Teaching Each Other Grace

November 2, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Teaching Each Other Grace” based on Psalm 149 and Ephesians 1:11-23 – An All Saints Sunday Sermon

As people of faith following the seasons of the church year, we are blessed with times of waiting, with Holy Days, and with times for growth and development. For most people, Christmas and Easter are the holiest of Christian holidays, which I think is consistent with the way the seasons of the church year are set up. That said, All Saints Day/Sunday is a Holy Day in the church year, and while it gets less attention than the big holidays, it often feels like the holiest of all to me.

According to the United Methodist Book of Worship, “All Saints is a day of remembrance for the saints, with the New Testament meaning of all Christian people of every time and place. We celebrate the communion of saints as we remember the dead, both of the Church universal and of our local congregations.” I’ll amend so far as to say that I think of saints as those who have lived their love of God and/or God’s creation and thus taught me how to be better at loving – and people who have taught me about God and love have come from more faith traditions than only Christianity.

Today we particularly remember the names of those who have died in the past year, and in doing so we are able to see the impact of their collective witness. In this moment in time, it can feel a little bit shaky to be people of faith deeply committed to love, justice, compassion, inclusion, and humility. We see policies and procedures of death and destruction all around us, and sometimes we struggle to hold on to hope.

But, when we look at the lives of the saints, when we think about how they lived their lives and how they impacted us, I believe we are able to be steadied. Those who came before us lived their faith for good and it mattered. They lived grace. We can do it too. These saints today were extraordinary people who changed the world for the better – but that’s true every year.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, we stand in the midst of the great cloud of witnesses, they taught us, they teach us, and we too can live grace.* (God’s unconditional love.)

Or, as the Psalm says, “God takes pleasure in God’s people.” And so do we. As Paul says, “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.” Amen to that.

So, in remembering our saints and giving thanks to God for them, we are reminded that we too are part of a community whose work is to teach each other grace.

And, on that basis, I’ll end today with a poem about death and life.

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

And, if you are willing to take suggestion, may the plan for your wild and precious life being sharing grace like those who have gone on before 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 2, 2025

Sermons

“Unbound for Living” based on Psalm 24 and John…

November 11, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I took a course on Children’s Literature in college. It was one of those courses where the professor was so worried about people thinking it wasn’t a valid topic of study that it was 3 times harder than everything else. Despite its difficultly, the course was amazing. During one of his lectures, causally, as if we’d all already known it, the professor mentioned that all fairy tales deal with two fundamental desires of all humans: to be special and to be normal.¹

To be special and to be normal. He used examples to show it off, but the point itself stuck with me. We all want to be normal – to fit in, to be accepted, to be assured that we’re OK. We also want to be special – to be great at something, to be recognized for our talents, to be seen as extraordinary. The balance and struggle between the two changes in various groups and between individuals. In some communities, the normal is more highly valued (studies have shown this happens particularly communities with people living in poverty). In others, the special is more highly valued (studies have shown this happens particularly communities with people who are upper middle class and upper class.)²

To be special and to be normal. Sometimes those two universal yearnings come into conflict with each other, because they are. Yet, sometimes they play together as well. Sometimes we subdivide ourselves into various groups – based on something that makes us “special” – and then have expectations in that group of what looks like “normal.” The internet has been very useful for this, since it makes connecting with others who might share traits so much easier. Take, for example, the myriad of pseudo-physicological “personality tests” and the ways that people subgroup themselves into types and then explain their behaivors as normal within those types. (Admittedly, this can be fun.)

In the beginning of the Gospel reading today, Jesus is as normal as normal can be. His friend has died, and he weeps. He grieves. Jesus values the life and love of one he has known and feels the emptiness when the life has passed. This is a story of Jesus acting like a normal person. He was holding it together until Mary wept, but his emotions were impacted y hers. In the midst of the grief he wants to go, and see, to process, to be as close as possible to the one he has lost. And even in the story an accusation of blame. In this case it is external – Mary blames Jesus for Lazarus’s death, but often it is internal. One of the great struggles of grief is the struggle with blame. Because we wish we had the power to hold onto our loved ones, because death hurts like nothing else, because we want to think we could have stopped it, intermingled with grief is a lot of blame; and often much of it is internalized.

It is all normal.

Until it isn’t.

The story shifts to one about Jesus as special – REALLY special – to the best of my knowledge there are no internet chat groups for those who can resuscitate the dead with a word. Jesus commands that the stone be rolled way, and he calls the dead man back out among the living. As the man struggles to move because of the binding clothes of death he’d been wrapped in, Jesus gives a final command “Unbind him and let him go.”

If there is anything “normal” in this story, it is that Jesus is able to do what the rest of us yearn for. The yearning to call back our loved ones from the dead, to return them to the space of the living, to unbind the bands of death that hold them – that’s one of the MOST normal experiences of humanity.

So, this might be a story of human grief, what it looks like and what it yearns for. Jesus is the epitome of human grief, and the expression of what we’d do if we could, under the assumption that he could do what we can’t. Therein lies the special and the normal!

Theologians differentiate between the story of the rising of Lazarus from the rising of Jesus by calling Lazarus’s resuscitation and Jesus’ resurrection. The difference, they say, is that Lazarus was going to die again someday, but Jesus was not. Some say this story exists merely to foreshadow Jesus’ resurrection, or to indicate his power over death. Yet, in this story this power over death is impermanent. Lazarus will die again. The power over death in this story then, is transient.

And yet, that doesn’t matter! For Mary and Martha, as well as for Jesus, another moment with Lazarus was worth it. Whatever moments they’d gained – no matter how many moments they gained – were infinite worth. In reflecting on the yearning for more time with those we love, we are given reminders of where to set our current priorities. Mary, Martha, and even Jesus would take what time they could get and savor it, without complaining that Lazarus’s life would still someday end. Because the saints we celebrate today are ones who no longer walk among the living, we are reminded of the power of time with our loved ones. We cannot regain time with those we’ve lost; but we can prioritize time with those who are still with us. We cannot go back and learn the stories we never heard from those we’ve lost; but we can ask new questions and listen to the stories of those who are still with us.

There is another lesson given to us by the saints who have gone on ahead – they’ve taught us how to live! In every human life we see a unique glimpse of the divine, and we see a reflection of God’s love. Within the lives we celebrate today there are lessons about how to live a good life.

The story says there were cloth bindings covering Lazarus’s hands, feet, and head. He emerged from the grave still laden with them. Maybe he couldn’t take them off himself because his hands were covered. Perhaps he was still stiff and struggling to regain feeling in his extremities? Maybe he needed help taking them off, or maybe those who loved him needed to experience helping him remove the bindings as a means of unbinding him from death.

“Unbind him from the death cloths” is a powerful image. In this story it is about freeing a living man who was thought to be dead, to free him to be alive and mobile again. Those who were living removed the cloths of death, to allow the one assumed to be dead to be fully among the living again. Those binding cloths of death have resonance in our lives too. They lead us to questions.

What binds us to death, and prevents us from a full entry into to life? Can we become bound to death while we are grieving the death of those we love? Does fear, or even existential anxiety, ironically bind us to death? Can some levels of exhaustion bind us to death? Can the harms we’ve know, and the healing we have yet to find, be a binding to death?

What is it like to be among those who unbind the living from the cloths of death? How does it feel to unravel hands so they can move again, feet so one can walk without tripping, a face to allow clean air to be breathed, eyes to see, ears to hear, a mouth to speak? When have we offered such miraculous gifts? Does it happen when we offer food to people who are hungry? Is it a gift that occurs when we have time to listen to another’s heart? Are these the gifts of medicine and engineering, of teaching caregiving? Are we able to unbind each other? Can we give each other rest? Hope? Healing?

How?

How do we identify when we need help becoming unbound from the things of death? What does it feel like to be in need of help to have the cloths be unraveled? Jesus calls us both to unbind the clothes of death – and to let the cloths of death be unbound form us.

We get to grieve – Jesus modeled grief for us. But we also get to live – and take the lessons we learned from those we loved about how to live, and live well. We remember, on this day, the saints who have gone before us. We remember their lives with gratitude. Because of them we remember to live our lives well, and to savor the time we have with those we love. Today, we thank God for the lives of the saints. Thanks be to God! Amen

1Randy-Michael Testa, lecture, Winter Term 2001.

2Based on research by Nicole Stephens, Kellogg School of Management.

–

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 1, 2018

Sermons

“The Merciful” based on 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew…

November 5, 2017February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

There
is a timelessness to All Saints Sunday, similar to the spacelessness
to World Communion Sunday. On World Communion Sunday, as the Table
of Christ feeds people around the whole world, we are able to connect
to our siblings in faith without distance separating us. On All
Saints day we connect to those who went on before us, blessed us, and
entered the great cloud of witnesses. I often think of the great
cloud of witnesses as being not just around us, but under us – they
are the ones on whose shoulders we stand.

Some
of the saints we knew well, some of their names will be read today,
some of them predated us by too many years for us to know them by
name, and yet they form the great cloud of witnesses. This reminds
us, as well, that we are here only for a brief period of time in the
work of the church. Someday, we too, will be part of the cloud. The
generations march ever onward. The cloud will someday include us,
and those who aren’t even here yet! The generations march ever
onward. Today is a day of timelessness.

It
is also a day of timelessness in that grief slows down time, and time
can feel relentless. On All Saints Day we don’t JUST remember those
who went on before us, and take a moment to acknowledge them, we also
notice the heartbreak of grief and attend to each other in our
heartbreak. While it is wonderful to have a great cloud of witnesses
around us, most of us would rather have those we love right here with
us! We are thankful to God for their lives, but usually we really
wish we were able to share more time with them!

There
is a deep holiness to the All Saints celebration, deep enough that
there is mystery in it as well. In seeking to be faithful to the
lives of the Saints, the lectionary has given us rather mysterious
text as well. It seems simple, until you try to make sense of it!
Here are the useful bits I’ve learned about these so called
Beatitudes:

The
verbs really matter.
A
bunch of the individual “blessings” are quotes from the Hebrew
Bible.
A
lot of explanations exist to solve seeming contradictions

I’m
gonna explain each. First of all, the verbs. Those who speak Greek
say that a whole lot of effort is made into having the verbs be in
the form they’re in. Namely, that the statements say blessed ARE,
but then indicate a future reality (mostly). Furthermore, they
aren’t commandments, they are stated as facts. Finally, according to
Feasting on the Word, “In
Psalm 1 the Hebrew word translated in our English text by our word
‘blessing’ is the word ’ashar,
which means in its literal sense ‘to find the right road’. … This
is the meaning of ‘ashar in the nine uses of ‘blessed’” in the
Beatitudes.”¹
That means that these mean something like “You are on the right
road when you are poor in spirit.”²
Or, perhaps, “You who are merciful are on the right road, you will
receive mercy.” So each line says “this group of people is on
the right road – and this is where it will lead them in the
future.” These aren’t particularly normal verb constructions,
which is why they’re worth mentioning.

Now,
the Jesus Seminar thinks there is evidence to suggest that Jesus
likely said 4 of these blessings – because they show up in Luke and
Thomas. Those are: the poor in Spirit, those who grieve, those who
hunger and thirst (for righteousness), and those who are persecuted.
They think Matthew filled in the rest as a way to uphold the early
Christian Community.³
In both cases, the blessings have striking Hebrew Bible roots.

First
off, this text seems to be a reworking of Psalm 1, that being a Psalm
that talks about blessed people rather extensively (in the “to find
the right road” meaning). Regarding comfort to mourners, which the
Jesus Seminar thinks goes back to Jesus, that sounds a whole lot like
Isaiah 61:1-3, “The
spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to
the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, and the
day of vengeance of our God; to
comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland
instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle
of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Regarding meek inheriting,
which the Jesus Seminar thinks Matthew created, we hear it in Psalm
37:11, “But
the meek shall inherit the land, and delight in abundant prosperity.”

As
a whole, the lists of qualities of people sound like lists in the
Hebrew Bible that relate to who can enter the temple! There are
moral standards being held here, and they reflect the tradition they
grow from. For example,

Psalm
15:1-5

1 O Lord,
who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on
your holy hill?
2 Those
who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
and
speak the truth from their heart;
3 who
do not slander with their tongue,
and do no evil
to their friends,
nor take up a reproach against
their neighbours;
4 in
whose eyes the wicked are despised,
but who
honour those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even
to their hurt;
5 who do
not lend money at interest,
and do not take a
bribe against the innocent.
Those
who do these things shall never be moved.

Psalm
24:3-6 does the same. So, Jesus is REWORKING, or REMOLDING his own
tradition, and then Matthew is doing the same. Given those
realities, the really interesting pieces may be in what finally gets
included and excluded? Why were the poor in spirit, those who mourn,
the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the
merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are
persecuted for righteousness the groups of people who fit? Is it
because things were hard for peasants and things were hard for early
Christians? Or is there something deeper? (I don’t know, I’m just
wondering.)

Finally,
people have done a lot of work to try to understand this passage, as
it is one of the best known parts of the Bible while being rather
obscure. The New Interpreter’s Bible has points out, “Peacemakers
does not connote a passive attitude, but positive actions for
reconciliation.”⁴
(180, NIB) Marcus Borg explains some of the others:

“’Poor
in spirit’ almost certainly does not refer to well-to-do people who
are nevertheless spiritually poor, but to people whose material
poverty has broken their spirit. Moreover, ‘righteousness’ in the
Bible and Matthew does not mean personal rectitude, as it most often
does in modern English, but justice. ‘Those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness’ likely means ‘those who hunger and thirst
for justice.’ The meaning of
Mathew’s wording is thus similar and perhaps identical to what we
find in Luke, for it is the poor and hungry who yearn for justice.
In short, like the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes confirm that the
kingdom of God is both religious and political: it is God’s
kingdom, and it is a kingdom on earth
that involves a transformation of life for the poor and hungry.”⁵

Perhaps
that’s why these groups were included! Taken
together, the work of scholars establishes that these are meaningful
phrases that fit into the rest of Jesus’ teaching, and that they
aren’t meant to just be a mystery!

So,
these really are powerful teachings. As one scholar puts it, “In
none of the beatitudes is advice being offered for getting along in
this world, where mercy is more likely to be regarded as a sign of
weakness than to be rewarded in kind.”⁶
“Christianity is not a scheme to reduce stress, lose wight, advance
one’s career, or preserve one from illness. Christian faith,
instead, is a way of living based on the firm and sure hope that
meekness is the way of God, that righteousness and peace will finally
prevail, and that God’s future will be a time of mercy and not
cruelty.”⁷
The Beatitudes continue in the tradition of differentiating the ways
of God – justice, righteousness, peace, well-being for all – with
the ways of the world. The values the Beatitudes celebrate are not
at all the ones the world seeks, but they are the ones that build the
kin-dom.

On
All Saints we remember those who went on before us, and we remember
the ways that their lives followed God’s ways. On All Saints we
remember that they have shown us the right road, and that in doing so
they made it easier for us to travel it. We also remember that the
roads that we choose matter: they matter for the kin-dom itself, and
they matter for those who will come after us.

It
is a good road, this one that Jesus describes, it is a very different
road than others we could also choose to walk. It is a good thing we
have models who have walked the road ahead of us – and continue to
walk it with us as the great cloud of witnesses. Amen

–

1Earl
F. Palmer “Pastoral Perspective on Matthew 5:1-12” in Feasting
on the World Year A Volume 4, David L. Bartlett and Barbara
Brown Taylor, editors (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY,
2011) 238.

2Palmer,
238.

3Robert
W. Funk, Roy W Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels:
The Search for the Autthentic Words of Jesus (HarperOneUSA,
1993), page 138.

4M.
Eugene Boring, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VII: Matthew
Leander E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
1995), page 180.

5Marcus
Borg, Jesus: The Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious
Revolutionary (HarperOne:
2015), 190-191.

6Boring,
179.

7Boring,
181.