“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 10^th. 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 16^th, 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

1 http://lyncoalition.org/about/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12 http://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 18^th, 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

Sermons

Untitled

May 1, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

I often find myself giggling when Church groups are particularly unaware of the culture around them. Likely, I shouldn’t giggle, as my relationship to popular culture is essentially nonexistent, and I a lot miss more than I get. For instance, did you know that there are radio stations other than NPR? (Why?)

Given that I’m useless at popular culture, when I know something is funny it is likely a problem. One of my favorites was a restructuring proposal for The United Methodist Church in 2012 called “Plan B.” Apparently the mostly people who put it together hadn’t ever heard about emergency contraception, and missed that they were suggesting a church restructure that was named the same thing as what most people call “the morning after pill.” I don’t think that implied good things about their plan, either intentionally or unintentionally. I suspect this related to why much of the world finds church irrelevant.

My other favorite is that the Upper New York Annual Conference’s printed “publication” is called “Advocate.” Now, I know why they call it that. It is because of our Gospel reading today. But I find it amazing that they would choose to do so because, well, the famous paper called “The Advocate” is quite a bit different than the version including a letter from the Bishop and news about new faith communities. In their own words, “The Advocate” is “Gay news – commentary, arts & entertainment, health, parenting, and politics. The Advocate is the leading source for up-to-date and extensive LGBT news.”¹

I titled this sermon “The Original Advocate” because I like that the Holy Spirit is called the Advocate in John. Although, to be fair, other translators use “Comforter” and scholars point out that the word also has connotations of “friend.” Nevertheless, I really like “Advocate” and the idea that God advocates for us and for justice in the world. The idea that the Holy Spirit serves as teacher and “reminder” for us in the midst of the confusion and disorientation life is truly comforting to me. God works with us, which means that full responsibility for the wellbeing of the world does not lie on any of us alone – and that is good news.

Truth be told, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this passage. The first time I remember doing “real” Bible Study was at camp the summer after my freshman year of high school. Before that, both at camp and in Sunday School, we’d done … well, I don’t really now what we did, but some combination of story telling, crafts, morality lessons, skits, and chats about God. But that year the directors at camp trusted us to do REAL Bible Study. We read from our actual Bibles. We had resources that helped explain concepts to us that were difficult to deduce on our own. We struggled and debated. We were permitted to really work on the texts themselves. Obviously, I was in love.

The study that summer was about “peace” and this was the culminating passage. We’d learned that peace in the Bible is more than peace in the world – about the idea of shalom and God’s desire for a world where all people have enough. We looked at texts throughout the Bible about peace, and then we got to this passage where Jesus assures the disciples that his peace is with them and cannot be taken away from them. The sense of wonder about being able to struggle with scripture has stayed with me ever since, and it has created a sense of shining joy every time I return to this passage, remembering the delight I had in it when I first met it. (Yes, I’m aware of just how nerdy this is.)

It was a special bonus this week when Matt Berryman, Executive Director of the Reconciling Ministry Network, wrote an article in The Advocate. It was published on Friday and is entitled, “Dear United Methodist Church, Do the Right Thing.” It starts with this, “In just a few weeks, the United Methodist Church will gather in Portland, Ore., for its general conference to determine church policy and practice for the next four years. ‘Who cares?’ you might be asking yourself. Whether you’re religious, spiritual, agnostic, or atheist, here’s why you should.”² He concludes this thought a few paragraphs later saying,

“Becoming a welcoming, affirming faith would send a message to families of all kinds, to the larger communities where our churches are mainstays and influence the broader public discourse; where Christianity still exerts significant influence and power over people’s lives. And beyond the positive water cooler and kitchen table conversations, a reversal of the UMC’s discriminatory policy would begin to dismantle the widely held view that institutional religion is the biggest obstacle to our equality.”³

He’s right. Those are a good assessment of why what happens in Portland starting next week matters. Unfortunately, the right thing isn’t going to happen.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a training on Nonviolent Direct Actions, hosted by MIND (Methodists In New Directions). They are the Reconciling group in the New York Annual Conference, and this training was part of their preparation for General Conference. I was lucky enough to be invited and have it be on my way home! The trainer and participants were well aware that there are not enough votes to change the direction of The United Methodist Church – this time. (Frankly, so is Matt Berryman, it is just his job to push anyway.) The goals right now are to heighten tensions, create crises, and force leaders into decision dilemmas. Only by continuing to apply pressure to the church and grow the anxiety within it is there the opportunity to create change over the long run. We have to play a long game, and we need people willing to take some risk.

That is, things may not be overly “polite.” I spent time this week with a three year old whose parents are consistently teaching her to be polite. Her parents are my friends. She’s a sweet child, and she’s learning all the rules well. I’ve been wondering about it all though. Politeness is very important to know, and to practice. That is, until it isn’t.

Being polite is generally a good way to communicate respect to other people, and acknowledge their humanity. In that way it is a VERY good thing. However, in our society (like most others I think) politeness can become a constraint that limits the work of justice. It is not considered polite interrupt people, but in the midst of humor that is racist, the interruption is the lesser of two evils. It is impolite to talk with one’s mouth full, but if there is a danger that needs to be articulated, it is the lesser of two evils to do so anyway. This list of examples could be rather extensive, as polite is not as important as safe and just.

Some of the work that will be done at General Conference isn’t going to seem polite! The United Methodist Church currently functions as an oppressor of people who are lesbian, gay and bisexual, and the work of justice trumps the value of politeness. The trainer yesterday pointed out that direct actions happen when you are not seeking someone else to give you power – doing it yourself. She explained this as the difference between the people who petitions for the Confederate flag to be removed from the South Carolina statehouse and the woman who climbed up the pole and took it down.⁴ It is not considered POLITE to claim authority for yourself, to ignore the hierarchy and those who claim an institution’s power much less to disrespect their authority and wishes by doing exactly what they don’t like. Most of the time, that’s a good enough reason not to do something. The exception is when greater harm is done by being polite!

I’m glad my friend’s daughter knows how to say “please” and “thank you.” It will serve her well in life, and those she interacts with will feel acknowledged and respected by her words. However, I hope that when it is necessary she will stand up for herself (and others) however she has to – whether it is polite or not!

The Revelation passage that was read today is one person’s dream of what God’s reign might look like. There is a lot there, and I’m going to resist my urge to unpack all of it. Instead I want to focus on two things.

The first is that the gates are always open. The imagined city is insanely large (1500 miles cubed, think about THAT for a while), and it HAS gates (12 of them), but they are always open. They are ALWAYS OPEN. Anyone can come in at any time. Anyone can leave at any time. There is an implication that there are people who don’t live in the city, so this isn’t merely a redundancy. Anyone who wants to be in the presence of God can be. Anyone who wants to be “in” can be. Furthermore, anyone who wants to leave, can. The gates are open both ways, so no one is forced into a relationship they aren’t wanting.

Permanently opened gates. Everyone can come in, at all times. That’s quite the image, isn’t it?

The second piece of focus relates to the first, in the permanence of it all. The whole city is set up as if it will be forever, and that dream fits the experience of the people who just watched their Temple and city be destroyed AGAIN. They yearn for the un-destroyable. They yearn to be free of the oppression of an empire.

The problem for us here today is that we are citizens of today’s most powerful empire. Peter Storey, a Methodist Bishop of South Africa, once wrote,

“I have often suggested to American Christians that the only way to understand their mission is to ask what it might have meant to witness faithfully to Jesus in the heart of the Roman Empire… America’s preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps than those faced by us under South Africa’s apartheid, or by Christians under Communism. We had obvious evils to engage… You have to expose and confront the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion, and caring of most American people and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them”.⁵

This is, sadly, true of both our country and our church. May the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, guide us to see our actions clearly and to be brave enough NOT to be polite when God and justice call for it. May the way of God’s shalom/peace be our way.

Amen

—–

1 If you Google “The Advocate” this is the mini description below it as of April 30, 2016. Aren’t you glad I footnoted that?

2 Matt Berrymore “Dear United Methodist Church, Do the Right Thing” published April 29, 2016http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/4/29/dear-united-methodist-church-do-right-thingaccessed April 30, 2016.

3 Ibid

4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/27/woman-takes-down-confederate-flag-in-front-of-south-carolina-statehouse/

5 Quoted by Joyce Hollyday in “Homiletical Perspective on Revelation 10; 21:22-22:5” found on page 491 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 2” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009). Worse yet, she was quoting someone else quoting him.

–

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 1, 2016

Sermons

“Rainbow Connection” based on Revelation 21:1-6 and John 13:33-35

April 24, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and what’s on the other side?” “What’s so amazing that keeps us star-gazing, and what do you think we might see?”¹ Or, in another voice (one that is not Kermit the Frog), “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people, living life in peace…” “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people, sharing all the world…”² Or, in another voice (one that isn’t John Lennon), “We will work with each other, we will work side by side, and we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.”³

Or, in yet another voice, one attributed to God and one that likely formed the basis for the reading from Revelation today, from Isaiah 65:17-19

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.

The strange text of Revelation is generally obscure. It was written in code so that if it was found by the wrong people, it wouldn’t be understood. In this case the “wrong people” were those who wanted to destroy the early Christian community. The issue is that we don’t really have the code. However, the last two chapters break out of the clouds a little bit, and it becomes clear that the author is yet another dreamer. Granted, he hasn’t been writing about rainbows, nor star gazing, but by the end he writing about hope, faith, and love as convincingly as third Isaiah. (Which, in case you didn’t know, is as high of a compliment as I can give.)

Our brief passage today is jam packed with imagery. There is a new city, a new Jerusalem. Heaven and earth as we know them have “passed away” and this is the new creation. The sea is no more. That’s significant in two ways. First, in Hebrew lore, the sea was the epitome of chaos, and the fear that comes from it. Secondly, in the ancient world, the sea was what separated people from another. It is as if all the continents came back together again. So the lack of sea means there is nothing to fear and nothing that separates people from each other!

God chooses to live WITH the people. “The home of God is among mortals.”(21:3). That is, there is no separation between God and people either. And, within the vastness of the created universe, this dreamer proposes that there is no where God would rather be than among the people! With God’s presence, there is no death, there is no sadness, there is no pain. And when there is thirst, God’s one self quenches it.

This is really interesting imagery. It isn’t a image of heaven. It could be an image of heaven come to earth, that makes some sense, or they may be combined into one thing. It proposes a sanctity of life itself, of humanity, of earthiness and fleshiness and of cities! (As commentators point out, the Bibles starts in a garden but ends in a city – a really big city, as it turns out.) Much of Christianity has been other-worldly focused, but both the hope-texts in Isaiah and this hope-text part of Revelation suggest that God is at work creating the WORLD as God wants it to be, not just waiting around for us to die in order to give us abundant life.

That’s something that REALLY matters to me. I believe that God is at work in the world, still creating, still moving the world into what it can be, and is now working WITH us on that. I believe that the life of Jesus was part of that creative energy, and the work of his followers is to be attentive to co-creating the world as it can be with God. His message was that this work is POSSIBLE, and that it is NEAR, that we can reach it. I deeply believe that the purpose of life as a follower of Jesus is to help form the world into what it can be. This is one of the most important pieces of my faith.

Another of the most important pieces of my faith is that God loves each and every person AS WE ARE. We are already enough for God. I don’t deny human brokenness, nor the need for healing and change. I simply believe that it is not a barrier to God’s love, and that even in brokenness and sickness God still sees us as enough. Because I believe God loves ALL of us, I believe how we treat each other matters in the deepest parts of the universe. When we hurt each other, we hurt God. When we exclude each other, we exclude God. When we fail to love each other – or ourselves – we limit our capacity to love God.

My biggest question coming into this sermon was “Why is this commandment to love each other called ‘new’?” You might even have noticed that I put this in the bulletin as my sermon title, but I’ve since gotten over that. My issue is that the commandant is very old. It is in the Torah. It is one of the foundations of the entire YHWH tradition. Every Jewish person ever has known it. Worse yet, this version is a bit tame! While the rest of the Gospels give some version of “love your neighbor as yourself” which reflect the original law, this text says simply to love each other. It is an insider commandment, which is (still difficult but…) way easier!!

I finally found an article by a Jesuit named Jack Mahoney on a website called “Thinking Faith” that did some justice to the question. Father Mahoney points out that, “One of the purposes for which the Gospel of John seems to have been was written was to attempt to resolve painful divisions which existed within the Johannine community (as we see in the First Letter of John). The evangelist therefore may have Jesus here exhorting all his future disciples to mediate his continuing love to one another after he has gone, and so maintain the unity he will pray for earnestly.” That is, this is a pretty practical suggestion! The love ONE ANOTHER bit is being said because they weren’t succeeding at it. It also suggests that the love we show is a partial expression of the holy love that exists for each person. That is, ‘John in his gospel and his letters (as their author or their source) writes so repeatedly of the need for mutual love and unity among the disciples of Jesus, that it seems likely that these virtues were notably lacking in John’s Church”.⁴So, it wasn’t “new” but it needed attention.

If we are meant to love each other – and our neighbors in all places – and if we are meant to co-create the world as it can be with God, that leads us to significant questions about HOW that work is best done. Within communities of faith, there are vast and abundant differences about what that means.

In particular, The United Methodist Church is a broad umbrella, and we have some striking differences of opinion about how God would like the world to look and what love looks like in the world. On May 10^th our every-four-years international gathering, General Conference, starts. It is the only body that can speak for The United Methodist Church and make adaptations to our rules.

There is a fantastic Coalition called the Love Your Neighbor Coalition which is the combined effort of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, 4 groups working on LGBT inclusion, the 5 racial ethnic caucus groups in the United Methodist Church, a new environmental group called “Fossil Free UMC”, UM Association of Ministers with Disabilities, and the Western Methodist Justice Movement. (If you want to know more, grab a copy of my sermon, they’re all listed in the footnotes.)⁵ Although I love the name “Love Your Neighbor” it has also occurred to me that it could be called “The Rainbow Connection.” The views and perspectives are different, but the Coalition works towards inclusion, celebration of diversity, and recognition of the wholeness of humanity of people across many different rainbow spectrums. That’s what they believe love looks like. That’s what they think God’s world is meant to look like.

There is another Coalition. It is the Renewal and Reform Coalition, and it is comprised of Good News, The Confessing Movement, UMAction, and Lifewatch. (Transforming Congregations and the Renew Network are now part of Good News.) If you know what the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) is you might want to take note that UMAction is the UM wing of IRD. If you don’t know, ignorance is bliss. The Renewal and Reform Coalition released their General Conference Agenda last week. As they put it, “The Renewal and Reform Coalition has three major priorities in Portland: 1) uphold biblical teaching on life, marriage, and human sexuality, 2) restore and strengthen the integrity and accountability of our covenant connection as United Methodists, and 3) promote the fair representation and empowerment of our United Methodist brothers and sisters outside the U.S.”⁶

To be more specific, their legislative goals include: to remove The United Methodist Church from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice; to make sure that the church does not “agree to disagree” about the full humanity of LGBT people; to significantly tighten restrictions on clergy preforming same sex marriages (including a mandatory minimum penalty of a one year suspension); “broadening the definition of ‘self-avowed practicing homosexual,’ so that those who are married to a same-sex person or who have publicly acknowledged being a practicing homosexual would no longer be able to serve as clergy”; “adding as a chargeable offense ‘interfering with the General Conference or another United Methodist body or agency’s ability to conduct business,’ in order to counteract the disruption of General Conference and other agencies by activists.”; and much more!

The church that the Love Your Neighbor Coalition dreams of (and believes God to want) and the church that the Renewal and Reform Coalition dreams of (and believes God to want) do not look the same. Unfortunately, the Renewal and Reform Coalition has the voting majority on most (if not all) issues.

There are plenty of reasons to maintain hope. First of all, the existence of this church is proof that God’s love matters in the world, and no legislation from General Conference will ever change that. Secondly, the Love Your Neighbor Coalition (Rainbow Connection) may be prepared to LOSE, but they aren’t going to sit down and take it! There is a significant non-violent resistance strategy. I’m going to a training on it this Saturday. A Bishop and a pastor did a wedding yesterday in NC and got news of it onto CBS! More is coming. The commitment to sharing God’s love in the world is deep and wide. (Fair warning, this resistance may lead to my arrest. I’m not concerned about this, and I hope you won’t worry either. Portland, OR is friendly to protestors.)

God’s dreamers put God’s love into action to create the world as God would have it be. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is hard. It doesn’t really matter though, because God’s love is worth it! May the dreamers who seek to welcome all of God’s people into God’s holy church continue to do their work and find their way, so that the rainbows of peoples in the world might know they are worthy of God’s love and they are enough. Kermit sang, “Someday we’ll find it, the Rainbow Connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me.”⁷ I think we found it – now we get to use it. Thanks be to God. Amen

1“Rainbow Connection” in The Muppet Movie Original Soundtrack Recording, Kermit, 1979.

2“Imagine” John Lennon, 1971.

3“They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love” Peter Scholtes, 1966.

4 Jack Mahoney SJ, “Why a ‘New’ Commandment?” http: //www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20120713_1.htm Posted on: 13th July 2012, accessed on April 23, 2016.

5 Affirmation, Black Methodists for Church Renewal. Fossil Free UMC. Love Prevails.MARCHA: Metodistas Asociados Representando la Causa Hispano-Americanos,Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), Methodists in New Directions (MIND),National Federation of Asian American United Methodists (NFAAUM), Native American International Caucus (NAIC), Pacific Islanders Caucus of United Methodists (PINCUM),Reconciling Ministries Network, United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities, Western Methodist Justice Movement (WMJM)

6Steve Beard “Renewal Agenda for General Conference”http://goodnewsmag.org/2016/04/renewal-agenda-for-general-conference/ Published April 13, 2016, accessed April 21, 2016.

7“Rainbow Connection” in The Muppet Movie Original Soundtrack Recording, Kermit, 1979.

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

Uncategorized

Webcast: Northeastern Jurisdiction Global Connection Plan

November 9, 2015
by Administrator

Webcast: Northeastern Jurisdiction Global Connection Plan

If you wanted to know more about the Global Connection Plan (created by the Northeastern Jurisdiction of the UMC’s Global Structure Task Force, on which Sara sat) you can watch it here.