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Sermons

“Love-vines” based on Isaiah 5:1-7

  • August 14, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I’m told it takes years to build a vineyard, and it takes pretty choice land as well. Vineyards need sandy or loose soil, they need lots of sun by day and dew at night. Israel exists in a desert climate so building a vineyard there means that access to enough water would be imperative too. The work of building a vineyard is physically demanding, requiring people to work together. In Israel, big boulders need to be moved (they’re a regular feature of the land), walls and towers have to be built to to protect the space from predators and thieves, and a ditch had to be dug around the wall. The land needed to be hoed by hand – plowing wouldn’t do, and that was hard work too! Wine presses had to be made as well, and in Biblical times they were made by hewing out those large boulders!1 (Imagine!) And then, grapevines don’t produce fruit until their 3rd season.

Vineyards are hard work, and big investments. Both now, and in Biblical times, not just anyone can afford to support land that wasn’t producing for 3 years, not to mention paying people to do the heavy lifting and hard labor in the meantime! The act of domesticating the land in order to produce domesticated grapes is intense.

From the earliest examples of literature, vineyards and gardens have been used to talk about fertility, love, and sex.2 The metaphors are pretty easy to follow, and I’m guessing you don’t need explanations.  Furthermore, grapes are a common symbol of fertility – likely the threefold combination of the clusters of grapes themselves giving expression to the idea of MANY, the impact of drinking wine, and the human eye’s enjoyment of curvy things all had impact in that!  The Bible regularly uses vineyards as metaphors of sexuality as well. (The Bible also regularly acknowledges the horror of planting a vineyard and not being around to enjoy the fruits of your labor!)

It is interesting, though, isn’t it? Vineyards and gardens are intentional growing places, domesticated to allow for optimal growing conditions and care. That they become common symbols and allegories for human fertility is a bit ironic, as most of the mysteries of human fertility were unknown to the ancients and many are still unknown to us. The choice of the symbolism itself suggests humans wanting to have more control over sexuality and fertility than they do!!

Let’s look at a few of the places that the Bible intentionally connects the ideas of fertility/sexuality and vineyards. One comes from Deuteronomy 20:5-7:

Then the officials shall address the troops, saying, “Has anyone built a new house but not dedicated it? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another dedicate it Has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet enjoyed its fruit? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another be first to enjoy its fruit. Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another marry her.”

While these are three separate ideas, they are also three interconnected ones, and I believe the order is intentional. The metaphors are most striking in Song of Songs:

My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept! (1:6)

My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi. (1:14)

Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards— for our vineyards are in blossom.” (2:15)

Let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. (7:12)

Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is for myself; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred! (8:11-12)

There is a lot of vineyard imagery in this relatively short book, isn’t there? Now, I should have been clearer about the metaphor, the vineyard/garden is usually used as a reference for FEMALE fertility.

Which is why the opening line of today’s passage is so very interesting. It sounds like a female voice to begin with, her beloved’s vineyard might first be assumed to be HER. “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.” Love and vineyards, not only do they classically work well together, they create a well-known direction to start off this passage. It is a love song with a vineyard motif. That’s a genre anyone can follow. It would be reasonable for the hearers to assume that we are going to get into some more Song of Songs like stuff!  

The text goes on to explain that all the appropriate care has been given to the vineyard: all the hard work has been done. Boulders were cleared, vines were planted, a watch-tower was built, the wine press was dug out of stone itself, and it is implied that even the wall had been built. But the vineyard didn’t produce what was expected. With all that work, the vineyard owner would be expected some great wine – and, um, love.

Instead, only very seedy, un-juicy wild grapes emerged, perhaps the same kind that were growing the vineyard before the work was begun. That’s wrong! It isn’t supposed to go that way. All the hard work is supposed to produce something! In fact, it is supposed to produce something wonderful: domesticated grapes! Which are good for food directly, for food as raisins, for a sweetener AND for wine. After all, that’s why people go through all the work of the vineyard building: it is supposed to be worth it.

In this metaphor, supposedly about love, the vineyard owner decides to give up, and allow the wild to reclaim the vineyard. Connecting it back to the opening verses, it seems possible the “vineyard owner” is divorcing his wive because of her lack of fertility with him. The act of domestication had failed in this vineyard, and the vineyard owner isn’t intending to put more effort into it. No more work! The wall and the protective hedge will be destroyed. No more weeding! No more pruning! No more hoeing! And no more rain….

Which is the point when we are supposed to figure out this isn’t just a weird story about the wrong crop growing up. Normal vineyard owners don’t control the rain. This is when it becomes clear that this metaphor is about God and the people. This is when the text gets super confusing about who the one who calls God her beloved is too, but I don’t have a single answer for that. (Feel free to come up with your own answer.)

The final line of our text is the prophet Isaiah interpreting the song/story that has just been told. It feels a bit like a parable of Jesus that comes along with interpretation. The prophet explains, “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!” (5:7)

Now, the explanation doesn’t go quite as far as the metaphor does! The story ends with a suggestion of destruction, leaving us waiting for a declaration about exile! Yet, the interpretation just explains how the Israelites were supposed to be different, and aren’t. They were meant to be God’s dream for goodness in the world, but they’re just like the rest of the wild grapes. They have been domesticated: tenderly cared for and loved, but that hasn’t impacted what has grown from them. Instead of behaving with God’s justice and extending God’s love by caring for the poor, the widows, the orphans, the foreigners, and the vulnerable, the people of God have refused to participate in justice. They’ve rejected mercy for each other, and can’t call themselves righteous. The text talks of cries and bloodshed, suggesting that the ways people were being mistreated weren’t trivial: they were matters of life and death. The lack of justice meant the most vulnerable people were dying.

The people of God were acting like the wild grapes, the ones that hadn’t known tender love and care. They were receiving what God gave to them, but not letting it impact how they treated others.

This wasn’t God’s dream for the people. God planted justice and righteousness, but it didn’t grow. Rev. Paul Simpson Duke, currently copastor of First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor and Campus Minister for the American Baptist Campus Foundation at the University of Michigan, along with his wife, Stacey wrote in a commentary, “Any good news? Well, it is a love song. It ends badly. Has God stopped planting vineyards or restoring ruined ones? The bad news is that we can still be useless and a lethal danger to the world and to ourselves. The good news is that Someone still sings, plows, plants, guards, and looks for good fruit. In this is enough hope to set us humming bits of the song at least, and living toward its true ending, Love’s own harvest, sweet justice, festive righteousness, a cup of joy in the lifted hands of all.”3

It turns out that the use of the vineyard imagery wasn’t accidental, nor was the opening line claiming to be a love song! The love song part seems a little bit Country-Western, in talking about how the beloved did the person wrong, but it is still a love song. In truth, historically, there was an exile, but there was also a return. The vineyards around Jerusalem were destroyed, and later rebuilt. God’s work in the world certainly continues, even if it is a source of IMMENSE frustration to God that we KEEP ON missing the memos on justice, righteousness, and treating each other like we matter! “Someone still sings, plows, plants, guards, and looks for good fruit.“  God may well be tempted to give up on us every once in a while, but as we are told again and again, “God’s steadfast love endures forever.”

God is One with a long-view – longer even than than the person who thinks to start planting a vineyard. God still thinks we are fertile soil, capable of producing justice, righteousness, and a world of peace and love. May we take the ministrations of God – the planting and pruning, the protections and the watering, the hewing, and the watching over – and allow them to transform us into ever more fertile soil that may produce exactly what God wants: justice, righteousness, and love. Amen

1To my horror, the things I thought I knew about vineyards were affirmed here: Fred Wight, “Manner and Customs of Bible Lands” chapter 20http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=TGctIUL-BsY%3D&tabid=232&mid=762. 1953, Accessed 8/11/16

2 C S Lewis, Allegory of Love Oxford (University Press 1936).

3Paul Simpson Duke, “Homeletical Perspective on Isaiah 5:1-7” found on page 345 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).    

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

August 14, 2016

Sermons

“Teaching Ephraim to Walk” based on Hosea 11:1-11

  • July 31, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

The imagery of God as a loving parent in this text is particularly beautiful. However, one commentator suggested that it creates a problem for preachers: if we present God as a “father” we’re continuing the damage done by lifting the masculine above the feminine; if we present God as the generic “parent” it feels cold and distant; and if we present God as a nurturing mother we conflate nurturing with motherhood and do damage to nurturing men, women who are not mothers, and people whose mothers were not nurturing.

I’m going to have to go with the idea that these are not all EQUAL problems. While I do think it is possible to reclaim the neutral “parent” as close and connected, I think that the world is more in need of a counter image to God-as-Father. That being said, the concerns about God-as-Nurturing-Mother are worth acknowledging. So, please, know this: not all us have (or have been) the healthy sort of mothers that we would want; there are incredibly nurturing men, and we are grateful for the ways that their forms of nurture benefit the world; AND there are a lot of ways that women contribute to the well-being of the world beyond motherhood. Finally, feminine does not equal nurturing. Duh. There. That being dealt with, let’s look at this amazing text of Hosea!

Did you hear the verbs attributed to God? I loved, I called, I taught, I took them up in my arms, I healed, I led, I lifted, I bent down, I fed. These are tender, sweet verbs. They describe a loving, nurturing parent who wants the very best for their child. There are a few places where the description tends to sound more feminine and maternal. The images, “I taught Ephraim to walk”, “I took them up in my arms”, “I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks”, “I bent down tot hem and fed them” all sound like a mother caring for a baby or a toddler. The love between the mother and the child is tangible – even as the text acknowledges that the beloved child is currently acting like rebellious teenager!

Did you catch that part? “The more I called them, the more they went from me”, “They did not know that I healed them”, “they have refused to return to me”, “they are bent on turning away from me!” Just in case you are confused about language, the “child” or “son” in this passage is variously called “Ephraim” and “Israel” which mean exactly the same thing in this case. Hosea was a northern prophet who was speaking to the northern kingdom of Israel in during the last kingship of Israel before it lost in battle to Assyria and was exiled. The terms Ephraim and Israel were used interchangeably sort of like we say “America” and “The US”. The text is believed to have been edited, rather strongly, by the southern kingdom after their exile AND return. The southern kingdom seems to have heard truth in the words and wanted to claim them for themselves, particularly that the God’s love wouldn’t run out on them.

There are, however, some theological challenges to this passage. Most interpreters hear punishment in the text, and then hear it resolved through God’s loving nature. I have yet to be convinced by anyone or anything that God actually punishes people, so I find that problematic. I do believe that most of the people who lived in Biblical times and who wrote and edited the words of the Bible believed that God punished, so that certainly explains why it might show up like that.

However, I don’t THINK this text actually says that God punishes! I think people are so used to text that do, that they project it onto this one. Listen carefully: “They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.” (Hosea 11:5 NRSV) It doesn’t say – or even imply – that this is a punishment. It could just as easily be a consequence. Because of their actions, particularly the political choices of their leaders to make alliances with Egypt against Assyria, things would go wrong. Their schemes were going to lead to destruction.

Now, I really like my interpretation of that bit of the text – consequence instead of punishment – but it creates a problem soon thereafter. In verses 8-9, the words attributed to God are, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.” Now, if we’d stuck with the idea that God was going to punish the people, then we’d have the easy way out here: God is a God of mercy and while God could justly punish the people, God chooses to follow God’s nature and be merciful instead. (Mercy IS “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.”) That’d be grand – other than assuming that when bad things happen to us it is because God is punishing us and making God a really abusive parent.

However, if we go with MY theory that God is simply pointing out the consequences of their actions, then this part of the text suggests that God is deciding whether or not to interfere with the people’s free will. Furthermore, after some serious soliloquy, God decides TO interfere and change the course of human history. Sometimes fixing things makes them worse – and that definitely applies to trying to draw good theology out of the Bible!

There are good things here though, and I still think they are worth fighting for. Those last few verses make the fantastic claim that God is not like mortals, and what makes God holy is God’s capacity for mercy. That’s worth hearing, particularly if we are trying to be holy like God!

Having written myself into a corner, as I often do, now is the time you get to watch me wiggle back out of it! Now, as I often do, I’m going to suggest taking the text VERY seriously. What if the prophet is proclaiming things that are true: that God is like a tender mother who adores her children, that God’s people are like rebellious teenagers, that the actions of God’s people are going to cause them a whole lot of trouble, that like any good parent God is going to struggle to decide how much God should help out the teenager for the trouble they got themselves into, and that in the end God really really want to help the beloved child – sort of like an overly compassionate mother? That doesn’t HAVE to imply an invasion of free will…. it could just be a decision of how much help to OFFER!

Then we come to a new question! When we as a people get ourselves stuck in really bad situations, how is it that we think God helps? Does God change reality and the physical properties of nature around us? Does God interfere with our free will? Does God change the hearts of other people around us – and thereby interfere with THEIR free will?

Or is it more subtle? Does God simply stay with us in the bad times and make sure we aren’t alone? Does God help us by guiding us to creative solutions? Does God help us by giving us the courage to admit our mistakes and ask those around us for mercy and help? Does God help us by encouraging those willing to listen to offer us love and compassion?

The more I think about it, the more I think the beginning of this passage fits with its middle and its end. Israel is presented as variously a baby, a toddler, and a teenager. Those are all people that are allowed to make mistakes, to not know, to need some guidance. They are even people – at least the toddler and the teenager- who are EXPECTED to rebel. Often as grown-ups we’ve bought into the story that we aren’t supposed to make mistakes anymore, and that we are now supposed to know things. It makes it much harder for us when we are stuck in difficult situations to get out – because sometimes it feels like admitting that we are imperfect is the same as admitting that we are failures. Unlike the grace given by healthy parents to children, we sometimes forget to give ourselves grace when we make a mistake! Israel is presented like a child making a mistake, and God is presented as righteously angry – and gracious nonetheless.

I have told you this story before, but it is the best one I know, so I’m going to tell you again.

Julian of Norwich was a 14th century mystic in England who wrote the potent little book, “Revelations of a Divine Love” based on a mystical experience she had while desperately ill, and decades of prayerful reflection on it afterward. She tells one of my favorite stories, intending to clarify the relationship between people and God. This is my synopsis of it:

A servant dearly loves their ruler. The ruler asks the servant to go run an errand, and the servant is THRILLED to get do so something to help the ruler. The servant, however, so dearly loves the ruler than even while hurrying away to do the ruler’s errand, the servant keeps looking at the ruler, loathe to let the ruler out of their sight. In this awkward form of movement, the servants doesn’t notice a hole, and falls right into it, all the way down to the bottom.

The hole is deep, and there is no ladder. The servant is trying to scratch their way back up, to continue the errand, all while berating themselves for their stupidity, “I should have watched where I was going, I’m of no use to the ruler now! How could I have done this! The ruler will be so disappointed! I’ve messed everything up again! Isn’t that just like me!”

The servant, trying again and again to climb out and failing, berating themselves silently, fails to look up and notice that the ruler is at the top of the hole, smiling kindly, and offering their hand to the servant.

God is often the one standing at the top of the hole in which we are berating ourselves, offering us a way out. Sometimes our own guilt, or the ways we berate ourselves, keep us from hearing God’s possibilities for our lives. In my own life, I have found that I really believe that God is capable of forgiving everything I do – but I’m not! Many times, instead of asking for God’s forgiveness (which I think comes automatically), I’ve had to ask God to help me forgive myself, so that I can move into the creative solutions that God offers.

This may be all the more important in community. The harms that we have done to one another in the past are imperative to recognize, but guilt rarely helps move anyone toward healing! Learning to acknowledge our individual and communal failings without dwelling in guilt and shame is another way of learning to walk – in grace.

Some of the work of learning to walk in grace is the work of self-forgiveness, and it is pretty important to make space for the goodness that God offers each of us. Truly, God is patient in teaching the people to walk – in grace. May we be patient with ourselves and each other in this process. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

July 31, 2016

Sermons

“What Angers God” based on Amos 8:1-12

  • July 17, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Most of the time, when people quote Amos, they quote the sweet part (Amos 5:24) which says, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” What they miss is that the verse they know is in the midst of more pieces just like the one we just read. The paragraph that verse is in, is attributed to God, saying:

21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;

I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

25 Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images that you made for yourselves;27therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

I say that mostly so that you don’t think our passage from Amos today is the weird part of the book. Amos loves justice and righteousness, and he speaks about a God who cares about how people are treated. But, even for prophets, Amos isn’t a cheerful one. He believes that the people of God have utterly failed to uphold their end of the covenant and that their utter destruction is imminent. He says so, and people hate it.

Looking at today’s text, this is one of the times that Biblical translation totally ruins the play on words. Amos sees a basket of summer fruit and the word for “summer fruit” sounds like the word for “end.” Therefore the first hearers would have noticed the play on words and been able to follow, but for us the textual connection is just obscure. We are left to trust the Hebrew scholars who tell us that it goes like. that This is a vision and a pronouncement about the end of life as Israel knew it.

Most scholars think that the book of Amos reflects prophetic oracles that derive from Amos himself, although they have been edited and a false ending added to soften the original end of the book! They think it came into its present form during the exile (587-539 BCE), so about 200 years after the prophet lived and spoke. As one scholar puts is, the oracles of Amos, “mainly condemned the ruling class in the north for their oppressive treatment of poor and needy members of society, and threatened that Israel would be punished by God, probably by military invasion and defeat. … Amos does not condemn Israel for faithless foreign policies; rather, he concentrates on the treatment of one section of society by another.”1 This oracle certainly fits that description.

There is a lot of destruction predicted, and that may reflect both the historical sayings of Amos and the historical remembering of both the Northern Exile (722 BCE) and the Southern one, since it got written down after both of them. I would like to focus, though, on the complaints that Amos names as the issues God is having with the people:

that they “trample on the needy”

and “bring to ruin the poor of the land”

they are impatient with religious observance, wanting to get back to making money

they cheat the people with improper weights and measures

they are “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals”

instead of selling food to people, they sell them mostly inedible food leftovers

These are both individual and communal wrongdoings. While each individual seller is responsible for their own actions which are wrong, that’s not all that is happening. It is because EVERYONE is doing this trampling that the poor are trampled. If some of the merchants were fair, people would have good options. If there were regulations of weights and measures, the people couldn’t be cheated. Society has to look the other way, and the empowered have to choose to do nothing in order for the poor and powerless to be so completely decimated. The wrong that is done is done by each person doing it and by the whole for not stopping it.  

The line “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” is one of the more provoking in the Bible. It exemplifies the reality of greed – that when one person is trying to get rich, the people they are getting rich off of are paying the price. In reality, this was likely happening. It was common in ancient days (and ones not so long ago) for people to get so deeply into debt that they would sell themselves or their children into slavery to pay off the debt. The vision of God in the Torah which forbids interest AND forbids the selling of ancestral land, seeks to create a society without people being sold to pay off debts, but the people weren’t living that vision. People were cheating each other to make greater profits off of sandals, and those who were poor and vulnerable were being bought and sold because of the injustices of those profit margins.

I can imagine the justification of the grain sellers in the markets in Bethel, their responses to hearing Amos’s claims. Can’t you? They would say, “I have to feed my family! And I can’t do that if I sell the wheat in pure form because the harvest wasn’t good enough.” They would say, “I know my scale isn’t balanced, but did you see the guy over there? His is way worse!” They would say, “Yes, I’m doing OK for myself, but I work hard and I’ve earned what I have!” They would say, “It is the people’s choice to buy where they want, it isn’t my responsibility to take care of their well-being.” They would say, “If you don’t have enough money, you don’t get to buy the good stuff.” They would self-justify to the end, and in doing so deny their shared humanity with the people who happened to be poor or needy.

This spring I went to a training put on by the United Methodist Women about Human Sexuality so that I qualified to teach “Human Sexuality” MissionU this summer. They’re coming quickly! During the exercises we did to experience the curriculum we heard from a survivor of child sex trafficking. In the video she mentioned how many children are trafficked and how many people they were expected to sleep with every night. I did the math my head. By low estimates, 2,000,000 times a night, a child is paid for sex in our country. Suddenly it occurred to me that this means that there are A LOT of people choosing to use the bodies of children in this way. My mind was blown. I had no idea that so many people were engaged in such behavior, and it made me rethink our society as a whole.

It also led me to continued research, and I found quotations from men who bought sex with sex workers which are entirely too disturbing to be read from this pulpit.2 Even more distressing was that according to the research that is out there (which is mostly LOUSY by the way) the people who are buying sex are pretty NORMAL. Talk about “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandal” though! People who have enough to spend some as discretionary income are using it to buy access to the bodies of people who have no choice. (Although I acknowledge the reality that there are people who choose out of true free will and not just economic circumstances to sell their bodies, I believe that is rare enough and the harms done to those who do not truly have choice are severe enough that it is worth focusing on those who do not have control.) Most of sex that is bought and sold is done of desperation, addiction, and usually a lack of control over one’s life. Yet, people buy it.

People BUY access to another person’s body – quite often young girls who have been taken away from their families and friends. It is very clear to me that the harms that Amos spoke about, the “buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandal” are very much still alive and well here and today. In Schenectady we know that there is plenty of prostitution and sex trafficking, and we know that once the casino opens we will have a lot more.

We also know, at least if we are listening to Amos, that God cares about the people that society ignores. The poor, the needy, the disenfranchised, the “least, the last, the lost, and the lonely” to name a few. God gets upset over the treatment of people who society tries to pretend don’t exist.

This week I was given the honor of being invited to sit on a panel to talk about the #BlackLivesMatter movement in Schenectady, and in particular the relationship between minority communities and our police forces. There were many articulate comments made about the ways that people who live in dark skin are told that they don’t matter. Some of the worst of those are known to us in the homicides perpetrated by police, but there are a million tiny cuts that happen every day in our city and county and country to people in dark skin.

Our society defines some people as mattering and others as not. That’s why we have to say #BlackLivesMatter. That’s why we have to be informed about sex trafficking and think about the reality that people BUY one another – if even only for minutes at a time. God is angered by the ways we dehumanize each other. God is angered when we allow injustice to fester and the vulnerable to pay the price. I’ve said before, and I still believe that the root sin is dehumanizing other beloved children of God. Everything derives from that.

Amos threaten the people with being abandoned by God, defeated in war, and the destroyed by an earthquake. That is to say, he thought God was angry, and angry enough to act on behalf of the people that the king and his empowered court had abandoned. I agree that God is angry, although I disagree with Amos about God’s methods. Given the injustices of today, I simply hear God crying and begging us to pay attention all of God’s people.

In the #BlackLivesMatter conversation we were encouraged to participate in Study Circles (I believe they will be coming back and we will get information out), to talk to people are different than we are, and to continue the work of educating ourselves on racism and – where it applies – white privilege. There is also a plan for continued conversation in our city.

With regard to sex workers and human trafficking, there is a a local resource that is doing great work. (Please consider this your mission moment in the sermon.) “Patty’s Place is a drop-in support and referral center for women engaged in sex work. They provide basic services such as food, showers, hygiene items, clothing, HIV testing, and a secure resting place, which help these women be safer in their current lives. They also offer counseling and referrals for longer-term services that can help women improve their lives and leave the sex trade. Most of the women with whom they work have suffered from years of abuse and have a variety of overlapping problems and needs. Patty’s Place gives these women a network of supportive relationships and help navigating the diverse services they need.” If you want to help, their two biggest needs are volunteers and donations. Volunteers are needed to do outreach and to do administration work. Donations are useful both as money and as supplies. Today they are mostly needing new underwear in all sizes and deodorant. If you get donations to us, we will get them to Patty’s place.

As the casino gets closer to opening, we are needing to prepare for expansions of dehumanization in our city. Studies tell us that there will be more trafficking and more people looking to buy sex. They also tell us that there will be more corruption, which means more injustice. There will likely be more crime, and more of it violent. As incumbent as it already is on us to re-humanize other people, and to recognize all people as beloved by God, there are going to be new challenges to that work. The current projections are that the casino will open in the first quarter of 2017.

There is a lot of work to do. Some of it, however, is in getting quiet and listening. We are not going to be able to invert all of the damage to our communities created by the city. Singlehandedly, we cannot even solve the struggles our city already has. We will need to focus a bit, listen for how we are best able to rehumanize God’s people, and get ready to do it.  That is, while I encourage us to continue the work of building the kin-dom, loving the people, transforming injustice, and acknowledging all of God’s children, I also encourage us ALL to take some deep breaths. Maybe even a few months of deep breaths. Things are going to get harder around here, and we are going to need to be calm, centered, steady, and supportive of each other to be useful in changing things.

We aren’t called to be like the merchants in Bethel that Amos spoke to. Instead, we are called to take responsibility for the ways that our society diminishes beloved children of God, and do our part to change it. Some of that involves being quiet and observant to notice what is going on. Thanks be to God that there are so many ways we can participate in acts of love and justice. Thanks be to God that we are called both to action AND to Sabbath. May we learn to do both well. Amen

1John Barton “Introduction to Amos” in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible edited by Walter J Harrelson (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 2003) 1279

2Two of them, “Prostitution is renting an organ for 10 minutes” and “Being with a prostitute is like having a cup of coffee, when you’re done, you throw it out” found at http://www.ksufreedomalliance.org/sex-trafficking.html

–

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

June 17. 2016

Sermons

“Infuriating Plumb-Lines” based on  Amos 7:7-17

  • July 10, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

This poem is entitled “Allowables” and it is by Nikki Giovanni:   

	I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn't
And she scared me
And I smashed her

I don't think
I'm allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened1

And yet, so many people are dead because others were afraid. We, as a country, are frightened.

The fear lives in us in many ways. We have anxiety for our own futures and for the futures of those we love, particularly of younger generations. We are afraid of the world that is becoming, particularly with regard to: Global Climate Change and the ways it is destabilizing the world; the global refugee crisis and the millions of humans left without a place to call home; and the global economy, still slumped in many ways and still biased to producing wealth for the rich by continuing to devalue the lives of the poor.

We are afraid, as well, of the prevalence of violence. Violence also comes in many different forms to keep us afraid. Around us there is domestic violence (emotional, physical, and sexual), violent crime, mass shootings, bombings, terrorism, and of course war – both declared and undeclared. Violence is terrifyingly common!

We a country that lives in fear of violence and death for ourselves and our loved ones. Most of us are afraid of not having enough to survive – no matter how much we have right now. We are afraid that we too could become refugees.  We are afraid that our government and way of life could collapse under us (or is collapsing under us.) We are afraid of what another single person could do out of their fear or anger.

I watched the videos of the shootings that were perpetrated by police this week. I didn’t want to, but I did because it didn’t feel responsible to stick my head in the sand. It was clear that the officers were responding to their fear, and not to the actual events occurring around them. It is not yet clear what motived the police shootings in Dallas, and what we hear indicates that it was motivated by hatred. Yet, I suspect there is fear under that as well.

The fear itself is not the problem, although it is nearly epidemic. The problem is how the fear gets dealt with. It get denied, repressed, and projected – rather than admitted to and faced. That makes it stronger and less rational. Furthermore, the projection usually means that fear gets placed on people perceived to be “other”. That’s when fear gets dangerous. This, however, isn’t a new phenomenon.

In fact, I think what we see in our society today is also reflected in what Amos was calling out in his society in the 750’s BCE. Amos’s life as a prophet occurred during the reign of King Jeroboam II, who was the most “successful” king in the history of Israel. He was successful militarily, economically, and politically. He restored the kingdom to its largest known boundaries, brokered deals with other leaders, and the nation prospered. Well, like it goes, the wealthy prospered. Amos was from Judah, so the other country from whom Israel had succeeded in a civil war. Amos describes himself as a simple farmer, called by God to speak what others would not.

As Rev. Dr. Thomas Mann eloquently put it in my reading this week, “Prophesy is the gifted ability to see what other people cannot or will not see. Prophets focus primarily on the moral and spiritual conditions of a nation; they do not simply predict future events but warn of consequences to injustice.”2 The nation of Israel was “successful” but as we’ll hear next week, Amos accuses the wealthy and the king of “buying the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.” (Amos 8:6) The cost of “success” was oppression. Amos was calling out the upper class for what they did to the lower class – and if you are patient, I’ll get to how that has to do with fear.

When people are oppressing others there are two interconnecting ways that they have to dehumanize the people they are oppressing. First of all, to choose to oppress someone requires creating a narrative that says that the other person or people matter less than you do. That can be done lots of ways: via race or gender or age or economic status or SAT score or position or whatever. Secondly though, to choose to oppress another person or people is an inherently terrifying act. When you are an oppressor, you have to be aware (at least subconsciously) that YOU could be the oppressed instead of the oppressor. Given that reality, it becomes imperative to continue to dehumanize the other, to oppress them further, to keep as much separation as possible between your full humanity and their partial humanity. Also, you have to make sure that they will never rise up and oppress you.

This was a significant piece of our history as a nation that engaged in racially “justified” slavery. There was a narrative – the race theory- created to justify dehumanizing people. There was a constant fear of slave rebellion, and there was a terror of slaves wanting to do harm to their masters like the harm done to them. The cycles of violence against people of color were deep, as was the fear of white people of being treated the way they treated their slaves. Both the violence and the fear live on. At the Schenectady Black Lives Matter march on Thursday someone made a sign that said “This is the new genocide of Black People.”

Race, of course, is not the only marker used to justify oppression. Any “otherness” will do – real or imagined. Often the marker has been economic – although the definitions of who gets to be wealthy and who doesn’t has changed with place and time. In Amos’s time, some of the poor in that society were poor by position: widows because they had no male protection nor access to land, orphans because they had no male protection nor access to land, and foreigners because they no male protection that counted nor access to land. Some would have been poor by circumstance – because of bad harvests or because there were too many male children in a generation or because they were the youngest sons of youngest sons.

There were people living in poverty, and the policies of those in power was to add to their struggle with oppression, rather than to lighten their load with policies of support. The vision of the Torah is of a nation where the widows, orphans, and foreigners are provided for, and where it is not possible to slip into generational poverty. By this time though, the people who claimed the vision of the Torah were acting more “normally.” They were participating in systems that used the labor of the poor to enrich the wealthy and strengthen the power of the already empowered. As Mann says, “For Amos, the primary failure is injustice,”3 and injustice is prevalent.

Amos doesn’t think God likes the injustice of Israel, nor the way it found its “success,” one little bit. He expresses it by suggesting that justice is not found in the nation, and God is so upset as to abandon the people. That’s the role of a prophet. The role of “those in power” is played in this story by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel. According to Mann, “Bethel is something like northern Israel’s ‘national cathedral.’ The collusion of religious and political institutions is blatant when Amaziah says to Amos, ’[Bethel] is the king’s sanctuary.’ One would have thought it was God’s.”4 In particular, the name “Beth-el” means “house of God” so the suggestion here is not overly subtle.

Amaziah wants Amos to GO AWAY, because he is upsetting the kingdom by speaking the truth. Then Amos basically predicts the exile of the Israel, which will happen Assyria in a single generation. The important pieces of this passage for me today are: that the role of the prophet was to speak uncomfortable truths, that the man understood to be speaking for God was calling for justice for the least empowered, and that those in power desperately wanted the one calling for justice to HUSH.

Often prophets, however, have to point out not only what injustice looks like but what consequences it has. Amos pointed out that the “success” of Israel was unstable and could lead to its demise. As people of God, prophecy is some of our work. We end up having to say that unless this country turns itself around and faces its own racism as well as its ridiculous gun laws, the violence we experience now will only continue to escalate.

There is such fear in our society because there is such oppression, and those of us who benefit from it live in fear that it will turn around and oppress us. (Because life and society are complicated, almost of us benefit from it in some ways and are oppressed by it in others.) Injustice anywhere is not ONLY a threat to justice everywhere, is it a source of our anxiety and fear, and thus a piece of the violence of our society itself.

There are many intersecting issues in our country today, and I’m expecting that many of you who are listening have already done many of the things that can make a difference. I’m going to remind us all of them again though, because in the midst of fear it is a good reminder that we can do things that matter.

We take courage from each other and from the God we know so that we can acknowledge our fears without repressing them nor letting them rule our lives.

We continue to educate ourselves about our past and present as a nation with racial oppression, to destabilize the myths of racism and thereby change them.

We can speak up about gun access.

We name injustice and oppression wherever we see it, and we participate in actions to change them. We do this even when it infuriates others.

We love all of God’s people as much as we can as often as we can and as well as we can, and trust that God will use our love to build the world as God would have it be.

We trust that if we work together, and act out of faith, hope, and love, even the brokenness of our country can be fixed.

May it be so, and may the God of justice use us to help heal our country, even if it means infuriating others with our calls for justice. Amen

1“Allowables” a poem by Nicki Giovanni, in her book  Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid, page 109.

2Thomas W. Mann in “Exegetical Perspective on Amos 7:7-17” found on page 221 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

3Mann, 221.

4Mann, 225.

–

Rev. Sara E. BaronFirst United Methodist Church of Schenectady603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

“Listening and Receiving”based on 2 Kings 5:1-14 and Luke 10:1-11

  • July 3, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

70
people are sent out by Jesus, two by two. 70 is a symbolic number. In
Exodus, Moses was assisted by 70 elders and in Genesis 10 there is a
listing of all the nations of the world: they number 70.  While all
the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell the story of
Jesus sending out the 12 disciples 2 by 2, only Luke includes this
story of sending out the 70 (which in some ancient manuscripts is 72,
but we’re going to just live with 70).  

It
is possible that this feels a bit repetitive, since Luke says in
chapter 9 that Jesus sent out the 12 disciples in a similar manner.
However, there is something really strange about this story, MUCH
more interesting than the version a chapter before. That is, Jesus
sends out the 12 disciples in Galilee, the area that he spent most of
his life and most of his ministry.  However, in chapter 10 he is in
SAMARIA, on his way to Jerusalem.  He sends out these 70 people to
EXACTLY the communities that most people at the time found most
distasteful.

This
is possibly the most Jesus thing I’ve ever heard.  He sends out this
massive group of people to places they’d be radically uncomfortable,
AND refuses them any comforts:  they can have no purse or bag nor
(extra?) sandals.  They’re on their own dependent on the hospitality
of people they’ve never met and are likely terrified of.  They’re
told to go into people’s homes, receive their hospitality, and eat
their food and drink their drinks.
When he sent out the 12 in Galilee he didn’t bother specifically
telling them to eat and drink what they are given. This only happens
when he sends them out in Samaria.

You
remember, right, the Samaritans were so hated that people FREAKED OUT
at the idea that Jesus would receive a cup of water from one? The
Samaritans were so hated that the whole point of one of the most
well-loved parables is the unexpected twist that a Samaritan could be
the hero. (Ironically, and to keep things confusing, in the 2nd
Kings reading the word Samaria is used interchangeably with Israel.
That’s because it predates the first exile. That is, it was from a
time when Samaria, Israel, and Judah were all united, well before
Jesus.)

At
the time of Jesus, Samaritans practiced faith differently. The
followers of Jesus were Jews, I think very traditional Jews, part of
a recommitment to orthodox practice sort of Jews.  The Samaritans
were NOT CONSIDERED Jews (although that’s yet another example of the
bias itself.)  To make this a bit clearer: good, deeply faithful Jews
at the time were very careful about what they ate, when they ate it,
and how it it had been prepared. That was part of how they expressed
their faithfulness to God. Being sent out into Samaria to be welcomed
into people’s homes as strangers and to EAT THEIR FOOD …. wasn’t
kosher. (giggle)  Literally. 😉  But the story says Jesus sent out 70
people into Samaria anyway, and specifically told them to eat and
drink what they were given to eat and drink.

This
relates to the vision of Peter in Acts 10, where Peter has a vision
of God telling him to consume food otherwise thought unclean.  The
fact that the stories reflect each other isn’t a surprise, as Luke
and Acts are really the same book by the author: Part 1 is Luke and
Part 2 is Acts (the fact that they are not one after another in our
Bible is an atrocity.)  It does make me doubt the veracity of this
story, but only the “I don’t think the facts add up to be terribly
like to have ACTUALLY HAPPENED” way. I think the story reflects a
deep and abiding set of truths about God, about Jesus, about the
Jesus movement, and about breaking open barriers that would otherwise
divide people, and that’s WAY more important than it actually having
happened.  However, as I find this story to be completely and utterly
delightful, I sort of hope I’m wrong.  

Going
back into the story as it’s own narrative again, Jesus
doesn’t just send them out to eat and drink.  He sends them out to
heal
and to give a message, “The
kingdom of God has come near to you.”
That message is the one that Jesus shares over and over again.
Really, the combination of healing and that simple message are the
THEMES of the Gospels, everything else is an expansion on those
ideas.  

The
Gospels are full of healing narratives, usually done by Jesus
himself.  In our passage today though, we see the expansion of the
work from Jesus to his followers, a reminder that the expansion
extends all the way out to us.  Healing, of course, takes on many
forms.  It can be physical, emotional, or spiritual, and at times the
most appropriate healing is death itself.  Our work as followers of
Christ is to participate in the healing, in a holistic way.  This is
good, as not all of us are medical professionals, but all of us can
participate in healing ourselves, each other, and the world.  

My
friend the Rev. Dr. Barbara Thorington Green suggests that the power
of Jesus to heal was located in his ability to really truly SEE and
HEAR people, and to LOVE THEM as they really are and show them how
loved they were. She suspects that much of what harms us would be
healable if we knew that we were seen, heard, and loved as we are.
The work of healing, then, is also the work of loving – work we are
all called to do whether it is easy or hard for us.

To
see, to hear, and to share love with a person is also known as the
work of LISTENING.  Listening is a profoundly healing act.  This
isn’t just something that Jesus could do.  It is passed on to us
along with the rest of the work of the Body of Christ.  If you’ve
been playing along with my sermons over the past year or two, you may
already know that I’m excited about Nonviolent Communication as a
means of grace.

Nonviolent
communications is a system of both listening and speaking meant to
bring healing and wholeness into the world.  It
is an act of love with power.
It happens in 4 parts, whether it is an act of listening or of
speaking.  When it is an act of listening, a person practicing
Nonviolent communication: listens for observations of what happened
(which may involve asking some questions), then listens for feelings
about what happened (this may also involve some questions, or even
making some guesses), then listens to what the person’s deep need is
that connected the experience itself to the feeling that emerged
(yes, yes, this too might involve questions or guesses), and finally
seeks to understand what the person would want in order to make life
more wonderful after being heard about the experience, the feeling(s)
and the need(s).  This last bit is listening for a request. Often the
request is really just to be heard!

I
wonder if the work of healing that the disciples and the 70 were sent
out to do had to do with deep listening and thereby sharing the
wonder of love itself.  I’ve seen that work system, rather well and
quite frequently.

In
Nonviolent Communication Theory, there is a concept of universal
human needs.  One of the lists of these needs includes 90 of them,
under the categories: connection, honesty, play, peace, physical
well-being, meaning, and autonomy.  All of us have all the needs, all
the time, and this theory suggests that what we say and do is always
related to getting our needs met.  Some of the ways we seek to get
our needs met are more effective than others, and some cause less
harm than others. Knowing our needs, and making direct requests tends
to help us get the needs met, and do it without impeding anyone
else’s capacity to met their needs!  

(It
may also be helpful to note that not all needs are equally important
to everyone.  For example, I have noticed that a lot of what I do is
about meeting my needs to contribute to the world,  experience
efficacy, and keep things in balance.  Everyone else probably has a
different subset of needs that they tend toward most strongly.)
Also, FYI, we are offering another class on Nonviolent communication
this fall!  Stay on the lookout for more information.  

We
can see listening like this (and nonviolent communication) in the
Hebrew Bible text, if we read into it a little bit.  The Israelite
slave girl observes
that Naaman has leprosy.  She seems to feel
sad about that, and finds in herself a need
to contribute to his well-being.  So she suggests (this is an
indirect form of a request)
that he might find healing through Elisha.  She seems to be
suggesting that her life would be more wonderful if his was as well!
And she is heard!

I
think the most interesting example of nonviolent communication comes
when Naaman gets a response from Elisha to “’Go,
wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and
you shall be clean.’“ That’s what happened (observation), and he
feels ANGRY.  It turns out his expectations weren’t getting met.  He
expected to be healed in person, something he very well may have
associated with being RESPECTED as an important person.  So, I’m
thinking his need TO MATTER wasn’t being met!  

When
his servants heard him, and heard him well, they were able to respond
to his need and help him reframe the possibilities. They helped him
meet his need to matter in how they listened to him and responded to
him, and that freed him up!  Once his need to matter was being met,
he was able to give the washing in the River Jordan a try.

Truly,
in this story, people do a lot of good listening (and some good
speaking) that ends up making a big difference:

  • The
    slave girl listens to the issues of her masters – and with a tender
    heart.
  • The
    mistress listens to the advice of her slave.
  • A
    spouse listens to the advice of another spouse.  
  • A
    king listens to a general.
  • A
    king listens to a prophet (that almost NEVER happens in the Bible).
  • And
    then the general listens to his servants, and to the prophet.

All
in all, this whole story is extraordinary, more so in the listening
than in the healing that ensues.  Repeatedly
people listen to others who would normally be considered below them,
and are blessed by the wisdom imparted.
It is a case where listening to seemingly strange advice leads to an
unexpectedly good outcome. Namaan’s listening is imperative to his
healing. It allows others to bless him with their knowledge and
wisdom! He was able to receive the gifts they wanted to give him
because he listened to them.  They were able to give him the gifts he
needed, because they listened as well.  

Between
the gift of prayer itself, which is (among other things) the
experience of being listened to with love by the Holy One’s Own Self,
and the ways we are gifted by being able to be listened to by each
other, there are many opportunities for healing in our lives.
Assuming the veracity of the sending out of the 70, I still don’t
really know what they did.  But I rather love the idea that they
might have been listening to people and thereby connecting them to
the love of God! It could have been very healing for everyone
involved, especially when it happened across boundaries that weren’t
supposed to be crossed!

Dear
Ones, as you leave this place, I hope you will find ways to listen:
to each other, to strangers, to others you meet along the way, to the
Holy One, and to the deepest part of yourselves.  The gift of healing
is as close at hand as our ability to listen.  May we practice well.
Amen

–

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

July 3, 2016

Sermons

“The Kindom of God”based on Psalm 42:1-6a, Luke 8:26-39

  • June 19, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I spent a large portion of my seminary years at a gay nightclub called Oasis, which, as it was located in “The Inland Empire” in Southern California was largely populated by Latino men. Being a pastoral intern and learning how to be a pastor often felt like walking on a tightrope. Being a seminarian felt like being a head without a body. I went to the club to hang out with my friends. I went to the club to dance. I went to the club in defiance of what everyone expected me to be doing in seminary. I went to the club because it was so much nicer than going to straight clubs and being creepily hit on.

Mostly though, I went to the club to be more fully human. The darkened space, the deep pulsing of the bass, the squeals of delight, the sweating bodies, and the freedom to MOVE balanced my life. It got me out of my head, and into the wholeness of my body. It was a sanctuary from TRYING so hard to BE and to BECOME someone other than who I was. It was part of being a whole person, and not just a desexualized, dehumanized, pastoral person. It was fun, it was ridiculous at times, and it was definitely fully embodied.

As a straight, white, cisgender seminary student, the mostly Latin gay club was a sanctuary for the fullness of my humanity. It was safe space to be. For the men I went dancing with, the space was far more important. It was community, it was family, (it was a dating pool), it was space where they were allowed to look at (and often touch) other men without reproach. For the men and women who might otherwise have been closeted, I suspect the space was even more important. It was a place to be accepted as who they were, even if mostly anonymously. For those from families and communities who believed that God’s grace had limits, it was space to shake off those shackles and be free.

All week I’ve heard of the gay club as “sanctuary,” and all the more so on Latin night for people who are Latino, Latina, and Latinx. Personally, I believe it, because on my own micro scale, I’ve lived it. I believe it, because I can imagine a little bit, how much more important the experience of sanctuary has been for those for whom the space was actually made – the very same people for whom most churches are places of violence rather than safety.

As followers of Jesus, our lives are meant to be focused on building the kindom of God. It is the work that Jesus was doing in his life time, and it is the work we continue as the Body of Christ through our lifetimes. The kindom of God is the world as God would have it be: a time when the resources of the world are shared with freedom and all people have enough to survive and thrive. The kindom of God is the time when all people treat each other as the closest of kin, taking care of each other and supporting each other’s needs.

This was the work of Jesus. He found ways to help people connect with each other and support each other even in the midst of the challenges of the Roman Empire’s occupation of Galilee and Judea. This is the work we are still at. Weeks like this past one are ones when we are particularly aware of how far the world is from the kindom.

Like broken Gentile man in the gospel, the brokenness of our world is Legion. Thinking only of Orlando, there are so many ways that the kindom of God was desecrated. The work of the kindom is toward peace and wholeness: violence defiled it. The work of the kindom is toward safety and security: gunshots profaned it. The work of the kindom is to end racism and acknowledge the profound beauty and humanity of people with all skin tones: the kindom was violated when ever more vulnerable brown-skipped bodies were filled with bullets.  The work of the kindom is to eliminated xenophobia and acknowledge our shared humanity with people from all nations and ethnicity: the kindom was profaned in the targeted attack on the Latin community. The work of the kindom is to build up the vulnerable and enable all people to live full and abundant lives: the kindom was defaced when the targeted population was the vulnerable LGBTQI community. The work of the kindom is to care for the sick and injured, including the mentally ill and injured: the work of the kindom was dishonored by the ways the shooter failed to be treated.

Friends, a massacre happened at a gay club on Latin night. The horrors are Legion. The world is so broken.

Yet, our question today is the same question we bring everyday: what is our role in bringing the kindom of God today? It seems that there are many ways forward. One is living into the grief, which must be one. Another is in letting the anger within us rise and motivated us to action, which also must be done. But for today, for this one day, my sense is that our role in brining the kindom of God is to at rest and to be comforted. The comfort won’t take away the grief, and it won’t take away the anger. But in the midst of tragedy, one of God’s yearnings is to comfort the people, and one of our responsibilities is to receive the comfort.

In our tradition, even Sunday is seen as a mini-Easter, a day to remember the power of God to bring life into the world. In our tradition, as in many, the space in which we gather to worship is a “sanctuary.” The word itself comes from Latin through French, deriving from Latin “sanctus” for “holy.” Because the law of the medieval church held that no one could be arrested in a sanctuary, another meaning derived as well, one that indicates that a fugitive is safe and immune from those who would harm them. At times, our church sanctuaries still function in that way.

Gathering together in holy space, where all are meant to be safe, to celebrate the work of the Living God over and over again is part of the rhythm and ritual of building the kindom. Our sanctuaries are the places we experience enough safety to be able to connect with God, with each other, and with the deepest parts of ourselves. They are imperative to the creation of the kindom, as they are what the kindom will actually be (just on a bigger scale!) They are imperative to the creation of the kindom because they form us into kindom people.

Gathering in this space today, we bring with us grief, anger, confusion, and fear – at least. In this sacred space I hope we are able to let go of our grip on each of those and let God’s love and hope find a home in us again. We gather in this space, letting God comfort and heal us, resting in faith that God’s comfort and healing will be with all those who need it.As one scholar reminded me this week, “the words ‘heal’ and ‘save’ are the same in Greek.”1 That’s a fact to put in your memory bank and keep the next time someone says something theologically stupid. It will keep your head from exploding. 😉 One of the most consistent messages of Christianity has been “Our God saves.” When translated to “Our God heals” this is a message to soak in. In the Gospel lesson, God working through Jesus heals a man whose harms are “Legion.” In and through us, and others, God is at work to heal the world’s Legion harms as well.

Some of our response requires us to pay attention to grace, wonder, and beauty around us. Today we had the opportunity to participate in the sacrament of baptism, officially welcoming Kate Rosemary into the Body of Christ, and promising to teach her how to love God and God’s people. What a source of wonder she is! What a joy it is to see her thriving! What a source of life renewal and energy she is! This beautiful, happy baby and her loving wise parents remind us of the goodness of life. The wonder of baptism reminds us all that we are welcome among God’s people. There is a lot to be grateful for.

Today we also have the opportunity to celebrate the High School graduation of Chris Rambo Jr. As many here remember, Chris Jr. and his faith Chris Sr. came to this church when Chris Jr. was young and many pieces of his soul still hurt. Chris Sr. was in the process of adopting him, a call he had known for many years. This church baptized Chris Jr., and confirmed him, has celebrated him and occasionally scolded him, loved him, and expressed how proud they are of him.

I don’t know what Chris Jr.’s live would have been like without Chris Sr., but I imagine most of his achievements would not have been possible. He would not have been on the Academic Honor Roll at the Capital Region Career and Technical School in his Junior and Senior Years. He would not have volunteered for the Crop Walk, fundraised for the BOCES Christmas Toy Drive, packed Thanksgiving dinners, insulated homes for Habitat for Humanity and Global Volunteers, walked dogs at the Damien Center, performed hurricane relief in Schoharie County, sang Christmas carols to shut-ins, performed maintenance at Sky Lake Camp & Retreat Center, and served many breakfasts and dinners at First United Methodist and Schenectady City Mission. He would have not become a volunteer fire fighter, nor a certified scuba diver, nor Red Cross certified in First Aid and CPR for Adults, Children,

and Infants. He likely would not have been able to play volleyball, wrestling, and basketball for Guilderland. And quite likely his life would not have made it possible for him to enter the Automotive Technology Program at Hudson Valley Community College this Fall.

God’s love has been the motivating force in Chris Sr.’s life for a very long time. God nudged Chris to become a father to someone who needed him, and Chris to the call very seriously. Chris Jr. was a hurting, struggling kid whose life has been transformed by his father’s love and by the love of the adults he has come to know through his many activities and this church. His life and his successes are proof of the power of the love of God in the world. Healing has come. Life is good. There is much to be grateful for.

Friends who went to Orlando this week reported the existence of dance parties. The LGBTQI community was healing itself through dance. The Latino/Latina/Latinx community was healing itself through dance. The same experience that had been violated with horrific violence was reclaimed to continue its work of healing. There are many too deep in grief to dance.  There are may too profoundly wounded to dance. There are way too many who will never dance again. Yet those who could and would, danced. The life-force in them required reclaiming their bodies, their anthems, their lives, their space, their sanctuaries.

It is time to reclaim sanctuaries. I say this as act of defiance. Acts of terrorism and violence, particularly mass murders in communal spaces are intended to make us afraid. Sanctuaries have been violated, but they must be reclaimed. Fear has been poured into the water of our country and our world, but we cannot continue to drink from it.

We must reclaim sanctuary in this space and for the world for the sake of the kindom. We be formed into full expressions of God’s love while we live in fear. So, our work is to make space for the wonder: for Katie Rosemary, for Chris Jr, and for dance parties. Our work is to attend to the goodness along with the horrors. Our work is to find space and people among whom we feel safe and to soak in the goodness. Our “work” is to let God comfort us, and bring us rest. Having hung with God before, I suspect this work will transform itself soon enough! We might as well enjoy Sabbath, Sanctuary, rest and comfort for now – for the sake of the kindom. Amen

Sermon Talkback Questions

  1. What emotions did you bring with you today?
  2. Are there other aspects of the Legions of horrors that need to be named?
  3. When have you experienced sanctuary most profoundly?
  4. What do you sense God calling you/us to today?
  5. What else is necessary in you/us to feed us for the building of the kindom?
  6. I listed Kate’s baptism, Chris Jr’s graduation, (really, Chris Sr’s adoption of Chris Jr), and dance parties in Orlando as signs of hope. I really wanted to add the “act of nonconformity” passed by the New England Annual Conference. What else did you want to add?
  7. How else do we reject fear?
  8. Where and how else can we work to reclaim sacred space? (Dancing works for me, what works for you?)

1  James W. Thomas “Exegetical Perspective on Luke 8:26-39” , p. 171 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

June 19, 2016

Sermons

“Power, Privilege, and God” based on 1 Kings 21:1-10 and…

  • June 12, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

King Ahab wants something. He really really wants it. It isn’t at all clear WHY he wants it. He wants a piece of land that is adjacent to his palace property in the village of Jezreel. Now, the capital and primary palace was in Samaria. Jezreel was, at best, a secondary palace. Why would anyone care so much about space for a vegetable garden near their second home? I mean, the story says that after he asked for the land and was rebuffed, he was physically ill. As one commentator put it, “King Ahab is made sick by his greed for a vineyard he cannot have.”1

Why? Because from the perspective of nearly 3000 years later, this doesn’t seem worth getting bent out of shape about. I guess that isn’t really a reasonable standard for humanity though. 😉 Most of us, most of the time, can’t really figure out if something will matter tomorrow, much less next month.

Now, King Ahab of Israel is said by the Bible to be the worst king who had ever ruled (to that point). He was particularly terrible. Six chapters of the book of 1 Kings exist primarily to talk about how awful he was.

Even given that, I’ve been trying to figure out how a person could get obsessed with having one particular property for a vegetable garden. In some ways it feels familiar, this way of obsessing over wanting something that doesn’t matter at all. It feels familiar to how I’ve watched myself function at times, and it feels familiar to how I’ve seen others function as well. There are a few ways I’ve watched us all do this:

  1. We decide we want something – just because we see it and think to want it. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
  2. We decide we want something because we can’t have it, and that makes it attractive in and of itself. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
  3. We decide we want something because someone tells us we can’t have it, and we want to prove them wrong. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
  4. We decide we want something because we really need something else entirely and we tell ourselves that this will help us get what we really need. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
  5. We decide we want something because some one else has it. Sometimes, we then become obsessed.
  6. This has been known to happen to humans – with some frequency. I suspect that most of the time, when we as humans want someTHING, we’re wrong. We don’t want that thing. We want whatever it is we associate with that thing as its meaning.

That is, I wonder what King Ahab REALLY wanted. Was he undernourished and wanting more satiating food? Was he hoping to entertain and make connections with someone and worried that the food he had to offer wasn’t sufficient? Was he continuing the normal human system of searching for safety and security through a constant desire to acquire more? Was he wanting to build community by having enough food to make gifts of it to others? Did he actually really like growing food and intend to spend time in the beauty of the space?

It seems likely his desire was motivated even more deeply than that. If he was like the rest of us, he probably wanted the land because of some story he was telling himself, that he wasn’t aware of as a story. What could the story have been? Was he looking for affirmation that he mattered by telling himself the story that if he could build a bigger secondary palace he would be more respected in the world? Was his story about trying to be as good at being king as his father was, and thinking that he could gain (posthumous) acceptance from his father by building up his holdings? Was his story about seeking a deeper relationship of love with his wife by being able to be more impressive to her? Was he trying to prove to himself that he had a purpose in the world, and needing to have a pet project at all times to feel at peace with the fact that he would die?

That’s what the Biblical account doesn’t tell us – it doesn’t tell us what the land meant to Ahab. I don’t think it is possible that the land was really about the land, because that’s not how humans work! We are, usually subconsciously, telling ourselves stories about what things mean beyond what they actually mean. And those stories that we tell ourselves impact our emotional realities in how we respond to the world.

Whatever story Ahab was telling himself was pretty big, since he was SICKENED by Naboth’s refusal to sell. Now, I think Naboth’s refusal makes a lot of sense. We need much more information to understand it. His land WAS his ancestral inheritance, which in theory at least could not be sold, and tearing down a vineyard to make a vegetable garden was pretty insulting. As one scholar points out, “The same Hebrew phrase ‘vegetable garden’ occurs in Deuteronomy 11:10 to describe Egypt in contrast to the promised land.”2 Furthermore, vineyards took many years of labor to make profitable. They were serious investments. He was under no obligation to sell to the King, and he had no reason to want to. So he said no.

Ahab couldn’t handle the no. I’m still curious if the land purchase was just a passing fancy, but being told no utterly enraged him. They stories may not have been as important as being denied something he vaguely wanted. It may be that when he was told no, he started telling himself some other stories! Perhaps stories that said being told no was a lack of respect. Perhaps stories that being told no meant he was wrong to have asked. Perhaps stories that said that important people weren’t told no. Perhaps he was shamed by Naboth mentioning the “ancestral inheritance” and some part of him told him he was a bad person for wanting the land at all. Perhaps the story suggested that he wasn’t a good man if he couldn’t convince someone to do things his way.

I don’t know what stories he told himself, but the text seems to indicate that the stories were pretty potent. They sickened him. Then comes Jezebel. Now, Jezebel makes me squirmy, because she is ultimate anti-heroine, and I don’t like it when evilness is associated with women. This isn’t just a vague woman thing about not wanting to be associated with evilness, this is because we are associated with evil way too often and in ways that do harm to humanity. Yet, no fairy tale nor Disney movie has ever been able to make a character as utterly evil as Jezebel. I’m not even sure Lady Macbeth is as bad, and if she is, I suspect it is because Shakespeare modeled her in part on Jezebel.

Worse yet, part of the way Jezebel is so darn evil is because she is such a powerful woman willing to use her power to get what she wants. In this story, what she wants is a false accusation that would lead to a stoning. That is, she wants a murder, and she has the tools to get it. Actually, likely, she got several murders because the accusations that she brought would have gotten both Naboth and his male descendants killed. This she gave to her husband as a gift so he would feel better because he got his stupid garden. She’s the worst, and she’s female, and I can’t fix it.

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the acquisition of this garden, even through these means, seemed to ACTUALLY sooth Ahab’s spirits. Clearly getting what he had decided he wanted mattered to him more than the means of acquisition. As hearers of the story though, we might hope that it wouldn’t end there. We don’t want the anti-hero and the anti-heroine to win in the end. It almost seems for a moment that they have. They got away with murder. They got the land he was seeking. He’s the king, and he has all the power and all the privilege, and it has just been proven that saying “no” to the king is a a death sentence.

When he gets to the land, God’s prophet was there. The prophet’s role was usually to tell the king when the king had acted unjustly. Therefore, the-king-who-was-the-worst-in-history-to-that-point responded to the-prophet-who-kept-having-to-tell-him-he-had-messed-up-again with “Have you found me, O my enemy?” Did I mention that my take on Ahab is that he wasn’t particularly self-aware, nor good at differentiating reality from the stories he tells himself? A good leader might see the person who most often whistle-blows their work and think “Ut oh. I must have messed up again!” A great leader would see the same person and say, “I wonder what I can learn now.” A poor leader would simply think, “I’m in trouble now.” Ahab was terrible. He actually saw the person whose job it was to call for God’s justice AS HIS ENEMY. Talk about stories we tell ourselves!!

Of course, I really hate what Elijah said to Ahab. It doesn’t sound like God’s justice to me at all. It sounds like a threat and a punishment. This is one of those cases where I choose to believe that the people who wrote and edited the story were more interested in good story telling than they were in considering what they were implying about God. The story will go on to tell a gory and miserable account of Ahab’s death. Likely some people thought it was fitting after the life he had led. As the story was told through the ages, that sentiment became a part of the story itself. I think that reflects a human longing for justice and a world that makes sense.

In life these characters reflect all of us at times. Sometimes we are irrationally obsessed with the acquisition of something, like Ahab, and we can’t even figure out why we care so much. Sometimes we are going about our normal life when someone else’s whims end up ruining everything (EVERYTHING) like Naboth. Sometimes our desire to make someone we love feel better motivates us to do great harm to someone else, like Jezebel (although almost always to a lesser degree). Sometimes we are the voices of justice who have to call for accountability, like Elijah.

But, truth be told, while each of these aspects of life are real in each of our lives, they aren’t all proportioned equally. Some people have more power, like Ahab and Jezebel. Some have significantly less power and are more vulnerable to injustice and the whims of others, like Naboth. Some of have more privilege, and many have less. Our various levels of privileges intersect in multiple ways.

Yet, we can rest assured that God still works and moves in the world toward justice, and calls us to account for the ways power is used. Injustice is still a reality in the world, but God is never at peace with that. Thanks be to God. May we learn to be speakers of truths, and to call for justice like Elijah (although maybe we can do it with few less threats!) Amen

1Carolyn J. Sharp “Theological Perspective on 1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14), 15-21a”, p. 122 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

2Marsha M Wilfong “Exegetical Perspective on 1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14), 15-21a” , p. 125 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

June 12, 2016

Sermons

“Mother’s Only Son” based on  1 Kings 17:8-24 and Luke…

  • June 5, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Two groups of people, each with their own purposes, happen upon each other outside of a small village. This scene could go a lot of ways! The one it takes is probably not the most expected. Both groups are in motion. The grieving widow and her crowd are a funeral procession from her village. Jesus and his disciples (also a large group) are in transition from place to place.

The widow in Nain doesn’t approach Jesus. Unlike so many other gospel narratives, Jesus isn’t responding to anyone else’s request. Instead, it was simply compassion that moved him to act.  He sees her. It is likely that her son was her means of economic survival. As a widow, she’d lost her husband already, so her son was her only family. Furthermore, “the death of an only son would leave a widow without an heir and therefore unable to retain whatever means remained for her. Without an heir, all personal property reverted to her husband’s family after his death.”1 This meant she was both grieving as a parent grieves the loss of their child, but there was also an added complication of desperation.

Jesus is said to “see her” and “have compassion for her.” The word for compassion means “an intense inner emotion and sympathy that accompanies mercy. Luke uses the word in two later stories, when the Samaritan sees the stripped and beaten man (10:33), and when the prodigal father sees his lost son for the first time far down the road (15:20). … For Luke, compassion, while entailing great emotional capacity, also leads to action.”2This is a BIG deal. The gospels were written during the Roman Empire, with Greek influence everywhere. “For readers situated in a Hellenistic and Roman culture in which being moved by another was a sign of weakness, here (as in 10:330 and 15:20) that supposed ‘weakness’ is associated with Jesus, and through him, God. Compassion and mercy are the apex of God’s character and of the new communal life in the Spirit.”3

That is, this is a story of Jesus being compassionate, and moved by the suffering of others. It is a story of Jesus’ compassion in the midst of a cultural context that would have seen it as weakness. Yet, Jesus is an active agent in this story. His compassion is his motivation. He sees the grieving widow, and he is moved to help her.

Interestingly, in our stories today, the dead/dying sons are sort of objects. Their mothers, and the prophets of God, are the subjects.  I think we should always be concerned about the ways we tell stories, and how stories can dehumanize people into objects. Yet, I find it surprising WHO becomes an object and who doesn’t in these stories.

That is, the impoverished, widows with one (dead/dying) son are the subjects. This is a surprise because we aren’t supposed to notice them in society, unless God is turning things upside down. Both of our stories today are of God turning things upside down. Likely the two stories are intentionally similar, intended to reflect light back and forth between themselves.

Luke has Jesus touch the bier. This touch would have made him ritualistically unclean. Elijah doesn’t touch that mother’s son, but he has to stretch his body over the boy’s body three times and pray out loud. Jesus is being presented not only as prophet but as an especially strong one. Jesus is being presented as caring about the widow, even though he doesn’t know her. Elijah has to be shamed into action. Jesus, in Luke, continually cares for widows, orphans, and strangers. This is particularly notable, since in the Torah, God is pretty obsessed with how widows, orphans, and strangers are treated. The prophets tended to end up having to tell the Kings that they were mistreating God’s widows, orphans, and strangers. In this story, Luke is establishing Jesus as a prophet, and reminding us that prophets express God’s compassion, especially for widows, orphans, and strangers.

Throughout Biblical history, “Widows, orphans, and strangers had this in common: they did not count on the protection offered by a citizen adult male in their family.”4 In the two stories we have, we don’t know the names of the mothers or the sons. That is “something common in biblical narratives, yet another sign of injustice. Women and children were, more often than not, referred to as the wife or child of male adults, in those days the only ones with any power in social and religious life.”5 Yet, these unnamed mothers are the subjects of their stories.

In the beginning of 1 Kings 17, Elijah begins a take down of the Canaanite god Baal, who is the god that the Israelite King’s wife worships. The Israelite King at that point was Ahab. He was officially declared one of the worst. His wife was Jezebel. She was hands down the worst. In the 3 chapter cycle in 1 Kings between Elijah as God’s prophet and the followers and prophets of Baal, there are a series of contests between “the G/gods.” It may be helpful to think of these stories as … oh, what’s that called? Those contests where two men compete to see who can pee farther, higher, and longer? Whatever that is, that’s what YHWH and Baal are presented as doing in these 3 chapters.

Since the Canaanite god Baal was known as a god responsible for the rain, YHWH creates a drought. In the beginning of chapter 17, YHWH’s prophet Elijah declared to the King Ahab that there would be a long drought until YHWH called it off. This was to prove that Baal was … ineffective. Then the story turns to show how YHWH provided for Elijah during this terrible drought. That helps YHWH appear… effective.

At first, Elijah is sent to a ravine to drink water from the stream and be fed by ravens YHWH would send along. Then the water dried up in stream because of the drought. This is the point when our story today begins. Next, Elijah is sent to Sidon, the home village of Queen Jezebel, right in the heart of Baal worshipping. He is sent to Sidon and is told he’ll be fed by a widow. This should have raised some red flags for him.

As one scholar put it, “We don’t know that he would have been optimistic about a widow feeding him. In the best of times, most widows lived a very tenuous existence. In a time of drought, their need would have been even more pronounced.”6 It would likely not have raised his hopes when the widow he met was out gathering sticks, a sign of her profound poverty.

I think Elijah sounds pretty awful in this story. He is demanding things from a woman he never met, and he isn’t even polite about it. “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” Makes me want to say, “excuse me??” Then he follows up with “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” I’d be likely to respond, “Dude. Why do you think I’m your servant?”

However, I’m not sure that’s the actual point of the story! In fact, I’ve been reminded recently that women have so few words attributed to the in the Bible that I should pay attention to what they say rather than get upset at what is said to and about them. The widow replies to Elijah, and says, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” She claims her own voice. She doesn’t actually seem upset at his request. She’s past that. She just lets him know how desperate she is, and that she can’t care for him too.

After Elijah convinces her to try it anyway, and they are all blessed with a miracle of abundance, her son becomes deathly ill.  She is afraid that Elijah’s presence has brought YHWH’s attention to her and that YHWH is thus punishing her. She speaks again (this is a big deal) this time starting the conversation instead of responding to Elijah. “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” Her words motivate/shame Elijah, and Elijah heals her son. She also gets the last words in this story, saying to Elijah after the many days of food was provided and her son was brought back from the brink of death, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of theLord in your mouth is truth.” The unnamed widow gets a lot of voice.

The capacity to heal is associated in many parts of the Bible with a connection to the Divine. But it is only in the Luke story that the motivate to heal comes from the compassion of Jesus reflecting the compassion of God.

Like many of you, I struggle with most parts of these stories if I try to take them as factual accounts of historical events. So, I don’t. I do take them as stories meant to convey deep truths, often on multiple levels at the same time. I find myself wondering who the widows, orphans, and strangers are today. Clearly, actually, widows, orphans, and immigrants/refugees ARE still vulnerable populations in the world. That hasn’t changed.

There are others as well. Because of mass incarceration in the United States, particularly of men of color, there are many families who are vulnerable with both lack of income and lack of family connection. Our society creates functional widows and orphans.

Because of our immigration laws, strangers are at risk, and when deportations happen, families become essentially widows and orphans.

Because of a raw hunger in our world for access to sexual pleasure without mutuality or consent, we live in a world where women and children live in slavery and are trafficked for the pleasure of (usually) men. Women and children moved around the country or the world for this purpose become strangers in a strange land without access to resources. They become widows, orphans, and strangers in multiple ways.

Because of the prevalence of violence in our society, and the unconscionable number of murders, many are left as widows and widowers, orphans, and strangers.

Because of the fears and anxieties that abound, and the lack of adequate mental health care, many in our society are particularly vulnerable to those would would gain profit through addition. Drug use, abuse, and overdoses make people both living widows, orphans, and strangers and actual widows, orphans and strangers.

There are so many ways that our way of life as a society and a world MAKES PEOPLE more vulnerable and puts their livelihoods at risk. Yet, we worship a God of compassion who sees the struggles of those whose hearts and lives are broken, and is moved to change the brokenness. May we continue to learn how to receive God’s gifts of healing in our own lives and how to participate in God’s gifts of healing in the world. Amen

1Verlee A. Copeland “Homeletical Perspective on Luke 7:7-11” , p. 119 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

2Gregory Anderson Love “Theological Perspective on Luke 7:7-11” , p. 118 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

3Ibid, 120.

4Carolyn J. Sharp “Pastoral Perspective on 1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)” , p. 98 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).

5Ibid, 100.

6H. James Hopkins, “Homiletical Perspective on 1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)” , p. 101 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 3” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2010).    

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

June 5, 2016

Sermons

“The One Who Began a Good Work”  based on…

  • May 29, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

A week ago I returned from a 2 week trip to Portland Oregon, where I was a progressive organizer for the General Conference of The United Methodist Church. General Conference meets only every 4 years, and is a global gathering of delegates who have the power to change the church’s position on ANYTHING they want. I went with the “Love Your Neighbor Coalition” to help the church do less harm.1

Things started getting really interesting for that work, 8 days before General Conference officially began. That was when 15 Clergy from the New York Annual Conference published an open letter in which they came out as LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and/or Intersexed).2 A week later, the day before General Conference began, 111 Clergy around the country joined their voices together in “A Love Letter to Our Church From Your LGBTQI Religious Leaders.”3 (So, they came out too.) That letter just about broke the Internet. The traffic actually broke the Reconciling Ministries Network’s web-page.

The following day, when General Conference started, a letter signed by “hundreds of moms” came out in support of the LGBTQI clergy.4 Two days after that, more than 500 LGBTQI Christian Leaders from other denominations signed a letter in solidarity with the UM Clergy who had come out.5 From the grandstands outside the plenary floor I looked through the list of names to see friends and colleagues from this area had signed it, and it felt like the Spirit had whispered hope and love right into our General Conference. Words of love came from a lot of directions. There were love letters from the UCC National Office6, the New England Quakers7, and the Episcopal of the Portland Diocese full of encouragement and hope.8

General Conference started on Tuesday, May 10th. On Saturday there was a letter signed by more than 5000 UM laity declaring their support of LGBTQI clergy9, which now has more than 6200 signatures and counting. On Monday the 16th, there was a letter signed by more than 2300 UM Allies in support of OUR LGBTQI colleagues.10 (Yes, “our.” It was long time before I got to sign anything.) Reading through the lists of signers of those letters was also a source of comfort and joy.

Finally, on the second Tuesday of General Conference, 16 days after the first public letter was released with 15 Clergy coming out, a response came from some of The United Methodist Bishops.11 If you were wondering, two of your former Bishops signed it: Bishops Susan Morrison and Susan Hassinger. 29 Bishops signed in all. They wrote in response to the SECOND letter, the one from 111 LGBTQI clergy. Among the words they wrote were:

We write our letter now to say to these sacred children of God and members of our United Methodist family that we love them and have been blessed by the many spiritual gifts that God has given them and that they have shared with us.  … While they could have left, day by day they choose to stay because of their love for the church that baptized, nurtured and called them to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind, and to love their neighbor as they love themselves.  Even while marginalized and rejected by their mother church they love her back. … God have mercy upon us!

When shall we United Methodists have the courage of Peter to stand and say that nothing that God has made is unclean?  When shall we believe that the love of God is truly for all?  When shall we learn to live in faith and humility before our God of love?

We call The United Methodist Church to repentance for its lack of love for all God’s children, and for its arrogance in believing that we establish the boundaries of God’s love.

Now, the timing of the Bishop’s letter was quite interesting! It came out on Tuesday of the second week. The night before, news was intentionally leaked that the Bishops were looking at a plan for schism. On Tuesday morning they denied it in a speech to the whole body and then in a press conference. Soon thereafter a motion was made on the floor requesting that the Bishops come up with a plan to find a way forward for the denomination given our disagreement about whether or not ALL people are really God’s people. (The opposition likes to say that we discuss “human sexuality.”) The motion from the floor was a very helpful way to make things happen without the Bishops’ claiming it was their idea.

The following day the Bishops came back with their proposal. That was the day we, the progressives, were ready to shut everything down. I suspect that would have resulted in mass arrest. As we waited to hear the Bishop’s plan and the body’s response to it, I took note of how calm we all were. We, the progressives, were gathered in a clump ready to “break the bar” and shut down the General Conference. We were in rainbow stoles (some short, some long), some of us were in collars. But the Peace of Christ was with all of us. We were ready to do God’s work. We held our breaths, and instead of arrests a Commission got created.

This was the Bishop’s proposal – the creation of a special Commission.12 The Commission is to be named by the Council of Bishops, and rather than acting on ANY of the petitions about LGBTQI exclusion, they were all referred to the Commission. The Commission is to come up with a plan to move forward. It is possible that they might rewrite large portions of the Book of Discipline, for the better. More likely the Commission will come back letting the denomination know that we are not of one mind, and we cannot continue to function as we’ve functioned. What I don’t know is if there suggestion will be: a schism, a restructuring, or both. We also don’t know that General Conference will take their suggestions. That happens a lot that General Conference sends an idea to a special group and then refuses their suggestions when they’re returned.

This was a step to the side, rather than forward or backward. When it happened, it felt like a victory, because we KNEW that if those petitions got to the floor, it would have been a bloodbath. It was also a victory because the denomination was pushed to a breaking point, but it isn’t worth trusting quite yet that the breaking point will lead to greater inclusion or safety for God’s people.

The breaking point came not just after a bunch of people signed a bunch of letters (although those helped). Rather it came after months, years, and decades of faithful resistance and ecclesial disobedience. The breaking point was created intentionally. It came because of a long term progressive strategy. The “Biblical Obedience” movement named by Bishop Talbert 4 years ago whereby he instructed us to preside over same-sex marriages in the “regular course of our pastoral duties” was also a part of it. Faithful witnesses at General Conferences and Annual Conferences were a part of it. There were many components. The strategy has been “to increase pressure and tension on the institutional United Methodist Church. The purpose has been to force it to look clearly at the harm and ugliness and evil that it commits against LGBTQI persons. The purpose of that has been to force the Church to look at itself, to confront the ugliness of what it has, what it has made itself, what it does, until it can no longer tolerate what it is and must decide to be something else.”13

Pushing the church to a breaking point and the creation of the special Commission was a success of this strategy. So was the conservative push for schism at this General Conference. Apparently, the most conservative wing of The United Methodist Church is SICK AND TIRED of people who refuse to obey unjust laws (*shrugs). They don’t want to be in a denomination with LGBTQI clergy, they don’t want to be in a denomination where clergy perform same-sex marriages, and they don’t want to be in denomination where laity as well as clergy are willing to protest for the rights of all of God’s children. They want to leave. They want to split the denomination so that they can exit. They want to take their marbles and go home, even though they have the votes to win on the floor. The most conservative 10-15% of the denomination want to leave.

Many of us think that the Commission will bring forward a plan for schism. Going into General Conference I stood firmly against schism. When the news had been leaked about the Bishop’s plan for schism I was both horrified and relieved. Eventually I found I was a bit excited.

As progressive organizers, General Conference was horrible. The majority of the delegates were conservative. The odds were stacked against us, and despite our best work, a lot went very badly. Of particular note was the resolution that passed which removed the UMC from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Justice. There were also good petitions that did not pass, including: petitions to pull our retirement benefits out of the Palestinian occupation, petitions to pull our retirement benefits out of companies that profit from fossil fuels, petitions to end overly invasive medical forms for clergy, petitions to support “responsible parenthood”, and petitions to restructure the Church for equity.

As progressive organizers, terrible things almost happened, and we were able to help stop them. (Bad things happened, but we were usually able to stop the TERRIBLE things.) In one case we had a hand in stopping the creation of a $20,000,000 “slush fund.” Unfortunately, we were mostly unable to make good things happen. We WERE able to secure church’s support for the concerns of our racial/ethnic caucus partners, which was grand. We were able to maintain our stance as a pro-choice denomination. No horrible transphobic legislation got passed. Those are weak successes.

We did hard work, and we got very little for it. We lost, over and over and over again despite having done our work well. By the start of the second week, I was exhausted with fighting, and with losing. I am not interested in giving up on The United Methodist Church, but I’m also tired of being in a church that excludes God’s beloved people. The idea of spending the rest of my career working for this justice AND FAILING fills me with dread. Also, being in a denomination that has NO trust in each other is exhausting. At this point, as far as I’m concerned, if the most conservative faction wants to leave, and free the rest of us to be a healthy Body of Christ together, I have lost all interest in stopping them.

This is more than just about our denomination. It is the human condition. Sometimes things are too broken to be fixed. When there is no trust, there is not truly a shared Body. This is true of denominations and non-profits, of marriages and relationships, and even of friendships. Some things aren’t fixable. We are an Easter People, and we follow a God who can make a way out of no way. Sometimes though, the path of hope, love, and justice – that is the path of God – requires letting something die to make space for a different sort of life. Being an Easter people can mean letting God find the way forward to life, and letting go of defining how that that will happen. I don’t know yet if it is time for The United Methodist Church as it has been since 1968 to die, but I suspect it cannot live as it is.

Yet, for today I choose a scripture of gratitude. General Conference was not ONLY horrible. There were too many great people to reconnect with, to work with, and to get to know for it to be exclusively horrible. Being with the Love Your Neighbor Coalition meant spending a lot of time with amazing people who care about God’s justice and love. I am thankful to God every time I think of them, and I trust that the good work that has been done will not be lost but that God will find a way to complete it. I also trust that those who have been working on this progressive strategy for decades will not stop.  It is the work that God has begun, and it isn’t stoppable.

As a whole, General Conference was about 20% as bad as I thought it would be. Where I expected to have NO hope at this point, I have some very hesitant considerations that maybe someday things might be OK. That’s a big change. 😉 I sort of hate it when the words of Paul ring true, he and I are still struggling with each other. Yet he puts words to where I am after this 2016 General Conference. These are my words for you, for those who play along at home, for my many partners in the Love Your Neighbor Coalition, and even for the church at large: “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best.” May it be so. Amen

1http://lyncoalition.org/about/

2http://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/call-to-declare-we-are/

3http://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/calledout/

4http://www.mindny.org/2016/05/more-than-1000-christian-moms-support-lgbtqi-clergy/

5http://www.believeoutloud.com/latest/500-lgbtqi-christian-leaders-stand-solidarity-our-united-methodist-colleagues

6http://www.ucc.org/open_letter_to_our_brothers_and_sisters_in_the_united_methodist_church_05142016

7http://neym.org/sites/default/files/UMCepistle_5_2016_0.pdf

8http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2016/05/17/13421849/STATEMENT-OF-SUPPORT-FOR-THE-UNITED-METHODIST-GENERAL-CONFERENCE.pdf

9https://org.salsalabs.com/o/2507/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=19747

10http://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/over-1500-united-methodist-clergy-pledge-their-support-of-lgbtq-colleagues/

11http://westernjurisdictionumc.org/a-pastoral-response-to-a-love-letter-to-our-church-from-lgbtqi-religious-leaders/

12http://www.pnwumc.org/news/an-offering-for-a-way-forward-umcgc/

13As phrased by Kevin Nelson, Love Your Neighbor Coalition Legislative Strategy Co-Chair, on Facebook, on May 18th, 2016.

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http://fumcschenectady.org/

May 29. 2-16

Sermons

“All Messed Up” based on Acts 16:16-39

  • May 8, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

This story is all messed up. To begin with, Paul is a very questionable hero. He doesn’t seem to act in order to benefit the slave girl. In fact, the text says explicitly that he was “very much ANNOYED” by her and that’s why he healed her. Annoyance – not compassion, love, or concern for her well-being, annoyance.

Truth be told, the story doesn’t really seem to care about the slave girl either. The slave girl is not named, the text does not indicate that Paul ever spoke to HER directly, and it does not tell us what happens to her after she was “healed.” She’s a narrative means to an end.

The spirit in her is used to tell us that the followers of Jesus’s way were in fact slaves of the Most High God. Her status as a slave may exist primarily as a narrative device, whereby the enslaved is able to name the slave-to-God status of others. While it is suggested that her owner’s were angered by losing the money she had been making them, the accusations they made against Paul and Silas don’t even have anything to do with that.

Of the girl herself we know very little. She was a slave. She had a spirit of divination. It made her owners a lot of money. She followed around Paul and his company, and her truth-telling about them got annoying after a few days, so Paul ordered the spirt of out of and it came out. Then she wasn’t worth as much money.

Those aren’t terribly human facts to know about someone. We know nothing of her motivation, although her motivation could reasonably be assumed within the confines of the story, to be the spirit and not her! We don’t know what happens next for her. Is she beaten because she is now worthless? What back-breaking labor does she land in? How old is she anyway? What other work may she be used for now? What she grateful? Was the spirit something that benefitted her life or harmed it (go with the story on this one, we can’t change the story, so we might as well accept its premises for a moment).

Not only do we know nothing about her, we also don’t know why Paul failed to SEE her or have any mercy on her. If he had the power to take away the spirit, then maybe he could have done so earlier. On the other hand, having the spirit made her more valuable, which may have improved her life. But he doesn’t seem to CARE and neither does the story.

At best, this part of the passage might just be a retelling of the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge.

[Jesus said,] ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” (Luke 18:2-5)

Paul gets worn down by a spirit, and orders the spirit out of slave girl. Like the judge, he doesn’t act out of justice or obligation, he uses his power because he is ANNOYED.

Later, when he gets out of jail because of his inborn status as a Roman Citizen, he demands HIS rights as a Roman Citizen, and is upset that he was mistreated because HE deserves better because of his power in the world. Paul demands a public apology, but only for how he was treated. He doesn’t ask about her status, or indicate that she mattered.

In Acts, Peter is presented as “the new Jesus.” Paul isn’t. Thanks be to God. I don’t know what Peter would have done in this case, nor can I really speak to what Jesus would have done. Yet, I’d like to believe they would have SEEN the girl, and not just been annoyed by the spirit. I want to think they’d worry about her life too. Stories of Jesus seem to imply that lives matter, even the lives of people who have been beaten down by life.

In this story, Paul fails to do so.

And yet, he doesn’t. The second half of the story is different from the first half. The interaction with the jailer is amazing, beautiful, miraculous, and shows an INCREDIBLE amount of empathy for the very person who was oppressing them. Paul and Silas cared about the jailer, and the ways that they responded to the jailer saved his life and showed him a new way of being. The way that Paul responds to the jailer is exemplary. He SEES him and cares about him, without even knowing him. That feels like how Jesus would have handled it.

The story of the earthquake in jail, and the prisoners staying put is pretty darn weird. I suppose Paul knew that the authorities would figure things out sooner rather than later, so he wasn’t particularly concerned.  Yet in most cases in human history, the cycle of oppression wins out. One person or group oppresses another, and if the oppressed ever get a chance to lead, they respond with oppression as well. Prisoners taking gentle care of their jailers breaks the cycle of oppression. That being said, as a GENERAL rule, I don’t think this is a model we have to follow. It is a good thing to keep in mind when you already know you are SAFE, but not necessarily a good choice every time.

Paul’s actions in prison were very effective in proclaiming that the way of Jesus was different than the ways of the world. The jailer converted. Paul didn’t, however, call out the economic injustice, the inherent human dignity of the slave girl, or even the position of jailer in a system of oppression. Paul’s actions mostly left things the same, and didn’t lead people to fuss over them, other than worrying about if they’d get in trouble for misidentifying a Roman Citizen.

I think he could have done better. I think these stories are all messed up. That’s a relief! It indicates that sometimes the people of God mess up, and although we are doing our best, we fail to see the most loving way forward. Sometimes we don’t notice the calls for justice around us.  Sometimes we’re just plain wrong! Often we don’t SEE.

Yet, God continues to work through Paul through the rest of Paul’s life. The writer of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles has told some pretty important stories for the history of human kind. That is, the failure of Paul and the story to get it right isn’t the final answer. (Not that this helps the slave girl one little bit. Nothing does.)

Yet, it doesn’t stop here. Paul kept developing, and learning more deeply how to love. He would eventually write the famous words to the Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28-29) Paul would come to know that slaves have value and that women have value. Perhaps if he looked back on his life, he would have regretted how he acted on that one day, but it didn’t define his life.

We can make mistakes, and learn to do better later. It’s normal. It’s human. In fact, we can’t do otherwise! God is certainly capable of forgiving us, and that should lead us to believe that we can be capable of forgiving ourselves.

want to share God’s love and God’s light at General Conference, even with those with whom I disagree. I don’t want to compromise, and I WILL NOT compromise on the inherent dignity and worthiness of all of God’s people regardless of sexual preference or gender identity. (Obviously.) And yet, the people who stand in opposition to inclusion are not the enemy. They simply don’t know better – yet. Many of us in this room have struggled along the journey to get to inclusion. (Some of us who are younger, had open-minded parents, and attended great churches in our youth didn’t have to struggle, but that makes us much more lucky than wise.) If those of us in this room, who now so consistently act out of regard for the wholeness of your sisters and brothers who are LGBTQI, were once not so sure, then it is clear that God’s grace can win in the hearts of others as well.

No one’s mind will be changed by yelling though, nor by nastiness. As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Love is the only way forward, especially in the face of hatred and fear. As I get ready to leave, I’m pondering how to make space for God’s love to flow through me to drive out hate. I wonder how I can serve as a light.

Now, as previously discussed, I am convinced that the time has come for acts of disobedience and non-violent direct action that will disrupt the normal system. I believe that The United Methodist Church acts as an oppressor doing harm to beloved children of God, and I believe (as I have believed throughout my life) that I am to be part of changing that. The question is how to keep my heart and mind peaceful, steady, and focused on love while I do so. People are going to say terrible things, and things are at times going to go terribly wrong.

But the people who say terrible things are misguided, not evil. The things that will go terribly wrong are not permanent. God is love, God is creator, God is powerful beyond measure. God’s will win out in the end – either through The United Methodist Church or The United Methodist Church will die so that God’s love can live. Nothing else is the final answer. Nothing else can be. God’s love always wins. That is, the Love of God will win out in the end, no matter how much human beings at the church at large mess it up right now.

Two of my favorite prayer practices interrelate. I’ve mentioned them before, but it is worth a reminder today. One prayer practice is to breath in love and breath out stress, fear, and anything that holds you back from love/God. That one is wonderfully de-stressing. The other is to breath in the pain of the world, and allow God to transform it within you, so that you can breath out love.

It is my intention to pray that prayer over and over again. It is my intention to try to live that prayer through the next two weeks. When you are able, I invite you to join me. When the pain becomes too much to bear it may help. (If it doesn’t, return immediately to the other one and soak up love until you can go forward again!) We are, all of us, called to be God’s love and God’s light in the world. We are to participate in co-creating the world with God. We are to use our power to bring in the kin-dom. We are able to participate in changing hate into love.

Let us breathe. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

May 8, 2016

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  • Schenectady, NY 12305
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