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“Favoritism in the Family” based on  Genesis 27:1-29

  • June 18, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

If I have a favorite matriarch, its Rebekah. This is not because of this story. This story is Rebekah at her worst. However, her worst isn’t as bad as Sarah, whose treatment of Hagar is atrocious. Nor does Rebekah’s worst even relate to being married to the same man as her sister, a reality that make Leah and Rachel appear rather petty and immature.

Rebekah has a chance to shine her own light through the texts, and they show her as a woman who chooses. Not only does she choose, but her choices change history, repeatedly. The first time we meet her she’s at a well. Abraham’s servant has been sent to find a wife for Issac from Abraham’s home country. The story is told well in scripture, from Genesis 24:

“Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his house, who had charge of all that he had, ‘Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, but will go to my country and to my kindred and get a wife for my son Isaac.’ The servant said to him, ‘Perhaps the woman may not be willing to follow me to this land; must I then take your son back to the land from which you came?’ Abraham said to him, ‘See to it that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and swore to me, “To your offspring I will give this land”, he will send his angel before you; you shall take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.’So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master and swore to him concerning this matter.”(Genesis 24:2-9)

The servant, still rather overwhelmed with his task, comes up with a plan. He’ll head to the well, which would be both practical for accessing water after a desert journey AND practical for finding a woman as the women tended to gather at the well. Then he prays asking for God’s help in identifying the woman. He asks for God’s guidance so that that whichever woman he asks for water from who ALSO offers to water his camels will be the woman he’s seeking.

Then the beautiful young Rebekah attracts his eye and he asks her for a drink. She immediate responds with water and then offers to water to water his camels too. Since there were 10 camels, this seems like a rather vigorous task, indicating rather significant hospitality and a commitment to the care of a stranger. The servant’s plan worked out to identify a hard working and caring young woman. Even better, she was kindred to Abraham, granddaughter to his brother, which was the goal. (The matriarchs and patriarchs are incredibly inbred, sort of like the European royal families in the 19th century, please don’t get too distracted by it.)

Then Rebekah invites Abraham’s servant to stay with her family and heads home to prepare the welcome. When the servant comes to her family home and tells his story, her father and brother IMMEDIATELY offer to send her off to marry Abraham’s son. As she was still unmarried and available, it is likely that she was also pretty young, prepubescent. Perhaps the journey home took long enough for her to grow up a bit more. (Let’s hope!) In any case, they did forget to ask her if she wanted to go initially, but when the servant wanted to leave immediately the next morning, they asked Rebekah if she wanted to go, and she agreed to it, including the immediately part.

Now, in these first few choices, we already see that Rebekah’s open heart and hard working nature are changing the course of history! She choose to give him a drink, to water his camels, to invite him into her family’s home, and agreed to go and marry a man she’d never met (nor heard of previously), and to do so immediately.

If she had not, the story suggests, Issac would not have married and the lineage would have stopped there. But it doesn’t. In fact, Issac and Rebekah’s meeting continues to indicate Rebekah’s openness to this marriage and her willingness to engage in it. (Here you see why I hope the journey was long enough for her to mature a bit.)

“Now Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi, and was settled in the Negeb. Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field; and looking up, he saw camels coming. And Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel, and said to the servant, ‘Who is the man over there, walking in the field to meet us?’ The servant said, ‘It is my master.’ So she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.: (Genesis 24:62-67)

The next time we hear of Rebekah is said to be 20 years later when she hasn’t get gotten pregnant. #AllTheMatriarchsStruggledWithInfertility Issac prays for her and she gets pregnant, with twins. I know that the Bible predates the modern concept of romance, but it is SO easy to project it onto these two. Until this point, that is. Once pregnant,and for the first time, we hear of Rebekah praying to God. This is significant because the monotheism of the Bible starts with Abraham and Sarah on their journey away from their home-country. It is not assumed to extend to the family they left back home, and it is clearly a choice on Rebekah’s part to accept the faith of Issac’s family.

The story goes on to say that Rebekah had a terrible pregnancy:

The children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’ So she went to inquire of the Lord. And the Lord said to her,
‘Two nations are in your womb,
  and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
one shall be stronger than the other,
  the elder shall serve the younger.’  (Genesis 25:22-23.)

Sarah never had direct contact with YHWH, although Hagar did. In fact, I think Rebekah is the only one of the matriarchs who is said to have an experience of the Divine. None of us are shocked that the result of the Divine experience is an inverting of the normal ordering of human society. God is like that. The order of human life mean that the elder son would be the one in charge, the inheritor of a double portion, the patriarch. Yet, Rebekah hears otherwise while they are still in her womb.

The story continues to indicate that the parents had different favorites in the family, “When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.” (Genesis 25:27-28) This little snippet reminds us that the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs are meant to function in two ways simultaneously: both to tell a good story that makes sense about an individual, and to explain relationships between groups claiming to be the descendants of those individuals. Thus the story is about relations between nations AND about individuals at the same time. This little bit reminds us that the ancient Israelites, by the time they wrote this story down, were domesticated people who had distanced themselves from the nomadic hunter-gatherers of their recent past.

And now, we are caught up and ready to deal with the story read today! Rebekah is committed to the fulfillment of the prediction she’d heard during her pregnancy. She acts as if it is very important. The story believes that blessing is … an act of God of some sort. Issac needs to strengthen himself so that he can function as God’s emissary in the giving of the blessing, and the story clearly believes that the future itself is changed by the speaking of the words. The blessing can’t be taken back, but it can be tricked onto landing on the wrong person. This is an OLD story. The blessing seems to reflect back on the words of God that Rebekah heard during her pregnancy, ones that guided her to make them true.

Rebekah has a plan on hand. (I’ve been told that this subversive women sermon series could also be called “women who plan.”) She is willing to take any curses onto herself. She pushes her favorite son to trick her husband into giving him the blessing he’d reserve for HIS favorite and eldest. She is remarkably committed to fulfilling the words of God, even at cost to her own existence. She pays a high cost for it too. By the end of the story her favorite son is sent away, and we don’t think they ever meet again. I say we don’t think because her death is never mentioned in scripture. Her participation in this deception and her final work to have her son sent back to her family for safety (and the marrying of a woman from Abraham’s home country and family) are her last notated actions. These are the final choices she makes. She fulfills the words of her husband’s God, even at the risk of his fury and curses.

Rebekah starts out leaving her home and her family to marry a man she’s never met who is following a God she doesn’t know. (Seriously.  The radical openness and adventurous spirit of these ancient women is astounding.) Then she has an experience of this God, more of one than her husband is ever said to have. Issac is said to have prayers answered but not to hear God’s responses. Furthermore, given the narrative about child sacrifice, Issac also has some serious reasons to distrust God. But Rebekah is given comfort and knowledge to use.  Her actions, ones that seem like they break apart the family she created, are done to fulfill the promises God made to her. Her husband’s God at that. She leaves her own family, and then willingly participates in breaking her family out of her faith in this God! By the end of the story she loses her favorite son, her husband is near death, and her other son is (appropriately) mightily angry with her. And she’s not mentioned again. She burns all of her power and influence in this one story that disrupts her entire life.

So, there she is, this adventurous, courageous, pushy, manipulative, faithful matriarch. However, I’m not sure I want anyone to mimic her choices, and there aren’t a lot of moral compass points in this story if you take it directly.

Many scholars have suggested that the Northern Tribes (Israel) identified Jacob as their primary ancestor while the Southern Tribes (Judah – Jew) identified Abraham. In the process of forming a united identity the two were linked. In order to make it less hierarchical, neither was made the son of the other, instead they were separated by Issac. Issac, indeed, is more visible as the son of his father and the father of his sons than he is a stand alone figure. He’s the link. These stories exist to create shared identity! They are successful in doing so, in part, by having a very relatable matriarch, and in part by naming an enemy as the “other” that the group can differentiate from.

Those the Bible identifies as Edomites (descendants of Esau) were the nation to the south of Judah, sometimes friends, sometimes enemies of the Israelites. They became a vassal of Judah for a while, but also contributed to their destruction and exile. This relationship is all being explained with the characters of Esau and Jacob, and in this story the behavior of their parents.

Which is to say, that this is a formative story about the nation, and its relationship with other nations. Similarly, we have narratives that explain our different relationships to Canada and Mexico, ones that aren’t entirely honest about the reasons we worry more about one border than another. We have stories about our relationships with Great Britain as our (I recently heard this) “longest standing ally,” which conveniently forgets that they were our first opponent in wary; we have stories that pervade our subconscious about the relationships between European Americans and Native Americans, ones that include the idea that Columbus “discovered” a continent with millions of people living on it; we have stories about relationships between people of different races that dismiss the history of slavery, segregation, and choices to limit US citizenship to people who were “white enough.” We have stories, as a nation, who tell us who we are, who we are supposed to be, and who we need to exclude and dis-empower to get there.

Those stories today are more overt and readable than they’ve been in my lifetime. More than ever the stories that are being told to our nation sound like telling the so-called descendants of Jacob that Esau (and thus his descendants) was freakishly hairy, smelly, and uncouth. In fact, many of the stories I hear today are intended to create fear of the people who claim to descend from Ishmael (the Muslims). It turns out that the patriarchs, the matriarchs, and their stories still impact global relations today.

It also turns out that at the end of this narrative Esau marries a daughter of Ishmael, symbolically restoring relationships between the two “unblessed” parts of Abraham’s family. While I don’t actually encourage marriages as means of restoration (symbolic or otherwise), I hear God calling us to expand our definition of family, including by telling new stories about who we are and who we can be. May we hear, and tell such stories. 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

June 18, 2017

“Young, Widowed, Sisters-In-Law” based on Ruth 1

  • June 12, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Life didn’t go well for Naomi. I mean, it didn’t go terribly to begin with: she married, she had two sons. Compared to most heroines of the Bible, that’s saying something! She didn’t go through the long barren years we’re used to hearing about with the matriarchs.

We don’t know how her marriage was, but we usually don’t. She got married, she had two sons. All that is OK, good even.  If feminine expectation was fulfilled in the procreation of sons, she was successful. Then there was a famine. For ancient Israel that really meant that there was a drought, and food couldn’t be grown. In response to that desperation, Naomi and family left their homeland and went in search of place where there was food.

They ended up in the land of Moab, east of the Dead Sea. The book of Genesis tells us that Moab was Lot’s son/grandson. I find it interesting that the Bible always identifies enemies as extended family. Throughout much of ancient Israelite history the Moabites were on the opposing sides of wars. Today the land that was called Moab is a part of the nation Jordan, and the boundary lines still run down the middle of the Dead Sea.

Naomi was a refugee, forced to leave her country because of lack of water. This was in the era before climate change, there are many more people in her situation today than there were then.

In ancient Israel, Naomi’s family had access to their own land.  They were farmers. Things were so desperate that they left the land they had, that they freely owned, so that he could be a day laborer in a foreign land, because they thought it was more likely that they’d survive the lack of water THAT way. Since this story predates currency, I suspect they left their country without any wealth, with just the clothing on their back and maybe a few farm tools. They were desperate, hungry people, trying to survive when the land they lived in couldn’t provide for the people who lived on it.

It seems likely that they lived a live of poverty in Moab. It seems like there WAS enough food, or at least enough MORE food that it was worth stopping there. I’m not entirely convinced there was fully enough food, since we aren’t told how all the men die, and malnutrition is an open option. Ancient Israel had some laws in place to minimize the hunger of foreigners, but I don’t know if Moab did. Most likely Naomi’s husband and sons were day laborers, struggling to make enough for the family to eat day by day.

I point this out, in part, because I want to acknowledge that Ruth and Orpah were likely also from very poor families, because I can’t imagine that any family with any sustainable income would have married their daughters off to an impoverished refugee family. (This was not a time when marriages happened because of love.) And Ruth and Naomi WERE married into this family. They were also married into this NUCLEAR family, when that wasn’t the norm yet either, and when that would have been a reason to distrust the foreigners further.

Now, as we all know, poverty and wealth do not define happiness. There are very happy, healthy families who live in poverty and very sad, mad, and dysfunctional families who have great wealth. In fact, studies say that money only increases happiness when it makes the difference between being homeless and hungry and being terribly housed and having just enough to eat (even if it isn’t that good). After the point when there is housing and food, money doesn’t increase happiness. (Though I do wonder if it decreases stress.)

I’m proposing that Ruth and Orpah likely came from families in poverty. We don’t know if they came from healthy, happy, loving homes. They seem especially fond of Naomi and well bonded to her. It makes me wonder if she’d been kinder to them than others in their life had been.

On the other hand, perhaps they were just following convention. It is hard to know. The convention at that is defined by levirate marriage. That is, if a married man died before producing an heir, his brother would be responsible for marrying his wife and thereby producing the heir. With both brothers dead, this was a problem. The women were still bound to the family they’d married into, but no spouse was forthcoming. In those days the most vulnerable people in society were the ones who didn’t have a NATIVE male to take care of them, including by making a living. The Hebrew Bible of speaks of the vulnerable in society as the widows, orphans, and foreigners – with a note that an orphan was a person without a FATHER. These were the ones for whom special laws existed as protection. All groups of people without a native male who had power in the system and access to land in Israel.

These women qualified. All they had was each other, and none of them had a path to care for themselves much less the others.

Naomi frees the younger women from their bonds to her. I suspect that couldn’t really be done without a man doing it, so it sort of didn’t count, but they didn’t have any men around to do it. I wonder if her lack of authority in the system is part of why Ruth felt she had the freedom to disobey Naomi’s instructions.

In any case, both Ruth and Orpah, who made opposite decisions, were disobeying the rules of society. Society didn’t have a way to care for them at this level of brokenness. Oprah abandoned the family she’d married into. Ruth disobeyed her elder. They both broke the rules, because there wasn’t a way forward within the rules.

Naomi had one what was expected. She’d married and procreated, and then she’d gone with her family to seek enough food to survive, she’d grieved for her husband and children. Her choices were, seemingly, exhausted. Either she could stay in a foreign land with NO ONE to take care of her or she could go home and HOPE that someone still lived who might take responsibility for caring for her. Or, if not, she would at least die at home. She decided to go home.

That left her daughters-in-law to either abandon her (presumably the only family they still had from their so-called adulthood) or their country of origin and all they’d ever known.  They seem to genuinely like, to want to stay with her. Maybe I’m missing cultural memos, but it FEELS like they want to stay with her. This mother-in-law had been good enough to them that they wanted to stay with her rather than return to their own mothers’ homes.

We don’t know why, and while I could project things, they wouldn’t be accurate. But they both said they wanted to go. It was only after Naomi pointed out that staying with her likely meant a life of barrenness without any hope for the future that Orpah reluctantly returned to her family of origin.

We don’t know what happened next for Orpah. She’s never mentioned again. I don’t think anyone would have had a way to know. Perhaps she returned to her mother’s house and quickly found a new husband and lived a pretty normal life. Perhaps she was tainted by her first marriage to a foreigner and lived and died a widow. Maybe life changed for her and she had a taste of existence beyond hard work and poverty, although it isn’t very likely. In that moment, standing on the road that returned Naomi to Judah, Orpah had no way of knowing how it would end either. She had two terrible choices before her and she picked one, hoping that it would work out.

So did Ruth. She decides to leave family, country, language, culture, and even her faith to follow her mother-in-law to a foreign land. I’ve often used this text at weddings because it comes from a woman freed to make her own choice, and in that freedom she chooses to bond her life to another’s.

“Where you go, I will go;
  where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
  and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die—
  there will I be buried.”

With the saying of those words her life changes. She becomes an immigrant, and enters Israel as a foreigner and a widow. She doesn’t have a reason to expect that she’ll find anything easier there, and many things will be harder. Yet, it seems clear, she genuinely loves Naomi and wants to spend her life bonded to Naomi’s life.

The book goes on to tell Ruth and Naomi’s story, and presents Ruth as a heroine and matriarch of the Davidic line. It seems to suggest that Ruth “choose correctly” but I don’t think that conclusion is sustained by the story. These three women were stuck without a clear way forward, with good reason to worry about how long they could live. Each made the best choice she could given the knowledge she had, and given the constraints of her world. I don’t think the story would have ended as well if all three went back to Israel, it would have been harder to feed three mouths. I don’t think it would have ended as well if only Naomi had returned home, I don’t think anyone would have noticed or cared about her. The story ends with a male relative noticing Ruth and deciding to care for them both. What happens when there isn’t one?

This story acknowledges the struggles of women without male support in patriarchal systems, it points out the vulnerability of women dependent on men, and makes clear that women end up making impossible decisions to survive – even ones others might want to judge. The story assumes that refugees and immigrants are more vulnerable than natives in their own lands. It also makes it clear that some people have WAY more power than others – that without a native male to care for them, the women had no legal recourse nor means of survival. The story also points out, clearly, that without water, people can’t survive. The changing weather patterns of the world are creating more and more Naomis.

The world today has more displaced people than it ever has before. Climate scientists tell us that this is a number that will keep rising. Until we can hear Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah’s stories as universal, we may miss the plight of many of God’s children. Can we imagine Naomi as a refugee from Yemen today, because of the drought there? Can we imagine Ruth walking “home” with Naomi across the desert to start a new life in a unfriendly foreign land? Can we hear in them refugees from Syria, Somalia, or South Sudan?

I suspect God can hear the echoes. This story speaks through the ages of the difficult choices vulnerable people, particularly refugees and immigrants, make to survive. It reminds us to pay attention to who in our society and world lack access to the means of survival and/or justice.

May we be brave enough to keep listening. 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

June 11, 2017

“Perplexing” based on Acts 2:1-18 and John 20:19-23

  • June 4, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Drew,
today’s confirmand, planned this worship service.  He had a lot of
leeway.  I was surprised at how little of it he used, and how
intentional he was in the decisions he did make.  Drew likes worship
the way we usually do it, but there were some tweaks.  Please
pay attention to the labeling of the music at the beginning and end
of worship 😉

Some
of the leeway Drew had was in picking the scriptures for today.  He
asked what was traditionally read on this day and we read together
the Pentecost texts from the Revised Common Lectionary, year A.
After questions about the texts themselves, he decided that we should
read the two different versions of the Pentecost story from Acts and
John.  When we discussed the sermon he suggested that I compare and
contrast the stories, and then pull out the meaning that is in both
of them for all of us.

I
like this young man’s idea of a sermon 😉

The
Christian liturgical calendar follows the Luke-Acts narrative about
Pentecost, placing it 50 days after Easter.  The Greek ordinal number
for 50?  Pentecosto.  Pentecost was a part of the Jewish Celebration
of Booths (sometimes called Tabernacle), celebrated 50 days after the
Passover, and was a harvest festival.  Luke’s placement of the coming
of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is saturated with meaning.  The
harvest festival becomes a harvest of new Jesus followers.  The
harvest festival was celebration of the bounty as a sign of of God’s
care for the people, and Luke reimagines it as a celebration of God’s
care for the people through the sending of the Holy Spirit.

It
is on this basis that Christianity celebrates the Season of Easter
for 50 days, starting on Easter Sunday and culminating in Pentecost.
We do it because Luke and Acts tell us that the gift of the Spirit
came 50 days later.

John,
however, disagrees.  Neither Matthew nor Mark present any version of
this story, so the debate is simply between Luke-Acts and John.  (Ah,
I should explain my language.  Luke and Acts are written by the same
person and meant to be parts 1 &2 of the same book, however the
order of the New Testament messes this up.)  John’s gospel places the
gift of the Holy Spirit on Easter evening.  We may sometimes gloss
over this story, because it gets used as an opening to the story
about Thomas, who wasn’t there when the Spirit was given.  The story
is less often heard standing alone, and it didn’t get prime attention
in the creation of the Christian calendar, which prefers Luke’s
version.

The
stories are VERY different.  Luke-Acts takes place in the morning, a
fact we are reminded of because Jesus’ followers are again being
accused of being drunk.  John’s version takes place at night.
Luke-Acts’s version happens in public, others see the impact of the
Spirit, and they hear the preaching, and many are converted.  John’s
version involves a large group of disciples as well, but without an
audience.  There is more FUSS in Luke-Act’s version, more description
of the event, more of a miraculous feel.  John’s version is
relatively quiet.  It mostly focuses on Jesus speaking.

In
Luke-Acts, the crowd responds to the disciples speak.  It says they
were amazed, bewildered, and perplexed.  The movement of the Spirit
and its impact seemed startling, and not in particularly comfortable
ways.  The Spirit is known to blow as she will, and that often makes
people uncomfortable.  

(An
aside:  the last time I read about the Spirit, the Bible translation
I read from referred to the Spirit with feminine pronouns.  Afterward
I was asked about it, and had the chance to share the fact that the
Spirit’s pronouns in Hebrew are feminine, and some translators follow
the Hebrew, despite the fact that in Greek the Spirit is gender
neutral and in Latin the Spirit is masculine.  Since the Creator most
often gets male pronouns in the Bible, I also tend to want to follow
the Hebrew pronouns for the sake of balance within our conceptions of
God.)

In
both texts the Spirit comes to the Body as a WHOLE.  The Spirit is
NOT received by one person, but instead by many.  In Luke-Acts, given
that the occurrence is during a Jewish pilgrimage festival, faithful
Jews had filled the city to be witnesses, but the people in the house
together all receive the gift together.  

The
writer in the New Interpreter’s Bible, has a fantastic comment on the
fact that the faithful Jews from around the diaspora took note that
the Galilean men were speaking to them in their languages.  They
could still tell that the men were Galilean, including by their
speech.  Robert Wall says, “The language of the Spirit is not
communicated with perfect or heavenly diction, free from the marks of
human identity; it is the language of particular human groups, spoken
in their idiom.  God works in collaboration with real people –
people who are filled with the Spirit to work on God’s behalf in
their own world.”1
I rather love that idea.  The Spirit moved, and certainly in
unexpected ways, but still worked within the people as they were,
including with their existent accents!

Now,
likely because of the tradition doing so, I associate the story in
Acts as the normative Pentecost story, which means that I’m intrigued
by the version in John.  As previously mentioned, it also involves
the Spirit coming to a group of Jesus followers, it was likely NOT
just the 12 because John doesn’t tend to think in terms of just the
12 and he didn’t designate them as such.  A group of followers were
simply gathered, and they had an experience of the Risen Christ,
which IMMEDIATELY involved receiving the gift of the Spirit.

Jesus
speaks in five sentences, and two of them are saying “Peace be with
you.”  This is a particularly apt greeting for the frightened
followers who had fearfully locked themselves into an upstairs room –
after hearing the women’s Easter story!  The double naming of peace
both sounds like a traditional greeting imbued with God AND serves as
a reminder that fear need not define their lives.  Those faithful
disciples were going to face significant persecution in coming days
and years, but Jesus, God, AND the Spirit were calling them to do so
in a different way, with the Peace of God within them.  

In
this version the gift of the Spirit is the gift given so that the
followers of Jesus can continue his work, they become HIM and are
empowered to do as he had done.  He was sent, so they are sent.  He
breaths on them as God has breathed on the first humans in Genesis.
A new life is beginning, one that is defined by peace.

Now,
I have never much liked the LAST line of this passage, John 20:23,
which has Jesus saying, “If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain
the sins of any, they are retained.“  My objections aren’t
particularly deep.  I j shy away from sin language, as I’ve too often
seen it lead to guilt and shame rather than to a free and abundant
life of peace and joy with God.  

However,
Gail O’Day’s commentary on John (also in the New Interpreter’s Bible)
fixed a lot of problems for me, and made me rather glad that line was
included.  She says that, “In John, sin
is a theological failing,
not a moral or behavioral transgression (in contrast to Matt. 18:18).
To have sin is to be blind to the revelation of God in Jesus.”2
Furthermore, given this understanding, “The forgiveness of sins
must be understood as a Spirit-empowered mission of continuing Jesus’
work in the world.”3
And, finally, this work is the work of the community, and never one
person alone.  

So,
let me see if I can remake those words so they fit with O’Day’s
insights.  But maybe first, you should
know that Gail O’Day is Dean
and Professor of New Testament and Preaching at Wake Forest
School of Divinity, and was previously professor of homeletics at
Candler school of Theology at Emory.  She’s an amazing scholar, and
especially well respected as a scholar of the Gospel of John.
Following her insights, it would be as if Jesus said, “If you work
together to help people see God at work in the world, they will be
free from their fears and able to live in peace with you.  If you
leave people in the fear they already know, there they will stay,
without the blessings that you now live with.”  

In
O’Day’s reflections on this text, she continually turns back to John
14-17, which is called the Farewell Discourse.  Within it are the
defining words, in John 15:12, “ ‘This
is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
O’Day reflects on the continuity between the passages, “By loving
one another as Jesus loves, the faith community reveals God to the
world”4
Thus, the seemingly problematic line that the institutional church
has often used to claim authority over people’s lives and access to
forgiveness is really
about
inviting the followers of Christ to share God’s love, and in doing so
to show other people the possibility of living life in peace, love,
joy, and freedom from fear.

Perhaps
it isn’t so perplexing after all.  Perhaps the story of Pentecost is
the story we already know:  God calls us to love one another and be
examples of the gracious and abundant love of God in the world.  And
that can change everything, because it is the completion of the
Easter narrative – no matter when it happened ;).  Thanks be to God
for the opportunity we have to extend love into the world.  Amen

1Robert
W. Wall, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X: Acts Leander E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
2002) 58.

2Gail
O’Day, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX: John, Leander
E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,1995)
847.

3O’Day,
847

4New
Interpreter’s Bible, John, 848.

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

“The Healing Earth” based on Psalm 8 (& James Weldon…

  • May 28, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

A few years ago I was informed that Sky Lake was a prime example of “Celtic Christianity/Spirituality.” I had no idea what that meant. So I looked it up, and discovered that it was true, AND that there is a name for my spirituality. Isn’t it wonderful when we find names for things we’ve known without having words? Looking up Celtic Spirituality reveals a description that starts with “Love of the Natural World.” It is explained this way:

“The prayers of the Celtic Saints are filled with experiences of God’s presence in creation, simplicity of living in harmony with creation, and awareness of the sacredness of all things. The Psalms are full of praise for God’s handiwork in nature, and Celtic Christianity followed in that tradition, reflected in prayers and poems which spoke of the Sacred soul in everything. As it says in the first chapter of Genesis, all things originate in the Divine Source, and so all things are sacred. The Presence permeates all of nature, and speaks to us of the ‘Original/Essential Goodness’ of everything. To enter into this Presence is a sacramental experience so that when we walk in nature everything is a visible reminder of the Invisible presence.”1

One of their saints, “Columbanus said – ‘If you want to know the Creator, first get to know the creation.’ If there is any one word that would sum up the essence of Celtic Spirituality, it’s the word ‘PRESENCE.’ Awareness of the Sacred Presence at every moment of life, in all places.”2The other defining factors of Celtic Spirituality are community, hospitality, soul-friends, art and music, pilgrimage.

I suspect that for some of you, Celtic Spirituality is a part of your connection to God. For some, maybe it isn’t. In any case, it is helpful to remember that within Christianity itself there are many developed roads and paths to God, and the ones that fit you best may have road signs and maps, if you want to find them. There are multiple spiritual paths, even within Christianity, because humans connect differently. For today, I’m going to continue to explore within a Celtic vein, but please remember this is one among many.

At this time of year I’m mesmerized by how many shades of green there are, and how many I can see in one glance at the world around us. Each tree and plant offer several shades, with the grass itself adding more. For me, this is a feast. I love seeing the verdant, vibrant, living world, and my soul is satisfied watching the wind blow through the various leaves. The Presence of God seems especially visible.

This is a colorful time of year, even beyond the green. Flowers are plentiful and many trees are still covered in flowers or leaves of other colors! It is a time of visual abundance, as richly and vibrantly beautiful as a snow covered winter day is beautiful in its unbroken stillness and grace.

This time of year I am most receptive to the creation narratives of the Bible, perhaps because spring seems to speak them all by itself, and the words of the narratives add to the story the world is telling! James Weldon Johnson’s poem is one of the most famous re-tellings of Genesis, and Psalm 8 is one of the most glorious reflections on creation in the text. They remind us that God’s fingerprints are found all over the world, and when we look for them, we can find them.

The natural world is the source of all the things we need for life, as well as being a source of deep wisdom. It is a reflection of God, as are all of God’s creatures. One of my seminary professors offered us a way of praying that opens us to the wisdom of creation, by simply paying attention to one little aspect of the whole. He instructed us this way:

1. Go to a place where God’s creation meets you: ask for God’s presence with you.

2. Attend to the works of creation around you. Does one thing seem to invite you, strike you, impress you, or somehow attract you?

3. Come to a sense of quiet rest in the presence of God and in this piece of God’s handiwork.

4. Simply gaze upon this part of creation for an extended time – a time of wonder, amazement, openness, receiving.

5. Eventually, engage God in conversation about this thing you have noticed. You may want to ask God questions such as: Where has it been? Who has touched, held, seen it? What does God value it? How is it related to what is around it? How is it related to me? – to the rest of creation? What does it tell me of myself?

And finally… How is God present to me through this piece of creation? What does it tell me of God? What is God saying to me, offering me?

6. Remain for a time in the experience of whatever follows these questions.

7. Offer God thanks for this time and for the wonders of creation.3

This prayer form seems to derive particularly from Celtic Christianity, and the wisdom of the natural world and our capacity to hear it! The prayer, trusts creation and those listening to it.

This sounds a bit like the Psalmist, who spoke of star-gazing as source of wisdom. I’d like you to hear the Psalm anew, this version written by Barbara J. Monda. Her version focuses on the nurturing aspects of creation and our response to it. She refers to God as “Shekkinah” which according to Google means, “the glory of the divine presence, conventionally represented as light or interpreted symbolically (in Kabbalism as a divine feminine aspect).” Here is her version:

Shekkinah,4 how glorious is this world that everywhere bears the mark of your touch!

I sit among the mountains and am in awe of your beauty.

Babies in their mother’s arms remind me of how you care for and know our every need.

We are safe in the cover of your clothes.

You hold at bay those who want to harm and take vengeance.

Your steadfastness is all around us and your love makes our hearts jump.

When I look up to the moon I see you there.

When I see the stars I know they are jewels worn by you, signaling your presence.

You have made us just less than yourself.

You have given us the caretaking of all the earth

and the creatures on it as our companions.

Birds sent by you to sing cheer my day.

Fish swim at my feet and the fox and deer bring joy to my life.

The work of your fingers is everywhere my eyes turn.

The sun warms us from above and the rocks hold us from below.

The rhythms of the oceans and the passing of the moon are all ours too,

woven in us so we will be fruitful as you are.

Shekkinah, I feel greatness of you in my bones.

How can I properly thank you for all you have done for me?

My soul reflects your love and my heart holds what you have made.

I will be the cup from which others may drink of you and we will all sing of your wonders.5

Another seminary professor, Marvin Sweeney, told us that the ancient Hebrew Temple was themed on creation.  He said that indicated that creation was the primary miracle of ancient Judaism, and everything else was derived from it. Similarly, creation is a theme throughout scripture, likely because the natural world has been a source of wisdom about God for all of humanity’s history. Some are more in tune with it than others. The poets, the Psalmist, and Monda, and Weldon Johnson are particularly in tune. They each speak of humanity as connected to God, thus given special responsibility for caring for creation. Christian theology sometimes speaks of us as “stewards of God’s earth.” That means that the earth and all that is in it is God’s, but God trusts us to take care of it on God’s own behalf. That is good, and meaningful work. However, given the impact of humanity on Global Climate Change and extinctions, we certainly have plenty of ways we could do that work better!

While the self-descibed defining factors of Celtic Spirituality were love of the natural world, community, hospitality, soul-friends, art and music, pilgrimage; I think the biggest difference I see is a focus on goodness: Goodness of God, Goodness of Creation, Goodness of Humanity. So much of Christianity has chosen to focus everything BUT the goodness. There is plenty in life that draws our attention that is not good. But, there is also much goodness, and when our souls are hungry, they hunger for goodness.

In Weldon Johnson’s poem, creation begins as a response to God’s SMILE.

Then God smiled,

And the light broke,6

And that image, which is itself a blessing, feels like the essence of Celtic Spirituality itself. God Smiled, light broke, creation began, and it was good….

And it is good still. Thanks be to God. Amen

1 http://celtic-spirituality.net/what-is-christian-celtic-spirituality/ accessed 5/27/17

2http://celtic-spirituality.net/what-is-christian-celtic-spirituality/ accessed 5/27/17

3Andrew Dreitcer, March 1996, All Rights Reserved.

4Google dictionary.

5Barbara J. Monda, Rejoice, Beloved Women! The Psalms Revisioned (Notre Dame: Indiana, Sorin Books), 22.

6James Weldon Johnson, The Creation: A Negro Sermon

–

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

Set in Stone”based on  Joshua 4:1-9

  • May 22, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

In a recent Mission Moment, Pam Brucker from the Center for Community Justice, spoke about the experience of entering our church building. She told us that when she walks in with children who are hurting, they are awed by the sense of love that pervades our building. She attributed it to generations of people at prayer and in worship. I want to add that people have been loved, accepted, and affirmed in this space for many years, and that changes the energy too.

God’s work has been done here. This space has seen nearly countless baptisms, communion tables, and celebrations of life. Preludes, postludes, and anthems have filled the air with wonder.

God’s work has been done here. Not perfectly, but consistently. Love has been shared. Gifts have been given. People have been seen and heard. Welcome has been extended. Grace has lived.

Pam’s words reminded me of the wonder of space, and how important space can be for our connection to God. For the most part (in moments other than the miraculous), I think we have to be open, vulnerable even, to connect with the Divine. That happens either when we feel safe or when we are beyond our capacity to hold up own own barriers. There are truly miraculous moments with God breaks through our walls, but that’s another story for another day. The need for vulnerability that we don’t worship as well in just any space, and that prayer can be easier in some spaces and harder in others. It isn’t that God is more present in some places than others, it is that we can get our guard down to connect to the always present One more in some places than others!

I’ve often wondered if an experience of God that happens in a place then opens that place to greater trust and therefore more God experiences. I think it might be so. In any case, like Pam, I’ve experienced the sense that the air itself is different in places where people have prayed, been open and vulnerable, sought God, worshipped God, and shared love consistently over the years and it helps to open my heart to God as well.

It seems that this is the crux of our story today. After generations of wondering in the desert, the people FINALLY came into the Promised Land. The Bible says the people wandered for 40 years which is Bible for a LONG TIME. Archeologists think that perhaps the people who came into ancient Israel with the story of an experience of God in the desert were a motley group of nomads who had wandered for countless generations. Either way, its been a while that they’ve wandered in the desert. The Bible says that they learned dependence on God in the desert, which makes sense. The Bible calls the desert the wilderness, and understands the desert wilderness to be a place where life can’t survive without God’s help.

The people were ready for a change. They’d been the desert for a long time, and they were dreaming of stopping their nomadic ways, settling into their own land, and becoming farmers. They felt drawn to a particular land. The crossing of the Jordan River was the entrance into their land, a significant transition point in their communal lives. The nomads are about to have a home. Their wandering days are coming to an end.

The transition between their many years of desert wandering, kept alive only by the Spirit of God, and the settled life they yearned for happened at the River. They were on the western side of the River. Their life as a settled people would start on the Eastern side. The crossing represented a change in identity for the entire people.

The story indicates that they experienced God as present in the transition as God had been on the journey. The way they tell the story, God says, Joshua commands, and the 12 men DO. God says to Joshua that the men should take 12 stones, carry them over, and lay them down in the encampment. Joshua tells the men to take 12 stones, carry them over, and lay them down in the encampment. Then the men took, carried, and laid the stones. It happened as it was supposed to happen.

The stones become the reminder that God was with them on that day, although I suspect they also held the memory of God’s presence with them in the desert as well. As it is remembered, God stopped the flow of the River so they could pass safely.

The image is particularly striking. The priests carried the Ark of the Covenant, which physically contained the 10 commandments, but was understood to contain the very presence of God. They went first. The river parted as they walked. They then stood in the middle of the river, the presence of God holding the River back, until the people had all passed through. The priests are standing on stones, holding up the Ark. It seems to me that this indicates the river bottom might have been left a bit mucky, even in the midst of the miracle 😉 Or, even, that the memory of the river STOPPING was a later development, but that the priests still led and their presence holding the Ark helped the people trust they could cross over.

The stones are the safe place where the priests are confident they won’t slip, fall, or drop the Ark of the Covenant. Joshua has one man from each tribe gather a stone to remember the occurrence. They take the stones, carry them out of the river, and lay them down on the far side where the people sleep for the night. Its funny, isn’t it? The transition from being homeless nomads to entering the Promised Land was complete, but not immediately impactful. The first night they camped, like nomads, on their land. The houses weren’t build, the wells weren’t dug, and the seeds hadn’t been planted. Their lives had changed forever, but at first it wasn’t so different.

The stones that had held up the priest so that the priests could hold up the Ark, so that the presence of God could assure and hold up the people, were the symbols that they brought with them from that transition. They carried the stones a safe distance from the river to the place they laid their heads, and then they put them down to mark the first night of their new lives together.

In later generations the stones would reconnect the people to the faithfulness of God and the ways that God cared for them when they could not care for themselves. The day it happened, though, it seems carrying the stones served as a physical symbol of the transition that had transpired. It was necessary, because without the stones, one side of the River might quickly have looked like the other side of the River.

For the generations to come, the place the stones were laid was a holy place, a space where they knew that people had connected with God, and thus a place they went to seek out God. It may be that it felt like entering this place, or another holy space, and that with the prayers piled on top of each other, it became more holy with time. The first ones who camped there had an experience of God that day, and used the stones to mark the place so others could find it in the future. The first ones of the ancient Israelites who camped there held onto the stones that had steadied them as they embarked on the next part of their lives together.

This story is the opening narrative that will be used at our Camp and Retreat Centers this summer. The camp curriculum will use it to teach campers that we , “designate special places as sacred and created physical reminders of our relationship to those spots. Anywhere we notice and are aware of God’s presence with us can be such a place – especially at camp.”1 They also intend to talk about the ways that the stones were present to many generations – the ones that placed them, the ones who came back to see them, and the ones who asked questions to their parents about them. The stones became a way to pass down the stories of faith, even as they were a thin place for people to connect to God. So too, at its best, are our Camp and Retreat Centers. They are even filled with buildings with names that come with stories of our ancestors in faith. They are filled with art from those who came before. At times, there are even symbolic stones. When I was a camper my group walked a large stone a long way, and painted it with our names. It still stands, lo these many years later, and when I walk by it I still smile. The stone brings me back to people I love and a time that was saturated with God’s presence.

Those ancient stones from the riverbed were all set down TOGETHER. 12 men from 12 tribes each carried one. Even then the people were united and yet distinct. It would not have been enough for one stone to be carried. The 12 marked the fullness of the people, everyone was included with the 12. Conveniently, the 12 also made a much longer standing marker of the holy place than any one stone ever could have.

A long time ago a friend (I’m no longer sure which one) told me of a sermon they’d heard, I have no idea from whom. That friend’s pastor had told the people, “When the going gets tough, go to the water.” I’ve held onto the idea so long now, that it likely doesn’t mean what it started out as meaning. However, I have understood it as an encouragement to go to a body of water, and sit, and allow your soul to let go. I’ve never thought the water was the holy part, although it may be for some. My version of this is, when the going gets tough, go to a place where stones mark the spot.

When our souls are weary and needing solace, when we are lost in confusion and can’t find our way, when we are restless and ill at ease, it isn’t easy to connect to the Holy One we need most in those moments. Thus, we need to seek out the Holy Places that will help us be safe enough to led our guards down and become vulnerable. In those places we can connect to our own wisdom, and heart with the Divine who is already with us.

It might be that the places you seek are entirely unique, but for many of us, they’re places that have already been set in stone, sanctified by those who came before, and marked so you can find them again.

Thanks be to God for those who take the stones, carry them to the sacred places, and lay them down so we can find them.  Thanks be to God for the places we can go when the going gets rough, to sit with the Sacred and simply be. Amen

1“The Vine” 2017 Camp Curriculum used by Upper New York Camp and Retreat Centers.

–

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 21, 2017

“How to Love God” based on  Acts 17:22-31 and John…

  • May 15, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

One
of the squeal worthy moments of my life was being asked to serve on
the Board of Directors for the Methodist Federation for Social Action
(MFSA).  When the official request came in I was surrounded by young,
United Methodist clergy people, and the announcement led to an
immediate toast.  The Methodist Federation for Social Action has been
a justice leader in both the The United Methodist Church and the
United States for more than 100 years, starting with worker’s rights.
Calls for justice expanded, as they do, because any justice work
always intersects with other justice work.  By 1940 Mary
McLeod Bethune joined the board to help focus the work on combating
racism in the denomination.1 

 

Our
“spring” board meeting, in March, was outside of Philadelphia.
(So, it was our winter board meeting.)  Trainers came from
“Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training” to work with the
board for two days.  It was very different training than I have done
before.  Almost all of the anti-racism training I’ve done has been
focused on the personal.  That is, I’ve often looked at my own
behaviors and biases with hope of becoming more aware and less
biased.  Those trainings have all been a blessing.  Some educational
opportunities I’ve had have been important in educating me about the
history of race and racism in our country.  Those have also been very
important. 

However,
the training we did at the MFSA board meeting was different than any
of those.  We looked at institutional and structural racism.  In
fact, our training was really “anti-white supremacy” training,
and we looked at the ways that white supremacy lives in our society
and its institutions.  One of the most useful ideas I brought home
from the training was the idea of the “center” of power and
privilege in our society and its contrast, the “borderlands”
outside of power and outside of privilege.   

 

I’m
going to offer here a very extended quote because I don’t trust
myself to find the language to summarize these ideas quite yet:

 “There
is a center in US society that is considered normal:
white, male, heterosexual, married, Protestant (Christian),
Anglo-American, English speaking, upper middle class, able-bodied,
educated, middle-aged and embodying a particular standard of beauty.
It is the standard by which all are measured.

Around
this center exist the rest of us – at varying distances from the
center. Some of us are closer and some further apart. The borderlands
surround this “center of normalcy.” Power, time, place, and
position dominate their interaction.

The
borderlands is a juicy place. It is a place full of possibilities,
chaos, creativity, conflict, beauty. It’s the place where harmony
and conflict exist – simultaneously. It’s a place that transcends
and defies dualism, where rigid linear reality cannot exist; a place
where multiculturalism and diverse identities mix and mingle in a
constant ebb and flow of mess, mediation, and mitigation.

Our
institutions are structured to rein force and maintain the center.
When
institutions ‘embrace diversity’ people of the borderlands must
assimilate in order to come in to the center, though they will never
fully belong there. The tension that results is troublesome for the
center. It creates conflict that the center is not structured to
tolerate. Thus, brining the borderlands into the institution means
forcing it to conform, contort, and homogenize.

There
is peacefulness in the borderlands but not peace. The power and
privilege of the center causes separation, divisiveness, and
ultimately destruction within the borderlands. The center demands
conformity and sameness, making scarce the resources required to
creatively and collectively resolve conflict. This is the daily
experience of the borderlands.

The
power of People of Color and other oppressed groups is in the
borderlands. Coming to the center disempowers the borderlands and
destroys its spirit.

Our
institutions are defined by rigid boundaries, which isolate both
institutions and the center. The challenge for anti-racism
transformation teams is to make these boundaries more permeable
and to move the institutions to the in-between-ness of the center and
the borderlands.

Journeying
through the in-between-ness brings the center to the borderlands,
making permeable the walls and boundaries of the institution. It
pushes the center out into the borderlands, making it part of its
chaos and creativity, conflict and beauty.

In
doing this, the borderlands becomes what is normal, diversity and
justice become the standard. The borderlands becomes the Beloved
Community for which we all yearn.”2 

This
model of the world as it is, and as it could be, has been playing
around in my mind for 2 months, and I needed to share it with you.
It has helped me to see more clearly.  Within this model it was
useful to learn that one of the ways the center maintains its power
is through the control of resources and “legitimacy” which sets
up different groups in the borderlands to compete with each other.
It was also helpful, if radically uncomfortable, to be confronted
with the idea that charity is a means by which the center deals with
its guilt AND attempts to bring the borderlands into conformity.
(I’m still squirming.) 

After
this training, when I was invited to work on dreaming an anti-racist
United Methodist Church at the Change Maker’s Summit led by the
General Commission on Religion and Race, I was super excited!!  When
I got there and started listening, I realized that my newfound
knowledge of how white supremacy works and the language I
could use to talk about it was ALREADY shared language among the
people of color I was in conversation with.  I’d had this MAJOR
learning experience that had reformed my thinking, which I’m still
struggling to fully understand, and then I realized that I’m still
super far behind.  

I
think, perhaps, that knowing how far behind I am is an appropriate
place to be, at least as  long as I don’t get comfortable and stay
here.  Part of the way that white supremacy, and “the center” are
maintained are by encouraging white people NOT to see the structural
and institutional ways that they’re maintained.  From within the
center, things just look “good, orderly, and right.”  As we
looked carefully at the sorts of factors that impact how closely an
individual lies to “the center”, I realized that I share ALMOST
all of those characteristics, and I have been socialized to seek the
sort of power that “the center” brokers, and move myself closer
and closer to the center.  

Thanks
be to God, I’ve also been introduced to Jesus, the Bible, the vision
of the Torah, and the concept of the kin-dom of God.  The values that
I’ve learned in THOSE places are the values that led me to every
anti-racism training I’ve ever gone to, and are the values that give
me a way to counter the narratives and socialization of “the
center.”  Now, to be clear, The United Methodist Church as an
institution operates with a confusing mix of the values of “the
center”, the language of Jesus, and an occasional reflection of the
actual values of Jesus.  It is a very confusing place to be.  That
mix of values and language pervades all the levels of the church,
albeit in different concentrations of each ingredient.  

One
of the other take-aways from the anti-racism training is that no
person, institution, or experience is truly free from the values,
power, and impact of “the center” and we kid ourselves if we
think we are.  Yet, together, we are able to make progress anyway, if
we try. 

So,
loving God and following Jesus offer us a way out of the center and
its values, into the borderlands to be part the Beloved Community in
all of its beautiful diversity.  God’s universal love for all people
leads to God’s dream of world where people are able to survive and
thrive together.  However, even in the Bible, that universal love of
God gets held in tension with other values and ideas.   

 

For
instance, let’s take this brilliant speech of Paul’s in Acts.  He
meets people where they are, and takes what they already know
seriously.  He is speaking to people who don’t share his experience
of God, he started out as a monotheist and was well educated in
Judaism.  He is speaking to polytheists, and he makes space for them.
I love that he notices to their humility in the altar to the unknown
God, as uses it an opening to tell about the God he knows.  I also
love that he quotes one of their well-known sayings, “in God we
live and move and have our being” and applies it to God as he knows
God!  I also think it is really funny that one of my favorite
descriptions of God (“in whom we live and move and have our being”)
was ADAPTED to fit the monotheistic God.  I think it is beautiful
that Paul includes the people he speaks to as being children of God,
and indicating that in his faith God loves them all.   

 

Of
course, then the passage comes to its end, and Paul tells people that
they all have to do things his way, and follow his God while
abandoning what they’ve known, or his God will punish them all.
SIGH.  Paul thinks there is ONE right way, he knows it, they don’t,
and they should all do it his way.  That’s not so beautiful, nor so
welcoming or respectful of the people he is talking to.  He changes
from accepting people as they are to telling them how they should be.
It is a switch from valuing the borderlands to demanding that they
comply with the center.  His speech ends telling them that unless
they think like he does, they’re of less value.  He requires unity
with his ideas rather than joining with the people in solidarity with
their needs. 

John
presents this differently.  He shows Jesus speaking to people who
already know and love God.  The speech says that God has desires for
how people act, but the desires are that people treat each other with
God’s love for them, and build communities centered in love.  This
makes it clear that unless love defines actions, people are not truly
following God.  There is no space for exceptions so that anyone can
be excluded, instead there is a reminder that  the Spirit can help us
live as God wants us to live.  We’re told we aren’t alone, and that
doing God’s work IS the same same as loving God, and then when we
want to seek out God we can do so by loving God’s people.  In this
brief passage I hear the values of God and Jesus without significant
muddling of the center!  (Thanks be to God for moments like that!) 

Loving
God is loving God’s people.  All of them.  Loving people who are in
the borderlands is sometimes a challenge.  So too is loving people
who live near the center.  But God doesn’t make space for exceptions.
Only for love.   

 

I’m
pretty sure that one of the most important forms of loving God’s
people is truly seeing, hearing, and knowing each other.  That means
helping to loosen the walls between the borderlands and the center,
and for me at least, that’s going to require continued anti-racism
and anti-white supremacy work.  But, thanks to the writer of the
Gospel of John,  the Methodist Federation for Action,  and this
church, I know that I don’t go it alone.  Thanks be to God! 

 Amen 

 
1http://mfsaweb.org/?page_id=2692 

  2
Robette Anne Dias & Chuck Ruehle, Executive Co-Directors,
©Crossroads Ministry
http://www.crossroadsantiracism.org/wp-content/themes/crossroads/PDFs/The%20Borderlands.pdf

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 14, 2017

“Who Do We Feed First?” based on Acts 2:42-47…

  • May 8, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

There are times when I find it invigorating to engage in a robust debate. One of the joys of my childhood was being able to score points in verbal battles with my brother, and if I don’t pay attention, I can still engage in conversation as a competitive sport.

On the basis of enjoying the capacity to play and sometimes WIN, if the opportunity presented itself, I would choose not to debate Jesus. He doesn’t lose much. The gospels consistently describe him winning, scoring match points before his opponents have even started to play.

Today’s gospel is one of the exceptions. I cannot yet say it definitively, but I believe the only people who ever score points on Jesus in competitive debate are women. Consequently, very few who beat Jesus are women. This is one of the stories where the woman is said to have won. Jesus himself declares that she has bested him, and gives her a prize for having done so.

Even so, this is one of the most uncomfortable stories in the gospels. Jesus is … well… um… super mean to this woman. He calls her and her people dogs! That is, he disparages their very humanity, and says that it is of less value than the humanity of his people.

I could tell you that the Jesus seminar doesn’t think this story actually happened. Luckily that’s true, but unfortunately it still requires us to consider why the early Christian community included it. We could tell ourselves that Jesus expressed explicit prejudice simply to show us that it was bad, but that doesn’t truly fit the story. The story says he healed the woman’s child because she beat him in oral combat, NOT because he realized her people were of equal value.

So, how do we deal with this horribly insulting, even racist, Jesus? We still have a few options left to us. The story does say that Jesus left Galilee to be in the land of the Gentiles and entered a house in secret. It would be reasonable to conclude that he was getting away for a bit of a reprieve, perhaps because he was tired and needed to catch his breath. Tired, burned out people often don’t operate as their best selves. And being accosted in this home where he was trying to hide and regain his energy might have brought out the worst in him. I don’t think this entirely explains the story, but I do point it out anyway for two reasons: 1. Because when we’re tired we really do make mistakes and I urge you to get rest as an act of faithfulness to God’s call on your life to be your best self and 2. Because when we’re tired we really do make mistakes and some gentleness with ourselves is called for when those mistakes happen. Human beings in human bodies can’t push on indefinitely through exhaustion.

Another pieces of the puzzle comes from a scholar who doesn’t think it makes a lot of sense for the early Christian church to have remembered such a hostile response from Jesus UNLESS it reflects a larger reality. Gerd Theissen looked for a socio-economic explanation and discovered, “Upper Galilee exported produce through the coastal cities. The cities, in turn, depended on these regions for food. In periods of crisis or food shortage, the populace of the hinterlands may have resented producing goods for wealthy cities.”1 This idea continues, “Those who produced the food, Jewish peasant farmers, see their work consumed by others.”2 In this case, ethnic and religious differences are compounded by economic inequalities. Jesus might simply be suggesting that his people have a right to eat the food they produce.

It stands in interesting contrast to the food sharing on Acts 2, doesn’t it? Jesus talking about the inappropriateness of sharing the food with the dogs contrasts with the people sharing all things in common, breaking bread together, and eating with glad and generous hearts?

Or does it?

This beautiful passage of the joy and communal support in the early church does not extend to ALL people. It extends WITHIN the community, not beyond it. I’m not saying that’s wrong, I’m just saying that it is limited. Supporting the community of faith is not the same thing as supporting all of God’s people. Supporting the community of faith, with firm boundaries around who that means, can actually look a lot like Jesus’s response to the Syrophoenician woman in this story! Jesus, too, was advocating keeping resources within the family of faith.

The first summer I was on staff at Sky Lake the summer curriculum included Romans 12, which we tended to read from “The Message.” which I adored. I quoted it once in a secular setting and one of my high school friends asked if I was intentionally excluding her. It said:

9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Until she questioned me I hadn’t heard “help needy CHRISTIANS” at all, but once she pointed it out, I squirmed a little bit every time I read it. I wondered if I was allowed to change it so that the command said, “Help needy people” and wondered why it wasn’t written that way to begin with.

I think that human nature includes a tendency toward thinking in terms of groups, and defining “us” that excludes “them.” It happens too commonly not to be part of our nature, and I suspect that it happens for decent evolutionary reasons! In order to thrive, humans need each other, but we’re finite in time and space. So we can’t bond with everyone! I’m thinking our species developed this way: Close bonds form the basis of units, and units expand until they maximize the relationship with resources in an area, and then other groups are established further away, right? Then, because resources on earth aren’t allocated with equal distribution, there are still some things that each group ends up competing with other groups. That would have helped establish the boundaries between the groups!

So, it isn’t bad, and it is likely part of our nature, but it isn’t the end goal either! The Syrophoenician woman reminds us of this. She was, in multiple ways, an outsider to the groups Jesus belonged to, and yet she came to him with a need. Her needed extended past her group identity!

The Syrophoenician woman is presented as the paradigm of committed parent! She crosses boundaries, takes insults, and argues with all her power in order to gain the care her child needs. She shouldn’t have entered that house by laws of both communities. Her community would have preferred if she had refrained from “bowing down” at the feet of a Jewish teacher. She let him call her, her family, and her community DOGS and responded within his metaphor. She found a way to respond, without accepting his premise, without dismissing his premise, and while staying ON POINT. She kept asking for what her daughter needed, and requested that even if Jesus didn’t see her as a fellow human being, he could still extend his power to help her!!!

And Jesus complements her! Going back to the idea that the city of Tyre was part of a problem within an economic system that was extracting wealth from the Galilean farmers – it is as if she points out that the Galilean farmers DO deserve to eat, but that Tyre is hungry too. She doesn’t argue his premise, but she reminds him that hunger is universal.

While on our honeymoon, Kevin and I took some tours of the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It became clear quickly that many immigrant families survived ONLY because of the support of community – in that case communities based on their countries of origin. This is one of the ways that groups defining clear boundaries can be good – it lead to life not death. But then again, I’m sure it left some people unable to access any help.

In the days of overcrowding on the Lower East Side, the barriers that divided people were real. Resources were limited. In the days of food shortages in Galilee and Tyre, the barriers that divided people were real. Resources were limited. In the eras of needing access to limited water for our ancient ancestors, the barriers that divided people were real. Resources were limited.

There are good reasons to establish groups and boundaries. Those reasons apply today, and we see this sort of thinking ALL OVER the place today. However, in some ways, reality has changed! Technology has made it possible to grow enough food for everyone to be fed – well. At the moment we have enough clean water for all to drink (if we don’t waste it). It may always have been true that if groups worked together there would have been enough, I don’t know, but today it is FOR SURE. The world has produced enough for everyone.

And yet, maybe more than ever, people are trying to draw firm lines between those who get access to resources and those who don’t, those we are worthy, and those who aren’t, those who should become more wealthy and those who should become more impoverished, those who get to access health care and those who don’t, … and so on.

I’m told one of my predecessors in this pulpit, J. Edward Carothers, talked about the purpose of church being “to establish and maintain connections of mutual support in an ever widening circle of concern.” I think that’s the essence of the meaning of the kindom, the primary teaching of Jesus. As it has been described to me, the kindom is the Reign of God that will occur when EVERYONE treats EVERYONE else as kin. That is, everyone is IN the group and there is only one group and we are all working together for each other’s good. That’s how (at their best) kin treat each other, and that’s an expression of the desire of God for the world.

So, who do we feed first? The children? The dogs? The Christians? The Jews?

Our church? Our city? Our country? Our race? Our class? Our political allies?

Or perhaps, whoever is most hungry?

Because if we all work together, there is enough for everyone! And once we remember that, we can distribute based on needs rather than fears. Holy God, may that day come SOON. Amen

1  R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke” in Leadner Keck, ed. , The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press: 1995) 610.

2  Culpepper, 610

–

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 7, 2017

Untitled

  • April 30, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

On
April 4th several of us went to the University of Albany
to hear Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor.  Very early
in the evening she explained that she likes to be up and moving, and
she started wandering around the room while speaking.  The wandering
wasn’t random.  She systematically worked her way around the entire
room, stopping at every row of every aisle, and walking across any
front row entirely.  While talking coherently. she allowed every
person who reasonably could do so to touch her.  She just offered her
hand, and people in the outside 3-4 seats were able to physically
connect with her.

She
was clear from the outset that this is her preferred way of engaging,
but I was also aware that it was a remarkable way to fulfill the
needs of those who come to hear her speak.  She is the third woman
appointed to the Supreme Court, and the first Hispanic/Latinx.  She
is an inspiration to an enormous percentage of the population, and
her choice to let people touch her seemed like a way to take that
inspiration role seriously.  

In
all the wisdom Justice Sotomayor has, knowing the importance of touch
seems like part of it, as does taking seriously the role of being a
bearer of hope.  She offered her hand as a beacon, letting her touch
defy some of the brokenness of the world.

–
– – –

The
first gospel lesson today also centers on the power touch.  Two
women, in very different life stages are transformed by it.  The two
stories, told together, are intended to reflect on each other and
enhance the meaning of each other.  The young girl was 12, the
anticipated age of maturity.  The woman had suffered for 12 years,
emphasized as long enough for a baby to reach maturity.  The young
girl was believed dead.  The woman’s was in a living death of
isolation, poverty, and extinguished hope.

The
young girl wasn’t able to speak for herself, so her loving father
begged for Jesus’s help.  The woman
wasn’t to touch anyone, and anything she sat on or laid down on (as
well as her touch) would make others unclean.  This should have
impeded her capacity to speak for herself too.  The story seems to
suggest that she doesn’t have family to care for her, because they
refer to her dissipated wealth as her own.  No one could do it for
her.  She definitely wasn’t supposed to spend time in tight crowds.

(Two
thoughts about this.  As damaging as such a life would be for a
person, I think it makes some sense in context.  The ancient Jews
believed that blood was the life force in a body, that’s what made it
sacred.  They would be understandably concerned about continual
bloodflow.  Secondly, in an era before germ theory or antibiotics
about all people knew for sure about medicine was that you could get
sick from sick people.  In order to care for the community, you kept
people from passing along illness.  It is awful for the individuals,
but better than letting the whole community die.  I don’t want this
story to be heard as implicating ancient Jewish society as unloving.
It seems to me they were doing the best they could.)

This woman, whose 12 years of
life had been without human touch or connection, as well as without
without successful treatment, and was now without resources because
she’d tried to fix it; broke the rules.  She moved in a tight crowd,
touching others as she went.  She sought, intentionally, to touch
Jesus, EVEN THOUGH her touch would make him ritually unclean.  Some
scholars suggest that such an action made her eligible to be stoned.
No one could speak for her, the laws made it impossible for her to
speak for herself, so she broke the laws, taking a huge risk, seeking
life again.  She reached out to touch Jesus, not knowing what
would happen next, if she’d be healed or stoned, accepted or
violently rejected.

– – –

On Tuesday the Judicial Council
of The United Methodist Church met in Newark, New Jersey to hear oral
arguments about the election of Bishop Karen Oliveto.  Bishop Oliveto
was elected this past July by the Western Jurisdiction of the United
Methodist Church in an unanimous vote that was uncontested.  She’s a
gifted spiritual leader, a joy-filled human being, a natural church
leader, and a living example of grace.  The issue is very simple:
Karen is married to Robin, and both Karen and Robin are women.  The
Western Jurisdiction knew this when they elected her, Karen’s
decision to run happened after the Pulse Nightclub massacre.  She was
reminded of all of the violence done to the LGBTQIA1
community, and thought it was important to use her ministry to
visibly change some of the narrative (in the church and the world.)

The
United Methodist Church is officially a homophobic denomination.  It
intentionally and structurally oppresses the queer community.  By
putting herself forward for election, she offered the possibility of
giving hope to the queer community in the midst of its grief and the
multitudes of harms.  This particular United Methodist Church, along
with 836 other United Methodist churches and communities, has taken
an official stance declaring that we believe that The United
Methodist Church is WRONG and that God’s love and the churches doors
should be open to people without consideration of their sexuality or
gender identity.  This church, and 836 others, advocate for the full
inclusion of LGBTQIA people in the church and the world.  The Western
Jurisdiction agrees, and they elected Bishop Oliveto because of the
gifts and graces she has for the episcopacy.

Despite the systematic
oppression of the church, as Kevin has explained in 20 page brief
(one of many filed) what they did was legal and appropriate.  (The
fact that the Judicial Council ended up sort of disagreeing doesn’t
in any way make me doubt Kevin’s analysis.)

The Judicial Council meets twice
a year, and they always have several items on their docket.  Two
other pieces this April related to the commissioning and ordination
of out queer clergy.   Unfortunately, while there are MANY in our
denomination who agree with us about God’s love extending to all
people, there are also many willing to engage in witch hunts to
prevent the church’s blessing from falling on queer people. The
conservatives wanted to invalidate the ordinations of out queer
clergy!!!

On
Tuesday, as I woke up, people had already gathered in Newark.  Bishop
Oliveto, her wife and her mother, queer clergy from across the
denomination, queer laity, and allies of all sorts were present,
visible, singing, and connecting to each other.  I watched it on live
feed.  Tickets were given to two rooms: one the room in which the
Judicial Council sat and the arguments would be made, and one for
overflow connected via a live stream.  Laity and allies exchanged
tickets with queer clergy so that they could be together, sitting in
solidarity with Bishop Oliveto.

As I watched the live stream, I
saw the Queer Clergy Caucus2
enter the Judicial Council room, and kneel to pray.  It took my
breath away.  It looked like the hemorrhaging woman reaching her hand
toward Jesus.  That group of beloved and beautiful people of God have
stayed in a denomination that has called them names and declared
their lives “incompatible with Christian teaching.”  They have
courageously refused to leave, refused to be silent or invisible, and
continued to ask for the church’s blessing on their whole lives and
ministries.  They have reached out to touch Jesus, knowing that the
laws stand in the way, that the crowd will judge them, that the
disciples would try to stop them, and needing to touch Jesus anyway.

They knelt to pray, to reach out
and touch Jesus and hoped the church wouldn’t stop them this time.
They’ve done it before.  They’ll do it again.  But every time it is
an act of courage.  So far, every time they reach out, the church has
TRIED to stop them.  

– – – –

In the Gospel, Jesus’s response
is grace-filled.  He calls out the woman (who must have been
TERRIFIED), and by doing so publicly he is able acknowledge her
healing and restore her relationship with the community at large.
She was able to touch others again, she was able to connect, she was
able to be a part of the whole.  She was afraid that by touching him
she’d bring him shame, but she took the risk anyway, and instead all
that separated her from the community was lifted from her.

That’s
what the queer clergy caucus was hoping the church could replicate.

The young girl brought back to
life when Jesus grabbed her hand becomes a metaphor for the life that
Jesus has to offer, and gave as well the hemorrhaging woman.  The
touch of Jesus brings life – and hope – as well as healing.

– – –

In our second Gospel lesson,
people are also walking with Jesus, and their lives are also changed
by it.  The story ends with people more alive than when they began.
The theologian John Dominic Crossan3
often says, “Emmaus never happened.  Emmaus always happens.”
That is, he doesn’t think that it is a story reflecting actual
historical events, but instead reflecting deep Christian realities.
This year it occurs to me to wonder how literally the story is
intending to indicate that a third person actually showed up.

Perhaps, instead, the Holy
Spirit was with the two walking together, and together they started
piecing together the teachings of Jesus and the meanings offered.
Perhaps the collective (even of two) felt so much more than one and
one that it was as if there was another one leading their
conversation.  I’ve had conversations like that.  (I’ve had
conversations like that this week at the “Change Leaders Summit”
hosted by the General Commission on Religion and Race as we dreamed a
less racist church).  I could metaphorically say that the some
moments of talking to another have been so sacred and eye-opening
that it was as if Jesus was the third person in the dialogue.  

If that is one of the
metaphorical meanings of the gospel lesson, the it is potent.  The
disciples are running away!  They’re going in the wrong direction,
and even then Jesus is with them and guiding them.  In the end they
turn back and return to the place they’d been frightened away from.
They move from fear back to life.  In connecting with Jesus they
connect with their hope, their meaning, and the purposes of their
lives.  They were reconnected to Jesus, and perhaps via the power of
the Holy Spirit to guide sacred conversations.

– – –

Returning
to face the fears is part of the inherent Easter story.  So is the
transformation of the Body of Christ from the historical Jesus to his
followers throughout time.  We are now expected to respond to the
world with his courage and grace, to respond to all the ways he
responded to the hemorrhaging women, the powerless girl, and –
however it happened – the frightened disciples

Those Queer Clergy praying in
the Judical Council hearing room were living out the Easter story.
They faced the fears of rejection, and went anyway.  Others may want
to cut them out of the Body of Christ, but they believe that Jesus
responds to them with grace. They know enough to reach out for Jesus
and know that Jesus will see them and bless them, even if the church
will not.

It turns out that today Bishop
Karen Oliveto IS still a Bishop.  Thanks be to God.  Furthermore,
none of the commissionings or ordinations of our out queer clergy
siblings were overturned.  Thanks be to God.  Unfortunately, there is
also a lot of bad news that came from the decisions.  The church has
attempted to crack down to gain control offer the resistances
movements that seek to include ALL of God’s people fully in the
church.  (They seem to forget that their methods NEVER work over the
long run.)  There are many in our church who are hurting and there
are many in our world who are hearing from our denomination that they
are not worthy of love.  

– – – –

The denomination is wrong.  It
can’t control or limit God’s love.  Nor can it control or limit the
queer community and its allies.  The people of God will keep reaching
for God, whether the church tries to stop them or not.  When people
reach out, Jesus responds with grace.  When people reach out we can
follow the lead of the Spirit who will guide us to bring hope and
grace to each other.  God is faithful, whether the church is or not.
For that, I am mightily thankful to God.  Amen

1 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual

2 https://www.facebook.com/UMQClergy/

3 Coming
to First UMC Schenectady on September 23-24.  SQUEAL.

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

April 30, 2017

“Why Galilee?” based on Acts 10:34-43 and Matthew 28:1-10

  • April 16, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I tried to start writing this
sermon on Thursday (my normal sermon writing day).  This is one of
the challenges of Holy Week: in order to prepare worship services and
sermons you have to be out of sync with experiencing it.  On Thursday
we remember Jesus’ last night with his disciples.  In Matthew, Mark,
and Luke (the “synoptic gospels”), Jesus adds symbolism to the
Passover meal during in the Last Supper, which is the model for our
communion.  In John, Jesus instead washes the feet of the disciples,
modeling for them the behavior he hoped would define their
relationships after his death: that they would be known by how
lovingly they treated each other.

Truly, I love remembering those
stories in Holy Thursday worship. There is a stillness to our
celebrations, a knowing of what will come next, that I suspect
pervaded the actual night Jesus sat with his disciples, but primarily
there are blessings.

On this Holy Thursday, as I sat
to write an Easter sermon, the news was shouting about the “Mother
of All Bombs” being dropped for the first time in history.  It was
a shocking amount of violence. I was still recovering from the shock
of not quite a week before when 59 bombs had been dropped, and from
the chemical weapons that had been used days before that on
civilians.

It wasn’t just the direct
violence though.  As I sat to write on Thursday, I was thinking about
the vulnerable people in the world and their struggles.  Many in this
church have been actively advocating for the care of our immigrant
sisters and brothers, and yet I keep hearing of young families torn
apart. As many in this church have helped the clean up in Middleburgh
after horrible floods, I was part of the clean up in the Southern
Tier in 2011.  The increase in extreme weather has already impacted
so many lives, and yet in the midst of this crisis for human life on
earth, our country is doing less and less to prevent it.  Lives
continued to be lost and impacted by floods and droughts, mudslides
and major storms.

There was more, all piling on
top of each other on Holy Thursday.  I love our breakfast program and
SUSTAIN ministry (I think they embodies the command to be known by
how well we love), but I hate that they are necessary! I’m so
grateful to serve a church willing to discuss white privilege and
racism, but I’m sick and tired of white privilege and racism.  I’m
tired of fighting for fair and equal funding for Schenectady city
schools, which like most schools with mostly brown and black students
in New York gets the short end of the stick.  I’m exhausted fighting
for LGBTQIA lives in The United Methodist Church, and just annoyed
that homophobia still defines our church at large.  I am grateful for
my co-teachers in confirmation teaching about sexual harassment this
week, but as we’d reiterated how common it is, I was horrified but it
all, all over again.  That is to say, the pile of problems I was
attending to, while trying to write an Easter sermon, was pretty
large.  

That may explain why on Holy
Thursday, when I sat to write and I asked myself the question “what
does Easter mean today?” in the depth of my mind I heard a small
and terrified voice ask “is even Easter enough given the
brokenness of the world?”


It is very hard to write an
Easter sermon on Holy Thursday.  Luckily I had to put it down to go
the Maundy Thursday service we shared with Emmanuel Friedans.  My
roles included reading the story of foot washing from John 13 and to
inviting those present to allow me to wash their feet.  The foot
washing story is the narrative example of the command to the
disciples at the end of chapter: that they would be known by how
lovingly they treated each other.
It is a defining moment differentiating the ways of the
world from the ways of Jesus.
While “important” people in the world are served by those said
to be “less important” than they are, in the Jesus movement all
of us are asked to love and serve each other. Instead of dominating
others, Jesus used his life to support them, and he asked us to
follow in his ways.

Having heard the foot washing
story explained when I was 13,  I desperately wanted to be a part of
it!  It started my call to ministry, this desire to be a part of
turning upside down the values of the world and what it looks like to
live a life that matters.  I wanted to be part of a movement that was
known by how lovingly it treated its own members (and beyond). I was
drawn in.  Foot washing is one of the stories that grounds me in my
faith.  So, while in the most hidden parts of my brain I was
wondering if Easter was enough, I stood at microphone and the story
out loud, and everything clicked back into place.  

Sure, things aren’t great right
now, and many of God’s beloved people are hurting.  Then again,
that’s how it was during Jesus’ time too.  The vast majority of the
Jewish people living in Judea and Galilee were struggling to survive.
The peasant class was about 95% of the population, and they tended
to die young, after a life of hunger and hard labor.  Families were
torn apart by poverty and debt, because family members were sold into
slavery so that the remaining members could eat. Things REALLY
weren’t going well for the people, back in Jesus’ day.  The system
existed to make the rich and powerful more and more wealthy, on the
backs and the lives of the peasants.  The narrative of the Empire was
that they were the peace bearers, and yet the reality was that they
were the oppressors who kept fighting at a minimum because of the
power of their military might, and kept their military mighty by
paying them from the profits they reaped from the peasants.

Jesus’ life and ministry was
with the peasants in Galilee (although he did take some side trips to
Judea and Samaria).  He saw the humanity of the peasants, listened to
them and ate with them.  His healings were for them, and his
teachings designed to teach them.  He was known as a great teacher
and healer, but the stories in the gospels also indicate that his was
a ministry of presence among the people.  He loved the people with
God’s love for them. He showed them they mattered to him by being
present with them.

The peasants were seen by the
Empire as a means of wealth production, and at the same time as a
potential threat to the famous peace.  They were seen by Jesus as
beloved children of God worth his time, energy, and passion.  As
his fame grew and his ministry became well known, he continued to
spend his time with the people living in poverty.  His life showed
that the people the Empire found expendable, God finds worthwhile.
It may be that the most powerful piece of the story isn’t in any one
of the parables, healings, or teachings, but rather that they
happened primarily among the peasants, reiterating God’s care for
all people.  One of the most significant pieces of Jesus’ ministry
was his presence.

Each Gospel tells a unique
Easter story, and Matthew is no exception.  The piece of Matthew’s
story that strikes me this year is that he suggests that the women
continued Jesus’ ministry of presence for Jesus at the end of
his life. They were at his crucifixion (27:55), they were at his
burial (27:61), and they were there on Easter morning.  They held
vigil.  They stayed, even when it was too late. They weren’t there to
change things.  They were just with him.  Based on how clear the
Gospels are about the women being present, I suspect that in
retrospect the disciples were grateful to the women for staying and
being present when they had run away. Jesus wasn’t alone in his death
and his body was cared for afterward, because the women continued
his ministry of presence,
a form of loving Jesus as Jesus had loved them.

And then, in the midst of their
ministry of presence, they are greeted by the angel.  As if that
wasn’t awesome enough, immediately afterward they experience the
presence of Jesus again! The NRSV says that Jesus “met them.” It
means both that he “joined” them and “accompanied” them.1
His presence was returned to them, and the Christian story ever
since is that the presence of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, has remained
with us.

Both the angel at the tomb and
Jesus ask the women to convey to the male disciples that he’ll meet
them again in Galilee.  This is especially significant.  First, it
reiterates that the presence of Jesus has returned.  Secondly, when
Jesus says it he calls the disciples “his brothers.”  They had
denied and abandoned him, and nothing that they had yet done had
changed that reality.  They hadn’t repented, or apologized, or shown
back up.  Yet Jesus calls them his brothers, which was an upgrade
from their previous titles.  As it often is in the Bible, grace and
forgiveness come from God’s nature alone.  As Eugene Boring says in
the commentary in the New Interpreter’s Bible,
“The women become not only missionaries of the resurrection
message, but also agents of reconciliation.”2
It would be the words of the women that would call them back together
and start the process of the disciples living the ministry of Jesus
in the world.  

Finally though, there is the
duplicated message to the disciples about going to GALILEE.  Why
Galilee?  Jesus was killed in Jerusalem, in Judea, where the final
phase of his ministry had occurred.  He was killed in the place he’d
rode into on a donkey, by the authority of those who saw his
indictment of the Temple. His body was placed in a tomb in Judea,
near Jerusalem.  Why were the disciple to meet him back in Galilee?

It
seems like there are three possible answers.  First, they were to go
back to the people Jesus had been in ministry with and continue the
ministry of presence among the most vulnerable people.  (Those in
Galilee were even more vulnerable than those in Judea.)  Secondly,
Galilee was more DIVERSE than Judea, and in Matthew Galilee is
referred to as Galilee of the Gentiles (4:15).  It was home to Jews,
and to the Gentiles.  This is one of Matthew’s references to the
universality of Jesus’ message, and that Galilee was the place to
expand God’s love beyond its traditional boundaries with the Jews
into all the world.  Third, and finally, to go back to Galilee was to
go back to the beginning.  It was home, for Jesus as well as for the
disciples, and it was where his ministry started and grew.
Easter marks the transition point, what had once been the ministry of
Jesus supported by the disciples becomes, on Easter, the ministry of
the disciples supported by Jesus.
They go back to Galilee to go back to the beginning and start the
story again, to be God’s presence to the people once again.  They
went back to continue the ministry of Jesus, the ministry of
presence, that the women had held up in the meantime.

The ah-ha moment I had in Maundy
Thursday worship was really pretty simple.  It is one I’ve had
before, even, I just had to remember.  The brokenness of the world is
very real indeed, and unconscionable things are happening.  But
instead of negating Easter, the brokenness of the world reminds us
of how much we need Easter!  Easter is, as Marcus Borg puts it,
“God’s yes to the world’s no.”  Easter affirms the life of
Jesus, who loved the people and was present to them, and Easter
affirms the commandment that the disciples continue his ministry and
be known by how lovingly they treated each other.
Easter is the explosion of the ministry of Jesus from one life
to many, the expansion of love from one human to many.

The world, like the Empire of
old, teaches us things that do harm.  It teaches us that there isn’t
enough for everyone, so we have to compete and we have to hoard.  The
world teaches us that some lives matter more than other lives, and
that since their isn’t enough we should take care of the lives that
matter first.  The world teaches us about borders that aren’t allowed
to be crossed and separations that aren’t allowed to become
connections.  The world teaches us to be afraid, and to be careful,
and to distrust those around us.  The world teaches us that the
economy matters most, and keeps us alive.  The world teaches us to
take care of ourselves and “ours” first.  

Easter is God’s yes to the
world’s no as well as God’s NO to the world’s YES..  Easter denies
the world’s fallacies and offers us alternatives.  Easter is a
resounding YES to the life and teachings of Jesus.  In the Gospel of
John, Jesus teaches us to be known by how lovingly we treat each
other. In  Easter, the
message of Jesus is passed on and expanded, given to us to live and
teach.  

It doesn’t mean that we can make
everything OK, at least not over the short run.  It doesn’t stop
weapons in in midair, reunite families, or reverse climate change.
But it does mean that we have received the command to be known by
lovingly we act, and that being present to God’s beloved people is
now our work (supported by Jesus).  Doing that will be plenty to
change the world.  Easter, it turns out, is more than enough.  Thanks
be to God.  Amen

1M.
Eugene Boring, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VII: Matthew
Leander E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
1995) 500.

2 Ibid.

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

April 16, 2017

“On Kings and Messiahs” based on  Zechariah 9:9-10 and…

  • April 9, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

On
the evening of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox,1
the celebration of Passover commences.  Meals are eaten in
remembrance, with story telling.  Passover starts at Sundown
tomorrow, and Seder meals will be eaten this week.  During the Seders
and through the week, our observant Jewish sisters and brothers will
avoid eating leavened bread.  Leavened bread is bread that has risen,
by either yeast or sourdough.  Nearly all the bread we eat is
leavened, even the crackers I make are leavened!  Matzah, an
unleavened flatbread, is used during Passover.

Do
you remember why?  The formational story of the Jewish (or Hebrew)
people is that of the Exodus.  The story starts with the people
enslaved in Egypt, struggling under harsh conditions and impossible
work expectations.  They cried out to God for help, and God heard
them.

Moses
was born and was raised knowing he was Hebrew but in the Pharaoh’s
house.  He saw a fellow Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian overseer,
and in his anger he beat the overseer to death.  Then he fled to the
desert in fear that his act would become known.  While in the desert,
Moses experienced God, and became aware that God had work for him to
do!  After great objection, argument, and forcing God into
compromising, Moses returned to Egypt to set God’s people free.

The
story speaks of ten plagues, the first 9 of which are natural
occasional occurrences in Egypt. The Hebrew people took events that
happened and ascribed them to God’s will.  It is likely that this
story developed its dramatic sequences over time 😉  The final plague
is by far the most horrifying.  In preparation for that one, the
Hebrews are said to have killed lambs and spread the lamb’s blood
over their door posts.  Then, the story says, God killed the
firstborn sons of all of the Egyptian people and animals – every
family except those who had lamb’s blood on their doorframes.  (I do
not have words for how horrified I am by this story, and the only way
I can deal with it is by assuming it is the creation of hundreds of
years of oral tradition and not anything like factual history.)

The
Hebrews were then KICKED OUT of Egypt, in fear that God would do
something even worse if they weren’t set free.  They left so fast
they didn’t have time to let the bread rise before they broke it.

Thus,
unleavened bread.

More
importantly though, the Passover story is one of liberation from
oppression, and a liberation that the people did not believe they
could achieve without God’s help.  The enslaved people became FREE.
In her song after the people are free, Miriam refers to God as their
salvation, meaning that God saved them, meaning that God helped them!
This is the first time salvation is attributed to God.  The harsh
conditions were traded in for manna in the desert.  The God of their
ancestors saved them.  The huge Egyptian nation with its vast wealth
and military might caved to let them walk away (and with gold and
wealth too!).  Now, the story may not be historically true as
written, but it is metaphorically abundant, and tells of a God who
cares enough to change the reality of oppressed people.  

The
gospel quotes from Psalm 118, a Psalm that the Jews recited at
Passover celebrations, one that includes the words, “Blessed is the
one who comes in the name of the Lord,” beautifully intermingling
the freedom that God had given the people with the moment that Jesus
walked into Jerusalem.  Psalm 118 has TWO references to God’s
salvation, naming salvation work as God’s work. The Palm Sunday
narrative is saturated with symbolism of the Passover, and of God’s
work to free the oppressed.

Continuing
with a fast history, Moses had led the people to freedom, and led
them to the Promised Land, but died before they could enter the land.
For hundreds of years the people lived simple lives in their
families and tribes without any central government.  Eventually
though, they became antsy and afraid (even though nothing really had
changed) and decided to get a king.  They got King Saul.  He was
either a little bit crazy all along, became crazy over the years, or
perhaps it is just that the propaganda against him called him crazy –
I don’t know.  But after Saul was David, and David was …   OK, I’ll
leave the David insults for another day.  As David was dying he
decided that his son Solomon would become king after him and arranged
for Solomon to enter Jerusalem riding a donkey while people
proclaimed him king.  Thus entering Jerusalem on a donkey became
significant.

This
imagery is used, and added to, in the text we read from Zechariah
today.  In Zechariah the act of a king riding in Jerusalem on a
donkey, again, is used as a symbol of the coming Messiah.  Zechariah
is written after the exile, when there is no longer a king in
Jerusalem and between the destruction of the first temple and the
building of the second.  Zechariah is written in a downtrodden time,
when the people yearned to be rescued from their new oppressors and
for their society to be rebuild.  The people remembered a time when
their lives were centered on God, and they dreamed of a leader who
would guide them back to that.  Zechariah’s words about a king and a
donkey reflect hope for such a leader, usually called the Messiah.
The hope was that the Messiah would bring God’s salvation back, that
God would use one human to save the rest, to free them from
oppression, to restore their nation and their order.

There
are still more symbols in this story that come from Jewish scriptural
context.  Another ancient King (pre-exilic), in this case Jehu (who
was even further from perfection than David), who was greeted in his
kingship when people took off their cloaks and spread them over a
stairway while shouting, “Jehu is King” (2 Kings 9:13).  This
seems like it is referenced with the laying down of cloaks in the
road for Jesus, once again affirming the perception of Jesus as God’s
chosen leader.

This
is a story that is also post-exilic, but much closer to the time of
Jesus.  The Maccabees (200-350 years before Jesus) gained military
victory and freedom for the Jews in Judea and were celebrated with
crowds waving palm branches and thanking God
(1
Maccabees 13:49-52 and 2 Maccabees 10:1-8). Intriguingly, the second
of the stories relating palm branches, parades, and thanksgiving to
God in Maccabees also relates to cleansing the Jerusalem Temple of
foreign influence and reclaiming it for YHWH worship after driving
out the army that had occupied Jerusalem.  

The
more I look at the story of Palm Sunday the more I’m struck with the
intensity of the symbolism.  It seems clear that the people who told
the story, the ones who wrote it down, and those who edited it wanted
their points to be clear.  Now, that means that not all of the
symbolism is likely to reflect history itself, but instead to reflect
an excess of meaning.  The Jesus Seminar puts it this way, “In
Matthew and John the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem mounted on an ass
thus becomes the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophesy and
confirms the early Christian conviction that Jesus was the expected
Messiah.  The Christianization of whatever event lay behind this
story led the Fellows to declare the narrative a fiction based on
prophecy.  At the same time, they held out the possibility that Jesus
may have entered Jerusalem astride a donkey as a symbolic act.”2

In
all of the Gospels, the crowds yell “Hosanna” which means “God
saves” or “God, save us” or “God, HELP!”  The salvation the
Jews had experienced in Egypt as freedom from their oppressors, and
the salvation the Jews had experienced in Babylon as freedom from
their oppressors, was being sought in the time of Jesus while seeking
freedom from Rome.  I think it is important to remember that the
“salvation” they were calling for was a tangible, physical kind
relating to the opportunity to survive as a community, for each
person to be able to live a just and righteous life while thriving.
“Hosanna” wasn’t about afterlife, it was about desperate need in
THIS life.  Hosanna sounds like a shout of glory and acclamation to
us, but I suspect it also carried overtones that would be very
familiar to refugees today.

My
thinking on Palm Sunday follows the lead of Marcus Borg and John
Dominic Crossan in The
Last Week.3
Most definitively, this story tells us that the early Christian
communities who wrote down the gospels believed that Jesus was the
expected Messiah and that his life was as important as any king’s
life had been.  Furthermore, it is very clear from the way the story
is told that Palm Sunday is Act 1 to the Cleansing of the Temple’s
Act 2.  

For
those who haven’t been present on previous Palm Sundays with me, Borg
and Crossan point out that at the same time Jesus is said to have
entered the city on a donkey via the Eastern Gate, there was a Roman
processional entering via the Western Gate.  The Roman governor ruled
from the coast of the Mediterranean, but came to the city for
Passover, along with significant military guard, in order to maintain
the peace while the people gathered to remember their God’s actions
in freeing them from oppression.  The parade that people gathered to
see on the West side of the city was a display of military might,
excessive wealth, and the glorification of the Empire.  People on
that side yelled, “Hail
Caesar, son of God; Praise be to the Savior who brought the Roman
Peace; Caesar is Lord….”  That’s what makes the shouts on the
East side so significant. They defied the power of Rome, and gave the
power back to God and God’s actor.  They were blaspheming against the
Empire, and doing so while seeking God’s help in overthrowing it!

Jesus’
parade was a counter to their Imperial procession. It was
intentionally different—meek, mild, nonviolent, the opposite of
mighty, militaristic and powerful. And it was carefully timed. In
other words, it was subversive and courageous.  While
we don’t know that all the pieces happened as the stories suggest, we
have reason to think that the stories reflect a kernel of truth –
and that the counter parades offered very different visions of the
world as it should be!

The
Palm Sunday processional along with the indictment of the Temple, and
their timing within the Jewish celebration of Passover, seem
carefully planned to present Rome as the new oppressor – the Egypt
and Pharaoh of Jesus’ present day.  In naming Rome as the oppressor,
Jesus also reinforced God as the liberator (savior).  The Palm Sunday
parade offered an alternative to oppression, and suggested that the
alternative was in God’s way and God’s vision.  Jesus entered the
city while the people called for God’s salvation.  This suggested the
Roman officials were NOT the appropriate leaders of the Jews, and
their actions as oppressors delegitimatized them and opened the door
for a rightful leader.  Furthermore, I think it was a popular action
and disconcerted the authorities.  I still think this is why the sign
over Jesus’ head at death read “King of the Jews,” because this
action claimed that he was.  More and more I don’t think Jesus was
aiming at a throne, rather he simply aimed at reminding the people of
God and God’s role as their liberator.  

Jesus
MIGHT have gotten away with Palm Sunday if he hadn’t continued on,
and pressed the issue further with the Indictment of the Temple.  I
think that the two actions were carefully planned, and meant to
subvert the power of Rome while reclaiming God’s vision for a just
society.  They both contrasted God, and God’s acts to save the people
from oppression, with Rome.  Jesus acted to reclaim the power of the
Temple for God worship, as he reclaimed God’s leadership of the Jews.
Jesus aimed to reconnect the people to God. That’s why he would have
engaged in planned actions that destabilized Rome’s power and thereby
lead to his own death.

Connecting
the plight of the Jewish people under Roman rule to the plight of the
Jewish slaves under Egyptian oppression was exactly the sort of thing
the Governor came to Jerusalem to silence.  Yet Jesus pushed the
package, road the donkey, disturbed the peace at the Temple.  It
seems to me that he heard the shouts of Hosanna and was willing to
listen and act.  This leads me to wonder: are we?

Amen

1Well,
except when lunar calendars add a leap month and then it is the
second full moon after a vernal equinox, forgive me for
oversimplifying for the sake of a better story 😉

2Robert
W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The
Acts of Jesus (USA
-HarperSanFransicso: Polebridge Press, 1998) 230.

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

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

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