Led Home

January 5, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Led Home” based on Jeremiah 31:7-14

Jeremiah, the prophet of the exile, speaks to the exiles in the midst of their exile. You get it? EXILE, “the state of being barred from one’s native country, typically for political or punitive reasons.1” The state of exile is a state of displacement. Who you used to be has been ripped away, along with your connections to what roles you used to play, what people you used to be connected to, AND what places you used to occupy. In many ways, to be in exile is to have ones identity ripped away.

The Exile in the Bible, the time when the leaders of ancient Israel were force marched to Babylon tore away the identity of a nation. Those left behind were decimated by violence and continued to be defenseless against invaders. Those sent into exile were decimated by violence and displaced. They had known themselves to be God’s people, protected by the Divine and formed by their relationship to the God-Who-Is. To have lost their city, their status, the lives of their loved ones, their temple, and their treasures to Babylon SERIOUSLY threatened their identity as beloved by God.

In fact, I believe that the Hebrew Bible was written down in this period largely to make sense of the exile, and to figure out identity once again.

So the words of Jeremiah, the prophet of the exile, are particularly poignant as they come from the time of displacement and lack of identity, a time of pure shock and dismay. Jeremiah is known as a downer, because most of his prophecy was about warning what would happen if the exile came to be. But once it happens, he ends up telling the people that God won’t let it last forever.

Our Hebrew Bible reading today, from Jeremiah 31, is a prophecy of RETURN. A word from God that says that the people will return (they do) and that it will be glorious.

When we talk about Jesus today, at least for most Christians, the emphasis is on Jesus as Savior. For me, it is often a relief to notice what saving means in the Hebrew Bible. Which, in this case, is “return.” The people ask God to save them, God brings home a remnant of the people and thus keeps the people alive as a people – maintaining their identity and connection to their God.

Christianity today is focused on saving being about afterlife, but in most of the Bible it is more pragmatic than that. Jeremiah suggests that this is a story of salvation – that the people will come home.

The specifics, it is worth mentioning, are profoundly lovely. While Jeremiah as prophet of doom and reports of the destruction before the exile talked about the deaths of babies and pregnant women, Jeremiah singing the story of salvation says that God is going to bring the people home – and the list of who will make it home safely is remarkable:

people who are blind
people who have physical disabilities
people who are pregnant, including those in labor

And those beloveds of God will be gathered back home. They will be comforted after the years of grief. They will be safe, walking near water so they can drink as they wish, on a smooth straight path where they cannot get lost and will not be tripped.

Then, when they people come home, they will sing with joy! They will be fed with abundance. The crops will grow, the animals will thrive, life will be easy and good. The people will dance, and be happy. Their mourning will turn to joy. They will be comforted. Their sorrow will become gladness. There will be so much abundance that the priest’s small portion will be more than enough and the things of life will overflow and satisfy.

Its lovely.

But I think my favorite part is who is named as the ones God is bringing home. The focus isn’t on the descendants of the king, nor the priests and Levites, nor the warriors or scribes…. Even though those were most of the people who were taken into exile because Babylon thought they were useful (and that Jerusalem would founder without them). It is the most vulnerable people in this case also the ones who would have the hardest time with long-distance travel to return. It is the ones for whom returning home would be most miraculous.

God says God will make the way so smooth, so straight, so easy that they too can make it. This feels the the Biblical equivalent of those wonderful internet memes that remind us that EVERYONE can use a ramp, but not everyone can use stairs, so ramps should be the highest priority. God is building a RAMP home so that those least able to make it on their own will have an EASY journey. The return home is meant to be so easy that a woman in labor, a person who is blind, and a person who cannot walk on their own can all make it. God will lead them home, and it will be possible.

There is a way home, with God. The people will be saved, the return is possible and will happen, everyone will be able to make it if they wish to.

Thanks Jeremiah.

It seems to me that the powerful experience people had with Jesus and then the powerful experience people had with the Holy Spirit after meeting the followers of Jesus must have been REALLY STRONG for those people to start claiming that God’s salvation was KNOWN in him. Because, let’s be frank, the man was killed by the Empire on cross as a condemned man, and his most faithful male followers ran away in fear afterward.

It didn’t, at least at first, look like the salvation Jeremiah was talking about. It didn’t look like return from exile, it didn’t look like the prior story of freedom from bondage in Egypt through the Passover.

Nor did it fit the salvation of the expected Messaiah. It didn’t look like King Solomon’s rule over many neighbors. It didn’t look like political freedom, or overthrowing the Empire, or even a temple that was dedicated to truly honoring God again.

But those Early Christians claimed the idea that God saves us, and claimed the idea that God was sending a Messiah to restore the Kingdom of Ancient Israel – a Messiah to save them and their IDENTITY. And the Early Christians said, YES, God did, and it was Jesus!

And friends, let’s be clear, Jesus DID NOT FIT THE BILL. When our Jewish friends point out that Jesus didn’t fit the identity of the expected Messiah, they are ENTIRELY CORRECT.

But, also, I think the early Christians were onto something. Jesus didn’t bring political power, a resurgence of the Ancient Israelite Empire, the power of violence to kill enemies, a restoration of the Kingship or Nation, or even help the priesthood cleanse itself of Roman influence. He didn’t do any of it.

But, he did empower those who had been disenfranchised. He did listen to widows. He did show people the miracles that happen when people combine their resources. He did preach about God with the people everywhere they go. He did teach about God’s incredible power of love. He lived a life of radical connection, radical love, radical trust in a God of goodness. And those who met him – and those who met those who met him – and those who met them – and so on – saw in him a different sort of salvation. Maybe one more like Jeremiah’s after all. They saw in him that their lives had value, even if the empire couldn’t get rich off them. They saw in him that they could love each other and it would matter, and that no power of violence could destroy the things that really matter. They saw in him that God is bigger than even death, and fear can start to take a backseat to love because love always wins and its far more worth basing a life on. They saw in him the power of peace, of connection, of relationship, of faith, of trust, and of hope.

And they called those things salvation.

And I think they were right. I think that’s why Jeremiah preached it too. Because before return comes, you have to want it, and you have to believe it is possible. Before freedom comes, you have to want it, and you have to believe it is possible. Before the kingdom comes you have to want it, and you have to believe it is possible. Because believing in it makes it possible.

May God lead us all home to the kindom! Amen

1Apple dictionary, accessed ½/2025.

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

January 5, 2025

Sermons

The Way Home

December 8, 2024March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“The Way Home” based on Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6 December 8, 2024

The story says that the descendants of Jacob, freed from slavery in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They weren’t meant to be wilderness dwellers, they just took a really long time to be ready to come “home.” Home to the promised land. Home to being settled, and engaging in agriculture. Home to being ready to trust God and create a society based on treating one another with the love God wants people treated with.

The wilderness wasn’t the goal, but it was important. It was there that they learned to trust God. It was there that they figured out the basics of their story, and the basics of their structures, and the basics of their faith. The wilderness was imperative – even though it was the journey not the destination.

In our Disciple class this week we read a lot of texts placed in the wilderness, laying out the VERY specific details of sacrifices, which are mind-numbingly boring most of the time (to me). One of the specifics caught my attention though, the means by which the Holy Tent – the Tabernacle – itself was cleansed. The idea seemed to be that periodically, maybe once a year, the high priest would re-sanctify the whole space. He had to start by purifying himself, then symbolically purifying the people. This is actually where the scapegoat comes in – for the people he brought two goats. One was sacrificially killed and the other symbolically bore the people’s sins away from them and back into the wilderness. Then the ark of the covenant itself is cleansed/re-sanctified/prepared for its continued work.

The work of the Tabernacle (and later Temple) was the work of forgiveness, and it required that the place of forgiveness be cleansed periodically, so the sin didn’t… soak in?

The whole idea is so far from my worldview, I struggle to wrap my head around it, but it felt connected to the Malachi reading when one person is going to purify things. God’s messenger – seen at the time it was written as the return of Elijah – would purify the whole people. Like the high priest, but more so. The high priest was cleansed himself and cleansed the people and then purified the Tabernacle.

This messenger purifies it ALL. The messenger purifies the whole people, and in doing so restores relationship between the people and God.

It could make sense to say that the messenger is taking the people out of another wilderness and leading them back home too.

In Luke, John the Baptist quotes Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40, the start of “second Isaiah” is written to the exiles, promising them that the exile will have an end. The prophet speaks to people who have been force marched through the desert wilderness, and are yearning for home. He assures them that not only will they go home, but the horrible journey they remember won’t be the same on the way home – it will be flat, straight, safe. They will be with God and God will be with them, and they will be journeying home with ease.

Phew. OK, so far we’ve talked about the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land thorugh the wilderness- a long journey to a new home; we’ve talked about the wilderness of distance from God and the purification and forgiveness to bring people back home to God; we’ve talked about the journey through the wilderness to the exile and the road back home… enough Bible meta themes yet?

Well, no.

Because now we have to deal with John the Baptist quoting Isaiah, which means we don’t just need to know what Isaiah was saying but why John decided to quote it!

We know that John was a wilderness preacher, which is pretty much the opposite of the important people we hear about first. Ceasar, the governor, the rulers, the high priests…. and well, John who was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and quoting Isaiah from the wilderness around the Jordan. There is a significant contrast there, a notable difference in power. Or maybe, a notable difference in what KIND of power they were wielding. The empires officials (and I include the high priests as such) wielded the threat of violence, hierarchical, and official power.

John the Baptist wielded the power of hope.

In particular, the hope that even from THERE, the people could get home again. Where was there? I think by the time of John and Jesus, the people of ancient Israel felt like exiles at home. The power structures abused them, the religious authorities abandoned them, the financial structures strangled them, the nation their ancestors had yearned to come home to was bleeding under the oppression of the Empire.

It can be a hard thing, it turns out, to be home and still be yearning for home.

It can be hard when home isn’t safe.

It can be hard when home has been appropriated.

It can be hard when home doesn’t value its own people.

It can be hard when home seems to violate the most basic principles of Godliness and goodness.

(Just saying.)

To these people, living under the oppressive, violent power of the Empire, this camel-hair-wearing, wilderness-living, baptizing prophet says, “God is going to make the home easy. The mountains will be made low. The valleys will be lifted up,” and WOW, but doesn’t that sound like good news to the poor and those made low and hard news for those who might be on the top? And then he goes on to quote that the ways will be made straight and smooth and the people can get home and the home is going to be LEVEL and FAIR, and SAFE and JUST and GOOD.

And GOD is going to do it.

And God’s people are going to help

There is a way home. God is working on it. We can help.

And that dear ones, I believe, is the good news of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen

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

December 8, 2024