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November 3, 2024
by Sara Baron

“The Saints Sheltering Us” based on Isaiah 25:6-9 and Revelation 21:16a

Our guts are clenched

We aren’t sure what comes next

Terrible options abound

It would be nice

to be on that mountain

or in the new Jerusalem

To be past the fears

to be assured of life

for things to be as God would wish

To be beyond sadness

to know no more grief

to be together in joy

Though the prayer echoes through the ages

thy kingdom come

on earth as it is in heaven

it isn’t

yet

Instead we gather

to remember the Saints

Bob who loved his wife too much to let her go

Harold who enjoyed absolutely everyone

Lois whose pure goodness flowed everywhere she went

Nancy who thirsted for knowledge and connection

Pat who loved kids to her core

Beryl whose devotion cared for many generations

June whose personality was its own source of gravity

We loved them

They formed us

They taught us

They loved us

These, the newest of our saints

now form the great cloud of witnesses

with those who where already there

So many we’ve loved and lost

and been formed by

So many saints

So much wisdom

resilience

humor

faith

care

love

joy

hope

Enough, it might seem

to make it through today

and tomorrow

This week

this month

this year

Enough to shelter this storm

Enough

There is love enough.

In them.

In us.

In God.

Thanks be.

Nov. 3, 2024

All Saints Sunday

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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“Passing Faith Down Generations” based on Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21…

November 6, 2022
by Sara Baron

“One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.” So says the Psalm, so say our lives. When I have
had the opportunity to ask people about their lives of faith, they
are NEVER solo journeys. Many stories talk about a parent or
grandparent who was a faithful person, and brought a young child
along to church. Many others talk about a loving person found in
adulthood, and inviting them along. Every person I’ve talked to
shares about experiences of love and affirmation in the church they
found, and the people they looked up to, and the joy they found among
the saints. People don’t come to church JUST because they love God.
Loving God happens everywhere. People are part of the Body of Christ
because other people in the Body of Christ have shown them the love
of God and how it can transform a life.

“One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.” When you think about those people in your life, the
ones who taught you not only that God is good but also that the
community of faith is able to teach you about love and good living,
joy and the delight of service – HOW did they teach you?

Around
here, I think, the teaching is often indirect. Or perhaps I should
say embodied. It sounds more like, “I love sharing love this way,
wanna come” then “let me tell you the story of how God has acted
in my life.” Inviting people along is GREAT. Also, I often think
we probably should share those stories of God-moments too though. I
think we have them, but God-stories are pretty tender, and not always
terribly coherent, and don’t always translate well to words, and more
often than not they’re a little weird. Because God doesn’t tend to
adhere to cultural norms of acceptable behavior. And we don’t always
want to trust just anyone with experiences like that.

(It
starts to become clear how it is that so many Bible stories are
written in metaphor, because experiences of God just don’t
communicate well any other way.)

But
I wonder if some of the saints we remember today DID trust us with
their stories. Maybe those stories are worth passing down. And I
wonder what would happen if we shared with each other our stories. I
suspect we’d be doing even a little better with the description “One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”

Now
that I’ve made you squirm a bit – reminding you to share your
stories of God-moments and also passing on the ones you’ve heard, I’m
going to go to Ephesians are look at the other way of doing it. The
one we are better at around here, which is also the way faith has
been transferred around here most often. As he often does, Paul
writes to the Ephesians and starts by thanking them for their faith.
The starts of his letters are always filled with gratitude, this one
is quite lovely, “ I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and
your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease
to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

Our
faith in God, our following of Jesus, is expressed in how we share
our love with others. Paul is happy to hear they are filled with
love, and says that means he can see their faith.

There
is some nuance here that I struggle with a little. Paul says he
hears of their love “towards all the saints” and there is no
question in the context of Ephesians that “all the saints” means
the believers of Jesus. That is, the early church. That is, NOT
everyone. Just the insiders.

In
first century context, this makes sense. The church was small, weak,
and under attack. Supporting each other had to come first to
survive, and fairly radical sharing of resources within the followers
of Christ was normal. The church modeled the kindom of God, but on a
small scale.

The
church was not yet a part of the power structure of society, nor the
status quo. There weren’t clergy, and they didn’t have special
privileges or tax benefits. No one had a non-profit designation.

So,
I guess it makes sense that the love was first for the followers of
Christ. It is also true that many, many, MANY of the followers of
Christ were the people struggling most in the world. So by offering
care to insiders, God’s vulnerable were being cared for.

I
struggle to bring this into the 21^st century because it is
such a deep both/and, and it requires nuance and care. I think we
still need to share love with each other, and I am willing to say we
have to do that FIRST. Because unless we ground each other in God’s
love, we stand on shaky ground. Because unless we ground each other
in God’s love, we miss out on the shared gifts of the whole. Because
unless we ground each other in love, we aren’t sharing God.

AND,
at exactly the same time, the love has to extend beyond “the
communion of saints” beyond the walls of the church, beyond the
faith community. Because NOW we are a known part of society, now we
have members with power and authority in the world, now we have
privilege and respect, and we need to use it to care for God’s
beloveds, especially those who are vulnerable.

I’ve
been oddly excited about the new program structure we’re putting into
place in January, because it actually does this. In addition to the
Worship Committee – which aims to help people connect with God in
community, and the Intersectional Justice committee – which aims to
help people advocate for the vulnerable and understand the ways the
world works so better advocacy can happen – we’re adding TWO new
committees that I think balance them out. Spiritual Formation aims
to help people connect with the Divine as individuals. And Nurturing
Relationships aims to help people connect with each other. That is,
to increase the love between the saints. AND to help us experience
God and tell those stories. It is almost as if it is both parts of
the scriptures we’re playing with today.

We
are trusted with the stories of the Saints who came before us, to
hold in our hearts, and to share when we can. We are trusted with
the faith of the Saints who came before us, to pass it on to the next
generations. We are trusted with the love of the Saints who came
before us, to share it in the church and in the world. We are
trusted with the resources of the Saints who came before us, to
combine with our own resources to use them to build the kindom of
God.

What
legacies we have from those who came before us. May God help us to
pass along what we hold to those who will come after us. Amen

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

November 6, 2022

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“For All the Saints” based on 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13…

October 31, 2020
by Sara Baron

This
year I’ve spent some time wondering what the saints who have gone on
before me would think of this year. In some cases I know the
answers. My “Nana,” my paternal grandmother, would have been
HORRIFIED by it all. She was always scared of getting sick, and she
was a major extrovert and isolation would have been her personal
hell. My maternal grandmother, who I called “Grandmom” would
have been soooo worried about essential workers and those who are
struggling without enough resources. I fear my grandfathers, both
veterans, would be horrified by the way the USA failed to lead during
this pandemic.

Especially
in the spring, when we knew even less, and isolation was new, the
echoes of my grandparents lives felt close at hand. Perhaps it was
the isolation itself that helped, they felt as close as anyone else
could get, and memories were extra important.

Paul,
in 1 Thessalonians says, “You remember our labor and toil, brothers
and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any
of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are
witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct
was toward you believers.” The toil was literally labor for money
so he didn’t have to ask others for support. However, the standard
of “pure, upright, and blameless” still feels really high. I
loved my grandparents and I loved many of the saints we celebrate
today, but none were PERFECT.

I
sort of like the insults leveled in Matthew, “the scribes and the
Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat;
therefore, do whatever they teach
you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice
what they teach.” So their actions were bad, but their teachings
were good? While the intention was to undercut them, I feel like
that is a far more do-able standard!

However,
it really was pointing out the hypocrisy in “Jewish leadership”
in Jesus’ day, so I guess I don’t get to drop the bar.

Despite
how it sounds in Paul, I don’t think that we’re called to be perfect.
Even John Wesley, well known in Christian circles for believing that
people could reach perfection DURING THEIR LIFE-TIMES, defined
perfection as speaking and acting out of God’s love for everyone –
but acknowledged that one could ERR in how one expressed that love
and still be perfect.

Most
of us still don’t meet that standard.

Nor
do our saints. I knew many of them and loved them and was inspired
by them, but neither love nor inspiration required perfection.

I
do think that love and inspiration do best when they meet with
authenticity. I”m always struck by the in-congruence between the
human desire to “fit in” and the fact that when I meet with loved
ones to prepare a “celebration of life” that what the people love
and miss are the things that made the person UNIQUE. It is the ways
that we don’t fit into the norm that people love about us. (Although
humility can be nice too, as Paul AND Jesus point out.)

As
we come into this week of even higher anxiety and deeper unknowing, I
hope those saints who have been walking with us all year can help us
again. They have been through unknowing, and come out the other
side. They have walked with us in love throughout our lives and
their love stays with us today.

Whatever
comes next, God is with us. And those people who have been
expressions of God’s love in our lives remain sources of our
strength. It has been a very hard year, and it isn’t over yet, but
we DO NOT WALK ALONE. Amen