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July 8, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Shared Burdens, Shared Resources” based on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 and James 5:1-6

When we gather at the communion table, we are reminded time and time again that we are united by sharing from one loaf, by receiving from one cup. We receive the body of Christ to be the Body of Christ. We TOGETHER do the work of Christ in the world, we are fed together so we can act together.

We also talk a lot in the church about being church family, it happens enough that it becomes a struggle in hymn selection! I love kinship language, but I want us to use the more inclusive “siblings” and instead of the far more common “brothers and sisters.” Not that brothers and sisters is bad language, its good, its just not BEST.

Our Biblical passages today are also about being united in Christ, and becoming family to one another, although they come at it from a slightly different angle.

As we heard in Rev. Dr. Theoharis’s essay, the often abused quote “He who does not work shall not eat” is not about condemning the poor and declaring it a person’s own fault they live in poverty. Instead, 2 Thessalonians calls out the rich who aren’t doing their fair share to care for the community. Because, those who can do so have been resting on their wealth without worrying about those who are starving. They are called on to share the burdens of the community, and to share the resources they all have.

Get up, the writer implores. The writer isn’t calling everyone to labor in the fields, but he is calling everyone to contribute.

Sometimes, I find my internal voices telling me that only some work counts… and somehow the work that “counts” is NEVER the work I’ve been getting done. That’s my own internal voices not God 😉

The writer is urging followers of Christ to interdependence. If one person has enough not to work, but their sibling in Christ does not, then the work is not done until the sibling can eat too!

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movements, grew up in poverty as a preacher’s kid and became a preacher. He was an unusually good preacher though, enough so that his sermons were printed and sold, and made a lot of money. John Wesley was convinced by his understanding of God and the Bible that his wealth was not his own, and so he gave it away. He shared what he had with those who were struggling the most. One winter, when he was 80 years old, the cold was especially bad and the poor were struggling immensely. John Wesley begged on the streets of London – not for himself but for those who were impoverished – the ones he’d already given his own wealth to.

I’m pretty sure that fits with God’s vision.

You may have noticed that as much as 2 Thessalonians pushes on the rich, James is harsher. James is vicious against the rich. (For some of us, this is pretty squirmy stuff. I’m not going to resolve that reality, but I am acknowledging it. It turns out following Jesus is hard.)

James says that those who are rich now will suffer later. All their wealth will rot and rust, and they’ll be held accountable for the ways their wealth was accumulated. “The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” James warns those who live in luxury build on the labor of others that they are culpable for the harm done to the others.

These passages are saying the same thing. We are responsible for each other. We are community, kin, interconnected. And if we treat others unfairly, that’s on us. If we are in community, we need to work for everyone’s well being. Following Jesus isn’t about getting comfortable or “taking care of number 1.” It is about expanding our hearts and our lives until we are able to truly “love our neighbors as ourselves.”

We now live in a world with fairly permeable boundaries. Where once it was easy to think of a neighbor as a person in one’s village or neighborhood, there are many ways we live in a global village now, and the needs of neighbors are immense and overwhelming. The degree of concentrated wealth in this world is also immense and overwhelming.

We are mean to help each other, inter-personally, and even when it is hard.

I do want to say that it is possible for a society to organize itself in DIFFERENT ways than the ones we’ve chosen. It is possible to have tax codes that move wealth down rather than up. It is possible to house all the people in our country, and in our world. It is possible to feed people healthy and delicious food. It is possible to take care of everyone. It isn’t even that hard. What isn’t possible is to take care of everyone while consolidating all the resources at the top. It can’t be done. This one can’t be both and. We can share and take care of each other or we can let a few people have ridiculous wealth. But the ridiculousness of the wealth at the top right now – it makes it impossible to care for the many.

The writers of the New Testament lived in a world like the one we live in. Jesus and James at least had very little power in that system. They all called on the rich to see and care about the poor, to notice how they’re treated, to take responsibility for not trampling on the poor.

Don’t trample each other, God says! Also, seek the goodness that comes in a society that cares for all of God’s beloveds.

And also, eat this bread, drink this cup – they united us, and that unity is a holy and wonderful gift. (And challenge.) 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

July 7, 2024

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June 30, 2024
by Sara Baron

“God’s Subversive Tactics” based on Matthew 5:38-42 (please read!)

The groundbreaking scholarship on this Matthew passage isn’t new, it was published in 1992 by Walter Wink in his book “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination.” I remember hearing it in High School, I’ve preached it before – here – and some of you have ridiculously good memories. But also, not all of you have heard me preach it before, and it is SUCH GOOD STUFF and so central to how we understand the entire Jesus movement. So, anyway, if you already know this stuff, prepare for an excellent review. And if you don’t, hold on to your pew – this is going to be fun.

Those of us who have heard this passage without Wink’s scholarship have probably heard it as an invitation to be doormats, right? “Don’t resist. Let someone hit you repeatedly. Be passive. Be… weak.” And, heavens that’s concerning, that anyone would teach such things in a church. What a way to empower domestic violence, maintain the status quo, and teach those in positions of less power (women, racial and ethnic minorities, children) that the Godly way is to accept the harm that comes their way.

However, if you accept a perspective that the choices are violence or nonviolence, I can see how you might conclude that following Jesus is NOT a violent way, so you have to pick passivity. BUT, this passage doesn’t mean that AT ALL, this passage is about a third way. This is about how to engage in nonviolent resistance to undermine the powers that oppress. This is Jesus speaking to people who lived lives of oppression. This is the way called nonviolent ENGAGEMENT.

It seems especially fitting on this day when we are also thinking about Juneteenth because when we celebrate the freeing of those who had been enslaved, it also makes sense to talk about the ways that people who were enslaved resisted. We sometimes read in history about slave rebellions, but there were lots of ways that people engaged in regular, consistent resistance of the oppressive power of slave holders too. They pretended to be ill. They worked slowly, and badly. They “lost” or “accidentally damaged” equipment. They took what they needed, or just what they wanted. Papers were displaced. Things caught on fire. I suspect a lot of individuals were geniuses at such work, engaging in subversive actions that created immense disruptions without ever seeming to be fault.

Slave holders tried to break the spirits of those they enslaved, but the core human dignity, the reality of imago dei (that we are all made in the image of God – ALL OF US), seems to be quite resilient. And I think that’s the core of what Jesus was talking about too.

Let’s unpack each of Jesus’s suggestions. “Turn the other cheek.” First thing to know – you didn’t use your left hand for anything in ancient society because toilet paper wasn’t a thing yet and left hands were used for “unclean tasks.” This was a hard and fast rule, even gesturing with the left hand was illegal and carried a strict punishment. So, we are talking only about right hand hits. Which means that a person who is hit on the right cheek has been backhanded, which was ALWAYS AND ONLY diminutive. It was a common and normal way of putting people in their place. “A backhanded slap was the usual way of admonishing inferiors. Masters backhanded slaves, husbands, wives; parents, children; men , women; Romans, Jews.”1 Most people would cower.

One did NOT backhand a peer, it was actually illegal.

But if people can only hit with their right hands, and one has already been backhanded on the RIGHT cheek, then to turn the other cheek – to invite another hit – is NOT to passively accept violence. It is to invite the person who is trying to humiliate you to either back down, or treat you like an equal. “This action robs the oppressor of the power to humiliate. The person who turns the other cheek is saying, in effect, ‘Try again, Your first blow has failed to achieve its intended affect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am a human being just like you. Your status does not alter that fact. You cannot demean me.’”2

Which, then, puts the one who hit into a conundrum. Which is EXACTLY Jesus’s point. (Can you now see how this advice fits the one who also told parables?) “In that world of honor and shame, he has been rendered impotent to instill shame in a subordinate. He has been stripped of his power to dehumanize the other.”3

The second image is to give cloak along with coat, right? We are going to call them the outer-garment and the inner-garment so we can track it. Note that impoverished people only had those two garments, their were not backups. And, Hebrew Scriptures provide for someone to be sued for their outer-garment:

If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbor’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate. – Exodus 22:25-27

Note that even in this passage it is clear that only a poor person would be in this situation, and it is so tenuous that you can’t even take the outer-garment consistently, you have to take it for only the day so they can sleep with it at night. It seems, even in this passage, that the creditor is being pretty severely demonized for deciding to demand retribution on the poor, right? (Matthew’s language is wrong in implying it is the inner-garment, just ignore that – Luke gets it right, it is the outer-garment.)

Back to Wink, “Indebtedness was endemic in first-century Palestine. Jesus’ parables are full of debtors struggling to salvage their lives. Heavy debt was not, however, a natural calamity that had overtaken the incompetent. It was the direct consequence of Roman imperial policy…. By the time of Jesus we see this process already far advanced: large estates owned by absentee landlords, managed by stewards, and worked by tenant farers, day laborers, and slaves. It is no accident that the first act of the Jewish revolutionaries in 66 C.E. Was to burn the Temple treasury, where the records of debts was kept.”4 And Jesus is talking to people at the bottom of this system. “Why then does Jesus counsel them to give over their undergarments as well? This would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of court stark naked! Imagine the guffaws that must have evoked. There stands a creditor, covered with shame, the poor debtor’s outer garment in one hand, his undergarment in the other. The tables have already been turned on the creditor. The debtor had no hope of winning the case; the law was already entirely in the creditor’s favor. But the poor man has transcended this attempt to humiliate him. He has risen above the shame.” You may remember that there was a taboo against nakedness in ancient Judaism, but it turns out the larger taboo was against SEEING someone’s nakedness, not being naked.

“Jesus provides here a hint of how to take on the entire system by unmasking its essential cruelty and burlesquing its pretensions to justice. Here is a poor man who will not longer be treated as a sponge to be squeezed dry by the rich. He accepts the laws as they stand, pushes them to absurdity, and reveals them for what they have become. He strips naked, walks out before his fellows, and leaves the creditor, and the whole economic edifice that he represents, stark naked.”5

The third one – the “second mile”. Roman soldiers had the right to require civilians to carry their heavy packs for a mile – a form of forced labor. People hated it. However, if they asked someone to carry it for MORE than a mile, they were subject to discipline, and the discipline could vary immensely, including really severe punishment. So the soldiers regularly demanded their packs be carried a mile, but ONLY a mile. As he has in the two prior examples, Jesus recommends to the disempowered that they reclaim their human dignity even in the midst of oppression.

Wink says, “Imagine the soldier’s surprise when, at the next mile maker, he reluctantly reaches to assume his pack, and the civilian says, ‘Oh no, let me carry it another mile.’ Why would he want to do that? What is he up to? Normally , soldiers have to coerce people to carry their packs, but this Jew does it so cheerfully, and will not stop! Is this provocation? Is he insulting the legionnaire’s strength? Being kind? Trying to get him disciplined for seeming to violate the rules of impressment? Will this civilian file a complaint? Create trouble?”6 By messing with the soldiers head, the pack-carrier has taken back their human dignity and reclaimed their own power to choose! Regarding the soldier “If he has enjoyed feeling superior to the vanquished, he will not enjoy it today. Imagine the situation of a Roman infantryman pleading with the Jew to give back his pack!”7

He continues, “Jesus does not encourage Jews to walk a second mile in order to build up merit in heaven, or to exercise a supererogatory piety, or to kill the soldier with kindness. He is helping an oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an onerous practice despised throughout the empire.” Now, one final note on these suggestions, all of them. “Such tactics can seldom be repeated. One can imagine that within days after the incidents that Jesus sought to provoke, the Powers That Be would pass new laws: penalties for nakedness in court, flogging for carrying a pack more than a mile! One must be creative, improvising new tactics to keep the opponent of balance. To those whose lifelong pattern has been to cringe before their masters, Jesus offers a way to liberate themselves from servile actions and a servile mentality. And he asserts that they can do this before there is a revolution.8”

That is, Jesus so deeply believed that everyone was created in the image of God and deserved to have utterly wonderful lives, that he took the time to assess the situations and come up with some really subversive answers to the problems people faced, solutions that restored their dignity. There is, you may have noticed, one more piece of advice, and it is one that is a challenge to many of us. “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” Wink says, “Such radical egalitarian sharing would be necessary to rescue impoverished Palestinian peasants from their plight; one need not posit an imminent end of history as the cause for such astonishing generosity. And yet none of this is new; Jesus is merely issuing a prophetic summons to Israel to observe the commandments pertaining to the sabbatical year enshrined in Torah, adapted to a new situation.” That is, for those who were poor to break out of the realities of staggering interest and taxes, they need to work together and not apart. They needed to overcome the stragety of divide and conquer with radical sharing.

In each of these recommendations in this tiny little piece of the gospel, Jesus recommends third ways. Neither passively accepting the oppression that dehumanizes the people nor fighting violence with violence. He recommends, wit, humor, solidarity, and making visible the problems that the system created. We don’t face exactly the same issues, but the SPIRIT of these commandments are a gift to us as a playbook for how to deal with oppression. Violence begets violence. Passivity in the face of violence changes nothing. But there are third ways, and I will say that I think God is really in favor of third ways and I’ve noticed that when I am stuck between two unacceptable options, and sit with them (and with God), God often nudges me toward a third way – a far more creative one that I could find on my own.

God calls the world from violence and oppression to peace and the radically embraced humanity of all. And the way from here to there, it turns out, involves creativity, wit, and humor. Let’s go! Amen

1 Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992) p. 176.

2 176.

3 176-7.

4 178.

5 179.

6 182.

7 182.

8 182-3.

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

June 30, 2024

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June 23, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Step One: Prepare the Soil” based on Hosea 8:1-7, 10:12-13 and Matthew 13:1-9

In my household we are determined, amateur gardeners. To be fair, we like it that way, we are well aware that there is a whole lot of knowledge out there if we wish to consume it. But mostly we like putting seeds in soil and watching to see if they’ll grow, and putting plants in soil and seeing how they’ll grow.

We’ve learned SOME things along the way. Among them: it is unwise to plant a garden in a place it is hard to water it. It is even more unwise to plant a garden in a place it doesn’t get enough sun. Oh, and also, not getting enough sun isn’t a problem that can be overcome. Let’s see – we’ve learned seedlings can’t be ignored for very long 😉 We’ve learned you CAN have too many tomatoes (but it is still a fun problem), and raspberry bushes grow AMAZINGLY fast – in the sun 😉 We’ve learned that full grown, orange pumpkins can HIDE in high clover. That was fun. This year I learned that I can mess up seeding soil, hopefully I won’t repeat that one.

And, of course, we’ve learned about weeds. Weeds are a funny – thing they’re very localized. Every time I’ve moved in my adult life I’ve had to learn by trial and error which things growing were weeds and which weren’t, and when we moved two years ago – all of 0.8 miles from our last home – we found ourselves fighting some very different invasive species. I’m not terribly fond of using the label weeds lightly – dandelions are a delight after all, but I’m OK with using it for invasive plants. Mostly. OK, I worry even then. God did create us all, even the ones labeled weeds.

But when I think about all I’ve learned about gardening – and heavens all I COULD learn about gardening – I’m also reminded of how radically different growing things is HERE versus in the climate of the Bible. To be fair, I haven’t attempted to grow anything in the Middle East., but I did spend 3 years in Southern California and on our seminary campus we had a Biblical garden because the climates were so similar it was easy to cultivate plants we wouldn’t otherwise know but read about in the Bible.

And Southern California, if you don’t know, is DRY. As a Northeastern-er, it boggled my mind how DRY it was. Much of the populated area is watered, so you see these green lawns that look a lot like the ones here (but take a lot more chemicals to maintain, and are really a terrible use of water…anyway…) but sometimes along a stretch of a road there would be spots that weren’t watered and they’d just be … barren. Like rocks and sand and nothing growing there. And my northeastern brain was just …. shocked? Amazed? Horrified? Mesmerized? I don’t know. It was really weird. I mean, we have raspberry pushes that sprout up in between the concrete blocks of a garden wall, or in mulch barely covering that plastic weed cover stuff. You can’t stop life around here if you TRY. Right? I mean, I’ve used a weed-wacker in the non-existence space between the road and the sidewalk – MANY TIMES.

But in the desert, where there isn’t water, there is just… space.

Which is helpful for me to remember when I hear this parable. Indeed, it is hard enough for things to grow in that climate that they can’t overcome being in rocky ground where roots can’t get down far enough to reach enough water. Plants can’t overcome being in the midst of thorny weeds, it is just too hard to fight for survival.

But oh, the seeds that do get into good soil, the things that they were able to do! Step one – good soil!

Yet, I think, it didn’t just take getting the seeds into good soil – although that part is imperative. It took getting them into good soil, and then getting water to them. It took getting them into good soil and then keeping those thorns from grown into the field. It took tending.

The sower did the first part and WOW, look what happens when seeds fall in the right spot. Seriously, this is why I garden – because I like this part. It is amazing, and wonderful, and also reminds me of the great mysteries within life itself, and the wonder that is life, and the ways that God is more than what we can perceive. We know that seeds need soil, water, and sun, but the something that helps a seed sprout is still a little miracle, every time, one that I imagine makes God smile too.

The growing isn’t done by sowing alone, but the sowing and the spouting is a particularly awe inspiring part. And, as Paul tends to remind us, it can be OK that one person sows and another waters and another tends, each part matters! And I think there is wonder in ALL of it. In each and every step.

Hosea urges the ancient Israelites to pay attention to what they’re planting. To stop plowing wickedness, so they stop reaping injustice. So they can stop eating lies. And instead to sow righteousness, and reap steadfast love. To see the harvest that can come come from sabbath and rest (for the land just like the people), to seek God and God’s goodness and let the kindom come.

Sow the seeds of goodness and wonder, says Hosea.

And watch the miracles unfold, says Matthew.

And then, in our book of modern day prophets, We Cry Justice, we are told to keep on sowing despite it all. To sow hope as an act of faithfulness. To plant peace because of war – because alternatives are needed. To seed love so that we can grow it long enough for it to bear more seeds to grow next time around.

There are a LOT of weeds in our societal garden – thorny ones. There are a lot of hungry birds swooping down to steal the seed. There are plenty of huge rocks, and there are places with too much sun and some with too little and heavens but most of the best soil is being cash-cropped by huge corporations spraying poisonous insecticides onto our food and into our water.

Which, I think, is the 21st century version of what Matthew was talking about anyway!

But God’s abundance made a lot of good soil, plenty of rain, and enough sun that shines on all of us. We can grow our contemporary versions “victory gardens” of peace, hope, and love. Even better, this applies both to the physical gardens some of us tend, and even more so to the metaphorical ones in our beings and our society.

Perhaps this is a good reminder to consider how our lives are being seeded -and with what. And what we are able to do to nurture the seeds we want, and to weed out the ones we don’t. How God is always there to help us tend the goodness within us, any time we’re ready to tend to things with God.

With God, we get to chose to hope, “despite of all the evidence.” We God, we get to pick peace, because God has planted it in our souls. With God, get to share love, because we have been lucky enough to know love.

Dear ones, I really do mean it. I think every seed that grows is a little miracle. Tomato, pepper, eggplant, hope, peace or love. And I’m grateful for our writer this week who said, “Whether we win or lose in the short term, we struggle against the wickedness of immoral policies. We sow righteousness as we plant seeds of organization and leadership and nourish them for times of even greater possibility.”1 That plants seeds in me – of hope, peace, and love. Thanks be to God! Amen

1Daniel Jones “A Hurt and Angry God” in We Cry Justice (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 149.

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June 2, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Restore Us to Joy” based on Psalm 51:1-12 and John 3:1-10, 17-21

I chose as our “We Cry Justice” reading today the end of the essay, where the Rev. Chadwick powerfully invites us to think about transgressions as “lack of justice” – to move from a focus on individual sin to national/communal ones. She invites us to hear the words “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” as an invitation to remain steadfast in the work of justice, to move for structural change.

It is the core of her essay and it is fantastic. But it turns out that to make sense of the power of what she’s saying, you need to hear the beginning too:

Throughout history, the phrases of this psalm – “Have mercy on me, O God” and “Create in me a pure heart”- have often been read as words of penitence. They have been reworked and added to music, sung as a tune begging for forgiveness after individual transgression. And, indeed, they read easily that way: as though the writer has committed a sin and is seeking repentance and forgiveness for that individual act. … What if we read the psalm as lamenting something far more wicked: the sins of society that turns its back on the poor.1

I rather liked this idea, this movement from the individual transgressions to communal transgressions. It isn’t that I don’t believe both exist, but I don’t think individual transgressions ever happen in a vacuum apart from communal transgressions.

Her point about the psalm being set regularly to music is true too, although none of the 4 United Methodist hymnals I pick from most often had a song based on Psalm 51 that I could read without gagging. So I skipped them all. But there were plenty.

I got curious then, about if there is a reading of this Psalm in the communal that could be supported, say, by reading it in Hebrew or something. Quite often when you want a particular answer from the Bible you can find a scholar to tell you that thing. I pulled out my best commentary on the Psalms, the kind that devotes 30 pages to this one Psalm, and read along in order to discover that I could maybe make that point, but it would be a significant stretch. However, I did find some other great nuggets.

One I’m sharing not to make a broader point but because I simply adored it and can’t help myself, “Thus in Psalm 51 the supplicant appeals for mercy on the basis of God’s willingly assumed and continued obligation [God’s] “loyal-love” to act for the removal of anything, including guilt, which threatens the welfare of the individual (or people) for whom [God is responsible.”2 Isn’t that just beautiful? Both the assumption that God’s “loyal-love” is enough to rely on for forgiveness and that God’s desire is to remove anything INCLUDING GUILT that harms us? We may not spend a lot of time around here focusing on individual sins, but know that if we did, I’d be making that point EVERY TIME. And reminding us all that God is willing to help us even with our guilt, something we may need a lot of help with.

What I found most striking in the commentary on the Psalm were the lines that said this Psalm is hard to categorize because, “there is a full confession of sin which is without parallel in any other biblical psalm… The paucity in the Psalms of the confession of sin and pleading for forgiveness is striking.”3 So, I’ve heard A LOT about Psalm 51 in my years of Christianity. I’ve heard a lot of quotations of “Create in me a clean heart” and “purge me with hyssop” and even “against you and you alone have I sinned.”

Its been almost omnipresent in some parts of the church. Now this is when it is a little bit hard to be preaching here because a lot of you have no idea what I’m talking about and are now wondering what sorts of messed up conservative Christianity I’ve exposed myself to and I LOVE that you don’t know this. Those of you who have come along more recently though – please affirm that I’m not making this up? Thank you.

Psalm 51 is the Psalm for Ash Wednesday, and it comes up 3 other times in the Revised Common Lectionary, but I think it’s power is still bigger than its exposure in the Lectionary. Perhaps, we might say, people just need a way to express their need for forgiveness. Or, perhaps, we might say, Christianity has created a system whereby people are expected to feel awful about themselves and spend a lot of time begging for forgiveness. (See: mainstream Christianity how it thinks about sex.)

I fear there is far too much truth in that idea – that Christianity invites us to feel badly and beg for forgiveness. Now, I’m all for apologizing when we err, I’m delighted when I see signs of forgiveness between people, and I’m well aware we all make LOTS of mistakes every day. But I think a lot of Christianity sets us up to feel guilty about our humanity itself, and that’s where I get bent out of shape. Good news we got reminded God is willing to work with us on our guilt, huh?

Now, I think making people feel guilty is bad, full stop. But I am also concerned about Christianity telling people they’re bad for being humans because people feeling guilty and down on themselves fail to notice the bigger picture. They fail to see their goodness. AND they fail to see the real sins happening around them.

The opening quote to our We Cry Justice reading this week was from MLK.

“One night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved… Instead of getting bogged down on one thing, Jesus looked at him, and said, ‘Nicodemus, you must be born again.’ … In other words, “Your whole structure must be changed.”

I believe that part of the work of faith development is the work of letting God unravel our internal “whole structure” over and over again, and build it back up better. And as we keep on moving closer and closer to grace, it enables us to see more clearly the world’s structures in need of change too. John reminds us that God wants to SAVE us, that is, bring us into wholeness, bring a new structure, make it one that works for everyone. And, John says, it requires us letting go of some of the things we think we know and making space for God stuff.

God stuff like everyone is made in the image of God, even the ones you like the least. God stuff like everyone deserves rest, and food, and shelter, even the ones who mooch. God stuff like the whole creation is sacred and we are called to care about all of it. God stuff like there are no hierarchies – no one is worth more than any other – and it is always a tragedy when God’s beloveds are harmed. God stuff like peace is the goal, and violence isn’t a part of the path to peace. God stuff like consuming will never bring us true joy. God stuff like we are already enough, and we need not fight to be worth God’s love for us. God stuff like healing is possible, and so is resurrection, and more can happen than we can even dream. God stuff like hope… despite it all. God stuff like being asked to let go of guilt so fuller life can happen in us.

AND God stuff like creating in us clean hearts so we can dream with God, and have mercy on us so we can learn mercy and do it.

God stuff. That salvation is also where our reading in the Psalm ends, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” Joy! Being with God is a source of joy. To be with God is mean to be joy (not guilt.) Let’s attend to it. Amen

1Claire Chadwick, “Steadfast Spirit for Justice” in We Cry Justice (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 151-2.

2Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100 in World Bible Commentary Series (USA: Zondervan 1991) Psalm 51 p. 13

3Ibid, page 8.

June 2, 2024

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

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May 26, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Starting With Care” based on Genesis 2:1-3 and Matthew 6:26-34

We’re going to start with the bad news: you can’t control anything.

Or, at least you can’t control anything important.

You can’t control how long you’ll live, what the quality of that living will be, what illnesses or injuries you will endure, how long your loved ones will live, if or when traumatic events will occur, nor how they’ll be responded to.

I was recently a part of a conversation about suffering led by a medical professional who – rather appropriately I thought – was worried about the fact that patients sometimes assume their suffering is God’s punishment. I agreed with him that this is just not TRUE, and it is awful to think that you are both in pain and that you deserve it. But, I am also aware that if pain and suffering aren’t a punishment from God, another option is that life is a crapshoot and there isn’t any meaning to be found in it – and for a whole lot of people that’s MORE uncomfortable than thinking God wills it. Because if God’s punishing them, or teaching them a lesson, then the suffering AT LEAST means something and maybe even has redemptive value. But if it was just a random thing, and it could have happened to anyone and just happened to happen to them – well, for a lot of people that’s WORSE.

Because then it is entirely out of their control. If God is punishing them, then IF ONLY they’d acted differently, then they could have prevented this from happening.

Right? It is an awful theology, but the human desire to pretend we have control is really quite powerful.

And, let’s be honest, we can’t control things but we can …. impact probabilities, right? Cancer is MORE likely if you smoke, if you don’t exercise, if you don’t eat well. Even better, you aren’t likely to get hurt falling off a rock wall if you don’t attempt to climb a rock wall. Right?

That said, once I broke a toe because a container of chili fell out of my freezer and landed on it. No rockwalls involved. Another time I sprained an ankle horribly – at the ski mountain – on the INDOOR stairs when I was grabbing lunch. Probabilities aren’t guarantees.

I find some comfort in the Matthew passage that tells us that worrying and trying to control the uncontrollable is in human nature. This one isn’t a modern day problem and we don’t have to blame the 24 hour news cycle, smartphones, or social media. This is a human problem. We are aware enough of the uncertainties of life to worry about what may happen.

Jesus seems to recommend not worrying about the little things – about eating and drinking and finding clothes. Which, funnily enough, were exactly things that most of his audience was worried about most of the time because he was speaking to people who often didn’t enough enough food, or drink, or a change of clothes.

In the face of their daily struggle for survival, Jesus says,

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”

And I get his point. Life is vivacious, nature takes care of itself, hoarding is unnecessary, and truly no one is as beautiful as a flower. But also, I don’t get his point. Because it sounds a whole lot like saying, “Sure, there is a system of oppression out there that took away your family’s land and livelihood, and now you are hoping every day to get hired back to work the land so that you can afford to eat tonight, and sure you are likely to die soon of malnutrition, but don’t worry about it, God will take care of you.” And, while I TRULY believe that God does want to take care of everyone… well, deaths from malnutrition HAPPEN so it seems like that “promise” isn’t one that often works out.

Compassionate people don’t say to starving people, “don’t worry about food.”

So, what the heck is Jesus doing?

I think I did a bad job in picking this passage, particularly that I didn’t look at the verses PRECEEDING these ones. Namely, “No one can serve two masters for a slave will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” These lines are a big deal in the Bible. For a world in which people thought being wealthy was a sign of God’s favor, it really turns the tables. This passage encourages the poor while challenging the wealthy. And it is placed before the bit about the lilies of the field.

And I wonder if Jesus is at this point talking to wealthy people. The ones who DO have enough to eat, but are worried about it anyway. The ones who do have clothes, but fret that they’re not enough.

And I wonder, too, if Jesus is doing one of those really deep teaching things where he is saying to the poor – if you work together you’ll have enough, but when you have enough don’t worry about getting more like the rich people do. Trust in each other and God, don’t horde.

Furthermore, I think maybe Jesus wants those who are oppressed to look up long enough to see they system that is oppressing them, and that it isn’t God’s will. God made a world of abundance, PEOPLE are keeping each other from accessing it. Part of the problem of trying to survive is that you can be so pre-occupied with it that you don’t notice you shouldn’t have to fight that hard.

God made enough. It was true then, and it is true now, just as it is true that people died of not having enough then and people die of not having enough now. God made enough, people have distribution problems. And I think it’s OK to worry about the distribution problems.

I really appreciated this week’s essay from We Cry Justice. I’d like to read a little more of it to you:

God creates human partnerships. In short, God created a system whereby all material and emotional life is tended to. So if we are to be fruitful and multiply – if we are to add to creation – the systems we create must extend the provision of care.

…

Within us lies the potential to create and re-create a system that revolves around and produces care, a system where needs are met. We will need each other to do so. We will need to be in partnership, working together to be fruitful and multiply.1

We can’t CONTROL anything, although we can do a lot of damage trying. We can, however, be in partnership with each other and God and seek to “extend the provision of care.” We can choose to notice that care is inherent in creation, and that God’s care hasn’t changed. We can remind ourselves that there is ENOUGH, and that’s good. We can remember the lilies of the field – when they’re useful – that creation is beautiful and awe-inspiring.

(Image of mutual care: Ellis Nurses with supporters picketing for better care for their patients, and for each other. Photo by Sara Baron)

We can remember that things aren’t now as they should be, but they CAN get better, that God is working with us to make them better, that we’re working together, that many people are in this together. That we want a world where no one has to worry about what they will eat or drink or wear, because the resources of the world are abundant there is enough for everyone – and in the kindom of God the resources are shared with the abundance of God.

It is a dream worth holding onto, and remembering, and seeking. We can start with care. And every little bit helps. We can’t control it, but we can shape it. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Solita Alexander Riley “In the Beginning, There Was Care” in We Cry Justice (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 145.

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

May 26, 2024

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May 12, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Hate Evil and Love Good” based on Amos 5:11-15 and Mark 11:15-19

Do you ever wish there weren’t quite so many tables that need to be turned over? I mean, Jesus was totally justified in his action. And it was brilliant, and I love it. In his non-violent direct action he managed to convey that the Temple had been co-opted by the Empire and was serving the Empire and not God. He reclaimed for the people the faith of their ancestors and put them on notice that the Temple was not representing that faith. Which likely they knew, but maybe some of them mostly ignored because it was too hard to admit that the Temple of Solomon was being used as a vehicle of oppression rather than freedom. Like Jesus’ parables, his actions bring into the light a lot of things that people would rather not see.

(Jesus Mafa image)

And, like Jesus’ parables, his actions freaked out the people in power. Mark seems on target in naming that this action was a part of the decision to kill him but Christianity has a terrible historical relationship with Judaism, and I want to be sure we name that the chief priests who are said to be conspiring to kill him were appointees of ROME and that was one of the concerns Jesus was raising. While nominally Jewish, they were a tool of oppression, rather than being guardians of God’s freedom.

I think this is one of the challenges of faith traditions. There is POWER in communities of faith, and there is power in faith leadership. We are working together to make meaning of the world around us, to listen for the voice of God, and we make assessment of what God likes and dislikes about the world around us. Which is our work. The meaning making work. But that means that whoever wants to oppress others really wants us on their side to claim they are doing right and not wrong, and heavens faith leaders quite often follow those leads and end up blessing and justifying all kinds of horrible things.

We have power, so people want to abuse it, and far too often they succeed. And Jesus, God love him, and others of God’s prophets call it out.

And there is a lot of calling how to do – both in the church and in the world. And I, for one, would be happier if there were less need. I read an opinion piece in the New York Times this week entitled “The Happiness Gap Between Left and Right Isn’t Closing” by Thomas Edsall. Apparently people have been studying this for 50 years and the left is simply less happy than the right. He wrote:

Those on the right are less likely to be angered or upset by social and economic inequities, believing that the system rewards those who work hard, that hierarchies are part of the natural order of things and that market outcomes are fundamentally fair.

Those on the left stand in opposition to each of these assessments of the social order, prompting frustration and discontent with the world around them.”1

Well, that’s a fair assessment, huh? Makes me wonder how Jesus felt about doing this Temple Protest. Was he angry? Sad? Simply resigned that it was necessary? All of it at once? Clearly he would have preferred his faith tradition NOT be co-opted for oppression, but I do wonder how he made sense of it.

According to the article,Timothy A. Judge, the chairman of the department of management and human resources at Notre Dame, has also written on happiness and the left and the right. There is an idea that taking on hierarchy, patriarchy, racism, and institutions is depressing because it is HARD, it is harder than believing you have a lot of control in the world. Judge says:

“I do share the perspective that a focus on status, hierarchies and institutions that reinforce privilege contributes to an external locus of control. And the reason is fairly straightforward. We can only change these things through collective and, often, policy initiatives — which tend to be complex, slow, often conflictual and outside our individual control.

On the other hand, if I view “life’s chances” (Virginia Woolf’s term) to be mostly dependent on my own agency, this reflects an internal focus, which will often depend on enacting initiatives largely within my control.”

As I read the article, I noticed that things were getting pretty interesting for me internally. First of all, I didn’t know progressives were less happy than our counterparts and I wanted it to be untrue. But, I couldn’t argue with the fact that it would be nicer to think that things are generally working than it is to notice that a whole lot of things are not working. That’s just TRUE. But by this point I was thinking about the reality of social change. It is unpleasant to deal with the brokenness of the world, but if we don’t deal with it, we just let it continue! And, yes, change is complex, slow, conflictual, and often what we can offer is only a tiny piece of what is needed. AND, … that’s just how it is!!!

Sure, it is nicer to only deal with things that we can control, but that would leave us complicit with injustice.

Furthermore, as I was reading, I found myself reliving so many conversations we’ve had around here. This stuff is really, really true. The author also quotes Nick Haslam, a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne, who:

“cites studies showing that strong ‘correlates of holding expansive concepts of harm were compassion-related trait values, left-liberal political attitudes and forms of morality associated with both.’ Holding expansive concepts of harm was also ‘associated with affective and cognitive empathy orientation and most strongly of all with endorsement of harm- and fairness-based morality.’ Many of these characteristics are associated with the political left.”2

And, another light bulb went off. We who are called to be compassionate and empathetic, and we who come to the world with some natural compassion and empathy and are able to maintain it despite the costs – it isn’t actually easy to face the world AND feel it.

When I say I wish there were fewer tables to be overturned, I mean I wish there was more justice and less need to work for it.

But, I’m so very grateful we have the example of Jesus overturning tables, and regularly messing with the status quo, and all the rest of the Bible doing the same, to keep us on our toes. I don’t want to be a faith leader who greats meaning for oppressors. I don’t think we want to be a faith community at peace with injustice. I don’t want to NEED to turn tables, I don’t think Jesus did either. But we do what needs to be done.

Interestingly, the article ended with another quote from Timothy Judge:

I know this is perhaps naïve. But if we give in to cynicism (that consensus can’t be found), that’s self-reinforcing, isn’t it? I think about the progress on how society now views sexual orientation and the success stories. The change was too slow, painful for many, but was there any other way?

Well, it turns out that’s pretty on point for us, huh? We’re now 28 years into being a Reconciling Congregation, a decision that was made carefully over 2 more years, and we are newly a part of denomination that doesn’t actively harm queer and trans people. Many of us have turned tables to create this change. Many have made meaning to help it be clear that God’s love isn’t small and judgmental but rather is enormous and life-giving. We have used our voices to bring change.

And, dear ones, I want to point out that from 1972 to 2019 things kept on getting worse and worse. At General Conference in 2016, Love Your Neighbor Coalition Volunteers were prepared to shut down General Conference AGAIN to prevent further harm. That threat, we believe, was part of the motivation to create the 2019 General Conference. And I promise you this – all the tables that were turned along the way were turned ON PURPOSE to bring the change. People know the win wasn’t going to come through legislation, nor the judicatory, and the only answer was to raise the temperature in the room.

And in 2019 the worst possible outcome came. The church doubled down on its homophobia, and in fact defined Christianity as a commitment to homophobia. It was unfathomably awful. We, here discussed if we would stay or go. We didn’t want to be a part of it anymore, but we didn’t want to give up either.

Today, it is clear that the organizing we did after 2019 and the disaffiliation process created by 2019 (which was intended to kick US out) created a new day. But until the votes started coming in for the “2020 General Conference” – the one that ended last week, don’t let the dates confuse you – until the votes started coming in we couldn’t believe it because we’d been hurt too many times.

For the rest of my life when someone says turning over tables doesn’t matter, I’ll know better because I’ve seen it work. For the rest of my life when things are very dark, when things look like death, I’ll remember that 2019 was the death of my hope in The United Methodist Church, AND that 2024 was its resurrection.

I wish there were fewer tables to turn, but it turns out there is ONE LESS table to turn. Thanks be to God. And it turns out it got turned because people stayed with empathy and compassion, because people worked together, because they stayed to do the hard work even when it seemed hopeless, because they didn’t give up. (Note, however, that some people had to take breaks, and some people had to leave, but COLLECTIVELY we kept going. Justice work includes taking breaks.)

Amos nails it:

Seek good and not evil, so that you may live,

and so that YWHW God Omnipotent

may truly be with you as you have been claiming.
Hate what is evil and love what is good

maintain justice at the city games. (5:14-15a, Inclusive Bible)

Dear ones, we are called to seek good and not evil, to hate what is evil and love what is good. And it is HARD to stay in this work and see what is wrong and feel how much harm is done, and have hope. But, hope is worth having, because as we’ve been saying all along, “Love wins in the end, and if Love hasn’t won, it isn’t over yet.” And at least on one thing, Love has won, and that reminds me that I can trust that God who is Love will ALWAYS win. Amen

1 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/08/opinion/conservatives-liberals-depression-anxiety.html

2Ibid

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May 5, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Hallelujah, It Is Finished!” based in theory on John 21:1-14 as a story of resurrection

Dear ones, it is official. The era of institutional discrimination against queer and trans people in the United Methodist church has ended.

The phrase that said that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” is gone, and our new statement on Human sexuality reads:

We affirm human sexuality as a sacred gift and acknowledge that sexual intimacy contributes to fostering the emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being of individuals and to nurturing healthy sexual relationships that are grounded in love, care and respect.

Human sexuality is a healthy and natural part of life that is expressed in wonderfully diverse ways from birth to death. It is shaped by a combination of nature and nurture: heredity and genetic factors on the one hand and childhood development and environment on the other. We further honor the diversity of choices and vocations in relation to sexuality such as celibacy, marriage and singleness.

We support the rights of all people to exercise personal consent in sexual

relationships, to make decisions about their own bodies and be supported in those decisions, to receive comprehensive sexual education, to be free from sexual exploitation and violence, and to have access to adequate sexual health care.

The “funding ban” is gone – church support at levels can be extended to organizations doing ministry with LGBTQIA+ folx.

We don’t call anyone “self-proclaimed practicing homosexuals” anymore (PHEW), and now we affirm that queer clergy can be ordained and appointed in The United Methodist Church AND that if they can’t be safely appointed at home they can be appointed across conference lines.

We now allow clergy to preside over and UM churches to host same-gender weddings.

There are no longer chargeable offenses for ones’ sexual orientation or for doing same-gender weddings.

AND we’ve created a process to RESTORE CREDENTIALS of those who lost them because of their sexuality, gender identity, or presiding over a wedding. (It remains to be seen if anyone will use this.)

AND we’ve put in place a regionalization plan that allows for areas around the world to do ministry in ways that work for them, THANK GOD, and also means we can move from these NEUTRAL stances to POSTITIVE statements in the near future.

Friends, that first one, the “incompatibility clause” was added in 1972 and we’ve been fighting to remove it every since. 52 years.

The era of harm to God’s beloved queer and trans people through The United Methodist Church is OVER.

HALLELUJAH.

I have a memory of being in junior high Sunday school and learning that The United Methodist Church was bigoted against queer people and being simply horrified that they didn’t know better yet. I thought back then that it was just a matter of time for the church to catch up.

I remember going to General Conference in 2004 and learning how intentional and organized the homophobic movement was. It blew me away. It wasn’t simply that the church forgot to notice they had this justice issue to fix. It was that people were working hard, with great intentionality, to do harm to God’s beloveds.

I have done my part, to change the church. So have you. So have tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe more. I can’t quite process how many people have worked so hard to bring this day. The laborers have been many, and until this past two weeks the fruits have been few. But here we are.

THIS is the First Sunday of a fully inclusive United Methodist Church.

And, I thought it would feel better.

It is like I forgot about how pain works. I forgot that when the active harm stops coming, that’s when you finally get to really feel it all. That’s when the grief hits. That’s when the anger is finally able to be let out.

Until this week the harms kept coming, and all we could do was survive.

And now we have to heal.

Darn it.

IT IS FINISHED, HALLELUJAH.

And.

And we lost beloveds to suicide. And we lost those called to other churches or professions. And we lost the full authenticity of those called and serving. And we lost members who were told they were incompatible, or they couldn’t get married, or they couldn’t have their kid baptized. And we lost those who just couldn’t stay anymore. And those who have been WAITING have lost so many years.

52 years.

AND, sorry, I know I’m Debbie Downer, but we know we closed the Central Jurisdictions in 1968 to create a beautifully diverse fully shared body of Christ and racism is still alive and well anyway. And we also know that women have had full ordination rights since 1954 but don’t have pay equity or any other kind of equity. So removing formal discrimination doesn’t solve the whole problem.

You already knew that too.

Ever since the rules changed to allow all of our siblings their ordination rights, I’ve been humming Mark Miller’s song “The Journey Isn’t Over.” God’s call in my life to bring justice in the church and the world for God’s beloveds who are trans and queer hasn’t changed. I’m so grateful, so very, very grateful not to be ashamed of my denomination more. But the journey isn’t over:

From Seneca Falls,

from Selma to Stonewall

we’ve come a long way,

we’ve come a long way.

From Seneca Falls,

from Selma to Stonewall

we’ve come a long way,

but the journey isn’t over.

Friends, THIS journey will be over when God’s beloveds who are trans and queer, God’s beloveds who are women and non-binary people, God’s beloveds who are BIPOC, God’s beloveds with disabilities, AND ALL of God’s beloveds are able to live in fullness and abundance in the kindom of God.

From now until then, we’re called to make it so.

Hallelujah, THIS STAGE is finished, AND the journey isn’t over. Amen

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April 28, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Mixed Multitude” Exodus 12:33-42 and Acts 2:5-11, 41-42

I love our “We Cry Justice” reading today (#25 by Daniel Jones) and the hot take on “mixed multitudes.” I loved the MLK quote it started with too, including, Pharaoh ‘”kept the slaves fighting among themselves.” This “trick” of having most of the resources in a society “float” to the top while leaving the multitudes fighting for the crumbs is well known, and unfortunately still well used. Take a look at governmental budgets and then the people advocating for various just causes – who accidentally end up fighting each other to prove the imperative nature of their own concern AT THE cost of the others. (Fixable, it turns out, by fixing the regressive tax code so it doesn’t magnify inequality.)

Mr. Jones points out that Ancient Egypt was “an empire based on violence and injustice that sacrificed lives to the accumulation of wealth and its paranoia, viewed the murder of children as a fair price for keeping control.”1 I can’t decide if I should respond “OUCH” or “PREACH” to that one. He goes on to say that the mixed multitude – the Israelites and those who suffered along with them in the empire – built a new society based on God’s laws. “This higher law proclaims the accumulation of individual wealth to be immoral and demands freedom for enslaved people, forgiveness of debts, care for the environment, and the responsibility of everyone to their neighbors.” And THAT’s why we call it the Promised Land.

The holiness of this mixed multitude, seeking shared goodness for each other instead of competing with each other and creating community out of shared need is found in Acts 2 as well. We normally only focus on Acts 2 on Pentecost, but it is another example that when God’s Spirit is at work, people are bonded together across boundaries that might otherwise seem too impossible to cross.

God seems particularly committed to mixed multitudes.

Now this is funny thing to say right now I think. This week I’ve watched the incredible power of God’s spirit move in the intractable-until-now United Methodist Church and all of a sudden there is hope abundant! And, truthfully, that hope abundant comes BECAUSE of disaffiliation, it comes because we split. It comes because we BROKE bonds.

Part of me – ok, a really large part of me – wants to simply say that those who left identified with the oppressor and oppressed God’s beloveds and we are better off without them. But God has said to love our enemies, and I’m pretty sure being that petty isn’t appropriate for a preacher… while preaching at least 😉

We who value the wide diversity of God’s creation may find it easy to hear about the mixed multitudes and the amazing ways God’s work to overturn oppression pulls people together. But I also know that we who value the wide diversity of God’s creation sometimes find it really hard to deal with those who… don’t.

Right?

It’s OK, I know I’m right.

It turns out to be easier to be in a mixed multitude where people agree mixed multitudes are awesome than it is to be in a mixed multitude where there is a diversity of opinions about the value of diversity.

Or, maybe there is a bigger truth here. God’s amazing work to overcome oppression and pull people together is REAL. But it is hard to live in community – there are ALWAYS differences. I think often of the story a little later in Acts when the incredibly diverse Body of Christ in its infancy already had issues with food distribution being fairly managed. Humans come into community with differences. There is no community without conflict. There is no community without bias. There is no community in prefect agreement – except maybe those who all defer to a strong-man leader.

The truth is that God binds us together. And, I think sometimes we get to the point when the best choice is to let some bonds go. Because not everything is now as it should be. We know this about marriage itself – there are times when two people have hurt each other enough that the best, most loving way forward, is apart. This week showed very clearly that all the dreams I’ve ever heard God dreaming for The United Methodist Church are possible – now that we’re broken. And, to be fair, I hear from those in the Global Methodist Church that they think all the dreams they ever heard God dreaming are now possible there. The issue has ALWAYS been that we hear God differently.

So I’ve been thinking about what the moral, Christ-like response is to those with whom we have fundamental-values-level-differences. And I hear the echos of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” and I think that’s the actual start of it. I hear it in Martin Luther King teaching about the goal of his work being to bring everyone together, not to bring down the oppressor. Let’s hear him:

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. “love your enemies.”2

So, dear ones, I’m going to keep on loving the Global Methodist Church, because I deeply believe God asks me to. Further, I believe there are people in that church who need it, and others who will need it. And, apparently, we are supposed to love Christian Nationalists too – even when they misrepresent our tradition. (Pulling no punches today.)

I guess no one every said being a follower of Jesus was easy, huh? But, friends, it is the season of Easter and we are told over and over again that God is Love and Love wins and NOTHING, not even death, can stop God’s power of love. So, dear mixed multitude, let’s keep on loving on EVERYONE even when they don’t seem to know how broad God’s love is yet. Let’s be accused of being naive with our love. Let’s be radical, and a little too broad with it. Let’s be like God. Amen

1We Cry Justice #25, page 110.

2 https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

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April 22, 2024
by Sara Baron

“God is Good!” by Sylvester Doyer based on Psalm 150.

Introduction: This month of April in 2024 marks the 40 year anniversary of Sylvester’s diagnosis with HIV. In 1984 the diagnosis was seen as a death sentence, and indeed almost everyone diagnosed then died. Somehow, and we don’t know, Sylvester didn’t. In 2007/8 he came very close, and was lying in a hospital bed with 1 T-cell left expecting the end had come. But, somehow, and we don’t know how, it didn’t. He celebrates the love of his long time partner and now husband Denis who was the embodiment of God’s grace pulling him through.

This sharing is in three pieces. First words written decades ago by now Bishop Karen Oliveto for World AIDS day; second a prayer combing the sermon with the baptism we’d shared in just before the sermon; and third the sermon itself. For those in need of a reminder that there can be hope when it seems like hope has fled, may these words of gratitude penetrate your very being. – Pastor Sara Baron

*Call to Worship1“World AIDS Day Liturgies” Karen Oliveto

One: How have you come to this time and place?