with abnormal birth narratives to point out how important the hero is.

So, why were these “prequels” important enough to get told, and get written, and get added? Why did the early Christians want to conform to the hero-stories around them? And, once they were writing stories, why did they write them this way?

Which all gets back to the manger. In case no one has pointed it out to you yet, it is NOT normal to put new born babies in animal feeding troughs, which is exactly what a manger is. Why did Luke tell us a story of an over crowded inn, a lack of familial hospitality, and putting a baby in a feeding trough of all things!?!?

I started wondering about the symbolism of the manger. What could it mean? What was I missing? And then, the answer hit me and I felt ridiculous for never seeing it before. Those Christians of the early 2^nd century were giving us a COMMUNION metaphor in the very beginning. Jesus is the bread of life, and after he was born, he was placed in a feeding trough for animals because he is related to the act of feeding creatures for the sake of life itself. At first Jesus is placed among the food, in the end Jesus feeds us with the food of life.

And then the other question clicked too. If the Christmas stories are “gospels in miniature” then they have the same basic point as the gospels themselves. Which is that God is on the side of LIFE. The Gospels all tell the story of Jesus bringing life to the people through healing, feeding, and teaching. They tell of him bringing life to the people by bringing hope and encouraging them to see the brokenness of the world and refuse to participate in it anymore – and instead to work together to build something better. Then, in the end, the Gospels all say that death did not have the final power of Jesus – and leave us to make sense of that!

The gospels are about abundant life – about living abundantly, about making space for others to live abundantly, about letting go of the fear of death in order to live abundantly. The concept of abundant life for all people is prevalent throughout the entire Bible, EVEN THOUGH most human societies have functioned to make life abundant for SOME at the expense of many. Yet, the Gospels, like the Bible, want abundance for ALL.

And that’s what Luke is doing with the Christmas story he tells too. In any other hero-narrative of the time there would have been a focus on the wealth and supernatural elements of the hero’s birth. But Luke focuses on the family’s poverty. They could not afford what they needed, and in doing so he set up the wonderful foreshadowing of the manger.

Luke has the shepherds receive the good news – not the wealthy, or the powerful, but SHEPHERDS. And the message they receive emphasis that it is about LIFE for everyone. Remember that “savior” comes form “salve” and means “heal!”

“Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”

The message that comes to the shepherds is one of good news for ALL people, that a HEALER has come – and he will be for the poor, which you can tell because he is poor. We hear he is poor because they couldn’t pay enough to get a room – because in this story they are homeless.

This Christmas story is about life – and then it makes sense why it has to be this story. With this story added in, the Gospel Luke starts by telling a story of a new life, and ENDS by telling a story of life CONTINUED. The book of Luke is all about life, and you can tell because it starts and ends with it.

Given all this, I’m pretty grateful for this late addition to the Gospel, this Gospel in miniature. I think it does it job exceptionally well, and because of it we are able to gather this morning and celebrate our God who is a God of ABUNDANT LIFE for ALL.

Thanks be to God!

Amen

Preached on December 25, 2018 by Rev. Sara E. Baron

Sermons

“Do Not Fear, Beloved” based on Isaiah 43:1-7 and…

January 23, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

The words we heard from Isaiah today were spoken to a community abandoned to despair. Isaiah chapters 40-55 is called “Second Isaiah” and Second Isaiah was written to the exiles who had been force-ably marched across the desert to Babylon after the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem. The exiles in Babylon were despondent. They’d watched their city, their temple, and their nation be destroyed. They’d seen entirely too much death. Those who were left behind had all of their possessions and food taken form them, and were left without city walls to protect them. And the ones in exile were supposed to be the leaders of the people who took care of them, but instead they were in captivity in a foreign land.

In the midst of all of this, they were likely struggling with their faith. Not only do terrible events tend to make most people struggle with their faith, the faith of the Israelites at that time centered on two things: 1. The story of God of Liberation who had freed them from slavery in Egypt and 2. The gift of the Promised Land to God’s beloved people as a sign of God’s intention to keep them safe as a light to the other nations. You can probably see how a faith based on freedom and land would be seriously shaken by being taken back into slavery after losing the land.

To those struggling former leaders, now slaves, Isaiah send a message of hope. Isaiah was a prophet, so he spoke what he believed to be a message from God for the people. The message is shocking. It may help to know that “To be redeemed according to Israel’s law means to be bought out of human bondage by one’s kin, a close member of the extended family.”¹ More specifically, “The verb refers to a family intervention and solidarity whereby a stronger member of the family intervenes to assure the well being of a weaker member.”² Let’s hear the first verse again.

This is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God, who formed you:
Do not be afraid. You are in need of a family member to pay for your freedom,
and I have done so. You are my family. You bear my name.

Wha-what!?! The people are ENSLAVED. In a foreign land. After a major defeat, that most of them took to be a judgement by God. This cannot be what they expected to hear. Not even the beginning, the reminder that they were formed by God’s own hand. And definitely not the next part that God was going to pay for their freedom … since they thought God had sent them into exile. After feeling abandoned by God they got this message that God claimed them, loved them, acted for them. I imagine that it was confusing to try to parse out if this could be true. As a scholar puts it, “Israel is now fully identified with, belongs to, and is cherished by Yahweh.”3 But they’ve been interpreting their experience as exactly the opposite.

This experience, while very specific, seems to have some universal themes underlying it. Life has its ups and its downs, some of the downs are very far down, some of the downs are for a whole family or community, and quite often the downs feel like God has forgotten us, abandoned us, punished us, or… maybe like God ISn’t afterall. Today’s Isaiah scripture speaks into those times. “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you by name, and the name I call you is ‘mine.’” We are not forgotten, abandoned, nor punished. We are still connected, beloved, claimed… and when things are at the there worst, God is with us for it.

The passage then turns to possible threats that could harm Israel, and assures that YHWH is available to help them if that happens. Floods and rivers, not too much for God. Fires and wildfires, not too much for God. This, too, applies to us. Bad things may come, disasters may come, raging loses may come, they aren’t too much for God and God is still with us.

Second Isaiah speaks words of comfort and hope. This is particularly notable because First Isaiah (the first 40 chapters) come before the exile and speak rather dire warnings of what might come to pass if the leaders of the people don’t chance course. As most of the Hebrew Bible was written down during and immediately after the Exile, I am convinced that the primary questions it is asking is “why did this happen to us?” and “how do we understand God in these circumstances?” The Hebrew Bible answers those questions in a lot of ways, and Second Isaiah’s take is “it happened, that’s not the right question. But as to how do we understand God, that’s the important one – we know a God who comforts us, cares for us, never abandons us, and claims us. Because of God, we have hope for the present and the future.”

There are so many themes that bounce back and forth between our two scriptures today, it can seem that Luke 3 is using Isaiah as a source text. However, Isaiah is inherently talking to the COMMUNITY, and in Luke 3, God is speaking to Jesus – just one guy. Or, at least, I think that’s what is happening. The story says that it is of God speaking to Jesus, but I also think the story becomes much larger when we consider the baptism of Jesus as one of the primary reasons we baptize people into membership in the Body of Christ, and that this story then resonates within all baptized Christians. So maybe both them are written to communities, but only one of them admits it? I’m not sure.

Luke’s telling of Jesus’ baptism is brief but powerful. Jesus was baptized, he was praying, the Spirit came (like a dove) and then voice (from heaven) said, “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Within the Gospel this serves as an affirmation of Jesus’ identity as Messiah. However, have the words have echoed through the ages, and been passed on to each Christian at their baptism, they have come to mean even more. They have become like the words in Second Isaiah, an affirmation that God knows us, sees us, claims us, and is with us. They are words that tell us that we are LOVED, and that God also LIKES us. They are words that tell us of grace – that we are loved because God loves us and that’s the final answer – that our FIRST identity is “loved by God” – individually and communally.

Our second identity, then, is to show God’s love. In the United Methodist Communion liturgy, the second question that is asked fo parents of babies being baptized or of adults answering for their own baptism is, “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” I have come to LOVE this question. In fact, it has been MY cover photo on facebook for two years AND the church’s cover photo for a year and a half. I’ve considered changing both, but it is too on point. In these times, when the powers of injustice and oppression feel like they’re crushing in, both within the church and in the world, it feels liberating to hear that question again. “The freedom and power God gives you….” We do not have to be pulled into. We don’t have to participate. We can choose another path. We are FREE, because God frees us from the powers of evil, injustice and oppression.

That’s some great stuff. And Jesus is one of the examples of what a life can look like when it is free from evil, injustice, and oppression.

“This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is easy to look at the babies we baptize and see how true those words are for them. It can be very easy in adult baptism to hear the words echoing as well. One of the challenges is remembering that it keeps on echoing for all of us, all the time. In sacred moments, we see it, but it is omnipresent. Each person we meet is beloved by God, a child of God, one who God LIKES. Each of us are beloved by God, a child of God, liked by God – even when we aren’t able to like ourselves.

And then there is the correlated bigger picture. We, as a church, are a community of God’s, a Body of Christ together (even as we are part of larger and larger versions of the Body of Christ in the world.) We are not the entirety of God’s beloved community, but we ARE a beloved community of God’s. Which means that we are some of the recipients of the words in Luke as well of the ones in Isaiah. We are children of God, beloved, and with us God is well pleased. Also,

This is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God,
who formed you:
Do not be afraid. You are in need of a family member to pay for your freedom,
and I have done so. You are my family. You bear my name.

We are God’s, together. In fact, as a community, we come together knowing ourselves to be an expression of God’s love, together. We are formed together by being people seeking God, seeking to understand things of God, seeking to live out God’s ways in the world. We are formed by the Divine stories, by Divine love, by building the kindom of God together. We bear God’s name.

This means that God is with us in the ups and downs. God was with us when this community was large, when Sunday School was overflowing and this sanctuary was full every week. God is with us now when we are fewer people, with just as much commitment to God’s ways. God is with us when new people are joining us, and God is with us when we gather in gratitude for lives well lived. God is with us when we are struggling to find our ways of being in this world and in this community, and God is with us when we know we’re up to just the right ways of being love in the world.

We are God’s. Thanks be to God. Amen

Preached by Sara Baron on January 13, 2019

1Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective on Isaiah 43:1-7,” in Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 1, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 221.

2Walter Bruggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 53.

Sermons

“Do Not Fear, Beloved” Page 6Rev. Sara E. Baron…

January 14, 2019February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

The
words we heard from Isaiah today were spoken to a community abandoned
to despair. Isaiah chapters 40-55 is called “Second Isaiah” and
Second Isaiah was written to the exiles who had been force-ably
marched across the desert to Babylon after the defeat and destruction
of Jerusalem. The exiles in Babylon were despondent. They’d watched
their city, their temple, and their nation be destroyed. They’d seen
entirely too much death. Those who were left behind had all of their
possessions and food taken from them, and were left without city
walls to protect them. And the ones in exile were supposed to be the
leaders of the people who took care of them, but instead they were in
captivity in a foreign land.

In
the midst of all of this, they were likely struggling with their
faith. Not only do terrible events tend to make most people struggle
with their faith, the faith of the Israelites at that time centered
on two things: 1. The story of the God of Liberation who had freed
them from slavery in Egypt and 2. The gift of the Promised Land to
God’s beloved people as a sign of God’s intention to keep them from
other nations. You can probably see how a faith based on freedom and
land would be seriously shaken by being taken back into slavery after
losing the land.

To
those struggling former leaders, now slaves, Isaiah send a message of
hope. Isaiah was a prophet, so he spoke what he believed to be a
message from God for the people. The message is shocking. It may
help to know that “To be redeemed according to Israel’s law means
to be bought out of human bondage by one’s kin, a close member of the
extended family.”¹
More specifically, “The verb refers to a family intervention and
solidarity whereby a stronger member of the family intervenes to
assure the well being of a weaker member.”²
So with that, we can hear the first verse again.

This
is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God, who formed
you:

Do
not be afraid. You are in need of a family member to pay for your
freedom,

and
I have done so. You are my family. You bear my name.

The
people are ENSLAVED. In a foreign land. After a major defeat, that
most of them took to be a judgement by God. This cannot be what they
expect hear. Not even the beginning, the reminder that they were
formed by God’s own hand. And definitely not the next part that God
was going to pay for their freedom … since they thought God had
sent them into exile. After feeling abandoned by God they got this
message that God claimed them, loved them, acted on their behalf. I
imagine that it was confusing to try to parse out if this could be
true. As a scholar puts it, “Israel is now fully identified with,
belongs to, and is cherished by Yahweh.”³
But they’ve been interpreting their experience as the opposite.

This
experience, while very specific, seems to have some universal themes
underlying it. Life has its ups and its downs, some of the downs are
very far down, some of the downs are for a whole family or whole
community, and quite often the downs feel like God has forgotten us,
abandoned us, punished us, or… maybe like God ISn’t after all.
Today’s Isaiah scripture speaks into those times. “Do not be
afraid, I am with you. I have called you by name, and the name I
call you is ‘mine.’” We are not forgotten, abandoned, nor
punished. We are still connected, beloved, claimed… and when
things are at their worst, God is with us for it.

The
passage then turns to possible threats that could harm Israel, and
assures that YHWH is available to help them if that happens. Floods
and rivers, not too much for God. Fires and wildfires, not too much
for God. This, too, applies to us. Bad things may come, disasters
may come, raging loses may come, they aren’t too much for God and God
is still with us.

Second
Isaiah speaks words of comfort and hope. This is particularly
notable because First Isaiah (the first 40 chapters) come before the
exile and speak rather dire warnings of what might come to pass if
the leaders of the people don’t chance course. As most of the Hebrew
Bible was written down during and immediately after the Exile, I am
convinced that it has two primary questions it is asking is “why
did this happen to us?” and “how do we understand God in these
circumstances?” The Hebrew Bible answers those questions in a lot
of different ways, and Second Isaiah’s take is “it happened, that’s
not the right question. But as to how do we understand God, that’s
the important one – we know a God who comforts us, cares for us,
never abandons us, and claims us. Because of God, we have hope for
the present and the future.”

There
are so many themes that bounce back and forth between our two
scriptures today, it can seem that Luke 3 is using Isaiah 43 as a
source text. However, Isaiah is inherently talking to the COMMUNITY,
and in Luke 3, God is speaking to Jesus – just one guy. Or, at
least, I think that’s what is happening. The story says that it is
of God speaking to Jesus, but I also know the story is much larger
when we consider the baptism of Jesus as one of the primary reasons
we baptize people into membership in the Body of Christ, and that
this story then resonates within all baptized Christians. So maybe
both them are written to communities, but only one of them admits it?
I’m not sure.

Luke’s
telling about Jesus’ baptism is brief but powerful. Jesus was
baptized, he was praying, the Spirit came (like a dove) and then
voice (from heaven) said, “You are my Child, the Beloved; with
you I am well pleased.” Within the Gospel this serves as an
affirmation of Jesus’ identity as Messiah. However, have the words
have echoed through the ages, and been passed on to each Christian at
their baptism, they have come to mean even more. They have become
like the words in Second Isaiah, an affirmation that God knows us,
sees us, claims us, and is with us. These are words that tell us
that we are LOVED, and that God also LIKES us. They are words that
tell us of grace – that we are loved because God loves us and
that’s the final answer – that our FIRST identity is “loved by
God” -both as individuals and as a community.

Our
second identity, then, is to show God’s love. In the United
Methodist Communion liturgy, the second question that is asked fo
parents of babies being baptized or of adults answering for their own
baptism is, “Do
you accept the freedom and power God gives you to to resist evil,
injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”
I have come to LOVE this question. In fact, it has been MY cover
photo on facebook for two years AND the church’s cover photo for a
year and a half.
I’ve considered changing both, but it is too on point.
In these times, when the powers of injustice and oppression feel
like they’re crushing in, both within the church and in the world, it
feels liberating to hear that question again. “The freedom and
power God gives you….” We do not have to be pulled into. We
don’t have to participate. We can choose another path. We are FREE,
because God frees us from the powers of evil, injustice and
oppression.

That’s some great stuff.
And Jesus is one of the examples of what a life can look like when it
is free from evil, injustice, and oppression.

“This is my child, the
beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is easy to look at the
babies we baptize and see how true those words are for them. It can
be very easy in adult baptism to hear the words echoing as well. One
of the challenges is remembering that it keeps on echoing for all of
us, all the time. In sacred moments, we see it, but it is
omnipresent. Each person we meet is beloved by God, a child of God,
one who God LIKES. Each of us are beloved by God, a child of God,
liked by God – even when we aren’t able to like ourselves.

And then there is the correlated
bigger picture. We, as a church, are a community of God’s, a Body of
Christ together (even as we are part of larger and larger versions of
the Body of Christ in the world.) We are not the entirety of God’s
beloved community, but we ARE a beloved community of God’s. Which
means that we are some of the recipients of the words in Luke as well
of the ones in Isaiah. We are children of God, beloved, and with us
God is well pleased. Also,

This
is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God, who formed
you:

Do
not be afraid. You are in need of a family member to pay for your
freedom,

and
I have done so. You are my family. You bear my name.

We
are God’s, together. In fact, as a community, we come together
knowing ourselves to be an expression of God’s love, together. We
are formed together by being people seeking God, seeking to
understand things of God, seeking to live out God’s ways in the
world. We are formed by the Divine stories, by Divine love, by
building the kindom of God together. We bear God’s name.

This
means that God is with us in the ups and downs. God was with us when
this community was large, when Sunday School was overflowing and this
sanctuary was full every week. God is with us now when we are fewer
people, with just as much commitment to God’s ways. God is with us
when new people are joining us, and God is with us when we gather in
gratitude for lives well lived. God is with us when we are
struggling to find our ways of being in this world and in this
community, and God is with us when we know we’re up to just the right
ways of being love in the world.

We
are God’s. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Kathleen
M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective on Isaiah 43:1-7,” in
Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 1,
ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 221.

2Walter
Bruggemann, Isaiah 40-66
(Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 53.

3Bruggemann,
53.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

January 13, 2019

Sermons

“Not a King Like THAT” based on Psalm 93 and…

November 25, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Rev. Sara E. BaronFirst United Methodist Church of Schenectady603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305Pronouns: she/her/hershttp://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectadyIt is best, when reading from the Gospel of John, to do with awareness of metaphor and symbolism. Because the Gospel of John was written much later than the other Gospels (a generation or two), it has a tendency to make its points more poetically. Part of what I mean by this is that the Gospel of John lacks historical accuracy, but that is because historical accuracy wasn’t all that valuable to John. John thinks there are important points to make, and John makes them, presumably assuming that those listening know that the stories are being told to make points, and not to tell facts.

Which is to say, this is contrived encounter between Pilate and Jesus that deviates from how the other Gospels tell and and how it actually could have been. AND, that’s OK. John is expressing essential elements of Jesus-following, and he does it beautifully.

John contrasts the domination systems of the world with the nonviolence of Jesus and contrasts the power-hungry methods of leadership in the world, with the power-giving leadership of Jesus. There is significant debate over whether or not Jesus ever thought of himself or spoke of himself as a king, most of the Jesus Seminar thinks he didn’t. There are two reasons, however, why the early Christian community would have wanted to present him that way:

The expectation of the Jewish Messiah was of a Jewish King in the model of King David: one who would restore political, economic, and military might to the nation of Israel, one who would preside over an empire, one who would prove the power and might of God by overcome adversaries. While Jesus was CERTAINLY not THAT kind of king, speaking of Jesus in king language connected him to the tradition and claimed him in a role that people could make sense of. Granted, even in this passage, the sense being made has to acknowledge that Jesus is not a king in the normal ways of the world, but it was an imperative claim to early Christians that Jesus was the fulfillment of what their ancestors had been waiting for.
The Roman Empire which held the Jewish homelands as part and parcel of its Empire claimed many titles for itself. The Roman Emperor was the Prince of Peace, the Savior of the World, the Lord of Lords. Much of the language we now think of as Christian is really reflective of the early church claiming that Jesus was the real deal and the Roman Empire was not. Which to say, most of what sounds pious speech NOW was heresy when it came into Christianity. Within that context, for the Roman Empire the “King of the Jews” was the person that Rome appointed to be the leader of the lands occupied by the Jews. King Herod had been “King of the Jews” but his kingdom had been split upon his death. To even enter into this conversation about “King of the Jews” is to threaten the power of Rome to appoint leaders over God’s people. Pilate was NOT “King of the Jews”, he led ¼^th of the former kingdom and was the “tetrarch” of Judea. For him to be in conversation with Jesus about whether or not Jesus was the king of the Jews was for him to be asking if Jesus OUTRANKED him. The conversation itself, as presented here in John, makes Pilate a comedic figure and therefore dismisses his authority. The entire narrative supports the importance of Jesus, and contrasts him with the power-seeking ways of the world.

Now that we know why this conversation is presented to begin with, we can play with it a little more. Jesus is not presented as giving any straight answers, which I find amusing. He keeps asking questions to answer questions and responding in ways that Pilate can’t follow. To be fair, these do seem to be consistent with other stories of how Jesus plays cat and mouse with anyone trying to trap him.

My favorite line comes in verse 36. Pilate is trying to get Jesus to confess to what he’s accused of. Historically speaking, Jesus was accused of leading a revolt against the Empire, but he isn’t going to say that. Instead of answering the question at all, he says, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” The answer he gives has often been “spiritualized,” which I mean in a negative way even though I think spirituality is awesome. Christians have differentiated between the kingdoms on earth and the kingdom of heaven, and in doing so have indicated that it doesn’t matter what happens on earth as long as they manage to enter the kingdom of heaven.

This perspective has done GREAT harm, including by permitting abuses to human beings like slavery and functioning as an argument for not worrying about global climate change, to only take note of the worst offenses. Unfortunately, it also trickles down to other ways of not caring about God’s creation and creatures. I believe this is an inaccurate as well as problematic reading of the text.

John is talking about the ways of the world that are VIOLENT, he is talking about the domination systems of the world and contrasting them with the Jesus movement, which is NONVIOLENT and equitable. Both systems that are being contrasted here are systems of THIS world, and in fact both systems are ones that claim for themselves Divine blessing.

This year I’ve shared a few times the definition of domination system, but it has been a while, so I’m going to offer it again. “Domination systems are humanly contrived legal, social, political, economic, military, and religious systems deliberately designed and built to create and maintain power by a few at the top over the many below them. They exist to perpetuate the power of dominators over those dominated, explain why it is necessary, and to transfer wealth from workers up the ladder to the few obscenely wealthy persons at the top of the pyramid. Domination systems of various types have existed since the beginning of recorded history,”¹ although not all human systems have been domination systems.

Jesus and his followers lived in a domination system, but they lived in ways that transformed it rather than complied with it. The definition factor of a domination system is violence, but Jesus was emphatically nonviolent. This is what is presented in this Gospel lesson. If Jesus was building his own domination system to threaten the domination system of the Roman Empire, than Jesus’ followers would have come to rescue him with their own violent powers. They would have lead a revolution. They would come ready to fight.

They didn’t. Jesus faced violence without returning violence. He also faced it without yielding to its power, and by neither returning violence nor accepting the power of violence over him, he decreased its power in the world. Jesus’ kingdom was one of nonviolence, one without domination, one that has been about changing the world into the kindom of God which is a nonviolent and equitable kindom – rather than being like the normal ones of this world. But, the kindom or kingdom is one that is of THIS world.

Which leads us to some very practical questions. How well are we following in the nonviolent way of Christ? How well are we transforming the world, at least the world around us, from domination into equity? Where are we complicit in allowing violence and/or domination to take hold in our lives and our community? When do we struggle the most to live like Jesus did?

And, once we’ve squirmed with those questions: how can we more fully live into nonviolence and radical equity? At the core, I think all of the offerings of this faith community are meant to support the intersecting goals of nonviolence and radical equity. We study the Bible so we can learn how to do it, we learn about the injustices of the world so we can be part of changing them, we redistribute food and necessities to God’s beloved people to make our community more equitable, we worship to fill our souls with goodness so we can receive God’s gifts of peace and joy (which enable us to treat others with peace and compassion), we gather together for meetings and studies to learn from each other’s wisdom about what is needed and to try to offer it into the world.

Others are working with us in these tasks – other faith communities, other nonprofits, other teachers and students of wisdom and spirituality. It isn’t all on us, but our contributions matter.

Yet, I still wonder what we need – individually and communally – to do this better? Do we need opportunities for shared spiritual practice, to center ourselves on God’s peace? Do we need stories of hope and redemption, to remind ourselves of what God is capable of? Do we need times and spaces for rest from the work that has become wearying? Do we need clearer goals so we don’t feel like everything is on our shoulders, and we can remember that we work with God who has a lot to offer along with us!?

This is the last Sunday of the Christian year, and we start anew next week with the beginning of a new Advent and the return to the beginning of our faith story. So, as we come to the end of this year’s cycle of liturgy and remembrance, I offer it as a time for reflection: how well are we following the nonviolence and radically equitable ways of Jesus, and what do we need in order to keep following and keep deepening our faith?

I hope, perhaps, you’ll tell me what you you think about this, because I’m certain that God works among us in shared wisdom and together we have the answers we need to guide us in this next iteration of our shared journey. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Jim Jordal, “What is a Domination System” found on 2/10/2017 athttp://www.windsofjustice.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=356 written on March 14, 2013.

–

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 25, 2018

Sermons

“Lillies of the Field” based on Joel 2:21-27 and Matthew…

November 18, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

A few years ago, at a retreat entitled “Courage to Lead,” we did an exercise called “soft eyes.” We learned it in a very physical way. We were put in groups of threes, one person was to stand tall, and the other two knelt on the ground, holding onto the standing person’s hands. We tried it three ways. The first way, the people kneeling pulled as hard as they could to pull the person down, and the standing person fought it as hard as they could. The second way, the people kneeling pulled as hard as they could to pull the person down, and the standing person let them. The third way, however, was neither fighting nor giving in. In the third way, the people kneeling pulled as hard as they could to pull the person down and the person standing allowed the pulling – without fighting it nor giving in to. In that case, it felt like those pulling on my arms were helping me stretch. While I’d fallen both of the first two times, the third time it was pretty easy to stay on my feet. It felt like mountain pose in yoga – strong and steady.

The exercise, were told afterward, was really meant to be a metaphor about our choices in how we respond to others. We can look and listen with judgement and fight other as they tell their stories; we can receive other people’s stories without reflection or connection; OR we can allow another person’s story to be their truth and something that reflects truths in us. We can learn from and grow with another person, simply by listening to them, in the same way that other people pulling on me could feel like a stretch instead of like an attack. Soft eyes see, but see without to judging.

If I were to take a guess at what meaning is really at the core of the Gospel Lesson today, it would be the message of soft eyes. But to explain WHY, we need to start with Joel. That passage contains words of comfort and hope, of ease and restoration. But, if you listened carefully there is only one theme: a promise of enough food. The soil will rejoice, the animals will be able to eat green grass, the trees will bear fruit, the vines will yield grapes, the rain will come and let the crops grow – and it will come at the right times. The central promise is, verbatim, “”The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.” Or, in other words, “there will be enough food.” While there is plenty of metaphorical value in these words, I suspect their first meaning is quite literal.

Food, and food in abundance, in the ancient world, meant life. For the people trying to live after the exile, when what they had known was destroyed, the idea of a return to good life almost meant a vision of the land being able to be productive again. It meant a restoration of a stable, sustainable life. In some ways I find this passage shocking, when I realize that the whole dream of comfort and goodness is simply “you’ll be able to eat!” In fact, it says that the capacity to eat, and eat enough, is the reason that the people will trust in and praise God. “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.”

The idea here is that if you have food, God is with you, and if you don’t have food God isn’t. I don’t agree with this premise, but I CERTAINLY see how people could come to that conclusion. And, it helps us understand the oddities of our Gospel passage.

We need to look at the Gospel Lesson on its own first. I’m struck by the difference presented within the Gospel lesson between the natural world and human society. The examples of creatures whose well-being is cared for by God are from the natural world: birds, lilies, grasses. They’re complimented, they’re functional, they’re cared for. The birds don’t have to hoard food because they keep on finding enough. There is a subtle contrast with human societies that have the capacity grow and store food. There should be an abundance of food, yet the people are hungry.

The second natural example, it also ends up being a bit of a critique of human society. The lilies of the field don’t work for their lives, they don’t make cloth, “they neither toil nor spin.” Yet the epitome of wealth and wisdom in Jewish history – Solomon himself, wasn’t able to use all the wealth and all the knowledge he had to make himself as beautiful as those flowers who don’t work at it all, nor seek to acquire wealth. The lily is a regular symbol of beauty in the Bible. In Song of Songs the beloved is compared to a lily among brambles. When the Bible tells us of Solomon building the temple, (1 Kings 7), lilies were used to decorate the space. Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like a lily, and he seemed to know it! He valued their beauty!

The final natural example in Matthew is that of the “grasses of the field.” I can hear in them the refrain from Ecclesiastes, that “all is vanity and chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes has a lot to say about work, toil, food, and drink, including a fairly well known passage , “What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. [God] has made everything suitable for its time; moreover [God] has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.” (3:9-13) It to me seems like Jesus may be continuing that conversation here!

What does it mean when workers toil, and yet do not have enough to eat and drink, to be clothed, or to take pleasure in life? What does it mean when people are stuck in the needs of the present and therefore can’t give any attention to the future? And what does it mean, in the midst of those challenges, to hear Jesus say, “don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink , or about your body, what you will wear?”

Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, in “The Social-Science Comment on the Synoptic Gospels” point out that “For members of any culture (such as the United States), to have a future orientation requires that all one’s present needs be consistently taken care of. Such was never the experience of the preindustrial peasant.”¹ The people Jesus was in ministry with were people who usually did NOT have enough – they were people whose circumstances were dire. Most people did not have enough to eat, many people died earlier than they would have otherwise because of malnutrition.

It is a really weird thing to say “don’t worry about food” to people for whom staying alive means figuring out how to acquire enough bread “not to worry about food.” It seems like the equivalent of saying to a person who is homeless “not to worry about money.” But, I don’t think that Jesus is callous or unfeeling. So, while he is SAYING that, I don’t think it is likely to be his final point.

Thus, I wonder, WHY is Jesus telling people not to worry? Is the purpose of “don’t worry” really that you can’t change it anyway, so it isn’t worth the effort to worry? Or, is the purpose of “don’t worry” that anxiety is simply counter-productive? And/or is the purpose of “don’t worry” that moving out of the status quo and into creative solutions requires the letting go of fear and anxiety? Is Jesus telling people not to worry because worry keeps them from getting what they need???

I think so. ( I might hope so.) I think Jesus wanted the people to have enough to eat, but he thought the best way to make that happen was for them to work collaboratively, and being collaborative requires some letting go. Jesus is saying that worrying isn’t helping, “can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” He also says that worrying is the way of the world. He asks his followers to do something else entirely, to work for the kindom instead of working for the necessities of life.

This is where the soft eyes come back in. I think the people were working WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT to survive. The common misconception of this passage would be the opposite of that – that people are to be entirely passive and wait for God to act on their behalf. But I think Jesus is really talking about a middle way. Jesus is telling the people not to worry, and not to be passive, but to work together for everyone’s good – with God.

As a reminder, he kindom is the goal of Christian faith. It is what we are working towards, and what we believe God is working towards in the world. It is a time and a place of abundance. Perhaps today it would make sense to think of it as staring with Joel’s vision of soil, water, trees, vines, and grains that produce enough for everyone to be satiated. But the vision actually goes further. It is not just food that is abundant and distributed so that all have enough, but also clothing and shelter, healthcare and human connection, meaning and purposeful work, comfort and hope. The kindom comes when we treat each other as beloved children of God, and work towards a world when all have enough to be satiated in all of our needs.

This week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving in the US, we remember a historical example of the sort of generosity that can build the kindom. The early European settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony had not learned enough to about this land to have food in abundance, but the Native Americans shared what they had to feed those who didn’t have enough. Because of the food they shared, that day and that winter, the colonists survived, and because they survived we remember their generosity on Thanksgiving.

There are other ways to respond. We are not stuck with only the choices of fighting for survival, or passively giving up. We are not stuck with the choices of listening to the 24 hour news cycle or simply staying in bed and ignoring the world. There are middle ways! One of the most powerful is gratitude. When we feel stuck, (and a lot of us feel stuck a lot of the time) we can notice what there is to be grateful for – and there is almost always a lot! It pulls us out of false binaries and into the complicated possibilities of life – gratitude works to soften our eyes and let God and humanity in. Thanks be. Amen!

1 Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Matthew 6:19-7:6” p. 50.

–

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 18, 2018

Sermons

“Unbound for Living” based on Psalm 24 and John…

November 11, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I took a course on Children’s Literature in college. It was one of those courses where the professor was so worried about people thinking it wasn’t a valid topic of study that it was 3 times harder than everything else. Despite its difficultly, the course was amazing. During one of his lectures, causally, as if we’d all already known it, the professor mentioned that all fairy tales deal with two fundamental desires of all humans: to be special and to be normal.¹

To be special and to be normal. He used examples to show it off, but the point itself stuck with me. We all want to be normal – to fit in, to be accepted, to be assured that we’re OK. We also want to be special – to be great at something, to be recognized for our talents, to be seen as extraordinary. The balance and struggle between the two changes in various groups and between individuals. In some communities, the normal is more highly valued (studies have shown this happens particularly communities with people living in poverty). In others, the special is more highly valued (studies have shown this happens particularly communities with people who are upper middle class and upper class.)²

To be special and to be normal. Sometimes those two universal yearnings come into conflict with each other, because they are. Yet, sometimes they play together as well. Sometimes we subdivide ourselves into various groups – based on something that makes us “special” – and then have expectations in that group of what looks like “normal.” The internet has been very useful for this, since it makes connecting with others who might share traits so much easier. Take, for example, the myriad of pseudo-physicological “personality tests” and the ways that people subgroup themselves into types and then explain their behaivors as normal within those types. (Admittedly, this can be fun.)

In the beginning of the Gospel reading today, Jesus is as normal as normal can be. His friend has died, and he weeps. He grieves. Jesus values the life and love of one he has known and feels the emptiness when the life has passed. This is a story of Jesus acting like a normal person. He was holding it together until Mary wept, but his emotions were impacted y hers. In the midst of the grief he wants to go, and see, to process, to be as close as possible to the one he has lost. And even in the story an accusation of blame. In this case it is external – Mary blames Jesus for Lazarus’s death, but often it is internal. One of the great struggles of grief is the struggle with blame. Because we wish we had the power to hold onto our loved ones, because death hurts like nothing else, because we want to think we could have stopped it, intermingled with grief is a lot of blame; and often much of it is internalized.

It is all normal.

Until it isn’t.

The story shifts to one about Jesus as special – REALLY special – to the best of my knowledge there are no internet chat groups for those who can resuscitate the dead with a word. Jesus commands that the stone be rolled way, and he calls the dead man back out among the living. As the man struggles to move because of the binding clothes of death he’d been wrapped in, Jesus gives a final command “Unbind him and let him go.”

If there is anything “normal” in this story, it is that Jesus is able to do what the rest of us yearn for. The yearning to call back our loved ones from the dead, to return them to the space of the living, to unbind the bands of death that hold them – that’s one of the MOST normal experiences of humanity.

So, this might be a story of human grief, what it looks like and what it yearns for. Jesus is the epitome of human grief, and the expression of what we’d do if we could, under the assumption that he could do what we can’t. Therein lies the special and the normal!

Theologians differentiate between the story of the rising of Lazarus from the rising of Jesus by calling Lazarus’s resuscitation and Jesus’ resurrection. The difference, they say, is that Lazarus was going to die again someday, but Jesus was not. Some say this story exists merely to foreshadow Jesus’ resurrection, or to indicate his power over death. Yet, in this story this power over death is impermanent. Lazarus will die again. The power over death in this story then, is transient.

And yet, that doesn’t matter! For Mary and Martha, as well as for Jesus, another moment with Lazarus was worth it. Whatever moments they’d gained – no matter how many moments they gained – were infinite worth. In reflecting on the yearning for more time with those we love, we are given reminders of where to set our current priorities. Mary, Martha, and even Jesus would take what time they could get and savor it, without complaining that Lazarus’s life would still someday end. Because the saints we celebrate today are ones who no longer walk among the living, we are reminded of the power of time with our loved ones. We cannot regain time with those we’ve lost; but we can prioritize time with those who are still with us. We cannot go back and learn the stories we never heard from those we’ve lost; but we can ask new questions and listen to the stories of those who are still with us.

There is another lesson given to us by the saints who have gone on ahead – they’ve taught us how to live! In every human life we see a unique glimpse of the divine, and we see a reflection of God’s love. Within the lives we celebrate today there are lessons about how to live a good life.

The story says there were cloth bindings covering Lazarus’s hands, feet, and head. He emerged from the grave still laden with them. Maybe he couldn’t take them off himself because his hands were covered. Perhaps he was still stiff and struggling to regain feeling in his extremities? Maybe he needed help taking them off, or maybe those who loved him needed to experience helping him remove the bindings as a means of unbinding him from death.

“Unbind him from the death cloths” is a powerful image. In this story it is about freeing a living man who was thought to be dead, to free him to be alive and mobile again. Those who were living removed the cloths of death, to allow the one assumed to be dead to be fully among the living again. Those binding cloths of death have resonance in our lives too. They lead us to questions.

What binds us to death, and prevents us from a full entry into to life? Can we become bound to death while we are grieving the death of those we love? Does fear, or even existential anxiety, ironically bind us to death? Can some levels of exhaustion bind us to death? Can the harms we’ve know, and the healing we have yet to find, be a binding to death?

What is it like to be among those who unbind the living from the cloths of death? How does it feel to unravel hands so they can move again, feet so one can walk without tripping, a face to allow clean air to be breathed, eyes to see, ears to hear, a mouth to speak? When have we offered such miraculous gifts? Does it happen when we offer food to people who are hungry? Is it a gift that occurs when we have time to listen to another’s heart? Are these the gifts of medicine and engineering, of teaching caregiving? Are we able to unbind each other? Can we give each other rest? Hope? Healing?

How?

How do we identify when we need help becoming unbound from the things of death? What does it feel like to be in need of help to have the cloths be unraveled? Jesus calls us both to unbind the clothes of death – and to let the cloths of death be unbound form us.

We get to grieve – Jesus modeled grief for us. But we also get to live – and take the lessons we learned from those we loved about how to live, and live well. We remember, on this day, the saints who have gone before us. We remember their lives with gratitude. Because of them we remember to live our lives well, and to savor the time we have with those we love. Today, we thank God for the lives of the saints. Thanks be to God! Amen

1Randy-Michael Testa, lecture, Winter Term 2001.

2Based on research by Nicole Stephens, Kellogg School of Management.

–

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 1, 2018

Sermons

“What Had He Heard?”based on Job 38:1-7 and Mark 10:46-52

October 29, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I’m told that there are preachers in the world who can speak without putting the readings in context. I am not that preacher. This is my third sermon in a row on texts from Mark 10, and I’m aware of how profoundly this gospel reading exists within its context in Mark.

I recognize the risk of boring people to death, and yet I find that we need to look both backwards and forwards in Mark form this text in order to make any sense of it. #sorrynotsorry Two weeks ago we dealt with the story of the rich man who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life. He was invited by Jesus to sell all he had and follow Jesus, but he went away sorrowful because “he had many possessions.” Jesus then taught his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

Last week, we heard about the disciples James and John who asked a favor of Jesus. Jesus responded, “What would you have me do?” The disciples were looking for security and power, Jesus corrected them by teaching that he wasn’t offering security, nor power. Instead, he was offering a radical way off life where the first become last, the last become first, and those who are leaders are servants first.

As soon as today’s reading is over, the Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem begins.

Crowded in the midst of these teachings and misunderstandings, we have this obscure little healing narrative. It is all happening on the way to Jerusalem, which in Mark is the way to death on the cross. It would be easy to overlook this healing narrative, especially since Jesus just healed another blind man in Mark 8, and that was a far more interesting story. It is the one where Jesus’ healing takes two tries. But here it is, our text for the week, and the more I looked at it context, the more brilliant it started to appear.

The rich man couldn’t bear to sell all he had, yet in this story an impoverished beggar throws off his cloak in order to get up faster to get to Jesus. The cloak was not only his only possession, it was likely his home. His cloak was what kept him warm enough to stay alive at night, and it was also a tool. Beggars spread out their cloaks to receive alms.¹ Yet, in his haste to get to Jesus, he discards it. The rich man couldn’t let go when he was asked to, but the poor man throws away everything he has in one single motion simply to meet Jesus.

The disciples James and John had approached Jesus to gain a favor, and tried to trick him by opening with “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus had responded, “What is it you want me to do for you?” Here, Jesus begins the interaction with the blind man who had been begging with almost the same words. “What do you want me to do for you?” While the established disciples had been seeking status, despite Jesus’ teaching; Bartimaeus requests healing. He says he wants to see again. Jesus isn’t about status, but he is about wholeness.

We sometimes miss the nuances in the healing stories in the Bible because our worldview and the worldview of the ancients are so different, including the fact that they didn’t have germ theory yet. Bruce Malina in the Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels says, “Anthropologists carefully distinguish between disease (a biomedical malfunction afflicting and organism) and illness (a disvalued state of being in which social networks have been disrupted and meaning lost). Illness is not so much a biomedical matter as it is a social one.”² Ancient healers, including Jesus, were working on ILLNESS. Malina says, “the healing process is considered directly related to a person’s solidarity with and loyalty to the overall belief system of the culture in general.”³

So ancient healing was, in effect, a healing of both the individual and the community. The individual who was ill was separated from the community by the illness, and thus the illness impacted the community as well, since they were separated as well. A community is only whole when all of its members are present and connected.

Bartimaeus’s blindness would not be a considered a disease today, nor a reason for him to be outside of community, but I think it was then. This is where the gospel gets a bit confusing. The gospel says that Bartimaeus regained his sight when Jesus spoke. In the act of healing him, Jesus says, “Go, your faith has made you well.” This indicates that the healing of sight was seen as the healing of illness. It also fits with the other healing stories in Mark. The people are to “go,” to leave the live of illness behind and re-enter society. Sometimes they’re even told to go to the priests to be assured of their healing. However, Bartimaeus does not “go.” He does not return to his community. This healing is, sort of, cut off then. It isn’t complete. Instead of returning to the community, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way.

In essence, this healing story is ALSO the LAST story of Jesus calling his disciples. After this, the story starts to move towards his death. This is a transition point, in function it is the end of his active ministry. Everything changes with the entrance into Jerusalem, and that begins with the verse that follows this story.

The first disciples were called away from their fishing boats. Even at this late point, they’re still very confused about what’s going on. This final disciple though, isn’t told to follow at all. He’s told to “go” not to “come” and he follows anyway. We give the first disciples a lot of credit for following Jesus when he said “come” – do we give enough for the one who followed when he was told “go”?

As a whole, this story is a fantastic example of Mark’s earlier point about “the first being last and the last being first.” The first disciples are still struggling to understand, the last disciple is the one yelling “Jesus, son of David” – and he is the FIRST person in Mark to make that claim about Jesus. To call Jesus son of David was to claim him as Messiah.

I struggle though, to make sense of the healing that didn’t restore community. Maybe I’m not supposed to worry about it because it restored the kindom community around Jesus instead of the community of Jericho? I’m not sure.

I’m also worried about the rest of the beggars in Jericho. You see, as Ched Myers says in Binding the Strong Man, “Jericho was the last stop en route to the city of David; the road out of town, representing the final, fifteen-mile leg of the pilgrim’s journey, would have been the standard beat for much of that city’s beggar population. The odds were good that the pilgrims would have the mood and means to give alms.”⁴ Which is to say that Bartimaeus was likely not was the only beggar on the route – nor even in the vicinity when this healing was happening. The setting means there were a lot of beggars, and Bartimaeus was just one of them.

Why was he chosen? Why did Jesus call for him? Was Bartimaeus the only one crying out? Was he the only one crying out “Jesus, son of David”? If so, was this the first time he’d used a line like that, or did he try some variation of it every day? If it was the first time, what had he heard about Jesus leading him to believe he was the “son of David?” Or, was he the one who needed it the most? Was he the one the crowd spent the most energy silencing (and if so, why)? Was he the squeaking wheel – and that got Jesus’ attention? Or was everyone crying out too?

It is hard for me to hear a story of Jesus picking one suffering person out of a crowd and healing only that one. While it is an unexpected grace for that one person, if Jesus could heal, why did he stop with one?

My struggles with the Bartimaeus story also extend to the Job narrative. Our reading today is well into the book of Job, so I’m going to do a quick plot summary to catch us all up. Job was a wealthy man with a great life, and then it all came crashing down – his herd died, his tents collapsed, his children died, and he got sick all at once. He felt like this was a punishment from God, and an unjust one, because he hadn’t done anything wrong. His friends tried to tell him to repent, and he refused because he hadn’t done anything wrong. He asked God to explain God’s self. 38 chapters into this drama, in the passage we read this morning, God finally does.

It isn’t the answer Job was looking for – Job wanted to ask questions of God and make God answer them! Instead Job got questioned by God. Experientially, that sounds like God. The answer responds to the person’s need, but not their wants! God’s response could be heard as “who are you, and what do you think you know?” It could be heard in other ways too, “there is a whole creation here, it isn’t all about you”, or “things are more complicated than you can see” or “there is a lot of wonder, even in the midst of the horrors.” God’s answer is complicated, and I think our own moods impact what we hear it in.

But, I think the key piece of the story is that God ANSWERS. Job isn’t left to his suffering alone, and God cares. Yet, I have known people whose life experiences feel like Job. They’re at rock bottom and they’ve lost everything, and most of them don’t have an experience of noticing that God is listening or responding when they are at the bottom. Thanks be, some do! But most don’t.

Sure, Job is a story expressing a lot of theological questions. But it is also a narrative telling us that God cares, and God responds. Yet, people don’t always sense that in their own lives. It can feel like the problem of Bartimaeus, YAY for his healing, what about everyone else. YAY for Job’s answer, where is mine?

Or maybe I’m unfair. When, bad things happen to people and I don’t think those are punishments from God. I think they are things that happened, and God is with us to help us through it. So, then, why am I worried about GOOD things happening to people? Yes, some people get healed, and others don’t! There are reasons to be grateful for healings, and for spiritual insights, and for experiences of the Divine.

Maybe, it needs to be said that things aren’t always fair, including the distribution of blessings. I would like them to be fair! But I can hear God suggesting I gird up my loins and get over it. Sometimes blessings come and the last become first. But only sometimes. In any case, in this story, Jesus is still heading to Jerusalem, Bartimaeus follows Jesus to Jerusalem, Job’s life goes on. Our faith doesn’t let us be dependent on miracles, they may or may not come. But they are not indications of God’s love. God’s love is there all the time, equally distributed, fair, accessible, transformational. We can depend on God’s love, and let God’s blessings be bonuses. I think that’s all we can do. May God help us. Amen

1Myers, 282.

2Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) p. 368.

3 Malina, 369.

4Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008) page 281.

–

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

Sermons

“Twisting Expectations” based on Isaiah 40:3-5 and Mark 10:32-45

October 21, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

James
and John don’t get it – they’ve managed to miss the whole point.
Further, in the remaining 10 disciples’ responses to James and John,
we learn that they don’t get it either. They’ve ALL missed the
point. In the Gospel of Mark, the closest followers of Jesus, the 12
disciples, are absolutely clueless about … well, everything. Jesus
and the disciples are talking past each other. I think it is meant
to be amusing. It might be a little bit more successful in aiming
for amusing, however, if it didn’t feel so very close to home.

James
and John are scared, and as scared people do, they are seeking
security. They were on their way to Jerusalem, they had some sense
of what might be coming, and it was terrifying. Scared people often
behave in suboptimal ways. This fact feels relevant TODAY. Michael
Moore’s 2002 film “Bowling for Columbine” discussed our nation’s
“climate of fear.” He claims we’re taught to be afraid, and to
seek solutions to our fear, even when the reasons we’re to be scared
aren’t articulated. His movie was the first time I’d noticed that
phenomenon, and it was very helpful in insulating me from its effects
– for a while.

Then
it gotten harder. The recent news on climate change is terrifying,
and I think even validly so. In recent years I have been forced to
reckon with the fact that the values I hold most dear, the ways I
think the common good is achieved, and the society I wish to be a
part of building are NOT as widely shared as I thought, and that has
been scary too. Maybe it is only scary to know it – since it was
already there before, but it has been scary nonetheless. While this
has been normal in my life time, it also scares me that the United
Methodist Church at large and each individual UM church I have loved
will someday cease to exist and that day will likely be sooner than I
would choose.

These
large scale things exist on top of the normal day to day fears of
human existence: that one day I will die, that one day all those I
love will die, that illness or injury could come at any moment to
myself or those I love, that among those I care most deeply about
there are ones struggling because they don’t have enough, that a day
could come when I don’t have enough, that maybe nothing I do matters,
and universal fear that no one really likes me after all.

I
don’t think those fears are unique to me, but they also exist in me.
The normal day to day fears also existed back in Jesus day, and James
and John were likely quite familiar with those. They were also
facing some large scale concerns – they might lose Jesus, and the
Roman Empire might be interested in eliminating their whole
community.

At
the same time, they clearly believed that Jesus was going to “win.”
I say that because of how they respond to their fear. They’re
afraid everything is going to get destroyed, so they try to seek
power within the system as they understand it – and by doing so
they display just how much they believe that Jesus is the source of
power. They ask to sit at his right and and his left. We, the
reader, are supposed to be thinking of the insurrectionists who will
be crucified on Jesus right and left. However, the brothers are not.
They lived in an honor-shame society, the ultimate hierarchical
system. Honor was a zero sum game. They thought Jesus had it, and
they were trying to gain more honor by getting closer to him and
acknowledged by him.

However,
because it was a zero sum game, IF two members of the inner circle of
12 gained honor, then it meant the other 10 got moved further away
and lost honor. The other disciples seemed to believe as James and
John did: that things were scary, that this was a time to try to gain
security, that Jesus was the best bet they had, and that Jesus was so
honor-filled that the closer they got to him the better they’d do.

It
seems to me that they DID have the faith of a mustard seed, they just
didn’t have it in the right thing. While the disciples, led by James
and John, are vying for honor in a zero sum game that permeated their
society, Jesus is talking about an entirely different system. They
ask for a favor, and Jesus says, “You don’t get it. I’m not the
honor-source you think I am. I’m here to upend the system, not to
best it. Are you able to pay the price for upending the system with
me?”

This
is one of those places where people are talking past each other. I
appreciated the scholar who pointed out, “In the Old Testament ‘the
cup’ is an ambiguous image, which can connote joy and salvation (Pss.
23:5; 116:13) or woe and suffering (Ps. 11:6; Isa. 51:17, 22).”¹
The same scholar points out that there are reasons to think of
baptism as suffering or as blessing, as well. Jesus seems to be
talking suffering, but the disciples, still hearing things in the
ways of the world around them, hear their honored leader as talking
about blessing.

After
the remaining 10 disciples proof they’re missing the point too, Jesus
makes another attempt to do general teaching. What he speaks seems
to me to be central to Christian faith itself. “You
know that among those-who-don’t-know-our-God, those whom they
recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are
tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to
become great among you must be your servant,
and
whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” In the
honor-shame system, servants and slaves were at the bottom. But
Jesus is twisting up all expectations, and putting servants and
slaves at the top.

He
finishes this teaching saying, “For the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” This
gets interesting. Charles Campbell, professor of Homiletics at Duke
Divinity School says:

“The
Way of the Cross, Jesus affirms, is the way of resistance of the
Domination System, which is characterized by power exercised over
others, by control by
others, by ranking as the primary principle of social organization,
by hierarchies of domination and subordination, winners and losers,
insiders and outsiders, honored and shamed. … Jesus calls the
community of faith, in its life together, to offer an alternative to
the ways of the Domination System – and to bear the suffering that
inevitably comes as a result. Jesus resists the domination system
throughout his ministry – even unto death on a cross – so he sets
us free (ransoms us, v. 45) from that system, so we might become
faithful disciples and take up his way of resistance.”²

Ched
Myers, author of Binding
the Strong Man
expands on the final point. He explains, “The term referred to the
price required to redeem captives or purchase freedom for indentured
servants. Jesus promises then that the way of ‘servanthood’ has been
transformed by the Human One into the way of transformation.”³
In this model, instead of leadership being about gaining power
over, leaders are being trained in the ways of nonviolence, to serve,
to resist, and if necessary, to suffer as well. Leaders aren’t
people who have, gain, or seek status, at least not as Jesus saw it.
That’s how the world works – how it worked then and how it works
now. Jesus presents an entirely different system: servant ministry,
taking care of each other.

By
lifting up the role of servant, Jesus inverted the entire hierarchy.
Furthermore, he established an expectation that his community of
followers would teach each other as extended kin, and as people
caring for the needs of each other. In the old system servant did
the care giving work, but in Jesus’ system, everyone did. The
followers of Jesus weren’t to be in competition with each other, they
weren’t in a zero sum game. They were to live by entirely
different rules.

They
were to LIVE the imagery of Isaiah. They were to become the
preparation for God’s way. They were the ones lifting up the lowly,
AND pulling down the mighty, to be in equal relationships with each
other! The followers of Jesus were to BE the glory of God revealed
in the world, visible for all.

Just
like the disciples though, we don’t do our best work when we’re
scared. I was reminded recently that the limbic system, which is
where our emotions live in our brains, is soothed relationally and
interpersonally. It is MUCH easier to feel good when we’ve connected
with those we love and trust then it is to talk or work our way out
of our fears by ourselves.

This
idea of radical equality with each other, of deep relationship, of
kinship without competition – this is really key. It isn’t just
for the long term well being of the sake of the kindom. It is ALSO
how we make it through the day to day, and how God helps us overcome
our fears and enact our roles as part of the glory of God. We
baptized Anna today, and we welcomed her as our sibling in Christ.
Now we teach her what it is to be loved in a radical community of
faith committed to twisting the world’s expectations into something
far better – the glory of God. May we do it well! Amen

1C.
Clifton Black, “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 10:35-45” in
Feasting
on the Word, Year B, Volume 4,
ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
191

2Charles
L. Campbell “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 10:35-45” iin
Feasting
on the Word, Year B, Volume 4,
ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),
193.

3Ched
Myers, Binding the Strong Man
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008), 279.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

October 21, 2018

Sermons

“Jesus Looked and Loved” based on Leviticus 19:9-18 and…

October 15, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

This is a tough gospel lesson. It is tough to understand, and it is tough to follow. Commentators I’ve read this week have varied wildly in their interpretations of the text, and in their suggestions about how to preach it. Since the text claims it is difficult to get into the kindom of God, it could seem like an odd passage for a baptism Sunday, when we celebrate inclusion in the Body of Christ and the shared work of building the kindom of God. I think it is going to work out for us in the end though.

I want to review a few points about the text before looking at it more broadly. The Christian tradition has often referred to the questioner in this passage as the “rich, young ruler” which is a conflation of the three versions from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Mark doesn’t tell us the man was young, nor a ruler, and he doesn’t INTRODUCE him as rich. We do find out that he is along the way though. As Ched Myers points out in Binding the Strong Man, “A possession is used to describe a piece of landed property of any kind… a farm or a field, and in the plural lands or estates.”¹ This puts him in the top 3% of wealth in the ancient world, and likely actually the top 1%.

The big interpretative question of this text is: is it good or bad to be wealthy? Or, more specifically – did the people to whom Jesus was speaking think it was good or bad to be wealthy? As John Dominic Crossan pointed out when he was here last fall, there are two streams of thought in the Bible. One is the “covenant” stream, in which God and the people make a deal and IF the people follow what they’re supposed to do THEN God will bless them with peace and prosperity. If not, God will punish them. The second stream, and it may be good to know that John Dominic Crossan thinks these streams are about the same size, is the stream of Sabbath and distributive justice. In this stream, God does not engage in reward nor punishment, although there remain natural consequences for actions. In this stream, human beings are responsible for their actions – and for taking care of each other. God is, at all times, encouraging resource distribution that maximizes abundant life.

John Dominic Crossan says that the stream of thought you follow in the Hebrew Bible impacts how you hear the New Testament. This seems especially true of how this passage gets interpreted. One school of thought thinks that the people Jesus were speaking to would have thought that wealthy people were wealthy because they were blessed by God, thus the disciples would have worried, “if the rich man can’t get in, the rest of us have no hope!” In this perspective, the end of the passage makes sense. If someone is asked to leave wealth, they’ll be given more of it later to make up for it.

Sakari Häkkinen, Department of New Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa, helps us with context, “In the ancient world, generosity was directed rather to community, not to the needy, who were rather despised more than pitied.”² and “Those who had no problems with sustenance were altogether at most 10%, whereas in continuous problems of sustenance were living some 90% of the population, more than two thirds of them in severe or extreme poverty.”³

The other school of thought assumes the opposite. It assumes that because wealth was concentrated in the hands of very few, the poor resented them for it. Those who explain this mindset point out that there were a lot of zero sum assumptions at that time. Ancient Palestine and Galilee were part of an honor society, in which it was assumed that honor belonged to families, and if it was lowered – then someone else gained; and if it was raised, then someone else lost it. Thus, they say that people thought that way about wealth too. Ched Myers says,

As we have seen in the discussion of the class structure of Mark’s Palestine, landowners represented the most politically powerful social stratum. With this revelation, the story of the man abruptly finishes, as if the point is obvious. As far as Mark is concerned, the man’s wealth has been gained by ‘defrauding’ the poor – he was not ‘blameless’ at all – for which he might make restitution. For Mark, the law is kept only through concrete acts of justice, not the facade of piety.⁴

Bruce Malina in the Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels says, “In a limited-good society, compliments indicate aggression; they implicitly accuse a person of rising about the rest of one’s fellows at their expense.”⁵ And, compliments came with expectation of reciprocity. That’s why, he says, Jesus got snarky about not being good, he didn’t want the compliment, nor did he want to return one. Malina says , “To follow the discussion here, one must realize that ‘rich’ people were automatically considered thieves or heirs of thieves since all good things in life are limited. The only way one could get ahead was to take advantage of others.”⁶ Yet, it is important to note that a loss of wealth would be a loss of social status, and that would be a loss of HONOR, which would be the ultimate loss in that society.

Those in this view have a good way to make sense of the commandment that Jesus ADDED to his list that otherwise only included ones from the 10 commandments. Did you notice it? He says, “You shall not defraud.” Malina explains, “In the Greek Bible, the verb is appropriated to the act of keeping back the wages of a hireling, whereas in Classical Greek it is used of refusing to return goods or money deposited with another for safekeeping.⁷

I have to admit, I’m not sure which school of thought makes more sense to me. Sure, wealth was unevenly distributed, and those paying attention would have been furious about it. Further, I think Jesus was paying attention, and I think he followed the distributive justice stream. But I don’t know how the peasants in Galilee thought about wealth. It seems plausible to me that they thought the wealthy were blessed by God. It also seems plausible to me that their faith in God helped them see otherwise – if they followed the distributive justice stream. In fact, if I’m really honest, I think the people who listened to Jesus fell into both camps! Likely, not everyone heard it the same way. Likely not everyone who wrote about Jesus’ teaching thought about it in the same way.

Yet, the passage draws us into some really good questions. Jesus says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” I believe that he is talking about God’s realm on earth, and not about afterlife. And, I think maybe he is right. While I think the whole point of Christianity is to build the kindom of God, I also think there are a lot of thing that make it hard to make a 100% commitment to it, to live it, to ENTER it. One of those things has always been wealth. The kindom is a cooperative realm- where there is a distribution of justice AND of resources. Thus, anyone who has wealth and hasn’t shared it isn’t entirely living the kindom.

But monetary wealth isn’t the only facet of kindom living. The kindom is a place, a time, of abundance, which means it also requires giving of our energies, our talents, our passions. Further, I believe the kindom is built on healing and wholeness, not to mention authenticity! So, the things that hold us back from fully sharing ourselves, and our passions, and our talents – those hold back the kindom too. And that gives us all challenges to work on. Ultimately, as Methodists following John Wesley, we claim sanctification. That is, we claim that God is working within us to perfect our capacity to love others as God does. What direction is God working with you on right now? How is sanctification happening within you? Sanctification is the building of the kindom. And without releasing the things that hold us back from loving God, ourselves, AND others as God loves us all – we’re holding things that are too big to allow us FULLY enter the kindom. May God help us let go. Amen

1Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008, 274. He is quoting Taylor, 1963: 430.

2Sakari Häkkinen, “Poverty in the first-century Galilee” in SciElo South Africa On-line version ISSN 2072-8050http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222016000400046 Accessed 10/13/18

3Ibid.

4Myers, 274.

5Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Luke 16:1-16” p. 191.

6Malina, 191.

7Myers quoting Taylor, page 272 of Myers, 428 of Taylor.

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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 14, 2018