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Sermons

“Dawn Light” based on  Isaiah 9:1-4 and Matthew 4:12-23

  • January 27, 2020February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I’m
going to enter into the Bible’s metaphors today about darkness and
light, but before I can do so, I need to differentiate Biblical times
from current times.  In particular, today metaphors of light and
darkness reinforce racial stereotypes with claims that light skin
tones are related to lightness which are related to goodness while
dark skin tones are related to darkness which are related to badness.
These correlations are false and harmful, yet they are significant
in our society and have to be named.

The
Bible, however, isn’t racist.  There are a whole lot of problems with
the Bible and I’d be happy to list them with you in a personal
conversation, but racism actually isn’t one of them, because racism
was created well AFTER the Bible was completed.  Any claims of the
Bible supporting racism are, inherently, false.  

When
the Bible is talking about light and darkness I think it is fair to
assume it is talking about light like sunlight and darkness like
cloud covered nights.  It is probably worth remembering that electric
lights are also a feature of modernity that the Bible lacked, and so
light and dark were more constant and impermeable features of life
during Biblical times.

So,
we’re going to talk about light and darkness, and I’m going to follow
the Bible’s lead in acknowledging that humans yearn for light.  But I
want to be very clear that we are talking about lumens and not skin
tone.  After all, none of the people in the Bible were white.

Of
course, there are many positive traits of darkness.  Since reading
about the “Dark Night of the Soul,” I’ve been entirely convinced
that darkness is a gift to us.  A “Dark Night of the Soul” is a
time of discombobulation, and/or confusion, and/or grief – when the
faith a person has doesn’t work anymore and the faith a person will
have isn’t there yet.  It has been described as womb-like, when the
framework of understanding the world, and God, and even one’s self
collapses and then in silence and darkness takes on a new form.  The
new form doesn’t come into the light until it is ready.  Many
Christians have been through Dark Nights of the Soul, some have been
through multiple.  It is a normal and important part of faith, even
if it is profoundly uncomfortable and can be scary.  

So
it isn’t that darkness is bad, darkness is an important part of the
journey.  However, after a time of darkness, light is a precious
gift.

Isaiah
is talking about an experience of light after a prolonged darkness.
He is talking about dawn breaking after a particularly long night.
Isaiah is talking about a dark night of the soul for the whole
community, the whole nation of Ancient Israel, when everything they
had known and depended on was overturned… and then what would
happened afterwards.

After
the gloom, after journeying in the darkness, after living without
light or hope, the light dawns.  The sense of isolation from God and
each other lifts.  The fear and hopelessness that have permeated life
dissipate.  The heaviness of grief grows lighter.  Things start to
make a little bit of sense again, in a new way.

In
place of that heaviness, there is JOY.  The things that were dragging
the people down are broken, and they are able to stand tall and move
freely.  Hope and light abound.

The
narrative of Isaiah, and indeed of the entirety of the Hebrew Bible
is that bad things may come – and do – but they’re never the
final word.  The people are enslaved in Egypt, but God sets them
free.  The people are lost, wandering in the desert, but God shows
them the way home.  The people are oppressed under their own kings,
but God sends prophets to restore justice.  The people are taken back
into captivity in the exile, but God sets them free again.  The
people are oppressed by large empires, but God works towards freedom
time and time again.

Yes,
the darkness, comes, says the Bible.  But the light comes too.  The
darkness is never the final word.

Matthew
decided to use this passage from Isaiah to explain Jesus.   In fact,
he uses it to INTRODUCE the theme of Jesus’ ministry, which was his
teaching of “Repent and believe, for the kin(g)dom of heaven has
come near.”  That is, Jesus was part of God’s work of the light
dawning yet again.  Furthermore, the light and the kin(g)dom are
related.  

We
sometimes shy away from the word “repent” because of the ways it
has been misused around us, but the word itself is just fine.  It can
be understood as “expressing regret or remorse about one’s
wrongdoing”1
or more traditionally to Christianity, as “apologizing AND changing
couse so the harmful action isn’t repeated.”  My friend the Rev.
Dr. Barbara Throrington Green says that to repent is to realize that
you are headed in the wrong direction, to look around to figure out
where God is looking, and then to reorient yourself to look in the
same direction God is looking.  That’s my favorite definition.

I wonder
sometimes if I really understand Jesus’ message yet.  It always feels
like a work in progress.  “Repent and believe, for the kin(g)dom of
heaven has come near.”  I think this is an invitation to leave
fear, hopelessness, and isolation behind and to join with Jesus in
the work of the kin(g)dom – which is work done in community, for
the well-being of all, in faith that with God’s help the kin(g)dom
will come.  But I also think it is about letting go of the things “of
the world” that do harm in order to make space for the things “of
the kin(g)dom” and that is much harder to sort out.  There is a
big, long-standing question in Christianity about what our
relationship is to be with “the world.” Do we stand against it?
Do we ignore it?  Do we recognize it’s gifts?  Do we think of it as
sacred?  Do we call it into more wholeness?  Do we accept it as it
is?

And
that ends up really mattering.  How much do we reject?  How much do
we celebrate?  Why?  How do we even figure out what things are of the
world and what things are of the kin(g)dom when we ourselves are in
both and most people we know are too?  Purism doesn’t happen much in
real life.  I think some of the things “of the world” are
competition, tribalism, greed, pulling ourselves up by pushing others
down, and violence.  Yet, I’ve definitely seen those things in the
church too!  I want to think of the things of the kin(g)dom as being
about the common good, shared resources, the full humanity of all
people, spirituality, holistic well-being, peace, hope, and joy.
Yet, in reality there aren’t clear lines between the two, or at least
not as clear as I’d like most of the time.


Which
worries me, because if I’m supposed to “repent and believe” and
I’m still not entirely clear on what I’m repenting of or believing
in, maybe I’m not helping much in the building of the kin(g)dom, even
though I really, really want to.  

This
Matthew passage is power packed.  It claims and then reframes
Isaiah’s dawning light, it offers Jesus’ ministry and its key ideas,
it includes the calling of the disciples, and then it describes the
work of Jesus during his ministry, “Jesus went throughout Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the
people.”

Perhaps one
doesn’t have to have a particularly good sense of where to draw the
line or how to understand the kindom.  Perhaps in the thin light of a
new dawn , one is only able to see a little bit, and yet that little
bit of light is enough to guide you safely one step at a time.  

We don’t
really have to have it all figured out – no one does, and no one
ever has.  But there is a need to trust God, and trust ourselves, and
trust each other, so that we can take a little bit of light and let
it lead us.

There is
deep goodness in the darkness, and I hope we’ve savored its lessons.
May we prepare ourselves for light dawning, and to take tentative
steps in the early morning light, moving as well as we can toward the
kin(g)dom.  Amen

1  Apple
dictionary

Rev. Sara E. Baron

 First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 26, 2020

Sermons

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

  • December 15, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What.  A.  Vision.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

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 15, 2019

Sermons

“Hope for New Life” based on Isaiah 11:1-10 and…

  • December 8, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

It
is common to call the writer of the Gospel of Luke… Luke, which
makes plenty of sense. It isn’t likely to be historically accurate,
but it is pretty simple to remember. Whatever the writer’s real name
was, the person who wrote the Gospel of Luke and its 2nd
volume
the book of Acts, is said to be the best writer in the New Testament.
From my perspective I can tell that Luke does great work with
foreshadowing, telling stories within stories to enrich both stories,
symbolism, and themes. However, the really good stuff, I’m told is in
his Greek vocabulary and syntax which are simply just outstanding.
“Luke” was a VERY well educated person, and a master of the craft
of writing. Given how small the percentage of literate people were at
that time, being so well versed as a writer indicates not only
brilliance and skill but also power and privilege. One simply would
not become that great of a writer without a lot of access to unusual
levels of resources.

Luke
is probably my favorite Gospel writer, and I love Luke for his
emphasis on people who are poor,  marginalized, and vulnerable, and
because they fit those categories, the women. Luke tells the story of
my faith, presenting Jesus as an ally to those most in need of
rescue, and as an organizer able to help people rescue themselves.
This has a bit of cognitive dissonance to it. Based on WHAT he
writes, Luke is a writer of the people. He is empowering, noticing
those society disregards, and telling the stories that the powerful
don’t want told. Yet, based on HOW he writes, Luke is one of
society’s elites.

Which
sounds to me like Luke being a living example of the power of Jesus –
to convince people to work together to build the kindom no matter
where they begin life, to be FOR ALL the people as they grow.

Isaiah
was a prophet, and from what I can tell, a prophet is a speaker for
the people. The Torah set up a society that treated people justly,
and prevented an upper class from ruling over a lower class. Yet,
people being people, power, money, and influence tended to coalesce
at a top and become a burden to the many. God’s prophets spoke out
against it, and called people back to God’s vision of a just, equal,
and equitable lifestyle.

Which
is a long-winded way of saying that we have two passages today that
are “of the people” and yearning for justice. They do so in ways
that can be a little bit uncomfortable. There are not simply passages
that suggest “a rising tide lifts all boats” but rather ones that
talk about REDISTRIBUTION of wealth1.
These are passages that are good news for the poor, the lowly, and
the meek … but not for the rich, the proud, and the powerful. I
find the “rising tide lifts all boats” sort of justice easier to
swallow. This stuff is … harder.

And
yet, my activist friends assure me that we aren’t going to get to
justice only by being nice. So, let’s examine these texts for wisdom.
This shoot that come from Jesse in Isaiah, have you noticed that it
comes AFTER the tree has been cut down. This is a sign of hope after
destruction and hopelessness. The passage as a whole feels like a
cousin of last week’s passage. In this case, the new offspring of
Jesse (which is to say the new Davidic king) is going to be so
perfectly imbued with the Spirit of God that the new King will rule
as perfectly as God’s own self would.

The
impact of life as ruled as God would have it ruled is shockingly
different. When God’s spirit is in leadership, and when the people
are following in God’s ways, there will be peace even among animals
who are in each other’s food chains 😉 Safety becomes the center
point of this – the lamb, the kid-goat, the calf, and the human
child are all safe in the presence of those most apt to harm them.
This is another way of talking about not needing to be afraid,
because there is no motivation to do harm. In this case, it is clear
that there are no people oppressing other people, no one is “eating
up” the resources of the weaker people to make themselves stronger.
Security, hope, and peace are the result of God’s Spirit. That’s the
kindom.

Mary’s
song hits the same notes. Mary is continuing to process that she, who
is lowly by the standards of the world, is now “blessed.” She
attributes this change to God, and notices that this is how God
works. She says it is God’s nature to do great things, to show mercy,
to be strong…. to bring justice. And she names how justice comes.
It is by scattering the proud and bringing down the powerful –
while lifting up the lowly. It is by feeding the hungry but NOT
giving more to those who already have too much. Mary’s song is,
itself, strong and justice seeking. She identifies with the lowly,
who God lifts up. And it is even more interesting to hear that
knowing that the writer of the Gospel probably identifies with the
rich, and wrote her song this way anyway.

While
we know absolutely nothing about Jesus’s mother with any certainty,
we do know Jesus had a mother.  The name Mary was associated with her
a few generations after his death, which isn’t a great reason to
assume it is true, but sort of like “Luke” we can go with it. I
suspect Mary got associated with the name of the mother of Jesus
because Mary is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Miriam. Miriam,
the sister of Moses, has the oldest words in the Bible attributed to
her, and saved her brother so he could save the nation Israel.
Associating Mary with Miriam is A-Ok with me.

Other
conjectures we can make about Mary include: she was Jewish, she was
from Galilee – most likely Nazareth, she was poor, and it is likely
she was young. She may have been a very faithful Jew, as Judean
settlers were intentionally reclaiming Galilee for Judaism around
that time, and the ones who went were often the ones who were
committed to the cause. She also might have been influenced by either
the Roman Empire’s violent destruction of the nearby city of
Sepphoras in her childhood or by the radical Jewish teachers in the
Galilee who taught that the God of liberation was going to liberate
again. In any case, while the leaders of the Temple during her
lifetime were appointed by Rome and the “official” religion had
been compromised, it is possible (probable?) that Mary knew a faith
that was untainted by the influence of power.

Which
is to say, that while Luke wrote the words we hear today, and put
them into Mary’s mouth for our story – they MAY well reflect her
faith itself. At the very least, Mary’s song words as an incredible
foreshadowing of the power of God that people saw in Jesus, and I
believe Jesus’s faith was likely formed by his mother’s.

In
Mark, Jesus is referred to as Mary’s son which is unusual in that he
was not referred to as his FATHER’S son. With the presence of a
punishing military force nearby, before Jesus’s birth, there are some
particularly awful possibilities about his father. What we know is
that at some point Mary was pregnant, expecting a child, and likely
pretty scared. I say that because maternal mortality rates were high,
infant mortality rates were high, and resources in Nazareth were
scarce. It is very likely that Mary herself was hungry, including
during her pregnancy and while she was breastfeeding Jesus. She had
seen extreme violence from the Empire, and had reason to believe it
could come back at any time. She MAY have been facing the possibility
of being ostracized from her community. Thus, I think it is fair to
assume she was scared.

Even
stripping away most of that, scared seems right. For years, Kevin and
I have struggled with some big questions: is it OK for us to choose
to bring a child into this world knowing the dangers of Global
Climate Change? Is it ok for us to choose to bring a child into this
world when there are other children who need to be parented? How much
capacity do we have to offer care and support for a child given our
other commitments?

After
long talks, prayer, and good counsel, we decided that our ideal
family would include a child born to us and a child adopted by us. So
we started trying to have a child and…. well, nothing happened.
Eventually we made an appointment with an adoption lawyer, and
decided to try private infant adoption. We filled out paperwork, got
background checked, had a home study, and were ready to sign a court
petition requesting that we be approved to be able to become adoptive
parents when we learned that I was, in biblical phrasing, “with
child.”

Now,
I live in the 21st
century,
with pretty great access to resources. While our country is weaker
than it should be, particularly in the care of women of color,
compared with ancient Galilee we have low maternal mortality rates,
low infant mortality rates, plenty of food, and low threat of
violence. Yet as an expectant mother, I’m scared. While I find it
excessive to overly identify with “Mother Mary,” preparing to
parent has certainly helped me see why she’s so popular. Also, why
she has every right to be scared. We have been wondering how on earth
will we prepare a child to be kind, compassionate, and moral in this
crazy world? How will we teach them of God in ways that feel relevant
while the world shifts under our feet?

Let
me assure you that we did NOT sign that paperwork and adoption is
officially on hold. Let me also admit to you that being the pregnant
pastor of this church for the past two months hasn’t been the easiest
thing I’ve ever done. I haven’t been puking (WIN) but I have been
constantly nauseated, and instructed to eat every hour. I’ve been
exhausted and my emotional resources have been down. At the same
time, I have experienced significant collateral friendly fire as this
church has worked together on the reality of our budget deficit.

Between
the friendly fire and being less resilient than usual, I have spent
time considering if pastoring this church – or even being a pastor at
all – continues to be the right path for me. Some of this is simply
about parenting: I’m nervous about being away from home 4 nights a
week like I usually am now. Some of this is about ministry’s
demands: what will it mean to have to establish the sort of
boundaries my child will need, and what will I do when the needs of
the church are in conflict, and what will happen when someone feels
that their expectations aren’t being met? Some of it is about our
child and this church. On one hand I can’t imagine any church but
this one being part of raising our child. I love the way children are
cared for during worship. I love our Sunday School and its teachers.
I love the way children are treated here, and I love the ways God is
understood and taught here. However, on the other hand, my stress
level has been sky high, and recently I’ve seen a lot of behavior I
wouldn’t want a child to learn about much less associate with this
church. So I’ve been wondering, is this a safe and secure place for a
child – our child – to learn about God? Will this place fulfill
Isaiah’s vision of a child being able to put their hand in a snake’s
den safely?

In
slow, careful deliberation, with conversation, and consultation, and
prayer, and a LOT of obsessing and worrying, I’ve decided not to give
up on ministry just yet. Then, even more slowly, I realized that –
for now – this church is worth the pain. I simply love you all.
Furthermore, I don’t believe that this church IS its worst behaviors.
Dear ones, I believe that this faith community is an expression of
the kindom of God. I believe it is a little bit of Isaiah’s vision,
and has the capacity to build the world into one of peace and
justice. I’m well aware that we have lots of hard times ahead (and I
am terrified
of
the boundaries I’m going to have to have as a parent, please be
gentle with me) but I believe you are worth it.

So,
anyway, I see why a prospective parent would be scared. And I am
gaining a new appreciation for the ways in which a new generation
provides new opportunities: 1) for regeneration, 2) for making right
the things we haven’t gotten right yet, and 3) hope for the future.
We are hoping to raise a child to know God’s love, follow Jesus, and
speak with and for the people.  And I find myself reflecting on how I
hope this community will continue to exist and teach and raise up
future generations to do the same. Given all this, I see why a
prospective parent would choose to stick with the God of Liberation,
of Hope, and of Peace.  And I see why Mary was amazed at her luck in
getting the chance to do so.  Being a part of the work of God is a
blessing and a great opportunity.   Thanks be to God. Amen

1 Someone
pointed out after worship that a rising tide may lift all boats, but
it doesn’t help people who don’t have boats.

Sermons

“Hope in God” based on Isaiah 2:1-5 and Luke…

  • December 1, 2019February 11, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

This
Advent we are Waiting in Hope, and our guides for that waiting are
going to be Isaiah and Luke. All too often we jump into Luke chapter
2 on Christmas, without examining Luke chapter 1 to prepare the way.
This means we are going to spend Advent with Mary, with Elizabeth,
and with Zechariah.  Which means that we need a content warning
for Advent.

Luke
1, not unlike Genesis, spends a lot of time dealing with issues of
fertility and infertility.  These are tender topics for many people,
and I will be seeking to deal with them tenderly.  However, you are
not obligated to stay present if these topics are simply too much for
you right now, and I am available to talk if you want to.  (Or, I’m
willing to find you someone else to talk to if you’d prefer.)

Luke
starts by telling the story of Zechariah, an old priest, and his wife
Elizabeth.  They had no children.  This is a VERY common story in the
Bible, in fact it feels like a throw-back to the matriarchs and
patriarchs who all had trouble conceiving until God intervened.  (And
this is part of why these stories are so hard.  If infertility could
be solved with prayer alone, there would be much less of it.)  This
story rings of Abraham and Sarah, of Issac and Rebecca, of Jacob’s
wife Rachel, of Hannah and Elkanah.
This is a familiar story.  An angel tells Zechariah, while he is
serving in the temple, that his prayers have been heard and Elizabeth
will become pregnant.  Zechariah expresses some disbelief because of
their age, which is punished with being unable to speak until the
baby is born.  The baby to be born will be, according to Luke, John
the Baptist.

A few
months later, with Elizabeth pregnant, the story is interrupted with
our reading today.  This story is NOT familiar.  It doesn’t sound
like the Hebrew Bible at all – although it does sounds like its
contemporary Greek stories.  As far as the Bible goes, though, this
is a brand new account.  And it is breaking into an old, old story.
In this new account a young woman, who has been legally married to
her husband but is still in the one year waiting period in her
father’s house before she joins her husband in his house, is greeted
by that same angel.  The angel says “‘Greetings, favored one! The
Lord is with you,” and the story says that Mary is perplexed.  

This
make sense, I think.  By the standards of the world, Mary wasn’t
favored.  She was poor, she was young, she was female, she had very
little power, and she lived in an unimportant little village that was
outside of a city that had recently been ransacked by the Roman
Empire.  She was, by no means, favored by anyone nor anything.  Nor
was their any previous evidence that she was favored by God.  R. Alan
Culpepper writes in the New Interpreter’s Bible, “’Yet, Mary, God’s
favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock who would
later be executed as a criminal.  Acceptability, prosperity, and
comfort have never been the essence of God’s blessing.”1
Mary seems to still be processing this.

She
is, however, wise enough to keep her objections to herself – unlike
Zechariah.  So the angel continues to tell her about her upcoming
pregnancy with the child who would be named Jesus, “the rescuer”,
and would claim a unique connection to the Divine.  This time Mary
expresses her confusion, indicating that she understands how
conception works and thus that it shouldn’t be happening to her.
Perhaps because she doesn’t ask for proof, she is given it, in the
form of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

At this
point, the story comes to one of the greatest acts of courage I know
about.  This impoverished young woman, with everything to lose by
taking this risk (including her own life), responds “Here am I, the
servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  I
know that this story is Luke’s creation, Luke’s intentional
foreshadowing of the Jesus story.  I know this didn’t HAPPEN.  And
yet I can’t help but be stuck by this line.  It feels like the sort
of answer that the woman who raised Jesus and taught Jesus of God
would give.  It feels true in a way that is deeper than the story
itself.  Mary is a risk-taker for God.  She trusts in the
Divine even when it makes no sense and by all reasonable standards
should be done.

In this
story, through this brief interaction, Mary moves from confused at
the idea that she could be favored by God to an unquestioning
willingness to do whatever it is God needs of her.  The foreshadowing
of Jesus couldn’t be much better.  This unique story about Mary has
echoes all over it of Hannah and her faithfulness.  These are the
stories of the women’s faith, the women who raised men of great
faith.  The men didn’t come to their faith alone.

We
will come back to Mary next week, and to her extraordinary courage
and unique insight.  But for now we’re going to transition to the
vision of Isaiah, a vision that came when everything else looked like
it was going downhill.  Most of the time first Isaiah (the first 40
chapters) has to warn the people of what will happen if they don’t
trust in God, but this vision is an after vision.  Of what will come
SOMEDAY, one way or another.  The more I examine it, the more
striking it is.

Many of us
are familiar with the closing lines,

“they
shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
   and
their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword
against nation,
   neither shall they learn war
any more.”

but it
really struck me this week that these lines are about much more than
peace and a lack of a need for war. These lines are about not
needing defenses anymore, about not needing borders anymore,
about being unafraid for safety, and a sense of deep security.  

The only
way that people could be so secure is if they AND EVERYONE ELSE
already had enough, and resources were already fairly shared, and
there was no injustice or inequality that needed to be rectified.
I’m told that the threat of violence is what allows for income
inequality.  Thus the opposite must be true, where there is equality
there is no need for violence.  Furthermore, this has to be
widespread equality and equity, because there is no fear that
outsiders will break in wanting to share in the prosperity –
because they have it too.

Now
this makes perfect sense as a correlation to the earlier parts of the
passage.  It has already said that YHWH-God has become acknowledged
as THE Sacred one, and EVERYONE is worshipping YHWH-God.
Furthermore, they’re all learning God’s ways.  Well, God’s ways is a
way of speaking of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, which
contain a vision of a just and equitable society.  In that society
land is distributed to all so all can provide for themselves, those
who struggle are helped by their family and community, anyone in need
is cared for by the excess of those who have enough, and justice
itself is blind to power and influence.  This is the society that God
dreams of, and this is what people would be studying as “walking in
God’s ways.”  

In Isaiah’s
vision, this message is shared far and wide AND God’s self is the
judge arbitrating between people – so justice is definitely just.
So, yes, this is a reasonable set up for what otherwise feels like an
overly idealistic vision of peace.

In this
context, it is the reasonable extension.  If everyone buys into God’s
vision and enacts it, of course there would be equity, equality,
justice, and peace.  Of course weapons of destruction could become
tools of creation and means of food production.  That’s what God is
capable of doing.

And this
got me to thinking.  Do we dream this dream deeply enough?  Do we
consider what it would be like to be fearless?  To feel safe?  To
live in peace?

I
haven’t spent nearly enough time living into this dream.  What would
it be like to assume that all people, as they age, will have enough
resources to be cared for with tenderness and love in ways that
respect their humanity and maintain their freedom?  What would it be
like to know that all children, whether or not they have living and
able parents, will be nurtured, played with, fed well, have safe
places to sleep, clothing appropriate for the season, and access to
great education to help them thrive in body and spirit?  What would
it be like to remove locks from all doors, knowing that no one aims
to do us harm, and no one would have a need to take anything we have?
What would it be like to know that all people, regardless of their
employment status, or marital status, or socio-economic status, could
receive great healthcare when they need it?  What would it be like to
know that people all around the world shared all these gifts, and no
one in any other nation wished us harm because of harms we’d caused
taking resources we needed?  What would it be like to know that there
were no guns left in the world, and no one had motivation to make any
more?  What would it be like to live without the threat of nuclear
war, nor biological warfare, nor even internet viruses????

What if we
weren’t afraid, and didn’t need to be?  What if we could all care for
each other, and support each other, and grow together?

Friends,
that’s the sort of hope we’re preparing ourselves for in this season
of Advent.  Not because we necessarily expect to see it in our
lifetimes, but because that’s what we’re working for and we have to
keep God’s vision in front of us so we can be a part of enacting it.
May we, indeed, beat swords into plowshares, nuclear warheads into
flower gardens, and study war no more – because it isn’t needed!
Amen

1Alan
Culpepper, “Luke,”
in The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 9
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994) 52-3.

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 1, 2019

Sermons

“Find Joy” based on  Isaiah 66:10-14 and Psalm 66:-19

  • July 21, 2019February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Weeping
may linger for the night,
but
joy comes with the morning.

–
Psalm 30:5b

I have a fondness for
… um… expressive language ;), and that fondness was significantly
stronger when I was in college.  However, in April during every year
of college I cleaned up my language to  pristine levels.  I did it so
that when I got to camp, I would not accidentally speak a word that
would harm, or offend, or get repeated by any of our campers with
special needs.  We were also careful then, as we are now, not to
offer too many hugs or to permit any loosening of manners – not to
allow anything at camp that would cause potential harm in the real
world.  

I did this because I
loved our campers, and I wanted them to be safe, secure, and at ease
both at camp and in the world.

During my second year
of seminary I started an internship with an urban church, one that
was doing important ministry with people who were homeless.  People
who are homeless are more likely to be assaulted – both physically
and sexually.  People who are homeless are often hungry, unable to
get clean, struggling with physical health, and most people who are
homeless for a long time end up with an addiction even if they didn’t
start out with one.  Being homeless is one of the hardest and most
vulnerable positions in our society, if not THE hardest.

The history I’d
learned in college about the closing of state hospitals for people
with disabilities, and the resulting (continued) failure of the
system to care for the most vulnerable people in our society suddenly
became very clear in reality.  People who were in the same population
as Sky Lake’s beloved special needs campers were homeless on the
streets of Los Angeles.  The disconnect between the intentional care
I’d been offering to God’s beloved people with special needs at camp
and the reality that people with special needs were being assaulted
every day on the streets of LA, and that society was doing NOTHING to
change it broke open my heart.

I have not recovered
yet.

Instead, over the
past 15 years, I’ve discovered more and more ways that the world is
fundamentally broken and been disillusioned repeatedly.  Some wise
ones have pointed out that is it because of the color of my skin and
the stability of my childhood that I was able to be so naive to begin
with, and they’re right.  Yet, for me seeing the world as it is, and
seeing clearly what its priorities are and are not, is painful.
Similarly, seeing the church as it is, and seeing clearly what its
priorities are and are not has been painful.

I believe that part
of the purpose of church is to offer a God’s vision for the world to
the people, and as such to offer hope that we can build the kindom
together.  Further, I believe that the pastor’s role is to be a
speaker of the vision, and of hope.  People NEED hope, and our faith
tradition offers it.  It has been hard at times, though, to have
integrity and be truthful about the brokenness, and simultaneously
offer real hope.  The challenge, I think, has been in my own
discomfort with reality.  Once reality is accepted, then it can be
worked on, but I’ve been struggling for years to accept that things
really are as broken as abundant evidence points to.

The realities of the
world, however, are exactly WHY we need to speak hope – real hope –
and be inspired by God’s visions of justice.  We can’t just let
ourselves wallow, we have to face reality, but we can’t offer weak or
trivial hope.  The world, and its people, NEED to know that another
way of being is possible, and we can create it together.

Family Systems theory
teaches us that when we are anxious, we get more close minded.  When
systems (groups of people) are anxious, they get more close-minded
too.  They take less risks.  They make worse decisions.  They create
anxiety in their people, and then people with raised anxiety tend to
revert to old ways of functioning and coping mechanisms that often do
more harm than good: gossip, triangulation, demonizing others,
consuming, addictive behaviors, lashing out, etc.  Anxiety can easily
become it’s own self-perpetuating cycle.

Dear ones, the
anxiety in our systems right now are at unhealthy levels.  I remember
reading articles during the 2016 election cycle about the impact the
election was having on our shared mental health (it was bad).  It has
gotten worse.  The injustices around us take a toll every day, and I
hear from all of us how much we want to create change.  It doesn’t
help right now to be part of the United Methodist Church, because
being part of a CHURCH that is an oppressor is really darn
depressing, and adds our anxiety and dismay.  Further, in this
particular congregation, we’ve been working on something that is also
really hard: we’ve been in conversations about balancing our budget,
which we have not done since 2004.  (And even that was a bit of an
anomaly.)  We have been living beyond our means for a long time.
Balancing the budget requires making difficult decisions about who we
are and what we do and what is imperative to our shared life
together, and it requires that we have really difficult conversations
where we don’t all agree – and that is anxiety producing as well.

It is tempting, in
these days, to give up:  to stick our heads in the sand, or to lash
out in anger, or to become comatose on the couch.  It is REALLY easy
to let the anxiety win.

But.

Dear ones, beloveds
of God, we aren’t going to do that.  We
aren’t going to give in and we aren’t going to lash out.  We aren’t
going to let anxiety take over.  We are going to keep on
keeping on, working towards the kindom, loving each other, spreading
love and goodness in the world, and trusting that God works with us,
through us, and when necessary despite of us.  We are going to find
the ways to let go of the anxiety, and find some trust and some hope,
and be sources of transformation.

We are going to break
out of the cycles, because anxiety is terrible for us, it is terrible
for the world, and it enables all the things we don’t want to see!
Now, here is the weird twist.  Given all the brokenness of the world,
it can feel really disrespectful, or trite, or privileged, or even
mean to …. have fun, seek joy, laugh, and play.  (Or even just to
take breaks and deal with reality for a bit.)  That’s real!  I know
how hard it can be to enjoy life when we know the awful things that
are happening, but I want to share with you wisdom that I heard
second hand.  This wisdom came from a person who was impoverished and
disenfranchised in a country with dictatorial rule.  That person was
asked, “Why are you so joyful when things are so bad!?” And they
responded, “Why would we let them take our joy too?  It is all we
have left.”  

Joy, it turns
out, is resistance.  Joy is OURS to claim, and we shouldn’t give
it up, because giving it up won’t help anyone – in fact it will
hurt everyone.  The world needs more joy.

Joy, unlike anxiety,
creates space for creativity, for connection, for hope.  Out of the
box thinking can happen when joy replaces anxiety, and the problems
of the world today REALLY need new solutions.  Joy makes space for
people to regain their humanity.  And laughter really is the best
medicine (trust me, I laughter until I cried at camp – twice –
and I haven’t felt so whole since before General Conference).
Whatever you do, dear ones, don’t cut out joy from your life.

And, if you need help
getting to joy – which is totally fair – most wisdom teachers say
gratitude is the way to get there.  So, practice advice here: keep a
gratitude journal, and take 5 minutes at the end of each day to
notice what you are grateful for in that day.  Putting our attention
on what is good is a great way to create more good, and to make space
in our lives for joy.

Now for the REALLY
good news.  Our God is a God who knows all about oppression, and has
worked to overcome it throughout all of history.  In all these years
where I have become further and further disillusioned with society
and the world, I have found great comfort in the Bible.  The Bible is
VERY WELL AWARE of the brokenness of the world, of the reality of
domination systems, AND of the power of God to break them open.  

The Bible tells this
story innumerable times, but there are three really big versions of
thie story:  (1) The Bible says that God knows about the oppression
of slavery, and moves to free the people who are enslaved.  (2) The
Bible says God knows about the oppression of exile, and moves the
people to restoration.  (3) The Bible says God knows about the
oppression of being part of empire because of the force of the
military, and moves the people to empowerment, to resistance, and
ultimately to freedom.  That is, the stories of (1) Exodus, of (2)
Exile and Return, and (3) of the ministry of Jesus.

The passage from
Isaiah today is a response to Exile and Return, and it speaks in the
language of God as mother of the people, nursing them and caring for
them.  After a WHOLE LOT of condemnation of the injustices of ancient
Israel, in the end of Isaiah we hear, “ Rejoice with Jerusalem, and
be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all
you who mourn over her– that you may nurse and be satisfied from her
consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her
glorious bosom.”  Rejoice with Jerusalem, despite it’s history of
oppression, despite its history of exile and destruction, none of
those are the final words.  The final words are that God cares for
the people and finds a way to nurture them and it brings great joy.
The final words in the book of Isaiah are God’s comfort, and care,
and the people’s JOY.  

I’ve told you before,
but this bears repeating: Our faith says that Love wins in the end,
and if Love hasn’t won yet, then it isn’t the end yet.  (In this case
Love and God are interchangeable.)  The brokenness of day is not
the final answer, God is still at work.  We are still partnering
with God to make things better.  So, in the meantime, practice
gratitude, find joy, allow for rest, and in doing so let go of
anxiety.  God is working, and looking for for open-hearted, loving,
partners to work alongside.  May we find MANY ways to be those
people, and encourage each other towards joy.  Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. BaronFirst United Methodist Church of Schenectady603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305Pronouns: she/her/hershttp://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

“Growing Strong” based on Isaiah 40:21-31, Mark 1:29-39

  • February 4, 2018February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

A mentor once told me, “Every crisis is an identity crisis.” In case that isn’t an obvious platitude for you, I have taken it to mean that whenever a group or an individual is in crisis, they no longer know who they are. That is, the stories that explain them to themselves don’t make sense out of things any longer.

It does seem that we form identity in the stories we tell of ourselves.  Our stories are sometimes called myths, and that reminds us that they’re both meaningful and inherently biased. They tell us where we came from, why we are here, what we are supposed to be doing, and how we most often mess it up! (Again, this is true both individually and collectively.)

The problem is, things keep changing on us! And that means we have to either tell different stories or change the ways we tell the same ones! In normal circumstances we change things in little ways as we go, and all is well. We add new stories that make sense of things, we tell some stories more, some less, and adapt details here and there. Normally we can keep up with ourselves. However, when radical change occurs and our stories haven’t caught up with our reality, we land in identity crisis.

Isaiah 40 speaks to a people in an identity crisis, and an epic one at that. The stories of the ancient Israelite people told of a trustworthy God who had chosen them, took care of them, who helped them overcome their adversaries, and who freed them from oppression. They WERE the people who were in relationship with that God. God was their identity, and God’s strength and steadfastness were the core of how they understood God.

And then … they lost. The Babylonian empire defeated them in battle, destroyed their city and society, and left them without leadership, hope, or defenses. (Interestingly, the Hebrew Bible was written down during the aftermath of this defeat, as if the people needed to work with the stories to try to make sense of their new reality. They may also have been afraid that their identity would be forever lost if they didn’t firm it up.) It was into this void of identity and meaning that the prophet Isaiah spoke in chapter 40.

The prophet reminded them of their stories, and of their God in whom their identity was formed. The prophet ALSO reflected on the stories and adapted them a bit to meet the circumstances, as was desperately needed. Isaiah connected the ancient to the present. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning?” and then reminded the people of who God is. In doing so, Isaiah reminded the people that God is ETERNAL and POWERFUL, and the rules of the earth are NOT, “ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.” This served to acknowledge that a ruler of the earth HAS bested the people, but not God.

Isaiah acknowledges that the people feel abandoned by God, but then brings them back to their own stories. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” Then Isaiah adapts a bit more, reminding the people that God never runs out of energy, and that the people can pull from God’s energy and strength when theirs seems lacking.  Sure, Isaiah says, humans get weary, “ but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

It was, even then, an old, old story, but it was also a story retold to fit the time frame, to give the people back their identity while acknowledging their reality. In many ways, the Gospels are doing the same work. The crisis when Isaiah wrote was the Babylonian defeat and the exile of the leaders. The crisis when Jesus started his ministry was the Roman Empire and its dominance over the territories that were the Jewish homeland. Ched Myers, whose outstanding book Binding the Strong Man offers GREAT insights on the Gospel of Mark, wrote:

“Economic and political deterioration, especially in the decade prior to the upheavals of the Roman-Jewish war, had dispossessed significant portions of the Palestinian population, especially in the densely populated rural areas of Galilee. Disease and physical disability were an inseparable part of the cycle of poverty (a phenomenon still true today despite the advent of modern medicine). For the day laborer, illness meant unemployment and instant impoverishment.”1

Our gospel passage today includes the first healing in the Gospel of Mark. Healing passages can make some of us squirm uncomfortably, they remind us that the Bible is an ancient text from a very different worldview, and sometimes that leads us to reasonable questions about how useful the Bible is to our formative identity stories anyway! Meyers proposes a helpful perspective on Biblical healings.

He thinks they’re subversive! In Mark, this is the first one and it takes place on the Sabbath,so Jesus is starting trouble right from the get go. The last section of Mark 1, last week’s Gospel, included exclamations of Jesus’ authority. People were noticing that Jesus was wielding power usually held by the scribes. This is continuous in today’s passage. The scribes would have been part of the system of authority that called for the strict observance of the Sabbath, including refraining from healing. Jesus seems to care more about the people needing the healing than the authority of the scribes.

Meyer’s thesis is this: “Jesus healing ministry is thus portrayed as an essential part of his struggle to bring concrete liberation to the oppressed and marginal of Palestinian society.”2 His insights are profound, but his language is often obscure so I’m going to try to summarize his perspective in my own words. This is an exercise that will result in a terrible lack of nuance and subtlety. I’ve footnoted his work so you can find it for yourself and regain that nuance.

After Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was healed and as soon as the sun went down, the masses arrived at the the door seeking healing. Jesus as healer was in high demand because many needed healing. Those many who needed healing were the poor and vulnerable. Often, those in need of healing had always been the poor and vulnerable, at times the need for healing itself had made people poor and vulnerable.

If we, as people of faith, try to focus on those needing healing from our 21st century eyes, we will look at the symptoms and the disease, and get distracted by our theories of healing. In doing so we can miss the symbolism that brings the greatest meaning. Illness isn’t actually as simple as we moderns like to think of it. It is more than physical symptoms. Illness itself is perceived culturally and has cultural impacts. Of course, it impacts those around the one who is ill (family, friends, neighborhood, village) but it is also understood within the stories of the time and place. Stories form around particular illnesses, often quite potent ones. Worse yet, illness serves to distance the individual from their community!!

Understanding the stories of Jesus’ healing requires us to enter into the perspective of illness from that time, and what it meant then. In that time and in that place, when a person was healed, their capacity to rejoin society was healed, which means those around them were also healed. This also meant that those who had been considered “sick” or “impure” and thus on the bottom of the hierarchy of society were pulled up. The whole body of the community was healed and brought to wholeness, AND the hierarchy was disrupted when Jesus healed! In his healing, as in his teaching, the social order was ignored and messed with! 🙂

Furthermore, Meyers says that in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ healings are connected to the faith and action of the healed, the healing itself empowers and acknowledges the humanity of the healed! Healing empowers the disempowered, both culturally and through affirmation of their power.

Jesus healing is consistent with the rest of his ministry. It brings up the downtrodden, it diminishes the power of those who hold power, and it reverses the dominant social code!3

Thus, the stories of healings of Jesus served to reclaim God’s identity, to disrupt the narratives of the Empire, and thus to restore the identity of the Palestinian people!

This all leads me to think about our stories, particularly our collective ones. We have stories of our communal identity as part of the United States, and as New Yorkers (actually I’m not sure how strong those are), as part of the Capital Region, and as part of Schenectady. We also have collective stories as monotheists, as followers of Jesus, as United Methodists (gee, that one is certainly undergoing crisis), as a part of Upper New York, and as First UMC Schenectady.

I’m wondering which sets of these stories are in good shape, helping us make sense of who we are and why it matters, giving us direction and hope! I’m wondering which sets of these stories are a bit outdated, needing minor edits to make a bit more sense of things. I’m also wondering which sets of stories are wildly out of wack, reflecting a bygone era and not helping us at all anymore.

Certainly in the recent past I’ve realized that the myths I held to be true of the United States as a place that welcomes and celebrates many kinds of people, and cares about the vulnerable and marginalized have been shaken to the core! So to have the stories of The United Methodist church following John Wesley’s advice “if your heart is with my heart, give me your hand.” New stories are forming, even by their own power, to replace the ones that have lost their power.

We are in the midst of significant cultural and religious shifts, possibly seismic ones. Even the internet itself has changed reality so deeply that those of us who remember it coming into our lives are shocked! And that’s only one piece. Many of our social and religious institutions are in crisis, which means they’re in identity crisis. Their stories aren’t up to date, their myths don’t make sense of things anymore. It is time to let go of what isn’t working, and that can be REALLY hard. It is also unsettling to be between functional myths!

I invite us all into reflection: What stories do you still find yourself telling? What do they mean to you? What stories have you recently let go of? Why? What stories are we adapting? Are we adapting well?

Our stories not only tell us who we are, they tell us who we think God is. Like Isaiah’s brilliant work in chapter 40, we need to connect the stories to the past AND help them respond to our present. May we pay attention so that we might do so with grace. Amen

1Meyers, 144.

2Meyers, 144.

3Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1988, 2008), page 144-150.

–

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

February 4. 2018

Sermons

“Sin and Repentance (What!?)”  Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8

  • December 11, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

My natural instinct, when I hear the word sin, is to stick my fingers in my ears and sing a song approximating “la la la, I can’t hear you.” For the most part, this is not particularly productive. 😉 For the most part. 😉

To a certain degree, I think it is justifiable. Too much of Christianity focuses on individual sin: on guilt, the need forgiveness, and the threat of punishment for said sins. While this doesn’t seem to go back to Jesus, it does have a long history in the church. In fact, this fear based scheme has been a primary funding tool for churches for a REALLY long time. Churches who claim the exclusive power to offer God’s forgiveness have usually offered it with a price tag.

Thus, within the church, sin language has sounded like manipulation, for the purpose of controlling people, that mostly prevents the full and abundant lives that God ACTUALLY wants from us. Furthermore, focusing on individual sins keeps us from having time, energy, and passion to dismantle the CORPORATE sins of institutions and our society at large. (Like, for example, churches manipulating people to get their money.) Since I don’t believe God intends for us to be motivated by fear, and I don’t think good comes from guilt nor shame I really don’t buy into the standard logic on this topic. I do believe we need Divine Grace, but not to prevent us from condemnation in hell; more because all of us seek love and acceptance in our lives and knowing that God is already there loving and accepting us is a very good start to healthy living.

For many people the assumptions about sin, punishment, forgiveness, and God are the CORE of their faith; they think it IS Christianity. Thus, I often disengage from the word, and just tone it out. Tearing down people’s faith isn’t a good thing. However, what serves me well running in Christian circles does not serve me nearly as well when I’m working with the Bible. The Bible doesn’t mean “sin” the way that mainstream Christianity does. When I block my ears from the word, I often miss important things in the text.

All of this is to confess that in all the years I’ve read this Gospel passage, I’ve always mentally skipped over the lines, “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (NRSV)

Suddenly, now, it occurs to me to wonder what sins they’re talking about and why. And suddenly, it becomes clear that Mark is quoting Isaiah, and the context of Isaiah might make sense of Mark … and this might actually be a very important question. (Which means I likely should have paid attention to this earlier.)

The Isaiah text today is the beginning of Second Isaiah, and this is the same text Mark quotes. The massive book of Isaiah (66 chapters) is believed to actually be three different prophets at three different times. The first speaks before the Exile, warning about it. Second Isaiah speaks in the immediate aftermath. The Exile is the name for the defeat and conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire in 587 BCE. At that time, after a long siege, the city fell, and atrocious violence resulted. Many were killed, the city’s walls and temple were destroyed, and the remaining leaders were taken into captivity in Babylon. This was the Exile. It lasted 70 years by the shortest counts.

First Isaiah contains many dire warnings about what will happen if the systems don’t change. Second Isaiah represents a huge change in tone in the book starting with the words, “Comfort, O Comfort my people says your God.” Into the immediate aftermath of the horror, the prophet speaks words of comfort and hope. The people generally assumed that their military defeat was a punishment from God, and into that assumption is spoken a declaration that the punishment has ended. It is followed by a vision of God in action, making it easy for those who were forcibly marched as captives to Babylon to walk home with ease and safety. It is this that is quoted in Mark, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Then comes the “comfort” of a reminder that those who oppress will also fade, that oppression will not stand. Finally, our passage evokes God as Shepherd King, gathering the people, leading them, feeding them, and carrying them home.

All of this is evoked in Mark. It is as if the people feel like they are back in Exile and are needing God’s help finding their way home – again. The people are experiencing oppression from an outside force, and presumably many of them are now wondering if this oppression is a punishment from God, and therefore if there is a need to repent in order for God to restore them once again. If that experience of being dominated by Rome felt like the experience of being dominated by Babylon in the Exile, then it makes sense that the same theological reasoning would apply to both. Under this perspective, John the Baptist was there to make that repentance possible, and therefore change the reality of oppression.

Now, the ancient Jews, like their descendants today and the Bible itself, focused on COMMUNAL sin: on the injustices of society, on the systemic harm done to the vulnerable, on practices that harmed the weak, on systems that kept some down and some on top of them, etc. Those prophets of old were consistently accusing the kings of abusing their power, of forgetting that their power existed to care for the vulnerable and disempowered. The prophets, time and time and time again, reminded those in power that God had envisioned a just society; and warned that instead it had become exploitative.

Those prophets kept saying that if things didn’t change, the society would not be able to hold up its own weight. This may be why most of the people interpreted the Exile as God’s punishment, even though the prophets saw it simply as a consequence. But since this was a common understanding of how the world works, and since the people in the time of Jesus were living lives of oppression and exploitation from an external empire, it seems likely that they would be aware again of their communal sin and be seeking ways to reconnect with God who was known to act to restore their holistic communal life.

And this John the Baptist guy, he gave them a way to do it. Furthermore, the Temple at that point was understood to be the place to seek forgiveness, but the Temple had been appropriated by the Roman Empire and no longer truly existed to serve God OR the people. In fact, it may have been more of a source of manipulating the people than serving anyone. John had taken power and authority that was assumed to belong to Temple, and was using it to give people a way to connect to God who might act to change their oppression.

This is the man who will baptize Jesus. That means, this is the man who Jesus looked to as teacher. They really were working with some powerful and dangerous ideas! No wonder the Empire felt threatened.

As I’ve reflected on these texts and the themes of Exile and Return, I’ve wondered how those themes fit our lives. Do we feel like we are in Exile even within our own country like the Jews of Jesus day did? There are certainly many ways that is true. And we yearn for the restoration of the country as we thought we knew it and as we think it should be. There are many within our country who do not experience its benefits, who also have reason to identify primary with the Exile.

There are also ways that we might identify with the Babylonians, the captors. This is less comfortable, but sometimes it is true anyway. As citizens of the country with the world’s most significant military might, we might admit that our country is like Babylon to many. Or, we might consider the impacts of unfettered capitalism on the world, of patriarchy, and of white supremacy. Each of these are forms of Exile, and to the extend that we are parts of groups that benefit from them, we are the captors.

Oppression dehumanizes everyone involved. As much as the ancient Jews yearned for God’s actions to free them from oppression, if the Babylonians (and Romans) had known what was good for them, they would have yearned for the same. The Exiles repented in hopes of changing their reality of being oppressed. The Babylonians needed the same change too – but with far less awareness of their need. Everyone was dehumanized, and everyone needed freedom from the system. Please note that the same amount of harm was not done to oppressed and oppressor, but at the same time the oppressor was dehumanized to the extent that they dehumanized others. Does that make sense?

For example, I’m saying that while slavery did most of its harm to the slaves, the actions of dehumanizing the slaves inherently marred the humanity of the slave owners. The slave owners may have thought they were reaping benefits, and financially they were, but significant and yet invisible damage was done to their … to their souls and their humanity. That damage lives on, still harming individuals and the collective today in the form of racism.

So, if what God seeks is people who are living full and abundant lives with their humanity (and their souls) intact, then God inherently is seeking a world without oppression. Throughout many eras, God’s people have repented in hopes of transforming oppression. To repent, as the word comes from the Hebrew, means “change of mind.”1 Getting out of the mindset of oppression is an imperative initial step of changing it, from either side. (Thought it is VERY rare that transformation from oppression comes from oppressors who reap the visible gain from the system.) That opportunity that John the Baptist was giving individuals to repent of their communal sin is looking better and better.

It does turn out that most of us HAVE gotten to particulate in (at least a variation of) John the Baptisms ritual. 😉 I know, I know, I’m just a font of novel information. As previously mentioned, I’m usually squirmy about “sin” language, and thus I haven’t always been the biggest fan of the first two baptism questions in the UMC. However, as they come to focus with this story, they might be waaaaay more awesome than I thought. Hear them again:

Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?2

These baptismal vows offer us a way to “change our minds” from the oppressive ways of the world, and live in freedom from oppression. They give us a chance to reject the systems of injustice. They let us dream of and be part of the the world we want to build. They free us from the power of sin that keeps us stuck in oppressive systems, and lead us to freedom for ourselves and for all people.

The best part is, as United Methodists, we believe that baptism is a God’s good gift given to us and humans cannot, ever, in any way, mess it up. So, that freedom from sin and that opportunity to repent from systems of oppression so that we can live in (and MODEL) freedom – that’s with all us for the long run. We can always have access. We are never cut off. Thanks be to God, for messages of sin and repentance that lead us to freedom from oppression. May we lean into our baptismal vows and use the power God gives us to live lives of freedom for ourselves and those around us. Amen

1W. Tatum Barnes “John the Baptist and Jesus: a report of the Jesus Seminar” (Polebridge Press: Sonoma, CA, 1994) page 122.

2In this case, I got these from: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/the-baptismal-covenant-iv so I didn’t have to type them, on December 6, 2017.

–

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

“Here, in the Brokenness” based on Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark…

  • December 3, 2017February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I
don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but things are not as they should
be.  Actually, I suspect you have noticed it, but it feels like time
to explicitly name two of the very many ways in which this is true.

First
of all, our society is and has been awash in sexual harassment and
assault.  Many, many men have used whatever power and influence they
have in the world for their own pleasure at the expense of others,
most often women.  This is not news, per say, and yet there is
something happening.  

This
is much like the impact of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on police
brutality, it isn’t that any of the behaviors are new or different,
it is that suddenly people are paying attention to the atrocities,
and calling for accountability en masse.  Important and powerful men
have been removed from the positions they’ve used abusively.  The
status quo is being interrupted, and that’s good.

Yet,
it isn’t good enough.  This week I had the incredible joy of holding
the youngest member of our church family in my arms.  (It is GOOD to
be pastor.)  I wanted to be able to promise her a world where she
wouldn’t know sexual harassment or assault, where she will be safe to
be whoever she is, where-ever she wants to be, no matter who is
nearby, all the time.  The yearning that I had to offer her that
world clarified how very far we are from it, AND how desperately
needed it is.

Secondly,
we live in a country that accepts poverty as a necessary component of
life.  Based on our policies, it is OK if people are hungry –
whether they are working or not, whether they’ve applied for SNAP
benefits or not, whether they are children or adults. Based on our
policies, it is OK if people are homeless, and if a person struggles
with addiction – by our policies – it is almost as if they don’t
deserve to be housed.  Based on our policies, only people who can
afford to pay for it deserve the right to health care.  Based on our
policies, it is acceptable for those without money to be
misrepresented or underrepresented in court, and spend time in jail
for crimes they didn’t commit.  Based on our current policies, not
even children have a right to health care.  

All
of these are choices, choices that we have made as a society about
what we value and who we value.  Budgets are moral documents, budgets
indicate what an organization really values.  Our society values the
growth of the economy, the growth of our exceptional military might,
and the flow of wealth from the bottom to the top OVER the capacity
to care for the vulnerable, the elimination of hunger, the
accessibility of health care, the safety of housing, or the fairness
of the courts.

Things
are NOT as they should be, and those were just two examples.  There
are many ways that things are not as they should be.

This
is not the first time in history that this has been true.  According
to Marcus Borg, the earliest human societies did not have significant
wealth differentiation nor oppression.  The first two types of
societies were hunter gatherer and early horticultural.  About them,
Borg says, “Differentials of wealth and power were minor.”1
However, once full fledged agricultural societies developed about
5000  years ago,  it became possible to generate wealth.  In the time
of Jesus agriculture was the primary form of wealth.2
Borg calls the system at the time of Jesus the preindustrial
agricultural domination system.3
As far as I can tell, a few
things have changed since the time of Jesus: we’re now industrial or
post industrial and wealth is no longer primarily acquired through
agriculture.  

Domination
systems that have oppressed the many for the sake of the few have
been the norm in the world since the development of full-scale
agriculture.  The pieces of the world that concern me the most are
all parts of domination systems, ways that the systems are rigged
against the majority of the population for the benefit of a small
minority.  David Graeber, in “Debt: A History of the first 5000
years” theorizes that the world’s major religions have all emerged
as a a response to the particular ways that domination systems
existed in their parts of the world.4
I’m going to take a stronger theological stance on that and say that
God has been at work in the world to disrupt domination systems as
long as they have existed, and the particular forms of that work have
been formalized into religious traditions.

We
hear in the texts today the same yearnings we know in our lives for
the world as it SHOULD be rather than the world as it is.  These
texts feel familiar to me, to the depths of my soul.  The Hebrew
Bible text doesn’t JUST come from Isaiah, who is my favorite, it
comes from third Isaiah – the last 7 chapters of the book – which
is the very best part of Isaiah.  The prophet speaks of deep yearning
for God’s presence, a presence that would change reality from its
brokenness to its fulness.  The prophet remembers times that God has
felt present and has made things better.  The prophet celebrates that
God is one who cares about how the people treat each other, and yet
bemoans that God feels very far away.  In fact, the prophet worries
that God is angry because the people have so profoundly mistreated
each other, and made peace with a society of deep injustice.  The
prophet suggests that because God isn’t changing reality, they are
stuck living in the mess they made, without God delivering them from
it, and that isn’t OK at all.  

Oh
Isaiah, how can you speak from so long ago truths that can still
sting with truth?  I’m sometimes frightened that texts from 2500
years ago are still so accurate, which means that domination systems
haven’t lost their grip even as they’ve changed their ways.

At
first glance, or first hearing, or for me first 100 hearings, Mark
doesn’t sound like he is saying the same thing.  Luckily, there are
those among you who share things with me when they seem useful, and
one of you sent me a reflection that opened my eyes to this text.5

This
passage in Mark appears just before the passion narrative begins,
Mark is using this text as a foreshadowing of the meaning of the
death and resurrection of Jesus.  Like the passion narrative, it will
start in the night and shake the powers of the world.  David Luce
writes, “Mark,
in other words, isn’t pointing us to a future apocalypse
(“revealing”) but rather a present one, as Christ’s death and
resurrection change absolutely everything.”6
For the gospel writer of Mark, the yearning represented in Isaiah is
FULFILLED by Jesus.  For the gospel writer, Jesus is the presence of
God in the world changing things from how they are to how they should
be.  At the same time, as Christians today, we know that the work
Jesus did in the world wasn’t completed in his life, but is ours to
continue as the current Body of Christ.

So,
the gospel writer speaks of things being pretty bad: suffering, the
sun and moon no longer giving the world light, the stars falling to
nothingness.  In the midst of that horror, Jesus will break in and
transform it all.  The gospel writer encourages people to be looking
for the signs that hope is about to break into the brokenness.  The
gospel writer, I think, is hoping to encourage people in the midst of
some very bad days, to understand the brokenness itself as a sign
that things were about to change.

It
is hard, nearly 2000 years later, with all the brokenness that has
been between then and now to be as certain that the change is right
on the horizon.  The yearning is easy to connect with. The hope is
imperative to connect with, the but the time frame is harder to buy
into.

I
do think that God is present with us, and that God is ever working
for justice, for dismantling the domination systems, for transforming
the world as it is into the kindom itself.  While we seem pretty
resilient to God’s work, and while many things as are broken around
us, I’m told by historians who have a broader view than I do that big
and amazing things have gotten better.

Some
things aren’t all that new, but are pretty cool anyway.  The
experiment in universal public education that started in
Massachusetts has had a huge impact on the world and its literacy.
All of those hospitals that various churches started over the
centuries have had an amazing impact in global health and longevity.

According
to the annual letter from the Gates Foundation (one of my favorite
reads), in the past 25 years childhood mortality rates for kids under
5 have dropped by 50%!  Most of these preventable deaths have been
prevented because global vaccine access has increased, and 86% of the
world’s kids are now adequately vaccinated.  The Gates Foundation
says that 300 million women in the developing world now have access
to and use contraception, which increases maternal and child health,
decreases childhood morality rates, increases education, and lowers
poverty.  These 300 million women represent over half of the women
seeking to have it, but they’re actively working on it, and the
problem will be cut by over half again by 2020!  As a reminder as
well, since 1990, worldwide extreme poverty (living on less than $2 a
day) has been cut in HALF.7

The
news that we hear mostly focuses on the broken, and in the past year
entirely too much of my attention has been on the broken.  We live in
a world of domination systems, and many many things are broken.  At
the same time, God IS at work in the world, working with people, and
together we are making many things better.  

Dear
ones, the world is broken, and things are not as they should be.

AND

God
is at work in the world, there are many things that are getting
better, and the work we do matters.

It
is all true.  And here in the brokenness, we yearn for God’s kindom
to come, just as Isaiah did, just as Mark did, and as God’s people
have through the ages.  May the day come when the yearning is
fulfilled.  Amen

1Marcus
Borg, “Jesus:
Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious
Revolutionary” (USA:
HarperOne, 2006)  79-80. (Quote
on 80.)

2Borg,
80-81.

3Borg,
79.

4David
Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
(Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011), p. 83.

5David
Luce, email/blog  entitled “…In the Meantime” Posted: 27
Nov 2017 07:50 AM PST  Found at
http://www.davidlose.net/2017/11/advent-1-b-a-present-tense-advent/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+davidlose%2FIsqE+%28…In+the+Meantime%29.

6Luce.

7Bill
and Melinda Gates “Dear Warren: Our 2017 Annual Letter”  written
February 14, 2017
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=02_14_2017_02_AL2017GFO_GF-GFO_&WT.tsrc=GFGFO
accessed December 2, 2017.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

December 3, 2017

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