“The Art of Choosing What to Do With Your…

August 28, 2022
by Sara Baron

I lack the patience and the
commitment to read any newspaper or magazine cover to cover, but I do
scan headlines and read what looks interesting. Two weeks ago there
was an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, “The Art of
Choosing What to Do With Your Life” which caught my attention. It
was a plea for liberal arts education to include in their curriculum
“initiating students into a culture of rational reflection on how
to live”.^¹
I found myself both emphatically agreeing with their ideas about
helping people make conscious decisions about how they wanted to live
their lives, and also getting a little bit offended at the idea that
this is particularly the role of education and not faith. But, once
I became aware of my sense of being offended, I realized that I’m
actually all for sharing and not being possessive over meaning
making. Phew.

Also,
as I continued to read, I found myself laughing that the ways they
are teaching their students about building a meaningful life is by
using one of the greatest teachers of the Christian tradition. This
really isn’t a competition! They said:

Aquinas
usefully suggests that the ultimate objects of human longing can be
sorted into only eight enduring categories. If we want to understand
where we’re headed, we should ask ourselves these questions: Am I
interested in this opportunity because it leads to wealth? Or am I
aiming at praise and admiration? Do I want enduring glory? Or power —
to “make an impact”? Is my goal to maximize my pleasures? Do I
seek health? Do I seek some “good of the soul,” such as knowledge
or virtue? Or is my ultimate longing to come face-to-face with the
divine?^²

The
authors point out that some of those first options (wealth, praise)
don’t work out to bring a satisfying life. Now, having started
reading that article with both interest and caution, I came around to
thinking that it was a useful article for church too!

Because,
it occurred to me, those are valid questions for us too. Both
individually and collectively, but today I’m talking about
collectively.

“The
Art of Choosing What to Do With Your Life as a Church”

Thinking
that way, we can eliminate some of the options. We are not a church
so we can build wealth, be praised, gain glory, or simply maximize
pleasure. Occasionally I think we do want some power so we can make
an impact, but that isn’t an end goal in itself, and I think we know
that. I sometimes note that being part of a community is good for
one’s health, and community connections are good for community
health, but that too is an aside and not a primary goal.

Which
is to say, that I think only the last two questions are likely to
have significant resonance: Do we seek some ‘good of the soul’ such
as knowledge or virtue? Or, do we primarily seek to connect people
to the Divine? I’d love to hear your answers and reflections on
this. I’m going to offer my best guess as to this community’s
answer, but please note I’m ALSO wanting to hear what you think!

The
thing is, that I don’t think every church has the same reason for
existing. And I suspect our reasons may be quite different from the
norm. That is, I think many churches exist to make more Christians –
as an end goal in itself, which for them is related to keeping people
out of hell. This may be simply about saying a proscribed set of
words, or may be about living a particular set of rules, but avoiding
hell is the end game. Other churches exist, I think, to praise God.
This strikes me as a far more worthy use of time and energy, but, if
I’m honest, not the one that resonates here. (OK, I do think it is
better, but I also am not convinced it is a sufficient end it
itself.)

Around
here we most often talk about our goal as “building the kindom of
God,” and I suspect that falls most directly under seeking good of
the soul, with an awareness that connecting to the Divine is quite
important for building up the desire and capacity to build the
kindom.

Lee
Tupper wrote convincingly that the point of the church is to
“optimize prime values.” I’d take that to be another way of
saying the thing about good for the soul. Lee put it this way:

A
desirable function for the church is to aid in shaping personal value
systems so that they are consistent with prime values. The ultimate
objective of this process is maximizing the degree to which the human
system evolves to ever-higher levels. … The function of the church
here is a crucial one. It
involves three major facets – the first is that of the promotion of
the idea that a concern with this subject is important, the second
is to help in the continued educational process necessary to
understand its implication and the third is to aid people in carrying
out the activities necessary to achieve these objectives.”^³

Lee
was humble about naming the prime values themselves, but took as
examples, love and justice which I’m entirely convinced are prime
values as well. Love and justice, and I’m pretty sure compassion
too, are means toward the kindom.

It
turns out that this wondering about why we exist as a church and what
we think we are aiming to do matters… say, rather a lot. It
impacts everything about what we do and how we make decisions, who we
are and who we seek to become. It impacts what we are trying to do
when we worship, what I am trying to do when I preach, how we related
to our communities and neighbors, what we prioritize, and how we
decide what to let go of. I think it also relates to how we
experience and understand God and God’s wishes for us and our
communities and society.

The
Art of Choosing What to Do With Your Life as a Church matters quite a
lot.

I
think this is obvious, but just to be sure, let’s look at an example.
If the primary goal of a church is to save people from going to hell
by having them profess a faith in Jesus, it would make sense that
they’d put a lot of energy into evangelism, and teaching effective
evangelism, and that worship would be both focused on emphasizing how
good it is to believe in Jesus and how bad it is in afterlife if one
doesn’t. Right? It all follows.

However,
“building the kindom of God” is a really multifaceted thing. It
is not as well defined as a goal as getting people to speak some
particular phrase. Even as we get clearer that building the kindom
is related to optimizing prime values, and that that means “the
first is that of the promotion of the idea that a concern with this
subject is important, the second is to help in the continued
educational process necessary to to understand its implication and
the third is to aid people in carrying out the activities necessary
to achieve these objectives,”
and even if we took as the three prime values love, justice, and
compassion – we are still dealing with multifaceted ways forward.

How
does one build up love? Is it best to start with one’s self and
build up self compassion? Is it best to deepen relationships with
loved ones, and build up skills in good listening and communication?
Is it best to seek out new relationships particularly with people who
are different -and if so, people who are different HERE, or people
who are different in another part of the country or world? Or, do we
best build up love by savoring the love of God and letting it
infiltrate our lives?

You
see how it isn’t entirely clear?

This
has been a struggle for this church for decades at least, a desire
for better clarity of purpose and a reality that it is really
complicated. But, I’d like to point something out that maybe hasn’t
been a sufficient part of this conversation.

What
this church has been doing for these decades has WORKED. How do I
know? Because this church is full of people of mature, thoughtful,
careful, LOVING, JUSTICE-SEEKING, COMPASSIONATE faith. Both those of
you who have been here all along and those of you who arrived here
and discovered it fit who you are are living proof that something
here is working. People are becoming more loving, more
justice-oriented, more compassionate in their time here. These are
shared values. These are lived values. When we, as a church, make
decisions, these are inherently in the conversations, and we end up
discussing how to best live them out.

I
have seen very few other faith communities that so effectively build
up people of faith in these ways. I admit to being a little confused
as to how it happens, because we definitely don’t have a linear
educational paradigm to develop it, but something here WORKS.

The
kindom of God is being built by this community and by the people of
this community in the places they go. We’re doing the stuff we want
to do!

We’re
living our values! We’re working with God! We’re existing in a way
we care about!

THIS
IS AWESOME – and we should probably celebrate it more.

Those
dry cisterns of Jeremiah – those aren’t ours! We’re in the fountain
of living water. Those exclusivist banquets that poor people can’t
attend because they can’t reciprocate? Those aren’t ours. We are
intentionally offering banquets for those who aren’t going to invite
us back.

A
commentator on Luke said, “Exclusive fellowship required an
exclusive table, while inclusive fellowship required an inclusive
one.^⁴”
That was beautifully said, and seems to name another prime value
around here: inclusion. We often ask ourselves about what inclusion
looks like and how to create intersectional inclusion.

Dear
ones, there are a lot of leaking, empty cisterns out there. I’d lump
all of the competitive values of the world into those. But God is
faithful. There are a lot of ways to be church, and I’m not sure
ours is the easiest, but it is a really great one, and it is WORKING.
We’re transforming each other into more loving, more just, more
compassionate, more inclusive beings and taking those values and
skills into the world. Or maybe we’re just making space together for
God to do the changing – I really don’t know how it happens.

We
are people of an inclusive fellowship, of taking the bottom seat, of
inviting everyone to the banquet. And it matters. And it is going
to keep mattering. And maybe, just maybe, the fact that it isn’t
always clear is part of how we have developed some skills at it –
we’ve had to struggle and that’s helped us grow. Thanks be to God.
Amen

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

August 28, 2022

1 Benjamin
Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, “The Art of Choosing What to Do
With Your Life” in the New York Times, August 15, 2022.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/opinion/college-students-happiness-liberal-arts.html,
accessed again 8/25/2022

2 Ibid.

3 L.C.
Tupper “Eschatology and Related Matters” Nov. 20, 1976.

4 Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Meals”.

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

Uncategorized

“Bigger Barns” based on Hosea 11:1-11 and Luke 12:13-21

July 31, 2022
by Sara Baron

I love this Hosea passage. I love the
parental vision of God, one that I think many would call maternal. I
love the imagery of holding a child, teaching a child to walk,
snuggling a baby, kneeling to feed a toddler. Hearing of God as one
who cares for us like that has immense healing power.

And, actually, I love hearing God’s
frustration that the people are missing the mark. Because the mark
is peace – not violence, and justice – not wealth accumulation,
and compassion.

And then, too, I love God’s
self-restraint. God’s anger that upon examination turns to sadness,
that the nurturing love didn’t create the society of justice God
envisioned, YET that God’s love isn’t impaired by the people turning
away. God is still defined by compassion – warm and tender, for
the people. The anger melts away, the love holds strong, and God
returns to hope that the people might be transformed by being loved.

God dreams of the people returning to
the Divine, and the Ways of Living that are compassionate, and the
passage ends with affirmation of God’s expectations those hopes would
be fulfilled.

I’d really, really like to preach on
this wonderful passage, but two things stand in my way: 1. I’m not
really that great at preaching at passages I agree with. I mean,
what more is there to say than what I just said? and 2. the gospel
has its claws in me.

The story of the bigger barns is
uncomfortable in a multitude of ways. It forces us to face questions
of security, consumption, capitalism, greed, and existential anxiety.
Which, as 21^st century Americans, are things we spend a
whole lot of energy avoiding as hard as we can.

Oh, and it feels judgy. That’s
uncomfortable too. And quite often when we read it, we feel judgy,
and, well, judged. I’m all for ignoring it, except that the degree
to which I want to look away from it suggests that I probably
shouldn’t.

I feel for the man in the parable.
He’s worked hard, he happened to luck out and have a good harvest,
and he FINALLY feels like he can stop fighting for security and just
relax a little. He can live life and enjoy it, without
fear of hunger. And then he gets slammed for it, and he dies
without being able to enjoy that security, and judged for doing it
all wrong.

And this, as my first response, is
real, and I suspect involves a whole lot of projection from the 21^st
century to the 1^st, and an awareness of the many, many
people who struggle to have enough food to survive.

But this initial, instinctual response
to the parable also required that I ignore the actual details
of the parable. Because the set up Jesus gives isn’t the one I
heard. Jesus says, “The LAND of a rich man produced abundantly.”
Which creates two immediate distinctions: the man was ALREADY rich
when the story began, AND he didn’t actually do the labor for this
harvest. In fact, I think maybe it is set up to make us aware that
OTHERS did the labor. From the man’s perspective, maybe “the land”
produced, but land doesn’t farm itself. The laborers do. But the
rich man doesn’t even acknowledge them. Nor, clearly, does he share
the bounty their work produced with THEM. Because he owns the land,
he owns the harvest, and seeks to secure it, probably AGAINST the
laborers themselves.

That is, he wasn’t lacking security to
begin with, but he kept others from having enough to survive.
According to the Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels,
in ancient Mediterranean culture, it was assumed that “all good
existed in finite, limited supply and were already
distributed…Because a pie could not grow larger, a larger piece for
anyone automatically meant a smaller piece for someone else.”¹
Now, we don’t share that assumption in the same way anymore. We
tend to think of most goods as producible, so more can be produced if
more is needed. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle.

By thinking there can always be more
produced, we end up taking unhealthy quantities of raw materials from
the earth, and we also don’t pay as much attention to when some
people acquire more than
their fair share. When the pie is assumed to be fixed, taking
the biggest slice is UNFAIR. But when there are several pies, even
taking a whole one for one’s self doesn’t create the same outrage.

The authors remind us that in that
culture, “An honorable man would thus be interested only in what
was rightfully his, meaning what he already had. He would not want
‘more.’ Anyone with a surplus would normally feel shame unless he
gave liberally to clients or the community.”²
Furthermore, “Anxiety about the future was not a peasant outlook;
anxiety about daily bread certainly was.”³

So. My first reading of this passage
involved identifying with and feeling compassion for the rich man
who was taking an unfair share of the community’s resources, and
feeling bad for him that he got judged for it. Just in case anyone
was wondering how “internalized capitalism” is going with me. 😉

I keep getting shocked by these
parables. I keep noticing, as I read the parables of Jesus, how much
they illuminate the economic systems of TODAY, and how much I buy
into them. John Dominic Crossan helps make sense of this by pointing
out that Jesus lived in a pre-industrial agricultural domination
system while we live in a post-industrial non-agricultural domination
system. I keep noticing that I don’t naturally have a 1^st
century peasant outlook on life, which seems pretty obvious, but also
maybe important.

For those who believed that goods were
all limited resources, and a zero sum game, it was then really
obvious to conclude that those who take too much aren’t being good
neighbors, or fair participants in the game. But in the USA in 2022,
there are other narratives that counter that simple fact. We live in
a society that believes that winners have a right to take what they
win, and that means that everyone else just has to deal with less.
Which means that we have taken away the moral assumption that people
shouldn’t build bigger barns.

Now, let’s get to the REALLY hard part
of this story. The rich man dies in the end. A la Steve Jobs,
having all the money didn’t make him immune to death.

While the poor people were worried
about if they could eat TODAY, the rich man was worried about the
future, and mortality was about come calling. Not even the security
of wealth and abundance changed that outcome.

But, whenever people build bigger barns
(physically or metaphorically), I think they are doing so to try to
create more security, and in doing so prevent death from coming for
them. Or at least coming for them as soon. Which
in our society is FAIR, because having more resources DOES
increase a lifespan, until a certain point. Because we live in a
society that says you have to fight with others for resources, and
some will get them and some won’t, our shared narrative as a county
is that those who are poor “haven’t worked hard enough” and we
shouldn’t help them and take away their motivation for work. Taken
to its logical end, our form of capitalism says some people “win”
a right to a longer life, and others… don’t.

I hate this narrative. And I’m not at
this point very fond of this parable. Why is Jesus always sticking
his nose in stuff?

But, anyway. I’m most struck in this
story by the ways it reflects our own existential angst, and I want
to talk about that today not just in the personal but also in the
communal.

In my 9 years with this church I’ve
heard a lot about awareness of decline, and questions of
sustainability. Looking back on old records and minutes, these
are conversations that date back a few decades as well. Because
this church is attentive to numerical trends, there has long been
awareness that the trend is one of decline.

But I don’t know how much of that
awareness has happened along side the emotional and spiritual work
that would make sense of it. My fear is that for many in this
community, it feels like if the church dies – OR CHANGES – it
means that the effort and energy they’ve given to the church didn’t
matter. And inside one’s emotional system that could easily
translate to, “my life didn’t matter because I gave my resources to
a church and it didn’t matter.” (Internal emotional systems aren’t
known for logic, nor for refusals to take flying leaps.)

And I want to say again, I think this
applies to EITHER the church DYING OR the church CHANGING. For those
who have given of time, energy, passion, prayers, presence, or money
in the past to see the parts of the church life they gave themselves
to CHANCE is HARD. I believe it is often experienced as rejection.
I believe it is often experienced as a rejection of the person
themselves. 🙁

Which is awful.

And, just to be clear, untrue.
Churches are a lot like living organisms. We need different things
at different times, and a ministry or group that is IMPERATIVE to the
well-being of the church in one season will not necessarily be in
another season. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was
imperative in its own season. And it doesn’t mean that the gifts a
person gave to that ministry or group didn’t matter.

Let me try to say this a different way.
If you would, think about a person who helped you along your way –
someone who made a difference for you. A teacher or mentor who
believed in you, or someone who helped you get a resource or
connection you couldn’t have gotten, or someone who had the time to
listen when you had something that needed to be heard. Got it?
Great.

Now, does it negate that action if it
didn’t continue forever? Of course not!

Our church isn’t going to live forever,
because nothing ever does.

But while it is here, and alive, I hope
we will spend our energy enjoying ministry together and being a gift
to our communities. I hope we won’t spend all of our energy trying
not to die, at the expense of actually living while we can.

And I hope we can remember, each of us
when it applies to us, that the gifts we’ve given to make this church
what it is are of great value. And, it is OK that seasons change.

Friends, we are in a new season, one
we’ve never been in before. As we let go of the past, I invite you
into some reflection. We aren’t going to build bigger barns (heavens
we do not need a BIGGER barn), but we do have a choice of what to put
in the one we have. When you think about the past, and what was
wonderful and life giving about it, what qualities should we keep?
What might they look like now, which is likely quite different from
how they looked then? What matters most from the past to find a new
way to have it in the present?

And, then we get to do some wondering
about how we make sure those gifts we value immensely get to the
“workers in the field” and not just the rich land owner.

Oh these parables. They don’t ever
just let things be, do they? Thanks be to God! Amen

1“Rich,
Poor, and Limited Good.” p. 400.

2Luke
12: 13-34 commentary, 278

3ibid

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

July 31, 2022

Uncategorized

Lament / Prayer / Dreaming

July 24, 2022
by Sara Baron

“A
History Lesson”

In 1968
the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren
Church to form The United Methodist Church. Both of the predecessor
denominations had social creeds, statements about what justice looked
like. This had started in 1908 when The Social Creed was passed in
the Methodist Episcopal church calling for end to child labor, a fair
wage, and safety standards.^¹
Initially, the statements of both churches were included in the
Discipline, but the 1968 merging conference created a study committee
to create a unified statement, the first edition of the Social
Principals which state where we – as a church – stand on a wide
variety of issues.^²

The
committee came to the 1972 General Conference with language that
said, “homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are
individuals of sacred worth.” (It seems worth noting that the
Stonewall Riot was in 1969, and may well have influenced the
intentional inclusion of this statement.)

However,
General Conference fussed over the language, and Don Hand, a delegate
from Southwest Texas suggested that the period be turned into a comma
followed by the phrase “though we do not condone the practice of
homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian
doctrine.”^³
It passed.

Thus
began the 50 years of EXPLICIT homophobia in The United Methodist
Church – 50 years and counting. The next General Conference –
1976 – added funding bans to prevent church funds from being used
to “promote” homosexuality. The 1984 Discipline Adopted as the
standard for ordained clergy, commitment to “fidelity in marriage
and celibacy in singleness” and “self‐avowed practicing
homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as
ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”
I remain particularly horrified that the church wrote in “fidelity
in marriage and celibacy in singleness” in order to attack LGB
people, while claiming to do otherwise. It took until 1996 to ban
clergy from presiding at “homosexual unions” and to tell churches
they couldn’t host them.

At the
same time, occasionally, the UMC would make attempts to remind others
that they should be in ministry “for and with all persons” (1996)
and ask “families and churches not to reject or condemn their
lesbian and gay members and friends.” (2000.) Isn’t is great the
church asked people not to reject people while actively rejecting
people? In a great turn of irony the 2008 General Conference adopted
a resolution to oppose homophobia and heterosexism. (FACEPALM.) You
can’t make this stuff up, can you?

Meanwhile,
over the course of these years, the AIDS crisis raged, suicides
stayed common, and LGBTQIA+ kids were kicked out of their homes and
onto the street. Clergy were defrocked, and people called by God
kept their calls quiet (or lived in death spiral closets),
individuals were rejected from their churches and families, and the
church’s attention remained on an odd definition of sexual purity
INSTEAD of focusing on income inequality, poverty, colonialism,
sexism, racism, or climate change.

In 2012
there was an attempt to acknowledge that people of faith disagree
about homosexuality. It failed. 49% to 51%.

Meanwhile,
as you may well know, individuals, churches, communities, and
sometimes even Annual Conferences refused to obey unjust laws. Many
organizations were founded by people who worked for inclusion, many
churches became Reconciling (26 years ago here), clergy refused to
obey rules about homosexual unions and marriages, Bishops refused to
deny people ordinations, people of God simply refused to obey unjust
laws.

And
those who wanted control, those who wanted to have authority over
OTHER people’s bodies, other people’s love, other people’s sex lives,
were really, really upset that they could pass the laws but they
couldn’t crush the dissent.

In 2016
this came to a boiling point at General Conference, and instead of
passing more laws from both sides of its mouth, the church created a
Commission to create a new way forward, and called for a Special
Session of General Conference in 2019 to receive and act on their
report. The Commission called for a moderate way forward, “The One
Church Plan” which let Annual Conferences, Bishops, clergy, and
churches be led by their own consciousness and faith. It aimed to
remove explicit homophobia from church policy but protect those who
wished to live it. Meanwhile progressives called for a FULL end to
homophobia with the “Simple Plan” and conservatives to a doubling
down on it all with the “Traditional Plan.” (While I’m teaching
this history lesson, I still can’t make myself explain all the
horrors of the Traditional Plan.)

The
2019 General Conference passed the Traditional Plan.

And, as
you may know, there was general outrage and horror, and even the
moderates in the USA got upset, and it became certain that The UMC
was headed to divorce, with the only questions being which side would
exit, where the moderates would land, and how the money would be
divided. And then, and I’m pretty sure you DO know this, there was a
pandemic, and here we still stand. 50 years of death and
destruction. And so, we lament.

“Where
are We Now?”

The
United Methodist Church these days is stuck. We’ve realized that we
cannot stay together – not when some of the church says that the
most important litmus test of faith is fidelity to homophobia at all
costs — and the rest of us … I don’t know, exist and don’t agree
with that immoral and theologically bankrupt assessment. On May 1^st,
after years (decades?) of planning, the “Global Methodist Church”
(GMC) launched, inviting churches and clergy to leave The United
Methodist Church and join the GMC. That church is designed for
those who think homophobia is faithfulness to God, although oddly
that isn’t on their website. Slowly, but rather consistently, some
churches are “disaffiliating” from The United Methodist Church
and joining the GMC. I wouldn’t call it a mass exodus, perhaps
because leaving involves paying a fair share of debts owed, ministry
shares, and shared pension liability, and perhaps because their
theology is shallow and deviates wildly from Jesus’s.

There
was a hope among many that the 2020 General Conference would pass
legislation to allow a mostly graceful way forward, allowing
churches, clergy, and even Bishops to leave The UMC. However, the
next General Conference is now scheduled for 2024, (2020 never
happened) and things keep changing. There is, unfortunately, little
hope that the denomination’s official homophobic stances will change
in 2024, but there is SOME hope that our Annual Conference might
become a part of the church that refuses to acknowledge such laws.

In the
meantime, we HERE remain committed to the Reconciling statement:

“We celebrate God’s gift of diversity and value the
wholeness made possible in community equally shared and shepherded by
all. We welcome and affirm people of every gender identity, gender
expression, and sexual orientation, who are also of every age, race,
ethnicity, physical and mental ability, level of education, and
family structure, and of every economic, immigration, marital, and
social status, and so much more. We acknowledge that we live in a
world of profound social, economic, and political inequities. As
followers of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the pursuit of justice and
pledge to stand in solidarity with all who are marginalized and
oppressed.”

We
continue to celebrate love and weddings for God’s beloveds, with no
boundaries around gender or sexual orientation. We continue to
welcome into membership all of God’s beloveds, and invite people to
be in leadership in the church when they are willing and able. We
work in regular and consistent opposition to both the unjust laws of
the church, the implementation of those laws, the homophobia and
transphobia of the country and the world, and the patriarchal, white
supremacist narrative that only some people matter.

And, we
know that there are beloveds of God who cannot stomach being with us
because we are a part of The United Methodist Church, and/or
Christianity, and the harm they’ve experienced from one or both.

We are
in-between. Clear on what we believe, but stuck without a good way
forward, aware of harm happening in the meantime, and yet still
hoping God can help us find a way forward. That’s what this time of
worship is about – praying for help in the midst of all that is
“where we are now.”

“A
Glimpse of God’s Vision”

I know
that no local church, no denomination, and no clergy person will ever
be perfect. We’re human, we’re finite, our perspectives are limited,
and our needs differ from those around us.

But
sometimes I let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I forget to
even dream with God about where God wants the church to go (because
if we can’t be perfect, why bother???) I don’t have the full vision
of God wants, no one person does, but I am going to share with you
what I can see, so that it becomes part of the conversation that can
become whole.

I
believe that the GMC is predominated by wealthy, cis, straight, white
men who are angry they couldn’t control the movement of the Spirit.
That helps me see what I want the church to look like: economically
diverse, and careful to center the voices of people living in
poverty; diverse in gender expression and careful to center the
voices of those who are trans and non-binary; diverse in sexual
expression and careful to center the voices of those who are
LGBTQIA+; racially and ethnically diverse and careful to center the
voices of people of color and immigrants; with men, women, and
non-binary people, with carefulness in centering the experiences and
needs of women and non-binary people. My language here is very
careful, because I believe in community where all are welcome and
fully engaged members, but the hierarchies of the world enter the
church with us and unless we INTENTIONALLY invert the power dynamics
of the world, they’ll replicate themselves in the church.

And, of
course, I want to be a part of a community open the radical movement
of the Spirit. The GMC uses scripture as a means of control, to
limit people and prescribe their lives. I hope to be part of a
church that sees scripture as an invitation to dialogue about what
matters, what justice looks like, and how we might work together for
the common good of all of God’s beloveds.

When I
listen to Jesus, I hear a lot of intentional inversions of the power
dynamics of the world, so I’m pretty sure he’s into that. I also
hear an amazing amount of empowerment, and reminders that together,
the people have enough to care for each other. The world believes in
scarcity, but the church is called to believe in abundance.

At this
moment in time, I see several intersecting crises that I believe we
are all called to be attending to: poverty and income inequality,
climate change, militarism and escalation of violence, and an
epidemic of loneliness. (In terms of analysis, the way we practice
capitalism seems fundamental to all of these concerns.) I hope that
when the church stops infighting about who is lovable in God’s eyes
(eyeroll) and acknowledges the answer “everyone” we might put our
energy and attention to enacting that by working on the current
crises. (I know, all too well, than when we move from explicit
homophobia to implicit homophobia and transphobia not nearly enough
will change. I know that, and I’ll keep working on it. But the care
of all people includes these pieces TOO.)

At its
worst, religion is the set of myths that empower the societal systems
that create injustice, inequality, hierarchy, and despair. I think
one of the tells of this use of religion is when it is focused on
control.

BUT, at
it’s best, religion lives out the love of God for all people,
dreams of a society of equity, justice, equality, and hope. I think
one of the tells of this use of religion is SHARED power.

While I
hope we will speak, act, live out, and advocate for justice in all
the crisis areas, I think we are best set up to change the world is
by being a place for humans to really connect,
to God and each other, and therefore changing the

epidemic
of loneliness. We are already a community. We already have a
building that can help people gather. We are already practicing
caring, and listening. Many among us have already have lives
transformed by being a part of this community, that is, by God and by
each other. Seeking to use our gifts and resources to connect with
others, and transform loneliness would ALSO increase our empathy and
lead us towards more valuable work in KNOWING that our well-being is
interconnected. I dream of a church where people are loved exactly
as they are, and listened to, and thus healed, and thus a source of
healing and love for the world around them. I think it is possible,
too!

To do
this, though, would require a rather different way of “being”
than we are now, and I am waiting to see how the Spirit moves in
others, to learn how we will move forward together.

1 https://www.umc.org/en/content/methodist-history-1908-social-creed-for-workers

2 https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-why-do-we-have-social-principles-where-did-they-come-from

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Methodism#United_Methodist_Church,
the word “doctrine” was changed to “teaching” by friendly
amendment before the amendment and statement passed.

Worship 7/24/2022

Uncategorized

“Desperate Places” based on Amos 7:7-17 and Luke 10:25-37

July 10, 2022
by Sara Baron

The
Good Samaritan parable is one of the best known in our tradition. I
believe most people have heard about it, and there is a shared common
understanding: be like the Good Samaritan who showed compassion.

“Go
and do likewise.” Amen

Or…maybe…
there are some other things to consider. Even with this story we
know so well, even with the simplistic moral that we struggle to
live.

This
week I found myself wondering about the robbers. I’ve never paid
attention to them before. After all, they’re more in the set up to
the parable than the parable itself. But I’ve always taken for
granted the “facts” that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was
dangerous, and roaming groups of robbers attacked people there,
especially people traveling alone, and it was sort of a gamble to
take that road.

Which
makes me sort of wonder about myself, and why I took that for
granted.

Upon
examination, I am well aware of places like the Jerusalem to Jericho
road. I’ve spent my life getting messages about where not to go –
especially alone at night, about what not to drink, about making sure
I have my carkeys in hand before I leave a building, about holding
purses in particular ways in particular areas… etc. So, perhaps, I
took for granted that there are dangerous places because it so easily
mirrors the world as I know it.

However,
I’m at this point in my life well aware that “dangerous places”
are actually “desperate places.” Most people who have
non-violent, viable ways to care for themselves and their loved ones
choose those options. It is when those options are closed off that
people are forced into other choices. And, let’s note that addiction
is a huge factor in increasing desperation and urgency, and addiction
itself is incredibly responsive to social factors as well. Desperate
people make desperate choices. If we want to decrease the prevalence
of those choices, the most effective way is to decrease the
desperation.

Which
leads me back to wondering about those robbers. WHY were there bands
of robbers along that road? The answer I’ve been taught to give is
because it was rocky and it was easy to hide behind the rocks, which
perhaps answers the question of “why there” but doesn’t actually
get to the core question of “why at all?”

Because
being a part of a roaming band of robbers isn’t an ideal way to live.

I
don’t think people decided to do it for fun, or adventure, or even
profit. It was an act of desperation.

We
have some knowledge of what that desperation looked like in those
days. You may remember that Ancient Israel brought great
intentionality to making sure that each family had land access, and
that it couldn’t be taken away from them. For many generations, the
agrarian society had been largely sustainable, even if there were
imperfections in the system, and greed from the top. But, people
farmed the land, fed their families, and took care of each other.
They even had enough to give away, to care for both the religious
leaders and those who by circumstance, were landless (widows,
orphans, foreigners).

At
its best, the system outlined in the Torah and lived in Ancient
Israel created a system of radical equality. This lasted until
kingship, of course, but between the people and the prophets there
seems to have been maintained an idea that all are equal before God,
and all people have a right to a livelihood.

By
the time of Jesus, the system was buckling under the pressure from
the Roman Empire to enrich the upper class at the expense of everyone
else. The tax burden was so high that landowners regularly fell into
debt, indebted landowners often lost their land and their livelihood,
those without land struggled to get hired as day laborers, and those
who couldn’t get hired had no way to eat except to steal. The
ECONOMIC SYSTEM created the conditions by which people were so
desperate that bands of robbers stole what they could to eat while
they could.

Which
is to say, that the backdrop of the Good Samaritan story is the
dehumanization of the people, the ways people were seen as
expendable, and the desperation such policies create.

Jesus
thus started a story saying, “A man was going down from Jerusalem
to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him,
beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead,” but only because
the people he was talking to were already aware of the circumstances
of their lives, and that the story really started with, “The Empire
is stealing our land, our labor, our livelihood, and our hope. Those
fighting to live are desperate, and that desperation is visible in
the bands of robbers who hide behind rocks on the road from Jerusalem
to Jericho.”

For
me, remembering the robbers are people too, actually changes the way
I hear the story. Now, after I had this insight about the robbers I
went to my handy “Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic
Gospels” (one of the books I sighed in relief over when I unpacked)
and read what Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh had to say about
this story. And, as per usual, their analysis suggest mine hasn’t
yet gone far enough. Here is a part of their textual notes on Luke
10:25-37:

The priest and the Levite would
avoid contact with a naked and therefore presumably dead body. A
priest could touch a corpse only to bury immediate family (cf. Ezek
44:25). The fact that the injured man had no clothes would make
ascertaining his social status difficult.

A Samaritan traveling back and
forth in Judean territory may have been a trader, a despised
occupation. This is suggested by the fact that he possesses oil,
wine, and considerable funds. Many traders were wealthy, having
grown rich at the expense of others. They were therefore considered
thieves. They frequented inns that were notoriously dirty and
dangerous and run by persons whose public status was below even that
of traders. Only people without family or social connections would
ever risk staying at a public inn.

Both the victim and the
Samaritan were thus despised persons who would not have elicited
initial sympathy from Jesus’ peasant hearers. That sympathy would
have gone to the bandits. They were frequently peasants who had lost
their land to the elite lenders whom all peasants feared. The
surprising twist in the story is thus the compassionate action of one
stereotyped as a scurrilous thief.¹

Now,
here is where I’m shocked by this perspective: I don’t think in our
society that there is generalized agreement that desperate people
just trying to get by are the heroes while wealthy individuals or
corporations underpaying their employees to enrich themselves are the
real thieves. I think, somehow, we’ve societally bought into the
idea that someone shoplifting food for their family is MORE at fault
than the employer who pockets what could otherwise be a living wage.

And
that worries me.

I’ve
mentioned before that the most common theft in the USA is WAGE THEFT²
which is almost never prosecuted, while petty theft lands people in
jail. But, I don’t hear much outrage about this. I fear we’ve given
up on even the ideals of justice, and bought into the narratives of
capitalism – including the ones that say that companies and the
PEOPLE who own them should maximize profits at all times no matter
who they harm, AND that people who are poor are either not trying
hard enough, or failures, and if they wanted to, they could “win”
too. But, the truth is that OUR economic system is terrifyingly
similar to that of Jesus’ time. It is similar to gambling: the house
always wins. Money flows up, people at the bottom are considered
expendable, and the fear of landing at the bottom keeps everyone else
quiet in the face of injustice.

The
difference, it seems, is that at that time the people still saw it as
unfair (and not just “the way things are”) and that JESUS was
willing to talk about it.

It
seems shocking, then, that the fact that the wealthy trader was the
hero is the TWIST in this story, because it isn’t really the twist
for us. I think the twist for us is realizing that the impoverished
bands of bandits were ASSUMED to be the heroes. (Think Robin Hood.)
Along with the fact that it was the Samaritan’s wealth and occupation
that were ALSO hated, and not just his background. Well, and the
idea that being wealthy was seen as being a thief.

OK,
so, basically, the original context of this story is so radical for
us, that we can’t really get past it into the story, because we’re
still trying to process the concepts of justice contained in the
context. Or at least I am.

And,
actually, I think that’s enough for today.

About
a decade ago I learned that The
United Methodist Church is getting wealthier. That is, the wealth of
individual members is increasing. Specifically, as members die off
in small rural churches (or when those churches close), new members
are mostly found in church plants in wealthy suburbs.

When
this was shared with me, it was shared as a neutral fact. I’ve spent
a decade being horrified by it. Jesus, and John Wesley for the
record, focused their ministries on people in poverty. If we are a
church that is good news to the wealthy, but NOT to the poor, we need
to take stock of what our message is and whose our message is.

For
quite some time, this congregation was predominated by white upper
middle class people, the engineers and middle management of GE in
most cases. In the most recent decades, it has diversified, thanks
be to God. However, the models and assumptions of being a white
upper middle class church still linger among us, and I believe our
work to walk into the PRESENT as well as the future includes noticing
where we are still holding on to those models and assumptions.

Because,
friends, the followers of Jesus who heard him tell the parable the
first time assumed the WEALTHY were thieves, and the petty robbers
were heroes. They saw what was happening economically and what
impact it had on people, and they found it morally reprehensible. To
follow Jesus, to follow John Wesley, to build the kindom, to see the
world clearly, I think that we need to too. May God help us. Amen

1Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual
Notes on Luke 10:25-37” pages 270-1.

2“This
report assesses the prevalence and magnitude of one form of wage
theft—minimum wage violations (workers being paid at an effective
hourly rate below the binding minimum wage)—in the 10 most
populous U.S. states. We find that, in these states, 2.4 million
workers lose $8 billion annually (an average of $3,300 per year for
year-round workers) to minimum wage violations—nearly a quarter of
their earned wages. This form of wage theft affects 17 percent of
low-wage workers, with workers in all demographic categories being
cheated out of pay.” –
https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/

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

July 10, 2022

Uncategorized

“Grieving What We’ve Lost” based on Psalm 69: 1-3,…

July 3, 2022
by Sara Baron

I don’t even know where to begin.

There are so many layers of lament.

For many years, I have regularly advocated for
Reproductive Justice at the New York State Capital, with both Planned
Parenthood and Clergy for Reproductive Choice. Often, one of the
older women in the groups I was advocating with would wear a hanger –
a hanger necklace, hanger earrings, or carry one with them.

Confession: I thought that was sort of tacky.

Especially before 2016, I didn’t think Roe v. Wade could
really fall, and the reminder that people die from illegal abortions
felt like a narrative from another era.

So, once again, I feel the need to apologize to my
elders for not heeding their wisdom. As I remember those moments
with other advocates, I’ve been considering their ages, and noticing
that they were of reproductive age before 1972. They KNEW the impact
of those hangers. It wasn’t just a part of history to them, and I
think that’s why they KNEW better than I that it could become a part
of the present as well.

That’s one part of it all.

I want to acknowledge that not just women can get
pregnant. There are men and non-binary people who are also at risk.
And for the sake of this sermon, I am going to say “women” and
“mothers” sometimes. These words doesn’t encompass men and
non-binary people, but women are the broadest category of affected
people, and I am going to acknowledge that by using the words “women”
and “mothers.”

Another piece of it all is the is the awareness of how
unequal the impact of this decision will be. Not just in terms of
red states and blue states, although that’s a big deal. But also in
terms of socio-economic status – people of means have ALWAYS had
access to safe, medically appropriate abortions, even if they had to
fly to Europe to get them. As per usual, those who live in poverty
will pay a higher price. AND, it is impossible to ignore that
maternal mortality is abominably high in the United States, and most
of the deaths are black women*¹,
followed by other brown women*, while WHITE women* have pretty
reasonable maternal mortality rates. Which is to say, in stark
terms, that an impact of this decision is that more black women* are
going to die.

To make this even move problematic some of the unspoken
and underlying motivation for abortion bans is white supremacy –
whereby there is a desire to prevent white women* having white babies
from ending those pregnancies, and a willingness to end all abortion
access to keep white women* pregnant with white babies. So that
motivation then ends up killing black and brown women.* There was
Freudian slip this week when a congresswoman called the Supreme Court
decision “a historic victory for white life.”²
It was odd to hear it stated directly instead of just being implied.

That’s a part of it all.

Then there is the normal, obvious part of grief around
this decision: the impact on those who are pregnant and don’t want
to be, and the incredible variation of how that came to be and what
impact it will have on them. Earlier this month The Atlantic
published an article entitled “The Most Important Study in the
Abortion Debate” which reports on the research of Diana Green
Foster looking the difference between what happens to women* who were
or were not able to access an abortion.³
They study lasted for 5 years, and included 1000 people seeking to
end pregnancies. They found that those who were denied an abortion:

were more likely to end
up living in poverty. They had worse credit scores and, even years
later, were more likely to not have enough money for the basics, such
as food and gas. They were more likely to be unemployed. They were
more likely to go through bankruptcy or eviction. “The two groups
were economically the same when they sought an abortion,…one became
poorer.”⁴

Also, those who were denied an abortion were more likely
to be with a partner who abused them, more likely to be a single
parent, had more trouble bonding with their child, felt more trapped,
had more anxiety, had lower self esteem, and were less likely to even
have aspirational life plans. They were sicker. Additionally, two
of the pregnant people denied an abortion died from their pregnancies
(none of the people who had abortions died.)

Since most people seeking an abortion already have kids,
the research was also able to study the impact of not being able to
access an abortion on the existing kids. That is, they were less
likely to hit developmental milestones and more likely to live in
poverty. This truth ALSO applied to children born after the abortion
or lack of one.

And, of course, there
were emotional impacts. “Afterward, nearly all said that
termination had been the right decision. At five years, only 14
percent felt any sadness about having an abortion; two in three ended
up having no or very few emotions about it at all. “Relief” was
the most common feeling, and an abiding one.”⁵

This decision made by the Supreme Court condemns
impoverished women* and families to harder lives, because – as we
know – the ones who are pregnant are the ones who know what is best
for them and their families. The data backs it up. They know when
they can’t adequately care for a child or another child.

So, that’s another part of it.

And also, there are the
pieces where some states are having FULL bans on abortions, without
exceptions for the life of mother**⁶
nor for rape nor incest. Now, I have major concerns about the impact
of having to convince someone you were raped or experienced incest in
order to access healthcare, but nevertheless, the impact of being
forced to carry that child to term is enormous. And, many people
will die simply because of the lack of exception for the life of the
mother**.

So, that’s another part of it.

I’m hoping breaking this up actually helps a little. I
mean, it is depressing, I know. But when all of it swirls together
into one huge overwhelming grief, it feels even more out of control.
Knowing there are layers helps me distinguish between them.

I am now at the personal layer, the place where grief is
for me. Not just for me, but for me. The decision tells me that I
do not have authority over my own body. I don’t have a right to my
own body. “Big brother” has the right to tell me what I can and
cannot do with MY BODY.

When this decision came out, I became a second class
citizen. SOME PEOPLE in this country have rights over their body. I
am no longer one of them. SOME PEOPLE have bodily autonomy. I am no
longer one of them. SOME PEOPLE have a right to life-saving
healthcare. I am no longer one of them.

To go back to The
Atlantic, “The legal and
political debate about abortion in recent decades has tended to focus
more on the rights and experience of embryos and fetuses than the
people who gestate them.”⁷

My body, in this country, has more value as a womb for a
future human than as an existing human.

The Supreme Court gaveth, and the Supreme Court tooketh
away.

The history of women* as being property of men is still
present, and still having impact. We are now, it seems, property of
the state who can tell us what we can and cannot do with OUR BODIES.

That’s another part.

And, a friend on FB this week put things into some
context. She is a person of color. She said, “If they’re willing
to do this to white women, I shudder to think what they’re willing to
do to us.” I’m aware that some of the strength of my horror at
having bodily autonomy taken from me comes from the fact that I
thought it was mine to begin with. Which has a lot to do with my
places of privilege in society.

That’s another part.

And along with it, is the fact that I live in New York ,
which not only protects the right to abortion but isn’t even one of
the border states people will flock to when they lose privileges in
their own state. (OK, fine, I hope. May my birth state of PA hold
strong.)

What I’ve lost is more theoretical than for those who
have actually lost the rights to their bodies in their states, and I
have to hold that in tension too.

That’s another part.

Those are many of the pieces of grief and tension I’ve
been experiencing. These are my current lament, and I think the
Bible shows us that lament is important.

But what do we do NOW?

Where is that good news God appointed Isaiah and Jesus
to share? Where is the good news for the POOR? For the captives in
their own bodies, the oppressed?

I may be stating the obvious, but it isn’t here yet.

But, we don’t stop there.

We also do what we’ve done today. We grieve, because
there has been loss. AND, we deny the narrative. The state has said
I don’t have authority over my body, and many of the rest of you
don’t too.

That may be LEGALLY true, but it is morally and
ethnically bankrupt. The state cannot take away the sanctity of
bodily autonomy, the value of human rights. We deny the power of the
state to bureaucratically take dominion over human bodies, and we do
so in whatever means necessary. Because GOD is the one who said we
are created in the image of God, and our lives are sacred, and the
state can’t take away what God has endowed.

There is a wonderful tradition of progressive Christian
activism to support those in need of abortions, and the strength of
that tradition will be a part of what guides us now. There are
amazing new leaders emerging, and part of our work is to listen for
great ideas and support them. There are groups led by those who know
EXACTLY what to do to support the most vulnerable, and we support
those groups.

In the meantime, I suggest we all take some inventories
of the spiritual and physical resources we have available to us
(communal and individual) so we know what we have to offer when
support is asked of us.

God doesn’t let oppression stand. We’re working with
God towards justice, and listening to the urgings of the Spirit and
the wisdom of those impacted as we find our ways forward in this new
(and old) struggle. Amen

1*women,
girls, and people who can get pregnant.

2 https://www.npr.org/2022/06/26/1107710215/roe-overturned-mary-miller-historic-victory-for-white-life

3Annie
Lowry, “The Most Important Study in the Abortion Debate”
published in The Atlantic on
Jun2 11, 2022. Accessed June 30, 2022.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/abortion-turnaway-study-roe-supreme-court/661246/

4Lowry.

5Lowry.

6**Mother
or parent.

7Lowry.

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

July 3, 2022

Uncategorized

“Spiritual and Physical” Galatians 5:1, 13-25 and Luke 9:51-62

June 26, 2022
by Sara Baron

A Caveat: Because of the pandemic, worship was done before the Supreme Court Decision came out. It will be the focus next week.

——

I’ve been repeating “Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of God has
no where to lay his head” rather a lot recently. Just to myself
though, I haven’t muttered it to others, yet.

Last weekend, my family moved
from the house I’d lived in for 8 years to a new one, which is more
or less up the street. The new house is a better size for our family
than the one I’d bought for myself.

And yet, there are parts of me
that are a little bit out of joint with owning a house, with buying a
bigger house, with having STUFF, and such a sufficient amount of it
at that. I wonder if I’m being an authentic Jesus follower, if he
was the one who had no where to lay his head and I’m the one buying a
bigger house.

So as I’ve heaved boxes up and
down stairs, and found places to put my favorite bowls, and organized
book boxes by topic, I’ve been thinking about foxes, holes, birds,
nests, and where I place my head.

I’ve also been thinking about
how lucky I am. There are so many people who are homeless, or
inadequately housed. To live in a safe home is not a reality just
anyone can afford, which is a problem. I want to live in a country
(and a world) were safe and adequate housing is universal. Where the
safety net is strong enough to provide housing for all, and
reasonable housing at that.

But, what about that Jesus guy,
wandering around with his band of followers, telling would be
disciples that he has no where to lay his head? I don’t know. I
think perhaps being uncomfortable with possessions is a good thing,
particularly in capitalism that tells us we are what we can buy. But
I also notice that Jesus didn’t have a home nor a consistent place to
lay his head, but he was welcomed into many people’s homes. He opted
out of the system, but the system of housing and hospitality was big
enough to provide for him and for his followers. Others had houses
and they used them to house Jesus. And perhaps that is a
responsibility of having spaces – making sure they’re being used as
they’re needed.

While I really like the list of
the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, I’m a little bit uneasy with
what appears to be some pretty strong body-soul dualism in the
passage. I worry when we assume that bodies are bad and spirits are
good, for a whole lot of reasons. One of them is that both women and
people of color get associated with “bodies” in that break down,
while white men get to be “spirits.” But another is that I
simply don’t believe we’re divided that way. I don’t think our
bodies can be separated from our spirits. We are whole beings, and
to claim that the body is somehow distinct from the mind, or from the
spirit, or from the emotions misses a whole lot about what it means
to be alive.

So, the good news is that the
body v. spirit thing that initially seems rather strong in the
passage isn’t so much upon further inspection. The Galatians had
been having some rather big, awful fights, mostly about if new
Christians needed to be circumcised. So Paul conflates the flesh of
– well – circumcision with the flesh of self-centered living and
condemns them both. Which means the fight was actually about who was
getting included and who was being excluded, and Paul was responding
both to the disagreement and to how it was being fought. He urges
God-centered living. That is, “For Paul, hard debate and
infighting among young Christians in Galatia were an outward and
visible sign of enslavement.”¹
Paul reminds them that they are free from that sort of behavior, and
called instead to love and relationship.

And while at first it seems that
Paul dismisses desire, it is more that he suggests that instead of
denying desires nor submitting to them, the people focus their
desires on what is good. That is, on things of God. Of course,
communities disagree, right? But that’s a part of this too.
“Conflict is part and parcel of intimacy and risking oneself in
community. When we enter that place of co-discerned vulnerability,
however, generosity, patience, kindness, and faithfulness can provide
‘palliative care’ amid the inevitable disagreements that ensure.
Such qualities are excellent companions on the journey, when we risk
intimacy with others in community.”²

Which gets us back to the
beginning of the passage: the freedom to love and be in relationship.
That’s the whole point of freedom, is the freedom FOR love. Perhaps
it is of use to ask ourselves what we need to use and maintain that
freedom – to remind ourselves that nothing gets in the way of love,
and to free ourselves for love?

Now, Luke’s gospel lesson is
permeated with urgency. I’m not even sure why. Is this urgency that
Jesus really lived in his life? And if so, was it urgency to get to
Jerusalem, or just urgency to connect with as many people as he could
to help them see God’s love and life’s possibilities? Was it urgency
to show compassion?

The gospel seems to say whatever
it was he was urgent about it was SERIOUS. It was, “let the dead
bury their own dead” serious, and not like with Elijah let Elisha
say goodby to his family (that’s the reference to “hand to plow”
that you might otherwise have missed.)

The early Christian community
experienced a lot of urgency, in no small part because they thought
the end of the world was coming any minute now. So it is possible
their urgency projects back onto Jesus, OR that it is authentic. I
don’t know. But I do know that urgency has some costs.

It is draining.

It burns us out.
It can’t be
sustained.

And while there are injustices
(everywhere!) and lack of compassion (too often!) and needs for
compassion and connection (all the time!) – no single one of us is
asked to do it all, all the time with urgency. But sometimes we
think we are, and that just means we hurt ourselves trying to love.
Which isn’t really what we’re trying to do.

I have been appreciative of the
questions, “what is important and what is urgent” and separating
out the two, so that the IMPORTANT gets done even if the urgent says
it is more pressing. I have to remind myself of this a lot, because
I don’t like to disappoint anyone, and I’d sort of rather be able to
do both.

But that, I think may be where I
find the intersection of the spiritual and the physical to be really
important. Neither my spirit, which needs rest, nor my body, which
needs rest, can press on indefinitely.

Nor can anyone else’s.

The freedom to love in Galatians
is set up so that we TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. That’s what we’re
supposed to use it for. Because we all need each other, and things
work best when we’re doing what we love and are good at and trusting
others to do the same. That’s how both communities and societies do
best. That’s part of what the kindom looks like.

This week I reflected on what I
learned from the clergy person who took me on as a seminary intern.
The Rev. Ed Hansen was nearing the end of his ministry when he took
the time to teach me at the beginning of mine. And he was made of
patience. He let me follow him around for a year, without offering
much to him or the community, and he let me then ask him questions
about everything I saw. I am aware I will spend the rest of my
ministry the way I’ve spent the last 18 – trying to be as loving as
Ed.

Because, as a person who got to
follow him around for hours every week, I got to see Ed interact with
a lot of people: the church members, the church leaders, the church
staff, homeless people asking for assistance, his children, his
partner, people who walked up to him in restaurants because he wore a
collar. I saw him be unfailingly patient and loving to each and
every one of those people. It was one of the most moving things I’ve
ever seen.

So, I asked him about it.
Because that was what I did. I followed him around and I asked him
questions. So I asked how he was so patient, and so loving, with
everyone. And he said, “Well, isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t
that what it means to follow Jesus, to treat people with the love God
has for them?”

Yes, I think it is. And, dear
ones, that’s where I allow there to be urgency (and importance): to
try to use my interactions with people as expressions of God’s love
for them. For their bodies, their souls, their whole beings. I
suggest to you as well, that this is a good use of a life. May God
help us. Amen

1
J. Williams Harkins, Feasting on the Word, on Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Pastoral Commentary, page 186.

2Same,
188.

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

June 26, 2022

Uncategorized

“Towers of Babel” based on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts…

June 5, 2022
by Sara Baron

If you hear the story of the
Tower of Babel and scratch your head in confusion, I believe that is
a sign you are hearing it right. “Why build a tower?” “Why
was God upset about a tower?” “Huh?”

The context clue that I believe
we need to understand the story is that some of ancient Israel’s
neighbors were really into building HIGH “towers” You may think,
perhaps, of the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, or the Babylonian ziggurat
which was a huge temple, sort of like a pyramid, built as a worship
complex for their deity.

So, in the midst of an old, old
myth trying to explain why different peoples spoke different
languages, the Ancient Israelite’s also managed to sneak in some
propaganda against their neighbors. So, that’s why a tower, and
since those towers were parts of other faith traditions, that’s why
God was said to be jealous.

I rather like this confusing
ancient myth. I appreciate the question, “why can’t we communicate
with each other” and I even like the premise that if we could just
communicate well, we could do anything. I find this to be a story I
go back to, as I think of various things that confuse language or
communication, and I associate them with the Tower of Babel.

To some degree, I think the
story claims that the Tower was a sign of arrogance, and arrogance
needed to be tapped down. More directly, it claims the people were
getting too powerful, and God was jealous of their power, but that
doesn’t sound like good theology to me.

The Tower of Babel story tries
to explain what separates us from each other, why we can’t work
together, perhaps even why we so easily perceive ourselves as groups
of “us” and “them.” These are some big, important questions!
I’d like answers too! (I’d rather not blame God.)

What keeps us from working
towards the common good? Why do we perceive others as “others,”
and sometimes as enemies? What keeps us from seeing that justice for
any moves us towards justice for all? Why DO we throw each other
under the bus?

When we are clearly hardwired
for connection, made by God for connection, why does it so often
fail?

Why are there wars? Why is there
hunger? Why is there abuse? Why is there violence?

Why can’t we just care for each
other, and use the abundant resources of the earth for good?

It is hard to consume the news
without landing on these questions. Why is Russian invading Ukraine?
Is it about power? Money? Prestige? Why are there so many mass
shootings? What has happened in the lives of the shooters to lead
them to their actions?

We don’t even need the news. We
can just look around. Why is there a need for a free community
breakfast in one of the wealthiest countries in the world – why do
we have a society that allows people to go hungry when it doesn’t
have to? Why are beloved children of God homeless, when it would be
LESS expensive to house people than it is not to?

Relatedly, why is mental health
care hard to access when so many people need it? Why are so many
people self-medicating with drugs that lead to addiction – what is
aching in them, and how could things be different so it wouldn’t
ache?

As a note, I believe that the
answer to a lot of the questions I’ve asked is actually “trauma”
and the extent to which we can become informed about trauma and
responsive to people in their midst of their trauma MAY WELL be the
extent to which we are useful at changing the world towards the
kindom.

There are smaller, and still
important, pieces of separation too. The ones we all experience.
Friendships that fall apart. Distance from family members.
Disagreements in groups we’re part of, sometimes ones that create too
much conflict to keep the group together. Violations of core values,
that can’t be overcome. Experiences of God as distant. And those
hurt too. And those matter too.

The Tower of Babel story invites
us into these questions, it invites us into the heartbreak under
these questions. Because it isn’t an intellectual exercise to say
“why is there war?” Even from afar, it is heartbreaking to know
what is happening to human beings because there is a war. It isn’t
an intellectual exercise to say, “why do families fall apart?”
It is heartbreaking to see families fall apart, and the stories I
hear tell me the pain can last for generations.

There are so many ways to
distract ourselves from these questions, and from the pain under
them, but I don’t think we do ourselves any good with avoidance. I
think we have to face the heartbreak, and sit with it, to hear it out
and letting God move us to healing.

And, being me, that’s what I
hear in Pentecost. It is, I hope, easy to see that the story of
Pentecost is an undoing of the story of the Tower of Babel. People
from many different places can suddenly understand each other.
Communication is restored. The preaching of Peter suggests God is
active with the people, all the people, erasing divisions between
them. Peter says even nature will take note of the difference!

And where does it end? With
healing. “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved.” For some of us (me) the word “saved” has been laden
with layers of problematic meaning. I have to be intentional in not
running away from the word, and in reminding myself what it means to
the Bible.

Peter wasn’t talking about
heaven and hell. Peter was talking about a wonderful combination of
important things: healing the sort of healing that goes right down
the core of a person’s soul as well as their body, and also to their
RELATIONSHIPS and connections to community; along side something we
might call freedom, but is so much more – freedom from fear,
freedom from oppression and freedom from oppressing, freedom from
continued cycles of abuse and violence and brokenness. Peter was
talking about life with God, at the very best it can be.

Peter is talking about life in
the kindom of God, and how it changes everything. The “saving”
he is talking about is the undoing of all the things we’ve been
taking about with the Tower of Babel and SEPARATION.

Saving, here, is connection,
relationship, full and abundant LIFE.

These stories, held together,
offer us space to reflection on disconnection and connection,
miscommunication and good communication, brokenness and healing.
And, I hope, they invite us, again, into the kindom. To live with
connection, communication, and healing. To pay attention to what
brings full and abundant life, including the need to sometimes sit
with our heartbreak until it releases us, and then to seek, once
again, full hearts, by the grace of God. May God help us. Amen

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

June 5, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

May 29, 2022
by Sara Baron

“Resurrection People” based on Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21 & John 17:20-26

There have been so many mass shootings. There have been so many that I suspect all of us have been touched by them not just on the news but also more directly, whether they be from afar, or from close up. My mother spent a year at Sandy Hook Elementary School. A friend went to the “other” high school – not to Columbine. Another friend grew up in the Conklin United Methodist Church, and to Susquehanna Valley Central schools. (The location of the young man who committed mass murder in Buffalo). These little connections make these deaths and the violence very, very real.

For years it seemed like the primary work of Schenectady Clergy Against Hate was to be gathering together with marginalized communities to speak to the pain of attacks against them. We got good at it. I’m still upset about that.

There isn’t much point in standing in this pulpit and decrying a lack of reasonable gun control laws – it is preaching to the choir. But also, how can one stand in this pulpit and do anything other than name the abomination that is a society that puts weapons of mass murder in the hands of those who engage in hate crimes, and those who wish to kill children. Buffalo and Uvalde. Back to back. But we all know what happened after Sandy Hook.

(Nothing.)

We live in a country that says it values the right to bear arms, but does so without providing a right to safety. We live in a country that won’t change its laws because the gun manufacturers have too strong of a lobby. We live in a country that is more invested in profits from murder than in preventing murder.

How can we do anything but grieve?

We live in a violent society, and it impacts us in so very many ways. We live in a violent society.

It breaks my heart. Sometimes it threatens to break my spirit.

But, I’m a person of faith, and so I choose to dream with you and with God about the nonviolent society that God wants for us, the beloved community that Dr. King spoke of, the kindom of God Jesus named, the true “Promised Land” of the people of God. I don’t want to give more time to violence.

Sure, I’m still going to contact my representatives and ask for changes to our gun laws. Sure, I’m still going to object to private prisons and solitary confinement and police brutality, and the like. That isn’t going to end. We can’t get from here to there without actual change.

But first and foremost, I want to follow Jesus on the path of nonviolence. I want to give my energy to how things should be. I don’t want to engage violence with violence. I want to engage the world with love.

Also, we aren’t going to get from here to there without knowing what we’re aiming at.

The text we have from John this week is as convoluted as John tends to be. But his point is that the loving community of faith is meant to be a living expression of the love of God. Jesus prays, asking that we might learn how to love. Jesus tries to place in the hearts of his followers, one more seed in hopes that it will grow: “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.“ (17:26) We’re told, time and time again, that it is by loving each other in faith community that the world is changed. We start with each other.

The text from Revelation includes the very last words of the Bible, and I’m told that they’re best interpreted, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” There is a universality, a hope in both passages that the love that starts with Jesus and extends to the community of faith may become the norm in the world at large, and eventually the way the world works. We end with everyone.

For a very long time, Christianity was so profoundly peaceful that it was assumed a Christian could not fight in a war. (This changed around the time there was a desire for Crusades. Sigh.) This is still true enough that our Social Principals state, “We believe war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ.” (165.c) United Methodists are able to use our faith as the bases of being a conscientious objector in the face of a draft.

Yet, there are so many ways that violence seeps in. It seeps into our language. It seeps in to our values. It seems into our lives. At times, it seems right into our faith.

We often talk these days about “echo chambers” and the distances between people of different political parties. We bemoan the increasing partisanship of our society. Which is good, because it is dangerous.

When I need to be reminded of the power of nonviolence, and how deeply rooted it is in my faith, I go back to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Their fundamental tenet, #3: Nonviolence Seeks to Defeat Injustice, or Evil, Not People.

Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people.
The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil not persons victimized by evil.

Just saying those words reminds me that nonviolence requires great strength, and a community commitment to it. Reminding each other that those who do evil are victims and are not evil takes a faith community. I’ve often been struck by those in this community who have the patience to pray for those who do great harm, and how they guide and remind the rest of us of that need.

I have been for many years a student of “Nonviolent Communication” but if I’m honest, within that community there is a desire to change the name to “Compassionate Communication.” People do not want to define themselves AGAINST something, not even AGAINST violence, but rather FOR sometime, FOR compassion. I think they’re onto something. I think turning towards what we want the world to look like matters, even in little ways.

Our gospels tell us Jesus prayed for those who were crucified with him, and for those who crucified him. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). In the midst of dying by state-sponsored violence, Jesus offered compassion, grace, mercy, forgiveness.

That’s the one we follow.

But also, we follow the one who told us to “turn the other cheek” and this is, of course, were our faith gets really interesting. Because to “turn the other cheek” is not simply to accept violence from another passively. To turn the other cheek – because of lack of toilet paper that created a societal norm that only allowed right hands to be used in public and because of a societal norm that indicated one backhanded a subordinate and slapped an equal – was to demand equality without returning violence with violence. Similarly, Jesus’ words on the cross take back the upper hand. They take the power of forgiveness. They take the power of knowledge. In the face of violence, they offer compassion and prove it to be a potent force.

This is the 7th, and last, Sunday of Easter. This is the final time this year that our primary focus is on the Easter Story (well, kinda, every Sunday is a “little Easter” but go with me).

There are many ways to understand Jesus’s resurrection, but for today, let’s focus on this one: The greatest threat the Empire had was violence, in particular violence in the form of a horrid public death. But resurrection says violence doesn’t get the final answer, not even death gets the final answer. Resurrection says that compassion gets the final answer. Mercy gets the final answer. Peace gets the final answer. LOVE gets the final answer.

Nothing, nothing, NOTHING could stop the love of God in Jesus. Romans 8:35-39.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Violence has a lot of power. A gut wrenching, sickening, disgusting amount of power.

And yet even in the midst of mass murders, we are Easter people. Easter, exists as a response to the violence of the world. We are Resurrection People. We are people of peace, and compassion, and nonviolence. We are people who know that love wins in the end. We are people who believe our lives can be useful in bringing peace, compassion, justice, and hope to the world. We are followers of a creative, loving, compassionate Savior, who could not even be stopped by death.

We are a Resurrection People.

Lord, hear our prayers. 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

May 29, 2022

Uncategorized

“Love. One. Another.” based Revelation 21:1-6 and John 13:31-35

May 15, 2022
by Sara Baron

I chose the Revelation 21
passage for the same reason I usually choose an “end of Revelation”
passage: they’re visions of hope for the future. And I think we NEED
hope.

This is a good one. God makes
God’s home on earth, so the people’s lives are no longer (in any way)
separate from the Holy One, and that means that death and pain,
mourning and crying are all over.

I like it.

I’m not sure what it says about
me that it feels like a cop-out.

(Please don’t answer that.)

This whole “the earth goes
away and gets replaced by a better one” thing – that’s what feels
like a cop-out. I’m pretty committed to working with God on building
the kindom of God on earth, and having the whole thing go away and
get replaced seems like it defeats the whole purpose.

Of course, I don’t think that
all of us working together, even with the Divine, are going to
eliminate pain and death from the human experience, so if that’s
where we are wanting to land, I can see why we’d need intervention to
get there.

And, of course, I can understand
the deep human yearning for connection with the Holy One, and for a
future without a separation from God.

But, while I remain grateful for
visions of hope with enough power to help us through the hard times,
I’m finding myself less inspired by Revelation’s vision of perfect
future than by John’s dream of a loving faith community.

“By this everyone will know
you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” That one
sends shivers up my spine. That one feels like the call on my life.
That one feels like the best I’ve ever seen of people of faith and
faith communities. That’s the one.

Important note: the commandment
“love one another” was NOT new. It was central to the faith
tradition of Jesus and his disciples, Judaism. There are two ways to
think of it as new. One is “as I (Jesus) have loved you, you also
should love one another,” so it is new in being reflective of
Jesus. The other is probably more accurate, the commandment is not
“new” but living that sort of love is part of the “new life”
that people of God are called to – a distinct form of life from one
of competition and fear. But please remember that loving one another
was already a part of the Jewish tradition, and had been for a LONG
TIME. We do not want to participate in anti-semitism, much less
pretend it is part of our faith.

Now, back to “By this everyone
will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another.“ This is both one of the most inspiring phrases I know
of, and one of the most worrisome. Because, let’s be honest for a
moment, it invites us to ask “is this true?”

It must be true in part. It
must be or I wouldn’t be here. I have been inspired by the
here-on-earth expressions of God’s love I’ve experienced in churches,
at church camp, in the Love Your Neighbor Collation, and with Upper
New York for Full Inclusion. I’ve known people whose very presence
exudes love. I’ve been in communities that have taught me that I’m
worthy of love, just as I am, no matter how awkward. I’ve seen the
transformational power of love being offered to people who have
received other stories about their lives: to teenagers with abusive
home lives, to people who are transgender and have been told horrible
things by other churches, to queer clergy people afraid for their
livelihoods, to veterans who fear their traumas makes them
unloveable, and to every day people who just wonder if they’re
“enough” who experience the community of God and learn they’re
loved and lovable.

It is the every day miracle of
the church, and it is why I am a part of the church, and it is
probably the thing I’m most committed to continuing with my life.

And.

And it isn’t the full story of
church.

I wish it was. I heard an idea
once that it is easier to be a spiritual person outside of faith
community, to commune with God in nature and solitude. Not just
because God is easy to access in nature and solitude (true for me!)
but because faith communities are full of struggle: conflict and
personalities and differences of opinion and people behaving in ways
we don’t like. But this idea suggested that this is GOOD not bad,
because communing with God in nature may help us feel and be
centered, but it is in practicing being loving when it is ACTUALLY
HARD that we GROW. We need the challenges of community to learn how
to be loving in the midst of real life.

That’s one of the most lovely
takes on faith community I’ve ever heard, and I hold it dear.

Because as much as I’ve seen the
church transform lives with its generous love and welcome, I’ve seen
profound pain too. There is the glaringly obvious pain of being part
of a homophobic and transphobic denomination. But there are also the
pains that result when we as a local faith community aren’t as loving
as we want to be. When someone is forgotten, or unseen in their
pain. When cultural differences are too big to be overcome. When it
seems some people are more valued than others. When values
themselves are violated (or seem to be). And when it feels like no
one cares about a person when they stop showing up.

There are days when I wonder
about the balance of if all, when I wonder if the love we are sharing
is more than the pain we are causing. I wonder if “They’ll Know We
are Christians By Our Love” is … well… true.

In the church at large
(annual conference and denomination) I have come to peace with
knowing that much of what happens is about power, and money, and that
fear is used as a means to an end to increase the power of a few over
the needs of the many. I hold hope that isn’t true on the local
church level, but when there IS conflict, it IS often about power
and/or over the authority over money, and I think based in fear of
what happens if one’s power is lost and one’s vision doesn’t prevail.

But, I also know that’s overly
simplistic. When it comes down to it, at least on the local level, I
trust that everyone is doing their best and trying to enable the best
sort of loving faith community, and doing that by the means they
believe most effective. Which means we disagree about HOW, and maybe
WHY, but not WHAT we’re trying to do.

And I often hope that’s enough
to hold on to to build on love, instead of letting fear drown us.
And I’m willing to keep on spending my life empowering faith
communities as long as I can believe that we are showing love, and
GROWING in love.

So, I want to spend the rest of
this sermon on this central question of faith: what helps us be more
loving, to share God’s love? Because I believe we WANT to be know by
our love. I think we’d be delighted if every time someone
encountered any one of us or a group of us they were astounded at our
love. But I think that requires us to be attentive to growing
in love.

The basis of love, as far as I
know is… (wait for it)… love. God’s love is the starting point
for our lives, our faith, our actions. And, I HOPE, the love of the
people of God has been transformative in our lives too, so we start
our journey to deepen love balanced on the love of God and God’s
people.

It also helps, a lot, to see
people acting in loving ways. Having models of what radical love
looks like, and broad and different models at that: to see the love
shared between our breakfast guests, and to see the love shared
between members of Church Council, and to hear stories of support
offered to those who are struggling. Knowing what love looks like, a
huge range of what it looks like, helps us see how we can live it.
Love lives differently in each of us, and it can take seeing it in a
lot of forms before any of us know how to let it live most easily in
us!!

It also helps, as far as I’m
concerned, to hear people talk about living love. To talk about what
they do with intention, and when they’ve struggled, and how they’ve
overcome barriers to love. The real, sometimes small, tangibles.
This sort of learning has often happened in Bible Study or small
groups for me, and it is a big deal to talk about the small stuff.

A huge gift in growing in love
is growing in the capacity to know I am loved EVEN when I’m wrong.
John Wesley actually helps me with this. He said that we’re all
wrong sometimes, but we don’t know when we’re wrong (or we wouldn’t
be), so when we come to a disagreement with another person, we should
enter into it with humility because it may well be one of the times
when we are wrong. That simple idea has made it easier for me to
forgive myself for being wrong, which helps lower my defenses, which
helps let others in.

For me, one of the greatest
gifts in growing in love is spiritual practice. That is, when I take
time away from “productivity” to “just be” and that helps me
remember that God loves me for who I am rather than what I can
accomplish. Also, God lovingly holds up a mirror to me, to help me
see what I’m doing and why, and let me decide as I’m ready to change.

There are also straight up
SKILLS that can help with being loving, particularly in a community,
which means in a group with conflict. Non-violent communication.
Active listening. Careful use of “I statements.” Or, just,
intentional empathy. All of which are actual skills that can be
taught and learned and developed. I sometimes think we undercut
ourselves by thinking that if we are simply taught of God’s love,
we’ll become the humans we want to be. When, in fact, we need other
skills and models and learning as well.

I dream that the church we
become might be able to be a source of healing people’s

trauma, that we might become
particularly skilled at sharing judgement-free love, and listening
with empathy so that those who spend time in this faith community
might experience HEALING from being here, and that the healing might
become a part of our story and what we offer our community.

That would require a pretty
serious investment in those skills, and in developing the resilience
to respond to conflict in new and different ways. SPPRC is working
on some of that, with a hope of bringing opportunities to our church
as a whole as well. It has become clear in the past 5 years that we
need more skills than we have. Which doesn’t make us bad, but does
make us responsible for developing together. For finding the ways
to face our conflicts with love. For becoming more loving. For
stepping up so people might see us and be astounded by our love for
one another. It could even be that these years of conflict could
become a saving grace for us, an opening to a new way of being that
could meet people and the world just where they need us to be.

In any case, growing in love is
what we’re about. God is with us, encouraging and enabling our
growth. May we commit to it as well! 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

May 15, 2022

The sculpture Reconciliation by Vasconcellos showing two former enemies
embracing each other. It was erected in 1995 in the north aisle of the
ruins of St Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry. (Destroyed during fire bombs
during the Coventry Blitz on 14 November 1940). (Image by
commons.wikimedia.org)