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December 1, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Be on Guard” based on Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 21:25-36

As a general rule, I really hate Advent texts. I hate them because they’re apocalyptic and messy and scary and generally reflect a future I hope we don’t have.

When I reflected on this with Worship Committee last month, they looked at me knowingly and pointed out that perhaps that’s exactly why we need the Lectionary Advent texts right now. Because 1. we need some connection to our traditions and 2. it feels really real right now.

Which, since you just heard the utter wonder of the Luke 21 text, you can tell I was convinced by those ideas. However, I’m particularly lucky that the Sunday Night Bible Study also just finished reading the book of Daniel and I’m way more aware of the genre of apocalyptic literature in the Bible than I normally am.

I do not, for the record, recommend reading the book of Daniel outside of the context of a Bible Study or without some truly excellent commentaries. However, I had the benefit of reading it with excellent commentaries and insightful fellow readers.

The thing about Daniel, and the book of Revelation, and I think this passage in Luke is: they’re written as resistance literature. They can’t be direct and make the point, “The person who has all the power an is oppressing us with it is not doing God’s will,” because if they say that then anyone who has access to the document will be killed. #OpressiveRegimes So, they put things in different times. Daniel pretends to be from the past, Revelation pretends to be in the future. Then they speak about the abuses of power they see now, and do it in a way that it clear that God is still God and the horrors of this time will come to an end.

They are powerful tools of encouragement, of hope, and of resistance.

But, in order to obscure their points so people don’t die, they’re also a little bit hard to decipher.

I’m not really sure what Luke is trying to get to in today’s passage. (The Jesus seminar is pretty clear this is all Luke’s writing, not reflective directly of Jesus.) What we do know is that the early Christian communities experienced fairly extreme circumstances, and often needed encouragement and resistance literature. It seems that it could be common enough to feel like things were so bad that “people would faint from fear”. But Luke assures the people that things getting bad are just a sign they’re going to get better soon. Because the people needed to be encouraged.

So, beloveds, as people who also might need some encouragement, the part of the passage that encouraged me this week was one little line, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” Oh, I needed that reminder. Be on guard that your heart is not weighed down.

Sweet Jesus, thank you. (Or, rather, thanks Luke.)

Now, Jeremiah goes at this from a different perspective. Which is interesting because Jeremiah is known for being a significant downer as a prophet. But chapter 33 is one of Jeremiah’s “good cop” chapters and Jeremiah encourages the people that the end has not come and good times are going to come again.

Now, I have to admit something to you. I rebel against the word “righteousness.” I don’t think my objections are particularly fair. It is a good word. It means living well, living “rightly,” living in right relationship with God and neighbors. And yet, somehow, when I come across it, I connect it with purity culture and judgmental-ism and people judging whether or not one is righteous and it just ruins the whole thing for me. (I believe others struggle with Justice for similar reasons, and oddly enough I like that one.)

So, I thesaurus-ed “righteous” and the simplest substitute for it is “goodness” which I can handle. With that, we get a passage from Jeremiah that says:

The days are coming, God says, when I’m going to fulfill my promises.

In those days David’s line will continue,

and the leader in the line of David will bring goodness and fairness to everyone.

The people will be safe and well.

Things will be so good that other nations will call my people by the name,

“God is our goodness.”

I like it. Sounds to me like yet another description of that beloved community or kindom of God we’re co-creating with God. God reminds us, even in dark times, not to give up hope.

And Luke reminds us to be on guard so our hearts aren’t weighed down.

Which leads me to invite us to think about both what weighs down our hearts, and what lifts those weights.

I can share that my weights are lifted by:

remembering all the organizations and people working for goodness
jokes and memes that hit at the crux of things with humor
feeling heard
being able to truly hear another person’s heart
singing together
fiction and fictional portrayals that give me a break from the problems of this time
telling God exactly what I’m feeling and why
giving God time to respond (I may use this less than I wish)
helping others
baking
and as I was reminded in today’s Advent Devotional – a snack and a nap!

It’s my list, I don’t know if yours has baking on it or not 😉 But, if you are willing, would you work on making your list? What lifts the weights when your heart is heavy?

And, if you are willing, could you then put that list somewhere you can see it, as a reminder for when your heart needs you to guard it and lighten it’s load?

Someone wise reminded me this week that it is hard to be disconcerted by reality at the same time that others are, because instead of steadying each other, people are pulling each other further off kilter. I say we work on becoming a fire break in the anxiety storm, a source of calm in the midst of it all. We guard our hearts and each other’s, so we can be steady when others are off kilter. Are you with me?

I hope so. Thanks be to God for the opportunity to lift some weights from our hearts, so we have capacity to help others when their weights get too heavy. Amen

December 1, 2025

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

November 29, 2020
by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, fine, that happened. Now what?

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

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

Can I admit something?

That sounds terribly naive!

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

Except….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermons

“Hope in God” based on Isaiah 2:1-5 and Luke…

December 1, 2019February 11, 2020
by Sara Baron

This
Advent we are Waiting in Hope, and our guides for that waiting are
going to be Isaiah and Luke. All too often we jump into Luke chapter
2 on Christmas, without examining Luke chapter 1 to prepare the way.
This means we are going to spend Advent with Mary, with Elizabeth,
and with Zechariah. Which means that we need a content warning
for Advent.

Luke
1, not unlike Genesis, spends a lot of time dealing with issues of
fertility and infertility. These are tender topics for many people,
and I will be seeking to deal with them tenderly. However, you are
not obligated to stay present if these topics are simply too much for
you right now, and I am available to talk if you want to. (Or, I’m
willing to find you someone else to talk to if you’d prefer.)

Luke
starts by telling the story of Zechariah, an old priest, and his wife
Elizabeth. They had no children. This is a VERY common story in the
Bible, in fact it feels like a throw-back to the matriarchs and
patriarchs who all had trouble conceiving until God intervened. (And
this is part of why these stories are so hard. If infertility could
be solved with prayer alone, there would be much less of it.) This
story rings of Abraham and Sarah, of Issac and Rebecca, of Jacob’s
wife Rachel, of Hannah and Elkanah.
This is a familiar story. An angel tells Zechariah, while he is
serving in the temple, that his prayers have been heard and Elizabeth
will become pregnant. Zechariah expresses some disbelief because of
their age, which is punished with being unable to speak until the
baby is born. The baby to be born will be, according to Luke, John
the Baptist.

A few
months later, with Elizabeth pregnant, the story is interrupted with
our reading today. This story is NOT familiar. It doesn’t sound
like the Hebrew Bible at all – although it does sounds like its
contemporary Greek stories. As far as the Bible goes, though, this
is a brand new account. And it is breaking into an old, old story.
In this new account a young woman, who has been legally married to
her husband but is still in the one year waiting period in her
father’s house before she joins her husband in his house, is greeted
by that same angel. The angel says “‘Greetings, favored one! The
Lord is with you,” and the story says that Mary is perplexed.

This
make sense, I think. By the standards of the world, Mary wasn’t
favored. She was poor, she was young, she was female, she had very
little power, and she lived in an unimportant little village that was
outside of a city that had recently been ransacked by the Roman
Empire. She was, by no means, favored by anyone nor anything. Nor
was their any previous evidence that she was favored by God. R. Alan
Culpepper writes in the New Interpreter’s Bible, “’Yet, Mary, God’s
favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock who would
later be executed as a criminal. Acceptability, prosperity, and
comfort have never been the essence of God’s blessing.”¹
Mary seems to still be processing this.

She
is, however, wise enough to keep her objections to herself – unlike
Zechariah. So the angel continues to tell her about her upcoming
pregnancy with the child who would be named Jesus, “the rescuer”,
and would claim a unique connection to the Divine. This time Mary
expresses her confusion, indicating that she understands how
conception works and thus that it shouldn’t be happening to her.
Perhaps because she doesn’t ask for proof, she is given it, in the
form of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

At this
point, the story comes to one of the greatest acts of courage I know
about. This impoverished young woman, with everything to lose by
taking this risk (including her own life), responds “Here am I, the
servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” I
know that this story is Luke’s creation, Luke’s intentional
foreshadowing of the Jesus story. I know this didn’t HAPPEN. And
yet I can’t help but be stuck by this line. It feels like the sort
of answer that the woman who raised Jesus and taught Jesus of God
would give. It feels true in a way that is deeper than the story
itself. Mary is a risk-taker for God. She trusts in the
Divine even when it makes no sense and by all reasonable standards
should be done.

In this
story, through this brief interaction, Mary moves from confused at
the idea that she could be favored by God to an unquestioning
willingness to do whatever it is God needs of her. The foreshadowing
of Jesus couldn’t be much better. This unique story about Mary has
echoes all over it of Hannah and her faithfulness. These are the
stories of the women’s faith, the women who raised men of great
faith. The men didn’t come to their faith alone.

We
will come back to Mary next week, and to her extraordinary courage
and unique insight. But for now we’re going to transition to the
vision of Isaiah, a vision that came when everything else looked like
it was going downhill. Most of the time first Isaiah (the first 40
chapters) has to warn the people of what will happen if they don’t
trust in God, but this vision is an after vision. Of what will come
SOMEDAY, one way or another. The more I examine it, the more
striking it is.

Many of us
are familiar with the closing lines,

“they
shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and
their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword
against nation,
neither shall they learn war
any more.”

but it
really struck me this week that these lines are about much more than
peace and a lack of a need for war. These lines are about not
needing defenses anymore, about not needing borders anymore,
about being unafraid for safety, and a sense of deep security.

The only
way that people could be so secure is if they AND EVERYONE ELSE
already had enough, and resources were already fairly shared, and
there was no injustice or inequality that needed to be rectified.
I’m told that the threat of violence is what allows for income
inequality. Thus the opposite must be true, where there is equality
there is no need for violence. Furthermore, this has to be
widespread equality and equity, because there is no fear that
outsiders will break in wanting to share in the prosperity –
because they have it too.

Now
this makes perfect sense as a correlation to the earlier parts of the
passage. It has already said that YHWH-God has become acknowledged
as THE Sacred one, and EVERYONE is worshipping YHWH-God.
Furthermore, they’re all learning God’s ways. Well, God’s ways is a
way of speaking of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, which
contain a vision of a just and equitable society. In that society
land is distributed to all so all can provide for themselves, those
who struggle are helped by their family and community, anyone in need
is cared for by the excess of those who have enough, and justice
itself is blind to power and influence. This is the society that God
dreams of, and this is what people would be studying as “walking in
God’s ways.”

In Isaiah’s
vision, this message is shared far and wide AND God’s self is the
judge arbitrating between people – so justice is definitely just.
So, yes, this is a reasonable set up for what otherwise feels like an
overly idealistic vision of peace.

In this
context, it is the reasonable extension. If everyone buys into God’s
vision and enacts it, of course there would be equity, equality,
justice, and peace. Of course weapons of destruction could become
tools of creation and means of food production. That’s what God is
capable of doing.

And this
got me to thinking. Do we dream this dream deeply enough? Do we
consider what it would be like to be fearless? To feel safe? To
live in peace?

I
haven’t spent nearly enough time living into this dream. What would
it be like to assume that all people, as they age, will have enough
resources to be cared for with tenderness and love in ways that
respect their humanity and maintain their freedom? What would it be
like to know that all children, whether or not they have living and
able parents, will be nurtured, played with, fed well, have safe
places to sleep, clothing appropriate for the season, and access to
great education to help them thrive in body and spirit? What would
it be like to remove locks from all doors, knowing that no one aims
to do us harm, and no one would have a need to take anything we have?
What would it be like to know that all people, regardless of their
employment status, or marital status, or socio-economic status, could
receive great healthcare when they need it? What would it be like to
know that people all around the world shared all these gifts, and no
one in any other nation wished us harm because of harms we’d caused
taking resources we needed? What would it be like to know that there
were no guns left in the world, and no one had motivation to make any
more? What would it be like to live without the threat of nuclear
war, nor biological warfare, nor even internet viruses????

What if we
weren’t afraid, and didn’t need to be? What if we could all care for
each other, and support each other, and grow together?

Friends,
that’s the sort of hope we’re preparing ourselves for in this season
of Advent. Not because we necessarily expect to see it in our
lifetimes, but because that’s what we’re working for and we have to
keep God’s vision in front of us so we can be a part of enacting it.
May we, indeed, beat swords into plowshares, nuclear warheads into
flower gardens, and study war no more – because it isn’t needed!
Amen

1Alan
Culpepper, “Luke,”
in The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 9
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994) 52-3.

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

December 1, 2019

Sermons

“Here, in the Brokenness” based on Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark…

December 3, 2017February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I
don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but things are not as they should
be. Actually, I suspect you have noticed it, but it feels like time
to explicitly name two of the very many ways in which this is true.

First
of all, our society is and has been awash in sexual harassment and
assault. Many, many men have used whatever power and influence they
have in the world for their own pleasure at the expense of others,
most often women. This is not news, per say, and yet there is
something happening.

This
is much like the impact of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on police
brutality, it isn’t that any of the behaviors are new or different,
it is that suddenly people are paying attention to the atrocities,
and calling for accountability en masse. Important and powerful men
have been removed from the positions they’ve used abusively. The
status quo is being interrupted, and that’s good.

Yet,
it isn’t good enough. This week I had the incredible joy of holding
the youngest member of our church family in my arms. (It is GOOD to
be pastor.) I wanted to be able to promise her a world where she
wouldn’t know sexual harassment or assault, where she will be safe to
be whoever she is, where-ever she wants to be, no matter who is
nearby, all the time. The yearning that I had to offer her that
world clarified how very far we are from it, AND how desperately
needed it is.

Secondly,
we live in a country that accepts poverty as a necessary component of
life. Based on our policies, it is OK if people are hungry –
whether they are working or not, whether they’ve applied for SNAP
benefits or not, whether they are children or adults. Based on our
policies, it is OK if people are homeless, and if a person struggles
with addiction – by our policies – it is almost as if they don’t
deserve to be housed. Based on our policies, only people who can
afford to pay for it deserve the right to health care. Based on our
policies, it is acceptable for those without money to be
misrepresented or underrepresented in court, and spend time in jail
for crimes they didn’t commit. Based on our current policies, not
even children have a right to health care.

All
of these are choices, choices that we have made as a society about
what we value and who we value. Budgets are moral documents, budgets
indicate what an organization really values. Our society values the
growth of the economy, the growth of our exceptional military might,
and the flow of wealth from the bottom to the top OVER the capacity
to care for the vulnerable, the elimination of hunger, the
accessibility of health care, the safety of housing, or the fairness
of the courts.

Things
are NOT as they should be, and those were just two examples. There
are many ways that things are not as they should be.

This
is not the first time in history that this has been true. According
to Marcus Borg, the earliest human societies did not have significant
wealth differentiation nor oppression. The first two types of
societies were hunter gatherer and early horticultural. About them,
Borg says, “Differentials of wealth and power were minor.”¹
However, once full fledged agricultural societies developed about
5000 years ago, it became possible to generate wealth. In the time
of Jesus agriculture was the primary form of wealth.²
Borg calls the system at the time of Jesus the preindustrial
agricultural domination system.³
As far as I can tell, a few
things have changed since the time of Jesus: we’re now industrial or
post industrial and wealth is no longer primarily acquired through
agriculture.

Domination
systems that have oppressed the many for the sake of the few have
been the norm in the world since the development of full-scale
agriculture. The pieces of the world that concern me the most are
all parts of domination systems, ways that the systems are rigged
against the majority of the population for the benefit of a small
minority. David Graeber, in “Debt: A History of the first 5000
years” theorizes that the world’s major religions have all emerged
as a a response to the particular ways that domination systems
existed in their parts of the world.⁴
I’m going to take a stronger theological stance on that and say that
God has been at work in the world to disrupt domination systems as
long as they have existed, and the particular forms of that work have
been formalized into religious traditions.

We
hear in the texts today the same yearnings we know in our lives for
the world as it SHOULD be rather than the world as it is. These
texts feel familiar to me, to the depths of my soul. The Hebrew
Bible text doesn’t JUST come from Isaiah, who is my favorite, it
comes from third Isaiah – the last 7 chapters of the book – which
is the very best part of Isaiah. The prophet speaks of deep yearning
for God’s presence, a presence that would change reality from its
brokenness to its fulness. The prophet remembers times that God has
felt present and has made things better. The prophet celebrates that
God is one who cares about how the people treat each other, and yet
bemoans that God feels very far away. In fact, the prophet worries
that God is angry because the people have so profoundly mistreated
each other, and made peace with a society of deep injustice. The
prophet suggests that because God isn’t changing reality, they are
stuck living in the mess they made, without God delivering them from
it, and that isn’t OK at all.

Oh
Isaiah, how can you speak from so long ago truths that can still
sting with truth? I’m sometimes frightened that texts from 2500
years ago are still so accurate, which means that domination systems
haven’t lost their grip even as they’ve changed their ways.

At
first glance, or first hearing, or for me first 100 hearings, Mark
doesn’t sound like he is saying the same thing. Luckily, there are
those among you who share things with me when they seem useful, and
one of you sent me a reflection that opened my eyes to this text.⁵

This
passage in Mark appears just before the passion narrative begins,
Mark is using this text as a foreshadowing of the meaning of the
death and resurrection of Jesus. Like the passion narrative, it will
start in the night and shake the powers of the world. David Luce
writes, “Mark,
in other words, isn’t pointing us to a future apocalypse
(“revealing”) but rather a present one, as Christ’s death and
resurrection change absolutely everything.”⁶
For the gospel writer of Mark, the yearning represented in Isaiah is
FULFILLED by Jesus. For the gospel writer, Jesus is the presence of
God in the world changing things from how they are to how they should
be. At the same time, as Christians today, we know that the work
Jesus did in the world wasn’t completed in his life, but is ours to
continue as the current Body of Christ.

So,
the gospel writer speaks of things being pretty bad: suffering, the
sun and moon no longer giving the world light, the stars falling to
nothingness. In the midst of that horror, Jesus will break in and
transform it all. The gospel writer encourages people to be looking
for the signs that hope is about to break into the brokenness. The
gospel writer, I think, is hoping to encourage people in the midst of
some very bad days, to understand the brokenness itself as a sign
that things were about to change.

It
is hard, nearly 2000 years later, with all the brokenness that has
been between then and now to be as certain that the change is right
on the horizon. The yearning is easy to connect with. The hope is
imperative to connect with, the but the time frame is harder to buy
into.

I
do think that God is present with us, and that God is ever working
for justice, for dismantling the domination systems, for transforming
the world as it is into the kindom itself. While we seem pretty
resilient to God’s work, and while many things as are broken around
us, I’m told by historians who have a broader view than I do that big
and amazing things have gotten better.

Some
things aren’t all that new, but are pretty cool anyway. The
experiment in universal public education that started in
Massachusetts has had a huge impact on the world and its literacy.
All of those hospitals that various churches started over the
centuries have had an amazing impact in global health and longevity.

According
to the annual letter from the Gates Foundation (one of my favorite
reads), in the past 25 years childhood mortality rates for kids under
5 have dropped by 50%! Most of these preventable deaths have been
prevented because global vaccine access has increased, and 86% of the
world’s kids are now adequately vaccinated. The Gates Foundation
says that 300 million women in the developing world now have access
to and use contraception, which increases maternal and child health,
decreases childhood morality rates, increases education, and lowers
poverty. These 300 million women represent over half of the women
seeking to have it, but they’re actively working on it, and the
problem will be cut by over half again by 2020! As a reminder as
well, since 1990, worldwide extreme poverty (living on less than $2 a
day) has been cut in HALF.⁷

The
news that we hear mostly focuses on the broken, and in the past year
entirely too much of my attention has been on the broken. We live in
a world of domination systems, and many many things are broken. At
the same time, God IS at work in the world, working with people, and
together we are making many things better.

Dear
ones, the world is broken, and things are not as they should be.

AND

God
is at work in the world, there are many things that are getting
better, and the work we do matters.

It
is all true. And here in the brokenness, we yearn for God’s kindom
to come, just as Isaiah did, just as Mark did, and as God’s people
have through the ages. May the day come when the yearning is
fulfilled. Amen

1Marcus
Borg, “Jesus:
Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious
Revolutionary” (USA:
HarperOne, 2006) 79-80. (Quote
on 80.)

2Borg,
80-81.

3Borg,
79.

4David
Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
(Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011), p. 83.

5David
Luce, email/blog entitled “…In the Meantime” Posted: 27
Nov 2017 07:50 AM PST Found at
http://www.davidlose.net/2017/11/advent-1-b-a-present-tense-advent/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+davidlose%2FIsqE+%28…In+the+Meantime%29.

6Luce.

7Bill
and Melinda Gates “Dear Warren: Our 2017 Annual Letter” written
February 14, 2017
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=02_14_2017_02_AL2017GFO_GF-GFO_&WT.tsrc=GFGFO
accessed December 2, 2017.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

December 3, 2017