“Who Do We Feed First?” based on Acts 2:42-47…

May 8, 2017February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

There are times when I find it invigorating to engage in a robust debate. One of the joys of my childhood was being able to score points in verbal battles with my brother, and if I don’t pay attention, I can still engage in conversation as a competitive sport.

On the basis of enjoying the capacity to play and sometimes WIN, if the opportunity presented itself, I would choose not to debate Jesus. He doesn’t lose much. The gospels consistently describe him winning, scoring match points before his opponents have even started to play.

Today’s gospel is one of the exceptions. I cannot yet say it definitively, but I believe the only people who ever score points on Jesus in competitive debate are women. Consequently, very few who beat Jesus are women. This is one of the stories where the woman is said to have won. Jesus himself declares that she has bested him, and gives her a prize for having done so.

Even so, this is one of the most uncomfortable stories in the gospels. Jesus is … well… um… super mean to this woman. He calls her and her people dogs! That is, he disparages their very humanity, and says that it is of less value than the humanity of his people.

I could tell you that the Jesus seminar doesn’t think this story actually happened. Luckily that’s true, but unfortunately it still requires us to consider why the early Christian community included it. We could tell ourselves that Jesus expressed explicit prejudice simply to show us that it was bad, but that doesn’t truly fit the story. The story says he healed the woman’s child because she beat him in oral combat, NOT because he realized her people were of equal value.

So, how do we deal with this horribly insulting, even racist, Jesus? We still have a few options left to us. The story does say that Jesus left Galilee to be in the land of the Gentiles and entered a house in secret. It would be reasonable to conclude that he was getting away for a bit of a reprieve, perhaps because he was tired and needed to catch his breath. Tired, burned out people often don’t operate as their best selves. And being accosted in this home where he was trying to hide and regain his energy might have brought out the worst in him. I don’t think this entirely explains the story, but I do point it out anyway for two reasons: 1. Because when we’re tired we really do make mistakes and I urge you to get rest as an act of faithfulness to God’s call on your life to be your best self and 2. Because when we’re tired we really do make mistakes and some gentleness with ourselves is called for when those mistakes happen. Human beings in human bodies can’t push on indefinitely through exhaustion.

Another pieces of the puzzle comes from a scholar who doesn’t think it makes a lot of sense for the early Christian church to have remembered such a hostile response from Jesus UNLESS it reflects a larger reality. Gerd Theissen looked for a socio-economic explanation and discovered, “Upper Galilee exported produce through the coastal cities. The cities, in turn, depended on these regions for food. In periods of crisis or food shortage, the populace of the hinterlands may have resented producing goods for wealthy cities.”¹ This idea continues, “Those who produced the food, Jewish peasant farmers, see their work consumed by others.”² In this case, ethnic and religious differences are compounded by economic inequalities. Jesus might simply be suggesting that his people have a right to eat the food they produce.

It stands in interesting contrast to the food sharing on Acts 2, doesn’t it? Jesus talking about the inappropriateness of sharing the food with the dogs contrasts with the people sharing all things in common, breaking bread together, and eating with glad and generous hearts?

Or does it?

This beautiful passage of the joy and communal support in the early church does not extend to ALL people. It extends WITHIN the community, not beyond it. I’m not saying that’s wrong, I’m just saying that it is limited. Supporting the community of faith is not the same thing as supporting all of God’s people. Supporting the community of faith, with firm boundaries around who that means, can actually look a lot like Jesus’s response to the Syrophoenician woman in this story! Jesus, too, was advocating keeping resources within the family of faith.

The first summer I was on staff at Sky Lake the summer curriculum included Romans 12, which we tended to read from “The Message.” which I adored. I quoted it once in a secular setting and one of my high school friends asked if I was intentionally excluding her. It said:

9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Until she questioned me I hadn’t heard “help needy CHRISTIANS” at all, but once she pointed it out, I squirmed a little bit every time I read it. I wondered if I was allowed to change it so that the command said, “Help needy people” and wondered why it wasn’t written that way to begin with.

I think that human nature includes a tendency toward thinking in terms of groups, and defining “us” that excludes “them.” It happens too commonly not to be part of our nature, and I suspect that it happens for decent evolutionary reasons! In order to thrive, humans need each other, but we’re finite in time and space. So we can’t bond with everyone! I’m thinking our species developed this way: Close bonds form the basis of units, and units expand until they maximize the relationship with resources in an area, and then other groups are established further away, right? Then, because resources on earth aren’t allocated with equal distribution, there are still some things that each group ends up competing with other groups. That would have helped establish the boundaries between the groups!

So, it isn’t bad, and it is likely part of our nature, but it isn’t the end goal either! The Syrophoenician woman reminds us of this. She was, in multiple ways, an outsider to the groups Jesus belonged to, and yet she came to him with a need. Her needed extended past her group identity!

The Syrophoenician woman is presented as the paradigm of committed parent! She crosses boundaries, takes insults, and argues with all her power in order to gain the care her child needs. She shouldn’t have entered that house by laws of both communities. Her community would have preferred if she had refrained from “bowing down” at the feet of a Jewish teacher. She let him call her, her family, and her community DOGS and responded within his metaphor. She found a way to respond, without accepting his premise, without dismissing his premise, and while staying ON POINT. She kept asking for what her daughter needed, and requested that even if Jesus didn’t see her as a fellow human being, he could still extend his power to help her!!!

And Jesus complements her! Going back to the idea that the city of Tyre was part of a problem within an economic system that was extracting wealth from the Galilean farmers – it is as if she points out that the Galilean farmers DO deserve to eat, but that Tyre is hungry too. She doesn’t argue his premise, but she reminds him that hunger is universal.

While on our honeymoon, Kevin and I took some tours of the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It became clear quickly that many immigrant families survived ONLY because of the support of community – in that case communities based on their countries of origin. This is one of the ways that groups defining clear boundaries can be good – it lead to life not death. But then again, I’m sure it left some people unable to access any help.

In the days of overcrowding on the Lower East Side, the barriers that divided people were real. Resources were limited. In the days of food shortages in Galilee and Tyre, the barriers that divided people were real. Resources were limited. In the eras of needing access to limited water for our ancient ancestors, the barriers that divided people were real. Resources were limited.

There are good reasons to establish groups and boundaries. Those reasons apply today, and we see this sort of thinking ALL OVER the place today. However, in some ways, reality has changed! Technology has made it possible to grow enough food for everyone to be fed – well. At the moment we have enough clean water for all to drink (if we don’t waste it). It may always have been true that if groups worked together there would have been enough, I don’t know, but today it is FOR SURE. The world has produced enough for everyone.

And yet, maybe more than ever, people are trying to draw firm lines between those who get access to resources and those who don’t, those we are worthy, and those who aren’t, those who should become more wealthy and those who should become more impoverished, those who get to access health care and those who don’t, … and so on.

I’m told one of my predecessors in this pulpit, J. Edward Carothers, talked about the purpose of church being “to establish and maintain connections of mutual support in an ever widening circle of concern.” I think that’s the essence of the meaning of the kindom, the primary teaching of Jesus. As it has been described to me, the kindom is the Reign of God that will occur when EVERYONE treats EVERYONE else as kin. That is, everyone is IN the group and there is only one group and we are all working together for each other’s good. That’s how (at their best) kin treat each other, and that’s an expression of the desire of God for the world.

So, who do we feed first? The children? The dogs? The Christians? The Jews?

Our church? Our city? Our country? Our race? Our class? Our political allies?

Or perhaps, whoever is most hungry?

Because if we all work together, there is enough for everyone! And once we remember that, we can distribute based on needs rather than fears. Holy God, may that day come SOON. Amen

1 R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke” in Leadner Keck, ed. , The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press: 1995) 610.

2 Culpepper, 610

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

May 7, 2017

Sermons

“Chosen from Many” Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke 4:21-30

January 31, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Last weekend the Al-Hidaya Islamic Community Center of Troy and Latham had an open house in their new facility in Latham. It is beautiful space. They’ve been thoughtful about everything. The intersections of ancient symbolism and modern convenience were pretty astounding. In the large gathering space that serves as an entrance to the worship space there are 5 pillars holding up the ceiling to represent the 5 pillars of Islam. There are archways with circles and half circles showing the phases of the moon. The doorways into the worship space are intricately designed with 99 distinct wooden pieces, a reminder of the 99 names of Allah in the Qur’an. Because people enter the holy space without their shoes on, the heat radiates from the floor. There is one of those cool water fountains that exists only to refill reusable water bottles and a nifty machine for making donations to the facility with your credit or debit card.

While at the open house a friend and I were approached by two young women willing to answer any questions we had. So, we asked! Somehow we ended up with the undivided attention of 6 young women, I believe they were all between 16 and 22. I asked them who among them wore the hijab every day, and half of them did. So I asked them why and why not.

Their answers struck me as being remarkably similar to the language of “call” that gets used as part of the ordination process that I know. They spoke about wanting to be visible as representatives of their faith and of reminding themselves and others God’s desire for human kindness. They discussed with each other the issue between wanting to be “good enough Muslim” before wearing the hijab, and wearing it without feeling like their faith was enough but as a process of becoming a more faithful person. They spoke about fitting in – or not – and about norms of behavior in their families. They talked about how their families felt about their choices, and yet how certain they were that the decision was between them and God. They were thoughtful and articulate and incredibly committed to their faith.

Through it all, I was struck by how similar their language was to how I’ve heard clergy speak in Christianity. As I’ve experienced it, the “culture of call” suggests that God particularly picks out people to be clergy and lets them know – usually through a mystical experience, sometimes through the affirmations of others. The call is then assessed through multiple levels of church structure. It is assessed first for a sense of validity and then to see if the “call” lines up with a person’s gifts and graces. At every stage of the process toward ordination there is a conversation about call.

In addition to those young women who got me re-obsessed with call, there are the scriptures this week. The passage from Jeremiah is Jeremiah’s call story. The passage from Luke is Jesus claiming his call, and has Jesus talking about others who were particularly chosen for tasks from God. It seems that the church is justified in its assumptions about call, as they’re well established in the Bible. If God wants a person do to work, God calls that person… or at least that’s how it works in the church… or at least that’s the way the culture of call talks about it.

Having had enough time to move past my naivete with call, here are my concerns about how I’ve heard the church talk about call, particularly with regard to ordination:

It assumes that God has a “plan” for each of us. Or perhaps, only the clergy ;). But I don’t really believe God has a plan, or at least not a stagnant one. We change as we go through life and God adapts to where we are. I don’t believe that God sets us on one particular path in expectation that 30 years later we’ll land somewhere particular. Rather, I suspect that God looks at us where we are and notes where our gifts and skills might be of use, and nudges us towards those places if we listen.
It elevates clergy as somehow “above” laity. To be particular, it suggests that the highest form of faithfulness to God is to become clergy. No experience I’ve had supports this. The church exists because of the faithfulness and commitment of the laity.
It suggests that God cares more about clergy than any other means of building up the kin-dom of God. That is, we usually only talk about call when we are talking about church work. There are A LOT of jobs that need to be done in order to bring in the kin-dom. This whole Jesus-following thing would be useless if all anyone ever did was preach and run churches. If there is such a thing as call it must apply as much to teaching fields, medical fields, administration, sanitation, art, music, caregiving, legislation, supportive work, retail, etc.! The world and the world’s needs are incredibly diverse. God’s work with all people may be to help us find the ways that we can build the kin-dom, but it doesn’t seem reasonable that this happens differently for clergy.
It all sorts of mucks up the difference between God and church. If serving God is about being ordained by the church, that’s a disaster. As amazing as this church is, I’ve always found that when I conflate God and the church I get annoyed with God. Churches are imperfect, struggling, and often beautiful organizations trying to work together to build the kin-dom. But they’re fallible, and they are institutions. Clergy are functionally CEOs of non-profits. God is much bigger and better than that. And, just as a reminder, I suspect that if God does “call” people, the vast majority of those called are called to work outside of churches.
It assumes that God has a “will,” a defined preference for how things go, and our goal is to “discern” it and then “obey” it. This is probably the biggest issue I have with call language. Earlier in my life I believed this, and I’ve struggled to find my way out of it. (#ThanksChrysalis #Sarcastic) These days because I believe that God is present in all places and with all people I believe that God is WITH all of us. Then, the way to access Divine Wisdom is through bodies. Sometimes I access Divine Wisdom through myself (body, mind, and emotions) sometimes through others. If I want to find the “right” or “best” way to act, I need to get quiet enough to listen to my inner wisdom, and trust that God is working in me. This is harder, I think, than it was to externalize the divine. Yet, when I trust that God is at work WITH and IN us as humans, the I’m able to take us more seriously. When the goal was to conform to an external will, then what I cared about was irrelevant. When the goal is to listen to the deepest whispers in myself and remember they are the intersections of God and myself, I become relevant – and you do too.

Now, to be honest, I have a “call story” and I think it is pretty good! It seems only fair to tell you the story that I told hundreds of times on the way to ordination so you can judge it for yourself. It may be shocking, but it was at Sky Lake. I was 13 years old, I had just finished 8^th grade, and I was at music camp. I feel the need to tell you, as I’ve told many others, that I didn’t realize when I went to music camp that EVERYONE was supposed to sing. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have gone. (I’ve done music camp 7 times.) The first night of camp we sat by the lakeshore and the director led a footwashing service. She talked about how Jesus was a different kind of leader than any other leader in history. She talked about how usually important people get served, and how Jesus was the important person who served others. I wanted to be a part of THAT. I wanted to turn the world upside down and redefine what “important” and “leader” meant too. Both the director and the woman she’d invited to wash feet with her were clergy. I therefore assumed, without having language for it, that foot-washing was a sacrament and you had to be ordained to do it.

That’s the point where I’ve traditionally made a joke about God “using my ignorance against me.” Anyway, I had this really intense internal conversation about wanting to be a part of the Jesus foot-washing thing, and not wanting to give up my dreams of being a scientist like my mother and owning my own house. That was the first time it occurred to me that I might want to be clergy.

Well, music camp sang at the ordination service of Annual Conference in those days, so nearly a year later I was present when the Bishop did an altar call at the end of the ordination service inviting people forward to respond to the call to ordained ministry. I felt a strong almost magnetic pull toward that altar, and I remembered that night by the lakeshore, but I wasn’t an impulsive sort of teenager. I decided that I’d wait another year, think about things, come back to Annual Conference, and if I still felt that pull, I’d respond THEN.

I talked to my pastor – but only about my desire to go to Annual Conference, and we set it up. The following year at the ordination service I sat with my friends and felt a magnetic pull to the altar. I was crying, and trying to hide it. The hymns were listed in the order of worship, and I knew when the last one ended. I said to myself (or maybe to God… I’ve usually told this story as if I was talking to God), “Oh well, too late, maybe next year.” Bishop Susan Morrison said, “Its not too late.”

So, I responded, making public and visible the experience I’d had of wanting to be a part of the turning the world upside down Jesus movement, one that I’d been privately contemplating for nearly 2 years. At that point I was sure, and I defined my life based on my experience of call. Sometimes I’ve told the addendum. 8 years after that first lakeside foot washing experience I was back at music camp as a pretty senior staff member at Sky Lake. The same clergy women were there. The director was sick that summer, and after she’d washed feet for a while she asked me to help her stand so she could take a break.

Then she asked me to take her place. I was the only staff member invited to wash feet, and it was the first time music camp had done a footwashing in the intervening years. By that point I was ready to apply to seminary. I loved washing feet in that service, I love it every time I get to do it. As wonderful as that experience was though, I knew in those moments that the call which had started as a desire to wash feet and ordination had been a means to an end had become a desire to serve God as a clergy person. Oh, and the director – she had NO idea that my call to ministry had been set in place in the last footwashing service. She just needed a break.

It’s a good story, right? I suspect if you’d spent years perfecting it, many of you could tell one just as good about your profession.

I have wondered if the idea of call comes out of a deep human need to be special. One of my college professors once pointed out that all fairy tales exist in the struggle between the human need to be special and the human need to fit in. It may be that call is exactly the place that fits that need: all are called (to something and usually many things), but all are called uniquely. We are, after all, all uniquely gifted in the world. And God is willing to work with us all to build the kin-dom. The more of us listen to those subtle whisperings within, the faster the work will be done. So, beloved, I believe YOU are called to build the kin-dom. And thanks be to God for that! 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

January 31, 2016