“Why do we (the church) exist?” based on Deuteronomy…

January 31, 2021
by Sara Baron

a
Sermon

by
Rev. Sara E. Baron

First
United Methodist Church of Schenectady

January
31, 2021

For much of the past year, I’ve
been in crisis mode. Crisis mode requires full attention to be on
the present, as the demands of the present are too large to allow
time to reflect on the past or plan for the future. Of course,the
physical realities of distance also make planning for the future
difficult.

While
the pandemic is still raging, and there are a sufficient number of
other crises that need attention, my capacity to stay in crisis mode
is declining. It is, after all, a really demanding state and cannot
be held onto indefinitely.

I
don’t mean I’m taking unnecessary risks with COVID safety – I still
believe that the Wesleyan rule “First, do no harm” is our
guidance in this era, and everything I do to keep myself safe also
creates more safety for our communities.

What
I do mean is that I’m ready to accept some of the gifts of this era:
of a pause on reality as we knew it, and a major transition point
from what was to what will be. In particular, I think it is a good
time for the church to consider its most basic nature.

Why
do we exist?

Should
we continue to do so?

I
hope you’ll grant me a little bit of patience now that you know where
I’m headed, because the scriptures today are incredibly useful to
answering those questions, but to hear them well requires putting
them in context.

The
gospel lesson centers on the question of authority, specifically why
Jesus acted like he had any! Wise scholars point out “Authority is
the ability, actual or assumed, to control the behavior of others.”¹
Jesus, by birth, wasn’t supposed to have authority, yet he presents
himself as having it, and using it.

Until
this point in the Gospel, Jesus has been out in the wilderness, and
on the lakeshore. His entrance into the synagogue on the Sabbath was
an entrance into the space where the Scribes had authority, and his
words and actions SHAKE THINGS UP. This is the start of Jesus
messing with the status quo, and challenging what is assumed to be
true.²

I believe that is much of the
role of Christianity today, but I’ll get back to that.

This question of authority is
also central to the Hebrew Bible reading today. It comes in the
midst of a passage about the appropriate ways the roles of king,
judge, and priest should be fulfilled. Our passage is about the way
the role of prophet should be fulfilled. It is interesting because
the author of Deuteronomy is pretty clearly uncomfortable with the
role of prophet, and yet doesn’t think he can get away with
pretending prophets away. It is likely that Deuteronomy reflects the
perspective of the priestly voice, and the priests and the prophets
had an uneasy relationship.

The priests, like the kings,
inherited their power and role, which functioned to distance them
from everyone else. They got their authority at birth. Prophets, on
the other hand, emerged out of no where and were seen to have the
authority of speaking for God (at least by their followers.) They
often served to call others in authority to account, particularly for
the care of the vulnerable, and to warn that an unjust society would
not be sustainable.

The passage wants to limit
prophets. They have to be insiders, which is HILARIOUS, because I
just dare anyone to attempt to impose such a limit on the Divine.
They’re threatened a bit too, in hopes of reigning them in.

I think the role of the prophet
is interesting for THIS church, because historically the role of this
church in the Church-At-Large and in Society has been the role of
prophet. This is a church where justice-seekers gather, trying to
build the kindom of God, and willing to name things AS THEY ARE in
order to do so. Or, to be a little less diplomatic about it, we’re
really good at being a thorn in the side when one is needed. We
don’t go away, we don’t stop agitating, we aren’t willing to throw
anyone under the bus, and we are OK with people being annoyed with
us. We believe that calling for justice is the work of God, and
we’re going to do it.

In
contrast, the role of priest is largely one of ritual, and is a role
that is dependent on the good-graces of others. A priest is limited
in function because a priest has no means of survival other than the
good will of the people or more often of those in power.

To
be simplistic about it, the priestly role is about creating the
religious myths that uphold the status quo. The prophetic role is
about calling out the injustices of the status quo and motivating
change to a better system.

I
see those two roles intertwined in the Bible, struggling against each
other, and I see them in religious history as well. So it is no
shock that some of each is in every religious community, but more so
than most, this church is defined by its role as prophet.

It
may make sense then, that I also see Jesus as functioning in the
prophetic role. I am, after all, the pastor of a prophetic church.
In this Gospel lesson, Jesus is using his authority. So, he is using
“the ability, actual or assumed, to control the behavior of
others.”³
This seems to lead to the question: what was Jesus changing the
behaviors from and what was Jesus changing the behaviors to? Scholar
Ched Myers says, “Mark’s Gospel was originally written to help
imperial subjects learn the hard truth about their words and
themselves. …. His is a story by, about, and for those committed
to God’s work of justice, compassion, and liberation for the world.”⁴

That
is, Jesus was about opening the eyes of the people to see how they
were being oppressed, and to work together to break the chains of
oppression, so that they could build a society and a world without
oppression.

We
are quite clearly not Jesus’s audience, nor Mark’s. While our
community has a wide range of socio-economic statuses, we are a part
of The United States which is far more similar to Rome in the time of
Jesus than it is to Nazareth. So what does the authority of Jesus
call us to today?

I
believe Jesus calls us out of systems of oppression, and their myths.
Those myths include: some people matter more than others, some
people deserve more than others, there isn’t enough to go around –
so every person or group should fight for their own good, life is
about getting “ahead,” the status quo is mostly good, “be nice”
and don’t upset people, some people are just going to have to be left
behind and nothing can be done about it. There are a lot of myths
under this that support it, ones that maintain sexism, racism,
heteronormativity, the exclusion of people with disabilities, and
other forms of HIERARCHY of humans.

These
myths can be hard to let go of. They’re pervasive, they’re
insidious, and they’re even found in most faith communities, because
faith communities are comprised of people who also exist in society.

Jesus
calls us to justice, compassion, and liberation for the world. Jesus
calls us to kindom building, to being the beloved community, to
sanctification. (Sanctification is the process of letting go of
everything that isn’t love so that love can motivate all of our words
and actions.) God’s love extends to each and every living person,
and each and every living being. The change God seeks is from the
status quo to a world of equity, equality, compassion, and love.
THIS is the role of Christianity in the world.

The
work of the church is to value what God values, to model a community
that lives by those values, to support each other in the
transformation towards sanctification, and to believe that the work
of the kindom is the work of our lives. This is why we do things
together – so we can learn from each other, so we can love on each
other, so we can learn compassion from the inside and then share it
in the world. As we let go of the myths of systems of oppression,
we’re freed to see more and more clearly what justice looks like and
to live it more deeply.

THIS
is why we are people who take on the prophetic role. We have been
blessed to be able to see what oppression looks like AND to see what
life can be with God’s equality and equity at the center.

Why
do we exist? To live the values of the kindom, to show them to each
other and the world, to be hope for what can come. Should we
continue to do so? Yes, I rather think we should.

May
God help us along our way! Amen

1
Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social Science
Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Mark
1:231-34” p. 150.

2 Ched
Myers, Binding the Strong Man
(Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1988, 2008), 141-143.

3
Malina and Rohrbaugh p. 150.

4 Myers,
11.

“What Did They See?” based on Psalm 62:5-12 and…

January 24, 2021
by Sara Baron

I
was lucky enough to be raised in the church, and a thoughtful loving
church at that. I liked church, I liked Sunday School, I loved
church camp. Nevertheless, feeling a call to ordained ministry felt
like it came out of no where. The call came during a worship service
at camp, when the leadership of Jesus was being described. The camp
director compared the characteristics of a worldly leader with the
way that Jesus led, and invited us into the second kind of
leadership. She talked about worldly being “important,” and
having people serve and take care of them so they can do “important”
things. She compared it to the leadership of Jesus, as seen in
foot-washing, where leaders lead by serving others.

I
immediately, viscerally, wanted to be a part of that. The inversion
of what was important. The service. The care of people. The values
of the Jesus movement. My desire to be a part of THAT was strong
enough to change my life plans – from a desire to be an
environmental scientist to a desire to be a minister.

Whenever
I read the story of the call of the disciples, I can’t help but
wonder, “What did they see?” What was it about Jesus that was so
compelling that they changed not only their life PLANS like I did,
but their LIVES? Why did they go?

I
bring a lot of skepticism to Biblical texts, but I do tend to think
that a lot of people left their lives behind to follow Jesus. Thus,
this story contains some big T Truth, whether or not it happened
exactly this way.

So,
what was it that made Jesus and his message so attractive? Why did
people walk away from lives they knew just to follow him? Why was he
so popular it began to threaten the Roman Empire?

There
are a few pieces that may come into play. One option is that
people’s lives were really awful, so any alternative was better than
the status quo. This may have come into play, but most people are
still hesitant to leave what they know, so it isn’t SUFFICIENT.

Rev. Rob Bell has a
video series called NOOMA, and in one of them he points out that in
the time of Jesus, all Jewish boys got some basic education, and the
brightest and the best got to have more. There was continued
education and continued weeding until the point when Teachers
(Rabbis) would pick a few students to teach, and the rest settled
into other lives. Thus, the very best Jewish scholars got to spend
their lives working on questions of faith, Biblical interpretation,
and things of God. The rest …. didn’t. Rob Bell suggests that
when Jesus called the fisherman, and invited them to follow him – a
teacher – a rabbi, he was inverting that system and inviting those
who’d been weeded out first into the best sort of education.

That is, perhaps the
disciples followed because Jesus called – and no one else had.
They were welcomed to be students of Jesus, but no one else had
wanted them.

I haven’t heard this
theory elsewhere, so I’m not sure if it is true, but it also seems to
contain some big T True.

Even so, even if
life was hard and even if Jesus was the first one to invite them into
a life of Spiritual goodness, there had to be something about Jesus
himself that was simply attractive enough to follow. Based on how
stories are told of him, it seems most likely that what was amazing
and attractive in Jesus was his connection to God.

Now, it is important
to remember that connections to the Divine are not a Jesus-only
thing, nor a Jesus-movement-only thing. Today’s Psalm, which comes
from Christianity’s Jewish roots, speaks profoundly about connection
to the Divine.

The Psalmist says,
“For God alone my soul waits in silence, my hope is from God” –
and then goes on to name all the ways that God is the source of
dependable goodness that allows for life to be lived well. The
Psalmist compares the inconsistencies of life with the constancy of
God, the un-importance of wealth and measures of power with the
importance of steadfast love.

That sort of
mystical connection to God, that trust, that wisdom – seems much
like what the disciples may have seen in Jesus. Embodied love and
grace are profoundly attractive. (If Im totally honest, I prefer the
sort of “evangelism” that is being such a happy, kind, and loving
person that people want to know how you became like that.)

I wonder if the
choice of the disciples to follow Jesus had some of each of the
components we’ve talked about – and one more. I wonder if those
who followed Jesus had always been looking for something, that is
that they’d always been nudged by God towards more, and when Jesus
came they had “ah ha moments” and recognized that this was what
they’d been waiting and looking for.

That way of God
working in lives fits what I’ve lived and what I’ve seen in people’s
lives. I wonder if it fits in yours? Have you felt God nudging you
along the way? Has God pushed and prodded you towards something?
Have you found it? Are you still looking?

I think that God is
always calling us, prodding us, nudging us — that is, guiding us.
Calls aren’t one time events that can be answered and then
disregarded. Rather, calls are continual guidance on the next steps
of our lives. Sometimes God’s calls are rather small, urges to be
“good” or “kind.” Sometimes they’re huge – reminders to
build the kindom – to take on the issues of injustice and change
the world.

But I think there
are also particular asks for particular people (at particular times).
Jobs or volunteer positions to take (or not). Relationships to
build or let go of.

In what way are you
being called right now?

Is it just to offer
care in and love in the world – a call that might be met with one
of the Lenten projects coming up? Is it something bigger? Or
something different?

Are you listening?

Will you be ready to
respond?

I suspect many
factors were involved in the way the disciples choose to follow
Jesus. They were disenchanted with their lives, they were yearning
for something more, someone finally invited them, they could SEE
God’s hand in the life of Jesus, and God had long been at work
preparing them for that moment. I suspect many of those factors are
alive and well among us as well. May we be ready to answer, when God
calls. Amen

January 24, 2021

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

Untitled

January 17, 2021March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

A poem by Miles Martin in “Threads of Gossamer: Reflections in Lyric Verse” 1983

“Nonviolence” based on 1 Samuel 3:1-10 and John 1:43-51

January 17, 2021
by Sara Baron

I’m
intrigued by the words in 1 Samuel, “The word of the LORD was rare
in those days; visions were not widespread.” The story says, in
those days, it took a while before the one being called by God
realized it.

Since
the beginning of October we have offered a “Contemplative Prayer
Service” on Sunday mornings at 10AM. Since the middle of November
it has been online. I’ve gotta admit, it has exceeded my
expectations. They were pretty low 😉 It turns out that getting on
zoom, muting your mic, and praying while other people are sitting on
zoom (mostly with their mics off) praying actually IS more connected
than praying alone.

It
is easier to be still then.

This
week I’ve found that I can’t get through the day without some silence
in prayer. I just get too agitated. And the angst builds and
builds, until I take time away from inputs to simply be with the
Divine.

These
defined times of prayer – with others in the Contemplative Prayer
Service as well as the ones I’ve taken out of deep and abiding need –
have reminded me of some things I’m embarrassed I’d forgotten.
Perhaps I hadn’t forgotten, but at the very least they came as well
needed reminders when other things had started to take precedence in
my being.

Ready?

First,
God is still THERE, or HERE, or however you say it. I’d like to
claim I NEVER forget that, but each time I settle into prayer and I
sense the peace that passes understanding and the grace that abides
I’m … surprised again. Maybe this is just because God’s goodness
is better than I’m ever able to remember, but each and every time I
encounter it I’m relieved to find it there.

Second,
stillness is …. possible. It often feels impossible right until it
happens. I get drawn into the news, into the COVID statistics, into
my own to-do lists, and then I get distracted by baby cries or
squeals, – or emails or texts – and the whole of life seems to be
carefully created to keep me from finding stillness (and letting me
have excuses about it) but then when I do it, it is still there
waiting for me and it is GLORIOUS.

Third,
there is a vibrant, thriving, almost tangible connection between all
living things and the Living God. When the noise of the world isn’t
in the way, the spiritual wonder is breath-taking.

Perhaps
these reflections are able to serve as a reminder to you of things
you also know. Or perhaps they serve as a reminder of a need to find
time for contemplative practice.

For
me, they serve as a source of transformation. My emotional responses
to the world right now are….sharp. I’m horrified. I’m terrified.
I’m disgusted. And yet, closer to home, I’m also delighted, and
exhausted, and grateful, and worried, and relieved. It is just a
whole lot to hold.

I
have been thinking about the retreat we did in 2017 with Bishop Susan
Hassinger, looking at spiritual practices that uphold social justice
work. This might also be called the grounding for building the
kindom, or following the way of Jesus without burning out.

The
needs of social justice work, of kindom building, are so BIG that I’m
overwhelmed by them unless I get grounded in the unfailing love of
the Divine. Worse, in this moment, I’ve finding it easier to get
pulled into the polarization of our society – which dehumanizes
“the other side” than ever. This is a BIG problem, particularly
for one who seeks to be a Jesus follower.

Are
you ready for today’s challenge? One of the great interpreter’s of
the life and teachings of Jesus in our tradition, the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote,

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

I
feel quite confident that the most bitter opponents of the work of
Rev. Dr. King, and the kindom, have been hard at work in our society,
and their work has exploded into violence, death, fear-mongering, and
the disruption of our democracy. Rev. Dr. King worked against the
forces of white supremacy, by working for the full humanity of all
people.

And
that man, that wise prophetic man, that man whose life itself was
taken by the violence of the world, is the one who said, “Do it us
what you will, and we shall continue to love you.”

He
refused to face violence with violence, he believed that the Jesus
movement was founded in NONVIOLENCE. He refused to meet hate with
anything but love. Now, of course, LOVE did not mean “compliance.”
Love meant naming evil, love meant good analysis of power dynamics,
love meant strategic planning of protests, love meant taking care of
the people’s spiritual well being so they could keep on working for
God’s greater good. Love does not require us to back down. Love
does not require us to become passive. Love does not require us to
become silent.

But,
love does require us to seek the well-being of ALL OF GOD’S BELOVEDS,
and dear ones, this week, that includes people who are part of white
supremacist groups, and people who are part of QAnon cults, and even
the people who use those people to gain and keep power. Love
requires us to want what is good for all of them, although – thank
goodness – that doesn’t include that they get to keep power or
continue using violence. Perpetuating violence hurts both the one
who is violated and the one who violates. No goodness or love comes
out of it.

But
following the way of Jesus, nonviolent, loving resistance, that
builds the kindom. You may remember the admonition in Matthew to
turn the other cheek, “But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.
But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;
and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as
well.“ (Matthew 3:39-40, NRSV) Walter Wink’s teaching informed me
that these teachings are the ultimate in nonviolent loving
resistance. In those days there were two forms of striking a person
– one used for equals and one used for inferiors. A backhand vs. a
slap. The left hand was NEVER used because… well… toilet paper
hadn’t been invented yet. To turn the other cheek is to respond to
the diminishing insult of a backhand with an invitation to hit again
– but this time as an equal. Similarly, the Hebrew Bible forbids
anyone from leaving a person naked in the process of seeking loan
repayment. So, if a person seeks restitution of a loan by demanding
your OUTER garment, and you offer your INNER garment as well, you put
them in the situation of having to refuse to take both or stand in
violation of religious law.

I
sort of wish today’s gospel lesson has the question “Can anything
good come out of Nazareth?” asked to Jesus himself, but I think
John does well with it anyway. The answer of the whole book is “YES”
and the person asking the ignorant question is immediately aware of
his error. Loving nonviolence here includes seeing the world, and
its locations, a new.

I
am a little bit concerned that because I have focused on spiritual
grounding for kindom building, and nonviolent resistance
as the form of kindom building, that someone might not have
heard me speak imperative truths. So, please give me a moment to be
abundantly clear:

People
who perpetuate violence in the name of Christianity are not following
Jesus.

Christianity
itself has been profoundly co-opted by white supremacy in this nation
(and many others), and it is our obligation to CONTINUALLY root it
out, transform it, and be self-aware of how it is playing out in our
lives and communities.

The
violence we have seen in terms of mobs attacking governmental
institutions in this country are the angry expression of
mostly-white, mostly-men who believe they have a fundamental right to
be more important than others. Like any other abuser, they are most
violent when they fear they are losing control. THEY ARE LOSING
CONTROL, and they are truly terrifying as such.

The
progress we have seen in humanizing people from the fullness of
humanity is NOT GUARANTEED – these angry abusive mobs have friends
in very high places, and a lot of backing.

God
is always, always, always on the side of full and abundant life for
ALL PEOPLE.

So
that’s the side we are on. We don’t want power consolidated with
mostly white mostly men because no one group is able to adequately
seek the good of all groups. It is only through shared knowledge,
resources, and power that we can seek the common good.

And
THAT is why I want us to be grounded in contemplative prayer, good
analysis, and God’s grace. Because I believe those are means of
countering the insidious voices of white supremacy and it’s close
cousin the patriarchy. To move towards the kindom requires seeking
clearly what is happening, and letting God’s love transform us, and
the world through us.

So,
dear ones, please find the time to connect with grace.

Please
allow grace and love to fill you up.

Please
let Rev. Dr. King’s reminder of the way of Christ continue to
challenge you.
Please recommit to
Jesus’s way of nonviolence.

And
may God grant us wisdom for the facing of this hour. Amen

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

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

January 17, 2021

“Consolation” based on Isaiah 61:10-62:3 and Luke 2:22-40

December 27, 2020
by Sara Baron

A
month ago, the words to the hymn “Come Ye Disconsolate” jumped
off the page at me. It isn’t a hymn well known to me, until that
point I’d picked it once in 14 years, but it fit the moment too well
to ignore:

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er
ye languish;
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here
bring your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish.
Earth has no
sorrow that heaven cannot heal.¹

Disconsolate
means “without consolation or comfort.”²
I checked to be sure I had that right.

Perhaps,
then, it is not surprising what I heard and noticed in today’s Gospel
lesson that had never pulled my attention before. Parker read verse
25, “ Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this
man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of
Israel,…” and I thought “consolation!? I never noticed that
before” Followed by, “what does that really mean?” I figured
it meant …. something to do with the Messiah.

The
New Interpreter’s Bible says, “The ‘consolation of Israel’ was a
term for the restoration of the people and the fulfillment of God’s
redemptive work. … The term comes from references in Isaiah:

Comfort, O comfort my people
says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:1-2 NRVS
cf. 49:13)

For the Lord will comfort
Zion (Isaiah 51:3 NRSV)

Break forth together into
singing, you ruins of Jerusalem;

for the LORD has comforted
his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem (Isaiah 52:9 NRSV, cf
66:10-13)”³

Right.
So this was about the Messiah, who for the Jewish people was the one
would bring the fulfillment of God’s promises of restoration.

How
interesting it is that it is called the “consolation” and focuses
on comfort! Simeon is a man introduced as waiting for God to act to
bring comfort, and trusting that God would. Then, when he sees the
baby Jesus, he sees this as the fulfillment of the promise that he
would see God’s Messiah. The story also says that a holy prophet,
Anna, saw and understood who Jesus was.

Jesus
as comforter, Jesus as consolation. That is both a familiar and
unfamiliar idea to me. I grew up with it, but that version was
very… milquetoast. Jesus was presented as available to me to make
me feel better when I was sad, to listen to me, to be my friend.
And, I think all of that is true. But as I’ve grown, I’ve become
equally interested in the idea that God wants good things for
EVERYONE, and in order to make that possible, I need to participate
in building a just society. God doesn’t just LISTEN, God wants to
help, and we are God’s hands and feet in the world.

The
expectations for the Messiah at the time of Jesus were for a king /
prophet / general who would restore the nation of Israel to political
and military prominence. As you may have noticed, Jesus didn’t do
that, but as Christians we tend to claim that what he did do was
better!

I’ve
been told many times that my job is to comfort the afflicted and
afflict the comforted, which interestingly was originally said about
the role of journalists. This year, I think we’re all the
afflicted, so my attention has been largely on comfort.

This
week I read a wonderful article entitled, “Jesus wasn’t born in a
stable and that makes all the difference.”⁴
I bet you can deduce the point from the title 😉 The author makes a
substantive argument that the word “inn” is mistranslated in Luke
2:7(b) “She wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in the
manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” A better
word would be “spare room.” As in “she was out in the main
family room with the family and the livestock because the spare room
was already overflowing.” Jewish peasants at the time kept animals
with them in their homes. And throughout the Middle East it would be
UNTHINKABLE not to stay with family if you have family.

The
author’s primary point is that when we think of Jesus being born out
in a stable, his family rejected by everyone, alone and distanced
from everyone. That is, we tend to think of Jesus being born
APART. Luke’s actual story puts Jesus in the middle of a small
house filled with a lot of family, so stuffed that the only
reasonable place left to put the baby down was in the
dug-into-the-ground animal feeding troughs. (A place he wouldn’t
roll away.)

The
“spare room” translation makes it clear that Jesus was part of
the Jewish peasantry. So does the detail in today’s reading about
giving a sacrifice, and the fact that what was given was the poor
person’s gift, for those who couldn’t afford the more expensive “a
whole lamb” option.

Remembering
that Jesus was born into a devout, poor, Jewish family helps me
understand his role as comforter. There is an understanding of pain
and a yearning for justice that fits having grown up both poor and
devout.

I
do think that old quote is true, of journalists, of preachers, and
even of Jesus himself. Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the
comfortable. And, dear ones, most of us are both. And, more than at
most points in our lives, we’re the afflicted. So, may you make
space in your being to accept the comfort and love of God. “Earth
has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” NOT EVEN 2020.

And
that’s some good Christmas news.

Amen

1United
Methodist Hymnal #510

2Summarized
from Apple Dictionary

3
R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke,” in The New Interpreter’s
Bible Vol. 9 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994): 70.

4 https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-wasnt-born-in-a-stable-and-that-makes-all-the-difference/

“Magnificent Magnificat” based on Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 and Luke…

December 13, 2020
by Sara Baron

Years
ago, I read the book, “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” by David
Graeber which probably sounds incredibly boring and yet was one of
the most mind-boggling books I’ve ever read. It took me a year to
read it because the ideas contained in it required me to readjust my
thinking on many things I thought I knew (including money, the
military, violence, poverty, government, theology, and religion)¹.
In the final chapter, when I thought my assumptions were safe,
Graeber quotes Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech;

In
a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration
of Independence,
they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as
well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights”
of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is
obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note,
insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring
this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad
check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”²

Graeber
builds on this, speaking particularly of the West after WW II:

To
put it crudely: the white working class of the North Atlantic
countries, from the United States to West Germany, were offered a
deal. If they agreed to set aside any fantasies of fundamentally
changing the nature of the system, then they would be allowed to keep
their unions, enjoy a wide variety of social benefits (pensions,
vacations, health care…), expanding public education institutions,
knowing that their children had a reasonable chance of leaving the
working class entirely. One key element in all this was a tacit
guarantee that increases in workers’ production would be met by
increases in wages: a guarantee that held good until the late 1970s.³

I’d
marked that whole section with an exclamation point, as it had never
occurred to me. Then I turned the page. Graeber continues, speaking
of this deal, “… it was offered only to a relatively small slice
of the world’s population. As time went on, more and more people
wanted in on the deal.” That is, minority groups, nations not in
the North Atlantic, women, etc. He says, “At some point in the
‘70s things reached a breaking point. It would appear that
capitalism, as a system, simply cannot extend such a deal to
everyone. … The result might be termed a crisis of inclusion.”⁴

This
particular point has stayed with me so strongly that I knew which
side of the page the to scan in the final chapter to find it! And, I
thought of it again this week, when I read an opinion article in the
New York Times entitled, “The Resentment Never Sleeps” by Thomas
B. Edsall, which
wasn’t at all about what I expected. It was about social status, who
has it, who seeks it, who is losing it, and how that impacts
politics.⁵
This struck me as particularly meaningful for two reasons, in
addition to how well it fits with MLK and Graeber’s explanation of a
“deal.” First, because one of the most useful commentaries on
the Gospels I have (Social Science Commentary on the Synpotic
Gospels) is always talking about how the world order in Jesus’ day
was defined by the gain and loss of honor and shame, which were a
zero-sum game. Secondly, because the Bible, the Jesus movement, and
the Magnificat itself are ABOUT upending assumptions about social
status.

I
request your patience as I outline the primary points of the article,
because I think it will help us understand the meaning of Magnificat
for us today. Edsall starts by saying, “More and more, politics
determine which groups are favored and which are denigrated,” then
suggests that the major political parties are working at odds with
each other, one to enhance the status of historically marginalized
groups, the other to enhance the status of the white, Christian
working and middle class. (I’ll go ahead and leave it to the reader
to determine which is which.)

Edsall
then quotes two government professors who said, “social status is
one of the most important motivators of human behavior.”⁶
Now, I’m not sure why this is a major breakthrough in theoretical
thought, but apparently it is. It feels clear, both because social
status is valuable in and of itself and
because social status impacts every part of life, including access to
the things that promote life and access to resources.

Anyway,
the point is that people fight for social status. Which is to say,
people fight for a place on the HIERARCHY, for ranking. And how the
hierarchy is build impacts where people land on it, so it is a fight
many people are willing to engage in, with a lot of passion, whether
or not they’re conscious of what they’re fighting for.

Into
this reality, we people of faith hear the words of the prophet
Isaiah,

The
spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me;
[God] has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to
the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day
of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for
those who mourn in Zion– to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead
of a faint spirit. (Isaiah 61:1-3a)

If
the oppressed,the broken (hearted), the captives, the prisoners, and
the mourners are getting good news, then those at the bottom are
being picked up. That is, the Spirit of God is at work to pick up
the people at the bottom of hierarchy, one might even say, to
eliminate the bottom!!

From
the prophetic calls for justice, to the Torah’s dream of a just
society; from the aching of the Psalmists to be dealt with fairly, to
the responses of Jesus to the oppressed; the Bible shows us that God
is NOT in support of hierarchies.

That’s
how radical this faith thing is.

God
and faith aren’t about MODIFYING hierarchies, or fixing who is where
on them. God and faith are about ELIMINATING hierarchies, and
reiterating time and time again that EVERY SINGLE PERSON is a beloved
child of God, of inherent worth simply because they exist.

As
a Christian who has spent a lot of time with the Gospels, I am most
clearly able to see this in the life and ministry of Jesus, and I
think Luke does a singularly amazing job of foreshadowing the
entirety of Jesus with the words coming out of Mary’s mouth in the
Magnificat.

Mary
herself is lowly by social standing. She is female, she is young,
and she is poor. Her words start by acknowledging this, and naming
that God is the one who calls HER anyway, God is the one who favors
HER, and thereby ignores the normal world order. She then extends
this single act of lifting her up out of the hierarchy to a reminder
of who God is and how God is in the world. She says God scatters the
proud, brings down the powerful, and lifts up the lowly.

That
is, God flattens hierarchies. God eliminates social standing. God
fills up the hungry, but gives no more to those who have enough.
God… equalizes.

Because,
each and every person is a beloved child of God.

That
is, social standing is a thing of the WORLD, but not a thing of God.
Hierarchies do not serve God’s purpose in the world, they are the
antithesis of the kindom God is building (hopefully with our help).

So
what do we do with that? The obvious piece is that we work for
policies that benefit everyone, and not just the few. The challenge
piece is that we may end up needing to work for a restructuring of
our whole society as well as our church, because the hierarchies are
so deeply entrenched. But the immediate piece is to think about
hierarchies of power in society, and where we fit on each: age,
wealth, race, ethnicity, ability, gender, sexuality, education,
language, health, and immigration status might be places to start.
In which parts of our life are we seen as more value-able than
average, and in which less? And how does it feel to have God shake
that up and reject it? It may be that in places we are higher in the
hierarchy, we’re less comfortable with the hierarchy being rejected –
that seems pretty normal. It may be in that places we are lower in
the hierarchy, we’re relieved at the hierarchy being rejected –
that seems pretty normal too.

In
the moments when I have attempted to connect with God and understand
how God sees me, I have been flooded with compassion and grace. The
ways I judge myself and find myself lacking are not shared by God.
The inverse is true too, but that hasn’t felt nearly as emotionally
relevant.

That’s
the weird thing. Because we live in a society run by hierarchies,
just like Jesus did, we’re socialized to judge ourselves and others
ALL THE TIME and to FIGHT to be worthy. But that’s not how it is
with God. We ARE worthy because we are God’s, and the worth is
inherent, and doesn’t require us to do anything to earn it or keep
it. That also means we don’t have to worry about judgement, because
our worth CANNOT go away when it comes from God. (Instead, Biblical
“judgement” is about creating justice, which is about caring for
all of God’s people no matter where they are on the world’s
hierarchies.) Furthermore, God’s “economy” is one of ABUNDANCE
not scarcity, so we don’t have to fight for basic resources if we do
things God’s way.

Mary’s
song, like Isaiah’s prophecy, is good news for everyone. Hierarchies
are like hamster wheels that keep us fighting with each other to
prove our worth, in hopes we’ll have enough. The earth is abundant,
like God’s love. There is enough.

When
we participate in the Jesus movement, when we work toward the kindom,
we are building the world that God envisions, without hierarchy and
with PLENTY for all.

Your
job, for now, is to savor God’s inherent love for you, and allow that
love to help you shake off the world’s judgements of your worth.

As
we do that, we enable the kindom building that God requests of us
all. May God help us. Amen

1For
some reason, “This book is so heavy it took me a year to read”
has never been a great selling point to get others to read it.
Which I regret, because it drew back the curtain on so many of my
unexamined assumptions, and I think I’m a better person for it.

2Because
I was too lazy to type this from the book, I grabbed it from:
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

3David
Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
(Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011), p. 373

4Graeber,
374-5.

5Thomas
B. Endsall, “The Resentment That Never Sleeps” published in the
New York Times Dec. 9, 2020. Found at
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/trump-social-status-resentment.html
on Dec. 9, 2020.

6“Hypotheses
on Status Competition,” William
C. Wohlforth and David
C. Kang

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

December 13, 2020

“The Only Way Home is through the Wilderness” based…

December 6, 2020
by Sara Baron

Does the present moment feel like Exile
to you?

I mean, does it feel like there has
been utter destruction of life as we know it, and that we are living
in a holding pattern waiting and hoping for change and a return to
“normal” knowing it will still be different?

It seems to me that this metaphor holds
water.

It was into the experience of Exile
that the prophet Isaiah spoke saying, “Comfort, O comfort my
people, says your God.” This seems important. The comfort didn’t
come when things were relatively OK, nor when things were getting
worse. Really, it was spoken into the darkest of days, when hope was
lost, and the people might have simply given up.

I’m telling you. Advent is ON POINT
this year.

Into the hopelessness, when the Exile
felt heaviest, God spoke, “Comfort, O Comfort my people. Speak
tenderly to my people.” Indeed. God speaks into this moment with
comfort, and hope.

Given the incredible efficacy of the
vaccine trials, I’m hearing that if everything goes right, the
earliest we could return to “life as normal” is May. On one hand
that feels really great. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
On the other hand, May isn’t exactly right around the corner, and
we’re already 9 months into this thing, and May is BEST CASE
SCENARIO, and I think we’ve all gotten good at being hesitant to
believe that best case scenarios are exactly how things will go.

Furthermore, Thanksgiving hit JUST
as we were otherwise about to bring this latest crest of COVID cases
around, and the next few months are terrifying. Today, I know more
people who are sick with COVID than I have at any other point in the
past 9 months. The worry for the world in general is even heavier
when I add the worry for people I know in particular.

And, of course, it gets dark SO EARLY.

Whenever I read this Isaiah passage I
think that, if not for these words of comfort and hope, the people
might have broken, and the return might not have been possible.
These are the words that remind the people who they are, whose they
are, and what their job is.

The problem for the Exiles, as well as
for us, is that the way home is through the wilderness. Biblically,
wilderness and desert mean the same thing: a place that life only
continues to exist by the grace of God. The problem is that the
Exiles had been force marched across the desert to get to Babylon,
and the way home required crossing the desert again.

Feel familiar? To get to May (let’s
hope it is May) requires a lot more of the same pains we’re now
familiar with. There is no way home except… through.

The prophet Isaiah sees this, and
promises God will ease the journey as much as possible – making it
level and safe, even, and easy to walk. But, friends, they still
have to go through the desert to get home. For the Exiles, it was
650 miles. For us…. well, that sounds about right 😉

To the exiles, the prophet says that it
is not necessary to depend on themselves. God is with them. God is
their shepherd, God is their protector, it is God who is steady and
steadfast, and God can be counted on.

EVEN in Exile, even in the midst of
death and destruction.

At this point in this pandemic, that’s
exactly what I needed to be reminded of:

The world is not on my shoulders

Christianity is not on my shoulders

The UMC is not on my shoulders,

and even though I bear much
responsibility for the well-being of FUMC Schenectady,

that too is on God’s shoulders.

The path “home” IS through the
desert, and it will be inherently difficult.

But God is with us, and God is easing
our way as much as it can be eased.

The other side of Exile will be
difficult as well (it took GENERATIONS to rebuild the first time),
but God is going to be with us then too.

In the midst of this experience of
powerlessness, it is such a relief to remember that God is still
powerful. And God is still working. And God is still
Love-Alive-in-the-World.

(It doesn’t make everything better,
nothing does, but it helps.)

It is into this metaphor of making a
straight highway in the desert for the Exiles to come home, that Mark
places the beginning of the Jesus story. Because the people of Jesus
day were living an existence much like the Exiles, except at home.
They were exiles in their own land.

And the Gospel writer says, that John
was working with God to prepare those “highways home” so that
Jesus could lead the people down them.

I sure hope that we’re like John.
Working with God to prepare the highways home. I think we are. And
I KNOW that God is working with us, and doing most of the heavy
lifting too.

Thanks be to God.

Amen

December 6, 2020

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

“God, Hope, and Fear” based on Isaiah 64:1-9 and…

November 29, 2020
by Sara Baron

“But in those days, after that
suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its
light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in
the heavens will be shaken.” Is it fair to say, CHECK? I mean,
these things haven’t literally happened, but it feels like it is
close enough. The world has we know it has been through at least as
much upheaval as the moon losing it’s reflective qualities.

It also sounds like grief to me, the
darkness and heaviness of grief, when even if the sun shines, it
doesn’t matter, because the heavy cloud of loss serves as a thick fog
that doesn’t let the sunlight in.

And most people are grieving right now,
to greater or lesser extents.

This year (probably for the first
time), I’m glad that Advent Scriptures are apocalyptic. Usually I’m
annoyed by that. But this year, they… fit.

“The sun will be darkened, the moon
will not give light, the stars will stop shining.”

Yes, fine, that happened. Now what?

Well, the writer of Mark says that when
that happens, Jesus will show up. It probably helps to remember that
the early Christians expected end times during their lifetimes, and
that the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem by Rome in 70 CE
seemed like the beginning of the end. The Gospel of Mark was written
pretty soon after that.

So it seems like the Gospel writer is
suggesting, “these terrible times are just a sign of the good
things God is about to be up to.”

Can I admit something?

That sounds terribly naive!

(I feel like I just lost pastor points
in some tally somewhere.)

Except….

My life has been about paying attention
to the Divine, both in the stories of the Bible and in the stories of
people’s lives, and as much as I hate to admit it, the Gospel writer
isn’t wrong. When things are looking particularly bleak, and when
everything is shaken up, God is still there – and God is
EXCEPTIONALLY good at breaking into moments like that with grace and
wonder. (Perhaps the reason a Hail Mary pass is called that…)

Or perhaps, it is just that when
everything else is chaos, there are less barriers to God doing God’s
thing, because it is people’s control that keeps God away.

Now, I believe that people have failed
to contain this pandemic, and people have made choices not to protect
the vulnerable from the devastating economic impacts in individual
and family lives. Much of this has been done by government, and
institutions. It has NOT been God’s will that so many got ill, so
many have died, nor that so many have been harmed by the side effects
of the pandemic (which, as with medicine, can be deadly serious.)

Yet, I believe that God is at work to
bring as much good out of all of this as possible. Because that’s
just how God is.

And I think our work is to try to help
God along the way, mostly by not letting people put up barriers to
God’s work.

Of course, it can be hard to tell
exactly what God is up to, and it can be REALLY hard to find the
difference between our agenda’s and God’s agenda, but as a general
rule, God’s agenda has to do with bringing full and abundant life to
all people, or any step in that direction that doesn’t do more harm
than good.

The pessimistic part of me is afraid
that the pandemic is going to be used to make profit for the already
wealthy, to consolidate power among those who have it, and to reverse
any progress made for vulnerable populations. As supporting evidence
I offer: the stock market, and women dropping out of the labor
force. I’m stopping there before I get angry all over again at the
injustices.

And, indeed, human beings are an easily
terrified lot, with existential anxiety, and a tendency towards
tribal thinking that results in short term and feel good actions
rather than long term and global problem solving. We can be our own
worst enemies, and no matter how much someone has (in wealth or
power), basic human fear often tell them it isn’t enough, and they
keep trying to get more.

So, God’s agenda isn’t going to get
implemented automatically. There are real impediments to it, even
though God’s agenda is the best one out there.

Now more than ever, it can be easy to
feel small and helpless in the face of the problems of the world.
However, we each have our own power, and we have a connection to the
God-of-All who takes our power and effort and might and combines it
with others to make the best use of what we offer.

So, in these early days of Advent, I
invite you to do what you can to advance God’s agenda, and my
suggestion in this case is: do what you can to let go of your own
fear.

(NOTE: this doesn’t mean stop being
SAFE, they’re different)

Letting go of fear probably means
acknowledging it, naming it, listening to it, possibly even playing
out a lot of worse case scenarios. You may want to share about this
with someone you trust, it will help even more. It may be worth
examining fears, as they often contain fears themselves, stacked like
nesting dolls. The really great part about this is that by the time
you examine all the way down, the fear at the core is quite small and
can be managable!

At the end of this process, reminding
yourself that even in those worst case scenarios you are loved by God
and by other people, you are worthy, you are cared about, and you are
not alone. None of us can be alone, because God is with us, and God
carries the love of others to us.

It may feel small, but letting go of
our fears is a way to let God live more fully in us. And it makes
the world a little bit less fearful and a little bit more …
vibrant.

And that is a lot like lighting a
candle in the darkness. It makes a big difference.

So, dear ones, face a fear this week,
and let it’s power diminish. In doing so, you participate in
building the kindom. Amen

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

“Giving Thanks – 2020 Style” based on Deuteronomy 8:7-18…

November 22, 2020
by Sara Baron

Growing
up, we had big Thanksgivings. It was the holiday set aside for my
mother’s side of the family, and she is one of 5 siblings who have a
combined 11 offspring. The holiday moved around between their
houses, with 20-30 of us gathered however we would fit. There was
definitely a kid’s table, and I was always at it. It was loud,
chaotic, and intense. As a child that meant a lot of play, a lot of
playmates, and a lot of fun. I’m told there were also a lot of
dishes. Because it was the only time we got together, there were
Christmas presents too, and because it was the only time we got
together, there was plenty of family drama too.

I loved
those big Thanksgivings.

My
first year of seminary, in California, I decided not to fly home for
the short break. Instead a dear friend from college – also from
the northeast, also living in California, came down to be with me.
The two of us stayed in pajamas all day, read for pleasure, and ate
what we wanted when we wanted to. There was no turkey, because she
was vegetarian. I was happy to cook. She was happy to clean up. We
grazed on pies, side dishes, laughter, and books all day.

That
was the day I learned that holidays don’t have to be stressful.

This
year, a lot fewer people are going to have the big, loud, messy
Thanksgivings. I hope this year more people will have surprisingly
lovely small, quiet, unstressful ones.

However,
I know there is a lot of real grief in being separated from those we
love. This has already been a difficult year, and coming into the
holiday season, it is especially difficult. When we stopped having
in person worship in March, I wasn’t able to REALLY believe we’d have
to do Easter from our homes. You may remember that we decided to
“just wait until we could be in person” to do the Easter
photoshow. (Submissions are still being received on that basis.)

As time
went on, I became aware we weren’t going to get back together before
I went out on Family Leave, and started to hope to be together for
Homecoming.

Now it
is November, we aren’t having worship in person again in 2020, and
people are figuring out how to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and
New Years over zoom. Christmas worship planning involves a lot of
pre-recording. The church’s advent wreath is staying upstairs this
year, while the amazing Altar Guild made us at home ones so we can
wait in hope together … but apart.

Now it
is Thanksgiving week and giving thanks has gotten a lot more
complicated than we’d like.

I’m not
sure we identify with the leper who gave thanks nor the lepers who
don’t. As a society at least, I think we feel like the lepers who
weren’t healed, the ones not in the story, the ones who didn’t happen
to meet Jesus that day.

Or, in
the metaphor of the Hebrew Bible Lesson, it doesn’t feel like we are
living in the goodness of the Promised Land. Perhaps it feels like
we’re still wandering in the desert, perhaps like we’re still living
in oppression in Egypt. Maybe like we lost the promise and are in
exile.

The
opening words of Psalm 137 may meet us in this moment:

By the
rivers of Babylon—
   there we sat down and there
we wept
   when we remembered Zion.
On the
willows there
   we hung up our harps.
For
there our captors
   asked us for songs,
and our
tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
   ‘Sing us
one of the songs of Zion!’

How
could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign
land?

How can we sing praises
when things are so HARD?

How can we celebrate
Thanksgiving when fear, death, and destruction surround us?

Sure, we can participate in
Advent, and name how much we NEED God, and how much we are WAITING
for things to be better.

But, how can we celebrate
God’s breaking-into-the-world (Christmas) when we are still in the
yearning?

And, dear ones, if you are
overwhelmed, sad, grieving, weary, lonesome, annoyed, or exhausted, I
don’t think you are over-reacting. Things are HARD, and there is no
end in sight.

By the rivers of Babylon
(which, it is clear, are the WRONG Rivers, they are not the River
Jordan), there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered.

These words may be a model
for us. It is OK to sit in grief and remember what was. It is OK to
be horrified by what is. It is OK to not like any of this, at all,
and be angry to be stuck in it. It is OK, even to be sad that “at
least the exiles got to cry TOGETHER, we have to cry apart.”

That’s fair.

It cheapens gratitude to be
forced into it, and it cheapens gratitude to come to it without also
naming the things that are broken and hard and awful. It cheapens
gratitude to tell ourselves that others have it worse, so we don’t
get to be sad or mad. It isn’t a competition. The pandemic is
allowed to be hard for everyone.

So, this is my proposal, my
suggestion, my “means of grace for this week.” I invite you to
take an HOUR to sit down with your accumulated grief from this year.
You may want to write it out as a long list, you may want to journal
it, you may want to draw it, or paint it, or play it on the piano,
walk it out, or just sit with it. Do this on or by Wednesday. If
you can’t get an hour, take 6 minutes. If you complete and hour and
you aren’t done, give yourself more time.

But, BE WITH your grief.
Let it live and breath and exist. I know for some of us, it is scary
and it feels like we will break if you even start to let it out, but
you won’t. You are stronger than you think and you are held up by
the God of Love. (How else would you have made it this far?)

Then, and only then, I
invite you to spend some time on Thanksgiving reflecting on what you
are grateful for. Ideally, I’d say give this an hour as well, but
maybe only 6 minutes can be found, and maybe it will take all day.
Don’t skip this part though. Some of the things we are grateful for
are sly – and if we don’t look for them, we might miss them. This
process won’t work unless you can name your grief, but it also won’t
work if you ONLY name your grief.

I know and trust that God
is with us, that God is doing amazing things, that God is at work to
make things better. But I don’t believe in cheap grace. We can’t
pretend the hard away, and we can’t keep pushing through it. We may
be a resurrection people, but that requires acknowledging the things
of death first.

THEN we get to notice the
amazing power of life.

So, I wish you a wonderful,
if unusual Thanksgiving. And, because of that I wish you an hour to
grieve and an hour to be grateful. May you feel God’s presence in
both times of prayerful reflection. Amen

–

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

“Compassion” based on Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 and Matthew 25:31-46

November 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Hello
dear ones.

While
I desperately miss the chance to be present with you in worship and
embodied conversation, I am so grateful for this chance to speak and
for your willingness to listen. I hope that the Divine Spirit will
bless this message both in my speaking and in your hearing so that
space may be made for compassion and grace to grow in you and in me.

I
am speaking to you after a break! For this first time in 2020, I
took a FULL week of vacation! (Thanks to all whose work made that
possible) Despite my own admonitions about refreshing the news, it
wasn’t the MOST relaxing vacation I’ve ever had. Then, I spent 3
days on retreat. Well, virtual retreat, but retreat none-the-less
(thanks to all who made THAT possible too.) The retreat is a series
aimed at clergy, and focused on deep listening. By making space to
listen to each other space to be heard, we trust that the Spirit will
be able to be seen more clearly.

After
the retreat I am feeling refreshed, renewed, and grateful. And…
almost strong enough to tackle this Gospel lesson 😉

This
gospel lesson gets my heckles up, because I don’t like talk of hell,
I don’t like threats presented as God’s, and I don’t like binary
splits between people as if some are good and some are bad when we’re
all just complicated.

And
yet, I do like the means by which the judgement is made –
the care of the vulnerable. Which means my whole relationship with
this text is complicated. In the “Social Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels” Bruce Malina and Richard Rorhbaugh say, “The
basis for the division here is a person’s compassionate action toward
the weak and the poor. Its condemnation of the refusal of those able
to help people who are in need is nearly complete.”¹

God
calls us to compassion for those who disempowered: the hungry, the
thirsty, the stranger (or foreigner), the naked, the sick, the
imprisoned. Those are according to Matthew. Ezekiel mentions the
lost, the injured, those who have strayed, and the weak. In Ezekiel,
God will care directly for the sheep so that the lean are able to
become healthy, and the strong and fat are no longer able to oppress.

This
all reminds me of mercy – that word that gets used for God so often
it isn’t even heard anymore. Mercy is “compassion
or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to
punish or harm.”²
Similarly, the compassion being asked for in these texts is not
generic compassion. Rather it is compassionate ACTION towards those
who need it most.

It
is good to be kind and compassionate towards one’s peers, or those
with more power and influence than one has, but the judgement named
here isn’t on that. It is about compassion to those who have LESS
power and influence, and more need. (Although, intersectional
justice reminds us that power, influence, privilege and need are
complicated and multifaceted.)

As
I think these admonitions to be compassionate towards those who have
been disempowered is CORE to the Bible as well as to God’s desires
for a just world, the question of how to build up our compassion
muscles becomes really key!

For
me, at least, compassion starts with God’s compassion. That is the
foundation for EVERYTHING. Rather than starting with judgement or at
attempt to be worthy, my faith starts with the grace, love, and
compassion of God that I can trust in. It changes how I see myself,
as well as how I see others. It helps me be more gentle with myself
as well as more humble. It challenges me to be better, but lets me
find peace with myself as I am.

To
keep on learning those lessons requires reconnecting with the Divine,
and the Divine’s compassionate gaze. Prayer, spiritual exercise, or
simply letting myself BE without trying to DO anything more than be
all let me soak in God’s compassion and let it transform me once
again.

The
second piece is related to the first. To become a more compassionate
person requires compassion WITH MYSELF. This is actually the hardest
of the three I think. This also starts with prayer, but also
requires self-examination, and feedback from others. This, I
suspect, is a lifelong journey.

The
third piece of building compassion is the one we usually jump right
to: compassion for others. However, I really think it develops
naturally and effortlessly once we work on connecting with our
Compassionate God and allowing self-compassion. It turns out that
most of the judgments we put on others and the world are really our
judgements on ourselves externalized.

The
world needs more compassionate people, because the world needs to
become more compassionate. The irony is that the way we get there is
so indirect! To transform the world first requires allowing God’s
compassion to continually transform us.

During
this time of pandemic, when everything is different from what we’ve
known, we still have the capacity to work on our compassion. And
based on everything I’ve seen, the world is in desperate need of it
AND God has it in abundance.

May
we become stronger in our compassion, through God’s. Amen

1Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual
Notes: Matthew 25”

2Apple
Dictionary.

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

November 15, 2020