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“The Richness of the Unknown” based on Isaiah 65:17-25…

  • April 17, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I am so thankful it is
Easter Sunday.  I’m ready to celebrate the goodness of God, the power
of life, the unstoppable force of love in the world.  I’m thankful
for music that resonates in my SOUL, and functions as a ritual to let
my body know this is a time to let go, to be, to savor.

It has been a long, hard
trudge to get to Easter.  If I’m really honest, we’re still in a
long, hard trudge, but Easter feels like a great excuse to step away
from the trudge and just be joyous for a bit.

It does seem worth
discussion what sort of joy we’re talking about though.  By my count,
there are 10 Easter stories in the Gospels (Mark has 4, Luke 3, John
2, and Matthew for some reason only 1), 10 different stories trying
to make sense of …. something.  The simple fact that there are so
many stories suggests to me that what happened on Easter (and
throughout the 50 days after it), is hard to put into words and thus
a variety of metaphors was the best way people could explain it.  

The stories all point to
the idea that the death Jesus suffered on the cross didn’t have the
final word.  But they struggle to make sense of it.  They did not
understand.  In the two Easter stories we heard from John this
morning the phrase (did) “not know” came up three times.  There
was unknowing in Easter itself and it its early stories!  That
makes it OK for us when we come to Easter with some “unknowing”
of our own.

Somehow, Jesus’ disciples
and followers continued to experience his wisdom, his teaching,
and the power of his vitality even after he died.

And whatever it was that
constituted their experience, it was POWERFUL in their lives.  It
changed them.  The students became the teachers.  Those frightened
and hidden away came out of hiding and took risks for the sake of
sharing Jesus’s good news.  The women kept on keeping on.

The ways we explain
Easter today continue in the grand tradition of trying to make sense
of it all.  Our metaphors abound.  Some stick with the early metaphor
of “Easter is the day Jesus was raised from the dead.”  Others
will say, “Easter is about the unstoppable power of life,
especially life with God.”  Charles Wesley says, “Death in vain
forbids him rise,” and asks, “Where’s thy victory, boasting
grave?”  Marcus Borg gives us the language that Easter is God’s YES
to the world’s NO.

There are a lot of
wonderful and powerful meanings to be made from Easter, and I
encourage you to savor the ones that bring YOU to life.

In the midst of all I’ve
already offered, for me the greatest power of Easter is in its
“always present” quality.  One way or another, when Jesus died,
the goal of the Empire was to kill him, to stop his life and his
ministry.  It worked, as the story says, Mary was weeping
when she showed up that Easter morning.  The power of death worked
UNTIL his disciples experienced SOMETHING on Easter, and after that
they took up his ministry and in doing so claimed his life energy,
and kept it going.  Before Easter, Jesus was the Body of Christ, but
on Easter the disciples became the Body of Christ – and this is
what really matters to me – and the power of his life-energy, and
the importance of his ministry, and the sharing of his God-vision is
STILL the work of the Body of Christ.  In important and meaningful
ways, when I say, “Christ is alive,” I know that is true because
I’m looking at you, the church, doing Christ’s work.

In the Gospel of John,
the words are in Mary Magdalene’s mouth, “I have seen
the Lord.”  In the Body of Christ, I too have seen
God at work.

And I think that’s PLENTY
miraculous.

So, then, if this is our
work, we want to be as clear as possible about what it means to
continued the life, ministry, and God-vision of Jesus.  Because,
well, not everyone agrees about this.  #Shock.

This is where I think the
Isaiah passage is an incredible EASTER gift to us, even if it was
written for a people of a different time who used different metaphors
for God’s power over life and death.

The most striking thing
about the Isaiah passage for me, initially, was its humility.  Isaiah
65 seeks to answer the question, “What SHOULD life look like?”
and it starts like I think we’d expect.  It says life should be LONG
and ABUNDANT.  There SHOULD NOT BE young tragic deaths.  

Amen.

But then it takes what
initially seemed to me to be a sort of weak turn.  In this utopic
dream of a “new heaven and a new  earth” that God is creating
full of justice and wholeness and goodness, what are the defining
factors other than longevity?  “They shall build houses and inhabit
them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit” (65:21) and
also they will be aware of the presence of God.

I get it.  This would
sound miraculous to a people who have build houses but not lived in
them, planted vineyards and not gotten to eat the fruit, that it is
fitting for them that this ends with, “The wolf and the lamb shall
feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the
serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on
all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”

But all of that together
suggests that … universal vegetarianism and an end to all violence
seems CONSISTENT with … not having your labor stolen or your home
displaced.

Which suggests that not
having your home stolen or the fruit of your labor appropriated is a
REALLY BIG DEAL.  But, is it?  I mean, why stop with just having
people not displaced and able to glean the value of their work.  Why
not have everyone live at Disneyland, or apparition, or … I don’t
know, world peace.

But the longer I thought
about it, the more I realize this dream is EVERYTHING.  It actually
IS world peace – because world peace looks EXACTLY like people
being safe to build homes and live in them without being displaced,
and having the consistency to be able to labor and glean the fruits
of one’s labor without anyone else coming in with violence to take
it.

AND this is a dream of an
end to world hunger too – because people have access to enough land
and resources and the capacity to GLEAN THE FRUIT OF THEIR LABOR.

And the more I think
about people being able to glean the fruit of their labor, the more I
realize that covers A WHOLE LOT of injustices.  If people can glean
the fruit of their labor – then the rich aren’t getting wealthier
off of the labor of the poor.  So, it is like universal basic income
and a living minimum wage rolled into one.  It is also an end to
predatory lending.  This is a dream of equity and equality and
fairness and justice all at once – with the “simple” means of
stable safe housing and people being able to keep the fruits of their
labors.

When we hear of
atrocities in the world, most of them equate to violations of this
dream.  People are killed too young, or displaced from their homes
and communities, or the fruits of their labor is stolen from them.
Please note that the Bible and I agree that part of being a
community with fair labor practices is sharing so that those unable
to labor are still cared for.  There have always been those unable to
work, and a functional society finds ways to care for them as BELOVED
and VALUED members of that society.

It is a good life,
indeed, with stable safe housing and the capacity to glean the fruits
of our labor, and to have enough at the end of it to share with
others.  It
may sound simple, but it is AMAZING when it happens.  Far too few
people have lived this dream, and the dream is for EVERYONE.

The more I think about
this vision, the more I see its power, and the more I see how much it
isn’t one that is yet here.

How many people are dying
too young?  And how many of those deaths would be preventable?

How many members of our
city lack stable and safe housing?  How many New Yorkers?  How many
US citizens?  And then how many people are migrants and refugees in
the world right now?  

Then, how many people see
the just fruits of their labor??  In the interest of some brevity,
I’ll leave that as a thought question for you to ponder.

Isaiah 65 was a vision
for newly returned Exiles and the people who had been left behind
during the Exile.  It was a reminder of God’s wishes for a stable,
compassionate, equalitarian society.  It was a dream to aim for, a
reminder of how God wants the world ordered, a clarity on what
communal holy living looks like.

When we talk about the
beloved community, the kindom of God, the Jesus teaching of a
God-vision, I don’t believe Jesus was breaking with his own Jewish
tradition.  This vision of what God wanted for people is another
version of what Jesus taught.  This vision of what God wanted for
people is a way of talking about what it means to be the Body of
Christ building the kindom of God, or what it means to be an Easter
people.

Long, good, lives.
Stable safe housing.  People able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
People having enough to share.  

Such a simple vision.  

Such a world away from
our reality right now.

May God help us to build
that future.  Because as Easter people, we believe that love wins in
the end and God isn’t finished with us yet.  This vision is a vision
for us, and for everyone, and God is willing to work with us on it.  
Thanks be to God!  Amen

“Nonviolent Protests” based on Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 and Luke…

  • April 10, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

Palm Sunday, quick and dirty:

  • Passover is a Jewish holiday
    celebrating God’s acts in freeing oppressed people from their
    oppressors, and leading them to freedom even when a superior
    military force wanted to prevent it.
  • The Celebration of Passover
    brought crowds of faithful Jews into Jerusalem to celebrate God’s
    power to free them from their oppressors.
  • Judea, and Galilee were
    functionally Roman Colonies, overburdened with taxes that took the
    wealth of the land and transferred it to the wealthy artistocrats at
    the top of the Roman hierarchy.
  • The Roman Empire was fairly
    nervous and jerky about large crowds of religiously faithful people
    who believed in the power of God to overcome oppressors.
  • Thus, before Passover, the
    Roman Empire had a HUGE military parade into Jerusalem emphasizing
    the power of their military and bringing the Governor into town to –
    as they would say – keep the peace.
  • The military parade and the
    presence of the Governor functioned as THREATS OF VIOLENCE against
    anyone who might think God was up to freeing people from oppression
    once again.
  • (It may be worth remembering as
    well that a few decades later there WAS a big protest and the Empire
    responded with a massacre as well as the destruction of the temple.
    They weren’t kidding about the threat of violence.
  • The military parade happened
    EVERY YEAR.
  • Knowing this, Jesus engaged in
    NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION to parody their parade and clarify the
    differences between Rome’s violent power and God’s nonviolent realm.

As the Jesus Seminar puts it,
“For his part, Jesus made it clear that he was entering Jerusalem
to face death.  In that case, the ‘triumphal entry’ as Mark depicts
it is a satire of revolutionary processions and of the kind of
triumphal entry the Romans enjoyed making into cities they had
conquered.”1
That is, “Jesus was not making a statement about his own
messiahship, but contrasting God’s imperial rule (‘Congratulations,
you poor!  God’s domain belongs to you”) with Roman Imperial
Rule.”2

When I think about nonviolent
direct action, this Palm Sunday protest parade is an outstanding
example.  It is up there with the best.  I believe most of you are
aware of the lunch counter protests whereby people of color (gasp)
sat down at lunch counters where they would not be served to draw
attention to that injustice (and take the space of someone who might
be served AND PAY).

I believe most of you are aware
of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when for over a year African Americans
refused to ride buses in Montgomery, Alabama until the buses stoped
having segregated seating.  They refused to ride AS second class
citizens, and without their participation, the buses weren’t
sustainable.

Nonviolent direction action is
really, really hard work.  In both of those cases people faced
violence and hardship in response to seeking justice.  I’m always
astounded at the commitment people made FOR MORE THAN A YEAR in the
bus boycott, and in the face of VIOLENCE at lunch counters.

Those actions changed our
society for the better.  They didn’t counter violence with violence,
but rather with nonviolence.  They showed up or didn’t as needed, and
allowed their nonviolent actions to create change.

Our society isn’t particularly
fond of protest, or at least that what I hear when Black Lives
Matters gets brought up in most places.  I hear that people should
seek justice in other ways, which makes it clear to me that a lot of
people don’t actually understand the point of protests.

Protests or nonviolent direct
actions are what you do when other avenues of justice are closed OR
you need to increase public awareness of injustice in order to work
through other avenues of justice.  If a problem can be solved
directly, most people chose that route.  Nonviolent direction action
is the HARDER way forward – one that comes at personal cost, often
with a threat of violence against those who are involved with the
action, and when other avenues are closed.

I’m quite confident that if a
nicely worded letter to a Diner or a local paper managed to
desegregate restaurants, people would have done that.  I’m assured
that if a phone call to a city councilman or a postcard campaign to
the transit authority would have desegregated buses, people would
have been thrilled to take the easier route.  

Several years ago now, the Poor
People’s Campaign NY did a series of nonviolent direct actions in the
New York State capital to draw attention to the ways that the needs
of people in poverty are being ignored.  The one I thought was most
creative was the Fort Orange Club action.  Kevin Nelson was present
and he explains it this way:

“We were protesting the
influence of lobbying interests (and their related campaign
donations) on policies that subvert the interest of average New
Yorkers. We had a human chain thing from the Legislative Office
Building (LOB) to the Fort Orange Club, with “bags of money”
along the chain to indicate the money flow. We blocked exits and
entrances to the parking lots at the Club for several hours.”

This one particularly reminds me
of the Jesus Palm Sunday protest, in that it seems equally BRILLIANT,
and infuriating to those in power.

The injustice I have spent the
most time working to change is the structural institutional
homophobia of The United Methodist Church.  Because of my work there,
I’ve seen the ways that all other avenues have been blocked.  Since
1972, petitions to change the homophobic stances have come to the
floor at General Conference, with no positive action.  The judicial
branch of the UMC has upheld the discrimination, and most Bishops
will enforce it.  LGBTQIA+ people and their allies lack the votes,
the power, and the access to justice.

Thus, there has been a need to
increase the pressure to create change, to increase anxiety, to bring
attention to injustice, and to be clear that the only way to stop the
demands for justice was to BRING JUSTICE to God’s people.

There have been a lot of
protests, and I want to talk about two of them.

For the first, I’m going to
share it in the words of Rev. Dr. Julie Todd who spent many DECADES
as an activist for Queer and Trans rights in the UMC.  This is from
the “Love Prevails Blog”

There was a regularly scheduled
communion at every lunch break in the plenary hall at General
Conference 2004 in Pittsburgh. On the day the votes went badly yet
again for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ)
people, we decided as a movement to go to that communion service,
where we could stand in the presence of the broken and resurrected
Body of Christ. We did this as a means of re-asserting our presence
in that Body. We did this as a means of resistance against the false
institutional proclamation of one cup, one Body, and one baptism,
when clearly the actions of the General Conference actively sought to
harm and exclude members of that Body. All forms of our resistance
and disruption are embodied statements that the unity of the church
cannot continue to come at the cost of LGBTQ lives. These same acts
of resistance are theological affirmations that the resurrected Jesus
lives on in our whole and beloved queer bodies.

There was weeping and there was
anger at communion. There was a need for a deep and spiritual release
of the violence that had just been done to the queer body of Christ.
Because when votes are cast against the very existence of LGBTQ
lives, that is what is happens: violence. Christ’s body crucified
again. To not act in the face of such violence does further violence.

When the sacrament was over,
Rev. James Preston grabbed a chalice from the communion altar and
smashed it on the floor. The smashing of the chalice was not a
planned disruption. While there were many interpretations of that
moment of breaking the chalice, in fact there was no chaos, no
storming the altar, no desecration of the sacrament. There was a holy
anger that took shape in a prophetic act. A movement of the Spirit
interceded to express anguished sighs too deep for words. In the
breaking of the cup, Christ spoke to the real brokenness of the
moment.3

The
destruction of that chalice REALLY upset a lot of people.  To this
day I remain horrified that they were upset at the breaking of a
sacred symbol, but not at the ways the church has broken God’s
beloved PEOPLE.

At
that same 2004 General Conference, people started wearing short
rainbow stoles to symbolize a commitment to full inclusion of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer person in the life and
policy of The UMC.  Rainbow stoles become particularly symbolic at
Annual Conferences and their ordination services  – when they are a
sign of protest over who gets the authority to wear a stole (a symbol
of being ordained) in The UMC.  When I was ordained, I was supposed
to have a red stole placed on my shoulders, as red is the color of
pentecost and ordination.  Instead I was ordained with a rainbow
stole (and still won’t wear a red one – not until all those called
can serve).  My mentors laid hands on me without their robes or
stoles (and one of them in a LOVELY rainbow shawl), as further
expressions of my objections (and theirs.)

In
the scheme of things, what a clergy person wears or doesn’t while
being ordained into a homophobic institution is a pretty low form of
protest.  (I joined to bring change, but I’m often still
uncomfortable with it.)  There were no consequences, and no changes
came from it.  But I remember having a colleague I was getting
ordained with asking me to refrain from those signs of protest so
that our shared ordination could be “sacred.”  And I remember
responding that I couldn’t refrain from sharing my objections about
ORDINATION AT ORDINATION.  (By the grace of God, that colleague later
changed their mind and told me so, thanking me for my witness.)

So, this Palm Sunday, this day
of remembering a nonviolent direct action that was responded to with
deadly force, I invite you into reflection on justice, protests, and

nonviolent direct actions.

When you see a protest – ask
yourself – what justice is missing, and WHY and HOW  is it blocked?

When you see an injustice, talk
with others and pray about what means of responding will bring
change.

It seems that’s the Jesus way,
thanks be to God.

Amen

1. Acts
of Jesus, 120.

2. Acts
of Jesus, 121.

3. https://loveprevailsumc.com/2016/05/12/on-the-body-being-broken/

“Forgetting” based on  Psalm 126 and Isaiah 43:16-21

  • April 3, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

The Isaiah passage seems so
cheerful, but it is actually a tough one.  It asks people to let go
of the faith of the past to pay attention to what God is doing in the
present.  And while that sounds great and all, for most of us, our
faith is pretty deeply rooted in the past, for good reasons, and
we’re not that interested in letting go of it.

That’s the always reason.  The
2022 reason builds on it.  A lot of us are rather sick and tired of
new things, and would rather be able to settle into some of the old
things we miss a lot.

Please count me among those who
are struggling with this.  This week a small group of us met with a
team to talk about the technology we’ll need to move towards
livestreaming our service.  They asked great questions, and I found
that I kept answering with, “well, before the pandemic…., right
now…., but I don’t know what the answer is in 2 years.”  I miss
being able to answer simple questions with simple answers!

When I think about what our
church life looked like in February of 2020, I’m astounded at the
changes.  I can barely remember the simplicity of ONE worship
service, and I didn’t adequately appreciate the wonder that was
people being able to be together in a room, safely.  I sort of
remember church night, a time with 4 or 5 meetings, and having to
figure out who met in what room – instead of which zoom account to
use for which meeting.  I remember children’s times on the steps of
the sanctuary when I got to talk to kids, and we could see each
other’s faces, a time I miss deeply.  I remember seeing people’s
faces when I was preaching, and getting a sense of what made worked
and what didn’t, and being able to adapt.  I miss that.  I miss
parking lot conversations (am I allowed to admit that), and the
church office being loud when people ran into each other, and I
really really miss SUSTAIN ministry.  I miss choir anthems, and the
sound I heard behind me during worship when I erred in following the
bulletin and choir members were trying to figure out if it was
important enough to tell me.  I miss greeting our breakfast guests at
the door, and watching people chit chat with each other.  Oh my, do I
miss communion after church, and also rushing to finish it so we
could get to a 2nd hour!

When I hear, “do not remember
the former things, or consider the things of old,” that’s a hard
line to take in.  Those things were sacred.  They helped me know my
place in the world.  They were important, and meaningful, and lovely,
and I struggle to let them go.  

I invite you to think about, and
even name those things you miss.  (in comments / outloud)  

There is a power in naming those
things, in acknowledging what we’ve lost, and how hard it is to have
lost it.

There is something of a
scholarly debate over which “things of old” the Exiles were being
invited to forget.  The way I hear it, they’re all a bit
controversial, because ours is a faith that REMEMBERS.  Yet, “for
everything there is a season,” so… this is a different sort of
call.  #newthing.  

Some say that what the Exiles
are being invited to forget – so that they can see what God is up
to in the present – is the Exodus itself.  God who made a way
through the sea, God who saved them from chariot and horse, God who
got them free from slavery – they’re being told FORGET THAT, and
watch what God is up to NOW.  That’s a pretty big ask, huh?

Others say it is BIGGER.

Others say it is creation itself
the Exiles are being asked to forget, so they can see what God is up
to in the present.  That the references to water reflect the acts of
creation of separating the waters, and the land from the water, and
instead of remembering CREATION, the Exiles are asked to forget that,
and pay attention to the present to see what God is up to NOW.
That’s a pretty big ask, huh?

Still others say it isn’t the
two biggest foundations of their faith that people are being asked to
forget, but instead it is the destruction and fear of the Exile
itself – which was what most of Isaiah 1-39 was predicting.  The
Exiles are being asked to forget the circumstances by which they came
to be exiles in Babylon, and focus instead of what God is up to in
the NOW.  So – that may well be the biggest ask of all.

These are some rather enormous
things to be asked to forget, in order to pay attention to the
present, and that rather suggests that we are not exempted from this
because of a world-changing pandemic either.  So, the past being let
go of, even at rather exceptional cost, lets us continue in this
passage.

And now we hear, “I am about
to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you do you not perceive
it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I
give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to
my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they
might declare my praise”  (43:19-21)

The premise of this passage,
that holding on to the past can distract us from the ways God is at
work in the present – that’s true.  I don’t want us to go overboard
and throw out the past, which probably isn’t possible anyway.  But, I
do want to enter into this idea.

Where is God present NOW, among
us, in new ways?  Are we looking?  Are we paying attention?  Have we
freed our spirits and our focus to see what God is up to NOW, by
letting go of what we perceived God to be up to in the past??

God, as we know, is ALWAYS
pushing past the status quo.  God isn’t going to let up seeking
justice for all of God’s beloveds, until there is JUSTICE and PEACE
and COMPASSION and WHOLENESS for ALLLLLLLLLL of God’s beloveds.  

Which can mean that when the
world changes directions, the way God’s moves among us changes too.

The Exiles in Isaiah 43 were in
a new place.  God’s advocacy for quite a while had been for them to
attend to their own teachings, to create a society with equity, to
care for the impoverished and vulnerable, to dismantle the power
structures, to provide justice within the justice system, and to
disentangle themselves from external empires who would do them harm.


But then the Exile happened,
and the external empire did them harm, and they no longer had the
power to enact God’s vision in the land – as the Exiles weren’t
even IN the land.

So God’s movement among them was
going to be different.  God was now planting seeds of hope, God was
replanting dreams of a just society, God was helping them in the
midst of despair, and maybe most of all, God was inviting them into
their present – to BE WHERE THEY WERE instead of JUST grieving
where they were no longer.

It is, of course, notable, that
God dreams a future for them, in order to help them move from the
past to the present, but perhaps that’s part of what is needed.  We
need to know where we’re going.

And that, dear ones, is a part
of what is hard right now.  So much remains in flux, and it is far
from easy to see where we are going to land.

In fact, I think this has been a
struggle in this community for a rather long time.  Going back for
decades, there have been various ways of trying to vision the future,
all of which petered out with some form of “but there are too many
variables,” only to have the process repeated a few years later.

Ok.  So.  There are too many
variables to know the future.  That’s TRUE.  That’s always been true,
but my goodness things change fast these days, and faster now than
ever.  I’m aware of this, I’ve been the one updating the post on the
church’s facebook page telling people what worship looks like in our
community, and I’ve LOST COUNT of how many updates I’ve had to make
over the past 2 years.  

Perhaps it might be of use to
think about what we do know, about the present as well as the future:

God is with us.

God is faithful.

God’s steadfast love endures
forever.

God dreams of goodness, joy,
peace, healing, wholeness, justice, and equity for all of creation.

We are on God’s team to make
that dream a reality.

I don’t know much more than
that.  I don’t know what worship will look like in a year or two, or
what ministry may emerge out of the communities need and the energy
we once placed in Sustain.  I don’t know how many “access points”
we will have for people to be part of this community, or when we’ll
get to livestreaming, when we can finally hear from Bishop Karen
Oliveto.  Right now I don’t know when we might get an applicant for
our Sexton position, or put together the job description for a new
permanent musician, just have church council in person.  (Come on
Moderna application for young kids to be vaccinated, I’m rooting for
you SO HARD.)

There is so much we don’t know,
and that’s hard.  I think that’s part of why it is so easy to focus
on the past, which at least we knew and understood.  But the past can
hold us hostage, particularly in moments like this when we run to it
out of discomfort in the present.

God IS up to new things today.
God isn’t happy with letting the unjust practices and lack of
compassion stand.  And I know that we want to be attentive to God in
this time.  So, I’m going back that list of what we know.

God is with us.

God is faithful.

God’s steadfast love endures
forever.

God dreams of goodness, joy,
peace, healing, wholeness, justice, and equity for all of creation.
(Shorter version: God is working for the kindom.)

We are on God’s team to make
that dream a reality.

I invite us all to center
ourselves on those truths.  

Perhaps you will find that there
are a few more we can add, and I’d be delighted to hear them.
Perhaps you are one of the ones you can see what God is up to right
now, and I invite to share right now (comments/ out loud.)

This I know: God is up to new
things.

This I wonder: Are we on board?

Amen

“A Lost Family” based on  Joshua 5:9-12 and Luke…

  • March 27, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I spend a lot of my time learning about trauma, and
considering ways that the church might be part of trauma healing.  If
I had a guess as to why this catches my attention so deeply, it would
be this: as I grew up and realized how broken things are, I started
wondering “why!?”  Until I heard about the Adverse Childhood
Experiences study, and started reading about trauma, very little
seemed to adequately answer my question.

So it may not be surprising that when I read Joshua, and
hear “today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt, “
I find myself wondering about trauma healing.  The story says that
the people had been enslaved for hundreds of years, and then spent 40
years wandering in the desert, as a means of leaving behind that
trauma and preparing for the new life they were going to live.  This
passage, today, is the moment of transition.

In life,  there isn’t an end to healing as a gradual
lessening of the grasp trauma holds on a life.  But, also, 40 years
sounds like a good time frame.  It is not instantaneous, by any
stretch, and it represented multiple generational changes.  It takes
seriously the long tail of healing, and the impact on generations.

I don’t really think the story means that the trauma of
slavery is over for the ancient people of God.  But, I think this is
another step in that process.  To be told, “your disgrace is rolled
away” is a really important piece, and I rather respect it taking
40 years for the people to be ready to hear it.

I also love that there is this intersection of healing
and relationship.  So for those 40 years, the people were said to be
fed directly by God.  The manna on the floor of the desert provided
for them, along with occasional quail.  Or, perhaps we might say,
they were hunter-gatherers and aware in that process of their
dependence on God.  This passage represents a shift to being farmers,
who are still rather dependent on God, but take more of the
responsibility for active food production (especially in a desert).

While healing, the people needed to be cared for.  They
also needed to be able to move freely.  They needed space.  They
needed time.  They needed a dependable caregiver to keep on teaching
them that they could trust.  

When they had healed enough, and when they were ready to
hear “your disgrace has been rolled away” which I think means
“you are no longer defined by what others did to you,” they were
ready to bring that time of healing to an end, and begin caring for
themselves and each other.  

Have I mentioned how much I appreciate that this
timeline isn’t more aggressive?   I love, also that this happened at
Passover.  The first Passover was when the journey began, and it came
full circle, to the remembrance of that journey and to eating the
food in a new land as a new people, before the journey ended.

I don’t know where exactly the family trauma in the
parable starts, but I can see its fingerprints.  This is, sadly, not
a healthy family.  On the upside, it looks familiar enough to enough
of us that we can at least know that the Bible knows how REAL
families work.  We can see that God sees and knows families as they
are, and still works within them.  This family may or may not have
MAJOR trauma, but it is definitely struggling with at least a pile of
minor ones.

Before I delve into the parable, it seems worth taking
the time for a little reminder of what a parable is and is not,
because truthfully a lot of preachers get this wrong, and you may
have been misled along the way.  Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, New Testament
professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School, has done amazing work with
her book “Short Stories by Jesus”  and my reflections are guided
by her.

Parables are stories, sometimes quite short, that resist
easy interpretation, and understandings.  Dr. Levine says, “What
makes the parables mysterious, or difficult, is that they challenge
us to look into the hidden aspects of our own values, our own
lives.”1
Or, to be more direct: a parable is not an allegory.  Each character
doesn’t “stand in” for someone else, where it appears to be one
thing but is actually about God.  Or to be EVEN MORE DIRECT: please
don’t take the father in this story as God.  It won’t go well for
God, and it will deny us the chance to hear the story as it actually
is.

Luke is the only gospel writer to tell this story, and
it puts it after two other stories about things getting lost.  First
there are 100 sheep, and one gets lost.  The shepherd finds it and
rejoices.  Then there are 10 coins, and one gets lost.  The woman
finds it and rejoices.  So we’re well set up here.  A man has two
sons, one gets lost.

Hmmm, “There was a man who had two sons…”  That
should actually get our brains lighting up with memories.  Or, at
least, it would have for the first listeners.  “Two sons?  Oh yeah?
I’ve heard that one.  Cain and Able – older one was more than a
little bit of a problem, and God preferred the gift of younger.
Ishmael and Issac, older one had to be sent away entirely, younger
one got the blessings.  Esau and Jacob – yeah, OK, there is a
pattern here, I get it.  So, tell me about how the younger son is
better than the older and how God inverses my expectations, I’m
ready.”

Which means, of course, that Jesus inverses THAT
expectation.  This younger son isn’t a pillar of anything.  I believe
you know this part.  The younger son asks for his inheritance,
receives it, and an unexpectedly generous portion at that, sells it,
leaves, wastes it, there is a famine, and he gets hungry.  He then
realizes that he doesn’t have to live like that – he can go home.

Dr. Levine doesn’t entirely believe his contrition, and
she makes some good points about that.  While he claims to be going
home to just be a laborer, the word “father” keeps being
repeated, which actually keeps him in his position as son.  Also, the
line, “I have sinned against heaven and before you” is the exact
phrase Pharaoh mouths in order to stop the plague, which isn’t a
flattering repetition.  It has been said that his words could be
summarized as “I’ll go to Daddy and sound religious.”2
 He has a rather good idea that this may be sufficient, this is a
father who already gave him his inheritance, already have him a
larger portion than he should have, and may well have offered him a
safe place to land if ever he needed it.  The father is a bit
indulgent.

The father is, of course, thrilled his son has come
home.  The son has been gone for quite some time, and has been
functionally dead to him, and possibly dead.  (I know you don’t need
this reminder, but they weren’t’ face-timing while he was away.)  The
father’s rejoicing mirrors the shepherd who found the sheep, and the
woman who found the coin.  YAY!  

This also fits human nature, right?  Most parents would
welcome home the wanderer, no matter where they’d been or what they’d
done.  That said, Dr. Levine concludes “I still have a picture of a
manipulative, pampered, and perhaps relieved kid at the fatted calf
buffet.”  

Which is important.  Because at this point the younger
son disappears from the story, and it becomes clear that this is the
SET UP for the real story.  The father thought he’d lost his younger
son, but in truth it looks like he’d lost them both.  The younger
came back, but the elder is still lost.  

No one told the elder brother about his brother’s return
nor the party.  

What the hey?

They didn’t notice he wasn’t there?  They didn’t think
to tell him?  This sounds – sadly- like a story I’ve heard from
lots of people.  The pain of being forgotten in their own family.
The so called “little” slights that add up over time to people
feeling like they don’t matter to the ones they love.  Furthermore,
based on all the other stories in the Bible with 2 sons, it is
reasonable to guess there were some issues between the brothers, and
the father’s rather extreme generosity to the younger one likely
didn’t help the relationship between them.

Now, the father does seem to suddenly get that there is
a larger family dynamic issue, and he does rush out to greet his
elder son.  Good!    However, as Dr. Levine says:

Years of resentment have finally boiled over and found
expression.  The son’s fidelity has been overlooked.  Once again the
problem child receives more attention, or more love, than the prudent
and faithful one.  By announcing that ‘there is more joy in heaven’
for the one who repents than for the ninety-nine who need no
repentance, Luke reinforces this preference.  We might think of the
older son as speaking for those ninety-nine who have no need of
repentance but who appear to bring less joy.3

Right, so this sounds like families I know.  It sounds
like my own family at times.  It sounds really familiar.  And I think
that’s part of the genius of the parable. This as come around to
dealing with responsibility and irresponsibility, enabling,
resentment, and the huge question: how to respond to it all?  This
sounds like life.  It is difficult and imperfect, and requires a lot
from us just to get through things – even the things that are
supposed to be good.  His brother is alive!  He came home!  And it is
COMPLICATED.


The father does well here.  The first word of his
response is best translated as an endearment “Child.”  Perhaps we
might hear it as “child of mine.”  The father acknowledges this
older son who has also been lost.  And the father acknowledges a
literal truth:  having given his property to his sons, all that he
had is now the property of his older son.   AND,  he needs to
rejoice.  He is a father who has had his son restored.

Now, this is where I think the parable is most
brilliant.  After the father’s speech it just… ends.  Does the
elder brother go into the party?  Would you?  

This family has all been lost to each other.  What will
it take to bring it back together?  Do they have the ability?  Do
they have the commitment and desire to fix things?  Will they?  

Would you?  Amen

1Amy-Jill
Levine, Short Stories by Jesus (USA:
HarperOne, 2014), page 3.

2Ibid,
Dr. Levine however is quoting David Buttrick ,54.

3Ibid,
64.

Worship for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

  • March 27, 2022March 27, 2022
  • by Administrator

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
Worship for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 27, 2022


Photo by Sue Learner

Getting Centered

It may help to center yourself into worship by lighting a candle, as a symbol of God’s presence with you during the time of worship. You may also want to pay attention to lighting, the position of your body, and the availability of distractions.

Breath Prayer

“Source of Love, heal us now.”
Breath prayers involve breathing in the first phrase, and breathing out the second.
You may wish to simply pray for a moment before starting, or you may wish to pray while listening to the prelude.

Prelude

“Awesome in this Place” Arranged by Bill Wolaver

Call to Worship

One: The Bible tells of a people who wandered for forty years.
Many: That sounds about right.
One: The Bible tells of a people who had wandered for forty years,
and then settled into the Promised Land.
Many: Hmmmmm.
One: The Bible says that after their wandering,
they were clean and new.
Many: May our wanderings be so good.

Hymn #97: “For the Fruits of this Creation”



Connecting in Prayer

Shared Prayer


God who rolls away our disgrace,
For forty years, the people depended on you,
and when the time came that they could depend on the land you told them they were healed.
That the disgrace had been rolled away.
That their former identity was no more.
That they could start anew.
That in taking away the gift of manna, you also gave them the gift of a new life.
Holy One,
we want it too.
We want the disgrace rolled away,
we want the space for life anew.
Help us be patient enough for your means of grace.
Amen

Silent Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father (Creator) who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Word and Reflection

Scripture Reading: Joshua 5:9-12 and Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Mission Moment: UMCOR Sunday

Children’s Time: “Siblings”

Hymn #115: “How Like a Gentle Spirit”

Passing of the Peace


If you are worshiping with others, please pass the Peace of Christ.
Whether you are alone or with others, please take a moment to find God’s peace within, and then to share it with the world. You may want to reach out to speak peace to another during this week.

Sermon: “A Lost Family” – Rev. Sara Baron

Responding

Offertory: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” Arranged by Lavawan Riley

Offering


Photo by Larry McArthur
If you wish, you are welcome to use this time to make a donation to the church online, or to put a check in the mail.
The time of offering is not only about our financial gifts to the church, it is about offering our lives to God and the building of the kindom. This is a time for reflection: What is being asked of us? What is being given to us? What are we able to offer? What do we need?

A Relational Prayer

God who rolls away our disgrace,
thank you for the gift of a Bible that knows about real families, and talks about the difficulties of relationships.
Thank you for the stories about generational trauma, and the long road to healing.
Thank you for a text that takes the challenges of humanity seriously, and finds holiness in what is (and not just what could be).
Thank you for the times when we, a church, can be part of rolling away disgrace, and living in grace.
Thank you for receiving our gifts, and letting us be part of kindom building.
Thank you God, for the way you love us.
Amen

Hymn #120: “Your Love, O God”

Benediction

Dear ones, when we are lost, God is still with us.
When we make bad choices, God is still with us.
When we are overcome with resentment, God is still with us.
When we mess up relationships, God is still with us.
God is still with us. We are blessed. Amen

Postlude

“My Lord, What A Morning”
African-American Spiritual
Setting by Roger C. Wilson

“Bread That Satisfies” based on Psalm 63:1-8 and Isaiah…

  • March 20, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

Isaiah 55 contrasts the ways of the Babylonian Empire
(read: all empires and all domination systems) with the ways of God.
One satisfies, one doesn’t.  One has built in rest, one is a constant
system of labor.  One is aimed at the fullness of humanity, one  is
aimed at pleasing a King.

According to the Bible the glory days of ancient Israel
as a nation-state started in in 1000 BCE when David was King, and his
son Solomon after him.  After that the Northern Kingdom left, and in
722 they lost a war with Assyria and were taken into Exile.  In
587/586 BCE the Southern Kingdom lost a war with Babylon and their
leaders were taken into Exile.  

The book of Isaiah centers around the second, southern
exile: first in warning that it might come unless things change
(chapters 1-39), then the exile “happens” and there are
conversations to the exiles about what return will look like
(chapters 40-55), and finally encouragement to those who have
returned and are struggling (chapters 56-66).  Isaiah 55, our passage
for today, is the end of the encouragement to the exiles, and it is
written in “anticipation of a a joyous and secure homecoming.”1

Walter Brueggemann in his commentary on Isaiah 40-66
(amazingly, one of my favorite Brueggemann commentaries) says, “The
initial verse…offers to passersbys free water, free wine, and
free milk.  This of course is in contrast to the life
resources offered by  the empire that are always expensive, grudging,
and unsatisfying. … The rhetorical questions ask,
incredulously, why Jews in exile would invest so much in forms of
life that cannot work – why work so hard and so long in ways that
give no satisfaction; why give life over to the demands and rewards
of the empire that yield nothing of value in return.” ”2

As the text refers to the “wicked”, Brueggemann has
a great explanation for who that refers to.  “’The wicked,’ I
suggest, are not disobedient people in general.  In context, they are
those who are so settled in Babylon and so accommodated to imperial
ways that they have no intention of making a positive response to
Yahweh’s invitation to homecoming.”3

There were, in fact, plenty of people who didn’t return
from exile.  After 80 years, for many, Babylon had become home.  The
scripture says that even those who have accommodated themselves to
the empire – to the systems of domination – can be freed and
pardoned, and come back to a full and abundant life within the
community.

And all of this makes me wonder about how it applies
today.  When are we settled into domination systems, and in need of
being reminded that other options exist, and welcomed home to the
community of God, and forgiven and set free to live in equality and
equity with each other?

When are we the “wicked” who are too enmeshed with
the empire, and need forgiveness?  This is a convicting question for
me.  I continue to struggle to hold onto ONLY kindom values and let
go of the domination ones.  I appreciate the reminder that it can be
changed and forgiven.

One of the tools of domination systems is fear.  Fear
works to keep us from seeing things clearly, fear moves us into
right/wrong thinking, fear moves us into blame, fear moves us into
us/them thinking, and fear kills creative problem solving.  Fear
makes people more interested in authority, which means more invested
in hierarchy, and more likely to accept the commandments of
authoritarians.  Fear leads to snap decisions, instead of careful
consideration.


Fear is a really, really useful tool, if the desire
is to keep people separate, compliant, and disempowered.

And, it can get a hold on me rather too easily,
particularly when I’m not getting enough down time with God.

Another of the useful tools of domination systems is
getting control over meaning making, which usually means
appropriating religion for its own purposes.  We can see this clearly
in looking at the Roman Empire in Jesus’ day, and the Roman appointed
High Priests running the Temple.  That domination system thought
having the Temple’s support was imperative to keeping control, and so
they appropriated it.  That is one example of a rather constant
reality.

Truth be told, when I read the Bible, I’m often struck
by the struggles back and forth between the stories of an all-loving
God encouraging the people to care for each other and the strangers
in their midst AND the stories of a God who controls, rewards,
punishes the people – including by trying to frighten them into
compliance.  I tend to think of the first as the stories of God, and
the second as the constancy of humans trying to to claim the power of
Divine meaning making for their own ends.  The fact that it is a
constant tension in the Bible itself clarifies how hard it is to
separate out the love of God from the desire of people for control.

At the recommendation of my colleague the Rev. Harold
Wheat, I recently read “One Nation Under God” by Kevin Kruse.
The book takes a long view of American religion, and the battles for
control of it.  The history takes a sharp turn after the successful
passage of Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was generally lauded by the
nation’s clergy.  In response, business and industry leaders started
multiple meaning making campaigns of their own, putting clergy on
their payrolls to deride “communal values.”  They spent decades
accessing power at the highest levels, providing resources, and
finally in engaging in nation-wide PR campaigns to encourage people
to attend worship as part of their patriotic duty.  Since these
campaigns were so successful, those pushing worship were confident
that most of those attending worship would be getting their
pro-business messages shared from the pulpit.

This church was one of the ones that did NOT comply with
the campaigns, thank God.  But, being a part of US culture during
that time meant being a part of a society with the highest worship
participation rate in the country’s history, and this church did
benefit from that.  

One of my big take aways from the book was that every
church and every church structure I know well has defined itself from
its heights in the 1950s or 1960s, and created its narratives and
identity in those “high times.”  But that came without an
awareness of the forces that created that high, or the reality that
it was an ABERRATION, not a “new normal.”  It is a bit like the
Jewish people in 506 BCE looking back to the glory days of King
David, and forgetting that in 1500 years of history, about 80 were
the time of nation-state empire.  It was an aberration, not the norm.

The fact that the worship attendance of the 1950s was a
cultural swell of worship attendance nation wide suggests that the
narratives of “failure” for not maintaining the heights are…
well… wrong.  After the nation wide ad campaigns stopped and the
nation stopped being pushed to define being a good American with
being a good worship attender, worship attendance started returning
to more historically normal levels.  

However,  I’ve been in A LOT of meetings over the years
where in direct or indirect ways people have tried to “problem
solve” church decline, and that has almost always sounded a whole
lot like blame.  This is never the story I heard – that the
huge ballooning of membership was an oddity that was unsustainable,
and that it was to be expected that it would not be maintained.

Instead, there are seemingly infinite definitions of the
problem and possible solutions.  “Better evangelism.”  “More
prayer.”  “Clear mission statements.”  “Good websites.”
“More faithful leaders.”  “More training in inviting people to
church.”  “Better missions.”  … Take this class, do this
study, engage in this survey, read this book, ….and some of it is
even useful, but the impact of the whole is the continuation of the
narrative that worship attendance in the 1950s was “right” and
that means that everything since then has been “wrong” and if
that’s true, then it implies we’re doing our FAITH wrong.  

Learning that there is a bigger narrative at play has
helped me reframe those conversations about church growth and church
decline.  It has also helped me see that even when there isn’t active
blame going on, church leaders (clergy and lay) are just
internalizing it.  I’ve done it (I still do it.)  The number of
people who choose to attend worship FEELS like a tangible expression
of how faithful I am to God.  But it isn’t.  Yet, I have to actively
remember that.

And, I worry about all the church leaders in all the
churches for the past 70 years who have asked “why are we getting
smaller” and ended up believing that it was because THEY were doing
their faith wrong, because they couldn’t see the larger dynamics at
play.  They’ve taken in the wrong story.  Our faith is not WRONG, nor
BROKEN.  

Of course, it is hard to see the church in decline and
it is extra hard right now to see the church transforming and not
know if it is strong or weak or.. what it is right now.   But, as I’m
committed to building the kindom of God, and I’m excited to have ANY
partners in that work who want to work with me.  I’m willing to tell
people why that seems worthy of my life energy, and I am delighted
when I get to teach about what kindom/God values are and how they
differ from empire/domination values.  

The thing is that strength, even strength in numbers,
looks a lot like a domination value.  And inflated numbers in the
past were aimed at no good.  God is willing and able to work with any
of us who want to work with God, and to make a big difference with
those who are committed to doing so.  I’m interested in celebrating
those committed to following in the ways of Jesus, and the power that
love has in our midst.  I’m ready to let go of an old, false, and
misleading narrative of who we are supposed to be, and let us be who
we are.

There is the labor that matters, the bread that
satisfies.  And leaving behind the old myths that were created to
control the churches and their people– that’s the empire stuff we
don’t need anymore.  May God help us sort through, and find the
kindom values in our hearts, to put them to further use in our lives.
Amen

1Brueggeman
158.

2Brueggemann,
159.

3Ibid
160

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

March 20, 2022

“Mother Hen” based on  Psalm 118:1-6, 26-29  and Luke…

  • March 13, 2022
  • by Sara Baron
image

There are these contrasts in the Bible, these ways that
what is written is so shocking that we can’t even hear it most of the
time.  Human brains are mostly set on autopilot, and we conflate what
we hear with what we already believe to be true.  This can make it
hard to hear the Bible as it is, because we end up softening edges
that are actually quite hard!

Specifically, I think it could be easy to hear Jesus
say, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as
a hen gathers her brood under her wings” and think, “aw, that’s
sweet, Jesus loves me and wants to protect me.”  Which, I grant
you, is a part of the meaning.  But, it overlooks the radicalness of
that meaning.

Debie Thomas starts to explain it this way:

Here’s what I find so startling about the image. 
If maternal power, acumen, or success were the characteristics Jesus
wanted to emphasize in his choice of metaphor, he could have used any
number of more appropriate Old Testament images to make his point. 
God as enraged she-bear (Hosea 13:8).  God as soaring mother
eagle (Deuteronomy 32:11-12).  God as laboring woman (Isaiah
42:14).  God as mom of a healthy, happy toddler (Psalm 131:2). 
God as skilled midwife (Psalm 22:9-10).  But those are not the
images he chooses.  Instead, on this second Sunday in Lent,
Luke’s gospel invites us to contemplate Jesus as a mother hen whose
chicks don’t want her. Though she stands with her wings wide open,
offering welcome, belonging, and shelter, her children refuse to come
home to her.  Her wings — her arms — are empty. 
This, in other words, is a mother bereft.  A mother in
mourning.  A mother struggling with failure and futility.1

Whoa.

And, I think, since this is about Jerusalem which was
the Jewish center of power and influence (and lack of power and lack
of influence), and because Luke’s gospel was written AFTER the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, I don’t think we’re supposed to
miss the contrast between a mother hen reaching out empty wings and
wishing to protect her chicks with…the golden eagle that the Roman
Empire used as a symbol of its imperial power.

This is where we are dealing with God and Jesus upending
our expectations.  In a contrast between an eagle and a chicken, we’d
expect God to be the eagle, RIGHT?  (We do have that imagery in
Deuteronomy, as Debie mentioned.)  But, no.  Here we have a contrast
between a strong predator and a vulnerable prey, and we’re told that
Jesus is like the prey- and WORSE, like the prey trying with all her
might to protect her even more vulnerable young and failing to do so.

This sort of turns my stomach.  

I see in my head Ukrainian and Ethiopian mothers holding
their babies while bombs drop around them.  

But, that also clarifies the image for me.  If bombs are
dropping on mothers hovering over their babies to try to keep them
alive, and the choice is to see God in the bombs or in the mothers,
then the choice is easy – God is the one hovering trying to
protect, even when God can’t protect.

It still turns my stomach though.

And I can see why people might prefer to think of God in
the power of the bomb rather than the powerlessness of the mother.  I
think we’d expect the eagle, not the mother hen.  But, that’s not the
God we worship.

I don’t think it can be ignored that Luke is using this
passage to foreshadow Jesus’s death and resurrection.  The Jesus
seminar believes this whole passage to be a creation of Luke, a way
he was trying to make sense of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

The Pharisees are warning Jesus that if he doesn’t
change his ministry, he’ll get killed.  This is true.  But Jesus
responds that he isn’t done doing the work he needs to do.  They want
him to be afraid, and have that fear change his path.  Jesus seems to
understand, but he holds strong in the face of the fear.  He knows
his own vulnerability, he understands it, but he doesn’t let it
change his path.  A mother hen is vulnerable, but she still stretches
out her wings for the MORE vulnerable chicks.

The mother hen metaphor fits terrifyingly well with the
reality of Jesus’s impending death.  Debie Thomas writes, “Yes,
Jesus mocks Herod by calling him a fox.  But he never argues
that the fox isn’t dangerous. He never promises his children
immunity from harm.  I mean, let’s face it — if a determined
fox wants to kill a brood of downy chicks, he will find a way to do
so.  What Jesus the mother hen offers is not the absence of
danger, but the fullness of his unguarded, open-hearted, wholly
vulnerable self in the face of all that threatens and scares us.”2

This, of course, suggests that the sort of strength God
offers, the sort of strength God asks for from us, isn’t the golden
eagle or bomb kind.  It is the vulnerable kind.

That’s the world-turned-upside-down-by-faith bit.  What
on earth is vulnerable strength?  (Except maybe everything?)  Isn’t
that just strength in weakness?  Yeah.  It probably is.  That’s the
God being unexpected thing.  Vulnerable strength is a mother hen,
with wings open, ready to protect any chick willing to huddle under
them, when even she herself may be swept away, but if she is, the
chicks may be able to live.  

To get good at vulnerability as strength though,
probably doesn’t require having to practice at the threat of life
level.  To be ready to do that sort of vulnerability requires
practice with the so-called easy stuff, to build up our vulnerability
muscles.  Vulnerability is saying, “I’m scared,” or “I’m sad,”
rather than putting on a mask of impenetrability and pushing through.
Vulnerability is saying, “I don’t know,” and taking the risk
someone might think we’re ill-informed, or “I can’t” when someone
might find you weak (or not trying hard enough.)  Vulnerability is
allowing ourselves to see other people’s pain without looking away or
running to a quick fix.  (This.  Is.  Hard.)

Vulnerability is staying with our own pain, rather than
pushing it away, or pushing it down, running to a quick fix, or
trying to push it off on someone else.  (#blame).

For many Christians, the “incarnation” is the
ultimate example of vulnerability.  The idea is that God who is GOD,
the creator of all that is, takes on human vulnerability, pain, and
mortality in the form of Jesus, and in doing so moves from
invulnerable to vulnerable to be with us.  

Truth be told, I have never resonated with that even
when theologians I otherwise adore say so.  A friend of mine, for
whom incarnation is one of the most important parts of his faith,
laughed at me once about that and said, “but aren’t you a
panentheist?”  (Translation: don’t you believe that God is
EVERYWHERE, in EVERYTHING, and all that is exists within the Divine?)
Well, yes, I am.  He said, so doesn’t that make the incarnation sort
of… redundant for you?

That was a helpful ah ha moment, because, for me it is.
(If you are a person who derives great meaning from incarnation,
please know that you are in the majority, and I’m the odd one out,
but I’m going to keep talking because sometimes others are also “odd
ones out” and like to know they aren’t alone.)

I believe God already has all the vulnerability in the
world – literally.  God is with ALL those who are struggling, in
EVERY way.  I believe in a vulnerable God.

Which is to say that I believe vulnerability is sacred.

And, because I try to practice it regularly, I believe
vulnerability is really, really hard work.  Especially when one is
trying to practice vulnerability for the sake of honesty and
connection, and modeling that none of us are impenetrable – but
trying to do that without causing undo   harm to others.  The balance
is not easy to find, and I am quite capable of having “vulnerability
hangovers” (a term I believe was coined by Brene Brown).  That is,
while I’m   pushing vulnerability today, but I’m acknowledging that
it can also be wielded as a tool in some cases, and that’s not what
we’re going for here.  We’re dealing with weakness and vulnerability,
not to use them as tools to manipulate others, or gain power over
others.

Rather, if God is vulnerable, then we are not excused
from our own vulnerability, nor asked to pretend it away.  I think
this is why Ash Wednesday starts Lent by asking us to remember that
we are mortal, so that we can remember to live our lives with
intention.  When we are vulnerable, we remember how tender we are,
how easily hurt, how close things that could harm us are, and we open
ourselves to those who are hurt, or harmed, or displaced, or
attacked.  And when our hearts break open to allow others in, we are
moved – once again – to create a world that is more just and
equitable so that the MOST vulnerable are no longer forced take the
pain the most powerful avoid.

That, I think, is the power of vulnerability: the power
to break our hearts open which moves us to create a better world.  

May God help us, all.

Amen

1Debie
Thomas, “I Have Longed” Lectionary Essay for March 13, 2022,
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3341-i-have-longed

2Ibid.

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

March 13, 2022

“Testing Kinship Loyalty” based on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Luke…

  • March 6, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I’ve got to admit it.  I’m not
tempted by the things Jesus was “tempted” by in the dessert.  I
have never once wanted to change a rock into bread (perhaps because I
lack that skill???), I’m well aware that running kingdoms or even
democracies is incredibly difficult work that I don’t wish to partake
in, and I do not wish to test God by jumping off high places for no
reason.

Nope.  I do not resonate with
these.

There are not my temptations.

You want to know what my
temptations are?  These days I have serious temptations to stop
fighting – to just give up on the pandemic and stop trying to be
safe and stop trying to create safe places.  I want to do CRAZY
things like bring my kid to worship, or have dinner at a friend’s
house, or get a plane and meet one of my dear friend’s new babies.  I
want to just stop worrying.  I want to make people happy.  I want to
encourage people, “sure, do whatever you want in worship.  Take of
masks!  Stop distancing!  Sing!  Don’t worry about it!”  I’m
tempted to just give up.

AND

(and this is the really annoying
part)

I’m also tempted in exactly the
opposite way.  I live in constant fear that a choice I make will
result in my unvaccinated, too young to wear a mask kid getting COVID
and living with long covid for the rest of their life.  And so, I
want to create a bubble and never leave it.  I want to stay home,
stop day care, have groceries delivered, and function on zoom until
…. forever I guess.  

Actually, if I’m honest, more
than really being tempted by either extreme, I’m tempted by the idea
of not having to decide anymore.  “Is this safe?”  “Is this
safe ENOUGH?”  “Is this worth it?”  “If this results in my
kid having long covid, in 20 years will I think this was the right
choice?”  “Do I need to do this because someone else’s needs
outrank my own (or outrank my needs related to my kid)?”  “Is
this the right balance of caution and courage?”

I’m so tired.  It is so tempting
to move to one extreme or the other and just stop deciding.  It is so
tempting to move to one extreme or the other and only have one group
of people frustrated with me and my decisions.

The temptation is to just…
give up.  To pick an extreme and live with the consequences and at
the very least not have to decide OVER and OVER and OVER again.  

This likely isn’t even relevant
to most of you anymore.  Maybe you remember it, but those who are
vaccinated and immunocompetent, those of you who don’t live with
people who are either unvaccinated or immunocompromised, are possibly
just feeling free now.  Numbers are down, and lots of very reasonable
people are ready to go on with life, for good reason.  And for you,
it may even be that my temptations are a sort of unpleasant reminder
of your past, one that you’d rather forget.

I also know that I’m not alone.
There are plenty of families with kids under 5, or with
immunocompromised people, or even just people who work with kids or
immunocompromised people who still adjust their lives to protect
others – or just people who adjust their lives to protect others.
People make these choices because, in the end, they think it is
right.  

Of course, there are ALSO people
who have decided that the needs of connection, or the life-giving
work they do, or the risk they’ve assessed mean that letting go of
fear and seeking out other people is the right choice for them.  

Hmmm.

I guess what I’m saying is that
I’m tempted by simple answers, by choices I can make once and not go
back to, by CLARITY, but CERTAINTY.  I don’t need to be able to make
the choices for everyone or have them be the same, but my goodness
gracious I’d like some simple answers for ME.  I’d likely settle for
a single simple answer, if I could get one.

If you’ve been listening to me
preach for some time, you may be scratching your head at how I, one
of the people you know who is most comfortable thinking in shades of
gray could get to such a desire for certainty, for black and white
answers.  The answer is unfortunately simple:  the higher anxiety
goes, the more humans search for certainty and wish to back it up at
all costs.  So, what you are hearing is that I’m a human impacted by
anxiety.  Just to put it out there, so are you.  Welcome to the
2020s.

Bruce Malina and Richard
Rohrbaugh in “Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels”
point out that what Jesus is being tested on in the desert is his
loyalty to God.  Does he show faithfulness to God, as kin?  Does he
show faithfulness to God as his leader?  Does he show faithfulness to
God in understanding God’s wishes?  The answers, of course, are yes.

But I rather liked that they
referred to the question about commanding a stone to become bread as
a test of kinship loyalty to God.  They explain it this way:

Note carefully how the devil
frames the first challenge, “If you are the Son of God…”
Precisely that has been the claim and precisely that is what is being
tested.

Note also how carefully Jesus
answers when his lineage is questioned.  He does not
answer in his own words, as if his honor derives from what he is in
himself.  To do that would be to grasp honor above that of his own
Father and turn honor into dishonor.  So he answers as a loyal Middle
Eastern son would always answer – with something from his family
tradition.  He offers the words of his true Father in Deuteronomy and
by such laudable behavior he gains honor as virtue.1

A test of kinship loyalty to
God.  That does resonate.

Probably because all the angles
of what I’m tested by are variations on the theme of “a test of
kinship loyalty.”  What is my loyalty to my immediate family – my
child and others who are vulnerable?  How do I balance that with my
loyalty to my church family – which includes people who are
vulnerable in all sorts of ways including in needs to be together and
in needs to lower COVID risks.  How do I balance THAT with my
“kinship loyalty” to God?

And suddenly, with that framing,
at the very least, I can understand why I feel pulled in so many ways
and exhausted by the pressure of every decision.  Kinship loyalty
itself pulls me in a multitude of directions, and each direction has
its own set of reasons why it is right good, and most of the time
each direction has something pulling in exactly the opposite
direction that ALSO has reasons for being right and good.

But, at least I have a frame to
make sense of it!

And, if I want to simplify
things, I can admit to myself that for me, kinship loyalty to God is
not actually distinct from kinship loyalty to those I already care
for.  (With the possible exception that God would likely include ME
in my calculations, which I notably did not.)

So, the long and short of it is
that I FEEL the testing, I feel the wandering in the desert, I feel
the yearning for clarity, but, at least I know it all comes from
love?

And THAT gets me to the
absolutely fabulous Deuteronomy reading.  It is a favorite of mine.
Deuteronomy is set in the wilderness, but at the edge of it.  The
whole book presents itself as a series of speeches given to prepare
the people before they enter the Promised Land, so that when they get
there, they’ll do it right.

One of the themes of Deuteronomy
is that it is in the adversity and challenge of the desert that the
people learned to depend on God, and it is going to be more
challenging to remember their dependence on God when things are going
well.  As a person who feels like I’m wandering in the desert, I
think I respond along with those who listened the first time, “Yeah,
that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

The reading says that when they
get there, and they grow things, there is going to be an ABUNDANCE,
as that is what God wants for the people.  As they grow that
abundance, as they settle into a sense of food security, they’re to
remember their wanderings and give thanks for their abundance.  And
as that happens, they are to REMEMBER their story, they are to
REMEMBER their scarcity, they are to REMEMBER what it took to get
there.

Isn’t that interesting?  I think
in our culture we tend toward wanting to remember the glory days, not
the days of struggle.  We think about when we were strong and
capable, not when we were … struggling to find our way in the
desert.

But, the idea of this
commandment to tithe is to do so while recounting struggles, and to
give thanks for abundance by noticing what it took to get there.  AND
THEN taking of that abundance to share with those who don’t have it
(the landless priests and Levites and the foreigners without land
allotments.)

This whole thing just moves me.
That idea that we recognize our weak times, the idea that abundance
is God’s will for us (the culmination of the story), the reality that
the first thing to do with abundance is to share it, the creation of
a system whereby an abundance for some makes life possible for
others, and within all this that this is where our tradition of
offering comes from which is just so cool.

The culmination of the story is
abundance.  The people are being taught how to distribute God’s
abundance fairly.  They may be standing on the edge of the Promised
Land, but the goal is to get there and live there and have it be just
for everyone.

(And they did!  For centuries!
And it was equitable!  It is possible!  That matters too.)

So for me, right now, in my
place of being tested in the desert, I’m going to take hope from the
story about abundance, and the reminder that it is God’s long term
plan for me, for us, for all of us.

That doesn’t actually solve
anything in the present, but it is unsolvable.  However, having some
hope helps me get through.  Abundance is God’s plan for all of us.
God teaches us how to be generous with our abundance.  Kinship
loyalty to everyone is how we get there, and I guess… learning how
to balance a multiplicity of needs within the kinship network is.. a
useful skill?

Well, in any case, hear the
words the people were to say as they brought forward their offerings:

“A wandering Aramean was my
ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in
number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When
the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard
labor on us,
we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the
LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our
oppression.
The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with
signs and wonders;
and God brought us into this place and gave us
this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the
first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.”

or perhaps:

“I have emerged from a
confused and lost people.  In the midst of existent struggles with
justice and equity, came a pandemic that threatened everything and
everyone in many ways.  The challenges that might have united people
overcame them and separated them.  We became harsh to each other.  I
did not know what to do.  I was never certain of anything.

I cried to the Lord, as did
everyone else, and God heard our voices,

and offered us rest.

God guided us when we didn’t
know where to go.

God gifted us when we couldn’t
figure out which way to turn.

God was with us, when we were
numb.

God did that, and brought us to
a new world, and helped us form it into something better.

So now, I bring the first fruit
of hope, that you, O God have given me.”

May the day come when we can say
THAT as we bring forward our offerings.  Amen

1 p. 240-41
(Textual Notes: Luke 4:3)

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

March 6, 2022

“Shiny… or Maybe Just Shimmering” based on Exodus 34:29-35…

  • February 27, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

If I got only one word to
summarize today’s stories, I’d go with “shiny.”  Moses gets all
shiny after connecting with the Divine, and the disciples see Jesus
go all shiny on a mountaintop while being blessed by God.

If I got only one word to
describe life right now, it would absolutely, positively NOT be
shiny.  War is not shiny.  It is camouflage, rubble, blood and tears.
Attacking trans kids in Texas isn’t shiny.  In some cases, this is
an ACTUAL desire to prevent some kids from wearing shiny and glittery
things.  Attacking trans kids is a formula that increases suicides,
it is a deadly attack with many years of repercussions.  And, just in
case you missed this memo, pandemics aren’t shiny either.  Used
surgical masks on the sides of sidewalks might be a good image of
this pandemic, and that’s just … shine-less.  Exhaustion and
languishing aren’t shiny.  

Nope, right now isn’t shiny.

And yet, I can remember shiny.
Very little in the world shines like a Pride parade, with glitter and
sequins in the brightest of colors, and outfits that reflect the sun
itself.  I can remember Easter mornings with people dressed up in
bright shiny outfits, singing loud with along with shiny a brass
quintet and wishing to be able to just extend the moment of wonder as
long as possible.  I can remember Sunday morning breakfasts with a
full Fellowship hall when someone got triggered and upset, and others
had the patience and grace to help the person calm down and even feel
safe.  Shiny.

I can remember shiny.

And now isn’t shiny.

Except, every once in a while,
when something breaks through despite it all.  I’m not sure if
anything is shining exactly.  Maybe I could say that some moments
shimmer.  When my kid snuggles in close, while my cat purrs, and my
partner reads, and the sky lights up with sunrise.  There it is.  A
tiny, shimmering moment.  When the banjo is played during the
Contemplative Prayer service and people close their eyes to let
themselves sway along.  Shimmers.  When, during Family Faith
Formation, a kid asks a grown up other than their own to watch them
go down a slide, and trusts they’ll be affirmed.   Shimmers.  When
someone reaches out to the church and asks, “would I, a trans
person, REALLY be welcome?” and I can say “Yes, you REALLY are
welcome, just as you are,” because I know it is true in this church
and that MATTERS.  Shimmers.

I don’t want to pretend
everything is OK.  It isn’t.  Sometimes it feels like NOTHING is OK,
but that isn’t true either.  Life is a complicated both/and.  Things
aren’t OK, and yet God shines through in expected moments anyway.
Things aren’t OK, and love is still here.  Things aren’t OK, and most
of the time most people are doing their best.  Things aren’t OK, and
yet some things ARE OK.  Both/and.  

Which is why I’m landing on,
“this moment in time isn’t shiny, but there are shimmers, and I’m
trying to notice them.”  

But, before we talk about that
anymore, let’s look at our stories again.  They’re interesting, and
they raise a lot of questions.  The gospel story is clearly forming
itself as a new telling of the Exodus story, which suggests we may
learn a lot by noticing the differences.  

It has been suggested that the
10 commandments were groundbreaking in that they understood YHWH to
be one who cared about how people treated people, and not just about
sacrifice or worship directed at a divine being.  Even more so than
monotheism, presenting God as one who cares about a just society and
moral treatment of others, did NOT reflect the religions of that
period of the Ancient Near East.

The story of Moses coming down
the mountain with the 10 commandments in hand reflects how central
this moment was to the people.  This was a story of WHO they were,
why they lived as they did, who they wanted to be, and how they
decided to be that people.  

Stories that matter that much
are often superimposed with extra meaning, to help people pay
attention.  Perhaps, even, they’re superimposed with extra light.

The story says that Moses was
SHINING when he came down the mountain, and it scared people.  In
fact, it seems he stayed shiny for quite a while, and in order to
keep the people more comfortable, he wore a veil to cover the shiny.
(This is terribly interesting in that veils are much more commonly
associated with women in that part of the world.)

The shiny is definitely meant to
communicate that some of God’s holiness has rubbed off on Moses,
which clarifies that he was a sacred messenger, and the 10
commandments were God’s own idea.  The shiny imbues the commandments
with sacred authority.  The shiny tells the people that their God
REALLY cares about their treatment of each other, and creating a
society of justice and equity.

This story is then a part of
what Luke uses to establish Jesus’s authority, his connection with
the Divine, to clarify that his message is also blessed with sacred
authority.  Jesus, also up on a mountain, also connecting to God,
also gets shiny.  Jesus is seen “with” Moses and Elijah,
sometimes called “the law and the prophet,” the one who shared
God’s vision (the law) and the one who called people to account for
it (the great prophet).  In the midst of the shiny and the law and
the prophet comes an EXPLICIT communication from God “This is my
Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

OK, so clearly this is also
about the authority of God’s chosen to communicate God’s vision.  It
also seems to pass some of the authority onto the disciples who are
the ones who have to tell others about this authority Jesus now has,
which fits the whole Gospel narrative pretty well.  I mean, the
Gospels are presented as being by people who were with Jesus telling
others why his life mattered and how it was infused with the presence
of God.  So establishing that the disciples were the ones who knew
how important Jesus was ends up establishing both his authority and
their authority to tell the story.

Sigh.  I know.  You give me
beautiful, metaphorical, literally shiny texts and I can take most of
the fun out of it in no time flat.  

So, let’s see if I can put some
of the fun back in!  We could wonder why people found the best way to
communicate the presence of God was in shininess.  It is sort of a
delightful question.  I think it may happen because there is a little
bit of truth in it.  Every once in a while, it seems to me that
scales are lifted from my eyes and I can see a glimpse of the world
and its people as God sees them, and let me tell you, they really do
shine with divine love.  Perhaps the ubiquitous halos in Christian
art are actually a reflection of how holy and sacred everyone and
everything  is to God.  Perhaps the whole world, the whole universe,
are supersaturated with love that pours out of their atoms, but most
of the time we don’t see it, but in moments of Divine grace, we can?

That may actually bring us full
circle, right back to “this moment isn’t shiny, but it might still
shimmer.”  While I believe that God is with us, love is with us,
grace and mercy are with us, compassion is with us ALL THE TIME, I
also know from personal experience that we are not always able to
feel it.  Stress can make it harder to connect with God.  Constant
demands make it harder.  Emotional turmoil makes it harder.
Lonesomeness makes it harder (hence the yearning to be able to safely
gather together for worship.)  Trauma makes it harder.  Fear makes it
harder.  Honestly, sometimes the weather makes it harder.


God is with us all the time,
but when things are particularly hard, we aren’t necessarily well
tuned into God’s presence.  I do encourage the practice of
intentional silence to make space to notice God’s presence – even a
minute can help – but that isn’t a fix-all either.  

This week my encouragement is to
see if you can notice some moments that shimmer.  Maybe only one a
day.  Maybe it only shimmers 1% more than the rest of the day.  But,
in times that feels so profoundly unshiny, I think it helps to notice
whatever we can of God breaking through.  Because, God IS with us,
and God is helping, and when we notice, we make it easier to notice
the next time.  And, I think the moments that shimmer and shine are
ones we’re supposed to listen to.  Like Moses, or Jesus, they shine
to help us pay attention, to say “God is here,” to remind us of
the holiness and sacredness of even the mundane parts of life.  Those
moments are part of how we get through these days.  

OR, to say this another way
entirely, a poem by Mary Oliver

Don’t Hesitate

BY Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly
feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of
lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise,
and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still,
life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of
fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all
the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but
very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway,
that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be
afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

In the midst of hard things and
hard times, counter the hard by paying attention to where God is
still shining through, however bright, for however long.  That’s how
we build the kindom, even now.  We pay attention, and we appreciate,
we don’t hesitate.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

February 27, 2022

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

“Like a Tree” based on  Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Luke…

  • February 20, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

In this time of disruption
and destabilization, I am fed by even the metaphor of constancy and
stability.

“They shall be like a
tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.”  
(Jeremiah 17:8a)

image

I want to spend a moment
with those trees, and think about what it might be like to be like
one of those trees.  To have constant, easy access to water.  To be
able to grow strong.  To know the world as dependable place.  To be
able to BE dependable because of having constant access to needs
being met.  

Jeremiah speaks to people
who know and live in a desert.  Sun is abundant.  Air is abundant.
Water is not.  To be a tree planted by streams of water in a desert
is to be: safe.

To have deep roots.  To be
able with withstand whatever comes.

The tree, “shall not
fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of
drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”  
(Jeremiah 17:8b)

Oh my!  “It is not
anxious!”  What a delight to think about!

Jeremiah presents these
trees as being like those who trust in and depend on God, in contrast
to those who put their trust in their own powers or in the ways of
the world.  Jeremiah urges us to seek God, to trust God, to be lifted
up and fed by the Holy, and to seek the WAYS of God rather than the
WAYS of the world.  (To make that difference overly simple, the ways
of the world are competitive, hierarchical, violent, and value some
lives and not others.  The ways of God are cooperative, un-ranked,
nonviolent, and values all.)

Now, I’m going to say
something pastors don’t say much:  this metaphor shouldn’t be
extended TOO far.  If God is like water that keeps a tree alive and
enables it go strong and bear fruit, great.  But, water is not the
need of a tree.  And, with a few possible exceptions, God is not the
ONLY need of humans.

I mention this because
even before the pandemic we were living in a society with a crisis of
loneliness, and the pandemic has deepened the crisis.  A tree needs
water.  Yes.  We need God.  YES!  AND, a tree needs air and sunlight.
And we need each other, and we need REST.  Jeremiah warns people not
to depend on our own strength or on “mere mortals” but I’m going
to remind you that as a human being you need God, and people, and
rest.

If you are lonely, that
doesn’t mean you are unfaithful.

If you are tired, that
doesn’t mean you are unfaithful.

In fact, those warnings
Jeremiah offered about what NOT to trust  may apply here.  We cannot
depend on our own strength in a system that demands more of us than a
human can give without getting tired.  Tired comes because human
systems are set up WRONG.  Likewise with lonely.  Our society is set
up to keep us distanced and displeased so we’ll BUY more things, and
the forces that keep us distanced are POWERFUL.  Being lonely

is a part of living in our
world today, which is set up wrong.  

Part of what we dream
together as a Body of Christ seeking to build the kindom of God  is
what a world would look like where people are able to SURVIVE and
THRIVE.  We are seeking to use our lives to build a world where
people have dependable access to God, to live-giving relationships,
and to sustainable patterns of rest.

We dream of a time when
people are like trees planted by streams of water, with plenty of
fresh air, and sunlight, so that they can grow up strong and bold,
courageous and loving, whole and able to provide healing for others.

(As was recently mentioned
after I went off on another ramble about trees, you see very clearly
how passionate I am about trees when I am given the chance to talk
about them.)

Now, perhaps you thought
that if I was given one of the most famous texts in all of
Christianity to preach on, I might focus on that, and you aren’t
WRONG.  I’m getting there.  Except, that interestingly enough, Luke’s
version of this particular story is NOT the famous one.  Matthew’s
is, because Matthew’s is a lot easier to stomach.  Matthew gives only
blessings.  Luke includes woes.  Matthew talks about the “poor in
spirit” and “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
Luke talks about the “poor” and the “hungry.”

Right from the get-go,
Luke’s story isn’t Matthew’s.  Matthew tells of the “Sermon on the
Mount”  – a pragmatic choice as a mountain would help with
acoustics.  Luke tells of the “Sermon on the Plain,” making
emphatically clear that Luke is telling a story of God’s interest in
LEVELING.

Debie Thomas, an
incredible theologian, on the incredible blog “Journey with Jesus”
summarizes well:

Then,
standing “on a level place” with the crowd, he tells his would-be
followers what life in God’s upside-down kingdom looks like. 
Those who are destitute, unfed, grieving, and marginalized can “leap
for joy,” because they have God’s ear and God’s blessing. 
But those who are wealthy, full-bellied, carefree, and well-liked
should watch out, because their condition is precarious, not
enviable.  The material “blessings” they cherish most, the
very possessions and attributes they consider signs of God’s favor,
are in fact liabilities that might do them spiritual harm.1

Ms. Thomas reflects deeply
about the material blessings she has, and how they may in fact get in
the way of her awareness of her dependence on God.  She points out
though, that this text isn’t about celebrating misery or hardship,
because immediately before this teaching, Jesus heals and eliminates
suffering.  We aren’t told to seek hardship.  Rather, we’re invited
to see the world as it is.  

Ms. Thomas reflects:

Notice also that Jesus
doesn’t offer four blessings to one audience, and four woes to
another.  His sermon is not a sorting exercise between the good
folks and the bad folks; he addresses every
blessing and every
woe to every
person.  As if to say: this is the human pattern.  This is
where all of us live.  We move from blessing to woe over and
over again in the course of our lives. We
invite blessing every time we find ourselves empty and yearning for
God, and we invite woe every time we retreat into smug and
thoughtless self-satisfaction.  …I think what Jesus is saying in
this Gospel is that I have something to learn about discipleship that
my life circumstances will not teach me.

She
uses this as an invitation to humility for learning from those who
have learned discipleship from a different place.  

I’ll
admit, that when I think about those metaphorical trees planted by
streams of water, with their healthy fruit, their strong trunks, and
their sense of dependability in the world,  – a place I’d like
everyone to get to,I currently worry a little bit that they may look
at the trees whose access to water is less dependable and think them
unproductive.  Or, the trees planted near air polluting factories,
and think them weak.   Or, the “full light” trees planted in the
shade, and think them  not trying hard enough.

(Our
yard doesn’t ever have “full sun” and we keep trying to plant
veggies anyway, and they always seem less productive and less healthy
than, say, those planted where they get what they actually need.  And
the perfect amount of water doesn’t actually overcome the lack of
sun.)

Worse,
yet, I fear that the trees planted far from the streams of water may
judge THEMSELVES in the ways that the trees near the stream do,
without taking into account the differences in access.

I
think, as well, about tree line.  About the point on the mountain
when it is too high, too cold, too oxygen deprived, too windy for
trees to keep growing.  And I think about the trees JUST BELOW “tree
line” that look short, sickly, and quite often bent by the wind.  

Jeremiah
is encouraging us to be dependent on God and focused on God’s will.
I agree, AND I think what Debie Thomas is saying is that the trees
just before tree line, and the shrubs in the desert, as well as the
ones influenced by pollution have a whole lot to teach the trees by
streams of water about scrappy survival, resilience, trust, and
faith.

So,
dear ones, where ever you feel planted, may you thrive as much as it
is possible.  AND may you take note of where you are planted, and
where others are planted, and make sure to learn from those whose
location is different from yours.  After all, God is with us
everywhere, and each of us are therefore able to glean the wisdom of
the Divine from exactly where we are.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

1Debie
Thomas, Journey with Jesus (webzine), Lectionary Essay for 2/13/2022
entitled “Leveled”
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3319-leveled.

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

February 20, 2022

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