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Sermons

O Land, Land, Land, Hear the Word of God

  • December 21, 2025March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“O Land, Land, Land: Hear the Word of God” based on Jeremiah 22:2-9

We have reached the 4th and final Sunday of Advent, the Love Sunday, where love joins with hope, peace, and joy to prepare our hearts for the Work of God in the World known at Christmas. This year in Advent I’ve been on a sermon series from the book “Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance from the Third Reich” and this is the final sermon in this series. Unlike last week when I spent Joy Sunday sharing a sermon of a martyr, this week’s text fits the theme of love. (Phew! Although I did scrap my initial plan and pick a better fitting sermon from the book to make it work.)

This week I am working with a sermon by Rev. Julius von Jan and my sense is that his entire sermon is a message of love. It is a sermon written with love for his people and his nation (although not what his nation was up to at the time). It is a sermon profound in its love for all of God’s people, and explicit in naming Jews as God’s people. It is a sermon that is also the work of a prophet in loving by calling out injustice and it was received like the work of a prophet.

Rev. Julius von Jan been a solider and then a prisoner of war in WWI. He was part of the Confessing Church which was the resistance Christian movement in Germany during the Third Reich. The book’s editor says of him, “As a confessing pastor he considered it his Christian duty to alert his congregation to the deep conflicts between Nazism and Christianity and to advise them of the Nazi outrages and abuses. But even more than pointing out where the state was interfering with Christian practice and adopting a pagan worldview, he never tolerated the Nazi persecution of the Jews. He was also quick to stand up publicly for pastors who had been persecuted by the state or arrested.”1 Luckily he had a supportive congregation. He was a clergyman who refused to take oath to Hitler. And, regarding this sermon, “When the Nazi pogrom against the Jews occurred in November of 1938, von Jan was adamant that these sinful and disgraceful events had to be exposed for what they were. Silence was no option. He knew full well that speaking out in his sermon would endanger him and his family.”2

And, it did. “Following this sermon, Julius von Jan was “severely beaten by a group of some five hundred Nazi thugs, and dragged to the city hall where he was tried and then thrown into jail. A few days later the SA plastered his parsonage with the sign Judenknecht (Jew Servant.)”3 For a year afterward he dealt with arrests, interrogations, being exiled from his parish… and was finally tried and “found guilty of ‘misusing the pulpit’ and ‘treachery’ by a Nazi judge in a ‘special court’ and sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment. These courts were not subject to civil laws and were known for quick and severe sentencing.”4 Released in May 1940 until 1943 when “he was drafted into an artillery until for political prisoners, and served on the Russian front.”5

Are you ready to hear what he had to say that made them THAT mad?? He preached on the passage that we just read from Jeremiah, and while he focused on the opening piece that in his version read “O Land, Land, Land: Hear the Word of God,” I think it is worth noticing what that word of God actually was. This is verse 3, “Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” For von Jan, preaching on Germany’s “National Day of Atonement” this Jeremiah text called the people to justice and to atone for their lack of Justice.

In helping his congregation understand the context he reminds them that Jeremiah is a Jewish prophet to the Jews and he “is standing among a people (Volk) to whom the Lord has revealed himself throughout a long history as father and redeemer, as guide (führer) and helper filled with power and grace and glory.”6 Note use of Nazi words used with Christian meaning, to support Jews! He reminds them that Jeremiah has by this point been preaching for 30 years. Von Jan says that Jeremiah“contradicts the sermons filled with lies preached by those who announce salvation and victory in their nationalistic intoxication.”7 SNAP.

After explaining Jeremiah’s message, he brings it into his present, “Where is the prophet in Germany who is being sent into the king’s house to speak the word of God to him? … God has sent us such men! They are today either in concentration camps or muzzled. … and painfully our bishops have not recognized their duty to side with those who have spoken the word of God”8 He was naming some truths there, definitely including that the hierarchy of the church was working against the will of God and model of Jesus. He continues, “If therefore today some have to keep silent and others do not want to speak, then certainly we truly have every reason to observe a day of repentance, a day of mourning over our sins and the sins of the nation.”9

Now, many of you are better at history than I am, but for those whose timelines of Jewish oppression and attempts at annihilation in Germany in the 1930s isn’t very good, a historical note. In early November 1938 a Polish Jewish man murdered a German diplomat in Paris, which was the event used by the Nazis to justify using “storm troopers against the Jews throughout Germany.”10 Von Jan preached:

A crime has occurred in Paris. The murderer will receive his just punishment because he has sinned against the commandment of God.

Along with our people (Volk), we mourn the victim of this criminal act. But who would have thought that this one crime in Paris could be followed by so many crimes in Germany? Here we see the price we are paying for the great falling away from God and Christ, for the organized anti-Christianity. Passions have been released, the laws of God jeered at, houses of God that were sacred to others have been burned to the ground, property belonging to the foreigner plundered or destroyed, men who faithfully served our nation (Volk) and who fulfilled their duty in good consciousness have bene thrown into concentration camps simply because they belong to another race, and all this without anyone being eld accountable!11

I note his use of “houses of God” to talk about the burning of synagogues and connect Christian folk to Jewish folk. This is a man who spoke truth when it was clear how violent the opposition to truth telling was, and he has my deepest respect. This sermon is 4-5 years after the others we’ve looked at in Advent, when conditions had gotten worse and worse. But still he goes on. And, as a veteran of WWI he emphasizes that the Jewish Veterans deserve better! This is a man who follows Jesus of Nazareth.

As the sermon wraps up, von Jan calls on his congregation to pray, “Lord, grant us and our nation (Volk) a renewed hearing of your word and a renewed respect for your laws! And begin with us!”12 He worries they aren’t praying enough, “We are so busy with many things and take so little time for the silence in which we may hear the God’s word, be it in the house of God, be it in our prayer closet. … A Christian who fails to seek every morning this silence to hear his God endangers himself and harms God’s affairs.”13 I am simultaneously delighted that he calls on his people to maintain a constant connection to the Divine – and affirm all that – and I feel like this is a clue as to how he became the person he was. Because preaching a sermon like this took courage and conviction and faith. The majority of German Christians and preachers took the easy ways out and pledged themselves to Hitler presumably with various ways of justifying it to themselves.

Rev. von Jan, and the others whose sermons we’ve read did not. They stayed the course. They followed Jesus. They stayed true to God. They loved when it was as difficult to love as it could be. And they paid the costs for it.

I agree with Rev. von Jan that we need time to stop and listen to God EVERY day. And my preferred way of doing it is in silence – although I know very well that we’re all different and silence is a form of torture for many of you! But, when we think about how we listen to the call of God, and especially how we do it when the call of God says “Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place” and that’s the call we get when we live in a nation that is doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE, I think his conclusions hold. We need to stop taking in everything else and make time to take in God’s love and wisdom. All of us, every day, in the ways that work for us.

Because, dear ones, when push comes to shove, I hope we are people who follow Jesus and not ones who justify taking the easy way out. We are people of Love, of God’s love, and we need to soak in it so we are ready to act from it when we have to. And, oddly enough, I think that’s how this becomes an Advent sermon series. We are readying ourselves for the demands of living out God’s love, we are readying ourselves for the coming of Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 107.

2107.

3106.

4107.

5108.

6109

7110.

8111.

9111.

10112, footnote.

11112.

12113

13113.

December 21, 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

Sermons

God With Us

  • December 14, 2025March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“God With Us” based on Luke 8:22-25 and Matthew 14:22-32

(Jesus MAFA image)

This little story about a boat crossing a lake is one that has occupied a lot of space in my brain over the years. As a child I was mesmerized by it, awed by the power of Jesus and desperate to be one with more faith than those hapless disciples. As a seminarian I was taught about Greco-Roman myths of gods and goddesses walking on water and the New Testament narrative “our God is better than your god” which made me a bit dismissive. And then as a pastor I have often used this as a passage for Lectio Divina, giving people a space to listen for God’s nudgings through scripture and have been astounded time and time again at the layers of meaning people can find in the text. Our most recent confirmation class loved this passage and the experience they had with it in Lectio Divina, reminding me of the hard times of life and the powerful reminders to be found in the reality that God is with us.

Another time, when The United Methodist Church was at the height of its struggles in 2019, two Bishops at our Annual Conference seemed to have a battle over this text. Our Bishop at the time tried to convince us that the boat was sinking and it was time to exit. The visiting Bishop who was invited to preach at ordination preached “no matter how strong the wind, no matter how high the waves, since Jesus is in the boat with us, we will be ok.”

Perhaps some of the reason that this story has such resonance in our faith is that it is one of VERY few stories that shows up in ALL 4 gospels (although Luke lacks the walking on water part), and is thus a story we come across pretty often. I’ll admit, I’ve also spent a little bit too much time wondering about why THIS of all stories would be one of the few that are in all of the gospels.

And, one final connection with this story: when I had been appointed to this church but before I arrived, I had the chance to meet some church members at one of the Upper New York Camp and Retreat Centers when UNY Volunteers in Mission and the UNY Leadership Team did some work together. That was the day I met Pete and Jan Huston, and Pete came up to me greeting me with the words, “I hear you walk on water.” I spluttered. He continued, “But it isn’t that hard in winter.”

This Advent I’ve been focusing on Christian sermons preached during the Third Reich in resistance to Hitler and the Nazis. In January of 1934, Rev. Paul Schneider was a small town pastor who preached a sermon on this text to the church he had been serving for 8 years at that point, which had been the church his father served until his death. Rev. Schneider was a WW I vet, but a bit unique in that “Rather than the war making him hard and cold, it made him sympathetic and tender towards the suffering of others.”1 After his service in the war he went to seminary and did a practicum with coal miners whose life experiences challenged his faith. To keep us on our toes around here, he was a conservative preacher, and his experiences with the struggling coal miners led him to leave his liberal faith behind for a far more literal and conservative faith. In fact, for the most part, the churches in Germany during the Third Reich that resisted were fairly conservative, and they seem to explain it as rejection of the world because of their commitment to faith. I appreciate how this makes me a little uncomfortable.

Rev. Schneider chose these two texts, the story from Luke without walking on water and the one from Matthew where Peter joins Jesus in walking on water and preached on them as one. He used them to talk about the fear people were experiencing and what their faith called on them to do about it. So let me give you some of his word: “The little boat of the church of Christ is traveling on stormy seas.”2 “We cannot close our eyes to the high storm-waves we see surging towards our people in the Third Reich.”3 “We Evangelical Christians can never say that we agree with these things that many leading figures of the new Germany are voicing and declaring in speeches.”4 “We as evangelical parents, want to know that our children are unequivocally being raised in our evangelical faith and taught its content and we want to be sure that they have not been contaminated with the current racist religious spirit.”5

To be sure, many people are still asleep and have not recognized that it is the hour to rise up. They still think that since all around us things have changed, certainly in the church, of all places, things must remain exactly as they were before. Or perhaps they just want to subject the church to the political authority of the state and shape the life of the church to fit the current political views as the ‘German Christians’ are currently doing.

To be sure, they can only support this practice by preaching the heresy that the gospel does not rest solely on the good news of our savior Jesus Christ and the kingdom (Reich) of God, but that somehow race and the gospel together constituent the church.6…

Now, you Christian in your church, you are surrounded by waves that are coming over you from the church and from the nation and the state. And we are anxious and we are afraid. We are experiencing what the disciples were going through on the stormy lake. We call out, ‘Lord, help us, we are perishing!”7 “Where is the storm? It is not so much around you as in you, in your heart.

There, deep in your heart, you see, as Peter did, the heaving winds blowing against you, and you become afraid and begin to sink. But even then the Lord holds out to you his saving hand and holds you firm in order to strengthen your weak faith.” 8

And it is curious, at least to me, that he makes so many good points and does such good work this this text. That I can be with him so far into this sermon. And then at this point he goes on to say that a true Christian believes in miracles and trusts in God’s capacity to preform them, which is imperative to him. I can support and respect his faith and its perspective, even if I don’t share it. I love reminders like this, that differences in worldview sometimes don’t matter all that much. Finally, he says, “I would rather die for my faith than live a cowardly and cultured life with the rest of the world.”9

Rev. Schneider used this sermon as an introduction, I think. “Following the sermon was a reading of the Kanzelabkündigung (message from the pulpit) from the Confessing Church, which was read from many pulpits that Sunday: “We raise before God and this Christian congregation the complaint and charge that the Reich bishop in his decree has threatened violence against those who have been unable to keep silent for the sake of their conscience and their congregation concerning the present danger of the church. And in addition has set into force laws that run counter to our confession of faith which he had earlier lifted in order to satisfy the church. — We must hold the Reich bishop accountable to the scripture: ‘One must obey God more than men.” 10

Rev. Schneider was telling his congregation that the government was threatening Christians who weren’t supporting the work of the Third Reich. He was forced out of that pulpit the following month, was reassigned to a church more receptive to his message, and five years later became the first Protestant pastor to die in a concentration camp.

So, um, happy joy-Sunday from your pastor who knows how to make Advent really cheery.

I am awed by this self-described “simple country preacher” who simply refused to bend. Like prophets and martyrs before him, he stayed faithful in the face of persecution, told truth despite the consequences, and kept his heart focused on God and God-things. He took on powers and authorities far “above his pay-grade” because he was a follower of Jesus who didn’t care about pay-grades. I wonder about his transition from liberal faith to literal faith and how that impacted his capacities to stay true to God. (It is my suspicion he would have said it was imperative.) I’m horrified that he was killed, but also a little bit shocked that it was a “simple country preacher” that the powers-that-be felt the need to silence first. It almost seems like they made this point in this sermon, the boat may seem small but the church being faithful has great impact.

Like Jesus before him, and Martin Luther King Jr after him, and along with an unfortunately large great cloud of witnesses who did the same, Rev. Schneider stayed faithful to end, dying for his faith rather than quieting his voice for the comfort of the oppressors.

Thanks be to God for the people who follow God’s love no mater the cost, and may we not only follow God’s love, but also be part of changing the world so that this cost may someday not need to be paid. God help us. Amen

1Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 76.

2Ibid, 80.

3Ibid, 81.

4Ibid, 81.

5Ibid, 82.

6Ibid, 79.

7Ibid, 83.

8Ibid, 83.

9Ibid, 84.

10From the footnote on page 84.

December 14, 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

Sermons

Grounded Hope

  • January 5, 2025March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“Grounded Hope” based on Luke 1:39-55

Somehow I messed up the order of the Advent Candles this year. They’re supposed to be Hope, Peace, Joy, then Love, but we did Peace, Love, Joy, and now hope. Truthfully I copied from a prior year, which likely copied from some lovely liturgy of yet another year, and didn’t notice until Louis asked me why on early we were doing Love on week 2. By that point it was too late to change so we left it.

So perhaps I’m just justifying things here, but I also have been thinking that it feels right this year to end on hope. I’m not disparaging love! It is, after all, “the greatest of these things.” It is just that this year, hope seems like the hardest one to come by.

To speak plainly, there are already a whole lot of problems in our country and our world, and we’re facing a future with a government who will do intentional harm to the vulnerable. Usually when we think about hope, we think about hope for building the kindom, for making things a little bit better, piece by piece. But right now, we’re facing everything getting worse, and it isn’t even entirely clear what we hope for.

I’m a big fan of Dr. Emily Nagoski, a writer and pod-caster who thinks deeply and writes clearly. Dr. Nagoskisends out a regular email newsletter that I get, and this July she sent out one on hope. Emily struggles with depression, and she shared that while she’s delighted when other people can resonate with Emily Dickinson’s poem “hope is the thing with feathers” where nothing can hurt hope, she can’t actually access that hope.

Here is an excerpt from that email:

Moral philosopher and author of “How We Hope” Adrienne Martin developed an “incorporation model” that formulates hope as “a desire for an outcome and the belief that the outcome is possible but not certain” and you use your assessment of its possibility as justification for feelings, thoughts, and plans.

Got that? Hope is justifying your feelings, thoughts, and plans based on your assessment that a desired outcome is possible.”1

This definition of hope, where the desired outcome is “possible but not certain” may be why hope see so hard right now. I’d like to hope for an end to hopelessness, but that is a whole lot less likely then “possible but not certain.” I’d like to hope for an end to hunger, but that, too, is a whole lot less likely than possible but not certain.

For Dr. Nagoski, living with chronic depression, assessing what was possible with an optimistic viewpoint became so hard that from her perspective hope died. But, she says, that’s not the whole story:

Hope is a sustaining energy, it keeps us working through trials when we’re being challenged, but it is contingent on that assessment of the probability of that desirable outcome.

But there is a noncontingent sustaining energy, which cannot be interfered with by any assessment, no matter how dire, of the probability of a desired outcome.

That noncontingent sustaining energy is an unimaginable hope.

What’s it called, when you have no reason to believe a wanted future may come to pass and yet you continue to work toward it just as if you did believe you could make a difference? What’s the name for that emotion, when you walk toward the world you want, knowing that each next step might be off a cliff?

Adrienne Martin calls it faith.2

Now, to be clear, Dr. Nagoski is an atheist, so her faith may look different than ours, but I found this reflection so startlingly helpful. Because what we are doing now, when we hope for good care for those with disabilities, when we hope for compassionate responses to immigration, when we hope for changes of heart around medical options for trans kids in red states – that’s the stuff of “when you have no reason to believe a wanted future may come to pass and yet you continue to work toward it just as if you did believe you could make a difference” That’s the stuff of, “when you walk toward the world you want, knowing that each next step might be off a cliff?”

Now, as people of faith, maybe we still get to call this hope, but more like “faith-hope” or “God-hope” or “we’d have no hope in this without trusting God” or just “hope grounded in love” or “grounded hope”? Or some other nuance. But it isn’t practical, pragmatic, having assessed the likelihood and deemed it possible sort of hoping we’re doing now, when we try to build the kindom of God on earth in this day and age. What we’re doing is continuing to love because the world needs love, is practicing peace because only peace begets peace, is seeking joy because joy is resistance, and continuing to work towards building the kindom of God because God has done crazier things than bring justice out of THIS HOT MESS. That is, we hope.

And to a significant degree, what I hear in Luke is pretty similar. Mary and Elizabeth, the too young and the too old, pregnant and shocked and processing, and speaking hope in the faithful God in the midst of the world that was a hot mess.

The Roman Empire at that time had highly concentrated wealth and power, most people felt vulnerable in their positions, so tried to press harder on those below them to stabilized themselves, the masses of people were struggling in life threatening poverty, and the government was trying to control the religious narrative to make itself look good. I know it is all hard to imagine, but do your best. 😉

This young, vulnerable, faithful Mary speaks her faith, her grounded hope, to Elizabeth. She speaks of God’s mercy – God’s compassion shown to those God could instead choose to punish. She speaks of God’s strength – God’s capacity to make things happen.

And then she talks about what God does with God’s mercy and compassion. Which is, inverses the fortunes of the world. For many people at that time, especially those who were not a part of the Jewish faith (but probably many who were too), it was assumed that those who had power and money had it because they were favored by the gods and “good.” And those who didn’t’ have things were being punished. Right? That way it looks like the world is fair, if everyone gets what they deserve. (You realize people think this now too, right? Sigh.)

The book of Job, I would say, is one of the ways the Bible fights back against that idea, because even in the Bible there is this tendency to want to justify things by saying all is as God would have it be, so don’t mess with the status quo. But, luckily, there are also A LOT of narratives that say God isn’t’ happy until justice comes, and that’s the tradition Mary is drawing on here.

Mary speaks of God lifting up the lowly, bringing down the powerful, filling the hungry, sending the rich away empty, scattering the proud, and fulfilling God’s own promises. To have that happen would overthrow the empire, and install in it’s place God’s own kindom on earth. She is talking about leveling, about making it so everyone can eat, and no one lords over anyone. She is talking about building the kindom on earth.

It makes sense, of course, that these words would be in Mary’s mouth to make sense of Jesus. The early Christian community saw all of this happen in Jesus’s life, and they used Mary’s words as a narrative device to tell people what to pay attention to in his story. (Also, I contend, it makes sense to think of Mary as one who had such faith and was able to teach it to Jesus.)

I think that from the perspective of Mary and Elizabeth, the Roman Empire was immutable. It couldn’t be changed, couldn’t be toppled, couldn’t’ be bested. This was probably even MORE true by the time the gospels were written and the destruction of Jerusalem occurred with mass causalities. Moving from that system to justice as God wills it would have looked….

Well, it wasn’t “possible but not certain.”

It was much more “when you have no reason to believe a wanted future may come to pass and yet you continue to work toward it just as if you did believe you could make a difference?” In fact, I would go so far as to say that one of the primary points of Jesus’s teaching was that we have to work towards the future we want, the kindom of God on earth, as if it is possible because unless we work together on it – IT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE. Jesus brought the people together and showed them that together they had enough where as apart they did not. Jesus taught them they had power, not the kind of violent power over of the Empire, but the amazing power of connection and love that can change things to make life BETTER.

Beloveds of God, the likelihoods are not in our favor right now. Very little that improves the lives of the vulnerable is going to happen on the federal level in the short run.

Oh well.

God is still God, God is a God of mercy who brings down the mighty and lifts up the lowly and we’re working with God on that kindom building project. Our hope is grounded, faithful, and impractical. We do what needs doing even if it isn’t likely to bring the outcomes we want. We do it anyway, because we are the people who follow Mary’s son. Amen

1 “An Alternative to Hope Or, The Secret Medicine for When the Thing With Feathers Stop Singing” an email from Emily Nagoski on Jul 9, 2024.

2 ibid

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

Joy Like a Fountain

  • December 15, 2024March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“Joy Like a Fountain” based on Isaiah 12:2-6 and Philippians 4:4-7

There is a bit of a challenge to this week. Today, on this 3rd Sunday of Advent, we have lit the candle of Joy! We have texts calling us to joy! We’re meant to engage in and savor the joy of God.

But, also, we have the Long Night service this week, the time when I will tell attendees that they don’t have to be joyful if they’re not joyful – that God meets them where they are – that one can honor Christmas with tears as well as anything else.

For some reason I don’t feel like it would be particularly authentic to preach to you today about joy, and then talk about grief and sadness on Wednesday as if they’re entirely separate things.

I’ve been thinking about the spaces that joy and grief intermingle. I know that this perhaps a bit personal, but adoption is one of those places. Our family is profoundly joyful that we’re complete, that we have a delightful baby to adore, and that our adoption is finalized. But adoption never exists in joy alone, because it is profoundly sad that birth parents cannot parent their children, and it is heartbreaking that children need to be separated from their birth parents. It can be the right thing, the best thing, the thing that brings us the most joy – and still be filled with grief.

Truthfully, many deaths are like this too. We who are left behind are aghast at the loss of loved ones, but often also relieved at the end of suffering. Sometimes, even, the one who dies has expressed being ready and waiting to go, to be joy-filled to be done, and we have to hold our grief with their joy.

A now-deceased church member, Miles Martin said all of this much better than I’ve been able to in his poem “Bittersweet”

“Bitter-sweet”           by Miles J Martin                                                              

In the strange dichotomy of living

The purest joys are bitter-sweet,

And happiness often lingers

Where tears and laughter meet.

Of all accumulated treasures

That crown the passing years,

Most precious are the jewels

That crystallize from tears.

Above the bitterness of parting

And the sadness of farewell,

An all-pervasive sweetness

Casts its blessed, healing spell.

Though familiar ties be severed

And old friends seldom meet,

Fondest memories intermingle

The bitter with the sweet.

Throughout this mortal journey

Where time is short and fleet,

We find that all of living

Is a blend of bitter-sweet.

The first time I took a Nonviolent Communication Course (which is sometimes called Compassionate Communication), we were asked how we were feeling after a lunch break. Luckily there were cards with emotions on them for us to look at and consider, since we were like most people and not particularly fluent with emotions. I don’t remember how I was feeling, but I remember one of the teacher saying that she felt conflicted, because she was both excited about teaching us and worried that not everyone had made it back from lunch yet. I remember it because it was an ah-ha moment for me, that more than one emotion at the same time is real, valid, and even normal.

This week, we’re talking about joy and sadness, and we’re acknowledging that they often intermingle, and “all of living is a blend of bitter-sweet.” Now that we’ve acknowledged that, I feel a lot more comfortable putting the majority of our attention this morning on joy.

Our scriptures emphasize gratitude as a natural response to God’s goodness. God who cares for us, God who gives us peace, God who is our strength, God who is trustworthy, God who is with us – God being God is reason enough for joy. There is truth there.

God who created brings joy. God whose creation includes waterfalls and starlit nights, sunrises and autumn colors, raspberries and coffee, the oceans and the plains, hummingbirds and blue whales is definitely a God of joy. And it turns out life itself is filled with joys, when we’re able to attend to them. To eat is a joy. To drink is a joy. To move is a joy. To talk is a joy. To hear is a joy. To watch is a joy. To make meaning is a joy. To play is a joy. To create is a joy. To offer care is a joy. To receive care is a joy. And even when we can’t have all of those things, most of us get many of them EVERY DAY!

When I think about sadness and grief, I’m often struck by how much grief relates to change. We grieve what we’ve lost and identified with – people and identities and hopes and dreams. It could be far too easy to conclude that change makes for grief, and it may even be partially true. But to return to the idea of bitter-sweet, change also looks like growth, and healing, like the fulfillment of dreams, and the letting go of identities that don’t fit anymore. Change itself is bittersweet, and I think it is important to notice how it feels and what delight there can be in it.

That amazing spiritual “I’ve Got Peace Like a River” seems to summarize both of our scriptures and all that I’ve said so far. It seems worth noting that African American spirituals didn’t come from times when all was well, they came from souls that knew that there was more than external realities. To be in the midst of oppression and sing “I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got joy like a fountain, I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul” was to refuse the power of the oppressor to define reality. It was to make God’s peace, joy, and love the centerpiece of life. It was to claim goodness, even the midst of hardness.

I have said it before, but I think it bears repeating: we are formed by what we give our attention to. In the era of social media and 24 hour news cycles it is really easy to get pulled into despair and distress. But we’re called to peace, love, joy, and hope. Which requires that we give attention to goodness and God-ness too. We have to be more intentional that people who came before us, in making sure we bring our attention to the little miracles of life. Now, I’ll admit it, I’m in an easier position than many to do that. I get to be awed every day at things my kids are learning, and that is an unfair advantage compared to those who don’t get to do that in this era of their lives. But dear ones, I encourage you to savor the things you love – great flavors, great music, great decorations, great relationships, great fiction, great naps!

One of the best spiritual practices I know is the practice of daily examen. (Yes, I push this regularly, if you now all do this and haven’t’ told me yet, let me know and I’ll move on.) In daily examen you get centered with God, review your day, look for the best and worst parts, share those either in a journal or with others, and then offer thanks to God for the best and the worst and everything in between. When practiced daily (or even at any regular interval) it can help us see what we’re loving about life and what our constant struggles are, which can also guide us towards moving our lives towards greater joy.

More simply though, it gives us a chance to pay attention. To notice what days are bustling with little joys, or what days really weren’t that hard, and mostly it gives us a chance to listen WITH God and find some delights we missed the first time around but can delight in as we reflect on them. I’m personally shocked at how often the worst part of my day is related to the best part. As previously mentioned, “We find that all of living is a blend of bitter-sweet.”

Dear ones, seek joy, savor joy, attend to joy, allow for joy. And, remember, it is human to feel multiple emotions at once. You joy won’t cancel out your sadness or anger, but neither will it be canceled out. We’re people of faith – we have joy like a fountain! Thanks be to God! Amen

December 15, 2024

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

The Way Home

  • December 8, 2024March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“The Way Home” based on Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6 December 8, 2024

The story says that the descendants of Jacob, freed from slavery in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They weren’t meant to be wilderness dwellers, they just took a really long time to be ready to come “home.” Home to the promised land. Home to being settled, and engaging in agriculture. Home to being ready to trust God and create a society based on treating one another with the love God wants people treated with.

The wilderness wasn’t the goal, but it was important. It was there that they learned to trust God. It was there that they figured out the basics of their story, and the basics of their structures, and the basics of their faith. The wilderness was imperative – even though it was the journey not the destination.

In our Disciple class this week we read a lot of texts placed in the wilderness, laying out the VERY specific details of sacrifices, which are mind-numbingly boring most of the time (to me). One of the specifics caught my attention though, the means by which the Holy Tent – the Tabernacle – itself was cleansed. The idea seemed to be that periodically, maybe once a year, the high priest would re-sanctify the whole space. He had to start by purifying himself, then symbolically purifying the people. This is actually where the scapegoat comes in – for the people he brought two goats. One was sacrificially killed and the other symbolically bore the people’s sins away from them and back into the wilderness. Then the ark of the covenant itself is cleansed/re-sanctified/prepared for its continued work.

The work of the Tabernacle (and later Temple) was the work of forgiveness, and it required that the place of forgiveness be cleansed periodically, so the sin didn’t… soak in?

The whole idea is so far from my worldview, I struggle to wrap my head around it, but it felt connected to the Malachi reading when one person is going to purify things. God’s messenger – seen at the time it was written as the return of Elijah – would purify the whole people. Like the high priest, but more so. The high priest was cleansed himself and cleansed the people and then purified the Tabernacle.

This messenger purifies it ALL. The messenger purifies the whole people, and in doing so restores relationship between the people and God.

It could make sense to say that the messenger is taking the people out of another wilderness and leading them back home too.

In Luke, John the Baptist quotes Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40, the start of “second Isaiah” is written to the exiles, promising them that the exile will have an end. The prophet speaks to people who have been force marched through the desert wilderness, and are yearning for home. He assures them that not only will they go home, but the horrible journey they remember won’t be the same on the way home – it will be flat, straight, safe. They will be with God and God will be with them, and they will be journeying home with ease.

Phew. OK, so far we’ve talked about the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land thorugh the wilderness- a long journey to a new home; we’ve talked about the wilderness of distance from God and the purification and forgiveness to bring people back home to God; we’ve talked about the journey through the wilderness to the exile and the road back home… enough Bible meta themes yet?

Well, no.

Because now we have to deal with John the Baptist quoting Isaiah, which means we don’t just need to know what Isaiah was saying but why John decided to quote it!

We know that John was a wilderness preacher, which is pretty much the opposite of the important people we hear about first. Ceasar, the governor, the rulers, the high priests…. and well, John who was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and quoting Isaiah from the wilderness around the Jordan. There is a significant contrast there, a notable difference in power. Or maybe, a notable difference in what KIND of power they were wielding. The empires officials (and I include the high priests as such) wielded the threat of violence, hierarchical, and official power.

John the Baptist wielded the power of hope.

In particular, the hope that even from THERE, the people could get home again. Where was there? I think by the time of John and Jesus, the people of ancient Israel felt like exiles at home. The power structures abused them, the religious authorities abandoned them, the financial structures strangled them, the nation their ancestors had yearned to come home to was bleeding under the oppression of the Empire.

It can be a hard thing, it turns out, to be home and still be yearning for home.

It can be hard when home isn’t safe.

It can be hard when home has been appropriated.

It can be hard when home doesn’t value its own people.

It can be hard when home seems to violate the most basic principles of Godliness and goodness.

(Just saying.)

To these people, living under the oppressive, violent power of the Empire, this camel-hair-wearing, wilderness-living, baptizing prophet says, “God is going to make the home easy. The mountains will be made low. The valleys will be lifted up,” and WOW, but doesn’t that sound like good news to the poor and those made low and hard news for those who might be on the top? And then he goes on to quote that the ways will be made straight and smooth and the people can get home and the home is going to be LEVEL and FAIR, and SAFE and JUST and GOOD.

And GOD is going to do it.

And God’s people are going to help

There is a way home. God is working on it. We can help.

And that dear ones, I believe, is the good news of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. 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

December 8, 2024

Uncategorized

Untitled

  • 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

Uncategorized

Untitled

  • December 17, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“Yearning for Joy” based on Micah 6:6-8 and Luke 1:67-80

I was in a “non-violent communication” workshop one time, which is a place that teaches about human emotions and how to have them without judging yourself for them. So, we’re in this workshop and someone takes the MOST obvious of teaching moments, something that would almost make you groan except that in this case, I didn’t KNOW the thing she was teaching so I was grateful that she made it so obvious.

We’d just come back from lunch and we were asked how we were doing, with the request that we respond with how we were feeling. It was practice with using feeling words. The co-teacher responded, “I’m feeling torn. I’m excited to be teaching this group, and at the same time I’m concerned about the two students who aren’t back yet.” There I was, in my 30s, and I’d just learned that it was VALID to hold MORE THAN ONE EMOTION at the same time. Which was helpful, because I’d done that plenty, but somehow I hadn’t known it was OK.

(This is why I often share really simple stuff about emotions with the rest of you – it was late in life learning for me and its been really significant. I dearly hope most of you already knew this, but when I look around at our society, I’m not sure who would have taught you.)

So I learned that when I take my feelings seriously, both on their own, and as flags pointing me to things I care about and value, I am allowed to feel more than one emotion – even seemingly contradictory ones. This knowledge has been very helpful for me, particularly in moments in my life when my life and the world as a whole were doing really differently. Like when Trump was elected and there was fear of what his presidency would look like – and I was newly in love and wedding planning at the same time. Or when there was a global pandemic and the country was locked down and everything was hard and confusing and – oh – I finally got to become a parent.

Which is all a long introduction to say: this is Joy Sunday, and heavens that can be confusing in the midst of sadness, anger, fear, and exhaustion. There seem to be plenty of reasons to skip joy – grief and heartache, violence and injustice for example.

And yet, none of that negates joy. In fact, oddly enough, making space for any emotion can make space for others too. It is possible to be deeply sad and deeply joyful at the same time. They don’t cancel each other out, sometimes they even harmonize.

Micah 6:6-8 is one of my favorite texts, and I know that’s true for many of you. “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” We try, really hard, to live this. But sometimes, I can get off kilter. I can get so focused on trying to do justice, that I forget to notice I’m also supposed to love and savor kindness. I also can forget that God is God and I’m not, and the responsibility for the whole world is NOT on my shoulders.

In recent months I’ve been hearing nudges from God to make more space for joy. It has been interesting to notice my own resistance to it. There are biases in me that worry about making space for joy. They tell me that I was born with rose colored glasses, and being an adult member of society requires me to see the injustices of the world clearly. They tell me that joy is trite, and not very serious, and I should be serious. They remind me of the things that break my heart, and suggest I worry more about those and less about trivial stuff. Basically, there is this whole narrative within me that says I’m supposed to be a mature, responsible human, and that means I should just attend to the hard stuff of life.

And that’s all really interesting because I KNOW BETTER. I believe that God wants all people to be well, to survive and thrive, to experience joy and wonder. I don’t think that anyone is excluded from that, so I believe we are honoring creation and connecting with the Divine when we experience joy.

I know that joy is resistance, that there are parts of our society that try to create anxiety, and sadness for personal gain, and it is useful have joy to repel that. I also know that joy creates internal resistance, making it possible to do the hard things when they come because they aren’t the only thing.

I know a God who calls us to Sabbath- away from consumption and productively and into connection- and I know connection to be a great source of joy. That is, I believe God sets aside time for just joy so that we don’t get confused into thinking life is just about work and hardship.

I also have the honor of being with people at the end of their life, and being with loved ones after a person has died. I know which memories are savored, which things are regretted, and how meaning is made of a life – and it all ends up calling us towards joy.

Finally, and this one may seem backwards – when we mourn unfair and early deaths, a lot of what we grief is the lack of space for the person to continue to have joy in their lives. That would seem to tell us that those who love us want us to life and find joy and savor it! JUST LIKE GOD DOES.

I know all that, I can expound on it for a lot longer than this, and I still find it hard to let myself do it. Some people are better at this than others, and maybe some roles in life hold emotions differently than other roles. I don’t know. I kind of hope this is one of those sermons that doesn’t resonate easily.

Some of the ones who are wise about God suggest that goodness, wonder, and joy lie at the heart of all things, and if you can just see them at the right angle, everything positively sparkles with joy. Other wise ones about God say that it is a mark of true faith to have deep joy.

Which is all to say, if there is some resistance to joy in you – be it your own struggles, or seemingly conflicting emotions, or some narratives that tell you that joy isn’t right for you – I invite you to push back. God wants joy for you, and requests that you stop squelching it. Joy is for everyone, that’s actually the thing we’re doing. We’re working with God to build the kin-dom of God, and one of the ways we’ll know when we get there will be the abundance of joy. And one of the ways we get there is to stop getting in the way of joy!

So, a final story. When I was in college, I had a fairly significant fight with a friend because I’d shared that cookie cutters brought me joy and he maintained that was simply ridiculous. I argued I had a right to feel how I felt, he maintained that … well, basically it seems he said all the stuff I internalized as a narrative about what it means to be a mature adult. Hmmm, I thought I won that fight!! Anyway, there are sugar cookies available with coffee hour today, cut with cookie cutters and decorated with too many sprinkles, and I hope they bring you joy – you deserve it. Thanks be to God for that, 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

December 17, 2023

Uncategorized

Untitled

  • December 10, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“Yearning for Peace” based on Isaiah 10:1-4, 20-27

This week we were asked not to light the candle of peace on the Advent wreath. It was a request we took seriously, as it came from The United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries as a request to be in solidarity with the lack of peace in Israel and Palestine. Now, I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you on this or anything, but we have already lit the Advent Wreath, and we DID light the candle of peace. So you now how this ends. Except, we didn’t light the normal 2nd candle, the second of two purple candles. Instead we lit an Amnesty International Candle.

I should go back to the beginning, right?

This is the second week of Advent, the week when we traditionally light the candle of peace, to add to the candle of hope. The one small light fighting back against the darkness suddenly becomes two, which isn’t a whole lot of light but is double what the wreath previously held.

And we know there isn’t peace on earth, there hasn’t been peace on the full earth at any point since Jesus was born, but we yearn for peace nonetheless, and we know God as a source of peace, and Jesus as the Prince of Peace, and just like last week we connected with the Hope of God, this week we are meant to connect with the Peace of God and move a little bit more into it.

And, peace, in Biblical terms is more than just the absence of violence – although that would seem like progress right now. Peace in the Hebrew Bible is Shalom, a word that combines individual well-being with communal well being and thinks about the well being of the body, mind, emotions, and spirit – all while thinking about having access to enough resources to thrive. It is holistic. One can not be at peace if one’s neighbor is not.

In recent years I’ve learned that in many parts of Africa, our siblings in faith use the world “ubuntu” to say a lot of this. Archbishop Tutu explains:

The first law of our being is that we are in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation… [Ubuntu] is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness: it speaks about compassion. A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are.1

Then we get a request that says:

Our Christian colleagues in Bethlehem tell us that this Advent and Christmas in Bethlehem the lights that normally adorn the birthplace of Jesus will remain unlit in memory of those who have been killed in the current conflict. The patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem have noted that the traditional festive services in the Holy Land will be somber in nature due to the ongoing war.

The second candle on the Advent wreath represents peace, and in some traditions is known as the ”Bethlehem candle.” This Advent, we invite Methodist churches across the globe to do something out of the ordinary and refrain from lighting the Advent candle on the second Sunday in Advent (Dec. 10) and on subsequent Sundays. (GBGM)

Now, we took this request really seriously. It got passed around, Worship Committee read it and discussed it in our meeting, we found ourselves discussing the root meaning of the candles. We all care deeply about peace, about the impact of violence and war, the grief and trauma in the Holy Land, and those who have been killed there. The request came from our siblings in faith who are THERE, and we tend towards solidarity around here, right?

But, the idea of NOT lighting the candle felt so very, very wrong. Curiously wrong, actually, we had to figure out why it bothered us so. I think I heard us land on the idea that we light the candle to honor peace, to seek peace, to connect with peace, and we just couldn’t handle NOT lighting it when it is needed so badly. But nor could we just ignore the request. That didn’t seem acceptable either, especially when the symbolism requested was to honor those who have died in this horrible war.

Thank God for committees, because together we come up with better ideas than any of us could alone. Today we lit an Amnesty International Candle instead of the normal purple one. “Amnesty’s trademark is a candle wrapped in barbed wire. The candle represents:

  • The light of public attention that Amnesty members shine on the hidden abuses (the barbed wire) of human rights violators.
  • The spark of public pressure that Amnesty members create in order to bring about positive change in people’s lives.
  • The beacon of hope and solidarity for people who defend human rights, often at great personal risk, and for the many who become”2

So we lit a candle of acknowledgment of those killed, a candle of peace and yearning for peace, and a candle of solidarity with all at once. It still isn’t the perfect symbol, I’m not sure one exists, but we did it with great care. And now you are caught up.

After the conversation, Eileen Deming shared this quote from Howard Thurman:

“I will light candles this Christmas.

Candles of joy, despite all the sadness.

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.

Candles of courage where fear is ever present.

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days.

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens.

Candles of love to inspire all of my living.

Candles that will burn all the year long. ”

None of this is to say that the original ask of the Board of Global Ministries wasn’t valid!! It was! The ask made space for us to really think about what we’re doing and why, and what feels like our response to an important request.

Now, every time we talk about peace, I hear in my head a simple truth, “if you want peace, work for justice.” I fear the consequences of this current war are not only the heartbreak and horror of Oct. 7th and the heartbreak and horror SINCE October 7th, but the grief, trauma, and fear of today will be the seedbed for conflicts for decades to come.

And that difficult reality also brings my thoughts closer to home. In the devotional from We Cry Justice for this week, Dr. Charon Hribar discusses the laws in New York City that create a particular injustice for those who are homeless. In New York City, there are 5 times more spaces in vacant buildings and lots than there are homeless people who need them. Or at least this was true 2 years ago, I suspect the basic truth remains even if the statistic doesn’t hold with the influx of migrants. Even more so, the vacant lots and buildings are usually located in exactly the same neighborhoods where homelessness is the highest. Why? Because those buildings and vacant lots are “good investments” to hold for a few decades and see if those neighborhoods gentrify. They’re held by shell corporations for unknown corporate prospectors. Meanwhile, the acquisition of the investment properties ends up kicking people out of their homes, creating ever more homelessness. And, of course, these facts aren’t neutral, they are created by the laws of the country, state, and city, which prioritize the wealth accumulation of the land prospectors over the lives of the homeless.

To be clear, New York City isn’t the only place such priorities are in place.

In addition to being blatantly inhumane, I fear such policies are the exact opposite of “if you want peace, work for justice.” What story are we telling people who fall through our safety net? That society is just? That they should seek the well-being of the whole because it will help take care of them too? That people see their pain? Alas, no. They’re taught by societal action and inaction that no one cares, they are on their own, their lives and their pain don’t matter. And that, dear ones, doesn’t lead us towards peace.

The prophet Isaiah sounds like many other prophets when he warns that the injustices of Ancient Israel will bring its downfall. Isaiah claims the downfall is God’s punishment, I tend to think it is natural consequences. In any case, in chapter 10 Isaiah outlines the ways that Ancient Israelite society is profoundly unjust – which we read – then how that’s true of Assyria too (we skipped that). Isaiah says they’ll both be wiped out as punishment, but that God’s love is such that the punishment will not wipe out all of Ancient Israel, there will be a remnant with which to rebuild. With God, hope is never wiped out.

Dr. Hribrar ends her devotional saying:

We are taught to obey the law, under the assumption that the social structure in which we live is just. But when the economic system and the policies that protect it are designed to put corporate profits before people’s lives, we, like Isaiah, must call out the policy violence that is taking place. We must be wiling to proclaim that these laws are moral and wrong.3

It is the way towards peace. It is also the way of Jesus. Among the most profound teachings of Jesus was the way of nonviolence. The premise of the Empire of Rome, the superpower in the time of Jesus was “first violence, then peace.” The response of Jesus seems to have been, “first peace, then peace.” You can’t wipe out violence with violence. It won’t work. You can’t build peace with violence. As followers of Jesus we know that neither violence nor injustice get us to peace.

But peace and justice do. Each time we call out an unjust law, we move towards peace. Each time we offer a gift in love to pick up someone who is otherwise unseen in society, we move towards peace. Each moment we find peace within creates more peace in the world. Each little way we seek to create more justice creates the space for more peace in the world. Each time we choose peace, and each time we choose justice, we bring along the work of God and Jesus… the work towards a nonviolent kindom of peace. May it come – soon. Amen

1Archbishop Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope For Our Time (Doubleday, 2005).

2https://amnesty.ca/what-you-can-do/youth/start-up-kit/amnesty-101/

3Charon Hribar, “41: Who to You Who Pass Unjust Laws” in We Cry Justice, ed. Liz Theoharis (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021) p. 179, used with permission.

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 10, 2023

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  • December 3, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“Yearning for Hope” based on Job 24:1-11, 22-25

Today we re-start the Christian Year, the liturgical cycle of waiting, celebrating, growing, waiting, celebrating, growing. We are now back in waiting. I think I fall deeper in love with Advent every year. The more commercialist Christmas pushes red and white, the more I find myself retreating the Advent colors of purple and pink. The more commercialism pushes secular carols, the more I find myself retreating into the quiet of the sanctuary and the integrity of Advent Hymns. The more commercialism pushes sales and deals the more attention I give to Alternative Christmas.

While secular Christmas has its bright, cheery, feel-good energy all around us, Christian Advent calls us to slow down, reflect, savor. Today we lit the candle of hope, one small light in an ever expanding darkness, one small light that will prove to be enough.

Now, I’m not against secular Christmas, I rather like it, but it feels disconnected from the one Christian one. This fall we did a Bible Study on the Christmas Stories in the Gospels, and we compared and contrasted them with our Christmas memories, our Christmas delights, and even the meaning we make from Christmas. (There is a poster in the back inviting you to do the same.) For most of us, Luke’s story of Christmas fit our faith the best, and made the most sense of it all. We also discovered that reading Luke 1 and 2 together made Luke 2 a whole lot more delightful. Luke centers on women, and on the disenfranchised, and the good news to all people. It fits who we seek to be as a church.

But for now, we’re still waiting, right? We’re waiting, and the description of the world being terribly wrong from the Bible’s most depressive abused character (Job) is doing its job of settling us into waiting. The description Job offers is of the world as it is and we YEARN with all our beings for the KINDOM of God where those descriptions no longer apply.

This Christian Year, the Worship Committee has taken seriously a request from the Intersectional Justice Committee to focus together on the book “We Cry Justice” put out by the Poor People’s Campaign. It is a book in 52 parts, meant to be read devotionally, and no matter how many times our Book Club tried, it didn’t become a readable book. It is a devotional book, so they asked if we could incorporate it into worship, and Worship Committee and I thought that was a wonderful idea. We have completed our year with “A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church,” which was a gift from God via Dr. Wil Gafney, and there is space for a different focus.

The Poor People’s Campaign is a group of amazing activists who decided it was time to pick up the mantle from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr who was himself leading a Poor People’s Campaign at the time of his death. We have been lightly involved with the modern campaign for years, and we have KNOWN that it is one of the ways God is at work in the world, and yet we haven’t quite given it our attention, until now. The book “We Cry Justice” is intentional Biblical interpretation with an eye towards the injustices of the world towards people in poverty. When I wrote them asking for permission to use prayers and quotations in worship they got back to us immediately granting it!

So this year as we settle to wait, our waiting is really defined by our waiting for JUSTICE for the vulnerable and those living in poverty. This fits the life this church particularly well, when I think about what we focus on in mission, while it hasn’t even been a decision exactly, the goals seem to be to lighten the burdens of those living in poverty. We see in our neighbors, our fellow members and worshippers, those dear to us, and quite ourselves the struggles of trying to live in a world that values the creation of capital over the well-being of the vulnerable.

I don’t know about you, but it breaks my heart.

Over and over again.

Actually, I kind of do know about you. I know that this is a community of faith whose belief in God and God’s dreams for the world include knowing that what is just and right in the world is for people to have access to food that is nutritious, delicious and plentiful; to housing that is safe, mold-free, and affordable; and to healthcare that is caring, effective, and doesn’t require declaring bankruptcy. That we are people who believe that God’s desires in the world are for people to live full abundant lives, and we know what is impairing that.

I expect that what I just said was so ridiculously obvious that you don’t know why I’m bothering wasting my breath on it. Thank you for that, because, dear ones, what is clear and obvious here isn’t in the world at large. Our society as a whole is at peace with people being hungry or we would expand SNAP benefits to cover the WHOLE month, expand access to SNAP benefits to everyone who really needs it, and … oh, let’s talk about reality, we wouldn’t have had our federal government cut $22 million from funding for regional food banks that are the last-gap measure between those who are struggling and hunger. (THIS is why we have to go to the store for meat, because the Food Bank can’t afford to get it anymore.) Our society as a whole is at peace with homelessness, or we’d prioritize safe, accessible housing in our budgets and our legislation. Our society as a whole is at peace with people not have access to healthcare, or not being able to afford to access healthcare, or going bankrupt from accessing healthcare or – wait for it – we’d have a different way of providing and funding healthcare.

And when I’m out in the world, listening, a shocking number of people think that those living in poverty should just try harder, or suffer a little because they deserve it, or …. well, basically the assumption is that poverty is the fault of the individual and poverty is the punishment someone deserves for not “succeeding” in capitalism.

Thank God, we see people as beloved children of God worthy of good things and abundant life, and not worthy of being punished because the game is rigged and they can’t win.

Thank God we know a God who is defined by universal love, grace, and mercy. It turns out that matters a lot in what we think justice looks like.

So, here we are on this first Sunday of Advent with one candle-flicker of light in our sanctuary reminding us to hold on to hope. And we have that while we heard words from Job that tell us how the world really is. In “We Cry Justice” Aaron Scott reflects on this Job reading saying:

I see countless tents, tarps, and shacks lining freeway underpasses – up one day, then disappearing the next, removed by cities desperate to keep up appearances instead of keeping up with justice and mercy. I see signs turning parking lots and stoplights across the country into hostile territory: “No Loitering,” “No Illegal Shopping Carts, “No Panhandling.”

And last week while our social worker Sylvester worked to find housing for God’s beloveds who had shown up last week, he confirmed counties in the capital region are buying people bus passes to other counties to avoid the cost of housing them.

The world as it is.

But, dear ones, we aren’t waiting for more of the same. We are waiting for God’s Kindom on earth. And this year, I have noticed something terribly obvious. We aren’t just waiting with our ancestors in faith who also yearned for justice and God’s dreams. I believe we are waiting with God’s own self, God who yearns to see us make different choices and offer better care for God’s vulnerable beloveds.

A challenge of faith today is to look at all the brokenness, all the injustice, all the heartaches, and hold hope. And yet, dear ones, there is plenty. There is hope because God seeks justice. There is hope because this is a community of faith that sees the injustice around us and calls it “immoral.” There is hope because there is a whole Poor People’s Campaign out there working on it! There is hope because God and we, and others along with us, will never concede that this is good enough. There is hope because at the deepest core of reality, there is goodness (God’s goodness) and it is going to break through eventually.

There is hope in this darkness. And the yearning for hope, the yearning for better, the yearning for the kindom is some of the hope itself. Thanks be to God. Amen

December 3, 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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“Peace” based on Matthew 1:18-25

  • December 18, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

We have a lot of phrases about
peace in our faith tradition.  Jesus is called the “prince of
peace.”  We speak of the “peace that passes understanding.”  A
sung blessing offers the line, “deep peace of the running waves to
you.”  Songs and prayers ask God to “grant us peace.” We often
sing,  “Peace be with you ‘til we meet again,” and we greet each
other with “peace be with you.”  We yearn, collectively, for
“world peace.”

I’ve been trained in the
knowledge that the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, refers to holistic
well being – body, mind, and spirit – of the individual and the
community.  It is more than the absence of war.  It is the absence of
needs, the adequate distribution of resources so that no one has to
try to get what they need via violence.

In this way, shalom, peace, is
deeply integrated with the kindom of God.

This week I’ve been struck at
how RELATIVE peace is – both internally and externally.  I think
I’ve often been distracted by the wondrous language about peace in
our tradition, and thought of peace as some perfect and excellent
thing.  But that assumption has distracted me from a whole lot of the
incremental gifts of peace.

The many people in our church
and our society who have lived through trauma have fairly constant
alerts in their bodies and minds to remain vigilant, stay safe, LOOK
OUT!  What looks like peace for someone in a constant state of alert
may be a relatively safe place or person that allows a few of the
alarm bells within to slow down.  Which is to say that what looks
like relative peace for some would be REALLY HIGH agitation for
others.  Yet, still, increased peace is a gift for all those who
experience it.  Peace in the midst of trauma.

There is a famous story of
Christmas 1914, in the midst of World War I, when soldiers singing
Christmas hymns in the trenches started singing back and forth to
each other across the “no man’s land” eventually leading to
soldiers experiencing a Christmas peace and exchanging gifts and
laughter.  Peace in the midst of war.

I often think of a young mother
I knew by being her pastor, who shared that her life was full with a
full time job and the needs of young children.  She spoke of her
commute time as the most peaceful part of her life, and savored it as
a time to connect with the Divine.  Peace in the midst of a
burstingly full life.

This week Matthew gives us a
look at Mary’s pregnancy through the eyes of Joseph.  Mary is
vulnerable, as a pregnant engaged woman who wasn’t pregnant from her
fiancé. Joseph has a lot of power here, he can publicly shame her
and her family, which would most likely result in Mary being removed
from her family so they can regain some status.  His original plan,
to let her go quietly, seems aimed at letting the father of her baby
marry her.  It is aimed at respecting everyone involved.  Of course,
then he gets new information and changes course, no longer assuming
another man needed the space to become the father of that man’s
child.

I adore the way this translation
speaks of Joseph, “Joseph her husband was a just man and unwilling
to shame her, he wanted to divorce her secretly.”  I find myself
thinking that Joseph was a man who knew peace within.  Either he
wasn’t personally offended by Mary’s pregnancy, or he was able to
hold that in perspective and not wish to retaliate.  His aim was not
violence or harm, but rather everyone’s well-being.  Peace.

As I’ve considered the factors
that lead to peace within, I’ve been struck at how mundane they are.
Like most things – athletic skills, musical talent, etc, – there
are people with natural connection to peace, and there are people who
nurture their receptivity to peace, and while both matter, the work
done to nurture receptivity to peace ends up mattering the most over
time.

We have been in the midst of
highly trying times for many years now.  I tend to think back to the
2016 election cycle as the beginning of the escalation of tension and
anxiety, but you may place it elsewhere.  Even if you want to place
it at the beginning of the pandemic, we are YEARS into what our
bodies have probably experienced as a “war.”  I say war because
the stress levels have been escalated, and very few things have
helped us bring them back down.

Some of you, thanks be to God,
have found life-giving ways to reconnect with peace, wholeness, and
the Divine.  I’m of the opinion that walking in nature is one of the
best practices for this, and a lot of you seem to agree.  You have
found ways to connect with each other and loved ones, you’ve found
creative expressions, you’ve done meditation or prayer practices,
you’ve looked for beauty, you’ve been still in the face of your awe,
you’ve PLAYED.  I can see the differences in us from a year ago, and
I can see that God is working to cultivate peace in us AND that we
are working on receiving those gifts from God.

My exclusive point today is an
encouragement to keep nurturing your receptivity to God’s peace.  I’m
happy to chat about it with you more, to think about what it looks
like in you.  I think we can look at the example of Joseph to see how
peace within a person impacts those around them.  I want to be more
like that, and I suspect you may too.  May God grant us peace, and
may WE prepare ourselves to receive 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

December 18, 2022

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  • First United Methodist Church
  • 603 State Street
  • Schenectady, NY 12305
  • phone: 518-374-4403
  • alt: 518-374-4404
  • email: fumcschenectady@yahoo.com
  • facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady
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