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Sermons

Hear the Dream

  • November 16, 2025March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“Hear the Dream” based on Isaiah 12 and more so Isaiah 65:17-25

To the people who have been in exile, and the ones who were left behind at home to try to pick up the pieces that can’t be picked up. To the peoples who experienced different traumas, now reunited and horrified all over again at how things are. To the people who remember life with some stability and hope, who look around at the bleakness and wonder what is possible. To the people who see what is and start to wonder if it is all dry bones.

To the people, the prophet speaks God’s dreams:

“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17, NRSV) This moment of time will not last forever. There will come a time when the bleakness of now will be a passing memory, one no one lingers on.

There is a new thing coming, and it is good.

“But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight.” (Isaiah 65:18 NRSV) Even if you look around and there is nothing to delight in right now, settle in to hear God’s dreams and take joy in them. These are dreams worth living for. These are dreams that are good now and forever. When you can’t find delight on your own, sink into these.

“I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.” (Isaiah 65:19, NRSV) The people will be WELL. All the people will be well.

Can you imagine?

“No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat, for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD– and their descendants as well.” (Isaiah 65:20-23, NRSV)

Walter Brueggemann says, “The first quality of the new city, stated negatively and then positively, is a stability and order than guarantees long life. As long as the city is both a practitioner and victim of violence and brutality, no life is safe and no one will last very long.”1 But, imagine a city of peace, of shalom. Imagine what it would be like if violence didn’t prevail. Dream with God, dear ones, of the impact of peace.

And then keep dreaming. Brueggemann again, “Moreover, it is possible to think that infant mortality is an index of community life. In a disordered, uncaring community, too many babies die too soon from neglect, malnutrition, from violence, from poor health and bad medical service – but no more!”2 Dream a world where babies and mothers LIVE. What would it be like?

Everyone would be nourished, so life could thrive. Violence would be no more. The practice of medicine could thive.

This would take even more though. Because, if we were have women and babies thriving, it would also mean the end of racism. Because our current maternal mortality rates vary widely by race, even more widely than differences in care can explain. Our current maternal mortality rates are impacted by the realities of microaggressions that women of color live with. And to think of mothers and babies living thriving means dreaming a world without aggression AND without microaccressions.

But, there is more. Because what does it take “to have houses and inhabit them; plant vineyards and eat their fruit?” Brueggemann says “The loss of one’s economic gains might indeed happen by foreign invasion and occupation, for such occupiers brazenly and indiscriminately seize everything; that is, they ‘devour’ the land (Jer. 8:16, 10:25). It may also be that such usurpation happens internally by confiscation or tax policies whereby the “big ones” arrange the economy to take, in an exercise of “eminent domain” what the “little ones have. … Against such social conditions and economic practices, the new city will leave people free of threat from outside aggression and inside confiscation, especially the confiscation of ‘widows and orphans.”3 “Yahweh will be the guarantor of a viable, community-sustaining economy.”4

That is, according to Bruggemann this dream says that “There will be a reordering of resources so that all may luxuriate in life as the creator intends.”5 “Nobody is threatened. Nobody is at risk. Nobody is in jeopardy because the new city has policies, practices, and protective structures that guarantee what must have been envisioned as an egalitarian possibility.”6 And, there is “an agenda of well-being for children in the new city.”7 Truthfully, there is an agenda of well-being for PEOPLE in the city.

The kingdom of God, beloveds of God. It is mighty beautiful, isn’t it?

I can’t read these passages without tears welling up, tears of grief for what is and tears of relief to hear the dream of what should be. These passages are so tender, so holy, so imperative.

Dream it. No violence. No poverty. No mold-infested basements, no apartments without hot water, no one unhoused, food distributed to everyone. No fear of invasion from insiders or outsiders. No threats that if you lose your job you could lose everything. Not even a need to carefully plan for retirement, because the people are all cared for. People work for each other’s good, and their work bears fruit. There is stability. There is space for joy and delight, for connection and rest. The common good takes care of everyone according to their needs. No one is broken, no one is passing down their trauma to the next generation, no one lives in fear of abuse, no one lives in fear of hunger nor being unhoused. The resources of the earth are used for everyone’s good and… as was said, the resources are used “so that all may luxuriate in life as the creator intends.”8

Imagine. Dream. Breathe.

It is a big spacious dream. One with art and music, dancing and delicious food. One with quiet moments and raucous gatherings, one where nature is close at hand and so too are people. Things are distributed well. People are housed, in good safe healthy housing. People have food, and it is satiating and delicious as well as abundant. People wear clothes that feel great, and they’re diverse in style and patterns. Work is distributed well, even, so that all who want to can contribute, but no one is burned out by what is asked of them. Education is available, and is aimed at sustaining good and abundant life. Science can thrive and we can all benefit! Just imagine what progress could be made in each and every field if every child was well fed and safely housed and able to be find their way to using their God-given gifts for everyone’s well being!?!?!?

A new heaven and a new earth indeed.

Imagine. Breathe. Let it settle into you. Let it heal you, even a little bit. Take a break from fighting the world that is and just dream this one.

And, of course, God is easily accessed. No more dark nights of the soul, no more experiences of God’s silence. No more fear of individual nor communal punishment. Just the wondrous, loving, holy, sparkling, divine One close at hand, guiding us and sustaining us. “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24, NRSV)

And yet even that’s not it. “The dream concludes, The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.” (Isaiah 65:25, NRSV) This is not just a dream for a new Jerusalem, but indeed a new ordering of the world. The wolf and lion, those whose lives depend on eating the vulnerable will CHANGE and be able to sustain their lives peacefully. The lamb doesn’t have to be afraid. It is now a companion of those who were once its predators.

The predators find other ways of being, and discover they too can be well when all are well. The predators aren’t destroyed, they’re transformed.

No one and nothing will engage in violence: not the violence war, not the violence of the threats of war, not the violence of abuse, not the violence of rape nor murder, not the violence of taking away people’s food, not the violence of making people live in fear. “They shall not hurt nor destroy.” That is, “there shall be space for life to thrive.”

The dreams of God for the people of God, to sustain the people of God in the work of God. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah Vo. 2: 40-66 in Westminster Bible Companion Series, edited by Patrick D. Miller and David A. Bartlett (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 247.

2Brueggemann, 247.

3Brueggemann, 248

4Ibid

5Ibid

6Ibid

7Brueggemann, 249.

8Brueggemann, 248.

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

Nov. 16, 2025

Sermons

Welfare of the City

  • October 12, 2025March 17, 2026
  • by Sara Baron

“Welfare of the City” based on Psalm 66:1-12 and Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Jeremiah is the prophet of doom. His ministry was in the time immediately before the exile and he spends a whole lot of time telling people that unless they turn things around TERRIBLE things are going to happen. And then they do.

Jerusalem is besieged. Jerusalem falls. The temple is destroyed. There are mass casualties. There is extensive looting. The walls and gates are destroyed. The wealthy, the literate, the educated, and the powerful are taken captive and marched to Babylon and those who are left behind have nothing except tears and hunger.

Those who are taken to Babylon say:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:1-4)

But the prophet Jeremiah is not done being a prophet. His work didn’t end with destruction and despair. He writes to the captives in Babylon and tells them what he hears God saying to them. And I believe that what he wrote is not what anyone expected to hear:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:5-7)

That is, as one commentator puts it, “the exiles are enjoined to find their life now in this new and difficult place, assured by the command of God that life is possible, that home and family, food and shelter, the things that support and keep human beings human are possible – and over the long haul.”1 Those very same people who couldn’t find it in their hearts to sing the songs of God, are told to settle in. They’re told, explicitly, to LIVE. To live in the face of death. To live despite death. To keep alive the visions and promises of God in the midst EVEN when many of them thought they were in exile as punishment from God.

To make it worse, they’re told to seek the welfare of the city. The city of BABYLON. The capital city of the people who had defeated them, killed their beloveds, destroyed their temple, and ransacked their city. “Seek the welfare of the city.”

I can imagine the exiles reading the letter and muttering in response. “Seek the welfare of the city? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Why would I want to help them? And, wait a minute, we’re going to be here so long we’re supposed to build houses and get married???? I want to go HOME, I don’t want to settle in. And I sure as all get out don’t want to use my life to help THEM.”

I do not think the response of the exiles is unreasonable. It does seem important to note that the exiles were CAPTIVES but not slaves. They were not free to go home, but they were not owned by someone else. They couldn’t go home, but they could do other things. Right? They could build homes, they could plant gardens, they had enough freedom to live and make choices to thrive. This is a hard ask that God made, but it is NOT an impossible one. (That is, this isn’t the same as if God had told those who had been ripped from their homes and enslaved in our country to work for the well-being of our country.)

The people are told, literally “in its welfare shall be your welfare.”2 But we can still miss something with that literal translation, because the “welfare” is really shalom. Shalom is sometimes translated “peace” but is about common well-being. Shalom is simultaneously communal and individual, it is physical and spiritual, it is well-being and wholeness, it is peace and hope.

They are told, “Jews in exile are to work for the well-being (shalom) of the empire and its capital city. The well-being (shalom) of Judah is dependent upon and derivative of that of Babylon.”3 They weren’t given space to abdicate responsibility, they weren’t permitted to just sit tight and dream of going home. They were asked to include the city of their captors in their experience of communal wellbeing/shalom. They were asked to expand the definition of who mattered. Because if shalom is communal, then you work for your siblings well being because it is inter-related with your well-being. The ancient Jews knew that. But now they’re asked to inter-relate beyond their community, to include the people around them EVEN when they REALLY don’t want to for GOOD reason.

There is, of course, truth in this commandment. The people were living in the cities of Babylon. They were interconnected with their neighbors, as the people did better or worse, that applies to the Babylonians and the exiles in equal measure. For the people in exile to survive long enough to go home, this was good advice that kept them alive. But it was really hard.

I’m pretty sure a whole lot of them weren’t sure they wanted to on living. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.” Or, at most, they wanted to go through the motions of eating and sleeping and surviving day to day, but not really commit. Not plan for the future. Not sign contracts, or invest in building materials, or envision the next generation. They just wanted to make it through the day and hope the next day was the day they got to go home.

I can relate. I just want to go back to a time when my nation was imperfect and unjust but seemed like it was trying to get better. I want to go back to immigration policies that didn’t feel particularly humane, but didn’t choke me with their disregard for human dignity. I want to go back to SNAP benefits that didn’t make it through the month, but made it through at least 3 weeks for those who are hungry. I want to go back to debates over if people have to make wedding cakes for weddings they judge instead of debates over conversation therapy. I want to close my eyes and open them and be back in the world I knew, where there was SO MUCH to do and so many issues at stake but at least we weren’t racing backwards on justice.

And I hear these words of Jeremiah to the people in exile,

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:5-7)

LIVE, says God. See what is going on, and work for it to be better, but LIVE. Don’t stick your head in the sand, don’t wait for things to be better before you engage. Engage NOW. Life NOW. I hear God saying, “my work hasn’t stopped.”

The exile was, for those who lived it, a nightmare.

The exile was also the time when the Hebrew Bible was written down. It was a time when Jewish identity solidified. It was a time when cultures influenced each other. It was a time when Judaism expanded, permanently, from its homeland into the world. It was TERRIBLE for those who lived it, and the ways the people responded have been a gift to the world ever since. The exiles were still an imperative part of God’s work in the world, and of the future of the Jewish faith. In ways they could never have imagined, “The Exile is the place where God’s faithful promises work a profound newness.”4

We are living in a hard time, and day by day things get harder. To be honest, all the injustices we see now are harder version of things that have always been in our society. There have always been ways that people have been treated as expendable. There has always been colonialism, particularly with regard to Native Americans. Racism is built into the roots of our country. There has always been xenophobia. There has always been transphobia. The same brokenness is just enlarging.

And in the midst of it, in the midst of our exile, God calls on us anyway. We are to hold on to the dreams of the kindom. We are to work together for common good. We are to bring people together. We are to follow the leadership of people who are most impacted by injustice. We are to hold on to hope. We are to believe that something else is possible, that God wants a different way of being, and that we are able to be a part of making it happen together.

We are to build houses and live in them, to plant gardens and eat their fruit, to celebrate love and welcome new life, to remember that we are all interconnected. And for us today, like for the exiles Jeremiah wrote to, that means seeking the well-being (shalom) of those who got us in this mess. Justice is for everyone, for everyone, for everyone, and justice isn’t justice if anyone is left out.

And we may be like those exiles. We may not see the difference it makes to keep the faith, to work together, to care. But it mattered what they did, and it matters what we do, and God was with them, and God is with us, and by the grace of God this too shall pass. When it passes, may the work we do to build communal shalom be a part of creating a better world for all of God’s children. Amen

1Patrick D. Miller “Jeremiah” in New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 6, ed. Leander E. Keck et al (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), p. 792.

2John Bright, “Jeremiah” a book in The Anchor Bible series, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1965), p. 208.`W

3Walter Brueggemann, Jeremiah 26-32: To Build, to Plant, (International-Theological Commentary) ed. Federick Carlson Holmgren and George A. F. Knight, (Grand Rapids: Wm E. Eerdman Publishing, 1991), p. 32.

4Brueggemann, 30.

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

October 12, 2025

Uncategorized

Untitled

  • April 23, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“Love Your Neighbor” based on Deuteronomy 5:11-22 and Romans 13:8-10

This Romans 13 passage is hard for me to preach on because it is so core to how I understand faith that I struggle with adequate distance from it. I spent college with a construction paper sign on my door that said “Love is the Answer” and happily chirped to those who said “what is the question?” “it doesn’t matter.”

Jesus wasn’t the first one to notice that “love your neighbor” undergirded the other laws. Rabbi Hillel was in leadership from about 30BCE to 10CE – so he was someone a little older than Jesus. A famous story is told of Rabbi Hillel.

A stranger came to Hillel and made the request, “Teach me the Torah as I stand on one foot.” So Hillel taught him: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now, go and learn it.”

It is reasonable to think that Hillel was pretty famous, and Jesus agreed with his conclusion.

I would even go another step and say that there are two great commandments: Love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God is reflected in the first 3 commandments, loving your neighbor in the final 6, and they’re both in the 4th about the Sabbath. Furthermore, I’m going to claim the TWO are even the same commandment in two forms. How do we love God? We love God by loving our neighbors. Why do we love our neighbors? Because we love God who loves them. They’re not differentiable.

So, that 4th commandment, the one about Sabbath. Have you ever noticed that it is a whole lot wordier than the others? “You shall not steal” is concise. “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the HOLY ONE your God commands you” is the opening sentence in the paragraph on Sabbath.

When John Dominic Crossan was here, he proposed that Sabbath is at the core of the theological stream that understands God to be aimed at distributive justice. I should say that differently. “Dom says the Sabbath is the key to faith as he knows it.” Phew, that’s better.

The thing that really strikes me about the Sabbath as explained in Deuteronomy is that is IS “distributed” fairly. When I want to encourage people to take Sabbath, and to take seriously their need to rest, to play, to connect with loved ones, and to remember that life is more than work – when I want to do all that I end up worrying that I’m just guilting the already overwhelmed. When people are working multiple jobs to have enough to eat, or working obscene hours to fulfill impossible job requirements – how does it help them for me to encourage them to “take a break?”

This may be why I hear “you shall not do any work – you, or your daughter, or your son, or the migrant in your towns, so that your female slave and your male slave may rest as you do” and I’m blown away by it. Imagine! Imagine if EVERYONE got equal access to FULL rest, EVERY week! Imagine if you didn’t have to a certain level of wealthy to afford rest!! Imagine if it weren’t a privilege, if it didn’t have to be earned, if it couldn’t be taken away.

I find this hard to imagine.

“Remember that a slave were you in the land of Egypt, and the FAITHFUL ONE your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the HOLY ONE your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” That is, because you were once aching and in need of help, give rest and help to those aching today. Don’t work, to try to get ahead and therefore demand others work. Rest so others can rest. Work doesn’t define life. Don’t be like those who oppressed you. Be people of God.

Because the people of God rest.

Because the people of God make space for others to rest.

Because love your neighbor as yourself means let them get a Sabbath rest too, let even those you have power over. It means letting them remember why life is worth living, and why work isn’t the centerpiece of life.

You may have heard me speak before about Walter Brueggemann’s book “Sabbath as Resistance” because it is a favorite of mine. I’m not going to start quoting it at you because if I start I won’t be able to start. But I’ve been deeply formed by Brueggemann’s thinking on Sabbath.

John Dominic Crossan says Sabbath is the starting point for justice, for the ways of God in the world.

Brueggemann says Sabbath is the central commandment, the most important one.

They both think practicing Sabbath is central to loving your neighbor. The connection, I think, is that NOT WORKING is imperative to BEING HUMAN. And we generally aren’t any better at letting other people be human than we are at letting ourselves be human. So we need regular time to stop and practice being humans – not people worth what we can do or make – but just beloved people of God SO THAT we can do the same for others.

We have to have regular time to NOT WORK in order to LOVE people, and loving people is loving God, and this turns out to be really important.

Last week I talked about nurturing the space for God to grow seeds of hope in us. This week I’m getting around to suggesting that Sabbath is a well known best practice for that.

Now, Sabbath may not be what you think it is, so let me go deep down into its roots. Sabbath is a time to stop being productive so you can be whole. Sabbath is a weekly day off to focus on the things that matter instead of the things demanded of you. Sabbath is for family, friendship, relationship, time with God, laughter, play, poetry, art, music, song, and naps. Sabbath is the practice of leaving behind Pharoah’s demand that the decedents of Abraham make bricks, and relearning the rhythms of grace instead.

Sabbath is trusting in God’s abundance, instead of fighting for your part of a scarcity pie.

Sabbath is focused on love, not productivity.

Sabbath isn’t generative. It doesn’t create value. Instead, Sabbath makes time to savor what is and what is good.

Sabbath is time for loving neighbor, and self, God and earth. Sabbath is TIME set ASIDE from LABOR for LOVE.

Those of us who have practiced yoga are familiar with the practice of shavasana, the intentional rest after movement, to allow the practice to settle in. For many it is a dreary, drowsy, sweet, restful time that is more restorative than sleep. Sabbath is meant to be delicious like that. Sabbath IS delicious like that.

At one low point in my spiritual life, I met with a guide to get things back on track and I found myself repeating “I’m so tired, I’m just so tired.” She recommended sleep. I laughed as I realized my communication failure. “Oh, I get sleep. Physically I’m fine. It is all the other ways I’m tired.” Luckily she understood, and recommended more time alone with God where I don’t try to produce anything, but simply savor the love God has for me.

Don’t try to produce anything, just savor the love God has for you.

Do you do that? Would you want to try? Could you give it 5 minutes? An hour? A day? A day a week? What would happen if you did? What wonderful things would happen? (Savoring God’s love, it turns out, as mentioned previously, often looks a lot like savoring the love of God’s other beloveds.)

Will you?

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

April 23, 2023

Uncategorized

“God’s Responses to Despair” based on Isaiah 65:17-25 and…

  • November 13, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

The people that walked in darkness have seen a light….
but it is discolored and a little murky.

I think that’s a fair
summary of what the “return” from the exile was actually like.
When Jerusalem was defeated in 587/586 BCE, the city gates were
ripped down, the Temple was destroyed, there was massive death and
destruction, and the remaining leaders, priests, and scribes were
force march to Babylon. The exile. During the time of the exile we
hear emerging stories of great pain and lament, AND prophecies of
great hope in and care of God. The exile and the period right after
it are also the time when the Hebrew Bible started to be written
down.

In 538 BCE those in exile were freed to return home if
they wished. Thank God! And many did, thank God!

And when they came home, it was …. painful.

The Promised Land had been decimated. Those who
remained had been without protection, without resources, without
hope. Many, many had died. I’ve heard as high as 90% of the
population. Those who were alive had now lived in fear and scarcity
for generations. And those who returned weren’t much better off,
except that they’d had hope of return which now turned out to seem to
be misplaced.

I’m going to just throw out here that if we are now in
the “end of the pandemic” it sure doesn’t look like I hoped it
would in March or April of 2020, and I have lots and lots of empathy
for those who “came home from exile” only to find out that home
had changed in the meantime.

In the midst of the struggles of return, and the
conflicts that inevitably emerged between those who’d been left
behind and those who’d been force-ably removed – and even more so
between their children and grandchildren, come the words of our
Hebrew Bible text. In context, Isaiah 65 is still struggling to
answer why things are so bad, and the first part of the chapter
claims that the issue is that people aren’t being faithful to God and
God’s dreams. But this later part of the chapter is focused on the
blessings God has in store for those who do follow the ways of God.
We may like to think of this as the fruits of living out God’s
visions for a just and compassionate society.

And, its pretty great. We’ve talked recently enough
about the part of Jeremiah that urged the exiles to build houses and
live in them, plant gardens and eat from them. This Isaiah passage
reiterates those ideals, but does so BACK AT HOME. Now the command
is not to give up on Jerusalem, but to have hope it can be rebuilt.

I think this might be a good time to remind you that
Jerusalem WAS rebuilt. The Temple was rebuilt. The city walls were
rebuilt. The city gates were rebuilt. The traditions of the people
were rebuilt. The hope in God was rebuilt. It didn’t look the same
as it had before, but it was rebuilt.

In fact, that’s a story we don’t focus on enough, and
I’ve been in initial conversations with people about restarting Bible
Study in January, and I’ve now convinced myself we should read the
book of Ezra, the story of rebuilding Jerusalem. (If you’d like to
study with us, the current question is: what time on Sundays shall we
do it, and I’d LOVE to hear your opinion.)

But now I’m ahead of myself.

In our passage today, we hear of the “new heaven and
new earth” God is preparing. To summarize quickly, I’m turning to
Walter Brueggemann1:

“Yahweh is moving beyond what is troubling and
unresolved to what is wondrously new and life giving. There is a
steady push towards newness in the Isaiah tradition that intends to
override the despair of Israel, especially the despair of exile.”
246

There are thee facets of new city:

“The first quality of the new city, stated negative
then positively, is a stability and order that guarantees long life.
As long as the city is both a practitioner and victim of violence and
brutality, no life is safe and no one will last very long.” (247)
“There will be a reordering of resources so that all may luxuriate
in life as the creator intends.” (248)

“The second facet of the reconstituted city is
economic stability.” Which implies stable society, lack of
invasion, fertility of land, fair taxes, fair laws. “Yahweh will be
the guarantor of a viable, community-sustaining economy.” “No
one is threatened, no one is at risk. No one is in jeopardy because
the new city has policies, practice, and protective structures that
guarantee what must have been envisioned as an egalitarian
possibility.” (248)

“The third provision…concerns an agenda of
well-being for children in the new city.” (249) “These three
accents on guaranteed long life, economic stability, and life under
blessing all attest to a city in which the power for life given by
the creator is fully available and operates in concrete ways. The
poem is a vision, but it is a vision looking to a public practice.”
(249)

That is, Isaiah 65 is written to COUNTERACT despair with
dreaming. It is a vision of hope, but one that would be worth
perusing. Despite the language of new heaven and new earth, this is a
pretty earth-centric vision. It centers on civic stability, economic
sustainability, and God’s tangible presence among those who are
alive. It starts with peace, includes distribution of goods, and
looks towards the well-being of all.

That seems like it would have landed well among the
people in despair, and changed what was possible for them.

Which has me wondering what God is dreaming of here.
How God is counteracting despair here and now. What sort of vision
God is planting among us for our community, state, nation, world
today?

Because I have noticed that God doesn’t give up when
disaster strikes, God just keeps on working towards goodness. This
also strikes me as the narrative of Luke. I think to hear our Luke
passage well requires remembering that Luke was likely written after
the destruction of the SECOND Temple, which coincided with the
destruction of Jerusalem and a horrifying number of her people. It
was a time of great despair, a moment of transformation in our faith
history and the history of our Jewish siblings in faith, a time when
everything changed and new forms of faith practice had to be created.
The transition from the Temple to the Synagogue happened at that
time, the end of the Sadducees and beginning of the leadership of the
Pharisees, etc. Our tradition was so new I can’t point to the same
types changes, but I can see how seismic this experience was.

The passage we read today was written by the early
Christian community, presumably trying to make sense of the
destruction and trying to reassure each other about what Jesus would
say to them in the midst of it. It is probably true that the Holy
Spirit helped them find these words of comfort, but it is probably
ALSO true that Jesus didn’t say this stuff in his life time.

The early Christian imagination produced the hope it
needed to face its reality without shattering into despair.

Which is to say that both of our passages are written to
people in despair, to try to keep them together and focused on hope.
They just sound really different.

Maybe that’s because people need different things at
different times.

Maybe it is because the despair they faced was
different.

Or because the perceived opponent acted differently.

Or the community was struggling in different ways.

But truly there are different ways to respond to despair
with hope, and the Bible is full of them, and we have two solid
examples before us today.

And, I heard a third recently. Bishop Karen Oliveto
shared a quote that I keep thinking about, “I rarely feel such
clear signs of fatigue and anxiety on days that are filled with
travel, meetings and assignments—only when I stop to rest. Without
sabbath, I would be dangerously ignorant of the true condition of my
soul.” ― Andy Crouch

I think in the midst of the struggles I hear today, this
is the one that could make the fastest difference. Right now we have
a lack of sabbath, lack of rest, lack of spaciousness for joy – and
lack of time to face despair. But this is change-able. We can
prioritize sabbath. We can make space for rest. We can sort through
despair instead of running from it. We can make space for joy and
not just distractions. We can even make space for relationships and
not just be ships passing in the night.

Over the past almost 3 years we’ve been exiled. I can’t
tell if we’ve really returned, but if we have, it is still hard.
We’ve seen a lot of destruction and more than our fair share of
death. But based on the Bible we can be sure that God is speaking a
word of hope and a depth of vision into this moment.

Maybe this seems too simple, but I think it is abundant:
take time OFF. Be spacious with your soul. Let your to-do lists
go. Follow what brings you joy. Let your emotions BE, without
judgment. Let God have time to dream in you.

Because as Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may linger for the
night, but joy comes with the morning.” God isn’t done with us,
not yet. May God’s dreams be met with our spaciousness to hear them!
Amen

1Walter
Brueggemann, Isaiah Vo. 2: 40-66 in
Westminster Bible Companion Series, edited by Patrick D. Miller and
David A. Bartlett (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press,
1998).

November 13, 2022

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

“Queen Sabbath” based on Isaiah 58:9b-14 and Luke 13:10-17

  • August 21, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I’m
not sure when Sabbath got lost.  Perhaps it was a well intentioned
thing, a part of recognizing that Christianity isn’t the only way to
be in the world, and making space for other traditions.  After all,
Christians and Jews both have traditions of Sabbath, but on different
days.  (We changed ours to line up with a weekly celebration of
Easter.)  

I
suspect, though, that what really happened was the long term impact
industrial revolution and the desire of factory owners to get more
profit from their expensive machines by having them worked for more
hours.  

I
don’t know for sure though.

I
do know that Sabbath is lost.  

And
I also know that it is problem.

Because
before I can even talk about Sabbath I need to acknowledge that the
minimum wage is so low in our country that people can’t live off of
full time work, and people working multiple jobs often cannot afford
to take a day off.  That is, our MINIMUM wage is so low that people
can’t afford to live without working themselves to death.

Additionally,
and I think intersectedly, many retail, restaurant, and other low
paying jobs like to schedule erratically and at the last minute,
keeping workers hopping to get to work and pick up hours at any time
of the week.  And they punish those who put boundaries on their
working hours.

Additionally,
and I think this TOO is intersected with it all, we live in a culture
that values overwork and expects it of most people in even salaried
positions.  The expectations on teachers beyond their working hours
are obscene, and that seems to apply from pre-school teachers to
college professors.  And, they’re not unique.  Medical professionals
have hours and hours of unpaid paperwork to do beyond their paid
labor.  Rare – and valuable – is the job that pays a livable wage
and expects only 40 hours a week of work.

In
the book “It’s Not You, It’s Everything”, Eric Minton helped me
put together what’s going on under all this pressure.  I already knew
that businesses, institutions, and non-profits are all trying to get
as much as they can out of their workers – even when they have
fewer workers and more work.  But Minton points out that the social
inequality of our society helps to maintain the frenetic work life of
our society.  That is, because people can fall through the cracks and
become homeless, and/or food insecure, and/or lose everything to
medical bills, and because this happens on a terrifyingly regular
basis, our whole society is in a rat race to not be the ones
struggling the hardest.  

Middle
school and high school kids are experiencing unprecedented anxiety
and mental health issues.  Ones that look a lot like the ones their
parents have.  And this is what is under all that: an assumption that
if you don’t work hard enough and pass that French test with a high
enough grade, you won’t get into a good college, you won’t get a good
job, and you could end up bankrupt, homeless, and food insecure.  For
some kids, whose families already live some of those realities, that
French test is already eclipsed by the need to get a job and bring
home some money to prevent eviction, or to buy some food.

By
having an insufficient safety net in our society, we motivate people
to work hard and harder throughout their lives (which does
effectively enrich the already rich) to try to prevent themselves
form being the ones who fall through the net.  And to keep this all
going, we have a societal narrative that the ones who do fall through
that safety net just didn’t try hard enough.

This
couldn’t be any further from God’s desires.

This
couldn’t be any further from the practice of Sabbath, either.

Walter
Brueggemann has been my primary teacher on the meaning of Sabbath in
the Hebrew Bible, and here he is commenting on our Isaiah passage for
this week:

Sabbath is the alternative to a
restless, aggressive, unbridled acquisitiveness that exploits
neighbor for self-gain.  The ancient command provided rest for
members of the community and for all the household members including
workers (Deut 5:12-15)  All will rest and enjoy the abundance of
creation (Exod. 20:8-11).  Sabbath is a cessation of feverish anxiety
and control.  But the people addressed here are strangers to the
sabbath.  They “oppress all your workers” (v. 3) and impose a
cycle of exploitation.  That is, the disciplined act of finding life
outside of feverish acquisitiveness is rejected by serving one’s own
interests.1

Now,
I’ve been talking this whole time as if you all know what I mean by
Sabbath.  On a practical level, Sabbath is taking a day off from
productivity and consumption every week in order to focus on
relationships and others things that bring LIFE.  For Jews, this is
practiced on Saturdays, for most of Christian history this was
practiced on Sundays, and at this point any day or even a revolving
day is a great thing.

The
Bible says that we rest every 7 days because God rested after
creation.  And that we NEED that rest to maintain our full humanity.
The Bible is also explicit that this isn’t just something that
landowners or rich people get, it is for everyone, and sometimes the
Bible even includes WORK ANIMALS in the expression of Sabbath.
Clearly humanity has been practicing various forms of work
exploitation for a LONG LONG time, and those listening for God’s
voice heard the commandment for Sabbath, to ensure that people get to
live and not just work themselves to death.

Now,
in Luke, there appears to be a debate over Sabbath, but is a strange
one.  What is strange is that the healing that Jesus did wasn’t a
violation of Sabbath and pretty much everyone agreed on that.  The
healing was seen as a gift from God, so it wasn’t “labor” on
Jesus’ part (this is not to dismiss the labor that is medical care
today).  And the healing brought the woman back into the community.
One of the interesting side effects of Sabbath is that by stopping
work and focusing on relationships, Sabbath ALSO creates community.
So doing something that healed a woman and her community was a very
Sabbath activity.

So
what was the Synagogue leader upset about?  I don’t know for sure,
and the story doesn’t tell us, but to project onto it a little bit,
perhaps the faith leader felt insecure about his work and leadership
and threatened by the clear connection between Jesus and God and was
trying to reestablish what felt like slipping control?   Again, who
knows 😉

But,
let us be clear, Jewish practice of Sabbath didn’t prevent Jesus from
healing, Sabbath is meant to be a source of life and life abundant,
and the Jewish crowd clearly understood and agreed with Jesus’
assessment that freeing a woman from bondage was worth doing on the
Sabbath.

So
what does this all mean?  How do we respond to our tradition of
Sabbath, the reminders of what it means, the affirmations that it
connects us to God, the concerns about its misuse, and the desire
from God that we might live life and live it abundantly?

(And
why can’t I ever just ask easy questions?)

I
think there are a lot of conclusions that can be drawn from this
conversation.  One big one is about continuing to work for justice in
our society, to work towards making it possible for all people to
have regular life giving time off, and to work towards securing the
societal safety net so that people don’t slip through.  But another
piece of this is about HOW we work towards justice, and that means
working towards justice while also taking Sabbath.  We can’t
effectively bring love, peace, and justice into the world if we don’t
experience them.  Those of us who can have Sabbath need to take it,
for ourselves, for our faith, for our community, for our families,
for God, and for the sake of those who can’t yet.  We won’t get other
people closer to full and whole lives by working ourselves to death
either.  We have to both work for justice and savor the goodness of
life.

So,
what if, say, you are retired and not even working any more?  What
might Sabbath look like for you?  I’d recommend picking a day (maybe
Saturday or Sunday) and circling it in your calendar.  Then, use it
to connect with those you love, or to do things you love.  BUT, keep
away from productivity.  No cleaning out closets.  No vacuuming.  No
filing.  No reading church meeting minutes.  ALSO,  no consumption or
shopping.  If possible, keep your Sabbath from being one that makes
other people work. Just…. people you love, spiritual practices, and
activities that bring you life.  EVERY WEEK, and without guilt.  This
is important, and it brings unexpectedly wonderful changes.

For
the rest of us, if we are lucky enough to be able to, let’s do the
same!  And for those who can’t, yet, we’re seeking it with you.  May
God help us get there.  May Sabbath be found again.  Amen

1Walter
Brueggeman, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 193.

August 21, 2022

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 Work of the Kindom” based on Matthew 5:13-20…

  • February 9, 2020February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I
often hear it said, “Like a fish in water,” reflecting the idea
that a fish isn’t aware of water, which is meant to help us notice
our own contexts.  During a wonderful and life giving conversation
with a person from a FAR more conservative Christian upbringing, that
person said to me, “Your Christianity sounds exhausting.”  I was
unclear about the meaning of that and asked about it.  The person
replied, “All I have to do to be right with God is profess my
belief in the right things and then trust that all is as God wills it
to be.  But you think that you are responsible along with God, so you
think you have to fix all the things that are broken, and so you
never get a break as long as the world is still broken.”  I sat
with that for a minute and then admitted, “Yes, it is exhausting.”

I
hadn’t seen it until it was pointed out to me though, and I remain
very grateful for that conversation and that person’s willingness to
be in those conversations with me.  

As
much as I adore Isaiah, and as much as I adore Isaiah for passages
like this, the temptation towards exhaustion is certainly raised.
Walter Bruggemann1
does wonderful work with this passage, pointing out that it
criticizes “feel good worship” that doesn’t lead to action,
worship done to manipulate God, worship without humane economic
practices, and a lack of neighborliness.  Three things are asked of
God-worshippers: “(a) shared bread, (b) shared houses, and ©
shared clothing.”2
Food, shelter, and clothing being imperative for life, worshippers
of God are to see those who are struggling as beloved members of
their own families and provide for them.

Doris
Clark told me once about her childhood in rural Western NY.  Her
family, like all the other families around, lived on a small family
farm.  Their lives were sustainable, but not wealth producing.  One
of the nearby families was impoverished because they’d had many
children and the resources they had didn’t stretch far enough for all
the mouths they had to feed and bodies they had to clothe.  Doris
reflected on the fact that her family, like all the other families in
the area, shared their excess with that one family and were able to
keep them afloat.  She also reflected that what had seemed possible
with one family out of many, when all were interconnected felt VERY
different from responding to poverty and need in this place and era.

That
was another fish noticing the water conversation for me.  I knew I
was overwhelmed by the needs around us, but I hadn’t ever experienced
anything different in order to be able to make sense of it.  As of
the last census, more than half the kids in our city live under the
poverty rate, and recent administrative changes to social service
programs has made that far worse.3
The Schenectady City School Districts puts it this way, 79% of our
school children are “economically disadvantaged” which translates
to “eligible for free or reduced lunch.”4
On these statistics alone, it feels like a different world than the
one Doris grew up in.

And
the challenge is that these aren’t the only problems we are aware of.
Just to put it into perspective, we are aware of gross injustice at
our borders, including nearly 70,000 children in cages and
deportations of integral members of communities; we are are of gross
injustice in our so-called justice system, which has the impact of
decimating communities of color with imprisonment, probation, and
life-time bans on social service supports for crimes that are
committed equally by people of all races; we are aware of a gross
injustice to our the youngest members of our society when parents
don’t have paid leave and aren’t able to spend the time with their
infants that is needed; we are aware of a raging climate crisis that
has one of our continents burning and then flooding at unprecedented
levels, seas rising, extreme weather events becoming normal, and mass
migration pressing the capacities of nations; we are aware of
governmental instability around the world, of dictatorships and wars
and genocides…. and I just picked SOME of the big issues floating
around us today.  

And
so when I hear Isaiah speaking for God saying, “Is this not the
fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of
the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is
it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless
poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover them, and not
hide yourself from from your own kin?” I admit to some feelings of
utter exhaustion, and sometimes even hopelessness. I know God is big,
but humanity isn’t terribly faithful to God and our problems are
ENORMOUS.

So,
a person might say, pick one problem, one close to home and work on
that!  I’m game for that, let’s look a childhood poverty in
Schenectady?  Where does it come from?  This one I know the answer
to!  People who are the caregivers of children in Schenectady don’t
have enough money.  (Mathematical proof complete.)

So,
why don’t the caregivers of children in Schenectady have enough
money?  Well, that gets complicated.  Some of it is because there
aren’t enough jobs; some if it is because there aren’t enough jobs
that pay a living wage; some of it is because people don’t have the
knowledge, training, or skills to get the jobs that exist; and some
of it is because people aren’t able to participate in the workforce
get so very little money to live off of; some of it could even be
because people don’t have good skills in financial management.  But
that’s only the beginning.

When
we root down deeper in these questions we get to a lot of other
issues.  Schenectady definitely deals with impoverished people of
color being being imprisoned – with the greatest impact being in
the African American community, and a person in prison can’t make
money while in prison and is profoundly impeded from doing so
afterwards (not can they get the support they need.)  Schenectady
City Schools have been underfunded by the state for decades, making
it exceptionally difficult to provide the services our students need
to thrive, ESPECIALLY given the struggles students have when they
grow up in impoverished neighborhoods.  This also means that many of
our graduates aren’t prepared for the job market.  We clearly also
have struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, which is complicated
by drug companies that have decided to make profits off of people’s
lives.  We in this community are deeply impacted by the cost of
medical care, which has impoverished many and prevents even more from
getting the care they need.  We also struggle with old housing stock
and a high water table that results in some of the highest asthma
rates in the country.  

There
are also the complicating aspects of poverty – the part where
everything in poverty is more expensive: the cost to cash a check
without a bank account, bank fees if you don’t have a high enough
balance, buying things on credit and paying much more with interest,
INSANE interest and fees, trying to eat cheaper food and paying for
it with health, the pure cost of eviction and then the increased cost
of housing after eviction, the increased cost of buying food near
one’s house when that isn’t where the grocery store is but the store
is far away and costs too much to get to, the smaller earning power
of women – with larger impact when men are imprisoned, the impact
of stress on the body and the family, and the list goes on and on.

Right,
so everything is intersecting and it isn’t easy to change.  A few
years ago I went to TEDx Albany and heard some great speakers offer
wonderful inspirational stories.  Most of them that year were about
the speaker’s intentional work to change the lives of people living
in poverty, and that was great!  But I was a little horrified to
realize that all of them were working on poverty on an individual
level.  That is, “if I help this person (or these people) in this
one small way, it increases the likelihood that they’ll be able to
get out of poverty.”  Excellent, for sure, and a great use of
compassion and capacity.  What scared me was that no one seemed to be
looking at poverty on the larger scale.  Because in our society,
when one person or family fworks their way out of poverty, someone
else falls in.  

Our
capitalist system depends on there being a lower class and an
impoverished class… because all those ways that poverty is
expensive are ways that other people are able to make money of of
people’s suffering.  

This
isn’t new, it isn’t news, and it definitely isn’t just the USA.  One
of the things that is most helpful about the gospels for me are that
they are based in a very similar economic system, and so the analysis
of Jesus is particularly applicable for us today.  The context of
Isaiah is a little bit more complicated, and that’s good too.  This
passage is from Third Isaiah, reflecting the struggles of the
community newly back from exile.  So, they were still a vassal state
to an external empire, but they also had some freedom, and were
trying to rebuild their society.  Thus, the normal struggles of “what
does justice look like” were relevant for them.  During the exile,
the people left behind were defenseless and struggled mightily for
generations.  And, during the exile, the people taken into exile were
used as slaves and struggled mightily for generations.  That’s a hard
place to start rebuilding from!  And it might be an easy place to
become individualistic.  After all, everyone has had a hard time,
there aren’t a lot of resources, it might make sense to gather what
you can and share it sparingly.  

But
also, the people were FREE, and they were REBUILDING, and they were
grateful to God for this new era were particularly faithful to their
worship and religious rituals.  Which is where we find this passage.
The people are worshipping, yes, but aren’t living out God’s values.
God’s values are ALWAYS for the well-being of the whole, the care for
the vulnerable, and the acknowledgment of shared humanity with those
who are struggling.

And,
yes, sometimes this is really hard, and it is almost always
overwhelming.  And these problems are big, and complicated.  There
are three pieces of good news here though:  1.  God is on the side of
vulnerable, and God is a really really good ally, 2.  The Body of
Christ works so that if each of us do our part, big changes happen,
but we only have to do our small part, 3.  The Poor People’s Campaign
is working on all of this and they’re amazing.
(Copies of my sermon have the NY state fact sheet attached.)5

Actually,
there is a 4th
piece of really good news, and this is one I should talk about more.
One of the most valuable ways to change the world is to settle into
God’s love for us.  Because when we are TRYING to be lovable, we tend
to get really defensive about our errors and then that leads to us
judging others to protect ourselves, and things can go downhill
quickly.  But when we TRUST that God loves us, and also that God has
good work for us to do in the world, THEN we can participate in the
world as expressions of that love, and things just go far better.  As
we allow ourselves, and our humanity, and even our weaknesses and
failures to be acceptable to ourselves and visible to others, we tend
to get better at letting other people be human too.  And as we do
that, we increase our capacity to see other people as fully human and
fully beloved by God – and THEN we have the best possible
motivation to work towards bettering the lives of those around us.  

So,
dear ones of God, I invite you to do what you can do to settle into
God’s love for you, and also to follow God’s will in the world: to
create more justice, to break more yokes, and to bring freedom to the
oppressed.  May God help us all.  Amen  

1Yep,
it is paragraph three and I’ve now cited Isaiah and Brueggemann.
#ProgressivePastorCredentials.  Also, if you were wondering, my
computer knows how to spell Brueggemann.

2Walter
Bruggemann, Isaiah
40-66
(Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 187-189

3https://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Census-Most-Schenectady-kids-live-in-poverty-3925563.php

4http://www.schenectady.k12.ny.us/about_us/district_dashboard/demographics

5https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/New-York-Fact-Sheet.pdf

Sermons

“Do Not Fear, Beloved” Page 6Rev. Sara E. Baron…

  • January 14, 2019February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

The
words we heard from Isaiah today were spoken to a community abandoned
to despair.  Isaiah chapters 40-55 is called “Second Isaiah” and
Second Isaiah was written to the exiles who had been force-ably
marched across the desert to Babylon after the defeat and destruction
of Jerusalem.  The exiles in Babylon were despondent.  They’d watched
their city, their temple, and their nation be destroyed.  They’d seen
entirely too much death.  Those who were left behind had all of their
possessions and food taken from them, and were left without city
walls to protect them.  And the ones in exile were supposed to be the
leaders of the people who took care of them, but instead they were in
captivity in a foreign land.  

In
the midst of all of this, they were likely struggling with their
faith.  Not only do terrible events tend to make most people struggle
with their faith, the faith of the Israelites at that time centered
on two things:  1.  The story of the God of Liberation who had freed
them from slavery in Egypt and 2. The gift of the Promised Land to
God’s beloved people as a sign of God’s intention to keep them from
other nations.  You can probably see how a faith based on freedom and
land would be seriously shaken by being taken back into slavery after
losing the land.

To
those struggling former leaders, now slaves, Isaiah send a message of
hope.  Isaiah was a prophet, so he spoke what he believed to be a
message from God for the people.  The message is shocking.  It may
help to know that “To be redeemed according to Israel’s law means
to be bought out of human bondage by one’s kin, a close member of the
extended family.”1
More specifically, “The verb refers to a family intervention and
solidarity whereby a stronger member of the family intervenes to
assure the well being of a weaker member.”2
So with that, we can hear the first verse again.

This
is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God, who formed
you:

Do
not be afraid.  You are in need of a family member to pay for your
freedom,

and
I have done so.  You are my family.  You bear my name.

The
people are ENSLAVED.  In a foreign land.  After a major defeat, that
most of them took to be a judgement by God.  This cannot be what they
expect hear.  Not even the beginning, the reminder that they were
formed by God’s own hand.  And definitely not the next part that God
was going to pay for their freedom … since they thought God had
sent them into exile.  After feeling abandoned by God they got this
message that God claimed them, loved them, acted on their behalf.  I
imagine that it was confusing to try to parse out if this could be
true.  As a scholar puts it, “Israel is now fully identified with,
belongs to, and is cherished by Yahweh.”3
But they’ve been interpreting their experience as the opposite.

This
experience, while very specific, seems to have some universal themes
underlying it.  Life has its ups and its downs, some of the downs are
very far down, some of the downs are for a whole family or whole
community, and quite often the downs feel like God has forgotten us,
abandoned us, punished us, or… maybe like God ISn’t after all.
Today’s Isaiah scripture speaks into those times.  “Do not be
afraid, I am with you.  I have called you by name, and the name I
call you is ‘mine.’”  We are not forgotten, abandoned, nor
punished.  We are still connected, beloved, claimed… and when
things are at their worst, God is with us for it.

The
passage then turns to possible threats that could harm Israel, and
assures that YHWH is available to help them if that happens.  Floods
and rivers, not too much for God.  Fires and wildfires, not too much
for God.  This, too, applies to us.  Bad things may come, disasters
may come, raging loses may come, they aren’t too much for God and God
is still with us.

Second
Isaiah speaks words of comfort and hope.  This is particularly
notable because First Isaiah (the first 40 chapters) come before the
exile and speak rather dire warnings of what might come to pass if
the leaders of the people don’t chance course.  As most of the Hebrew
Bible was written down during and immediately after the Exile, I am
convinced that it has two primary questions it is asking is “why
did this happen to us?” and “how do we understand God in these
circumstances?”  The Hebrew Bible answers those questions in a lot
of different ways, and Second Isaiah’s take is “it happened, that’s
not the right question.  But as to how do we understand God, that’s
the important one – we know a God who comforts us, cares for us,
never abandons us, and claims us.  Because of God, we have hope for
the present and the future.”

There
are so many themes that bounce back and forth between our two
scriptures today, it can seem that Luke 3 is using Isaiah 43 as a
source text.  However, Isaiah is inherently talking to the COMMUNITY,
and in Luke 3, God is speaking to Jesus – just one guy.  Or, at
least, I think that’s what is happening.  The story says that it is
of God speaking to Jesus, but I also know the story is much larger
when we consider the baptism of Jesus as one of the primary reasons
we baptize people into membership in the Body of Christ, and that
this story then resonates within all baptized Christians.  So maybe
both them are written to communities, but only one of them admits it?
I’m not sure.

Luke’s
telling about Jesus’ baptism is brief but powerful.  Jesus was
baptized, he was praying, the Spirit came (like a dove) and then
voice (from heaven) said, “You are my Child, the Beloved; with
you I am well pleased.”  Within the Gospel this serves as an
affirmation of Jesus’ identity as Messiah.  However, have the words
have echoed through the ages, and been passed on to each Christian at
their baptism, they have come to mean even more.  They have become
like the words in Second Isaiah, an affirmation that God knows us,
sees us, claims us, and is with us.  These are words that tell us
that we are LOVED, and that God also LIKES us.  They are words that
tell us of grace – that we are loved because God loves us and
that’s the final answer – that our FIRST identity is “loved by
God” -both as individuals and as a community.

Our
second identity, then, is to show God’s love.  In the United
Methodist Communion liturgy, the second question that is asked fo
parents of babies being baptized or of adults answering for their own
baptism is, “Do
you accept the freedom and power God gives you to to resist evil,
injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”
 I have come to LOVE this question.  In fact, it has been MY cover
photo on facebook for two years AND the church’s cover photo for a
year and a half.
I’ve considered changing both, but it is too on point.
In these times, when the powers of injustice and oppression feel
like they’re crushing in, both within the church and in the world, it
feels liberating to hear that question again.  “The freedom and
power God gives you….”  We do not have to be pulled into.  We
don’t have to participate.  We can choose another path.  We are FREE,
because God frees us from the powers of evil, injustice and
oppression.


That’s some great stuff.
And Jesus is one of the examples of what a life can look like when it
is free from evil, injustice, and oppression.  

“This is my child, the
beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  It is easy to look at the
babies we baptize and see how true those words are for them.  It can
be very easy in adult baptism to hear the words echoing as well.  One
of the challenges is remembering that it keeps on echoing for all of
us, all the time.  In sacred moments, we see it, but it is
omnipresent.  Each person we meet is beloved by God, a child of God,
one who God LIKES.  Each of us are beloved by God, a child of God,
liked by God – even when we aren’t able to like ourselves.

And then there is the correlated
bigger picture.  We, as a church, are a community of God’s, a Body of
Christ together (even as we are part of larger and larger versions of
the Body of Christ in the world.)  We are not the entirety of God’s
beloved community, but we ARE a beloved community of God’s.  Which
means that we are some of the recipients of the words in Luke as well
of the ones in Isaiah.  We are children of God, beloved, and with us
God is well pleased.  Also,

This
is a message to you from YHWH, who created you, from God, who formed
you:

Do
not be afraid.  You are in need of a family member to pay for your
freedom,

and
I have done so.  You are my family.  You bear my name.

We
are God’s, together.  In fact, as a community, we come together
knowing ourselves to be an expression of God’s love, together.  We
are formed together by being people seeking God, seeking to
understand things of God, seeking to live out God’s ways in the
world.  We are formed by the Divine stories, by Divine love, by
building the kindom of God together.  We bear God’s name.

This
means that God is with us in the ups and downs.  God was with us when
this community was large, when Sunday School was overflowing and this
sanctuary was full every week.  God is with us now when we are fewer
people, with just as much commitment to God’s ways.  God is with us
when new people are joining us, and God is with us when we gather in
gratitude for lives well lived.  God is with us when we are
struggling to find our ways of being in this world and in this
community, and God is with us when we know we’re up to just the right
ways of being love in the world.

We
are God’s. Thanks be to God.  Amen

1Kathleen
M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective on Isaiah 43:1-7,” in
Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 1,
ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KT:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 221.

2Walter
Bruggemann, Isaiah 40-66
(Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 53.

3Bruggemann,
53.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

January 13, 2019

Sermons

“Claiming Her Life” based on Genesis 38:1-26

  • January 15, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

My favorite Genesis commentator, Gerhard Von Rad, was a German professor at the University of Heidelberg. Von Rad says it well when he says, “To understand Tamar’s act, the reader must resist comparing it with modern conditions and judging it accordingly, for the modern world has nothing that can be compared to it.”1 There is so much necessary context required to understand the story that it may seem like isn’t worth it, but I promise you that understanding what she was up against is necessary to show how hardcore Tamar was.

The first thing to understand about this story is levirate marriage. This was a custom practiced in many ancient societies with strong clan structure and significant inheritance laws. It worked like this: if a married man died before producing an heir, his brother was responsible for producing an heir on his behalf. In the ancient Near East it was normal for the eldest son to inherit a double portion of his father’s estate. Thus, if an eldest brother died, his younger brother would be producing the heir who would get the double portion INSTEAD of him. You may remember that Jesus was questioned about a widow who had been married to a series of brothers, in an attempt to stump Jesus.

The second thing to understand is widowhood culture. The practice would have been that a widow would return to her father’s house, and thereby be eligible for remarriage. Only a widow would return to her father’s house. A woman who has a levirate marriage or who was waiting to have a levirate marriage was not ENTIRELY a widow and remained a part of the family of her deceased husband. The question is: to whom does the widow belong? To her father’s family or to her in-laws? As long as there was someone available to produce that heir she belonged to her in-laws. To send her home to her father’s house was to imply otherwise.

The third important thing to know is that there is a significant debate about what sort of prostitution is being referenced in this text. Some commentators suggest that Tamar was acting as a sacred prostitute, within expected behavioral boundaries of her people. (She was a Canaanite.) This is because there are two words for prostitute used in the text, one used in reference to Tamar’s actual story and another – the more common word – used in the accusation against her. Von Rad explains it this way:

In the ancient Orient, it was customary in many places for married women to give themselves to strangers because of some oath. Such sacrifices of chastity in the service of the goddess of love, Astarte, were, of course, different form ordinary prostitution even though they were were repulsive to Israel. They were strictly forbidden by law, and the teachers of wisdom warned urgently against this immoral custom, which was apparently at times fashionable even in Israel. At the borders between Israel and Canaan, where our whole story takes place, the appearance on the road of a ‘devoted one’ was obviously nothing surprising. Tamar does not pretend to be a harlot as we think of it but rather a married woman who indulges in this practice, and Judah too thought of her in this way. It is characteristic that our narrative in vs. 21 and 22 also uses the expression ‘devoted one’ which recalls the sacred meaning of this practice.”2

In contrast, J. Maxwell Miler in the New Interpreter’s Bible, says, “Although her dress and action could imply prostitution (the veil both invites and conceals), the narrator does not mention it. Judah so interprets the veil and propositions her (vv. 15-16). In v. 21, his friend speaks of her as a ‘temple prostitute,’ probably only more discreet language for a prostitute (with no official cultic reference.)”3 In either case, Judah was very comfortable paying a woman to have sex with him and very uncomfortable with a woman he controlled having sex for money! Or as Miller puts it, “When Judah saw her as a prostitute, he used her; when he sees her in this capacity as his daughter-in-law, he condemns her. Clearly Judah applies a double standard.”4 Furthermore, the death he condemns her to is particularly harsh. As Von Rad says, “The punishment itself is certainly, in the narrator’s opinion, the severest possible. The later law recognized burning only in an extreme case of prostitution (Lev. 21.9). The custom was death by stoning for such offenses (Deut 22.23 ff; Lev. 20.16).”5 This likely relates to honor culture, and to have a woman in his family prostituting herself decreased his honor, while using a prostitute did not.

The issue is that by sending her back to her father’s house, he had functionally disowned her. Yet, the people brought her pregnancy to him as if he was still the person who owned her, and he had no issue judging her, as if he still owned her. Von Rad explains, “If one examines the legal aspect of the case, its difficulty becomes apparent. On the basis of what fact was the complaint made? Because of a widow’s prostitution or that of an engaged girl? Those who turn to Judah in this matter seem to assume the latter. Judah assumes competence as judge; he thus reckons Tamar as part of his family, though Tamar’s act proceeded from the assumption that Judah had released her permanently from the family and gave no further considerations to a marriage with his third son.”6

Finally, we need to remember that women had no legal standing in that time and place. As Walter Brueggemann pus it, “a striking contrast is established between this man who has standing and status in the community and this woman who stands outside the law and is without legal recourse.”7Tamar was being treated as if she was a widow by being sent back to her father, but also as if she was engaged to Shelah. She was in legal limbo and had no way to get out of it. Judah, by telling her it was a temporary solution was both dishonest with her and kept her from having any sort of life in the future. Von Rad says, “Judah’s wrong lay in considering this solution as really final for himself but in presenting to Tamar as an interim solution.”8

So, now that we have all the context down, I’m guessing we’ve all forgotten the actual story, right? Judah has gone off away from his brothers to live among the Canaanites. He marries a Canaanite woman, has three sons, and he finds a wife, Tamar, for the eldest son whose name is Er. Er dies, and Judah seems generally afraid of women and is a bit afraid Er died because Tamar was… scary or something. The story seems to believe God killed Er for being bad. Then Er’s younger brother Onan WAS bad. As Miller puts it, “Onan sabotages the intent of the relationship in order to gain Er’s inheritance for himself upon Judah’s death – the firstborn would receive a doubleshare. He regularly uses Tamar for sex, but makes sure she does not become pregnant by not letting his semen enter her (coitus interruptus, not masturbation). He therefore formally fulfills his duty, lest the role be passed on to his other brother and he lose Er’s inheritance in this way. This willful deception would be observable to Tamar, but God’s observation leads to Onan’s death (again, by unspecified means).”9 Tamar knew what was happening the whole time but no one cared, and she had no legal standing. As is true in Genesis, when a man sexually mistreats a woman, God does harm to the man. So Onan dies.

Judah is now completely freaked out that Tamar is powerful and killing off his sons. So he tells her that he wants her to go home to her father’s house to wait for his youngest son, Shelah, to grow up but he is lying! He intends for her to die in limbo as a widow/engaged woman who no one else can touch, while not taking care of her and not letting anyone else be responsible for her either. Years later, after Judah’s wife has died, Tamar becomes certain that Judah never intended to do right by her.

So she dresses herself in a way that suggests she’s available, which includes a veil so he doesn’t know who she is, and her father-in-law propositions her. She says yes, sleeps with him, gains two identifying possessions, and then he leaves. She takes her veil back off and reclaim the role of widow, so that when Judah sends her the agreed upon goat, she can’t be found. Thus she keeps the identifiers. She is eventually found to be pregnant and Judah is told. He judges her harshly and decrees she should be burned to death – for adultery, that is for being unfaithful to his son Shelah who he never intended to let marry her anyway. AS SHE WAS BEING BROUGHT OUT she sent word to Judah saying “the guy who owns these is the father” and with them sends his identifying possessions.

Then, suddenly, Judah sees the light, admits all his wrong doings, takes back the condemnation, takes care of her again, AND doesn’t sleep with her again. Actually, I don’t entirely believe that last part. Since the text doesn’t say whose wife she becomes, and since she had children by him, I suspect he did keep sleeping with her and the text itself protests too much – but who knows?

More to the point, Tamar existed in a time when she was seen as possession more than as person. She existed in between cultures, neither of which respected her, and she had no legal voice with which to articulate her concerns. We know nothing about her relationship to Er, but we know that both Onan and Judah used her to fulfill their own ends. She was left in limbo, unable to find a life that would support her over the long run, and she was lied to about it. She came up with a plan to inverse her circumstances, and it was radical, revolutionary, risky, and difficult. I doubt she particularly wanted to sleep with Judah, but she used her sexuality and his openness to fulfilling his sexual needs to get what she needed. Tamar is one of the most hardcore human beings I’ve heard about. Ever.

Tamar refused to be ignored, denied, pretended away. She refused a life that would be most likely to end with her homeless and starving. She refused a life without the opportunity to mother (which she would have been told was her her reason for existing). She outsmarted the man who had all the power over her, and he acknowledged her righteousness in the end – EVEN though many would still prefer to condemn her.

The thing is, I suspect Tamar was not the only woman around who was stuck in legal limbo. She is, however, the only woman whose story is being told because she found her way out. She was the extraordinary one who overcame overwhelming circumstances. She was the exception. Her courage and intelligence worked for her when she existed in a system that was designed to see her as property rather than as a human. Tamar blew up the rules in order to get a chance at her life. And she gets acknowledged for it throughout history.

The children that Tamar would bear would be ancestors of King David and as such ancestors of Jesus. She is one of three women listed in Matthews genealogy of Jesus. Interestingly Judah (and not Er) is listed as the father in that genealogy.

We have a story of an exceptional human here, one who beat a multitude of odds. Yet I think the value of the story is that it points out to us just how broken that system was. It didn’t take care of all the people and it took an exceptional person breaking all the rules to navigate it. I think if we are to learn anything from the courage of Tamar and from her choice to claim her life it is this: may we fight with people who are as stuck as Tamar was so that no one is required to be the exceptional hero in order to claim a life worth living. That is, may there be fewer people who need to go to such extremes, because people in desperation have allies like us.  Amen

Sermon Talkback

  1. What other stories can you think of: exceptional humans overcoming overwhelming odds that no one should ever have to face?
  2. Why do you think Tamar is included in the genealogical list for Jesus?
    1. And why with Judah as father, not Er?
  3. This story doesn’t fit in at all. It is essentially stand alone. Why do you think it kept getting told?
  4. Was Tamar more in the right? Why?
  5. Where are we successful in being allies to those in extenuating circumstances?
  6. Where are not successful?
  7. What do you think motivated Tamar?
  8. God isn’t spoken of much in this story, moreso God is implied. This is an OLD story. Within its constructs, God who is quite active in killing off the immoral lets Tamar’s actions stand. What does that mean???

—-

1Gerhard Von Rad, Genesis: a commentary in The Old Testament Library series (The Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1972) 359.

2Von Rad, 359-360.

3J. Maxwell Miller “Genesis” in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible Volume 1edited by Leander Kirk et al (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994), 605

4Miller, 606.

5Von Rad, 360-1.

6Von Rad, 360.

7Walter Brueggemann, Genesis in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching series (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 1982) 310.

8Von Rad, 358.

9Miller, 605.

–

Rev. Sara E. BaronFirst United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 15, 2017

Sermons

“Excuses That Don’t Work”based on Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke 13:10-17

  • August 21, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Our mother read to us a lot as children, and all of us particularly liked Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series, so she read it to us several times. In those books the experience of the Sabbath sound TERRIBLE. I remember being really grateful that Christianity had given up on Sabbath by my time! 😉

For those of you who haven’t read the Little House books, or had them read to you, they describe Sunday as a day of quiet rest. They would sit on hard chair all day, unable to get up and play, or to talk to each other. Now, I’m going from my memory and not quoting the books directly, but what I remember is that they could only read religious books – the really long ones that were well over their heads – perhaps do needlepoint, but Laura hated needlepoint. It was hard, HARSH, boring, and basically terrible.

I saw why it went out of style.

I fear that when people hear “Sabbath,” that they think of it like that. They think of something boring, restraining, and harsh. That is, I fear many people miss the point of Sabbath entirely! The idea of one day off from work a week is profound, and was totally unique when it emerged. Walter Brueggemann, one of my favorite Biblical scholars and theologians, wrote a short and powerful book entitled, “Sabbath as Resistance: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW”. Brueggemann believes that Sabbath is one of the defining characteristics of YHWH faith, and that it is utterly imperative to a full life.

His work has framed my thinking on Sabbath. For starters, it was in reading Brueggemann commentaries that I realized that Sabbath exists for the people to be fully human! It is a time set aside for relationship and reflection – time for families to be together, time for friends to visit, time for intimacy to flourish, time for human beings to have enough time to consider what truly matters and DO IT. Working 7 days a week doesn’t give people enough time to be fully human, but the world of economics wants productively and consumption ALL THE TIME. The first commandments for Sabbath come to a people recently freed from slavery. They knew what it was to work all the time, and YHWH instructed them NOT to continue.

In the US at least, there is an underlying myth that suggests that the well-being of the economy is the ultimate good. Sabbath resists that narrative, and claims that our identities are in being human and being beloved children of God – NOT in our capacity to produce or consume. I want to give you a better idea about what Sabbath really is by giving you access to some of Brueggemann’s work. He thinks Sabbath is central to everything. In fact, in his book he supports the claims that “the fourth commandment on Sabbath is the ‘crucial bridge’ that connects the Ten Commandments together.”1 That is,

“The fourth commandment looks back to the first three commandments and the God who rests (Exod. 20:3-7). At the same time, the Sabbath commandment looks forward to the last six commandments that concern the neighbor (vv. 12-17; they provide for rest along side the neighbor. God, self, and all members of the household share in common rest on the seventh day; that social reality provides a commonality and a coherence not only to the community of covenant but to the commandments of Sinai as well.”2

In addition to seeing the Sabbath commandment as the central one, Brueggemann asserts that Sabbath teaches us about the essential qualities of God. Namely, that our God is not interesting in systems of oppression that dehumanize people. God rests, and that matters. He says, “the Sabbath commandment is drawn into the exodus narrative, for the God who rests is the God who emancipates from slavery and consequently from the work system of Egypt and the gods of Egypt who require and legitimate that system.”3

The idea of STOPPING WORK once a week was radical. It still is. When I have brought the idea up to youth in our society they have looked at me like I have two heads. It seems impossible to them. I’m with Brueggemann though. I think it is imperative if we are to be full humans. He says, “the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is an act of trust in the subversive, exodus-causing God of the first commandment, and act of submission to the restful God of commandments one, two, and three. Sabbath is a practical divestment so neighborly engagement, rather than production and consumption, defines our lives.”4 Remember, Sabbath was designed to be time for relationships!

It has always been hard. Brueggemann again, “Such faithful practice of work stoppage is an act of resistance.  It declares in bodily ways that we will not participate in the anxiety system that pervades our social environment. We will not be defined by busyness and by the pursuit of more, in either our economics or our personal relations or anywhere else in our lives. Because our life does not consist in commodity.”5 I love how he contrasts the systems of the world as anxious and anxiety producing with the fullness of humanity gained from life with a God who rests! It is an important reminder that anxiety need not be the only way!! (Which is getting hard to remember for many people in our society.)

Brueggemann says, “Sabbath is the cessation of widely shared practices of acquisitiveness. It provides time, space, energy, and imagination for coming to the ultimate recognition that more commodities, which may be acquired in the rough and ready of daily economics, finally do not satisfy. Sabbath is variously restraint, withdrawal, or divestment from concrete practices of society that specialize in anxiety. Sabbath is an antidote to anxiety that both derives from our craving and in turn feeds those cravings for more.”6 Taking time off from the merry-go-round of consumption and production is the only way to figure out what really matters. Unfortunately today, with the minimum wage where it is, many workers simply cannot afford to take a day off! This is yet another reason why we need to fight for a living wage. People who work ALL THE TIME can’t live entirely full lives, and the ways that our society prevents full humanity are unacceptable.

In the final page of his book, Brueggemann offers this little reflection, “It occurs to me that Sabbath is a school for our desires, an expose and critique of the false desires that focus on idolatry and greed that have immense power for us. When we do not pause for Sabbath, these false desires take power over us. But Sabbath is the chance for self-embrace of our true identity.”7 He really believes that time OFF, that Sabbath itself, provides space for us to become more compassionate to ourselves and to others, that is, to become more fully human.

Now I offered ALL of this because I’m concerned that it is entirely too easy to face our gospel lesson with a blasé treatment of the Sabbath, and worst yet to use the gospel as another excuse to dismiss the Sabbath entirely. That wouldn’t be OK. So, now, a few notes on the particularities of our Gospel lesson. This is VERY Lukan passage. It is a story that only shows up in Luke. It is a story involving a woman. The setting is in the synagogue, and that should be our first clue that Jesus is about to cause trouble because Luke has Jesus start something every time he goes into a synagogue.

The woman enters, on her own. She comes to worship God on the Sabbath, even though she would have been separated from community because of her physical illness. She does NOT ask Jesus for help. He sees her and has compassion for her and seeks her out. He speaks to her, of forgiveness, and then he touches her. The touch would have made him unclean, and as per usual, he doesn’t care! His compassion for her is greater than his desire to avoid the uncleanness. Her response is praise God when she is healed. Then the story moves away from her. The leader of the synagogue gets mad at Jesus for breaking the Sabbath with the healing. If Jesus had been healing AND EXPECTING PAYMENT FOR IT, I think the leader of the synagogue would have had a valid point. He didn’t though. He gave it as a free gift.

Jesus makes a great point about freedom and the Sabbath, using a verb that means “loose.” He points out that in caring for animals on the Sabbath, they are loosed so that they can access water. Should not the woman also be loosed from her bondage to this physical illness – that kept her from community? That is, shouldn’t she be freed to celebrate Sabbath in its truest sense again by being a full member of community and participating with others in relationship??

Jesus praises her by calling her a “Daughter of Abraham” thereby acknowledging her humanity, her faith, her faithfulness, and her status as a beloved child of God. The crowd celebrates, which means they think he did right to heal on the Sabbath too!

So what’s the issue? As one commentator put it, “In their understandable concern for religious identity, marked by Sabbath-keeping, the religious leaders lost sight of compassion.”8 Ohh! In any organization, the leaders are responsible for maintaining the well-being of the institution. It is ‘their job.” Keeping the Sabbath was the central piece of religious identity for most people in those days, particularly in the time of Luke with the Temple had just been destroyed for the second time. The leader of the synagogue wanted to keep the people connected to God! The leader forgot that Sabbath exists to help people become human, to build up relationships – that is, to make space for compassion to grow. The leader missed that the point of the Sabbath was that people might make choices like the one Jesus made – to see another person fully, and be willing to do what you can do to make their life more wonderful. The leader got stuck in the rules, and forgot why they existed.

This happens in the church today as well. Institutional leaders get stuck on the rules, and forget that the purpose of any rule in the faith tradition is to build the kin-dom of God and expand God’s love in the world.

Sabbath is a gift from God for the people. It builds the kin-dom by making space for people to be fully human. It expands God’s love by giving people time to connect. Sabbath is a way to be alive, to be human, to reflect, to connect, to become more compassionate and whole. May today be such a day for us all! And may a day like this come every week – and may it eventually come for all God’s people every week! Amen

1Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistence: Saying NO to the CULTURE OF NOW, (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2014) page 1.

2Brueggemann, 1.

3Brueggemann, 2.

4Brueggemann, 18.

5Brueggemann, 32.

6Brueggemann, 85.

7Brueggemann, 88.

8Tokunboh Adeyemo, General Editor, Africa Bible Commentary, Paul John Issak, “Luke” (Zondervan: Nairobie, Kenya, 2006) page 1231.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

August 21, 2016

  • First United Methodist Church
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