O Land, Land, Land, Hear the Word of God

December 21, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“O Land, Land, Land: Hear the Word of God” based on Jeremiah 22:2-9

We have reached the 4th and final Sunday of Advent, the Love Sunday, where love joins with hope, peace, and joy to prepare our hearts for the Work of God in the World known at Christmas. This year in Advent I’ve been on a sermon series from the book “Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance from the Third Reich” and this is the final sermon in this series. Unlike last week when I spent Joy Sunday sharing a sermon of a martyr, this week’s text fits the theme of love. (Phew! Although I did scrap my initial plan and pick a better fitting sermon from the book to make it work.)

This week I am working with a sermon by Rev. Julius von Jan and my sense is that his entire sermon is a message of love. It is a sermon written with love for his people and his nation (although not what his nation was up to at the time). It is a sermon profound in its love for all of God’s people, and explicit in naming Jews as God’s people. It is a sermon that is also the work of a prophet in loving by calling out injustice and it was received like the work of a prophet.

Rev. Julius von Jan been a solider and then a prisoner of war in WWI. He was part of the Confessing Church which was the resistance Christian movement in Germany during the Third Reich. The book’s editor says of him, “As a confessing pastor he considered it his Christian duty to alert his congregation to the deep conflicts between Nazism and Christianity and to advise them of the Nazi outrages and abuses. But even more than pointing out where the state was interfering with Christian practice and adopting a pagan worldview, he never tolerated the Nazi persecution of the Jews. He was also quick to stand up publicly for pastors who had been persecuted by the state or arrested.”1 Luckily he had a supportive congregation. He was a clergyman who refused to take oath to Hitler. And, regarding this sermon, “When the Nazi pogrom against the Jews occurred in November of 1938, von Jan was adamant that these sinful and disgraceful events had to be exposed for what they were. Silence was no option. He knew full well that speaking out in his sermon would endanger him and his family.”2

And, it did. “Following this sermon, Julius von Jan was “severely beaten by a group of some five hundred Nazi thugs, and dragged to the city hall where he was tried and then thrown into jail. A few days later the SA plastered his parsonage with the sign Judenknecht (Jew Servant.)”3 For a year afterward he dealt with arrests, interrogations, being exiled from his parish… and was finally tried and “found guilty of ‘misusing the pulpit’ and ‘treachery’ by a Nazi judge in a ‘special court’ and sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment. These courts were not subject to civil laws and were known for quick and severe sentencing.”4 Released in May 1940 until 1943 when “he was drafted into an artillery until for political prisoners, and served on the Russian front.”5

Are you ready to hear what he had to say that made them THAT mad?? He preached on the passage that we just read from Jeremiah, and while he focused on the opening piece that in his version read “O Land, Land, Land: Hear the Word of God,” I think it is worth noticing what that word of God actually was. This is verse 3, “Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” For von Jan, preaching on Germany’s “National Day of Atonement” this Jeremiah text called the people to justice and to atone for their lack of Justice.

In helping his congregation understand the context he reminds them that Jeremiah is a Jewish prophet to the Jews and he “is standing among a people (Volk) to whom the Lord has revealed himself throughout a long history as father and redeemer, as guide (führer) and helper filled with power and grace and glory.”6 Note use of Nazi words used with Christian meaning, to support Jews! He reminds them that Jeremiah has by this point been preaching for 30 years. Von Jan says that Jeremiah“contradicts the sermons filled with lies preached by those who announce salvation and victory in their nationalistic intoxication.”7 SNAP.

After explaining Jeremiah’s message, he brings it into his present, “Where is the prophet in Germany who is being sent into the king’s house to speak the word of God to him? … God has sent us such men! They are today either in concentration camps or muzzled. … and painfully our bishops have not recognized their duty to side with those who have spoken the word of God”8 He was naming some truths there, definitely including that the hierarchy of the church was working against the will of God and model of Jesus. He continues, “If therefore today some have to keep silent and others do not want to speak, then certainly we truly have every reason to observe a day of repentance, a day of mourning over our sins and the sins of the nation.”9

Now, many of you are better at history than I am, but for those whose timelines of Jewish oppression and attempts at annihilation in Germany in the 1930s isn’t very good, a historical note. In early November 1938 a Polish Jewish man murdered a German diplomat in Paris, which was the event used by the Nazis to justify using “storm troopers against the Jews throughout Germany.”10 Von Jan preached:

A crime has occurred in Paris. The murderer will receive his just punishment because he has sinned against the commandment of God.

Along with our people (Volk), we mourn the victim of this criminal act. But who would have thought that this one crime in Paris could be followed by so many crimes in Germany? Here we see the price we are paying for the great falling away from God and Christ, for the organized anti-Christianity. Passions have been released, the laws of God jeered at, houses of God that were sacred to others have been burned to the ground, property belonging to the foreigner plundered or destroyed, men who faithfully served our nation (Volk) and who fulfilled their duty in good consciousness have bene thrown into concentration camps simply because they belong to another race, and all this without anyone being eld accountable!11

I note his use of “houses of God” to talk about the burning of synagogues and connect Christian folk to Jewish folk. This is a man who spoke truth when it was clear how violent the opposition to truth telling was, and he has my deepest respect. This sermon is 4-5 years after the others we’ve looked at in Advent, when conditions had gotten worse and worse. But still he goes on. And, as a veteran of WWI he emphasizes that the Jewish Veterans deserve better! This is a man who follows Jesus of Nazareth.

As the sermon wraps up, von Jan calls on his congregation to pray, “Lord, grant us and our nation (Volk) a renewed hearing of your word and a renewed respect for your laws! And begin with us!”12 He worries they aren’t praying enough, “We are so busy with many things and take so little time for the silence in which we may hear the God’s word, be it in the house of God, be it in our prayer closet. … A Christian who fails to seek every morning this silence to hear his God endangers himself and harms God’s affairs.”13 I am simultaneously delighted that he calls on his people to maintain a constant connection to the Divine – and affirm all that – and I feel like this is a clue as to how he became the person he was. Because preaching a sermon like this took courage and conviction and faith. The majority of German Christians and preachers took the easy ways out and pledged themselves to Hitler presumably with various ways of justifying it to themselves.

Rev. von Jan, and the others whose sermons we’ve read did not. They stayed the course. They followed Jesus. They stayed true to God. They loved when it was as difficult to love as it could be. And they paid the costs for it.

I agree with Rev. von Jan that we need time to stop and listen to God EVERY day. And my preferred way of doing it is in silence – although I know very well that we’re all different and silence is a form of torture for many of you! But, when we think about how we listen to the call of God, and especially how we do it when the call of God says “Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place” and that’s the call we get when we live in a nation that is doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE, I think his conclusions hold. We need to stop taking in everything else and make time to take in God’s love and wisdom. All of us, every day, in the ways that work for us.

Because, dear ones, when push comes to shove, I hope we are people who follow Jesus and not ones who justify taking the easy way out. We are people of Love, of God’s love, and we need to soak in it so we are ready to act from it when we have to. And, oddly enough, I think that’s how this becomes an Advent sermon series. We are readying ourselves for the demands of living out God’s love, we are readying ourselves for the coming of Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 107.

2107.

3106.

4107.

5108.

6109

7110.

8111.

9111.

10112, footnote.

11112.

12113

13113.

December 21, 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

Sermons

Hear the Dream

November 16, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Hear the Dream” based on Isaiah 12 and more so Isaiah 65:17-25

To the people who have been in exile, and the ones who were left behind at home to try to pick up the pieces that can’t be picked up. To the peoples who experienced different traumas, now reunited and horrified all over again at how things are. To the people who remember life with some stability and hope, who look around at the bleakness and wonder what is possible. To the people who see what is and start to wonder if it is all dry bones.

To the people, the prophet speaks God’s dreams:

“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17, NRSV) This moment of time will not last forever. There will come a time when the bleakness of now will be a passing memory, one no one lingers on.

There is a new thing coming, and it is good.

“But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight.” (Isaiah 65:18 NRSV) Even if you look around and there is nothing to delight in right now, settle in to hear God’s dreams and take joy in them. These are dreams worth living for. These are dreams that are good now and forever. When you can’t find delight on your own, sink into these.

“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.” (Isaiah 65:19, NRSV) The people will be WELL. All the people will be well.

Can you imagine?

“No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat, for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD– and their descendants as well.” (Isaiah 65:20-23, NRSV)

Walter Brueggemann says, “The first quality of the new city, stated negatively and then positively, is a stability and order than guarantees long life. As long as the city is both a practitioner and victim of violence and brutality, no life is safe and no one will last very long.”1 But, imagine a city of peace, of shalom. Imagine what it would be like if violence didn’t prevail. Dream with God, dear ones, of the impact of peace.

And then keep dreaming. Brueggemann again, “Moreover, it is possible to think that infant mortality is an index of community life. In a disordered, uncaring community, too many babies die too soon from neglect, malnutrition, from violence, from poor health and bad medical service – but no more!”2 Dream a world where babies and mothers LIVE. What would it be like?

Everyone would be nourished, so life could thrive. Violence would be no more. The practice of medicine could thive.

This would take even more though. Because, if we were have women and babies thriving, it would also mean the end of racism. Because our current maternal mortality rates vary widely by race, even more widely than differences in care can explain. Our current maternal mortality rates are impacted by the realities of microaggressions that women of color live with. And to think of mothers and babies living thriving means dreaming a world without aggression AND without microaccressions.

But, there is more. Because what does it take “to have houses and inhabit them; plant vineyards and eat their fruit?” Brueggemann says “The loss of one’s economic gains might indeed happen by foreign invasion and occupation, for such occupiers brazenly and indiscriminately seize everything; that is, they ‘devour’ the land (Jer. 8:16, 10:25). It may also be that such usurpation happens internally by confiscation or tax policies whereby the “big ones” arrange the economy to take, in an exercise of “eminent domain” what the “little ones have. … Against such social conditions and economic practices, the new city will leave people free of threat from outside aggression and inside confiscation, especially the confiscation of ‘widows and orphans.”3 “Yahweh will be the guarantor of a viable, community-sustaining economy.”4

That is, according to Bruggemann this dream says that “There will be a reordering of resources so that all may luxuriate in life as the creator intends.”5 “Nobody is threatened. Nobody is at risk. Nobody is in jeopardy because the new city has policies, practices, and protective structures that guarantee what must have been envisioned as an egalitarian possibility.”6 And, there is “an agenda of well-being for children in the new city.”7 Truthfully, there is an agenda of well-being for PEOPLE in the city.

The kingdom of God, beloveds of God. It is mighty beautiful, isn’t it?

I can’t read these passages without tears welling up, tears of grief for what is and tears of relief to hear the dream of what should be. These passages are so tender, so holy, so imperative.

Dream it. No violence. No poverty. No mold-infested basements, no apartments without hot water, no one unhoused, food distributed to everyone. No fear of invasion from insiders or outsiders. No threats that if you lose your job you could lose everything. Not even a need to carefully plan for retirement, because the people are all cared for. People work for each other’s good, and their work bears fruit. There is stability. There is space for joy and delight, for connection and rest. The common good takes care of everyone according to their needs. No one is broken, no one is passing down their trauma to the next generation, no one lives in fear of abuse, no one lives in fear of hunger nor being unhoused. The resources of the earth are used for everyone’s good and… as was said, the resources are used “so that all may luxuriate in life as the creator intends.”8

Imagine. Dream. Breathe.

It is a big spacious dream. One with art and music, dancing and delicious food. One with quiet moments and raucous gatherings, one where nature is close at hand and so too are people. Things are distributed well. People are housed, in good safe healthy housing. People have food, and it is satiating and delicious as well as abundant. People wear clothes that feel great, and they’re diverse in style and patterns. Work is distributed well, even, so that all who want to can contribute, but no one is burned out by what is asked of them. Education is available, and is aimed at sustaining good and abundant life. Science can thrive and we can all benefit! Just imagine what progress could be made in each and every field if every child was well fed and safely housed and able to be find their way to using their God-given gifts for everyone’s well being!?!?!?

A new heaven and a new earth indeed.

Imagine. Breathe. Let it settle into you. Let it heal you, even a little bit. Take a break from fighting the world that is and just dream this one.

And, of course, God is easily accessed. No more dark nights of the soul, no more experiences of God’s silence. No more fear of individual nor communal punishment. Just the wondrous, loving, holy, sparkling, divine One close at hand, guiding us and sustaining us. “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24, NRSV)

And yet even that’s not it. “The dream concludes, The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent–its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.” (Isaiah 65:25, NRSV) This is not just a dream for a new Jerusalem, but indeed a new ordering of the world. The wolf and lion, those whose lives depend on eating the vulnerable will CHANGE and be able to sustain their lives peacefully. The lamb doesn’t have to be afraid. It is now a companion of those who were once its predators.

The predators find other ways of being, and discover they too can be well when all are well. The predators aren’t destroyed, they’re transformed.

No one and nothing will engage in violence: not the violence war, not the violence of the threats of war, not the violence of abuse, not the violence of rape nor murder, not the violence of taking away people’s food, not the violence of making people live in fear. “They shall not hurt nor destroy.” That is, “there shall be space for life to thrive.”

The dreams of God for the people of God, to sustain the people of God in the work of God. Thanks be to God. Amen

1Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah Vo. 2: 40-66 in Westminster Bible Companion Series, edited by Patrick D. Miller and David A. Bartlett (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 247.

2Brueggemann, 247.

3Brueggemann, 248

4Ibid

5Ibid

6Ibid

7Brueggemann, 249.

8Brueggemann, 248.

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

Nov. 16, 2025

Sermons

Teaching Each Other Grace

November 2, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Teaching Each Other Grace” based on Psalm 149 and Ephesians 1:11-23 – An All Saints Sunday Sermon

As people of faith following the seasons of the church year, we are blessed with times of waiting, with Holy Days, and with times for growth and development. For most people, Christmas and Easter are the holiest of Christian holidays, which I think is consistent with the way the seasons of the church year are set up. That said, All Saints Day/Sunday is a Holy Day in the church year, and while it gets less attention than the big holidays, it often feels like the holiest of all to me.

According to the United Methodist Book of Worship, “All Saints is a day of remembrance for the saints, with the New Testament meaning of all Christian people of every time and place. We celebrate the communion of saints as we remember the dead, both of the Church universal and of our local congregations.” I’ll amend so far as to say that I think of saints as those who have lived their love of God and/or God’s creation and thus taught me how to be better at loving – and people who have taught me about God and love have come from more faith traditions than only Christianity.

Today we particularly remember the names of those who have died in the past year, and in doing so we are able to see the impact of their collective witness. In this moment in time, it can feel a little bit shaky to be people of faith deeply committed to love, justice, compassion, inclusion, and humility. We see policies and procedures of death and destruction all around us, and sometimes we struggle to hold on to hope.

But, when we look at the lives of the saints, when we think about how they lived their lives and how they impacted us, I believe we are able to be steadied. Those who came before us lived their faith for good and it mattered. They lived grace. We can do it too. These saints today were extraordinary people who changed the world for the better – but that’s true every year.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, we stand in the midst of the great cloud of witnesses, they taught us, they teach us, and we too can live grace.* (God’s unconditional love.)

Or, as the Psalm says, “God takes pleasure in God’s people.” And so do we. As Paul says, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” Amen to that.

So, in remembering our saints and giving thanks to God for them, we are reminded that we too are part of a community whose work is to teach each other grace.

And, on that basis, I’ll end today with a poem about death and life.

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

And, if you are willing to take suggestion, may the plan for your wild and precious life being sharing grace like those who have gone on before us?

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

November 2, 2025

Sermons

Like Ripples in a Pond

October 27, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Like Ripples in a Pond” based on Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 and Matthew 22:34-46

Leviticus is one of those books of the Bible that we often pass over — I mean a fair portion is instructions for high priests in ancient Israel or dietary rules that we were absolved from following so this might be understandable. Or even worse – rules that are cherry-picked and used to harm. But there are portions of it that help not only with what we’re still commanded to do, but which I think help us make sense of the whole.

“You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am Holy.” The word used in Hebrew is “Kedosh” meaning “holy” or “set aside” – and while in much of Leviticus it’s used to refer to ritual purity, cleanliness that allows humans to be in the presence of God (like in the temple in Jerusalem). But in this case, the verses that follow cast a different light. To be “kedoshim” or “holy ones” requires no dunking in water nor abstaining from certain foods, but rather speaks to how we are required to live in relation to one another. That we must not be vengeful nor slanderous nor hate-filled. But rather kind, just, and loving.

Now often Christians act as if Jesus came up with the loving of God and likewise neighbor – it’s one of those “holier than though” habits that obscures our mission and creates tensions that need not exist. It wasn’t even a new way to interpret the Pentateuch – in fact at least one biblical scholar, Nicholas J. Schaser, notes that “Jewish sages who lived in Jesus’ era described these biblical verses in very similar ways. For instance, according to the Jerusalem Talmud (circa 4th century CE) Rabbi Akiva—who was born around fifty years after Jesus—says that the Levitical command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is the “great principle of the Torah.”1 A famous story preserved in the Babylonian Talmud (circa 600 CE) states that the renowned first-century sage Hillel once paraphrased Leviticus 19:18 for a non-Jew, saying, “Whatever is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is all the Torah, the rest is commentary. Go study.” 1

The Talmud, for those who are not familiar, is one of the central texts of Rabbinic Judaism, second only in importance to the Hebrew Bible (which includes at it’s core, the Torah). It’s the combined thinking and arguments of thousands of Rabbis and a major source of Jewish Law or “Halakah” – which actually translates more literally to “the way to go” or “the way of walking”. For what it’s worth, I think the Church Universal would be far less fractured if we had the equivalent of the Talmud…but alas, here we are.

So, we’ve now clarified that “loving neighbor as ourselves” is the heart blood of not only Christianity, but also Judaism and that to be “kedoshim” or holy ones we must be just and kind in the ways we live and treat one another…how the heck do we do that in this world that’s gone mad? How do we look at each and every person and see a beloved child of God – even when that other person is the antithesis of what we want our “neighbors” to be? How do we “reprove our neighbor”, demand accountability, use our voices to end our privilege, while not losing sight of the “Imago Dei” or image of God in the opposition? And how do we keep on keeping on when we’re tired and discouraged?

I think we start small, like the mustard seed that grows into the huge tree and recognize that even the tiniest pebble creates ripples that reach far beyond the water it touched. And just like a tiny amount of yeast will raise 100x it’s weight in flour, our efforts, our voices can start the fermenting, the leavening, that allows all of us to rise. Allows all of us to grab hold of the knowledge that we are kind, capable, beloved people of God – and feel the power that comes with that knowledge, that God is within each of us, we’re not alone in this.

The Pharisees in this reading of the Gospel didn’t give a wrong answer – they just didn’t give a complete one: Jesus was a descendant of the House of David, yes, but also upon his resurrection and triumph over death, he becomes Lord as well. Likewise so often in contemporary Christian preaching, Jesus as God Incarnate gets all the emphasis (often leading to that “holier than thou attitude” again), when in many cases we would do better to remember that Jesus also was fully human. A poor man, with brown skin, living in an occupied land under siege, one who raised his voice and made enemies of his religious authorities as well as the empire, one who fed the hungry, who treated women as equal, who cried out in fear and sadness as he said goodbye to friends and his mother. And in doing so, God became more like us, giving us the chance to become more like God.

May we use that power and knowledge to live into what it takes to help build the Kindom. Amen.

Based on “Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18” and “Matthew 22:34-46”

1) Commentary on Matthew 22:34-46 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

October 26, 2025

Karyn McCloskey

Sermons

100 Sheep

September 14, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“100 Sheep” based on Psalm 14 and Luke 15:1-10

These parables don’t make any sense. For some of us they’re familiar, so we’re used to pushing them into a framework of meaning and then mostly ignoring them. That framework is often the one that Luke imposes onto them, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” But it is clear to scholars that the whole sinner/repentance angle is Luke’s and isn’t what Jesus was doing with the stories. It is also likely the stories actually go back to Jesus.

And, when they stand alone without Luke’s interpretative help, they’re really quite weird.

“Supposed you had 100 sheep.” And…we’re off on the weirdness already. First, we’ve got the bias against shepherds going on, people didn’t want to imagine themselves as shepherds because shepherds were a disrespected group of people. In particular, shepherding required being with the sheep all the time, and so required a man to be away from his family. “Being away from home at night, they were unable to protect their women, hence considered dishonorable. In addition, they often were considered thieves because they grazed their flocks on other people’s property.”1 But, also, we have a romanticization of shepherds in the Bible, including with King David, we have Psalms celebrating God as a shepherd, and this is the book of Luke which informs us that it was shepherds keeping their flocks at night who were first told the good news of Jesus’ birth.

So, the shepherd thing is complicated. But so is the 100. Because 100 sheep is a lot of sheep. It is more sheep than a shepherd would be expected to have, they represent an unusual amount of ovine wealth. It is likely, at a flock that size that we’re dealing with a family of shepherds rather than a single shepherd because one person simply didn’t take care of 100 sheep. Well, in real life. But this is a parable of Jesus, and it’s weird, so we don’t know.

OK, so we’ve established that Jesus is asking people to consider having wealth, derived from a hated occupation.

Huh. Rather despite myself, this is starting to make a little bit of sense. Because the OPENING of the Gospel story isn’t a walk straight into the parable. Instead, it says, ‘Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable:” (Luke 15:1-13, NRSV) This whole thing is set in the context of responding to those who are grumbling about Jesus hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.

Amy Jill Levine explains this really well.

“The problem with ‘tax collectors’ is not that they denied the covenant; it is that they work for Rome and so would be seen by many within the Jewish community as traitors to their own people.

Sinners are not ‘outcasts’; they are not cast out of synagogues or out of the Jerusalem Temple. To the contrary, they are welcome in such places, since such places encourage repentance. The Gospels generally present sinners as wealthy people who have not attended to the poor. That is a dandy definition of the term. Thus, in a first century context, sinners, like tax collectors, are individuals who have removed themselves form the common welfare, who look to themselves rather than to the community.”2

She goes on:

“As for sinners – that is those who think about themselves and not of others- Paul provides the standard instructions. In 1 Corinthians 5.11, Paul advices his fledgling church, “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or who is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one.” They are the ancient drug pushers, insider traders, arms dealers, and, especially, colonial collaborationists. And yes, Jesus eats with them – that’s part of his genius, that he recognizes that they are part of the community and goes out to get them.”3

So, Jesus takes the grumbling about his eating with sinners and tax collectors and invites people to consider being a wealthy shepherd. OK. We’re caught up. What happens next again? "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’” (Luke 15:4-6, NRSV)

But, here is the thing. The question, about who would leave 99 really vulnerable sheep alone in the middle of no where to go find one lost one… generally speaking, one should not leave 99 vulnerable sheep alone to go get one sheep. If you did that, you’d come back to maybe 80 sheep, and then if you went to get another sheep, you’d have maybe 60 and truthfully it just wouldn’t work. Sheep without a shepherd get lost easily, they fall, they get snagged, predators get them, they can fall in water and sink or fail to find “still waters” and get dehydrated. Grazing sheep are intensive, and you can’t leave the group to go get one.

Unless, of course, the shepherd works in a team, like we might think given how many sheep there are, in which case it makes sense to go get the one. So that’s one good point – that it is better to work in a team when caring for the vulnerable – but Jesus doesn’t set it up that way. Jesus has the ONE person go do something ridiculous. And succeed. And throw a party. AT WHICH, given the number of people have been invited, it would be reasonable to assume that there may be a need to butcher a sheep.

Have I established my point that these stories are weird yet?

The second story is a bit of a retelling of the first. A woman has 10 coins, which isn’t an obscene amount of wealth, but is a pretty lovely nest egg. The coin referenced is the standard daily wage for a laborer. Two of the coins would feed a family of four for 5-7 days at 3000 calories a day, or for 9-12 days at 1,800 calories a day. We don’t know who is in the woman’s household but we know it is her house and her coins and relative to the truly impoverished people of that era, she was doing relatively well. She loses a coin, she finds it, she throws a party for her female friends, which probably cost more than the coin.

These two stories build up to the Parable of the Lost Son, but they also stand on their own.

What on earth do we do with these weird stories? They are stories of people making financially bad decisions. The people are overly generous in their gratitude. They’re unrealistic. Perhaps they’re living kingdom values and not the world’s values. That’s probably worth some consideration.

But the crux of a parable is to make us think. To help us see how things are, and help us consider if we’re happy with how things are. A single shepherd wouldn’t leave 99 sheep. A party shouldn’t cost more than what it celebrates. That’s not how things work.

And yet…. What are the exceptions? What are things that exist in the world where if you had 10 of them, lost 1, and got that one back, you’d throw a part regardless of cost?

I think one important answer is: people. If I had 10 kids and lost one, and found that one again, I’d throw a party. If I had 10 friends and lost one and got one back again, I’d throw a party. If I lost a person and got them back again, I’d throw a party. If a child, or anyone really, was lost, I’d go after them.

I will say, as a camp person, that I get back to that team idea on this. If a camper is having a problem, we always have two counselors with a group. So one counselor takes care of the rest of the campers and the other counselor sits with the camper and talks through what is going on. They’re both imperative. You can’t risk the 99 for the 1, but you can’t ignore the 1 if the 1 has infinite value either! Which definitely means we have to work together.

And, kingdom math doesn’t math like capitalistic math. Capitalistic math says people are expendable and wealth matters. Kingdom math says wealth is dispensable and people matter. That’s really the crux of the weirdness of these parables. They’re in kingdom math.

I’ve never lived in fear that God’s love is insufficient for any person, so I don’t worry a whole lot about the mechanisms of traditional sin, repentance and forgiveness. But the Gospels aren’t really working with mainstream Christian teachings either;) To repent is to turn around. My favorite image of it is of a person who is veering down a difficult path, who hears God’s gentle whispers, and turns around to see God and God’s love. When turned around, they attend to where God is looking, and decide to follow that path instead.

In practical terms, that turning around often happens when we’re hurt and tender and someone listens to us. It happens when the women sweeps for the coin or the shepherd goes after the lost sheep, and the tenderness of being sought out and cared for changes our lives.

Jesus seems to be telling the religiously faithful that the tax collectors and sinners needed to be loved back into community. Not to be judged, or ostracized, not to be condemned or even ignored. To be loved back into community.

I think the people of the day would have had plenty of objections to this. I think we have plenty of objections to this if we’re honest. But, if we took the powerful people who are living out greed rather than seeking the well being of all God’s children, and we thought of them like lost sheep in need of tender care, that would be listening to Jesus. That is the way of peace, and the story of the power of love, that is the kindom values at work, that is the profound rejection of the world’s violence and tendency to dehumanize.

Hmmm.

Help us all, Holy One. Amen

1 Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Luke 16:1-16” p, 232

2 Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus (USA: HarperOne, 2014), p 33.

3 Levine, 34

September 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

Sermons

Loving Your Enemies

September 7, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Making Space" based on Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, Luke 14: 25-33

I spent some time this week annoyed at myself for my scripture selections and wishing for a do-over. Particularly relevant, I should share, was that I have been *a little* tender over kindergarten starting this week so a text on hating mothers wasn’t resonating super well. Add to it a Psalm that is beautiful and wonderful and also has been used in the anti-choice movement for decades and I was ready to throw my hands up in the air.

So, I turned to my commentaries, and the Jesus Seminar colors the line about hating families and life PINK meaning it is likely to have been spoken by Jesus. They say,

“The severity of this saying can only be understood in the context of the primacy of filial relationships. Individuals had no real existences apart from their ties to blood relatives, especially parents. If one did not belong to a family, one had no real social existence. Jesus is therefore confronting the social structures that governed his society at their core. For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God’s imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty.”1

So, while the language itself IS about hating family, and is meant to be shocking, there is something even more going on there. Jesus is taking down fundamental identities, and claiming that God’s love is more than even the things we identify with most.

Then, out of the blue, Helen Ryde died. Helen (they/them), was an organizer for the Reconciling Ministries Network, which is the largest group in the United Methodist Church been working for the full inclusion of queer and trans people in the church and the world. Helen was assigned to the Southeastern Jurisdiction, which is the Southeastern United States and that wasn’t necessarily an enviable area.

Unless you were Helen.

Helen was queer and non-binary, and Helen had a special heart for those who thought Helen and those like them were going to hell. In the days since they died, I watched a sermon they gave where they talked about the people most resistant to change, most set in their ways, most unable to be reached. In organizing language, those people are called “the laggards.” Officially, as organizers, the laggards are to be ignored, because they can’t be reached.2

In their sermon, Helen talked about reaching out anyway.

And, in my experience, that was Helen to the core of their being. My most significant experiences with Helen were in the Love Your Neighbor Coalition Strategy Teams. Let me unpack that. The Love Your Neighbor Coalition is a group of coalition partners including all of the racial-ethnic caucus groups in The United Methodist Church, all the groups that have worked for Full Inclusion of queer and trans people, umbrella justice groups like MFSA, and those working for disability rights, and creation care, along with those seeking justice for Palestinians. The Love Your Neighbor Coalition worked together as one at our United Methodist General Conferences where the rules of The United Methodist Church are written and can be changed. The Coalition has many different teams for General Conferences, and the Strategy team works with committees and the plenary floor to support legislation, oppose legislation, build alliances, organize talking points, name speakers, and work with the boundaries of parliamentary procedure.

So, Helen (and Kevin) and I were on this team and we were preparing for General Conference and there are always these fundamental questions about how we treat those who are working against us. I mean, even that language is kind hard, right? We don’t want to perceive anyone as the enemy or the opposition, but how do we talk about those who were organizing just as hard as we were but for the opposite priorities? And, how do we do it in CHURCH?

We would talk about wanting to acknowledge the fact that everyone was a beloved child of God, even those who wanted to prevent the church from sharing that everyone is a beloved child of God. We would talk about praying for people. We would talk about loving them.

And Helen would be quiet.

And then sometimes we’d talk about our frustrations, about the “how dare they”s about how clearly the people “on the other side” are beloved by God but they are GETTING IN THE WAY of God’s work on earth and it is time to stop them…

And then Helen would speak up.

Because somehow, Helen loved everyone with God’s love for them. Someone said this week that Helen was the best of us in the progressive UMC and that person was right. With Helen around, we could never dehumanize the opposition, we could never forget God’s love for the other side, and we could NEVER consider underhanded strategies counterbalanced the underhanded strategies being done to us. Stuff like that wasn’t possible when Helen was around because this quiet saint wouldn’t allow it. They would remind us about God, and God’s love for others, and that we were in the church, and that we had to model the love even if it meant losing for the time being.

That was Helen.

And sometimes I’d want to contradict them because I wanted to protect my queer and trans friends and family and parishioners but I couldn’t fight with Helen about it because they were vulnerable and engaged with love first anyway.

Helen is the one who, this past May after The United Methodist Church FINALLY shed its homophobic skin, stood up on the floor and spoke FOR letting the churches that disaffiliated from The United Methodist Church BACK in if they changed their minds.3

That’s who Helen was. They’d had their heart changed, and they therefore always left space for others to to change too.

And, on Tuesday, suddenly and in their 50s, Helen died. And for me and many, many others, it was as if the world itself changed colors. In the following days my Facebook contained nothing but tributes to Helen. Helen stood with people in their hardest moments. Helen saved lives. Helen loved. Helen called us to love. Helen changed us. So many of us, it is hard to fathom their death. After Helen’s death, I came back to this scripture, and it had changed.

Because Helen was the best of us in The United Methodist Progressive Movement, because Helen was the one who loved the conservatives the best (and the rest of us too.) They showed that whoever can’t see beyond their own team cannot be following Jesus. Whoever can dismiss another person’s full humanity, isn’t working for the fullness of the kindom of God.

Whoever has limits on their love isn’t doing things God’s way.

All of a sudden the scripture made sense, in the light of Helen’s life.

And, beloveds, this is terrifyingly applicable to us now. There are people we perceive to be on the other team, in a few ways ;). In Helen’s life I hear the echos of Martin Luther King’s teachings that the change we seek in the world is the change that is better for everyone, even the ones currently engaged in oppression.

“hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. … You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. “love your enemies.”4

We don’t seek to change hearts with hate, but with showing the power and depth of love. It is LOVE that changes hearts, even the hearts that seem too brittle to change.

There are people doing harm right now, there are people doing us harm right now, there are people who we experience as the opposition. We need not be naive about this (Helen wasn’t), but it turns out we are still called to love them. May God help us. We need it. Amen

1 The Five Godspels: What did Jesus Really Say? ed. Robert Funk (NY: HarperOne, 1993) page 353.

2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=D64loNQzG94&t=0h4m44s

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sfIGBgF8SM

4Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, “Loving Your Enemies,” Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church

“Loving Your Enemies,” Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church

September 7, 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

Sermons

Cords of Human Kindness

August 3, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Cords of Human Kindness”based on Psalm 107:1-9, 43 and Hosea 11:1-11 August 3, 2025

Content note: this communion Sunday we also said goodbye to our former lay leader, youth group leader, Breakfast Coordinator, Social Worker, and sibling in Christ Sylvester as we send him off to retirement.

A lot of Bibles, and even the Lectionary page at Vanderbilt Divinity Library, label our Hosea passage “Like a mother, God loves Israel.” I can see why. The passage clearly talks about God as a nurturing and loving parent. The one who taught their son to walk, who picked him and snuggled him, who fed him and healed him.

But, when I read the passage I was struck by the fact that there isn’t anything actually maternal about those acts of care-giving. Unless, of course the Hebrew for feeding referenced nursing and I just missed it because I was reading in English. But, it doesn’t – I checked. According to the New Interpreter’s Bible, the passage refers to parental work, but doesn’t have any gendered nuances – other than the ones we project on to it.

Now, as you may know, I’m all for holistic conceptions of the Divine and push back on masculine language and imagery of God instinctively. The concept of God as a loving MOTHER can be a gift to heal wounds that some people hold, and certainly moves towards wholeness in conceiving of the Divine. But, also, the concerns I have about the ways human fathers can make the conception of a Divine father too violent can also apply to human mothers. Human parents come with a lot of failings.

In this this case though, I wonder if we want to stay with it, in part. I wonder if there is healing in thinking of The Divine as a Gentle and Compassionate FATHER and in sanctifying Gentle and Compassionate FATHERHOOD rather than in pigeonholing Gentle and Compassionate Parenting to Motherhood.

We are a church that see Gentle and Compassionate Parenting on the regular. And we are blessed to see it from people of all genders. We know, because we see it, that people of all genders love their children. We watch mothers, fathers, and parents teaching their children to walk. Well, let’s be honest, its bigger than that too. We watch parents and grandparents and friends in Gentle and Compassionate Nurturing Care. I noticed months ago that I found it hard to track where my infant son Michael was in after-worship events because he got passed around so much! Many humans have lifted him to their cheeks, and led him with cords of human kindness. This community offers this Gentle and Compassionate Nurturing Care that reflects the Divine. And it is BEAUTIFUL.

With Michael though, he would get passed around – back before he got mobile – UNTIL he got to Sly. When he got to Sly, he stayed. All of you, somehow, read the room and wouldn’t separate the two. Sly’s Gentle and Compassionate Nurturing Care and Michael’s love of it was attended to with grace.

When I was looking for Photo Show entries this Lent, and “relationship” came up, I tried to find a picture of Sly holding Michael where Sly’s face was visible and Michael’s wasn’t. I couldn’t, so I didn’t submit one. Another of you did the same. Two of you submitted stunning pictures of the two them, and got cautious emails from me letting you know that the pictures were great and we’d savor them but not put them on the internet.

As a community we have seen something sacred in the care of one man for one baby, and made space for it and celebrated it.

It makes sense to me. There are a lot of ways that Sly has acted as Gentle and Nurturing Father in this community. (He is NOT the only one, but he is the one leaving after today, so I’m naming it today.) Sly feeds us. He makes things more beautiful. He shows up, time and time again. He brings his best and uses it to care for others. He brings laughter along with him everywhere he goes. And, in his time with us, he has devoted much of his energy to the care a youth group (now grown into young adults) and showing young people how to share love in the world.

I’m not supposed to be embarrassing Sly today. (Shrug). But normally I have to worry about him getting me back, and this time he’s leaving so he can’t 😉

Friends, I think it can be healing for our souls to think about the Divine as a Gentle and Compassionate Nurturing Parent. Far too often the Divine Parent imagery is that of judger, or punisher, dominator, or some other form of “Daddy-knows-best” weirdness. In Hosea the Divine Parent gets MAD because the child is being super awful. God claimed Israel as child, and asked Israel to be a beacon and example of mutual care and compassion and Israel KEPT ON FAILING. But the key is in verse 8, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?… My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.” God is mad, but God’s love is the defining parental act. The passage says, “I loved my child to teach them love, but they failed. And I love them anyway and will take care of them anyway.” It tracks perfectly with the Psalm affirming that God’s Steadfast Love Endures Forever, and God helps people even in the most dire of situations.

Beloveds, there is sacredness in nurture, in compassion, in care, in care-giving. Our society tends to minimize the value of care-giving, but as people of faith we live by a different value system. We see the sacred work that is tender and loving care. It is work that reminds us of God, it is work that shows us God with us. When we see tender and loving care, we are reminded that God is like that. Not one who powers over us, but one who holds us with gentleness.

So, thanks be to God for all the people who show nurturing, compassion, gentleness, and care. And, while we’re at it, thanks be to God for the moment we – as individuals – pull that off! (Quite often only by the grace of God.)

And, thank you Holy One, for a community that sees the power of Love that is compassionate and nurturing rather than overpowering and dominating. We are so grateful to be able to see the sacredness of gentleness. We are so grateful to show the world the power of nurturing love! 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

August 3, 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

Uncategorized

Untitled

October 27, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Love God” based on Exodus 20:1-17 and Luke 10:25-28

The Gospel retelling of the central laws of Judaism are used in Luke as the opening to the parable of the Good Samaritan. I appreciate this opportunity to hear it stand alone though, a reminder that the central ideas of Judaism and Christianity line up.

Jesus says the answer that is in the Torah still stands, and then offers commentary on it, making sure that his followers remember that the neighbor who is to be loved is a neighbor in the most expansive of definitions.

The key commandments “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”’ I particularly love the way this is constructed as one commandment with two parts. There isn’t a separation between loving God and loving neighbors, they’re two sides of the same coin. We love God by loving our neighbors, when we love our neighbors, we are loving God. And yet, also there are ways that the two can be approached differently. Around here we LOVE taking care of each other and our neighbors in tangible ways, and showing God’s love by offering care and resources.

Sometimes, some of us, are less clear on what to do with that first half. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind,” What does that mean?

Perhaps sometimes we get confused by those who say that loving God is about living a particular type of pious life – one that doesn’t seem right to us. Or we get turned off by those who declare their particular prayer practices are THE WAY to connect with God, when clearly there are lots of paths. (For instance, those people who think getting up at 4AM to pray before starting the day. It is a valid choice, but not the ONLY valid choice.)

I’ve been enjoying reading about Celtic Christian Spirituality, and one of the big ideas in that world-view is that that the world is permeated with the Divine Spirit – that the world itself sparkles with wonder and awe and delight. That existence itself is an amazing miracle and everything we see – especially in nature – is glimmers with holiness.

Celtic Christianity also talks about the spiritual path as being one of remembering the sacredness of all creation, the value of all human life, the love of God that is everywhere in everything. It emphasizes that we are made good, that we know what we need to know already, we just need to remember.

Then, Celtic Christianity says, when we remember together, we can do things differently. We can build societies that reflect holiness and love and goodness and hope and mercy and grace. But first, we remember, and we remember by noticing the sacredness all around us and listening to it.

These days when I think about loving God, I think about it in those Celtic terms. I think about savoring goodness, noticing wonder, making space for awe. As you may have heard me say in other sermons, I’m all for other spiritual practices too! However, today, I want to focus on that attention to holy wonder.

It isn’t pious or self-righteous or prescriptive. It is just being, with gratitude. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength – and notice the wonder all around. Oh, and share love with others, because everyone is a part of God and beloved by God and worthy of love. (But we are already practicing that part.)

The 10 commandments as found in Exodus offer a further explanation of ways to live so that people love God and treat neighbors with love too. The first ones focus on loving God, the latter ones focus on treating each other well, and to my delight the middle one is the appropriate transition between them as it is both. The transition is the Sabbath:

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

That Sabbath is everything! It is a time for noticing the wonder and awe, for loving God, for rest, and for SHARING rest with everyone else. John Dominic Crossan reminds me that in the Bible the first resource that is distributed is REST, and all the other distributions follow after rest. First, rest, for everyone. First, wonder for everyone. First, space for everyone to be human, that is to stop working and just be, that is to connect with each other, that is to connect with God, that is to connect and BE and not be distracted.

Loving God and each other. See, its all over that Bible of ours.

Our essay from We Cry Justice today reminds us that societal laws should be laws that protect everyone, especially the vulnerable. That just laws create justice. And, that the “laws” of the Bible set good precedent for this – I’d note, including that EVERYONE gets rest regardless of statues.

It also reminds us of the Social Principles in the United Methodist Church and our stance on Civil Disobedience, in this case the new principle sounds a lot like the old one:

We support those who, acting under the constraints of moral conscience or religious conviction and having exhausted all other legal avenues, feel compelled to disobey or protest unjust or immoral laws. We urge those who engage in civil disobedience to do so nonviolently and with respect for the dignity and worth of all concerned. We also appeal to all governmental bodies, especially the police and any other institutions charged with protecting public safety, to provide appropriate training and to act with restraint and in a manner that protects basic rights and prevents emotional or bodily harm to those engaged in civil disobedience.

That is, there is an affirmation that the rule of loving God and neighbor is the highest order of law, and we have a right to stand for it, although there may be consequences.

I think that for many people hearing the stories of others, and sitting in nature, and singing the songs of God, and regular experiences of Sabbath, and all those ways people can love God and nature, can FORM US into people truly able to follow the most basic commandment:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”’

It is easy to understand, and worth pursuing, but it isn’t exactly easy to live, is it?

Well, the more we love God and the more we love God’s people and creation, the easier it gets. Thanks be to God for that! Amen

October 27, 2024

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

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September 22, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Who We Are” based on Exodus 3:1-14a and Mark 9:30-35 (Homecoming Sunday)

I was once lucky enough to spend a term studying at Oxford, specifically at Magdalen College, where a portion of the campus was referred to as the “New Quad” and dated to about 1733. The day after I arrived back in the United States I heard on the radio about a “great historical find” of a 100 year old Buffalo Bill poster. I remember wondering what the people at Magdalen would call something so new as to be only 100 years old.

This congregation was founded in that same century as the new quad… although a little later. We were founded in 1789, and our current church building dates to almost a hundred years later, in 1872. We’ve now been in this building for 152 years, although like Americans, we don’t refer to it as the new church anymore 😉

Our history books tell wonderful stories of the faithfulness of our fore-bearers in faith, and their commitment to God and each other. They also tell stories of change! This is the 3rd church building this community built – 4th location, and as it was being built the first worship space as over the fellowship hall in a space we mostly don’t use anymore. The now Wesley Lounge was the original church office, and the education wing didn’t come along until the 1950s. Bill Isles once said he’d been fighting leaks in the roof since then.

I’m often awed as I look at the long list of pastors who have served this church – found on the walls just before you enter the Narthex. It is also notable how many years of one-year service there was in those early days. Maybe the biggest change in the list of clergy is the relatively recent inclusion of women, staring 45 years ago with Rev. Eileen Demming.

I also think about the technological changes that have happened over the course of this church’s history. When the church began the US Postal Service was brand new and Post Offices were just beginning to be build. This church saw the advent of the telegram, the radio, the telephone, electric lights, television, fax machines, the internet and email, cell phones and text messages, social media, and even Zoom. Thanks Thomas Edison and GE! These all impacted how life was lived, and thus how ministry played out. Honestly, 5 years ago we lacked live-streaming and Zoom meetings – can you even remember that??

This week we had a meeting to plan our fall retreat – and it was so interesting to hear the beloved traditions of the past meet the needs and values of the present day. I loved it because that’s pretty must the gist of everything. In Christianity we talk about the “Living Tradition” where we honor and respect the past, and use its wisdom, while bringing it into the present day and leaving behind what no longer serves us while adding in what we now need. Everything in church is Living Tradition as I see it – from the church retreat to the worship liturgy, from coffee hour to the church library.

We have this constant awareness of and gratitude for the past, while also holding the present and the future together. Over the course of the past year we’ve made some plans for more change. While this building was bustling with ministry activities in the 1950s, it is now more building than we really need. The maintenance and upkeep of the building take a lot of energy and resources, we love it, but it drains us. This church has decided to go forward, looking at ways this building can be a resource for the community while also becoming a source of financial stability.

I’ve was awed and amazed to watch the Holy Spirit at work in this community as this way forward was discerned. The part I loved best was watching various groups of people gather together with fear and trepidation about the future, and then think about what it could mean if our building could be used fo provide low-income housing AND financial stability, and see each group get excited and hopeful.

It is a huge change, and it is going to take a lot of work, but the decision is one that was made with incredible faithfulness. And, it is a continuation of the history of change and the reality of the living tradition.

In Exodus this morning we heard the familiar story of Moses encountering the burning bush and hearing God’s name. The New Interpreter’s Bible emphasizes the verbs of God in this passage. God says, “I have seen… I have heard… I have known… I will send…. I am.” It may just be me, but I hear the living tradition right there! God is “The Great I Am”, or “I Am Who I Am” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be” but God is also impacted by what God sees and hears, and acts accordingly. God’s nature is constant – loving mercy all the way through AND God is responsive to human needs and activities.

I loved that our “We Cry Justice” reading reminded us that after Moses saw the burning bush, and went to do what God directed, and the people were freed, and they came out to the wilderness, they returned to the burning bush. And it is there, in the place they are told that God heard them, saw them, considered them, cared for them, and that God simply was, that they work together to figure out the future as God’s beloveds.

In this story, the burning bush is sort of interesting in that it’s only purpose was to get Moses’s attention so that he’d listen to God. Also, there is an angel, but the angel does say or do anything, the angel’s only purpose is to get Moses’s attention so that he’ll listen to God. The bush isn’t the message. The angel isn’t the message. God just wants Moses to pay attention.

I suspect that God puts burning bushes in front of us multiple times a day. Thich Naht Hahn taught that in the communities he founded every time a bell rang the community members were to take a moment to stop, listen, and pay attention to the wonder all around them. He said that it changed the way they answered the phone. I believe there may be fewer bells and notifications in monastic life than modern life, but perhaps that makes it far MORE important for us to try that exercise. Every time a bell rings, a phone vibrates, or an app gives us a notification we too could stop, listen for a moment, and be grateful for the wonder around us.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of times a day for me. And that’s just BELLS. It is also true that in every other human being we encounter a beloved of God, and they may each be a burning bush inviting us to attend to the wonder of each human.

Sometimes God calls us to sit still, and just be. Sometimes God calls us to move, and just be. (I think all of us are called to both at various times.)

I suspect we all could get better at listening to those calls. How do you get them? What is your burning bush? Could it be bells? Notifications? Other people? An internal sense of unease? Maybe just hungry – it may be that we want to think anew about the tradition of table grace, and face each time we nourish our bodies as the true and wonderful miracle it is, and take a moment to be grateful to God and all the people who make it possible for us to eat and drink each thing before us.

I wrote in the August newsletter about my hopes that we would take this election cycle and time of uncertainty as an invitation to deepen our spiritual practices so that we can respond out of being centered in God’s grace. I intended to keep talking about it through August but… well, life went ahead and changed on me and here I am back in the pulpit as of today.

It is so easy to be pulled off kilter by the truly concerning realities around us.

I believe the question for us today, the question of who we are becoming, is how we can care as deeply as ever, while also being able to hold our center. Psalm 1 talks about the people who delight in God as being like trees planted by streams of water, “which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.” It is my conviction that God is a constant source of love, hope, peace, and joy. God is always with us, God is calling to us with our own burning bushes, God is accessible. We are able to connect to the source of love, hope, peace, and joy. We are able to be like trees planted by the streams – with deep roots in God’s goodness. And when do so, we are able to be stronger in our compassion for others AND our centeredness that cannot be shaken.

Many of us are worried about what will happen. We are also, of course, worried about what is happening and what has happened. Things are not as they should be, and even the most optimistic outcomes aren’t going to solve issues like hungry, homelessness, war, and violence. We are people of faith in the midst of a broken AND beautiful world.

The Bible is full of stories of being in a beautiful and broken world, and finding God in the midst of it. This is just how things go. We don’t get to wait for things to be OK before we deepen our faith. Faith happens in the midst of reality.

In Mark, we hear the line, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Jesus saw the hierarchies of his world, and he had no patience for them. He inverted everything he could, and led people to question the very idea that someone should be at the bottom (or top) of a hierarchy.

This is one of the core messages of our faith. This is part of who we are becoming as we connect more and more deeply with God. God’s unconditional love for all people becomes the most important truth and everything else fades away. Along with changing how we see others, this also changes how we see ourselves and loosens the grip of the narrative that we are supposed to compete to be “good enough to be loved.” We are loved. That’s the first thing we teach each other in faith. God loves us. All. That’s where it all begins, and I think even where it all ends.

We have a long history of sharing God’s love with each other and the world. And the changes that are coming are yet another expression of love. And, no matter what the world throws at us – let’s deepen our roots into God’s goodness so we are ready to respond with love and love alone. Amen

September 22, 2024

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