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“Sent” based on Isaiah 6:1-8 and John 3:1-17

  • May 27, 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/When
I was 7, my friend Becca was in a church that focused on “being
saved.”  As far as I understood it, “being saved” involved
taking a teacher from her Sunday School into the church library,
proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and praying a specific
prayer.  This, apparently, was not to be done too early or one might
not believe it with one’s whole heart, but should be done as soon
as possible so as to ensure eternal salvation.

Becca
was very excited that she had been saved and frequently asked me if I
had been. I always answered no.  This answer always resulted in a
long lecture about why I should “be saved.”  The lecture, in
turn, irritated me.  One day I had a brilliant revelation… although
I had never “been saved” in Becca’s definition, I believed that
Jesus loved me just as I was.  I didn’t think that there were
specific hoops to jump through in order for God to accept me.  So,
the next time Becca asked me if I was saved I said yes!  I wasn’t
saved in her world view, but I was in mine.

Becca’s
understanding of being saved is a part of our Christian tradition.
So was mine.  In the years since, my perspective has gained more
knowledge and nuance. I now know that salvation is about God’s work
towards healing and wholeness in the world.  I’ve come to believe
that God desires “salvation for all of creation” which isn’t
about afterlife at all, but about the kindom coming to earth.  I’ve
also learned a lot more about how things were in Jesus’ day.  Still,
as a whole, I’m at a peace with my 7 year old decision to answer as I
did.

In
the time of Jesus, most people believed that when you died, you
ceased to exist – from dust to dust in those days meant no
afterlife and no eternal soul.  In the Greeco-Roman religion that was
dominate in the lands that surrounded Jesus,  the gods
were immortal – and people became immortal only when they were
promoted to god-status because of an extraordinary life.  The
Sadducees, who were the ruling party in Judaism, utterly denied the
possibility of afterlife.  Neither in Jesus’ immediate community
nor in his world at large was afterlife considered a real
possibility.

Early
Christianity was novel in that its followers believed that they could
become immortal.  Or, to name it in the Greco-Roman context, the
followers of Jesus all became “little gods”. They were immortal,
something true only of gods and goddesses.  This was a very strong
statement – people who followed Jesus became like the gods of the
world that surrounded them!

Today,
many people consider heaven and hell to be contrasting opposites.  At
that time, the alternative to joyful eternal live was not hell.  It
was “perishing.” That is, if you followed Jesus, you gained
eternal life.  If you didn’t follow Jesus, you ceased to exist at
the end of your life.  That’s where this passage ends… with the
well known John 3:16-17.  “‘For God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not
perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not
send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him.”  

Thus,
the claim is made that those who believe in Jesus will gain eternal
life.  My 7-year old friend Becca believed that there were specific
rules to guide what constituted “belief in Jesus.”
Understandings of afterlife have developed since the time of Jesus,
nothing stays stagnant! Early Christianity opened the door to eternal
life – instead of saying that only “gods” could live forever,
there was an affirmation of common people and our value.  

While
are are thinking about that, let’s look more closely at the beginning
of this text.   Nicodemus is named as a Pharisee, a group that gained
most of its power after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70
BCE, and a group that was open to afterlife in some form or another.
(Not the way people today think of it though.)  Nicodemus, as a
Pharisee, being in power at the time of Jesus is exactly the kind of
historically questionable stuff that reminds us to take John
metaphorically..  Anyway, according to John,  this guy comes to Jesus
… at night.  Why at night?  So he couldn’t be seen!  Its really
kind of a funny story, even to start out… we have one of the
highest ranking officials in Israel sneaking around under the cloak
of darkness in order to meet with Jesus.  

He
gets to Jesus and starts the conversation by complimenting him.
Unfortunately for Nicodemus, he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.
He doesn’t “get it.”  He ALMOST “gets it.”  He wants to
learn from Jesus, which is why he has come to Jesus.  But he is still
afraid of what others will think of him or do to him, and that’s
why he comes at night.  In addition, he bases his faith on “signs.”
That is, he thinks Jesus is connected to God because Jesus is able
to perform miracles.  Believing in Jesus because of his miracles is a
BIG no-no in the Gospel of John.  The faithful are supposed to
believe because they believe, not because of the powers that Jesus
has to do miracles.  So Nicodemus says, “Teacher, we know that you
come from God because of what you can do…”  And right there, as
John tells it, Jesus knows that Nicodemus wasn’t convinced to
follow him fully, yet.  

Jesus
begins to teach… and he says… LISTEN CAREFULLY!…he says “No
one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
And Nicodemus says, “How can anyone be born again
after having grown old?”  Did you hear that?

Jesus
says “born from above” and Nicodemus says “born again.”  How
did he confuse that?  Well, he wasn’t that ridiculous actually…
in Greek the word for “again” and “from above” is the same
word.  Jesus is talking about the deep meaning of being born from
above, which is “from God”1
and Nicodemus is understanding the superficial meaning – born
again.  Nicodemus is being presented as foolish, or at least because
he didn’t have full faith he was too foolish to understand Jesus.
The image of a grown man re-entering the womb is meant to be funny.
It is meant to be as ridiculous as it sounds, because it is making
fun of the misunderstanding.   Being born again is NOT AT ALL what
Jesus is talking about.  Being born again is the MISUNDERSTANDING
that Nicodemus pulls out.

Being
born “from above” is having a spiritual birth.  That could be
seen as something that all people have – as all people ahave
spirits – or as an eye-opening event that occurs when individuals
connect with God.  It would make some sense, given the rest of Jesus’
teaching to think of being born “from above” as being connected
to God and therefore committed to building the kindom.  Being born
from above is to live as God would have a person live, to share love,
to exude compassion, to see a better world.  To be born from above,
then, is to live the prayer, “your kingdom come on earth as it is
in heaven.”

This
is a Gospel reading with many opportunities for misunderstanding.  It
is one I am tempted to avoid, simply to not have to deal with them.
However, being informed about our scriptures and how they has been
used to do harm, and what they actually mean is part of what we need
to know to bring healing.  Luckily, this passage has a lot of gems as
well as a history of being used badly.  Verse 8 reads, The
wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do
not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.
There is a double meaning here – the wind is at once the Wind and
the Spirit of God.  We do not know the beginning of the wind or of
God, but we are able to watch what the Spirit of God does in the
world. This is one of my favorite descriptors of the Spirit.  If the
Spirit is truly the Spirit of Love (I think that’s fair) then it
reminds us that the demands of love can take us in rather unexpected
directions!Some
of the ancients thought of the wind as God’s breath.2
I suspect some of us moderns do too, at least in particular moments.
It has times when it is a potent metaphor.  

The
passage continues though, in a rather weird turn.  As another
commentator puts it, “The overlap of
crucifixion and exaltation conveyed by v. 14 is crucial to Johannine
soteriology because the Fourth Evangelist understands Jesus’s
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension as one continuous event.”3
So, when the metaphor is drawn to “lifting up” it isn’t just
about Jesus’ death but about the end of his life and the beginning of
the life of the believers as the Body of Christ. (If you don’t know
the Moses reference, I promise, you don’t want to.  It won’t help.)  

Finally,
this text turns to one of the more abused verses in the Bible.  It
is actually good news, no matter how it has been used to abuse others
in Bible bashing.  The
good news is:  “God loves the world SO MUCH that God
seeks to heal it in every way God can.”
In the words of a wise commentator,
“what if we are all called to “join in the creation of a
community in which God’s love was regarded as not being in short
supply, open only to those who have seen and confessed Jesus as the
Christ, but rather as poured out upon the entire world?”4

Taken
in continuity with John 3:17, “Indeed,
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in
order that the world might be saved through him,” while remembering
that the first meaning in the Bible of salvation is healing, we get
to:  “God loves the world SO MUCH
that…that God keeps moving creation to wholeness AND  God pushes
and prods us in hope that we’ll learn deeper love.  Nothing can
separate us from the love of God… because God loves the world THAT
much.”

Do
you ever wonder what it means to say that “God loves the world”?
It is startlingly unequivocal.  It isn’t, “God loves the good
people.”  Or, “God loves it when things are going right.”  It
isn’t even, “God loves the world, but hates the brokenness.”
John 3:16 claims God loves the world.  God gives gifts to the world.
God seeks healing and wholeness for the world.  And the world isn’t
just humanity, it is all of creation.


God
LOVES the world.  

For
me, that’s a bit of a relief.  It reminds me that God’s love isn’t
contingent on us getting it right, love is already a part of it all.
It is a reminder that we can’t mess it up.  Love is the starting
point of all creation, it has a power nothing else can match.  For
me, at least, gratitude for this reality is what motivates me to work
with God for the building of the kindom.  But it starts with love.
God loves the world.  Unlike my childhood friend, I think there is a
full stop there, no conditions.

God
loves the world and all the beings in it.  As.  They.  Are.
Salvation is a gift God willingly  offers to us all.

Thanks
be to God.  Amen


1Ernst
Haenchen John 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1-6
(Hermeneia: a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible) (Vol
1) (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, January 1, 1988).

2
 Raymond E. Brown Gospel According
to John.
Anchor Bible.  (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966-70.)

3
Gail R.O’Day,   “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Comentary,
and Reflections.”  In New
Interpreter’s Bible,
vol. 9.  (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995).

4Ibid.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

“Resonance” based on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-15

  • May 20, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I have a lot of questions about Pentecost. I wonder what “divided tongues as of fire” might be trying to explain. I’m curious how a bunch of men from Galilee with the two or three languages they likely spoke could communicate effectively with people who spoke many other languages. I wonder what other names and words they used to try to describe the Spirit, and what the Spirit meant to them them, a number of years before the church created the concept of “Trinity.” Moreso than with most stories, I can’t tell what the kernel of it really is, what likely happened that day that they’re telling about with such passion.

There are a few things I can make good guesses on from Acts 2. It seems to be a story that is told to reverse of the Tower of Babel story. In doing so, it suggests that God has the power to connect us. It speaks of the power and mystery of the Holy Spirit, and explains that the Spirit is able to connect people across seemingly impossible barriers. Beyond that, I’m not really sure what it means, but I find those two pieces worthy of attention.

Let’s look at the Tower of Babel story, to make sense of my claim that Pentecost “undoes” it. The story is set in Babylon, and seems to make reference to the temples of Babylon to their god Marduk. Those temples were ziggurats, sort of rectangular towers with ramps. They are look like segmented pyramids. They were made of bricks, and could easily be called towers.

Ancient Israel’s history with Babylon is complex. Babylon was located in one of the early centers of human civilization, Mesopotamia. According to Genesis, Abraham himself left that area when he came to find the Promised Land, and the patriarchs’ spouses also came from there. So, it was a motherland to ancient Israel perhaps similar to how Great Britain is motherland to the USA (even though many of us don’t have British ancestry). Like the complicated history we have with Great Britain, so too did Israel and Babylon. Babylon defeated Judah in 587/586 BCE after an extended siege, destroyed the temple and the city gates, and took the leaders into exile as slaves in Babylon.

I believe, that the Hebrew Bible itself was written during and immediately after the exile. The stories, commands, and prophecies were usually much older, but they came into their current form at that time. They were both told and edited to answer the question “why did this happen to us?” alternatively phrased, “If our God is powerful, how did we get defeated (by Babylon)?”

In the story of the Tower of Babel, the story ends calling the tower “babel” which in Hebrew is “balal” which means “to confuse.” I think the story aims to diminish the power of Babylon by demeaning their temples, and at the same time tries to give an answer to a big human question: “why can’t we understand each other?”

It is a good and big question. It is much larger than even confusion about why various human languages exist, or why language itself keeps changing. Even when we speak the same language, it can be VERY DIFFICULT to understand each other. In this story, the confusion is said to be a punishment to limit humankind. It is funny though, isn’t it, that the diverse and wonderful cultures and languages of the world are perceived as a punishment?

Sometimes the challenges to communicate and understand each other are really frustrating. I guess they could reasonably be seen as a punishment. The ways that we as humans feel disconnected from each other feels wrong. Furthermore, we often feel incapable of changing it.

I can sense in the Tower of Babel story a quest to understand the human condition. The Pentecost story in Acts, by inverting the Tower of Babel story, says that the Holy Spirit changes the human condition that keeps us separate from each other and unable to understand one another! Even better, in the Pentecost story, the vast diversity of human language continues to exist, it just ceases to be a barrier.

The more I thought about this story this week, the less I was distracted by the “whys” and “hows” of it, and the more I found myself thinking about that mystery of the Spirit. The story says that the Spirit came and changed everything, connected them to each other, and made possible what had seemed impossible. That is, it says the Spirit is a Spirit of connection.

One of my all time favorite books is “A General Theory of Love” written by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, all of whom were professors of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine at the time they wrote it. It is a book about love and human connection, from the perspective of brain science. They spend a lot of time explaining the function of part of the human brain that we share with other mammals: the limbic brain. The limbic brain is the brain that connects. Because of it, mammals are inherently social, and we impact each other, deeply. As they say, “A mammal can detect the internal state of another mammal and adjust its own physiology to match the situation—a change in turn sensed by the other, who likewise adjusts.”1 That’s pretty amazing.

We mammals have the capacity for “limbic resonance—a symphony of mutual exchange and internal adaptation whereby two mammals become attuned to each other’s inner states.”2 Not only can we do it, it is our normal and constant state! General Theory of Love explains, “So familiar and expected is the neural attunement of limbic resonance that people find its absence disturbing. Scrutinize the eyes of a shark or a sunbathing salamander and you get back no answering echo, no flicker of recognition, nothing. The vacuity behind those glances sends a chill down the mammalian spine.”3 Among humans, “Because limbic states can leap between minds, feelings are contagious, while notions are not.”4 Feelings are contagious! We do know this, when someone in a terrible mood walks into a room, we all feel it. The same happens with someone in a great mood. It happens on more subtle scales too. This may even explain some of why we get so much out of worship – we are able to build on each other’s good feelings and joy in seeing each other.

Of course, while we are able to connect to all mammals, but we only form attachments to some. They say, “It is attachment that makes familiarity trump worth. A golden retriever thrills only to his owner. He is amiably and helplessly indifferent to passersby who may be kinder, fonder of walks, quicker with treats—he does not, he cannot value them. Everyone is in the same limbic boat as those patient, expectant dogs.”5This is, in part, because bodies aren’t as stand alone as we think! We as humans can’t function alone. They say, “Most people assume that the body they inhabit is self-regulating— that their own physiologic balance occurs within a closed loop.”6 However, “The mammalian nervous system depends for its neurophysiologic stability on a system of interactive coordination, wherein steadiness comes from synchronization with nearby attachment figures.”7 Or, to put it another way, “But because human physiology is (at least in part) an open-loop arrangement, an individual does not direct all of his own functions. A second person transmits regulatory information that can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular function, sleep rhythms, immune function, and more—inside the body of the first.”8 Given this information, they say human “Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them,” and “This necessary intermingling of physiologies makes relatedness and communal living the center of human life.”9

This mammalian attachment stuff applies to partners, to parents and children, to friends and neighbors, and even to church community. Also, as most of us know from experience, it applies to pets. General Theory of Love says, “Somehow the attachment architecture is general enough that a human being and a dog can both fit within the realm of what each considers a valid partner. And the two can engage in limbic regulation: they spend time near each other and miss each other; they will read some of each other’s emotional cues; each will find the presence of the other soothing and comforting; each will tune and regulate the physiology of the other.”10

Now this information has some serious implications for our lives! We need other mammals who help us regulate well. We can’t function on our own!! General Theory of Love says, “Being well regulated in relatedness is the deeply gratifying state that people seek ceaselessly in romance, religions, and cults; in husbands and wives, pets, softball teams, bowling leagues, and a thousand other features of human life driven by the thirst for sustaining affiliations.”11 Now, that makes sense, huh? But!!! They continue, “Some cultures encourage emotional health; others do not. Some, including modern America, promote activities and attitudes directly antithetical to fulfillment.”12 They also tell us why: “The simple equations of love. Like this: relationships live on time.”13 They say, “A culture versed in the workings of emotional life would encourage and promote the activities that sustain health —togetherness with one’s partner and children; homes, families, and communities of connectedness. Such a society would guide its inhabitants to the joy that can be found at the heart of attachment.”14

Isn’t it fun when scientists use their own methods, words, and theories and then come around to something that sounds remarkably like the kin-dom of God? Also, it is very good to have reminders to seek out those mammals we love and savor the time we have to be near them!

I want to expand their theory a little bit though. They talk about mammalian limbic resonance, and I am hoping we can consider the capacity for resonance to be one of the functions of the Spirit. After all, God is love; and God is the one in whom we live and move and have our beings. I think power and wonder of attachment and connection is a part of the mysterious loving power of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, I think it is worth considering the Divine as…. mammal-like. At least as far as we could consider the Divine to be another being with whom we share love and intimacy, whose capacity to form attachments with us and resonance with us would be an additional source of health and joy! And, we’re told, relationships thrive on TIME. That would indicate that spending some time aware of the wonder of the Presence of the Divine and attending to it might be a very good use of time.

The Spirit resonates. Perhaps we could say that the Spirit IS resonance, and that’s how all mammalian connection is possible! The Spirit helps us connect, to bring us joy, health, and fulfillment. We can also seek resonance directly with the Spirit. Our brains are already designed to do it, to seek connection through resonance. Through the Spirit we are connected to all that is, and more. Resonance is a language we all speak, and it requires no translation. Perhaps that’s a part of the Pentecost miracle. Thanks be to God. Amen  

1Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, Richard Lannon, A General Theory of Love (New York: Vintage Books, 2000) page 60.

261.

361.

462.

5158.

682.

782.

882.

984.

1096.

11155.

12189.

13202.

14206.

–

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

May 20, 2018

Singing the New Old Song: Psalm 98

  • May 6, 2018May 12, 2018
  • by James Sprenger

O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
O Lord, our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
I will sing of loyalty and justice; to you O Lord I will sing.
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.
O sing to the Lord a new song.

Each one of those is the first line of eight different psalms. NOT picked at random. They are the first lines of eight distinct types of psalm. No doubt you recognized the last one as the opening line of the first reading today, Psalm 98. It’s also the basis for the text of the offertory anthem you will be hearing right after the sermon. Psalm texts have been and continue to be used in religious music of many types. In fact there are about fifty instances of psalm texts used in the United Methodist hymnal in hymns, canticles and prayers in addition to the one hundred and five of the one hundred fifty psalms used as the psalter in the back of the hymnal. Those numbers should be considered approximations as I quickly counted them myself based on the indexes at the back rather than any kind of astute scholarship. But I think that’s pretty close.

The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, in the entry on Psalms states “Psalms is not only the Bible’s longest book; it is the Bible’s most diverse both literarily and theologically.” Given that, we might want to pay attention to it.

Psalms, and the psalter…

Ok. What the heck is a psalm and a psalter, anyway? I mean, there are probably very few people who wouldn’t recognize “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want’ even if they have no idea where it came from or had never heard of a psalm. And probably most people may recognize the term ‘23rd psalm’ even if they have no idea what it is.

So, what is a psalm? One of the peculiararities of the english language is that the words ‘psalm’ and ‘song’ sound quite similar although as far as I have been able to ascertain the two words are not linquistically related. There are psalms though, that are labeled ‘a song of ascents.’ Some are labled as hymns. And some, as in the case of the 98th psalm explicity say ‘O sing.’ The word ‘psalm’ comes from the Greek ‘psalmos’ one meaning of which is touching or twang, as of a bowstring or stringed instrument.1

It also means ‘songs’ or ‘songs accompanied by stringed instrument.’2

It’s a translation of the Hebrew word for ‘sing’ or even ‘accompany singing.’3

So there is from the start, a musical connection. And psalms and hymns do have a relationship to each other; a form of the word we translate as ‘hymn’ from the Greek is ‘hymnos’ which is used in the context of a song of praise.4 So what constitutes a psalm as opposed to a hymn as opposed to a song? Years ago, before I went into ministry there was a member of the church I attended who had emigrated to America from England during the Second World War. She told the story of crossing the Atlantic on an American ship at a time when there was still some danger from enemy submarines. On the voyage she attended a worship service and for the first time was exposed to the American style of hymn singing. She said she was almost scandalized by the fast tempo at which they were sung. She recalled thinking “why, these aren’t hymns; these are songs!” So everybody has their own conception of what would characterize a hymn as opposed to a song.

But getting back to psalms, just what are they? Where did they come from? Who wrote them? What are they for? How are they to be understood? A moment ago I recited the opening lines of eight psalms and asserted that they were from eight different types. Before seminary I never knew that psalms had a type. But they do and if you were to take the time to read through the entire collection you would likely notice that the individual psalms have different characteristics. For example a psalm that begins with the words My God, my God, why have you forsaken me and one that begins with Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth just might each have a different emphasis and different point. However, before I get into that there is something that needs to be pointed out. This may seem simplistic and obvious to some but it is crucial and essential to be clear about this.

If you look at a book such as the Gospel of John which we heard this morning, or a book such as Acts, or a letter of Paul, or an Old Testament narrative such as Genesis, or a book of laws such as Leviticus it is clear that the intended audience is a human community. The writers of those books were trying to convey something specific to a human audience. For example, in the letter to the Romans Paul basically states that it is from him “to all God’s beloved in Rome…” Or the opening of the Gospel of Luke which states “In the first book, Theopholus…” In both those cases the intended audience consists of other people.

But a psalm that begins with the words “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck,” who is the intended audience there? Many of the psalms are clearly directly addressed to God,
no mistake about it. Many, but not all. And that is where the discernment of psalm type comes into play. Case in point, the psalm for today which begins with the words “O sing to the Lord a new
song” is clearly aimed at a community. The interesting thing is though, that it is directing that community to direct their song to God. So even in that case we come back to expression towards
God.

Some psalms are laments, sometimes called complaint psalms, clearly directing anger and frustration. There are the psalms of praise. And there are what have come to be called wisdom psalms, such as psalm 1; Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked. An important thing to bear in mind about the psalms: nearly every theological theme that sounds throughout the Old Testament can be found in the Psalms. Covenant, history, creation, wisdom.

What I find so compelling and powerful about them is that most are cast as human speech. In modern terms, perhaps, they are expressing the question ‘what does it mean to be human?’ Psalm 8
asks the question “what are human beings that you are mindful of them?” 144 asks the same question. Think of that for a second. What a powerful question! What are we, God, that you even think about us? Interesting that those two psalms, while asking basically the same question give quite different answers. 8 makes the statement “yet you have made them a little lower than God and
crowned them with glory and honor” in the NRSV translation. And 144 states “They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow.” Same question, two different answers. The human
condition. The testimony of the psalms regarding humanity covers the extremes; we are powerful AND fragile; filled with dignity AND fraught with affliction; given almost divine capacities AND
confronted with physical and social debilitation. And while we can find some of the sentiments and feelings conveyed in the psalms troubling, such as the explicit call and demand to God for the destruction of enemies, we need to bear in mind that these are human sentiments and NOT commands of God.

So what are the psalms for? We do know they played an important part in the worship life of ancient Israel. Scholar James L. Mays states that they have a double identity: scripture AND liturgy.5 And indeed, they have played and continue to play, an important role in the worship life of faith communities and, while their original intent appears to be solely part of corporate worship, they have played an important role in individual piety and spiritual practice for a great many people through the ages. They have been used widely and continuously to nurture and guide personal meditations and devotions. Mays also points out a vitally important function; Through them, individuals connect themselves with a chain of prayer that binds the saints across the ages and frees them from arbitrary autonomy in prayer.6

I find this statement very intriguing. Arbitrary autonomy in prayer. In mulling that one over it occurred to me that another way of putting it would be to say that it gets us out of what I would call our ‘prayer bubble.’ Or maybe a prayer bell jar. If you haven’t heard of a bell jar it is usually a glass dome shaped somewhat like a bell, that could be put on a base that seals it with an object in it so a vacuum can be produced by pumping out the air. Bell jar can also refer to a glass dome put over objects to protect them and isolate them. Is our prayer life under a bell jar? ‘Just you and me, Lord. Only want to talk to you.’ The psalms as part of a prayer life can be a powerful corrective to that kind of isolation. This body of liturgy that is also scripture can help stay connected not only with God, but with the communion of saints that reaches back through time and in so doing move ahead through the present and into the future.

I have even used the psalms in pastoral care situations, especially with people who are experiencing strong emotions and don’t know quite how to deal with that. They have been particularly helpful in helping people who have been saddled with the misconception that one should never feel or express anger at God. Show them some of the lament and complaint psalms. Plenty of anger expressed there!

And, of course, there are psalms that express great joy and praise. Some not only directly express those feelings to God, some are exhortations or imperatives for the community to do so.
Psalm 98, a setting of which we will sing in a few short moments, has been classified as both a hymn of imperative praise and an enthronement psalm. It is in three distinct parts; a general call to praise the Lord in song because the Lord has done marvelous things, an invitation to all the earth to join in the praise, and finally, it intensifies the invitation to include all that is. It is, in fact, the text that Isaac Watts used to compose the text to a hymn called ‘Joy to the World!’ which is no doubt familiar to most people.7

The psalms are very old with individual psalms dating back to long before they were put into a single body. Through them we can connect with the communion of saints. Through them we can sing the new old song.

1. Bullinger, Ethelbert W., A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New
Testament
2. Bauer, Walter, A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testamentand Other Early Christian
Literature
3. The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4, entry on Psalms.
4. Bauer
5. Mays, James L., Psalms in the Interpretation commentary series
6. Mays
7. Mays

“Without a Doubt” based on John 20:19-31

  • April 23, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Being a teenager in 2018, I have the opportunity to encounter people of all different levels of belief–whether that be through school or through various church activities. In both church and school I have met people my age who are struggling to grasp the teachings of whatever faith background they come from. I can’t speak for all of them, though I think that this question of belief is a product of the age in which we live. I think that many of my peers are wary of putting their trust in anything that they are not certain of. And can you blame them? In a time such as this, with people shouting “Fake News” at both legitimate and illegitimate news sources, it’s not easy to distinguish the voices that one can trust. That alone has led to many an existential crisis in people I’ve encountered. Add to that the political figures coming on TV and giving conflicting accounts of the “facts,” and the stars and moguls who have been facing slews of sexual assault and harassment allegations, and the reason for this lack of public trust becomes clearer and clearer.

But it doesn’t end with the media and the politicians. Many people I’ve talked to reject the whole idea of faith because of what they have seen so called people of faith doing in the world. They see people in both Church and State exploiting a Tradition of love and justice for their own personal gains. They see so-called people of faith turn a blind eye to the immorality of political leaders when it suits their agenda. They see that, and that is the image that many today associate with the Church. They cannot imagine that God is just or loving or accepting because that is not what the world has shown them.

It is difficult to imagine such a world as is described in the passage from Acts because that is the opposite of what we see in the world. I look around at where we are as humans, and we are not living into the vision that God has for the world. If we take Acts 4 as the vision for God’s Kindom, the ideal world, that is not what we see. I would say that what we see is quite the opposite, in fact. The passage speaks of a world without greed, a world in which every possession is held in common. It speaks of a world in which every need is satisfied. Why? Because their wealth, the capital, the means of production, are distributed on the basis of need. Not based on where you were born. Not based on the color of your skin. Not based on gender, or age, or who your parents are or who you love. Based on what you need. This is a world in which people take care of each other.

So, why is this so hard to believe? Perhaps it is because we are all Thomas, waiting for that visible proof, that wound we can touch to make us believe that God’s world is possible. But is it really so bad to be a Thomas? Yes, he questioned the accounts of the other disciples, but could you really blame him? Between Peter denying Jesus and Judas overtly betraying him, not to mention the Roman authorities who had just arrested and executed one of his closest friends, how could Thomas know who to trust? In a lot of ways, Thomas is just like all of us. Aren’t we all looking for something solid, a starting place? Aren’t we looking for some little glimmer of hope that this world that God envisions is not only possible but will happen? Even the most devout disciples look for that assurance. Even the most faithful amongst us looks for that sign of a worthwhile investment. Because that’s what it is to be a disciple of Jesus. It takes time. It takes people. It takes speaking out despite the consequences. It takes money, and yes, sometimes it takes your life.

But perhaps the most difficult part of being a follower of Jesus is that there isn’t always that tangible guarantee. There’s no promise of money or fame. Being a follower means suffering with those who suffer. It means resisting oppressors. It means working tirelessly to bring our reality in line with God’s reality. A reality in which no one has more or less. A reality in which no one starves. No one is left out. No one fears for their life, or their safety, or the safety of their children. A reality without fear. I think that’s the hardest part to believe for so many people today. We are surrounded by violence, in our schools, our places of work, our places of worship. Afraid to leave the house and the safety of like-minded people. Our doubt fuels our fears, making us like the disciples who cowered in that house. But there’s one disciple who wasn’t hiding with the rest. Thomas. Famous for the doubt that he had. We seem to overlook, however, that he wasn’t in the house where the disciples were hiding. Now, there could be any number of reasons as to why he wasn’t there, but I find it more than plausible that he was out in the world trying to do some good–in spite of the fear that confined the other ten disciples to that house. But even if he was just out grabbing a snack or visiting his mother, he left the house in spite of his fear. Any introvert here knows how challenging even that can be. But Thomas gets past the fear and does things. That alone is commendable. Thomas doesn’t let fear control his life. He pushes past it and lets his life go on.

For many, a life without fear is the hardest concept to grasp. Because the world sells us fear by the ton. Fear is what drives military spending, and discrimination, and war, and corporate greed, and personal greed. This is what the world looks like. Fear, everywhere you turn. People causing fear, and exploiting fear, and doubt, an unbelief to create chaos and to destroy any hope of trust or faith.

It is this fear that controls our lives, that keeps us locked in the house, afraid to speak out. It is this fear that closes our borders and our minds and our hearts. Fear is what isolates us from the rest of God’s world–fear is what prevents us from living into God’s reality. What I believe is one of the most significant parts of this Gospel passage is that despite the disciples locking themselves away, Jesus still enters.

Jesus cannot be kept out by any barrier–whether it be physical or mental. Christ cannot be kept out by fear. He is bigger than that. Where those in power use fear to divide us and to keep us under their control, Christ breaks through that fear and helps us to push out of the confines of the house and into the world.

But the question still remains: how? For all those struggling to find that reason to believe in the future that God envisions for us, there is one. Jesus. He is the proof, the symbol of hope. He is the sign that the world as it is now is not as good as it gets. He is the evidence that love is more powerful than death, and that God is more powerful than fear. Because it is only through Christ that we can overcome our fears and make God’s reality our own. And we can only do this by letting go of the material possessions that we hold dearest and following the example of Jesus and the apostles. We are called to take care of one another as children of God. That takes rejecting the way that the world works. That means rejecting the political and economic systems that lead to the inherent discrimination and disenfranchisement of women, minorities, and anyone that is different. It means rejecting a system that turns a profit by pitting individuals against one another using fear as an incentive to abandon fellow human beings. Because these systems are exploitative. These systems force us to dehumanize each other. These systems force us to compete rather than cooperate. These systems are obstacles along the path to God’s reality. It is our job to have hope, and to be the hope, for the world. It is our responsibility to be Christ’s body and, in doing so, to be the proof that God’s reality is possible.

There is no one I can think of who better embodies the resistance of fear or the rejection of these systems than my younger sibling. My sibling has been through a lot in the last year, starting at a point of crippling anxiety. They were only comfortable around a few people, preferring to keep to themself. However, about a year ago they felt so secure in themself that they came out as being non binary. They were feeling confident enough the be their own authentic self. Their new, authentic life has really helped them to become even less anxious all the time. In fact, they are so secure in their identity that they have become something of an advocate, both for themself and others like them. They are even advocating for more inclusive policy changes on the Conference level. They’ve come such a long way from their former anxious self. They’ve gone from anxiety to authenticity to advocacy, breaking out of the house and into the world.

We are people of faith. We have the responsibility, if we truly are followers of Christ and believers in God, to be the reason the people believe. We need to show the world the transformative love of Jesus, the transformative love that will bring about God’s reality. All we need to do is break through our fears and our doubts and and live fully into the community of believers that God intends for us. Maybe then, everyone will have something to believe in. Amen.

Sam Smith

April 8, 2018

“Tender Compassion”based on Psalm 23 and John 10:11-18

  • April 22, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

We need good images for God, preferably many of them. The ways we think about the Holy One impact our theology, our prayer life, and even who we seek to become. I think we are lucky that today’s scriptures center on a beautiful image of the Divine, and give us a chance to contemplate the implications of it.

The comparison of humans to sheep and their leaders to shepherds was a pretty obvious metaphor for the pre-industrial, agricultural lands of ancient Israel. Sheep were everywhere, and they have some remarkably human tendencies. (I am told my last name is Polish for sheep, except that there is another words that is more commonly used for sheep. Baron is special word for stupid sheep. So, yes, sheep with human tendencies…) It could be tempting to consider the metaphor of God as shepherd as outdated, but I think it is worthy of serious attention. To get there though, we have to consider ourselves as sheep. It mostly works.

Take, for example, how flocks of sheep like to be led: “Cows are herded from the rear with shouts and prods from cowboys. But that does not work with sheep. If you stand behind sheep making noises, they will just run around behind you. They actually prefer to be led. Cows can be pushed; sheep must be led. Sheep will not going anywhere that someone else – their trusted shepherd – does not go first, to show them that everything is all right.”1 By my personal experience with humans, myself included, this applies to us also. We aren’t big fans of being pushed, prodded, or shouted at. We prefer to be led, and most especially like being lead by example.

As one scholar put it:

“In the agrarian culture of ancient Israel, before fences contained grazing livestock, shepherds were essential guardians of economic capital. The Israelite marketplace and sacrificial rites required sheep for wool, milk, and for those who could afford it, meat. In the daily life of the shepherd, however, these fluffy creatures could be at turns affectionate, stubborn, stupid, aimless, passive, easily startled, and always hungry. Sheep are prone to wander off and become easily vulnerable. Foxes, wolves, and jackals knew this. A shepherd, therefore, needed to be strong but not overpowering. If the shepherd came on too forcefully the flock would scatter and run away. If the shepherd was too gentle or inattentive, ovine passivity and distraction would bring a host of troubles.”2

Sheep are inherently dependent on shepherds. They’re vulnerable by themselves. Predators want to hurt them, they wander off and lose their way, they can’t heal themselves without help when they get hurt. At the same time, shepherds are also dependent on sheep! The sheep are the shepherd’s work, and livelihood, their companions, and the source of much of what the shepherd needs. A sheep and their shepherd are interdependent.

God as shepherd is a common image in the Bible. In Ezekiel 34 the prophet condemns the kings of Judah for failing to be good shepherds, and says that they’ve done so badly that God is going to take over directly. The condemnation is interesting because of what specific issues are named.

“Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.” (Ezekiel 34:2-6)

So that’s what BAD shepherding looks like. The comes the contrast.

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.  …I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak”. (Ezekiel 34:11, 14-16b)

While kings were supposed to act like good shepherds, they usually failed. They forgot to take care of the people and focused on their own needs. Yet, God is the best shepherd– exactly the sort of shepherd the people need. God is strong enough to keep them safe, and gentle enough not to scare them off. It is within this regular metaphor of the people as sheep in need of a good shepherd that both the 23rd Psalm and the Gospel reading emerge.

The 23rd Psalm is the best known metaphor of God as the good shepherd, caring for the needs of the sheep. The Psalm comes from a personal perspective, the speaker is an individual who is well cared for by the shepherd, even though the shepherd is responsible for the whole flock. The Psalmist’s needs are all cared for by the shepherd: for food, rest, and even beauty in the green pastures; for safety, comfort, and thirst by the still waters; for restoration of the soul itself – for healing from the inside out – for solace. But it doesn’t even end there! The shepherd who leads the sheep, leads them down good paths so they know where to go to be safe and well. The Psalmist asserts that even the shadowed and frightening places of life aren’t scary with the shepherd leading them. Then comes a line I’ve often ignored, “ your rod and your staff– they comfort me.” A scholar writes, “The rod and staff, the shepherd’s instruments of prodding, directing, and defending, are ever present.”3

For the most part, the metaphor of God as Good Shepherd gets dropped at this point in the Psalm, because even more needs to be said and it requires human imagery. The Psalmist feels safe with God even when other people are attacking, and has their needs cared for even then. The table is set, by God, for food to be eaten. God offers hospitality, and abundance – the cup overflows with goodness. Before this tiny little poem is over though, it offers STILL more goodness. Goodness and mercy “shall follow me” – goodness and mercy are are the essence of God. Goodness is sort of circularly defined with God, and mercy is one of the most consistent descriptors of God in the Bible. Mercy is compassion (or forgiveness) shown to a person whom it is within one’s power (or right) to punish or harm. God’s presence with the Psalmist is expressed with the powerful, “goodness and mercy shall follow me.”

The 23rd Psalm is a truly spectacular poem, with excellent theology. Particularly in the midst of upheaval, it is good to remember that God is our Good Shepherd. The Gospel extends and expands the shepherd metaphor. It may be useful to remember that the Gospel of John was written several generations after the death of Jesus, and the human tendency to make meaning out of events had time to work its magic on this speech of Jesus’.

“I am the good shepherd” is one of the many “I am” statements of John, in this case it speaks of a role that clarifies the connection between Jesus and God. Uniquely, this passage contrasts the shepherd with the hired hard. That may sound a bit like the condemnation of the kings from Ezekiel, but has its own flavor. The shepherd’s life is interdependent with that of the sheep, but the hired hand is not, and that impacts the care they give!

In John we hear, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” Sheep know and come to their shepherd’s voice. It is a very intimate relationship, yet another reason it is a good metaphor for our relationship to God! Then comes something that doesn’t work in the same way with real shepherds and sheep, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” We are told AGAIN, as we have been many times before, that God’s love doesn’t have the boundaries we’d expect. The flock that we are a part of isn’t the only one, and we should be expecting God to keep on expanding the flock until all are included.

Some of this is a bit uncomfortable for me, as one of the most common descriptions of the work I’m call to is “pastor” which is a reflection of clergy as following in the way of the good shepherd. Given the strength of the metaphor, it feels over extended to use it to refer to human clergy people, who are always more sheep than shepherd, no matter how hard we try. However, I suppose the reminders to be tender and compassionate the way that God is tender and compassionate is never out of line.

The 23rd Psalm really does wonderful work with the balance between the individual and the communal. God, the God who is OUR shepherd, is also MY shepherd. The one who cares for the flock, and indeed all the flocks, is also caring for me. And that one is trustworthy, I can relax in the shepherd’s care. That one is also tender, I can trust that the shepherd will find me when I’m lost, care for me when I’m injured, cajole me when I’m scared, and reconnect me with the flock when I stray away. The shepherd is a strong and tender caregiver, and the Lord is my and our shepherd.  And, God has those metaphorical rod and staff to prod, direct, and defend us!!

John’s Good Shepherd passage adds even more to this stunning imagery of God. It invites us to consider deep intimacy with God, to consider what God’s “voice” sounds like and if we are tuned into it. It continues the interdependence between the sheep and the shepherd, between God and God’s people, and invites us to see each other as fellow members of God’s flock.

Our God is like a good shepherd, who takes care of the sheep – both individually and collectively. Our God is a Good Shepherd, tender and compassionate. Thanks be to God for God’s good care, and for the opportunity to learn of the Divine in this imagery. Amen

Sermon Talkback Questions

What part of the care of the sheep in Psalm 23 are you needing most? (to lie down in green pastures, to be led beside still waters, to restore my soul, to be led on the right path)

Is the image of God as shepherd still something that resonates today? Why or why not?

What other images might serve in similar ways, and connect more to our lives?

What parts of the imagery of God as shepherd help you connect with God?

Are there parts that don’t?

Are there entirely other images or names for God that help you connect with good theology and a loving God?

Who are the sheep of other folds?

What ways do you seek to tune yourself to God’s voice so that “my own know me”?

1Nancy R. Blakley, “Pastoral Perspective on John 10:11-18” in “Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 2” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2008) page 450.

2Kent M. French “Exegetical Perspective on Psalm 23” in “Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 2” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2008) page 437.

3French, 439.

–

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

“Finding Peace” based on Psalm 4 and Luke 24:36b-48

  • April 15, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

It seems possible to me that most of us missed a lot of what was going on the Psalm in the first reading, and all the scholars I’ve read have offered a lot of insight into it that I didn’t get on my own. So I’m going to try ruining the beautiful poetry for the sake of clarity. (This is my gift to the world, I make things clear but less pretty.):

God, answer me! I trust you will. After all, you are excellent.
Also, you have before.
When I was feeling crowded in with no space to move,
you made abundant space for me.
Because of that experience, I trust to ask you again:
have mercy on me and hear me.
I need you, because PEOPLE are not excellent right now.
People are after me, trying to take away my reputation, my name, my family honor.
They want to shame me!

O people, how long will you lie about me?
You should remember that I follow God’s ways,
and God listens when I pray.

Instead of lying and shaming others when you are hurting,
spend some time in quiet, in contemplation, in prayer.
God will listen to you, too. You aren’t alone.
Trust in God.

Of course, some say that there is no goodness in the world, no God-ness.
But I remember the blessing,
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make God’s face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up God’s countenance upon you, and give you peace.

You, O God have given me so much more joy
than those who have food and drink in abundance.
Because of my connection to you,
I will sleep peacefully tonight, despite what the people say about me.
You, O God lead me to sanctuaries for rest and recovery.
That’s the experience I get, even from this brief prayer.

The psalmist finds ways through fear through remembering God’s spaciousness, through finding empathy for her accusers, and through remembering God’s trustworthiness. I love that in the Psalm we are taken along for the ride with her – entering into her hope for what God can offer, entering into her dismay at the struggles she is finding in life, entering into the wisdom she finds within, and then entering with her into the rest she finds in remembering that God is with her and she’s OK.

(Btw, I have no way to know the Psalmist’s gender. One of the scholars I read this week simply used the feminine for the author, and I thought it was a good exercise to derive the fullness of humanity from the female pronoun, so I followed that person’s lead.)

It has been said that the Psalms are God’s favorite book of the Bible, because the rest of the Bible is primarily concerned with what God is saying to the people, but the Psalms are about what people are saying to God. The full range of human emotion is found in them, often to rather uncomfortable degrees. In this Psalm we hear the anxiety of being hemmed in, particularly by people who want to harm us. We also hear the witness of a person who has known God’s loving grace. She informs those who seem ready to harm her of the goodness she’s found in her relationship with God, and it almost seems that in reminding them, she is reminded that God is the one whose steadfast love endures forever.

The Psalms always remind me that emotions are OK, and that STRONG emotions are OK, that God is big enough to deal with us as we are, be that anxious, sad, angry, or even numb. In this case, I think the Psalmist was most of all afraid, and that is very similar to how the disciples are presented as feeling in the Luke reading today. Luke says they were, “startled and terrified” when Jesus appeared and spoke words of comfort and assurance to them. This seems reasonable to me! Once Jesus had assured the disciples, and their fear had lessened, he took the time to teach them. It seems like there is a good life lesson in that. Frightened people aren’t able to absorb new information, so taking the time to connect with someone and calm their fears seems imperative to any form of teaching!

Then he gives them a new undertaking. Those who had been his students and companions were now to be “witnesses.” They had seen his ministry, and his life, death, and resurrection, and they were supposed to start talking about it. The final command to the disciples in the Luke version we read today that says, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” I think the awesome part here is that it is “to be proclaimed in his name to ALL NATIONS.”

Jesus spend his ministry teaching repentance and forgiveness of sins. That was the core of his message, as a means to open people to the kindom of God. It is always important to consider what sins he was talking about though! Life wasn’t what God had planned for the people, the vision of the Torah wasn’t the way of life anymore. The communities weren’t caring for each other, and the vulnerable were slipping through the cracks. Life wasn’t focused on God, or on God’s ways of justice. To say that the witnesses were to take the message to all the world is to say that the whole world could be transformed from violence to nonviolence; from fear to hope; from selfish ambition to communal joy! The WHOLE WORLD could be healed and become the kindom.

But first, he had to deal with their fears. They needed to be seeped in hope to offer this message! Whether it be like Jesus working patiently with the disciples, or like the Psalmist working through her own fear by remembering God and instructing others in God’s grace, there are ways through fear to hope. May we find them when we need them. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

“Without a Doubt” based on John 20:19-31

  • April 8, 2018May 8, 2018
  • by Sam Smith

Being a teenager in 2018, I have the opportunity to encounter people of all different levels of belief–whether that be through school or through various church activities. In both church and school I have met people my age who are struggling to grasp the teachings of whatever faith background they come from. I can’t speak for all of them, though I think that this question of belief is a product of the age in which we live. I think that many of my peers are wary of putting their trust in anything that they are not certain of. And can you blame them? In a time such as this, with people shouting “Fake News” at both legitimate and illegitimate news sources, it’s not easy to distinguish the voices that one can trust. That alone has led to many an existential crisis in people I’ve encountered. Add to that the political figures coming on TV and giving conflicting accounts of the “facts,” and the stars and moguls who have been facing slews of sexual assault and harassment allegations, and the reason for this lack of public trust becomes clearer and clearer.

But it doesn’t end with the media and the politicians. Many people I’ve talked to reject the whole idea of faith because of what they have seen so called people of faith doing in the world. They see people in both Church and State exploiting a Tradition of love and justice for their own personal gains. They see so-called people of faith turn a blind eye to the immorality of political leaders when it suits their agenda. They see that, and that is the image that many today associate with the Church. They cannot imagine that God is just or loving or accepting because that is not what the world has shown them.

It is difficult to imagine such a world as is described in the passage from Acts because that is the opposite of what we see in the world. I look around at where we are as humans, and we are not living into the vision that God has for the world. If we take Acts 4 as the vision for God’s Kindom, the ideal world, that is not what we see. I would say that what we see is quite the opposite, in fact. The passage speaks of a world without greed, a world in which every possession is held in common. It speaks of a world in which every need is satisfied. Why? Because their wealth, the capital, the means of production, are distributed on the basis of need. Not based on where you were born. Not based on the color of your skin. Not based on gender, or age, or who your parents are or who you love. Based on what you need. This is a world in which people take care of each other.

So, why is this so hard to believe? Perhaps it is because we are all Thomas, waiting for that visible proof, that wound we can touch to make us believe that God’s world is possible. But is it really so bad to be a Thomas? Yes, he questioned the accounts of the other disciples, but could you really blame him? Between Peter denying Jesus and Judas overtly betraying him, not to mention the Roman authorities who had just arrested and executed one of his closest friends, how could Thomas know who to trust? In a lot of ways, Thomas is just like all of us. Aren’t we all looking for something solid, a starting place? Aren’t we looking for some little glimmer of hope that this world that God envisions is not only possible but will happen? Even the most devout disciples look for that assurance. Even the most faithful amongst us looks for that sign of a worthwhile investment. Because that’s what it is to be a disciple of Jesus. It takes time. It takes people. It takes speaking out despite the consequences. It takes money, and yes, sometimes it takes your life.

But perhaps the most difficult part of being a follower of Jesus is that there isn’t always that tangible guarantee. There’s no promise of money or fame. Being a follower means suffering with those who suffer. It means resisting oppressors. It means working tirelessly to bring our reality in line with God’s reality. A reality in which no one has more or less. A reality in which no one starves. No one is left out. No one fears for their life, or their safety, or the safety of their children. A reality without fear. I think that’s the hardest part to believe for so many people today. We are surrounded by violence, in our schools, our places of work, our places of worship. Afraid to leave the house and the safety of like-minded people. Our doubt fuels our fears, making us like the disciples who cowered in that house. But there’s one disciple who wasn’t hiding with the rest. Thomas. Famous for the doubt that he had. We seem to overlook, however, that he wasn’t in the house where the disciples were hiding. Now, there could be any number of reasons as to why he wasn’t there, but I find it more than plausible that he was out in the world trying to do some good–in spite of the fear that confined the other ten disciples to that house. But even if he was just out grabbing a snack or visiting his mother, he left the house in spite of his fear. Any introvert here knows how challenging even that can be. But Thomas gets past the fear and does things. That alone is commendable. Thomas doesn’t let fear control his life. He pushes past it and lets his life go on.

For many, a life without fear is the hardest concept to grasp. Because the world sells us fear by the ton. Fear is what drives military spending, and discrimination, and war, and corporate greed, and personal greed. This is what the world looks like. Fear, everywhere you turn. People causing fear, and exploiting fear, and doubt, an unbelief to create chaos and to destroy any hope of trust or faith.

It is this fear that controls our lives, that keeps us locked in the house, afraid to speak out. It is this fear that closes our borders and our minds and our hearts. Fear is what isolates us from the rest of God’s world–fear is what prevents us from living into God’s reality. What I believe is one of the most significant parts of this Gospel passage is that despite the disciples locking themselves away, Jesus still enters.

Jesus cannot be kept out by any barrier–whether it be physical or mental. Christ cannot be kept out by fear. He is bigger than that. Where those in power use fear to divide us and to keep us under their control, Christ breaks through that fear and helps us to push out of the confines of the house and into the world.

But the question still remains: how? For all those struggling to find that reason to believe in the future that God envisions for us, there is one. Jesus. He is the proof, the symbol of hope. He is the sign that the world as it is now is not as good as it gets. He is the evidence that love is more powerful than death, and that God is more powerful than fear. Because it is only through Christ that we can overcome our fears and make God’s reality our own. And we can only do this by letting go of the material possessions that we hold dearest and following the example of Jesus and the apostles. We are called to take care of one another as children of God. That takes rejecting the way that the world works. That means rejecting the political and economic systems that lead to the inherent discrimination and disenfranchisement of women, minorities, and anyone that is different. It means rejecting a system that turns a profit by pitting individuals against one another using fear as an incentive to abandon fellow human beings. Because these systems are exploitative. These systems force us to dehumanize each other. These systems force us to compete rather than cooperate. These systems are obstacles along the path to God’s reality. It is our job to have hope, and to be the hope, for the world. It is our responsibility to be Christ’s body and, in doing so, to be the proof that God’s reality is possible.

There is no one I can think of who better embodies the resistance of fear or the rejection of these systems than my younger sibling. My sibling has been through a lot in the last year, starting at a point of crippling anxiety. They were only comfortable around a few people, preferring to keep to themself. However, about a year ago they felt so secure in themself that they came out as being non binary. They were feeling confident enough the be their own authentic self. Their new, authentic life has really helped them to become even less anxious all the time. In fact, they are so secure in their identity that they have become something of an advocate, both for themself and others like them. They are even advocating for more inclusive policy changes on the Conference level. They’ve come such a long way from their former anxious self. They’ve gone from anxiety to authenticity to advocacy, breaking out of the house and into the world.

We are people of faith. We have the responsibility, if we truly are followers of Christ and believers in God, to be the reason the people believe. We need to show the world the transformative love of Jesus, the transformative love that will bring about God’s reality. All we need to do is break through our fears and our doubts and and live fully into the community of believers that God intends for us. Maybe then, everyone will have something to believe in. Amen.

“Life, Death, and Resurrection“ based on Isaiah 25:6-9 and Mark…

  • April 1, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

When I was a little girl, 8 years old I think, my family adopted a calico cat we named Marble Cake. We adopted her from the Humane Society, and she was beautiful. She was a little bit wild! The first time I held her, she extended her claws and exited by walking down my back. My parents thought she’d been mistreated earlier in her life, and assured us that if we were kind to her she would settle down.

The thing is, they were right. She changed in the matter of months. She was sweet and cuddly, a wonderful lap cat, and a fantastic companion for 18 years! Looking back on that moment when she settled into our lives, I’m especially grateful for my parents’ wisdom. Marble Cake needed to be able to establish her boundaries and have them be respected, so that the love we wanted to give her could break through. If we had ignored her, she wouldn’t have experienced love. If we had violated her boundaries, she never would have come to trust us. Worst of all, if we had fought back when – acting in fear- she hurt us, there would have been escalating violence.

I suspect that the story I just shared is particularly obvious to most of you. Hurting mammals respond with fear and fear often comes out as aggression. And any mammal who has been hurt needs consistent, gentle, loving care; and when it comes, miraculous changes occur. The irony is that human beings forget that we too are mammals, and we too need consistent, gentle, loving care. This forgetting causes problems on both the personal and the societal scale.

I want to look at the ways this plays out on the societal level. Let’s think for a moment about a group who is seen as a threat. This happens often enough! In fact, in the time of Jesus, the Jesus movement itself was seen as a threat. Conversely, from the perspective of the Jesus movement, the domination system of the Roman Empire was a threat!

Each of them responded VERY differently to the perceived threat though. The Roman Empire and its Roman appointed Jerusalem leaders worked the way most societies do throughout time. They decided to eliminate the threat, silence it, stop it. More concretely, they decided to kill Jesus to prevent the movement from continuing. Even though the Jesus movement was a nonviolent one, they stopped it violently. This is the most common way that the world works 🙁

Within the Jesus movement, those in power and authority were also a threat! The Jesus movement compromised primarily Galilean peasants whose lives were already threatened by the ways money flowed to the top in the domination system with didn’t leave enough for everyone to survive. They were further threatened when the Jerusalem leaders got scared of them. Jesus wasn’t trying to eliminate anyone though, he wasn’t even thinking of them as threats or as enemies. This is the man who taught love of enemies. Jesus was trying to change the system so that everyone benefitted, INCLUDING those who were currently oppressors.  His nonviolent movement was aimed at the commonwealth of God where everyone can thrive. Now, of course, the oppressed are the most harmed in any system of oppression, BUT the oppressors are always also dehumanized by their participation in the system. Jesus was trying to bring a fuller life and a deeper humanity to all people, he was trying to bless the oppressors.

Reflecting back on Marble Cake, the Empire hit back when the cats claws came out, and Jesus loved the cat. Sometimes this is easier to see closer to our lives today. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote,

To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.1

Rev. Dr. King and his followers acted like Jesus and his followers. They followed the path of nonviolence that transforms violence itself with the power of love. It is not an easy path, but it is a transformative one.

The world in the time of Jesus, as it was before him and as it has been after him, tended towards the ways of violence, oppression, and domination. There is a contrast between the ways the world most often has worked and the ways God would have the world work. And the primary difference is that the world uses violence to uphold inequity while God calls us to nonviolence and profound equity. (As people normalized to a capitalistic system, this should be squirmy.)

Jesus threatened the domination system of his day, in many ways. He offered free healing, which upset the economic systems dependent on gaining wealth from people’s illness. He taught everyone who came to him, which flagrantly defied the rules of social order (most particularly that only men were worthy of studying God). His teachings illuminated the injustices of the world around him. He spoke in ways that called out those who benefited from oppressing others, including in his own faith tradition. Additionally, he engaged in nonviolent direct action against the injustices of the Roman-Appointed Temple and the Roman-Controlled Passover celebrations. Worse yet, he was profoundly popular with the masses who were rekindling the power of their own faith tradition to find hope, connection, and reasons to challenge the way things were.

So, the Roman appointed Jerusalem leaders killed him. Yet, he maintained his commitment to nonviolence. He didn’t fight back, he didn’t flee, nor did he accept that what was being done was acceptable. He was killed, but he remained nonviolent and committed to God and God’s vision. He didn’t let the threat of violence, and the fear it induces, change his path.

This becomes particularly significant today. Marcus Borg said, “Easter is God’s YES to the World’s NO.” The World, with its preference for systems of domination and oppression, killed Jesus. The threat of violence became the punishment of death, and the world’s strongest commendation. But it failed.

Violence couldn’t force Jesus to comply, or conform, or even fight back and become a part of itself. Violence was powerless against Jesus! Death was powerless against Jesus, because they couldn’t change him or stop him! Because Jesus was able to face violence with nonviolence and disrupt its power, we know that we can too.2

Furthermore, the reason the Empire used violence against Jesus was to stop the Jesus movement. In that, it radically failed. Initially, their tactics worked. Peter was too afraid to claim Jesus, even after he’d followed him to find out what was happening. The disciples stayed away while he was crucified. (Exception being the female disciples who seem to have been there the whole time, although to be fair to the males, I don’t think they were seen as a threat and therefore weren’t threatened in the same ways. Likely they were mostly invisible to those who killed Jesus.)

So, the tactics of violence to induce fear worked BUT only temporarily. Then SOMETHING happened and changed things. Those same disciples who had denied Jesus and disappeared into the night became the leaders of the continuing Jesus movement and were unstoppable by the threat of violence from that point onward. All of the (remaining, male) disciples remained nonviolent while they were killed by the violence of the Empire. Whatever it was that changed the disciples from fear to fearlessness, from allowing violence to impact their actions to being impervious to violence, that’s what we call resurrection.

And it is our inheritance today. Jesus had a commitment to nonviolence, one that refused to be changed by the threat of violence. His disciples learned it. Today we celebrate it, and in our lives we are able to claim it! We are, today, the Body of Christ continuing his work and his legacy, and that requires that we use his means to seek his ends. To be followers in the way of Jesus “requires the unconditional and unilateral renunciation of violence.”3 Without that, we would easily fall into the other methods of fear, retribution, and fighting violence with violence. And Rev. Dr. King so clearly told us, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”4

The system of domination, oppression, and violence killed Jesus, but failed to stop his movement. God and Jesus can’t be stopped even by death! The Jesus movement got stronger.  God’s work in the world built strength!

Mark tells us all this with only an empty tomb. In this earliest of gospels, all we get is the already fearless women, the suggestion of resurrection through a messenger, the hope for the disciples, and the fear that ends it all. This is the original ending of the Gospel of Mark and it is strikingly abrupt. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” The end 😉 Scholars think the ending is intended to motivate action, that the listener would think “well, if the women didn’t tell, I have to” and/or “if they were afraid, I can overcome my fear and participate in the resurrection that they’re missing!”

To live out God’s nonviolence, is to live out God’s love, and is to live the kindom of God in the now. Some of this living is in celebrating, and that’s our particular work today! We are to see, name, and celebrate. We see, name, and celebrate nonviolence, the kindom, and resurrection. It is all around us, when we are looking. It is in the decrease in worldwide poverty and hunger, but also in the loving way our breakfast volunteers greet our breakfast guests. It is in the work of UMCOR, but also in the loving greetings shared as people enter the church. It is in the long, hard, work to change the norms and laws of society for the better but also in laughter between strangers.

Nonviolence, its expansive love, and its incredible power have changed the world and will change the world. Their power is seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus AND in his followers throughout time. May it be seen in us, in the strength of our love, and in the clarity of our commitment to follow his ways of nonviolence. May it be seen as we celebrate the resurrection and the reminder that violence cannot stop the love of our God. Amen

1Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “On Loving Your Enemies” found athttps://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2015/01/19/martin-luther-king-jr-on-loving-your-enemies/35907 on March 29, 2018.

2Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press: 1993 it seems), 141.

3Walter Wink, 149.

4King (same sermon on “Loving Your Enemies”)

–

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

“A Hope-filled Crowd”based on Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Mark 11:1-11(…

  • March 25, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

One of the most repeated myths about Jesus’ death is that the crowd who celebrated him on Palm Sunday turned on him and demanded his death on Good Friday. This one isn’t true at all, and its repetition keeps us from seeing clearly what did happen in the last week of Jesus’ life. It has been useful to those who want claim that humans are fickle, and crowd mentality is dangerous, to claim that the same crowd changed sides, but that isn’t reflective of the story we’ve read.

Instead, the crowds remained incredibly excited about Jesus and loyal to him. Their presence and their fidelity to him was the largest part of his threat to the empire. I mean, he also engaged in two really emphatic demonstrations of nonviolent resistance, but no one would have cared if he hadn’t done so with many, many people watching.

In fact, throughout the end of Mark, we’re told repeatedly that the authorities were trying to figure out how to take out Jesus without creating a riot by crowds faithful to him.

11:18 “And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.” 11:32 “they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet.” 12: 12 ”they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.” 14:1b-2 “The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.‘”

John Dominic Crossan in God and Empire, suggests that the Good Friday crowd wasn’t really a crowd at all, but rather 9-10 people who were advocating for Barabbas, likely his followers. They weren’t the same people, and there weren’t many of them.

Throughout the Gospel of Mark there are tensions with crowds. Jesus keeps attracting crowds, and then tries to get away from them!! When he can’t, he teaches them, heals them, feeds them, then he tries to get away again. In Mark, the crowds are seen as a little bit dangerous, because they feed into the fear the authorities have that Jesus is going to start a violent revolution. The tension is ALWAYS there.

Of course, Jesus wasn’t going to start a VIOLENT revolution, he was starting a nonviolent one, but the difference didn’t end up mattering. Jesus was killed by the Roman Empire on the charges of inciting a violent revolt, EVEN THOUGH he’d only engaged in nonviolent actions. (Two notable ones: Palm Sunday and then on Monday the Temple Cleansing.) It seems that the fear the authorities had of the crowds and their power made the difference between violent revolution and nonviolent action less important to the authorities. They were too scared to pay attention to their own laws.

So, why were so many people following Jesus? What was it that was so attractive about him, or so irresistible? From what I can tell from the stories about him, his teaching was certainly mind-blowing, after all we’ve been struggling with it for 2000 years without coming to many answers. He also seems to have been a good healer. But those two pieces don’t quite explain the power he has in the stories about him. They don’t explain why the crowds were SO passionate for him that they protected him. They don’t explain why people were willing to walk away from the lives they’d known just to follow him.

I think he must have been profoundly rooted in God’s own love, AND very charismatic, AND incredibly empathetic, AND insanely insightful while also clear spoken, AND profoundly gifted at knowing what people needed and finding ways to fulfill it. The sort of live changing experiences people had with him, instantaneously, are really shocking. So is the story of Palm Sunday.

The story says that the crowd showed up at an anti-Imperial procession, that functionally named Jesus King, while shouting King-supporting phrases that were blasphemy and sedition in the Roman Empire, WHILE waving the national symbol (Palm Branches) of Israel, AND they laid their cloaks on the road in front of him. The Jesus Seminar thinks this is an expression of early Christian imagination, rather than historical memory. Historically speaking, at best, they think Jesus MIGHT have ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey as a symbolic act. That seems very likely, and it may be helpful for some among us to keep that in mind (and for others to ignore completely).1

For those of you who have heard me preach on Palm Sunday before, you may remember that it is said to happen just before the celebration of the Jewish Passover. The Passover is the celebration of God’s actions to free the Hebrew people from slavery and give them new life together, eventually in the Promised Land. This central story of Judaism is of a God who cares about the oppressed and acts to free them.

Thus, the Roman Empire which had colonized the Jewish homeland, got a little nervous around the Passover celebration, all the more so because 200,000 people came to Jerusalem to celebrate it, swelling the city that usually had 40,000 residents. Thus, before the Passover began, the representative of the Empire entered the city through a formal processional with full military might on display. This wasn’t subtle, at all! It was a direct threat of violence, should any revolts or riots break out. The Empire was there to remind the people that they’d be crushed if they attempted to reenact their history of being freed from oppression.

People at the Roman procession yelled, “Hail Caesar, son of God; Praise be to the Savior who brought the Roman Peace; Caesar is Lord….” Those were the shouts appropriate to the Empire. And, that’s what makes the shouts said to happen at the Jesus parade so significant. They defied the power of Rome. They were blaspheming against the Empire, and doing so while seeking God’s help in overthrowing it! They also shouted “Hosanna”, a contraction of the Hebrew phrase “save, we pray.” The word, which we use as praise and adoration, to the people yelling it as Jesus rode the colt, literally meant ‘save’. Thus it meant “Hosanna!” Be our savior! Rescue us! Deliver us from our enemies! You are like the great King David! You come in the name of the Lord to bring us salvation from above!2 They were speaking to YHWH, in Hebrew, seeking salvation from the Roman Empire.3

Jerusalem wasn’t just the capital city of the former Jewish empire, according to Crossan “it was a capital city where religion and violence – conservative religion and imperial oppression – had become serenely complicit.”4 Jesus choose it as a place for his demonstrations because it was the center of this complicity with violence. Crossan says, “Jesus went to Jerusalem because that was where his deliberate double demonstrations against both imperial justice and religious collaboration had to be made. … It was a protest from the legal and prophetic heart of Judaism against Jewish religious cooperation with Roman Imperial Control.”5

The day after this peaceful, but POWERFUL, protest (Palm Sunday), Jesus went into the Temple and had another peaceful and POWERFUL protest. Crossan writes, “In Mark’s story, attention is focused on the demonstrations as twin aspects of the same nonviolent protest. … Each is quite deliberate. Each takes place at an entrance – into the City and into the Temple. Together, and in the name of God, these demonstrations are a protest against any collaboration between religious authority and imperial violence.”6

In all of this, the crowds stayed with him. Whatever it was that attracted them to begin with, there was substance under it that kept them there when things started getting dangerous. It is one thing to listen to a teacher in some field in Galilee and glean hope that life could be better than it is now. It is quite another thing to follow a leader who is protesting the Empire that has military might that has never been seen before, and to keep him safe with your sheer numbers. What kept them there?

In part, I suspect the crowds stayed because life outside of the Jesus movement was hopeless, and Jesus offered real and substantive hope for a different life -if not for those who followed him, then for the ones who came after them. Maybe the Spirit was there too, and the people could feel God at work, and wanted to be a part of it. Maybe the energy of the crowd was empowering and uplifting as few things were. Still though, I think Jesus just offered something no one else did – he saw them, he loved them, he wanted good for them, and he taught them how to work together to change the world so things could get better. People need to be part of something more than themselves, and the beaten down Jewish people KNEW in their hearts and in their bodies that there was more goodness in life than they were getting to experience. They knew God and God’s vision for them, and that the domination and oppression system wasn’t God’s will at all! In addition, I think Jesus’ love of them made it possible to see their own worth and to live it!

I ask about that crowd, because I think as later followers of Jesus it is worth wondering why we follow him too! While the disciples were all killed by the Empire for continuing the work of Jesus, for most of us there is much less of a cost in following. At the same time, there are a whole lot more distractions to following Jesus than there ever have been before. There are ways to numb ourselves out to the pains of life, options ranging from the simple distractions of smart phones, YouTube, and TV to the terrifyingly common addictive substances that pervade our society. There are other ways to “build community” and feel connected: sports teams, political groups, non-profit boards, game nights, and the list goes on. Following Jesus isn’t the easiest option. It calls us out of comfort zones, it prods us to love God’s people even when they drive us NUTS, it asks a lot of us.

It also gives a lot back. Following Jesus gives us an alternative vision: one where all of the people on the planet are God’s beloved children (not commodities and means of profit-building); one where there is incredibly important work to do together – building the kindom of God (not just individuals fighting to make it through day by day) ; one where there is hope for a truly good system of life together (not just Band-Aids on mostly broken systems); one where the nonviolent power of connection and community dominates (not violence or the threat of violence); one where HOPE dominates (not fear). It still sends shivers down my spine, how different God’s vision for the world is from how the world is at the moment, and the idea that God is working through us to make the vision into reality. May we join that hope filled crowd around Jesus, the ones following his vision, the ones making it possible for his work to continue, the ones who trust in his way. Amen

1Robert W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus (USA -HarperSanFransicso: Polebridge Press, 1998) 230.

2 From http://www.processandfaith.org/lectionary/YearA/2004-2005/2005-03-20.shtml, Commentary by Rick Marshall, accessed on March 16, 2008.

3Marcus Borg and John Dominc Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem (Harper Collins: 2006)

4John Dominic Crossan God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now(USA: HarperOne, 2007), 131.

5Crossan, 131-132.

6Crossan, 134.

–

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

March 25. 2-18

“Expansive” based on  Luke 23:32-43

  • March 18, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I started really struggling with “atonement theory” at the end of high school, well before I knew what “atonement theory” was. For the record “atonement theory” relates to how it was that Jesus’ death on the cross united God and humanity, the way to remember it is that is about how “at-one-ment” happened.

At that time in my life, I’d only heard of one atonement theory, “sacrificial atonement” sometimes called “blood atonement” which says that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins. I was trying very hard to be a “good Christian” in those days, and to comply with what I thought I was supposed to believe, but this didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t figure out to whom was the payment made. As time went on I learned that there are various schools of thought about this. The answers can be: God, humanity, or justice.

Some say that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins and the payment was made to God’s own self. But, if Jesus is God, then God required God’s self as a payment to God’s self, then…. why? Worse yet if we think of the God-Jesus relationship as Parent-Child in which case this becomes an obscenity of parental abuse and child sacrifice.

Some say that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins and the payment was made to humanity. Frankly, I was always able to believe that God loved me and was willing to forgive me, so the idea that we needed this act to believe that God loves us and forgives us just didn’t hold water.

Some say that Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins and the payment was made to a need for balance the scales of justice in the universe. This one made less than no sense to me because if God’s actions are bound by a power that is greater than God, then God isn’t God. (To be fair, some said the payment needed to be made to the Devil, but that also implies the Devil is more powerful than God; and even as a teenager I’d foregone the assumption I had to believe in the Devil.)

Twenty years after I started asking this question, no one has convinced me that an answer I can accept exists. However, my initial desire to believe in sacrificial atonement theory, because I thought I was supposed to, was based in reality!! Most Christians today believe this. Once, as a pastor, I taught a course during Lent based on a video series by Marcus Borg. In the first week’s video Borg explained many ways of understanding Easter, explaining that the metaphors of “life” and “new life” and “hope to the hopeless” can be understood in many ways, but in all of them the metaphor is powerful. The course participants thought that made a lot of sense. The following week Borg outlined many different theories of Good Friday, and “atonement”, explaining that “sacrificial atonement theory” is one among many and was not particularly evident for the first 800 years or so of Christianity. The course participants balked. The centerpiece of their faith felt under attack.

Thus, I come into this sermon with some trepidation. What I intend to share is, I think, important. Yet, for some it will be inherently threatening. I speak truth as I know it, trusting that all of you are strong enough to disagree with me and to discount what you don’t find useful.

When I got to college I did a research paper on atonement theory and learned that there are a LOT of them, and that they’re rich and varied, and most of them are older than the one I’d thought was “normal.” I say this in case you want to know more about them, but I’m going to focus now on just one other one.

During Lent we’ve been talking about God’s desire for Justice, as found in the Bible. We looked at the first creation story to see the priest’s enthusiasm for Sabbath rest for ALL of creation built into creation itself. We examined the Torah vision for a just society, one that calls upon the people to care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger as expressions of God’s own caring. We looked together at the role of the prophet in speaking truth to power so that kings didn’t start believing God allowed them to pick on the weak. We looked, as well, at one of Jesus’ parables to find that in it Jesus told a story of how oppression works so that those victimized by it could be freed from it.

Throughout these sermons we’ve been comparing and contrasting “domination systems” with God’s vision for the kin-dom of God. As a reminder, “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.”1 God’s vision is for justice is a reflection of God’s love and care for all. This means God seeks a world that cares for ALL people, which involves access to adequate food, clothing, shelter, rest, education, and meaning, for starters – we call this the reign of God, or the kindom of God .

Domination systems are supported in part by ideology, usually in the form of religion. One of the most dominate of the ideological myths that supports the violence of domination systems is the myth of redemptive violence. Walter Wink was a professor at Auburn Theological Seminary and he wrote the seminal book Engaging the Powers that I finally got around to opening this week. He says regarding the myth of redemptive violence, “The distinctive feature of this myth is the victory of order over chaos by means of violence. This myth is the original religion of the status quo, the first articulation of ‘might makes right.’ It is the basic ideology of the Domination System. The gods favor those who conquer.”2 Christianity is often used to support the ideology of domination systems. Wink again:

“The myth of redemptive violence thus uses the traditions, rites, customs, and symbols of Christianity in order to enhance the power of a wealthy elite and the goals of the nation narrowly defined. It has no interest in compassion for the poor, or for more equitable economic arrangements, or for the love of the enemies.  It merely uses the shell of religion – a shell that can be filled with the blasphemous doctrine of the national security state. Emptied of their prophetic vitality, these outer forms are then manipulated to legitimate a power system intent on the preservation of privilege at all costs.”3

I think sacrificial atonement theory is one of these ways that “Christian” theology can be used as an ideology of redemptive violence to support Domination Systems. After all, in sacrificial atonement theory, there is a demand for a VIOLENT DEATH in order to bring resolution and peace. I think the ancient myth of redemptive violence has taken deep root in Christianity this way, and it is destructive of good living as well as good theology.

So, let’s look at another option! Wink uses “Powers” to describe the Powers in the world that support domination systems, through violence or the threat of violence. He thinks THEY killed Jesus, and that the work of God and Jesus was in resisting and exposing them. He writes:

“The cross also exposes the Powers as unable to make Jesus become what they wanted him to be, or to stop being who he was. Here was a person able to live out to the fullest what he felt was God’s will. He chose to die rather than compromise with violence. The Powers threw at him every weapon in their arsenal. But they could not deflect him from the trail that he and God were blazing. Because he lived thus, we too can find our path. Because they could not kill what was alive in him, the cross also revealed the impotence of death. Death is the Powers’ final sanction. Jesus at his crucifixion neither fights the darkness nor flees under cover of it, but goes with it, goes into it. He enters the darkness freely, voluntarily. The darkness is not dispelled or illuminated. It remains vast, untamed, void. But he somehow encompasses it. It becomes the darkness of God. It is now possible to enter any darkness and trust God to wrest from it meaning, coherence, resurrection. Jesus’ truth could not be killed.”4

Jesus died without being complicit in violence at all, he didn’t participate in it, sanction it, or fight it.

Now, I’m going to share a very long quote from Wink about what he thinks the death of Jesus does and doesn’t mean, because I’ve thought about it, and I can’t say it better.

“Jesus’ own view of his inevitable death at the hands of the Powers seems to have been that God’s nonviolent reign could only come in the teeth of desperate opposition and the violent recoil of the Domination System: ‘from the days of John the Baptist until now, the reign of God has suffered violence….Now, however, Christian theology argued that God is the one who provides Jesus as a Lamb sacrificed in our stead; that God is the angry and aggrieved party who must be placated by blood sacrifice; that God is, finally both sacrificer and sacrificed.” … But what is wrong with this God, that the legal ledgers can be balanced only by means of the death of an innocent victim? Jesus simply declared people forgiven, confident that he spoke the mind of God. Why then is a sacrificial victim necessary to make forgiveness possible? Does not the death of Jesus reveal that all such sacrifices are unnecessary?

The God whom Jesus revealed as no longer our rival, no longer threatening and vengeful, but unconditionally loving and forgiving, who needed no satisfaction by blood – this God of infinite mercy was metamorphosed by the church into the image of a wrathful God whose demand for blood atonement leads to God’s requiring of his own Son a death on behalf of all of us. The nonviolent God of Jesus comes to be depicted as a God of unequaled violence, since God not only allegedly demands the blood of the victim who is closest and most precious to him, but also holds the whole of humanity accountable for a death that God both anticipated and required. Against such an image of God the revolt of atheism is an act of pure religion.”5

Wink then summarizes what this means for us, “To be this God’s offspring requires the unconditional and unilateral renunciation of violence. The reign of God means the complete and definitive elimination of every form of violence between individuals and nations. This is a realm and a possibility of which those imprisoned by their own espousal of violence cannot even conceive.”6 John Dominic Crossan comes to a very similar conclusion, “Christians choose between the violent God of human normalcy and the nonviolent God of divine radicality, between peace through violence and peace through justice, according to which one they find incarnate in the historical Jesus”.7

The question is, “is our God violent?” Despite very good evidence from the Bible, from humanity, and from Christianity otherwise, I don’t believe so. I believe God is nonviolent, and calls all of us to nonviolence as well. I hope the chance to consider various understandings of Jesus’ death on the cross makes space within you to consider the question, and frees you to answer it in ways that are life giving. Amen

Questions for Sermon Talkback

What other atonement theories have you heard? (Or other nuances of the ones mentioned)

What sense can you make of the “Myth of redemptive violence”?

Does it make sense that sacrificial atonement is part of the myth of redemptive violence?

Is anything missing from our faith if we don’t accept sacrificial atonement?

Does Wink’s theory of Jesus’ death make sense?

How have you made sense of Jesus’ death?

How do you connect Jesus’ death to Jesus’ life?

For you, is there anything inherent about forgiveness in Jesus’ death? If not, do you find this in another place in your story of God/Jesus? If not, is it important to you?

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.

2Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress Press: 1993 it seems), 15.

3Wink, 28.

4Wink, 141.

5Wink, 148-9.

6Wink, 149.

7John Dominic Crossan God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (USA: HarperOne, 2007), 141.

–

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

March 18, 2018

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