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October 1, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Blessed to be a Blessing” based on Psalm 67:1-5 and Genesis 12:1-4

“Take, eat; this is my body which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

“Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

These words in our traditional communion liturgy connect the Last Supper of Jesus to our communion table here today, to every communion table around the world today, to every communion table in history, to every communion table in the future, AND to every table we sit at to eat.

They extend even further. The extend to the tables that are empty of food, and to the people who lack tables, and those who have neither. The words connect as well to our siblings in faith around the world who are displaced from their homes – migrants, assylum seekers, and those who have been evicted. It can boggle the mind, the ways the Table of God connects us!

The words of Jesus, at the Last Supper as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels tell us to remember every time we eat and every time we drink. The communion liturgy just reminds us of that. Every time, we are to remember that we are God’s. Every time, we are to remember that’s God’s love is steadfast. Every time we are to remember that we are blessed by God to be a blessing for the whole world. Every time we are to remember that Jesus remembered God’s mighty acts of salvation – at the Passover – and added to them the reminders that we are capable of continuing his ministry as the living Body of Christ.

Every time we eat. Every time we drink.

We remember.

We’re called back to our purpose: we’ve been sent out to share love.

We’ve been sent out to continue the work of Jesus, of calling people back to God, and God’s vision of abundance for everyone. To the work of community, of relationship, of listening, of learning, of love.

And today we remember those who have plenty and those who have nothing. Those who are at peace and those who can’t find any peace. Those who are afraid and those who are filled with joy. God’s table is for all.

In Genesis Abraham is blessed by God, or so our stories go. Today’s little passage makes sense of it. His blessing is that he gets to be a blessing for the world. It isn’t for him. Blessings aren’t meant for just one, they’re for sharing. Eventually it came to be known that the ancient Israelites, too, were blessed. They too were blessed to be a blessing for the whole world.

The World Communion Table is, at first, just the communion table set and celebrated in many churches on the same day. But it is so much more than that too. It breaks down the barriers in our faith, it connects us, and it reminds us that we, too, are blessed to be a blessing. Not to hold on to anything God gives us, but to share it widely.

And so, today, we unite our table with many others around the world, and then we extend our table from the one in this room to the ones in the Fellowship Hall. And hopefully at supper time we remember that the tables have stretched just a little bit further to our own homes. And tomorrow at breakfast we can think about some loved ones we’ve shared meals with and pray for them and their tables. We’ll try to understand the immensity of God’s love, and the multitude of ways God seeks to feed God’s people. So that when we sit to eat, we remember.

And we’re grateful.

To be blessed.

To be blessings.

To be connected.

And now we move towards God’s table, to start this journey again. Thanks be to God who uses food and drink to remind us of what we need to know most. 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

October 1, 2023

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September 24, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Grieving Jesus” based on 2 Samuel 1:17-27 and John 16:16-22

This week I found myself in multiple conversations about “the day the church died.” That was February 26, 2019, and the following day the Love Your Neighbor Coalition held a worship service that was a funeral for The United Methodist Church.

Now, let’s assume that if I found myself in multiple conversations about this, I may have been the one bringing it up – although I’m not actually sure that’s the only truth. But we can go with it. It has led me to wonder why: why, 4 ½ years later, this is coming up.

However, some of you may be lucky enough not to know what I’m talking about, and I don’t like leaving people in the dark. In 1968 The United Methodist Church was born when the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged. Both churches had powerful histories with social creeds, and at the birth of the church a study commission was created to write a new set of “Social Principals” to guide the newly formed church. The study commission brought its recommendations to the 1972 General Conference. They did a nice job. They included in their recommendation, in a piece about human sexuality, “Persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.”

Now, that phrase isn’t exactly a bombshell, right? I mean, DUH, “Persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.” But when I think about the Queer and Trans justice movements in the USA, the 1972 church study commission offering the words “Persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth” was a good start.

Today we’re talking about grief – because the scriptures handed us those topics on a platter – and when I think about the church’s failures to LGBTQIA+ people, my grief starts escalating at this point in our history. With those decent words “Persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.” on the table in front them, along with A WHOLE LOT OF other words about a WHOLE LOT of other topics, some people decided that those words were too strong and required caveats. Terrible ones. So they changed it, and eventually the 1972 Book of Discipline would read “Persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth. We do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider it incompatible with Christian teaching.” They also added, "We do not recommend marriage between two persons of the same sex,” although I think the greater gut punch was in the first addition.

People of good faith in The United Methodist Church have been trying to remove those words ever since. While there were setbacks along the way, for a while there also seemed to be movement towards inclusion of all of God’s people. The people committed to exclusion seemed to be losing the battle, until they weren’t. By 2016 it was clear that the movements for inclusion had reached a series of dead-ends: General Conference was not going to change the church’s stance, the Judicial Council was going to uphold it, the Bishops en mass were not going to stand against it, and the capacity to fight things on localized levels was extremely limited. Based work in the first week of General Conference, it was clear that The UMC was about to enact a series of changes that would decimate its LGBTQIA+ community, one that was already experiencing a spiritual and literal bloodbath.

Good students of nonviolent social action know that when all the other avenues are closed to you, you raise the temperature in the room, in hopes of motivating change. Good students of nonviolent social action were in that room, organizing. The United Methodist Church was about to face two horrible options: mass arrests of nonviolent protesters, or protesters shutting down the floor of General Conference preventing their work from being completed. (I’m so thankful for good organizers, aren’t you?)

The Church choose a third option. They created another study commission (I’m barely refraining from extensive commentary on study commissions and the church) “The Commission on a Way Forward” that was to bring to a SPECIAL SESSION of General Conference – 2019 – a way forward that would …. well, let’s be honest… they wanted a way forward that would keep Queer and Trans people and their allies form making the church look bad while appeasing the conservatives. But, at that point, ANYTHING looked better than where we were headed, and forcing some new thinking on the topic felt like a victory.

When 2019 came the “Way Forward Commission” put forward a very milquetoast proposal “The One Church Plan”, the Queer Clergy Caucus put forward a truly excellent proposal called “The Simple Plan,” and the conservatives put forward a scare tactic they called “The Traditional Plan.” Confession time: I didn’t think the Simple Plan (which was hands down the best plan) could win, so I put my energy on to passing The One Church Plan which was a horrible compromise that I justified as being a step forward we could pass. Turns out I was wrong all over the place, and we couldn’t pass it – AND the support for the Simple Plan was almost exactly as high as The One Church Plan. Turns out, the votes went to The Traditional Plan which was simply so horrendous it didn’t seem possible it could ever happen. It felt like a caricature of itself, like what a satire magazine would produce as a conservative think-piece.

When it passed, the denomination lost any remaining integrity, and any claim on Godliness. As a clergy person I have made commitments not only to God but also to THIS denomination. I’d experienced the Divine through the UMC, I loved it, I wanted to make it better, and I wanted to work in it to make the world the kindom of God. On that day, I no longer saw a connection between God and the church.

Now, it always needs to be said, I wasn’t the primary one harmed by The Traditional Plan. It set out to harm Queer and Trans people, and it did. Any damage to me, and others who know a God Who Celebrates Diversity, was mere icing on the cake. And yet, to be in a denomination that does harm like that ON PURPOSE, wrecked me. It was some of the strongest grief I’ve ever experienced.

And maybe this week proved, it still is. The unfortunate reality is that while many of us were grieving The United Methodist Church, things were also really hard around here in this local church, and things were pretty bad in the USA and sometimes the world, and the grief probably didn’t get the time or space it needed. And then there was COVID, and the time to grieve simply dissipated. That’s actually my working theory on why this is coming up again – the grip of COVID has finally lowered enough that there is space for the stuff we were working on before it started.

You’ve heard me reflect on a really non-traditional grief so far today. We most often think of grief as relating to the loss of a person, and I think we make the most space for that kind of grief. But we miss a lot when we limit it that way. The Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling says grief is “The complex interaction of affective, cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses to the loss by any means of a person, place, thing, activity, status, bodily organ, etc., with whom (or which) a person has identified, who (or which) has become a significant part of an individual’s own self.”1 (emphasis mine)

So to keep going with this truly uplifting sermon 😉 I want to talk about some significant communal grief that I have seen in our community. It may be that some of us don’t feel some of these, but I think all of them are in us together. And, because I think there is some power in it, we’re going to try this as a liturgy, after I say each piece, I invite you to respond, “Holy One, help us hold our grief.”

For the ones we have known, and loved, and lost – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For the ones we thought we had time to get to know and love – and lost – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For the church that we thought would become open to people of all ages, nations, races, genders, and sexualities – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For the community that we hoped would welcome vulnerable immigrants with open arms – – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For the nation that we thought would prioritize the vulnerable – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For the world that we thought would work more on climate change than on enriching the already rich – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For this local church that we hoped could be free from the anxiety in each of us and around all of us – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For the people and places we trusted, who ended up having different values that we do, and it felt like betrayal – Holy One, help us hold our grief.
For who we thought we’d be, but we aren’t – Holy One, help us hold our grief.

Amen

If we take that definition of grief seriously, then grief is the response to the loss of something a person identifies with. It is a loss of a part of ourselves. In some of what we said above, I think it is the loss of hope. That’s a really serious loss, one that may characterize our age.

The work of grief is the slow work of creating new identity in a new reality. Where one might have identified as a spouse, one now has to figure out what it means to be a widow or widower. Where one might have identified with a strength, now there is a need to identify with a weakness. Where one might have chosen hope, one now there is a need to identify with the experience of hopelessness.

It is clear why grief takes a while, and why the more strongly one identifies with someone or something, the longer it takes to form a new identity, and why one might not want to!

I’m really struck in the gospel by the idea that the disciples started grieving the eventual loss of Jesus while he was still with them. I’m annoyed by it. I want it to be untrue. But I think that probably was the case. The disciples probably could see where Jesus’s ministry was heading, and while they may have been in denial about it, it was still there pressing on them. Even during the life and ministry of Jesus there was grief pushing around the edges that they were going to lose him. I can’t think of much more of a human reality than that one.

The reading from 2 Samuel is almost too much to hold. The depth of David’s grief feels so vulnerable that my instinct is to look away because I don’t know him well enough to be privy to it. That said, it is written in Bible, and you might not have heard it, so let me summarize. David is grieving Saul who was his king and adversary (#complicated) and Saul’s son Jonathan who was at least his best friend and probably lover (#alsocomplicated).

Don’t go around sharing that the mighty have fallen –

I don’t want our enemies to rejoice at this heartbreak.

Let those who failed to support Saul struggle, as payback.

Saul and Jonathan weren’t weak, don’t say they were weak, they brought others down with them.

They were together in life, and they are together in death.

Women, weep – these were the ones who took care of you.

My love has been killed, and I grieve.

He was my delight, his love gave me life.

The mighty have fallen, and I grieve.

My word for you today is an odd one. Traditionally speaking, I should turn this sermon around and end on an up-note, but that feels trite. I can say that the things we grieve are most commonly things we loved, and the grief is a reflection of that love. That’s good. But really, my point today is this: grief is imperative and hard work. There is no way through it except through it. It doesn’t go away because we don’t like it, or we deny it, or we can’t handle it. Like many things based in our bodies or emotions, either we make space to grieve or grieve will make space in us to come out – usually in ways we’ll hate.

And yet, God is with us. God is with us, holding us when we grieve. We are not alone, even when we feel the most alone. We are not lost to God, even when we don’t know who we are anymore. For me, that’s good news. In fact, it is enough. Thanks be to God who holds us when we grieve. Amen

1Rodney J. Hunter, general editor, Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling (Abington Press: Nashville, 1990), page 472.

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

September 24, 2023

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September 17, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Our Prayer” based on Psalm 71:1-6, Matthew 6:9-13

In June, after we celebrated the life of Walter Grattidge, I was walking through the sanctuary with the intention of putting my microphone away. Three people were in the sanctuary, seemingly admiring the stained glass, which was a little unusual because Dottie Gallo’s cooking creations were available at that time in Fellowship Hall.

I believe I said something incredibly profound, like “I’m putting my mic away, but while I’m here, can I help you with anything?” The answer was unexpected.

The three people turned out to be a mother, a daughter, and the daughter’s husband. The mother was raised in this church, and was a teenager in the 1940s when Rev. Dr. Lee Adkins Sr. was pastor here. I’ve heard wonderful things about the ministry of Rev. Dr. Adkins Sr., but the story she told was the best one yet:

She was a curious and thoughtful young person, and she struggled with the stories she heard in Sunday School and how she was taught to interpret them. In her frustration, she went to Rev. Adkins to ask him some pointed questions. (Already, I’m loving this story – right? She’s feisty, she’s good at Biblical interpretation, and she has access to the Sr. Pastor as she should.)

She named her concerns, and in response he ask her to listen to a story. His story was this:

When he was a young man he was struggling to decide what to do with his life. One day, he was hiking, and when he got to the top of a mountain, and the sky opened up before him, he saw written in the clouds “Preach,” and he knew his life’s work.

He then told her to go home, think about his story, and come back in a week or two and explain it to him. She did. She thought long and hard about it. When she returned she said to him, “I do not believe that the clouds actually said ‘preach.’ I think you were moved by the beauty and sense of awe around you, and you found within yourself clarity on your life’s work, and the best way you can communicate that is to say that the clouds spelled out ‘preach.’”

Now -get this – this is my favorite part. He said, “OK, go home and think about it for another week or two and come back again.” Now, she said that she was really wanting to give the “right” answer and it was quite distressing to be sent away to try again. But she did, and when she came back said to him, “I stand by my answer.” And he smiled and said, “good.”

He affirmed her capacity to think, to interpret, to use her reason, and in doing so gave her ways to approach the Bible and the world.

She said that she was taking her family on a tour of her life, and they were in Schenectady so she could show them the church. (They live in Western Canada I think.) The following day we were having our combined Pride services, and they’d known about that and just walked by hoping to get in. Her family had left Schenectady soon after the story she told me, her father’s job changed. But for her that conversation with her pastor opened up the world. She is now a great-grandmother, and she talked about being formed by that permission to be curious and reasonable, and how in her family there are now 4 generations of people who are who they are because she was given permission to THINK about her faith by her pastor.

I’ve been holding this story (not perfectly, sometimes it slips out because it is so good), but holding it for preaching for this day. Because when we think about Homecoming and what it means to come home to this church, I think that story has some pretty central themes about who this church has been and who this church is.

This is a place where faith and reason are welcome together. This is a place where curiosity is welcome. This is a place where people know that the Bible’s truths are often shared in metaphor. This is a place that seeks to form people with permission giving, rather than limitations.

Which gets me to a second central piece of how I know you, First Schenectady United Methodist Church. Some years ago now when asking parents about what color blanket they wanted for their baby’s baptism, their response was “We’d like a rainbow blanket, because we want our child to know they will be loved as whoever they are.” I completely copied them when it was my turn 😉

One of the many joys of being the pastor here has been the chance to get to know people who were raised in this church as I have worked with them to prepare the Celebrations of Life for their parents. I know of any stories of the church’s children of the 20th century being wrapped in rainbow. However, as I’ve gotten to know those who were raised in the church, I’ve been astounded to find some deep similarities.

The men who were raised in this church are unusually kind, considerate, empathetic, gentle, and thoughtful. The women who were raised in this church are usually self-assured and able to be appropriately assertive. Let’s be honest, those things both break gendered stereotypes, but fit the fullness of the human experience. This church raised people with the space to be the best and most authentic version of who they were, and made space and capacity to reject the norms of society that put people into boxes.

I was able to put my finger on what was so extraordinary several years ago now, and it has been really fun to see my theory confirmed over and over again since.

Dear ones, the impact of this church in the world is HUGE – even if all we count is how the people raised in this church were given the love, space, and capacity to become fully themselves. This church has been a counter-cultural force for good for a VERY LONG TIME.

This church has been doing God’s work for a long time.

Thank God.

And thank you.

I have been reminded this week of how beautiful and delightful this world really is. And it is beautiful even while it is broken. The beautiful and the broken are simply both true.

As people of faith, we are given the great gift of being reflective about how we respond to the world. So much of what we do together is reflecting on what is good, what is God, and how we can respond. We have the chance to think about, and practice, centering down with God, centering down to relationships, centering down to simply enjoy the goodness of life – and then using the energy we have gathered in the centering down to seek justice for God’s people. Isn’t that a wonderful thing to get to do??

The Lord’s Prayer is full of layers of meaning, has been examined with rich study, and there are translations of it that make my heart stir. We can’t get into most of that in an even vaguely reasonable time frame, so I just want to focus today on the last line in our reading, “and do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from that which is evil.” The rescue is sometimes deliverance, and deliverance is interesting in the Bible because it is the original meaning of salvation. As Dr. Gafney says, “Salvation in the Hebrew Bible is physical and material deliverance or rescue of an individual or community from enemies.”1

The rescue that we need, the deliverance that we need, changes with time, changes with the communities we live in, changes with our own needs. But the reason this prayer still resonates all these years later in all kinds of different places is that a need for rescue is a pretty common human experience.

Yolanda Norton translates that line as “separate us from the temptation of empire and deliver us into community.”2

Thank God that God HAS delivered us, into community, into THIS community, beautiful and broken as this one is, it helps us be a part of rescuing the world. Thank God. Amen

1Wilda Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church (New York, NY: Church Publishing, 2021), 284.

2Gafney, 285

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

September 17, 2023

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September 10, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Shorts!?” based on James 2:8-13 and Mark 7:14-23

It was really hot, sort of like this past week, when I went to visit some parishioners in my first church. I was in my mid-20s, and very aware of my pastoral role, so I’d carefully purchased only knee length shorts. I wore them, because they were modest and it was hot out.

The couple I visited was in their 80s, kind and thoughtful, passionate gardeners with great stories to tell. Without malice or judgement one of them remarked on my shorts to the other, something along the lines of “I never thought I’d see the day that a pastor would wear shorts.”

It had not occurred to me until that exact moment that I was violating an expectation. It was HOT OUT, and they were LONG, and someone had told me not to be too frilly or people wouldn’t trust me and…. most of all, I just didn’t know that pastors were expected not to wear shorts.

As an FYI this also applied to sandals and sleeveless tops, where there were expectations of some that I didn’t know about. Oddly enough, I’m willing to violate your expectations if you think I shouldn’t show my toes or my upper arms, but I haven’t gone visiting in shorts since that day!

Our passages today land us smack dab in the middle of purity conversations, and my experience of wearing shorts on a hot day seem like a decent example of how purity expectations change with time. There was a 60 year difference in ages between the faithful members of the church and the new pastor in that story, and we didn’t have the same understanding of what “appropriate” attire was for a pastor in the summer. That’s not exactly shocking. I have not experienced a time when women wore hats, gloves, and dresses to church while men wore suits, ties, and had handkerchiefs but I’ve heard about those times. I’ve heard about the transitions to making space for women to wear pants. For that couple, those transitions had happened during their live-times, and I was unfathomably casual. For me, finding shorts that were long enough to be “appropriate” was seriously challenging work – I was going against the grain of what I wanted to wear and what my friends wore for the sake of adapting to expectations, and I was embarrassed to learn it wasn’t enough.

As I read the Gospel this week, and listened to a story about Jesus condemning kosher dietary laws, I thought to myself, “well, that’s not likely to go back to Jesus. The decision to forego Jewish purity laws happened much later in Christian history. Jesus was Jewish, and he wouldn’t have condemned a faithful expression of his own tradition.” So, I went to the Jesus Seminar so they could tell me how brilliant I am.

They didn’t.

Instead, they said, “The aphorism – it’s not what goes in but what comes out that defiles – is a categorical challenge to the laws governing pollution and purity. … As a simple aphorism, it may well go back to Jesus: it challenges the everyday, the inherited, the established, and erases social boundaries taken to be sacrosanct. If Jesus taught that there is nothing taken into the mouth that can defile, he was undermining a whole way of life. That, in the judgement of the Fellows, sounds like Jesus.”1 They did think the later explanation of all the sins was likely a creation of Mark, for what it is worth, which is pretty much nothing.

I am not exactly sure what to do with this now, because it has a problematic anti-Semitic feel to it, but also Jesus was Jewish and I think people within a group get to see its reform. I just think that we, as Christians, better be very careful about how we speak about such things.

So I’m going to move away from the kosher conversation, and further into the purity conversation. The Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels makes this really interesting. They say, “Purity practices are a form of group boundary markers. They define who is in and who is out. They draw lines between those who are loyal to a group and those who are not…. Redefinition of purity rules such as Mark describes here and in the preceding passage can thus be construed as a redefinition of group and its boundaries.”2

I hadn’t even thought of that. I’ve been too busy being upset about the way that purity movements in my life-time are anti-sex, anti-female, homophobic, transphobic, and small-minded. I missed that they had a purpose.

If purity laws about defining the boundaries of who is in and who is out, well, first of all, a lot of things suddenly make more sense. Because that indicates that by drawing a line somewhere and thus excluding someone you can feel good about yourself and your self-righteousness, and well, I’ve seen that trick.

But also, if purity laws are about who is in and who is out then a whole lot of the Bible makes more sense. Because it turns out the word “neighbor” is also about who is in and who is out. Back to the Commentary, “Persons interacting positively with each other in in-group ways, even when not actual kin, become “neighbors.” The term refers to a social role with rights and obligations that derive simply from living socially close to others and interacting with them – the same village or neighborhood or party or faction. Neighbors of this sort are an extension of one’s kin group.”3

OK, so the ancient world was obsessed with in group and out group thinking – not so different from how we are now. And the first level of in group was family, everything else balanced on family. So as the in-group expanded outward, it became about thinking about who counted as being “family like,” and neighbors were family-like, in no small part because their well-being was tied up with one’s own.

But this is weird I fall in love with the Jesus movement all over again. Because we’ve got this purity thing going on, this drawing lines in the sand and excluding people from it, right? But then it turns out we include our families. And we include our neighbors. And then we have this Jesus who teaches centering on the question “Who is my neighbor?” and the answer ends up being the expected enemy, and that means everyone is your neighbor and there isn’t an out group after all, just one big in-group and everyone’s well being is interconnected.

This concept is why I use the language “kin-dom of God” where many others have used “kingdom of God.” Part of my decision there is to reject the idea that God is like an overbearing earthly king, interested in power and obedience. That part of my decision is ironic because the whole idea of “kingdom of God” is meant to be a counter to the idea of earthly power, but it seems to me we’ve gotten confused along the way, and it hasn’t worked. The positive piece though, is that we are moving towards the kin-dom of God when all people are treated as kin, as family, as members of the in-group, as people whose well-being is interconnected.

Now, there is a challenge in this. One of the best ways to bind a group of people together in an identity is to define an us by defining a “them.” It is engaging to be “in” and we create an “in” by creating an out. It is harder to be without those purity boundaries. But it is worth it.

When I think about being a person of faith, the way I think about it is to be about moving with God towards the kindom, and hopefully inviting others with me along the way. Or, in similar language, I’m told one of my predecessors in this pulpit, J. Edward Carothers, talked about the purpose of church being “to establish and maintain connections of mutual support in an ever widening circle of concern.”

Ever widening circle of concern. Which might, even, be a circle of mercy. Our James reading ends with “mercy shouts victory over judgment.” I always have to remember that mercy is compassion shown to someone who it would be in one’s power to punish or harm. In this phrasing it seems like the opposite of judgment. Judgment would be using one’s power to punish or harm. But “Mercy shouts victory over judgment.” James is making a point common to the Bible – the ways we act and judge are the ways we will be treated and the ways we will be judged. Be merciful, he says, so you will receive mercy. Be merciful so mercy shouts victory over judgment.

May mercy be the way forward.

Compassion, when one holds the power over another.

Compassion.

Mercy.

Mercy shouts victory over judgment.

Ever widening circles of mercy.

Until the kindom comes.

Yes, God, yes, let’s do it! Amen

1Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? (USA: HarperOne, 1993) 69.

2Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Luke 16:1-16” p. 176.

3Malina and Rohrbaugh, 373.

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

September 10, 2023

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September 3, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Math for the Win" based on Galatians 5:13-21 and Luke 19:1-10

The math of the Zacchaeus story has always bothered me. Because if he gives half of what he has away, and then he gives back what he took inappropriately TIMES 4, he has negative income really fast. Right? Which would mean he can’t fulfill his promise. But he is a tax collector so he can probably do math, so why did he say it?

For the first time in my life, this week, I let myself finish that thought. Because, despite the fact that math isn’t usually a great source of Biblical insight, the decades of annoyance about the math just couldn’t be silenced.

If the math is impossible, I started to wonder, does that mean that Zacchaeus is actually saying that he doesn’t defraud anyone? Because if that is the case, then it would follow that he isn’t actually a bad guy, despite being a tax collector! Which would mess up a whole lot of what I thought I new about this passage.

So, like you do, I did some digging in my favorite commentaries, and (shock of shock for those who listen to me regularly) the Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels had something to say about this that I found important. Namely that the Greek verbs that Zacchaeus speaks “I give” and “I pay back” are in the present tense, which indicates that even before meeting Jesus, “Zacchaeus is already practicing this kind of compensatory behavior. The trouble is that the crowd does not believe him. He therefore bristles a bit at the stereotyping behavior of the crowd and responds to Jesus with a description of his customary behavior.”1

As someone who heard this lesson in Sunday School and learned a very annoying little song about it that never quite leaves my head, this is kinda crazy to learn. Zacchaeus was a good guy all along! He didn’t have some conversion experience upon meeting Jesus, what he actually had was a chance to be SEEN and KNOWN for the faithful human he already was- and the actions of Jesus in going to his house and in giving him a platform to speak were actions of HEALING between Zacchaeus and the community, because afterwards they could see him as he was and accept him as part of their communal life.

And, for the record, NOW it makes sense why he climbed that tree – if he was already a man who lived his faith, of course he’d want to see the guy whose live shined with God’s light.

Thanks math.

All of a sudden, this story resonates with some universal truths. Because, who among us hasn’t been misinterpreted, misunderstood, perceived in the worst light and desperately wished to be heard well, understood, and appreciated for who we are? I fear the answer is that no one has been excluded from that horrible human experience. The one where the good things you do go unnoticed or sometimes even are intentionally brushed away, and the mistakes you made are used to define you, and no space is given for you to talk about what your actual intentions were nor that you are sorry for the harm you caused. Everything you do or don’t do gets interpreted as bad, usually without anyone even talking to you about it directly.

It is awful stuff, right?

And it is common.

And it feels terrible.

Oh how I wish this were one of those things that didn’t happen in the church. However, this is a thing that happens in the church. (If you didn’t know that yet, YAY!!!!!!!! And sorry to burst your bubble.) I guess, for me, it helps a little bit that Paul speak to this as well, because this being a universal human and church failing at least means it isn’t just my own personal failure of leadership that this happens here sometimes too. I take what I can get.

Galatians, being one of the authentic letters of Paul, is a source of great wisdom and insight that still manages to annoy me immensely. In this case, I really hate that he engages in “body soul dualism” and attributes all the evil stuff to bodies. I pretty emphatically disagree. In my opinion, my worldview, body soul INTEGRATION is where it is at. Our bodies are full of useful information about who we are, how we are, what feelings we have, and what we need. Our bodies guide us to the fullness of our humanity, and as we make space for the fullness of our humanity we move toward the Divine as well. Which I think is really important.

Now that I’ve argued with Paul, I can move on and say that I agree with his opening point that being free in God should not be taken as a reason to bite and devour each other. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves – the ones near and far, the ones in the church and out of it. If you are being distracted by his long list of “bodily desires” and those have been used against you in the past, let me offer the words of Dr. Wil Gafney on this, “In this case the author is focusing on excessive desires and self-gratifying desires rather than condemning the care and ending of one’s body and health. Mutual sexual gratification would seem to be beyond rebuke.”2

Now that we’ve de-escalated our responses to Paul, what we can do with his wisdom that people who seek to be loving to each other sometimes chew each other up and spit each other out – like people did to Zacchaeus? He recommends “walking in the Spirit.” I recommend staying in your body. Really. I recommend letting yourself be mad, or sad, or disappointing in another, and then checking to see if there are any other emotions around it, and then finding out what thing(s) you value are violated and then thinking about what might make those better – and then if you can thinking about what the other person may be feeling, needing, valuing – and then TALKING ABOUT IT WITH THE PERSON.

Yes.

WITH the other person.

Because the Bible is really clear that the best way to deal with each other is directly. Even though it is really hard. Can you imagine if someone had said to Zaccheaus, “Hey, you are in a really awful profession, but you claim to be a decent guy. That doesn’t add up to me, can you help me understand?” Or even, “I think you took too much money from me.” Or, “You claim to love God, but you seem to love money. Does that seem true to you?”

Those wouldn’t be easy conversations, but they might have changed everything. I have been so grateful in my ministry for the people who say, “I see you doing this thing, and I think you should be doing that thing,” and say it to me directly so we can chat! I’ve also been grateful for those who say, “I was really offended by this thing you did.” Because we can figure out together what matters to us together and how to find an answer for the future that works for us both. And no one else is stuck in the middle, or pulled into drama, and no one is being maligned. It is a hard, beautiful thing.

I think that’s the miracle of what Jesus did with Zaccheaus – he reconnected him to people so the people could talk to him again, ask him questions again, call him out even. He opened up the lines of communication. Because that’s what it means to be in community – it means to be in communication with people, including in difficult communication.

Thank God Jesus called Zaccheaus out of that tree, and thank God his math SO CLEARLY didn’t add up so he could become multi-dimensional to us, and THANK GOD other people have been misunderstood so we don’t feel alone, and most of all thank God for the times when people are brave enough for the hard conversations. Those are the most holy ones.

Amen

1Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Luke 16:1-16” p. 303.

2 Wilda Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church (New York, NY: Church Publishing, 2021), p. 278.

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

September 3, 2023

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August 13, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Glimmers” based on Psalm 10:1-14 and John 10:11-16

You may already know this, but sheep are the vulnerable adults of the animal kingdom. They are epically poor at making good decisions. Left to their own devices they will eat themselves to death, because they just don’t know when to stop. Because of their woolly coats, which weigh them down when wet, they’re picky about where they drink. They’re vulnerable to predators, and can get lost easily.

It is because they are so vulnerable that the role of shepherd is so important. It is probably because they are so vulnerable and in need of help and support that they come to know and rely on their shepherd.

It is probably because we’re all sometimes vulnerable, and can make bad decisions, and have particular needs we can’t easily meet that the metaphor of God as a Shepherd makes sense. Well, that and the Bible was written when agricultural metaphors were the most easily available and understood ones 😉

This passage from John fits easily into the explanations we have of the 23rd Psalm, where God is a shepherd. Here, Jesus is the shepherd, right? And here it is explicit that the care the shepherd gives is being willing to run INTO danger to protect the sheep while others would choose to run away. And the shepherd is the one the sheep know and trust, and no one else is. Lovely.

Perhaps my favorite part of this passage is the end where Jesus claims there are other flocks who also listen to his voice, and it is his intention to bring them together. That sounds right- that there are others who also know love and also are loved and that Jesus is able to offer care for more individuals than we might have thought possible.

I adore, too, the intimacy of the passage, the reminder that a shepherd and their sheep KNOW EACH OTHER well, and know each other’s voices, and respond to each other. That fits, because humans and sheep are all mammals and mammals are all about connecting to each other.

It leads me to wondering about how it is we experience that kind of intimacy with the Divine. God, we say, is everywhere in everything and always around us and always available. Yet, not every moment of our lives feels saturated with the Divine, and quite often we’re too busy doing other things to connect. Or maybe God feels farther away and the connection is harder to come by.

This week I’ve been thinking about the reminders of God and God’s goodness that glimmer in the world and help us remember to connect. I’ve been thinking about it because I spent a week at camp and the whole week was just one big glimmer of wonderfulness and love, of being wrapped in creation and there being spaciousness to connect with wonderful people, and time to savor it all. But, it turns out, I came home from camp and reality as I usually experience it hit me … well, pretty fast and pretty hard and I was disoriented.

Because usually my life involves bearing witness to a lot of pain, and a lot of our society’s brokenness and when I came back to that with my guard down it HURT. (Which is also good, I think, but that’s for another day.)

And yet, my guard needs to come down sometimes. And sometimes I need to take a walk with dear ones and marvel over the many colors of mushrooms growing in the woods, or watch a beaver swim with a big branch, or just sit and watch a rainstorm come by from a dry porch, or talk about scripture with people who just love it. (Camp. WOW.)

So I’ve been thinking about joy, and where to access it. And I’ve been thinking about hope and where to access it. Because I don’t think that the injustices of the world or the pain that humans experience are about to stop, but I don’t want those to be the ONLY things that get my attention.

And that’s where “glimmers” come in. I shared this on the church’s Facebook page:

Did you know about glimmers?

Glimmer is the opposite of a trigger. Like a micro moment that makes you happier, a little moment of awe, something that makes you feel hope. Once you start looking for them and embracing them, your life feels so much sweeter.

I’m actually going to take that a bit further though. I think a glimmer is a glimpse of God, or God’s love, or God’s goodness, or God’s desire for us to live full and abundant lives. And they’re reminders that we can trust in God and God is with us – like John says.

So I’ve been watching for glimmers. Baptism is ALWAYS one. This baptism all the more so for me, after having had the chance to confirm Chris in the early years of my ministry here. I have been reminded that we have rainstorms AND porches here in Schenectady, as well as sunrises and sunsets and even sometimes stars and all of that glimmers. Good food glimmers. Shared excitement glimmers. Great ideas glimmer. Quiet moments of understanding glimmer. Debbie’s fingers on a keyboard glimmer. Maybe it is too obvious, but the stained glass in here glimmers – and it is awfully good to remember to look!!

Once I started looking again, the glimmers were everywhere. Oh, Andrew, I hope you grow up seeing glimmers everywhere every day. I hope your family does too and they teach you to appreciate it. I hope your churches – here and at home – do too and they teach you to appreciate it. And, by the way – all of the rest of you too.

I wish you the capacity to see the glimmers all around you, and the ability to remember they are signs of God’s love, and the development of trust in God that can come from it all – so that we all learn even better how to hear and trust God’s voice.

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

August 13, 2023

(Thanks to Joan E. Carey for photo.)

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August 6, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Destruction and Peace” 1 Samuel 15:1-3, 8, 10-17, 24-25 and Psalm 146

This church is blessed with a deep commitment to learning and growing. We all come with our own background and experiences. Some of which involve degrees in religion, theology, or divinity. Some of which involves running for dear life from church and everything like it for most of a life, and not being as well read. Which is to say, wherever you might be, that’s fine! Nerds are welcome here, and … non-nerds? Is that what they’re called?

So, anyway, this church that loves to learn has been lucky enough to have the Carl Lecture fund which allow the church bring in speakers to help us learn more. The most recent Carl Lecturer was Bishop Karen Oliveto in May, and that was a delight. In 2017 ago John Dominic Crossan lectured here, and like Bishop Karen I’m still fan-girl-ing over it.

A few things “Dom” said that weekend have reframed the Bible for me, and quite often when I read a text I’m struck again by the truth of it all. The biggest reframing was in thinking of the Bible as containing two streams of thought.

They are often intertwined, they are both holistic, and they are both prevalent throughout the Bible. One of them he called the covenant stream and characterized as being a punishment/reward system. In that stream the people were told what to do, rewarded if they did it, punished if they did not, and judged by their obedience.

The other he called the stream of distributive justice and it begins in the Bible with the distribution of rest called Sabbath and continues to be concerned with the fair distribution of the things people need so they can live full and abundant lives.

Both streams are found throughout the Hebrew Bible, both are found throughout the Christian Testament, and most people of faith focus on one of them and find the other to be of less value. John Dominic Crossan himself prefers the sabbath and distributive justice stream and finds within it the description of the God he knows. Turns out me too.

Today we got a text from each stream, and one of them is pretty distressing, at least to me. In 1 Samuel God tells the people to destroy one of their enemies in a “holy war” which means the complete and utter destruction of every living thing in their village. Our translator makes this horrifically clear by saying “do not spare them and put them to death from woman to man, and from infant to nursing baby, and from ox to sheep, from camel to donkey.”

This. Is. Horrific.

I want to puke.

Then, it turns out, they only killed MOST of the living things, but kept the leader alive and some of the livestock claiming they wanted to sacrifice the livestock to God. And this story, in our Bible, says that God was REALLY REALLY mad about this because when God says “kill them all” you are supposed to “kill them ALL” and not most, and this is used as a reason that Saul is replaced as the king of Israel.

ARGH. I’m going to give us just another moment to be horrified by this, and then I’m going to soften these blows a little bit. Ready?

There are a few things to bring into reading this text. The first, which may well help, is that it is probably not historically true. This is a story that would have been told for a long time and written down well after the fact and in other cases where we read about destruction like this and are able to verify it – the destruction never happened. The second piece is that 1 and 2 Samuel are super pro-David propaganda and this story seems created to establish David’s authority by diminishing Saul’s, which is another reason to inherently distrust it. The third, and final, softening on reading this text is the reminder that the Hebrew Bible as we know it was written down in the aftermath of the Exile when people had experienced unprecedented death, destruction, trauma, and horror. The primary question of the people as they were writing down these stories was “why did this happen to us?” And this story seems designed to answer “this happened to us because we were unfaithful and God punished us.”

A whole lot of people believe that bad things happen because God punishes them. I would say most of those people were raised in the “covenant stream” of reward and punishment – and may not even be aware there are other options. And, indeed, this story fits fully into that stream. God expects obedience, punishes disobedience, there is nothing anyone can do about it – not even the prophet Samuel.

So, if you haven’t noticed yet, I pretty much hate this text. But, if this text reflects about half of the Biblical tradition, I am probably better off acknowledging it exists and dealing with it than just wishing it away, right? I appreciated Dr. Gafney’s reflection on this text that it “illustrates the difficulty in teasing out the human and the divine in scriptures.” TRUE THAT. I also appreciated her reminder that the ways we see power and authority function in the world impact how we think about the power and authority of God. In places where there is a monarchy, it is particularly easy to think of God as a monarch, and to think of hierarchy as normal and appropriate. The Bible was written during a whole lot of monarchies and hierarchical systems, and it makes sense that that humanness would invade the perspective of the text.

We also have today a text from the other stream – the one about distributive justice. And it is a breath of fresh air. I also appreciate that within it I can hear regular and repeated themes of the Bible, because this too is Biblical and deeply rooted. Those who would claim that God is all about punishment and rewards may have a hard time making sense of texts like this one.

The Psalm starts out seeming a bit simple. Someone is praising God. If you’ve read the Psalms you might be tempted to say “what else is new?” It then moves on to establishing that God is worthy of trust in a way that people are not. And then it talks about WHY God is trust worthy and worthy of praise and the source of hope and joy. The reasons are pretty standard order too: because God created all that is, because God is a God of justice who brings justice to the oppressed, because God is the one who feeds the hungry, because God is compassionate and sets prisoners free, because God helps people see, and lifts up those who are bowed down, and loves when good things are being done, and cares for the stranger, and takes care of the vulnerable orphans and widows, and confuses and confounds those who would do harm.

Nothing new there, those are repeated themes in the Bible. But note that they are universal. God isn’t just caring about those in covenant relationship with God, God is caring about everyone. God is inverting the social order and taking care of those with the least capacity to take care of themselves. Which means that the normal social order isn’t as God would have it be, and THAT would mean that those doing well aren’t being rewarded and those doing poorly aren’t being punished. Instead both of those reflect a need for more JUST distribution and God is working on making that happen.

Now, as I mentioned, I have a STRONG preference for one of these streams of thoughts and ways of understanding God. I’d go so far as to say I think one is “right” and the other is “wrong” or as close as I’m willing to get to using words like that about God.

But, dear ones, I think the best news is the reminder that these two streams of thought, these two fundamentally different worldviews, are hanging out together in the Bible. Neither dominates the other. Sometimes, they intertwine so well we can’t tease them apart. They are in there together, coexisting for about 3000 years now.

(Here is the twist, it feels like it may come out of no where, but I’ve been building this whole time.)

And, beloveds of God, if these two different streams of thought have coexisted in the Bible for this long, and fed various people of faith, and been experienced as holy, and sometimes even supported each other – then I’m pretty sure we can survive the next US election.

I adore that the Bible feels free to contradict itself with different versions of the same story and even different basic conceptions of who God is and how God is. I love that there is space for the fullness of humanity and the fullness of the divine, and I actually love that teasing out which is which is so hard. Because it deserves to be hard. And we learn while we try. And our disagreements usually teach us a lot we need to know.

John Wesley famously said, if your heart is with my heart, give me your hand. May we be people whose hearts are with others’ hearts, even if we disagree. May we be people of peace.

Amen

August 6, 2023

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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July 16, 2023
by Sara Baron

“The Gift of Peace" based on Romans 5:1-5 and John 14:25-31

When you think of peace, what comes up for you? This became interesting for me as I sought a good pictures to go with the sermon title for our electronic sign. Apparently, according to the internet, peace looks like sunrise or sunset over a body of water, or a pile of rounded rocks stacked on each other, maybe with a person in a yoga pose.

Those are decent. I think they generically connote peace pretty well.

Is it different, for you, though, to consider when you are most at peace? It is for me.

I tend to think of moments of peace in two broad categories: first the ones that are like glimpses of grace when I just notice that there is wonder and peace around me, the second are the ones that I seek out – when I create the space to remember that God is with me and am able to let my guard down well enough that God’s peace seeps in.

The first kind, the just moments of grace when peace is there, are pretty wide ranging. I have often often found peace if I’m outside at dusk (other than black fly season), after a good workout, while in the woods, walking into the sanctuary, during nighttime snowfalls, when I hear achingly beautiful music, and when I’m surrounded by people I love and just savoring the goodness of their presence. Your list is probably unique to you.

Those moments are a gift. They come freely, I savor them when I notice them, and they slowly drift away. Finding inner peace, even if for a moment, is profound.

The second kind is the spiritual practice kind – or maybe the “means of grace” kind. Because people of faith through the ages have taught us that God’s peace is close at hand, and there are ways of connecting to it if we want to. So there is intention, and seeking in these moments of peace. I mostly call it prayer, but it may not look like what prayer expects to look like. Sometimes my prayer is sitting on the porch watching the wind blow through the trees, sometimes it is writing in a journal and sorting out what is happening inside me, sometimes it is taking a walk in nature because (for me) that is so potent as a means of connecting to God.

Sometimes it is sitting still, with my eyes closed, breathing, and intentionally letting go of thoughts as they appear. (That one might “look like” prayer.)

And, sometimes those prayer practices “work” and I let my guard down and I have INCREDIBLE moments of deep peace as a gift from the Divine. And, let’s be honest here, sometimes they “don’t.” Sometimes I can’t get my guard down. Sometimes other things distract me. Sometimes it seems like I get my guard down but the peace doesn’t come. It can’t really be forced.

Now, I’m conflating the grace of the experience of the presence of God with peace, because they conflate for me. They might not for you, that’s a thing to consider for yourself. In any case though, I think that peace is supposed to be one of the gifts of God, something that we receive from the Divine from God’s goodness. And, because we are able to talk about how we receive it and what helps us be open to it, and from that learn how to access peace even when the world is roiling around us, I think it is supposed to be one of the markers of faith.

The capacity to be at peace is meant to be something that differentiates us.

That’s a pretty high bar, huh? Because everyone has different personalities and some are more attuned to peace than others.

And yet, there is something there.

Because this may get at a really core question. What is it that we are seeking in life? Because the world around us tells us what success looks like – and it is things to do with appearances, power, violence, and money. And it is REALLY easy to buy into that narrative because it is EVERYWHERE. Part of the wonder of being within a community of faith is the chance to create a different narrative of success, and encourage each other to hear other options.

What if “success” is connecting deeply enough to God’s peace that it changes the world through us?

What if “success” is trusting enough in God’s love that it flows through us?

What if “success” is letting our hearts be opened wide enough for all of God’s people and all of God’s creation?

What if “success” is becoming loving listeners?

What if “success” is a life filled with joy?

What if “success” is in deep and whole relationships?

What if “success” is in how often we laugh?

What if “success” is in how much we savor wonder and beauty?

What if “success” is in becoming better and better at sharing?

What if “success” is in being able to give power away?

What if “success” is just in being alive and sometimes at peace, and that’s enough?

What if “success” doesn’t matter at all, and it is plenty to simply be?

What if it isn’t hard?

That’s a different narrative than the one I hear in commercials, read in the news, or see on social media.

We have recently brought into our worship the ancient tradition of “passing the peace of Christ” to one another. It has gotten pretty rave reviews around here.

It is also a profound thing that we do. It is acknowledging that God’s peace is with us, that it is worthy of our attention, and that it increases among us as we share it with each other. We are offering blessings to each other, I might argue the best ones. (Because I really really like the peace of Christ.) It gives us space to connect with each other, and it calls us back to the priority of living out the peace of Christ.

And peace, in Hebrew and in God-talk, is this really interesting holistic communal thing that refers to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being of each individual and the whole. It inherently acknowledges that the peace each of us holds is interconnected with the peace each other is holding. But it is a complicated concept in that it is possible to hold onto God’s peace even when not all is well. God’s peace can show up in the worst of times, and hold us together through it. God’s peace can be nurtured within us and within the community and build up resilience within us.

Peace.

Where the world focuses on violence and power, God calls us to nurture, savor, and make space for peace.

Thank God we are called to something different. Thank God we have each other to work with in the effort to nurture, savor, and make space for peace. Thank God for the moments when peace arrives and we are whole. 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 16, 2023

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July 9, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Exhaustion” based on 1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-25

Content Warning: in this sermon I’m going to talk about abuse of power, including abuse of power by clergy, including clergy sexual misconduct. This is a tender topic, particularly here, and you may wish to disengage from it, which is fine.

When I read this passage from 1 Samuel, my first response is to be exhausted. I was recently reminded that exhaustion is often a trauma response. Under the exhaustion are anger and sadness, I can’t differentiate them. Under that is more exhaustion.

I’ve now completed 17 years of full-time ministry and within them approximately 10 rounds of required clergy sexual misconduct training. In my 17 years these have been the only required trainings that clergy have been told to take, other than New York State who mandates sexual harassment training for every boss and employee. I’ve long been aware that the actions of clergy people before me, and the lawsuits that resulted from their actions, were creating the environment I minister in. I’m all for clergy sexual misconduct training, my only concern is the idea that it is the ONLY thing that matters. Particularly because I don’t believe the trainings themselves are necessarily the most effective way to bring the change they attempt to make.

So, that’s tiring, and makes me question a lot of things.

Also, I’m in leadership in the Annual Conference while we are trying to figure out how to pay for legal fees and settlements for a multitude of lawsuits related to the Child Victim’s Act, which opened a window for people who had been abused as children to bring lawsuits about it as adults. Everything about this is terrible, starting with the harm done to God’s children and including with the means by which we figure out how to find the money we need in order to respond.

Which is draining, and I hate it.

And finally I am serving this beloved church which has itself experienced clergy sexual misconduct, by a beloved clergy person, who is now deceased, whose life after his death still intersected with lives within this community. This fact is tender.

So are the impacts within the community of his actions, even though they are more than 40 years old and many of you don’t know anything about them. But it is now within this community’s DNA and I firmly believe that if this church had not been as strong, loving, loyal, and faithful as it is -it would not have survived it.

That’s actually a thing I want to make sure you hear: I believe this church is EXTRAORDINARY to have survived what happened to it. I fear some of you may think you are weak because it happened or because you couldn’t stop it, or because there were long-ranging impacts from it. Instead, I think it is pretty much a miracle you survived. Most churches don’t.

Here is what I know: an already beloved pastor was appointed here as senior pastor in the 1970s. He was charming and charismatic, brilliant and well-regarded. It was not known to this church that he had abused his power as pastor in his prior appointments. He abused it again, with married adult women who came to him for pastoral counseling, with whom he had affairs. At the same time that it became known he also was found to have a debilitating medical condition.

It had been thought he’d become a Bishop. Instead he was reappointed to Vermont. The church members split into two camps: one of those who were horrified by what had been done and one of those who defended their pastor at all costs and shifted the blame either to the women he’d harmed or to those who named the actions. Those two camps were stuck in a power battle, enmeshed in conflict, and not talking to each other.

When the next pastor came, he declared it “over” and said it wasn’t going to be talked about anymore. I believe that held for about 30 years until I arrived. Once, maybe 8 years ago, I named in a sermon that this church had survived clergy sexual misconduct. I was told afterwards that I’d made the FIRST public acknowledgement of that fact. Ever.

Over the course of the next decade or so, this church experienced significant decline. Now, I want to put that in context for you. It was the 1980s. The 1980s were a time when church attendance declined all across the USA. Also the 1980s were a horrible time for Schenectady, when many people left. Also the 1980s were the time when those who didn’t leave immediately after the clergy sexual misconduct slowly drifted off the next time they got hurt by the church.

Yet, I believe, for those of you who were here, the decline in attendance and membership in the 1980s felt like failure. Which breaks my heart. I wish someone had made space for you all to talk about your experiences, to name what it had been like to have your spiritual leader do harm, or maybe what it had been like to think that people accused your spiritual leader of doing something he’d “never do.” I wish you were afforded the opportunity to talk about the ways that trust was destroyed as two camps maneuvered around each other. I wish you could have talked about the ways that led to mistrust in clergy, and in clergy authority, and the quiet ways you tried to create some safeguards. I wish someone had named that the women who trusted their pastor to give them pastoral care were vulnerable women were not to be blamed for being vulnerable nor for being seduced by someone with power – not even if they were pretty.

That is, I wish this church had received after care. I wish the Annual Conference had known to give it.

I wish the story that was taken from the time was something other than “we’re too brittle to deal with conflict, so we better not talk about it.” I wish fewer people lost faith in God because the pastor did harm – particularly the teenagers who talked about it all with each other but no adult knew to make space to help them make sense of it.

The church itself lost respect, authority, and credibility. I think rightfully so. I think the church and its clergy should never have had such power as to make abuse like that possible. I think there always should have been checks and balances and clergy people should always have been seen as fallible people and safeguards should have been in place.

Far too many faith communities have had faith leaders abuse their power. This isn’t as uncommon as I wish it was. I guess this comes back to that old wisdom that where there is power there can be abuse of power. 🙁

Today, I still see the echoes of the harm done to this community. It isn’t a linear thing where I can tell that “because x happened, y followed.” Humans and human organizations are more complicated than that. Here is what I see that I think is reflective of that era of harm: 1. This church is more afraid of conflict that most. 2. This church is more afraid of pastoral authority than most. 3. While I know you all to be profoundly thoughtful, careful, intentional people of faith whose lives reflect your values – there is significant fear of talking directly about God and the impact of God on your lives – which I think goes back to things about authority and power and abuse of power. 4. While there is discomfort about pastoral authority, there are also many places where the pastor is rather oddly deferred to. I think this is also about pastoral authority and ways it is not understood and not wanting to be touched. 5. Power itself is concerning around here, and there is fear and distrust around using power and figuring out who is supposed to have power.

And finally, 6. I think there is still an undercurrent of fear, guilt, and shame that this happened here… which knocks out some of the self-confidence you might otherwise have as a church.

So, when I read about Eli’s sons abusing their power by taking too much food, and taking the wrong food, and using their power to force women to sleep with them – it actually sounds like the age old story of my ministry. The realities of the harms done in the past, the ways they impact the present, the horror I have at what was done and how God’s love was abused in the world, and the challenges I face in attempting to share God’s love in the world while occupying the status, role and even pulpit of one(s) who did such harm.

Which I think has now sufficiently explained to you why the scripture exhausts me.

Now I want to tell you why I’m glad it is there, despite it all. I am so incredibly grateful that the Bible itself tells stories of abuse by those entrusted to do God’s work, and gives it to us as honest story that helps us make sense of our lives. If this story and ones like it weren’t in the Bible, we wouldn’t have anything to work with. We wouldn’t have precedent for knowing that those entrusted with God’s work often fail. We wouldn’t have evidence that God hates it. We wouldn’t be able to compare and contrast the experience of the people 3000 years ago to the ones of our own lifetimes.

I mean, I’d prefer if those entrusted with holy work simply didn’t abuse people. 100% my preference. But since that isn’t how it has been, how it is, nor how it is going to be, I’d rather have that truth in the Bible for us to work with and reflect upon. I’d rather have a lectionary text that pushes me to tell you – the church – your own story as I’ve had it told to me than continue the cone of silence.

I’d rather break the power of shame by bringing the past into full view than let it keep on beating us up.

I’d rather deal with this now, in the ways we can, than let it harm more generations in the future.

I’d rather be able to tell you that I think you are amazing for surviving than have you continue to feel guilt for abuse happening in your midst.

I’d rather deal with the past until it lets go of its grip on the present than try to force it away and have it come back to bite us.

I’d rather make space for truth and reconciliation. I’d rather have hope and rebuild trust and assure you that you can survive being in conflict than have you live in fear.

I’d rather talk about it. I think it is time. And I believe, with God, we can handle it. 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 9, 2023

Untitled

July 2, 2023
by Sara Baron

“A Story of Hope” based on Psalm 144:3-4, 12-15

When I was 13 I broke my leg, my femur to be specific. It hurt a lot. I was in a straight leg cast from my hip to my toes, which got in the way. During the weeks I was in the cast, I YEARNED to be able to walk up stairs and it felt like an ETERNITY passed while I had to sit on the stairs and push up or down them one at a time.

It was less than 6 weeks, but I was 13.

Sometimes though, even today, in the midst of walking stairs, I notice the absolute joy and wonder of being able to do so. I remember that yearning, and I’m grateful again that I can do the thing I wanted so desperately to be able to do.

I say this with an awareness that not everyone can walk stairs. Some have never been able to, some will never be able to again, some just can’t yet, and some cannot just for right now. The capacity to walk up and down stairs is something easy to take for granted – when and if you can do it. The lack of capacity to walk up and down stairs can profoundly impact a life, despite the best efforts of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Psalm today reminds me of stairs. It speaks of abundance with such profound excitement. Scholars are not clear about it: does it reflect an expression of a present joy or a future hope? In either case, I think it is worth paying attention to. What is the nature of this exuberant utopia worthy of great praise?

There is plenty of food, the children are able to grow strong and whole, no one is attacking them, and they are safe at home. Based on this they say, “Happy are the people to whom such blessings fall; happy are the people whose God is the WOMB OF LIFE.”

For people who have such things, it is possible to stop noticing how amazing it is when there is plenty of food, the children are able to grow strong and whole, no one is attacking them, and they are safe at home. It is possible to pay attention instead to what one doesn’t have, or what isn’t right, or even the stressors around them – and entirely miss the wonder of basic safety and enough food.

Of course, there are plenty of people who don’t have basic safety and enough food. We have a Community Breakfast Program to try to respond to the needs within our community for sufficient, nutritious food. We know that one meal a week helps without solving that problem. Violence in our society is plentiful, safe housing is insufficient, and good food is not as accessible as it needs to be. And, of course, those who are migrants, or immigrants, and those who are displaced as well as people in less wealthy countries ALSO lack basic safety and sufficient food.

It can be easy to take it for granted, unless you don’t have it. And It can be hard to focus on anything else when you are hungry or unsafe.

Which is why it is a beautiful and profound dream, the idea of plenty of food, children are able to grow strong and whole, peace and safety at home. For many, many people now and throughout history, enough food and a sense of safety would be a blessing beyond measure.

So, if you have that, THANK GOD!

And if you don’t, know this: God wants it for you too.

Because that is a part of the good news of God: that God’s aim is for everyone to have enough food and for everyone to be safe. That’s the dream. Enough for everyone. No one is excluded. No one goes hungry. No one gets hurt. No one is at war. No one has to fight tooth and nail to get enough to survive because there IS enough for everyone (already) and if it is distributed fairly everyone can thrive.

That’s God’s dream. That’s the kindom of God. That’s the beloved community. That’s what we’re about.

There are, of course, disagreements about how to get there. Do we create the kindom of abundance by attending to the disparities of our society and counterbalancing them? Or do we just kinda hope the injustice goes away? Do we create the kindom of God by offering debt relief to the overburdened? Or by prioritizing lenders at all costs? And while I’m at it, do we get to the kindom by trusting women to made the best decisions for their bodies and families or by asserting authority over other people’s bodies and lives?

There are, I’m sure, good faith arguments on both sides. But as people of faith seeking the kindom, seeking to ensure that ALL people access safety and sufficient resources for their needs, that guides our thinking on issues. Which side of the argument leads to life abundant for the most people? Which creates more justice? Which brings safety? Which leads to better distribution of resources?

And not everything moves in the direction of the kindom, right? But, still we seek, still we work, still we know God is with us in moving the world towards shared safety and shared abundance.

When we came home from Annual Conference, I shared with some of you that in the Episcopal address Bishop Héctor Burgos Núñez named some cultural shifts in how we will function together as United Methodists of Upper New York. My cynicism won out until his final point when he said that we would stop focusing on “church growth” and instead focus on “missional impact.” Now, I think “missional impact” is kinda useless language, but I am trained in speaking church and the actual meaning behind it is great. Missional impact is church-speak for tangibly sharing God’s love in the world. Which itself might be church speak (oops), for “helping.”

When I shared that with a few of you before worship, one of you responded with something like, “Well, yes. The entire point of church is to get people together so we can help other people. If we aren’t doing that, there is no point.” To which I may or may not have said “YES!” a little bit too loudly.

Some of how we do that is by worshiping. Now, if you are listening to this, you probably already find some value in worship, but I think it is helpful sometimes to consider WHY something is useful. Particularly because worship isn’t as directly a way of helping people as serving breakfast is.

Worship gives us a time that is apart from the rest of our week. A time to attend to beauty, and meaning, and to rest. That’s important on it’s own, and it is important to be able to keep going. Worship makes space for shared prayer, which matters in ways we can’t often even name. Worship gives us time to consider scripture and reflect on it, to try to work together to figure out what God is up to, to celebrate what God is up to, and (maybe most importantly?) to notice how God WANTS the world to be and how that is different from how it is. Because if we can’t dream with God towards how things should be, we can’t get there. Worship also gives us a chance to be together, which inherently matters. Because when people are together they can get to know each other, check in on each other, laugh together, and connect.

And because we NEED each other, so whenever we connect it benefits us and it benefits God. I think we may, as humans, need to express thanks for good things, and we need space to mourn the things that break out hearts and worship is designed to make space for the wholeness of human emotion.

We need time that is “unproductive” just set aside to BE humans, to BE with God, to simply BE and worship gets to be that for us too. All together this indicates that worship may be something we do mostly because we need it, and we need to be fed in order to feed. But at the same time we need each other at worship to make worship worship and that’s kinda cool too.

Finally, around here, we have the joy of sharing God’s incredible hospitality to all people and in our shared worship we can break down the barriers that have historically communicated to people that they were unwelcome or unworthy. And that dear ones, is a POWERFUL way of “helping.”

Our shared sense of God’s welcome, of God’s un-ending love, and of the energy and power we have to do things that matter TOGETHER then become the basis for everything ELSE we do as a church: the things we gather to give away, the places we go to share God’s love, the ministries we offer to ease the burdens of God’s beloveds, the ways we show up to be with God’s people and to advocate for God’s dreams.

We get to do all that because we share in God’s dreams for plenty of good and safety for everyone and we get to spend our lives working towards it with God.

And soon we get to gather at the table together to be fed. That is a reason to give thanks! And it is yet another reminder that the fullness of the table of God – the abundance of good food and spacious safety – are meant to be extended until everyone can be at the table together. With God and each other, there is plenty of reason to hope we can get there together.

May God keep on working with us, in us, and through us. 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 2, 2023