God With Us

December 14, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“God With Us” based on Luke 8:22-25 and Matthew 14:22-32

(Jesus MAFA image)

This little story about a boat crossing a lake is one that has occupied a lot of space in my brain over the years. As a child I was mesmerized by it, awed by the power of Jesus and desperate to be one with more faith than those hapless disciples. As a seminarian I was taught about Greco-Roman myths of gods and goddesses walking on water and the New Testament narrative “our God is better than your god” which made me a bit dismissive. And then as a pastor I have often used this as a passage for Lectio Divina, giving people a space to listen for God’s nudgings through scripture and have been astounded time and time again at the layers of meaning people can find in the text. Our most recent confirmation class loved this passage and the experience they had with it in Lectio Divina, reminding me of the hard times of life and the powerful reminders to be found in the reality that God is with us.

Another time, when The United Methodist Church was at the height of its struggles in 2019, two Bishops at our Annual Conference seemed to have a battle over this text. Our Bishop at the time tried to convince us that the boat was sinking and it was time to exit. The visiting Bishop who was invited to preach at ordination preached “no matter how strong the wind, no matter how high the waves, since Jesus is in the boat with us, we will be ok.”

Perhaps some of the reason that this story has such resonance in our faith is that it is one of VERY few stories that shows up in ALL 4 gospels (although Luke lacks the walking on water part), and is thus a story we come across pretty often. I’ll admit, I’ve also spent a little bit too much time wondering about why THIS of all stories would be one of the few that are in all of the gospels.

And, one final connection with this story: when I had been appointed to this church but before I arrived, I had the chance to meet some church members at one of the Upper New York Camp and Retreat Centers when UNY Volunteers in Mission and the UNY Leadership Team did some work together. That was the day I met Pete and Jan Huston, and Pete came up to me greeting me with the words, “I hear you walk on water.” I spluttered. He continued, “But it isn’t that hard in winter.”

This Advent I’ve been focusing on Christian sermons preached during the Third Reich in resistance to Hitler and the Nazis. In January of 1934, Rev. Paul Schneider was a small town pastor who preached a sermon on this text to the church he had been serving for 8 years at that point, which had been the church his father served until his death. Rev. Schneider was a WW I vet, but a bit unique in that “Rather than the war making him hard and cold, it made him sympathetic and tender towards the suffering of others.”1 After his service in the war he went to seminary and did a practicum with coal miners whose life experiences challenged his faith. To keep us on our toes around here, he was a conservative preacher, and his experiences with the struggling coal miners led him to leave his liberal faith behind for a far more literal and conservative faith. In fact, for the most part, the churches in Germany during the Third Reich that resisted were fairly conservative, and they seem to explain it as rejection of the world because of their commitment to faith. I appreciate how this makes me a little uncomfortable.

Rev. Schneider chose these two texts, the story from Luke without walking on water and the one from Matthew where Peter joins Jesus in walking on water and preached on them as one. He used them to talk about the fear people were experiencing and what their faith called on them to do about it. So let me give you some of his word: “The little boat of the church of Christ is traveling on stormy seas.”2 “We cannot close our eyes to the high storm-waves we see surging towards our people in the Third Reich.”3 “We Evangelical Christians can never say that we agree with these things that many leading figures of the new Germany are voicing and declaring in speeches.”4 “We as evangelical parents, want to know that our children are unequivocally being raised in our evangelical faith and taught its content and we want to be sure that they have not been contaminated with the current racist religious spirit.”5

To be sure, many people are still asleep and have not recognized that it is the hour to rise up. They still think that since all around us things have changed, certainly in the church, of all places, things must remain exactly as they were before. Or perhaps they just want to subject the church to the political authority of the state and shape the life of the church to fit the current political views as the ‘German Christians’ are currently doing.

To be sure, they can only support this practice by preaching the heresy that the gospel does not rest solely on the good news of our savior Jesus Christ and the kingdom (Reich) of God, but that somehow race and the gospel together constituent the church.6…

Now, you Christian in your church, you are surrounded by waves that are coming over you from the church and from the nation and the state. And we are anxious and we are afraid. We are experiencing what the disciples were going through on the stormy lake. We call out, ‘Lord, help us, we are perishing!”7 “Where is the storm? It is not so much around you as in you, in your heart.

There, deep in your heart, you see, as Peter did, the heaving winds blowing against you, and you become afraid and begin to sink. But even then the Lord holds out to you his saving hand and holds you firm in order to strengthen your weak faith.” 8

And it is curious, at least to me, that he makes so many good points and does such good work this this text. That I can be with him so far into this sermon. And then at this point he goes on to say that a true Christian believes in miracles and trusts in God’s capacity to preform them, which is imperative to him. I can support and respect his faith and its perspective, even if I don’t share it. I love reminders like this, that differences in worldview sometimes don’t matter all that much. Finally, he says, “I would rather die for my faith than live a cowardly and cultured life with the rest of the world.”9

Rev. Schneider used this sermon as an introduction, I think. “Following the sermon was a reading of the Kanzelabkündigung (message from the pulpit) from the Confessing Church, which was read from many pulpits that Sunday: “We raise before God and this Christian congregation the complaint and charge that the Reich bishop in his decree has threatened violence against those who have been unable to keep silent for the sake of their conscience and their congregation concerning the present danger of the church. And in addition has set into force laws that run counter to our confession of faith which he had earlier lifted in order to satisfy the church. — We must hold the Reich bishop accountable to the scripture: ‘One must obey God more than men.” 10

Rev. Schneider was telling his congregation that the government was threatening Christians who weren’t supporting the work of the Third Reich. He was forced out of that pulpit the following month, was reassigned to a church more receptive to his message, and five years later became the first Protestant pastor to die in a concentration camp.

So, um, happy joy-Sunday from your pastor who knows how to make Advent really cheery.

I am awed by this self-described “simple country preacher” who simply refused to bend. Like prophets and martyrs before him, he stayed faithful in the face of persecution, told truth despite the consequences, and kept his heart focused on God and God-things. He took on powers and authorities far “above his pay-grade” because he was a follower of Jesus who didn’t care about pay-grades. I wonder about his transition from liberal faith to literal faith and how that impacted his capacities to stay true to God. (It is my suspicion he would have said it was imperative.) I’m horrified that he was killed, but also a little bit shocked that it was a “simple country preacher” that the powers-that-be felt the need to silence first. It almost seems like they made this point in this sermon, the boat may seem small but the church being faithful has great impact.

Like Jesus before him, and Martin Luther King Jr after him, and along with an unfortunately large great cloud of witnesses who did the same, Rev. Schneider stayed faithful to end, dying for his faith rather than quieting his voice for the comfort of the oppressors.

Thanks be to God for the people who follow God’s love no mater the cost, and may we not only follow God’s love, but also be part of changing the world so that this cost may someday not need to be paid. God help us. Amen

1Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 76.

2Ibid, 80.

3Ibid, 81.

4Ibid, 81.

5Ibid, 82.

6Ibid, 79.

7Ibid, 83.

8Ibid, 83.

9Ibid, 84.

10From the footnote on page 84.

December 14, 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

Uncategorized

“Joy” based on Luke 1:46-56

December 11, 2022
by Sara Baron

Some of you weren’t here last
week, and quite likely most of you have been through enough this week
that the nuances of last week’s sermon are no longer front and
center. (Most? All? It’s OK.)

Last week we lit the Advent
Candle of Love, and we looked at the example of Elizabeth’s loving
words to her young cousin Mary. Mary was engaged, pregnant, and
vulnerable. Her pregnancy looked like proof of infidelity,
everything in her life was likely in an uproar, and her cousin
greeted her with words that changed everything. They celebrated
Mary, they exclaimed over Mary, they reframed Mary’s shame, and
painted her instead as a a person committed to God’s faithful acts in
the world – even at high cost. The words showed that Elizabeth saw
her, loved her, and helped her let go of her fear and her shame.

Truth be told though, the Luke
reading cut off right in the middle of the scene last week.
Elizabeth greets Mary – and it was extraordinary. BUT, the next
lines are Mary’s response to Elizabeth, and they make a lot of sense
to read together as one conversation.

After Elizabeth wiped away
Mary’s shame and made room for love, Mary responded with her words of
praise for God, ones that are so famous they’re named. Mary’s words
are “The Magnificat,” called so for the opening line about
magnifying the Holy One.

Now, most scholars agree that
Luke 1 is a creation of the early Christian community, maybe even of
the author of Luke itself. What I find really remarkable about that
is that Luke has so much compassion for these women, and such a
strong sense of what they would be going through. It gives me hope
that there were strong women’s voices within the Christian community
at that time, that the equalitarian nature of the Way of Jesus
continued long enough that women’s voices were actually being heard
in the ways these stories were told. Or, maybe, Luke was simply an
outstandingly compassionate human, able to see beyond the bounds of
his own education and gender. Either option is really lovely, and
I’m really grateful for the ways these stories are told, so that
there is INCREDIBLE truth and wisdom in them. Luke and/or his
community, and his later editors cared about Mary and Elizabeth, not
just as wombs, but as humans with their own struggles and needs.

Thanks be to God for these
stories.

And, truly, thanks be to God for
the ones who thought enough about Mary to find words for this hymn of
praise to God that fit who she was as a person and a parent. They
are profound words.

They are also PROFOUNDLY joyful.
Mary is praising God, for being God. Mary knows her place in the
world, and it is not the top. She is awed that God would work with
her to do important things, and SEES herself as being “lowly” and
lifted up by God’s work with her. I’m also stuck that while the
first few verses name Mary’s awe at God’s work in her life, she moves
on quickly to simply her delight in God’s own self. She celebrates
God’s loving-kindness, constancy, strength, willingness to turn
upside down the powers and privileges of the world, to lift up the
lowly, to fill up the hungry, to offer care to those in need of it.

Mary’s song is a song of joy for
a God who feels close at hand in her life and in history, the past,
the present, and the future, the one who brings hope, the one who
makes it possible for her to face her own daunting circumstances.
She expresses JOY at being a partner with God in God’s work EVEN
THOUGH the circumstances were so far from ideal for her.

And I believe her words of
praise for God were a response to the words Elizabeth spoke to her.
As Elizabeth wiped away her shame and made space for Mary to
experience love, Mary’s life-light was able to emerge fully, and that
came out as PURE JOY.

It is hard (really really hard)
to fight through our shame to get to joy. But when the shame goes,
OH the things that can emerge!

I’ve been thinking a lot about
shame in the past few weeks, largely because focusing on the story of
Mary doesn’t give me any other option. Mary fits into a very long
cultural tradition that values female virginity, seeks to control
female sexuality, and generally treats women as if their only value
is in their capacity to provide womb access to the man who owns that
access. If she fails – because she is raped, because the couple is
infertile, or for any other reason, SHE is shamed.

This is one of the few times
when I don’t think the Biblical needs much contextual help. History
has changed, but not so much that we can’t follow that one.

This is why I find Elizabeth’s
words so powerful, when she compares Mary to other Biblical heroines
who were in compromising situations but were not defined by them.

I also have been thinking about
what shame looks like today. Obviously there is still an
over-abundance of shame around sex and sexuality. But we like to
make things complicated in our society today – we have a tendency
to make standards so contradictory and impossible that everyone can
find something to be ashamed about. There is shame for having too
much sex, or too little, for being too focused on it, or not enough,
for being sexually interested in the “wrong” person (or type, or
gender), or for being asexual, … for example.

And, there is shame for those
who have been assaulted, harassed, raped, or abused. This is some of
the strongest shame, and some of the most problematic.

For anyone holding sexual shame,
I invite you to this powerful reality: you are like Mary, the
mother of Jesus.

And I pray there are people like
Elizabeth in your life who will help you reframe what you’ve
experienced and find your own power in your story. So you can find
your joy!

In our society, though, sexual
shame is just one component. It seems to me that there are almost as
many sources of shame as there are ways we categorize each other.
Existing within capitalism, we have a societal narrative that poverty
is shameful. But, truthfully, we also know there is a shame in being
wealthy too – that to gain too much is to take it from others, to
have too much is to refuse to use it to help others. And, somehow,
people in the middle can feel shame BOTH WAYS.

Which is how a lot of things
work. Our society acts as if there is shame in struggling in school,
but also shames those who do too well in school, and it manages to
fall both ways on those in the middle. Or there is a story that
there is shame in different bodies – heights, weights, abilities,
dis-abilities, colors, hair types, noses.

And, let’s also mention the
shame around relationship status, where one might experience shame
for being single, or marrying too quickly, or being divorced, or
remarrying at the wrong time, or having kids or not having kids or
staying home with kids or not staying home with kids or having too
many kids or too few kids or kids the wrong way or at the wrong time.

Our society is ripe with ways to
shame us, to tell us we’re wrong, to make us squirm. It manages to
land on everyone, although not at all equally, and causes untold
damage, most of which is invisible.

I suspect the shame is aimed at
controlling us and getting us to buy things, a population overcome
with its own failures is less likely to notice how it can seek
justice for each other, and is less able to connect and build
relationships that transform lives. And, we’re all a part of it too
– as we are overwhelmed by our sense of shame, we tend to try to
lower the anxiety of it all by naming what we see in other and…
passing it along. Ick.

But, this story of Elizabeth and
Mary is a profound example of the powers that can TRANSFORM shame.
Elizabeth saw Mary’s shame, referenced it, reframed it, and
celebrated Mary instead of shaming her. That’ll change things.

Last week I called us to be like
Elizabeth, wiping way shame to make space for God’s gifts of love
(and this week I’ll add joy.) But one of you, in response, reminded
me that before we can be like Elizabeth wiping away shame, we need to
face our shame like Mary did.

And now, I need to go back and
admit that Elizabeth had her fair share of shame too. At the
beginning of Luke she was a childless woman, which would have been
understood to be a “useless” woman. (Blech.) But something had
happened in Elizabeth where her shame become an opening for
compassion instead of a form of embitterment.

What a beautiful thing that is,
when our wounds, our shame, our struggles can open our hearts, break
open our compassion, make space in us for the struggles and shames of
others. That thing that can happen is a form of grace. It is an act
of God.

It is an act of God that comes
in many forms – sometimes the grace within us starts in awe and
wonder, sometimes from another person offering it to us, sometimes
directly from God, sometimes from the wisdom of a stranger – maybe
through a book or podcast, sometimes even I think it just comes from
within when the strength of our spirit rejects the narrative of our
brokenness.

Even though shame gets passed
around this world, and magnified, SO TOO does grace. I believe that
this is a place where good theology is a source of grace, and thus of
hope, love, and joy. So let me say some things as a person of faith,
a religious leader, a pastor, a person who seeks to follow Jesus’s
ways of knowing God:

God is not ashamed of you.
Shame is not a tool God uses.
God is willing and able to work
with you to eliminate your shame.
God loves you and even LIKES
you, and has compassion for you.
Grace is a tool God uses.
God is willing and able to work
with you to show you the power of grace in the world and in your
life.
Your body, your desires, your
gender, your abilities, your lack of abilities, your strength, your
weakness, your relationship status, your work status, your income,
and your resume are NOT what make you worthy or unworthy.
You are INHERENTLY worthy.
You are a beloved child of God.
God wants wonderful things for
you.
God wants wonderful things for
everyone.
You can’t exempt yourself from
God’s desire for goodness for you.

And finally

You aren’t going to shame
yourself into being better.

So, dear ones, to the extent
that it is in your capacity to do so, let go of your shame, and then
let God help you let go of it some more. Let grace in.

Because when you do, you may
find that your song of JOY is even more profound than Mary’s! Thanks
be to God! Amen

December 11, 2022

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

Uncategorized

Untitled

December 12, 2021
by Sara Baron

“Soft Eyes and Third Ways” based on Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-18

As a matter of faith, whenever it is possible, I believe in refusing the binary and looking for a third way. I believe God is creative, I believe in win-wins, and I believe more goodness is possible than I can anticipate.

You, in this church, have affirmed this belief for me time, and time again. You have found third ways, you have shown me third ways, you have stayed with each other long enough to see past seeming binaries and found the shared values underneath. I believed this when I came here, intellectually, but I believe it in my body and soul now.

A few years ago, at a retreat, we did an exercise called “soft eyes.” It looked and sounded ridiculous. We were broken into sets of three, and one at a time each of us was asked to stand tall while the other two pulled as hard as they could on the arms of the person standing. However, each of us did this three different ways. First, we fought as hard as we could against the pressure. It was overwhelming. Then we just, let go, and let the pressure take us down. It was demoralizing. But, finally, we let the pressure come without fighting it. And, all of a sudden, the pressure felt like a good stretch. It was possible to withstand the pulling, and stand tall, indefinitely.

We then compared that to staring at something as hard as we could, to glancing and looking away, and to looking, but letting our eyes soften and see “through” what we looked at. This is third way stuff. This is refusing “all or nothing” thinking, and engaging in “both/and” thinking.

This is important, more now than ever. We have learned that our society has been under attack for quite some time by foreign countries that want to destabilize us by fanning the flames of cultural difference. We have also learned that social media sites, our email providers, our phones, and our web browsers are tracking our every move to try to understand us and our perspectives in order to make money off of us. And, they’ve discovered, telling us things that make us angry, and creating “us versus them” thinking (binaries!) is really great for business.

There is significant but mostly invisible pressure on us to enter into binaries and disregard the humanity of people on the other side. But, our faith teaches us that our shared humanity, the sacredness of every person that derives directly from God, is definitional. We seek to connect, not to disconnect. We seek to understand, not to dismiss. We seek to love, not to hate.

This is counter-cultural work, and it is emotionally challenging work. It is hard to be creative and find the third way, and it is nearly impossible when we’re riddled with anxiety or anger. It is hard to slow down and figure out what’s really going on, so a new solution might emerge, when everything feels urgent. And, too, it is hard to care when so much of what is live-giving and wonderful about life isn’t available right now.

As I hear Luke telling us about the preaching of John the Baptist though, I’m struck that in his shocking ways, he calls us to exactly this sort of work. John calls the ones who have come to hear him “a brood of vipers” which was super insulting, and not how polite people spoke to each other. I notice that it is a violent image. Vipers are a danger to life.

I also notice that John the Baptist calls out three groups of people, and they’re surprising. First he calls out anyone wealthy enough to have more than enough. Two coats, more food than they need. That feels like a pretty low standard of wealth, but since many people in that day (and ours) weren’t sufficiently clothed and even more didn’t have enough nourishment, anyone with too much was seen as hoarding what others needed. Then he calls out tax collectors and soldiers, and that feels REALLY weird to me. Of course, Jesus will do some work with a tax collector too, but both tax collectors and soldiers – in an occupied state – were part of the system of oppression that kept the poor in poverty and used their labor to enrich the already rich.

And John the Baptist doesn’t tell any of these people that they have to quit their jobs or change everything about their lives. He JUST tells them that they need to stop hurting other people. Take the two cloaks, give one way. Take the extra food, give it away. Don’t take more tax money than what you have to, even if you are allowed to. And, don’t extort people or act out violently against them. Take what you have and let it be enough, even if other people have more.

That is… refuse to participate in oppression, which in essence is refusing to participate in violence because violence takes a lot of forms and one of them is keeping food from those who need it to live.

This theme unites John the Baptist and the one he would baptize, Jesus. They created movements of people who refused to participate in violence. Their words and actions echo through the ages, asking us to do the same.

What does non- violence look like? Well, it is seemingly simple and difficult enough to engage us for our whole lives – like faith. For some it takes on pacifism, a big one. But it also is in the little every day things. It looks like intentionality with words we use and don’t use. It is in how we treat those in our households, and those in our inner circles, and those in our church family. It over looks like speaking in “I-statements” and taking responsibility for our emotions, and thinking more than once before we pass along information that we don’t know to be true. And, it means not kicking people when they’re down – OR UP. It means paying attention to our buying habits and how people were treated when they made the things we buy. It means paying attention to investments if we’re lucky enough to have them, and considering which companies are engaged in violence. Perhaps most challengingly, it also means treating ourselves without violence, including in the ways we speak to ourselves inside ourselves!

AND it means disengaging from binaries, and finding deeper truths about people, groups, and ways forward.

One big piece of refusing to participate in violence is engaging in compassion. Letting compassion take a bigger and bigger space in our lives. Learning how to be compassionate to ourselves and then letting that extend to others and then letting that expand even further.

And I’m here to tell you that this is really, really hard, and I don’t particularly enjoy it. My heart is more tender than it used to be, and the brokenness everywhere hurts me more than it used to, and it constantly threatens to overwhelm me.

But that same exercise on “soft eyes” and letting pulling turn into stretching was fundamentally about standing in the “tragic gap” between what IS and what SHOULD be, and letting it break us open without letting it break us. Because there are (at least) three ways to respond to the suffering around us. We can ignore it and push it away because it is too hard, but that doesn’t change anything. We can let it in and let it break us, but that actually doesn’t change anything either except that there is a little more brokenness. OR, we can let the brokenness break us open, and be present to it without drowning in it.

This is what we aim for, and we’ll fail both ways much of the time. But, on this third Sunday of Advent, I want to be sure to remind all of us about what can keep us upright in the Tragic Gap, and how we can be with brokenness without breaking, and let compassion hurt but not drown us.

There are two keys to this: God, and joy. They’re related. (Pretty deeply.) Finding spiritual practices that get you centered are imperative to life-long kindom building. They keep us upright. They keep us compassionate. They also tell us when it is time to take breaks. AND they keep reminding us that there is ALSO joy.

We live in a broken AND beautiful world. There is violence AND wonder.

An article I read in The Atlantic this week suggested thinking of things you used to do just because you liked them, and figuring out what you liked about them, in order to find what you might like doing now. This was intended to apply to those of us who have forgotten how to play and have fun.1

Let joy in. Play! Laugh! Have fun! Giggle if you possibly can. Fill yourself up. It is good in and of itself to enjoy life, AND it is NECESSARY to have joy in order to be able to do the work to build the kindom, a place of profound joy. We can’t build it if we don’t know it, we need to have joy to make space for joy. So dear ones seek God and joy… they matter on their own and they help us be compassionate and nonviolent. Thanks be to God for joy! Amen

1https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/how-care-less-about-work/620902/

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 12, 202

Sermons

“Hope for Restoration” based on Isaiah 35:1-10 and Luke…

December 15, 2019February 11, 2020
by Sara Baron

I did my seminary work in
Southern California (Los Angeles county) which is a desert climate.
The choice to be far away in a different subculture of the USA was
intentional, as I figured I could use some perspective on the
Northeast. The desert climate part wasn’t intentional. I just liked
the school, so I decided to go there, and it happened to be in the
desert. I had no expectation, whatsoever, that this would be
relevant.

So, clearly, it was. The first
piece of learning came from the campus itself, which was planted with
biblical plants so we as the students could have a better sense of
what the Bible was talking about. Because I’d grown up in the water
abundant Northeast, I hadn’t really considered the ways that my
visioning of the Bible was insufficiently desert like.

Then came the fact that I don’t
LIKE the desert. I hated that the sides of the road were filled with
pebbles with nothing growing in them, because without watering,
things just didn’t grow. I hated being dehydrated, and the amount of
water I had to drink to be hydrated. I didn’t like the heat. I came
to resent Palm Trees for being there when trees I knew and loved
couldn’t be. (Can you tell LA wasn’t a natural fit for me?)

Somewhere along the line as we
learned about Christian history it became clear how much of early
Christianity was formed by the words and actions of solitary desert
thinkers, and later monastic desert communities. The so-called
“Desert Fathers” were new to me, but heavens they were important.
My classmates who were native to the area waxed poetically about the
beauty of the desert, and its starkness, and the rich spiritual
depths of being alone in such a stark environment that was so
unfriendly to life. I understood part of what they meant, I love the
great outdoors, and I have felt closest to God in nature. Except, I
don’t actually LIKE stark and dangerous landscapes. They are
DEFINITELY beautiful. For me they are startling in good ways too,
but not really in God-connection ways. My soul isn’t a desert soul,
although I recognize that desert is as good of a climate as any
other. (This is all about my preferences, not about what is good.)

But then, in the winter of my
second year, a friend read that the recent rains we’d had were
sufficient to make the desert bloom. The desert blooms erratically,
it isn’t an every year sort of thing. More than that, this was the
100- year bloom, and plants believed to be extinct were in full bloom
under the unusual conditions. We drove out to Joshua Tree National
Park to see it, and it was breathtaking. From afar, the landscape
actually still seemed stark – it wasn’t as if the plants were more
abundant than they’d been before. But as you looked, flowers were
EVERYWHERE. The flowers were more diverse and more delicate than I’d
ever seen before. We saw a burning bush in bloom – you can
definitely tell why it is called that. Out of what seemed to be bare
rock came tiny flowers. Rock faces exploded with color.

There was nothing in my life
that had prepared me for the desert bloom. Even now, it stuns me,
the transformation of it all. That hidden in the starkness was
beauty beyond my imagination. The flowers were bright, and
different, but sooooo fragile. It was often hard to believe they
existed. It blew my mind to see yards of dusty pebbles in every
direction, the floor the desert, and then to notice a tiny little
flower breaking through all on its own.

To say it directly, I have seen
nothing that proclaims resurrection more than the desert in bloom,
and I think it is radically unfair that this desert hating
North-easterner got to to savor the 100-year desert bloom, and see
life emerge from what looked like lifelessness. But I’m thankful
anyway.

Isaiah starts this profound
passage with imagery of the desert in bloom. I shared all that,
because I don’t think that we who know spring flowers, and summer
flowers, and even fall flowers can hear how BIG the vision of the
desert in bloom is for desert people, nor how much of a miracle it
is. The clear joy of this passage fits incredibly well with the
desert in bloom. It is abundant, it is colorful, it is unexpected,
it is hope-filled, it is transformative.

Isaiah is talking about the joy
of homecoming in this passage. The assumption is that the people
will be taken into exile (true, they will) but that someday God will
act and let them come home (also true). This vision of homecoming is
bursting with joy. The act of coming home after the exile is called
“restoration” or “the return” and this restoration passage
bubbles with joy in God.

It starts with the imagery of
the desert in bloom, and then it EXPANDS into human healing.
Physical limitations are lifted, healing occurs, strength is given
where there has been weakness. Then it takes the desert metaphor
even further. Streams of water will flow, pools of water will
emerge, springs will break out. I think my favorite line is the one
that says, “the haunts of jackals will become swamps.” Now THAT
is a transformation.

In the midst of this beautiful,
blooming, and now lush landscape, with healing for all in need of it,
there will emerge…. a way home. And the way will be safe from all
attackers, and easy to follow – impossible to get lost on. On that
path, the people will travel home, and life will be restored to what
it shall be.

And, of course, there will be
joy and singing, and so much of it that sorrow itself will fall away.

What. A. Vision.

It seems hard to believe Isaiah
could start with the desert in bloom and then grow imagery from
there, but he does it. Exile and return/restoration is one of the
big themes of the Bible, likely because while the story happens once
to the Israelite people, it happens time and time again to us in our
lives.

When I was 13 I broke my femur
and was put in a straight leg cast. For months I was unable to
navigate stairs on my feet (well, my foot) at all, I had to sit on
the steps and move up or down them one at a time. During that time I
restlessly dreamed of the day when I would be restored to walking up
and down stairs on my feet again. And then, of course, once I was,
it mostly lost its luster. For better or worse I’ve had plenty of
injuries in my life though, and my capacity to do stairs has
dissipated and then returned rather a lot. Perhaps because of the
depth of the yearning in my younger years, sometimes while I’m on a
set of stairs, I remember to be grateful for the capacity to use
them.

I think exile and restoration
have a lot of emotional resonance too, because in large part they are
about “home.” And home is a big huge deal to humans. What does
home feel like? What does it mean to leave home? How does it feel
to be between homes? Or homeless? Or someone with a foot in more
than one home but no one place to call home exclusively? When we are
sick, or injured, we yearn for home. When we think of displaced
people in the world, we recognize the pain of being far from home and
without a new place to try to make home. And, as North Americans, we
come from people who have left homes. Those whose ancestors came
from Europe or Asia often left home voluntarily. Those who ancestors
came from Africa were enslaved and torn from their homes. Those who
ancestors were native to the Americas were displaced by the Europeans
who came here. I sometimes wonder if some of the displacement in our
society comes from our shared histories of being displaced in the
world. In any case, “home” is something that matters to humans,
and exile and restoration are all about home.

Now, the imagery of Isaiah is
assumed when we come to Luke. Isaiah’s vision of restoration and
return home are premised on God’s actions, and so are Luke’s. John
the Baptist is going to be seen as the forerunner of Jesus, the one
who starts the path in the desert so Jesus can complete it – and we
walk it. The language of Zechariah’s song is that of redemption,
salvation, mercy, and rescue. ALL of those emerge out of the desire
for restoration and return. They are the yearning not just for home,
but for a safe home, and Zechariah names that “fearlessness” is
an impact of God’s work in those days. As John, whose name means
“God is Gracious” will prepare the way, and Jesus will walk it,
the result will be peace, fearlessness, and light. Redemption,
salvation, rescue all resonate with people being safely HOME.

It is the tradition of
Christianity to follow Christ, since Christians means “little
Christs.” I’m all for this, but sometimes I think it is worth
considering when we are being asked to be “little John the
Baptists.” Often, I think our work is the prepare the way, and to
be prophets of what is possible with God. Perhaps this is just the
longview of building the kindom, acknowledging that some work gets to
make the BIG changes, but before that happens, there have been years
or decades or centuries of preparing the way for that to happen.

In our Advent Study on John
Shelby Spong’s “Unbelievable” last week we discussed his idea
that morality is always contextual, and thus always in flux. So, we
talked about how public morality has changed in our lifetimes, and
you know what? It has been GREAT!!! Space has been made for people
to be who they are and to be accepted and loved as they are in ways
that once seemed impossible. LGBTQIA+ rights have expanded, and
rights and opportunists for people with disabilities have been
normalized, people who are divorced as no longer stigmatized, nor are
those who have sex outside of marriage. Women’s work opportunities
have exploded. All of us in the room had grown in our awareness of
racism and privilege, and had hope for the country to change its
practices. The changes were truly inspiring. Also, work on all of
that inclusion and all of those rights was being done well before any
of us were born. Many, many people have prepared the way and we are
able to see their work with gratitude.

The work we do to prepare the
way is the work that we may never see the impact of. But, we trust
that God will make sure the next steps happen, and God’s people will
follow through, and the preparation will not be in vein.

So, dear ones, prepare the way.
Work on building that safe and beautiful highway home for ALL of
God’s people. Because, someday, it will be complete and the people
who walk it will be singing songs of joy and gratitude for what God
has made possible. And that which God makes possible, God lets us
work on!! Thanks be to God for that, and for beautiful homecomings
of many varieties. Amen

–