“Are We Lost?” based on Luke 15:1-10

September 11, 2022
by Sara Baron

In
simpler times I have heard the parables of the lost coin and the lost
sheep in simpler ways. One can take the perspective of the 99 sheep
or the 9 coins and be rather irked at the ways the 1 is celebrated.
One can take the perspective of the seeker, and join in the joy of
finding the one. One can take the perspective of the outside
observer and wonder if leaving 99 sheep unattended is really the best
way to move towards having 100 sheep, or if throwing a party worth
more than the found coin is the best use of money.

Of
course, there is the most obvious option of taking the perspective of
the lost sheep and being grateful for the shepherd who comes looking
and rescues one from peril (or perhaps pulls you out of a great
tasting meadow, who knows?) Identifying with the sheep is a little
easier than the coin, but nevertheless, the awareness that when we’re
lost we need help is an easy one to turn to.

These
times, beloveds, are not simple times.

In
this time when I read the story of the lost sheep and the lost coin I
think to myself, “are we lost or found?” and I find that the
answer is “I don’t know.” Or, more honestly, the answer is “Yes,
we are lost. Yes, we are found. Yes.”

I
remember preaching in 2016 about the articles I was seeing about how
the 2016 election cycle was doing heavy damage to our country’s
mental health, and therapists were urging people to engage in breaks
from the news, in meditation, in breathing exercises. They were
worried about the stress destabilizing us individually and
collectively. I remember seeing what they were talking about, in
myself and in this church. Tempers were shorter, nuance got lost,
there was more right/wrong and us/them thinking. Schenectady Clergy
Against Hate grew out of that the time, because of the radical
increase in hate crimes.

Here
is the bad news. At this point I think of 2016 as a simpler time.

Sure,
there were oodles of stress. Sure I saw myself, others, and the
church community get worse at basic functioning. Sure, The United
Methodist Church was a dumpster fire. Sure, polarization was at all
time highs. But, that level of communal chronic stress was at that
point relatively new. (We didn’t know it then.)

For
me, the Trump presidency was a daily kick in the gut, or more
specifically in every value I hold dear. And, because I’m not
actually interested in dismissing people because they think
differently from me, I’m aware that for those whose values were
upheld by the Trump presidency, the squeals of horror and outrage
about everything he did ALSO shook them to the core. And, let us
never forget, that foreign adversaries have taken advantage of
differences between us to further polarization, because it benefits
THEM for us to have more HATE in our society.

So,
the stress of the election didn’t settle down. Things kept getting
worse. Then there was the 2019 General Conference of The United
Methodist Church when our denomination doubled down on homophobia and
it became clear that our church at large is not centered in the love
of God. That was a blow, at least to me.

Then
the COVID pandemic began, and we’re sure sick of talking about it,
not to mention living it, I know. But it is relevant here. The
pandemic shook every single part of our society and our lives. And
nothing is the same.

And
quite often we HATE that. Fine, quite often I hate that. It is
disconcerting. It is depressing. It is overwhelming. And then
there are the STILL present challenges of determining where the right
balances are between risks of infecting others with a serious illness
and risks of disconnection and loneliness (which itself can also be
deadly), and the simple deciding is exhausting.

The
stress level has been rising since 2016, sometimes just a slow steady
beat upwards, sometimes in leaps. There are PHYSIOLOGICAL facts
about stress. It makes us less creative. It makes us less
compassionate. It pushes us into black and white thinking. It leads
us into in-group thinking, and making enemies of others. It makes us
selfish.

None
of which look anything like following Jesus. Right?

That’s
a little squirmy for me. That the impacts of stress impede the
capacity to follow Jesus. Because I don’t really get to control
the world and the stresses it throws at me, nor at us. All
of which gets me around to why I think the answer is “yes, we’re
lost.”

But
perhaps you’d like to hear why I think the answer is ALSO, “yes,
we’re found?”

The
starting and ending point of “we’re found’ are quite simple: I do
not believe it is possible to wander away from God. Or, at least, it
is not possible to wander beyond the reaches of God’s love. And, as
God is everywhere, anywhere we are is with God, and God knows where
we are, so we are found. (By God.)

But,
in case that isn’t actually enough for you (although, it is rather a
lot), I’d like to point out what you are doing RIGHT NOW. You are
listening to a sermon. Now, I don’t know all of your personal
reasons for why you do that, but I know some things. I know you have
lots of other things you could be doing, and when you do this you are
making a choice. There seems to be strong evidence that you would
listen to a sermon because you are interested in what makes a good
life and/or in how to live a Godly life and/or in considering how to
get from the world as it is to the world as God would have it be. It
could be you are looking for reasons for hope, or looking for
analysis of what’s going on, or to make meaning of the world, or to
make meaning of life, or maybe you are mostly doing this because
other people you like also do this and you want to connect with them.

Those,
dear ones, are really beautiful reasons to do a thing.

I
remain shocked that this thing we know as church exists. Hear me
out! So, a bunch of people connect with each other and are connected
by their shared commitment to God and living as followers of Jesus.
So they create spaces to work together and worship together. They
give significant gifts of time to caring for the needs of the church
and the community, to learning together and playing together and
doing important things together.

Then,
and this is the one that keeps on shocking me, they give MONEY to the
church. Enough to PAY STAFF even (AND take care of the building,
another miracle). Staff to help take care of the resources (sexton,
building), staff to take care of the community (breakfast cook),
staff to take care of the communication and connections
(administrative assistant), and even staff to take the time to listen
to the world and the Bible and the people and try to help make sense
of things (pastor.)

I
am amazed that you all do this. It is INSANE.

You
realize how much time, energy, money, and frustration you’ve given to
this place right? When people say “church family” they may in
fact be reflecting that some of the demands family puts on our lives
is similar to the demands church puts on their lives.

But
this is also GOOD NEWS. Because in the midst of this world, people
are giving of themselves in hope that what we do together is part of
building better lives and a better world. Lives are changed here, by
friendship, by theology, by study, by singing, by hope. We are more
together than we could ever be apart.

And
even now, even when everything is different, even when showing up is
in multiple mediums and often feels SO strange compared to what we
knew in the past – even now, you all keep on caring enough to
listen, to try, to work towards good. And that’s about as “found”
as I can imagine existing. I am, quite honestly, profoundly moved
that you exist and keep on keeping on.

There
is a final piece to this though. It isn’t just that we are lost and
we are found, as two separate pieces. It is also that we are lost
and found, both at the same time, and that has its own truth. This
week I got an email from a clergy coach who talked about this, and
while I want to share everything Rev. Lauren Stephens-Reed said, I’m
condensing to this:

leading
innovation is about getting people to co-create the future with you.
This
kind of approach is warranted when your purpose is clear but the
future is not. Is there any better descriptor of – any greater need
in – this time in the Church, in the world?

I
do believe our purpose is clear. We are co-creating the kindom of
God with God. We work together to promote the idea that the kindom
and its values are important, to help each other learn in order to
build the kindom, and to help each other live its values. We don’t
know everything, but we do know that some of the prime values of the
kindom are love, justice, compassion, and inclusion, so we work on
those. We are going it TOGETHER because we believe we are more
together than apart.

So,
we don’t know how to get to the future.

That’s
OK.

God
does, and God will lead us, TOGETHER.

We
are lost dear ones, and we are found, dear ones. And it is hard but
it is OK. 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

September 11, 2022

Uncategorized

“To Be Known” based on Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 and…

September 4, 2022
by Sara Baron

For
years now, the book of Philemon has tickled my funny bone. That fact
is now making me squirm.

It
made me laugh cause I read it from a logical perspective, and I was
amused by the choice of argument style. I thought it was
manipulative, but brilliant. From this angle, the line “For this
reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your
duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love–and I,
Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ
Jesus” is potent. Paul points out his power, steps back from it,
but then adds layers of guilt about his age and his position as a
prisoner to strengthen his claim that what he wants should be given
to him “freely.”

Taken
from a pure logic perspective, it is a strong argument, and indeed
manipulative.

But
I wonder what made me take it from a logic perspective.

Because
when I read it now, it sounds like it is an honest emotional appeal.
The gist is that Paul has come to love and depend on Onesimus. Paul
would like to have Onesimus with him, but decides that the right
thing to do is let Philemon make his own decision. It is pretty
clear Paul isn’t enjoying doing the right thing, sending the letter
to Philemon with Onesimus and awaiting the response (hopefully coming
back with Onesimus) is hard. He doesn’t want to be separated even
that long.

Paul
does the right thing, and he does it while making every appeal he can
to Philemon for the thing he needs.

Now,
Paul’s request is not small. Onesimus is a slave belonging to
Philemon, and Paul requests that Philemon free Onesimus, recognize
him as an equal in the Body of Christ, and then send him back to Paul
as a free person to serve the Body of Christ by accompanying Paul as
a companion and equal.

That’s
really living out the line Paul wrote in Galatians. “There is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no
longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
(3:28) Paul says that now that Onesimus is in Christ, it doesn’t
make sense for him to be the slave of another person with whom he is
“one in Christ Jesus.”

This
is about as radical of a notion as one could have. It upends the
entire economic, familial, and societal structure of Paul’s time. It
is VERY Jesus like. It is the reasonable extension of Jesus’s
teaching. It simply disregards the known hierarchies of the world
and replaces them with the bonds of human affection and equality in
the eyes of God.

This
is ignoring everything but the love of God, and appealing on the
basis of that love for things to be different.

And
Paul actually asks for it. He doesn’t just write about it, doesn’t
just indicate this would be an appropriate way to follow Jesus. He
asks for it, in real time, because he both believes in it and because
he needs it to be true.

The
emotions and needs behind his request are what make me uncomfortable
with my prior interpretation. I’ve been working on becoming more
attentive to my own feelings and needs, as well as learning to see
and name other people’s feelings and needs. I’ve been working on
this for a decade and it makes a difference, but I still have plenty
of work to do.

Maybe
I’ve been in too many manipulative situations where people aren’t
honest about their needs, or I’ve felt backed into the corner, or
disregarded and unheard. Maybe that’s why I’ve read this as if Paul
was trying to manipulate Philemon. But right now, it really looks to
me like he is laying all his cards on the table, and yet making his
request one that Philemon gets to decide about. He asks, he
explains, he offers what he can offer, but he makes space for
Philemon to do what Philemon will do.

He
makes a request of Philemon, not a demand. Maybe because it seems
like it would be really hard to say no to this request, maybe that’s
why I read it as manipulative. But Paul asks, and doesn’t demand.
Paul doesn’t use his authority to decree. He ASKS. It is almost as
if, despite his role as a church leader, he doesn’t hold himself
above other people of faith.

You
know, this letter is making me love Paul a little more.

I
love his love for Onesimus, and I love his honesty in really needing
Onesimus with him. I think I particularly love that last part
because it is so … not stoic. Paul isn’t sitting in prison saying,
“I’m fine, no worries.” He is sitting in prison saying, “this
is really much nicer with someone I love around, and I’d like to keep
having that.”

Now,
maybe you are thinking to yourself, “well, sure, someone who is
confined to PRISON deserves
a little bit of comfort and support.” If so, thank God! I’m a
little bit tired of the narrative that people who get confined to
prisons somehow stop being human and stop needing basic human things
like edible food and human connection.

But,
anyway, if you were thinking to yourself that it was OK for Paul to
ask for some comfort in prison in his old age, then I’d invite you to
take the compassion and apply it to yourself. You, too, have needs,
you too have the right to try to get them met. Regardless of age or
imprisonment status.

When
I say needs I am saying things that could fall under categories like
autonomy, connection, meaning, peace, physical well-being, and play.
I’m not JUST talking about food, water, and shelter although those
are part of physical well-being. The other categories are ALSO
universal human needs, ones we ALL have that impact everything about
our lives.

I’m
making the radical claim that in the letter to Philemon, Paul is
showing himself to be a human being with needs, and that reminds us
that we are human beings with needs too. And we, too, have the right
to find ways to get those needs met. I think that it may be true
that in our society claiming everyone has needs AND a right to seek
to meet those needs almost as radical as Paul saying that a slave
should be freed because of equality in Christ.

Now,
this brings me around to Psalm 139 which may or may not have made you
a little bit uncomfortable. Someone asked me in late June what text
is used to claim that the Bible is against abortion, and my reply
was, “Huh, I don’t know. Cause it isn’t there. But maybe they use
Psalm 139?” After all, verse 13 does refer to a human being known
by God even before birth when they say, “For it was you who formed
my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

However,
that doesn’t say what people say it says. Psalm 139 also talks about
God knowing what we have to say before the words are on our tongues.
The idea that God knows us before we are born is a way of saying that
God us before we even ARE.

When
I take away the ways Psalm 139 has been misused, I find it rather
comforting. God knows us, sees us, is with us, AND LOVES us. God’s
love isn’t some generic thing, nor based on how we preform. God
knows AND love us as we are. We have no secrets from God.

That
is, God knows our feelings and our thoughts, and our needs. God
doesn’t expect us to be able to pretend away our needs, or push away
our feelings. God KNOWS them with us, and works with us to get our
needs met and our feelings acknowledged.

God
isn’t asking us to be perfect or stoic, cause God knows what it is
like to be us. That’s comforting.

Now,
it is possible that some of you are wondering why this matters, and
why I’m making such a huge point about having needs, and it being OK,
and working to get them met. Because these are not exactly the most
obvious points to make from our scriptures today. One piece of this
is that discovering that I TOO was a human who also had needs and
that wasn’t WRONG was a pretty big deal to me. I knew there were
universal human needs, sure, but for a very long time I still though
I was supposed to be exempt from that, and I’d like to help you let
that go too if you hold that idea.

But
also, I think there is a lot of fear around being human and having
needs and being “needy.” There is a sense that it is weak or bad
or something. And I think that does a whole lot of damage to the
world and the church. And I think that if we are going to matter to
each other, if we are going to be a community who loves each other
and helps each other grow, if we are going to matter to the world, if
we are going to be people who meet others where they are – then
we need to get more comfortable with our humanity and our needs. I
think this is a way TOWARDS God.

To
be specific, I hear in this church profound fear of talking about
conflict. There is a sense that if we talk about things we’ve
disagreed about, everything may blow up and we will regret it.

I
believe that if we brush aside our feelings and our needs, if we
pretend away our disagreements, if we sweep our history under the
rug, it will poison us from the inside. I believe that the hardest
things about being a church are the ways that old conflicts never got
resolved and keep on bringing new hurts, and if we keep on doing that
we won’t be able to keep on functioning.

AND,
here is the good news in all of this. If we can hold on to our own
needs, and make space for other people’s needs, conflict gets a whole
lot less scary!! If I have a need for space, ease, and
self-expression while you have a need for connection, and efficacy
and closeness that could lead us to conflict pretty fast, right?
BUT, if instead of blaming me for my need for space or blaming you
for your need for connection we just took those as givens, we could
find some really cool ways to meet both of our needs.

(Summary:
blame is not useful in conflict nor conflict resolutions, but needs
themselves are fine and can help us find win-wins.)

I
believe in a God of win-wins. I believe in a God who knows us and
likes us and is at peace with our needs and would like us to be. I
believe in a God who of equality and equity who has no commitment
whatsoever to the hierarchical systems of any age. And I believe God
is with us, willing and able to work with us in this community and
this church. We don’t need to throw our needs to get to God or
connect with each other. Instead, like Paul, we can acknowledge what
we need and ask each other for help. May God help us find the
strength to be so vulnerable! 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

September 4, 2022

Uncategorized

“Queen Sabbath” based on Isaiah 58:9b-14 and Luke 13:10-17

August 21, 2022
by Sara Baron

I’m
not sure when Sabbath got lost. Perhaps it was a well intentioned
thing, a part of recognizing that Christianity isn’t the only way to
be in the world, and making space for other traditions. After all,
Christians and Jews both have traditions of Sabbath, but on different
days. (We changed ours to line up with a weekly celebration of
Easter.)

I
suspect, though, that what really happened was the long term impact
industrial revolution and the desire of factory owners to get more
profit from their expensive machines by having them worked for more
hours.

I
don’t know for sure though.

I
do know that Sabbath is lost.

And
I also know that it is problem.

Because
before I can even talk about Sabbath I need to acknowledge that the
minimum wage is so low in our country that people can’t live off of
full time work, and people working multiple jobs often cannot afford
to take a day off. That is, our MINIMUM wage is so low that people
can’t afford to live without working themselves to death.

Additionally,
and I think intersectedly, many retail, restaurant, and other low
paying jobs like to schedule erratically and at the last minute,
keeping workers hopping to get to work and pick up hours at any time
of the week. And they punish those who put boundaries on their
working hours.

Additionally,
and I think this TOO is intersected with it all, we live in a culture
that values overwork and expects it of most people in even salaried
positions. The expectations on teachers beyond their working hours
are obscene, and that seems to apply from pre-school teachers to
college professors. And, they’re not unique. Medical professionals
have hours and hours of unpaid paperwork to do beyond their paid
labor. Rare – and valuable – is the job that pays a livable wage
and expects only 40 hours a week of work.

In
the book “It’s Not You, It’s Everything”, Eric Minton helped me
put together what’s going on under all this pressure. I already knew
that businesses, institutions, and non-profits are all trying to get
as much as they can out of their workers – even when they have
fewer workers and more work. But Minton points out that the social
inequality of our society helps to maintain the frenetic work life of
our society. That is, because people can fall through the cracks and
become homeless, and/or food insecure, and/or lose everything to
medical bills, and because this happens on a terrifyingly regular
basis, our whole society is in a rat race to not be the ones
struggling the hardest.

Middle
school and high school kids are experiencing unprecedented anxiety
and mental health issues. Ones that look a lot like the ones their
parents have. And this is what is under all that: an assumption that
if you don’t work hard enough and pass that French test with a high
enough grade, you won’t get into a good college, you won’t get a good
job, and you could end up bankrupt, homeless, and food insecure. For
some kids, whose families already live some of those realities, that
French test is already eclipsed by the need to get a job and bring
home some money to prevent eviction, or to buy some food.

By
having an insufficient safety net in our society, we motivate people
to work hard and harder throughout their lives (which does
effectively enrich the already rich) to try to prevent themselves
form being the ones who fall through the net. And to keep this all
going, we have a societal narrative that the ones who do fall through
that safety net just didn’t try hard enough.

This
couldn’t be any further from God’s desires.

This
couldn’t be any further from the practice of Sabbath, either.

Walter
Brueggemann has been my primary teacher on the meaning of Sabbath in
the Hebrew Bible, and here he is commenting on our Isaiah passage for
this week:

Sabbath is the alternative to a
restless, aggressive, unbridled acquisitiveness that exploits
neighbor for self-gain. The ancient command provided rest for
members of the community and for all the household members including
workers (Deut 5:12-15) All will rest and enjoy the abundance of
creation (Exod. 20:8-11). Sabbath is a cessation of feverish anxiety
and control. But the people addressed here are strangers to the
sabbath. They “oppress all your workers” (v. 3) and impose a
cycle of exploitation. That is, the disciplined act of finding life
outside of feverish acquisitiveness is rejected by serving one’s own
interests.¹

Now,
I’ve been talking this whole time as if you all know what I mean by
Sabbath. On a practical level, Sabbath is taking a day off from
productivity and consumption every week in order to focus on
relationships and others things that bring LIFE. For Jews, this is
practiced on Saturdays, for most of Christian history this was
practiced on Sundays, and at this point any day or even a revolving
day is a great thing.

The
Bible says that we rest every 7 days because God rested after
creation. And that we NEED that rest to maintain our full humanity.
The Bible is also explicit that this isn’t just something that
landowners or rich people get, it is for everyone, and sometimes the
Bible even includes WORK ANIMALS in the expression of Sabbath.
Clearly humanity has been practicing various forms of work
exploitation for a LONG LONG time, and those listening for God’s
voice heard the commandment for Sabbath, to ensure that people get to
live and not just work themselves to death.

Now,
in Luke, there appears to be a debate over Sabbath, but is a strange
one. What is strange is that the healing that Jesus did wasn’t a
violation of Sabbath and pretty much everyone agreed on that. The
healing was seen as a gift from God, so it wasn’t “labor” on
Jesus’ part (this is not to dismiss the labor that is medical care
today). And the healing brought the woman back into the community.
One of the interesting side effects of Sabbath is that by stopping
work and focusing on relationships, Sabbath ALSO creates community.
So doing something that healed a woman and her community was a very
Sabbath activity.

So
what was the Synagogue leader upset about? I don’t know for sure,
and the story doesn’t tell us, but to project onto it a little bit,
perhaps the faith leader felt insecure about his work and leadership
and threatened by the clear connection between Jesus and God and was
trying to reestablish what felt like slipping control? Again, who
knows 😉

But,
let us be clear, Jewish practice of Sabbath didn’t prevent Jesus from
healing, Sabbath is meant to be a source of life and life abundant,
and the Jewish crowd clearly understood and agreed with Jesus’
assessment that freeing a woman from bondage was worth doing on the
Sabbath.

So
what does this all mean? How do we respond to our tradition of
Sabbath, the reminders of what it means, the affirmations that it
connects us to God, the concerns about its misuse, and the desire
from God that we might live life and live it abundantly?

(And
why can’t I ever just ask easy questions?)

I
think there are a lot of conclusions that can be drawn from this
conversation. One big one is about continuing to work for justice in
our society, to work towards making it possible for all people to
have regular life giving time off, and to work towards securing the
societal safety net so that people don’t slip through. But another
piece of this is about HOW we work towards justice, and that means
working towards justice while also taking Sabbath. We can’t
effectively bring love, peace, and justice into the world if we don’t
experience them. Those of us who can have Sabbath need to take it,
for ourselves, for our faith, for our community, for our families,
for God, and for the sake of those who can’t yet. We won’t get other
people closer to full and whole lives by working ourselves to death
either. We have to both work for justice and savor the goodness of
life.

So,
what if, say, you are retired and not even working any more? What
might Sabbath look like for you? I’d recommend picking a day (maybe
Saturday or Sunday) and circling it in your calendar. Then, use it
to connect with those you love, or to do things you love. BUT, keep
away from productivity. No cleaning out closets. No vacuuming. No
filing. No reading church meeting minutes. ALSO, no consumption or
shopping. If possible, keep your Sabbath from being one that makes
other people work. Just…. people you love, spiritual practices, and
activities that bring you life. EVERY WEEK, and without guilt. This
is important, and it brings unexpectedly wonderful changes.

For
the rest of us, if we are lucky enough to be able to, let’s do the
same! And for those who can’t, yet, we’re seeking it with you. May
God help us get there. May Sabbath be found again. Amen

1Walter
Brueggeman, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville,
Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 193.

August 21, 2022

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

Uncategorized

“Desperate Places” based on Amos 7:7-17 and Luke 10:25-37

July 10, 2022
by Sara Baron

The
Good Samaritan parable is one of the best known in our tradition. I
believe most people have heard about it, and there is a shared common
understanding: be like the Good Samaritan who showed compassion.

“Go
and do likewise.” Amen

Or…maybe…
there are some other things to consider. Even with this story we
know so well, even with the simplistic moral that we struggle to
live.

This
week I found myself wondering about the robbers. I’ve never paid
attention to them before. After all, they’re more in the set up to
the parable than the parable itself. But I’ve always taken for
granted the “facts” that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was
dangerous, and roaming groups of robbers attacked people there,
especially people traveling alone, and it was sort of a gamble to
take that road.

Which
makes me sort of wonder about myself, and why I took that for
granted.

Upon
examination, I am well aware of places like the Jerusalem to Jericho
road. I’ve spent my life getting messages about where not to go –
especially alone at night, about what not to drink, about making sure
I have my carkeys in hand before I leave a building, about holding
purses in particular ways in particular areas… etc. So, perhaps, I
took for granted that there are dangerous places because it so easily
mirrors the world as I know it.

However,
I’m at this point in my life well aware that “dangerous places”
are actually “desperate places.” Most people who have
non-violent, viable ways to care for themselves and their loved ones
choose those options. It is when those options are closed off that
people are forced into other choices. And, let’s note that addiction
is a huge factor in increasing desperation and urgency, and addiction
itself is incredibly responsive to social factors as well. Desperate
people make desperate choices. If we want to decrease the prevalence
of those choices, the most effective way is to decrease the
desperation.

Which
leads me back to wondering about those robbers. WHY were there bands
of robbers along that road? The answer I’ve been taught to give is
because it was rocky and it was easy to hide behind the rocks, which
perhaps answers the question of “why there” but doesn’t actually
get to the core question of “why at all?”

Because
being a part of a roaming band of robbers isn’t an ideal way to live.

I
don’t think people decided to do it for fun, or adventure, or even
profit. It was an act of desperation.

We
have some knowledge of what that desperation looked like in those
days. You may remember that Ancient Israel brought great
intentionality to making sure that each family had land access, and
that it couldn’t be taken away from them. For many generations, the
agrarian society had been largely sustainable, even if there were
imperfections in the system, and greed from the top. But, people
farmed the land, fed their families, and took care of each other.
They even had enough to give away, to care for both the religious
leaders and those who by circumstance, were landless (widows,
orphans, foreigners).

At
its best, the system outlined in the Torah and lived in Ancient
Israel created a system of radical equality. This lasted until
kingship, of course, but between the people and the prophets there
seems to have been maintained an idea that all are equal before God,
and all people have a right to a livelihood.

By
the time of Jesus, the system was buckling under the pressure from
the Roman Empire to enrich the upper class at the expense of everyone
else. The tax burden was so high that landowners regularly fell into
debt, indebted landowners often lost their land and their livelihood,
those without land struggled to get hired as day laborers, and those
who couldn’t get hired had no way to eat except to steal. The
ECONOMIC SYSTEM created the conditions by which people were so
desperate that bands of robbers stole what they could to eat while
they could.

Which
is to say, that the backdrop of the Good Samaritan story is the
dehumanization of the people, the ways people were seen as
expendable, and the desperation such policies create.

Jesus
thus started a story saying, “A man was going down from Jerusalem
to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him,
beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead,” but only because
the people he was talking to were already aware of the circumstances
of their lives, and that the story really started with, “The Empire
is stealing our land, our labor, our livelihood, and our hope. Those
fighting to live are desperate, and that desperation is visible in
the bands of robbers who hide behind rocks on the road from Jerusalem
to Jericho.”

For
me, remembering the robbers are people too, actually changes the way
I hear the story. Now, after I had this insight about the robbers I
went to my handy “Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic
Gospels” (one of the books I sighed in relief over when I unpacked)
and read what Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh had to say about
this story. And, as per usual, their analysis suggest mine hasn’t
yet gone far enough. Here is a part of their textual notes on Luke
10:25-37:

The priest and the Levite would
avoid contact with a naked and therefore presumably dead body. A
priest could touch a corpse only to bury immediate family (cf. Ezek
44:25). The fact that the injured man had no clothes would make
ascertaining his social status difficult.

A Samaritan traveling back and
forth in Judean territory may have been a trader, a despised
occupation. This is suggested by the fact that he possesses oil,
wine, and considerable funds. Many traders were wealthy, having
grown rich at the expense of others. They were therefore considered
thieves. They frequented inns that were notoriously dirty and
dangerous and run by persons whose public status was below even that
of traders. Only people without family or social connections would
ever risk staying at a public inn.

Both the victim and the
Samaritan were thus despised persons who would not have elicited
initial sympathy from Jesus’ peasant hearers. That sympathy would
have gone to the bandits. They were frequently peasants who had lost
their land to the elite lenders whom all peasants feared. The
surprising twist in the story is thus the compassionate action of one
stereotyped as a scurrilous thief.¹

Now,
here is where I’m shocked by this perspective: I don’t think in our
society that there is generalized agreement that desperate people
just trying to get by are the heroes while wealthy individuals or
corporations underpaying their employees to enrich themselves are the
real thieves. I think, somehow, we’ve societally bought into the
idea that someone shoplifting food for their family is MORE at fault
than the employer who pockets what could otherwise be a living wage.

And
that worries me.

I’ve
mentioned before that the most common theft in the USA is WAGE THEFT²
which is almost never prosecuted, while petty theft lands people in
jail. But, I don’t hear much outrage about this. I fear we’ve given
up on even the ideals of justice, and bought into the narratives of
capitalism – including the ones that say that companies and the
PEOPLE who own them should maximize profits at all times no matter
who they harm, AND that people who are poor are either not trying
hard enough, or failures, and if they wanted to, they could “win”
too. But, the truth is that OUR economic system is terrifyingly
similar to that of Jesus’ time. It is similar to gambling: the house
always wins. Money flows up, people at the bottom are considered
expendable, and the fear of landing at the bottom keeps everyone else
quiet in the face of injustice.

The
difference, it seems, is that at that time the people still saw it as
unfair (and not just “the way things are”) and that JESUS was
willing to talk about it.

It
seems shocking, then, that the fact that the wealthy trader was the
hero is the TWIST in this story, because it isn’t really the twist
for us. I think the twist for us is realizing that the impoverished
bands of bandits were ASSUMED to be the heroes. (Think Robin Hood.)
Along with the fact that it was the Samaritan’s wealth and occupation
that were ALSO hated, and not just his background. Well, and the
idea that being wealthy was seen as being a thief.

OK,
so, basically, the original context of this story is so radical for
us, that we can’t really get past it into the story, because we’re
still trying to process the concepts of justice contained in the
context. Or at least I am.

And,
actually, I think that’s enough for today.

About
a decade ago I learned that The
United Methodist Church is getting wealthier. That is, the wealth of
individual members is increasing. Specifically, as members die off
in small rural churches (or when those churches close), new members
are mostly found in church plants in wealthy suburbs.

When
this was shared with me, it was shared as a neutral fact. I’ve spent
a decade being horrified by it. Jesus, and John Wesley for the
record, focused their ministries on people in poverty. If we are a
church that is good news to the wealthy, but NOT to the poor, we need
to take stock of what our message is and whose our message is.

For
quite some time, this congregation was predominated by white upper
middle class people, the engineers and middle management of GE in
most cases. In the most recent decades, it has diversified, thanks
be to God. However, the models and assumptions of being a white
upper middle class church still linger among us, and I believe our
work to walk into the PRESENT as well as the future includes noticing
where we are still holding on to those models and assumptions.

Because,
friends, the followers of Jesus who heard him tell the parable the
first time assumed the WEALTHY were thieves, and the petty robbers
were heroes. They saw what was happening economically and what
impact it had on people, and they found it morally reprehensible. To
follow Jesus, to follow John Wesley, to build the kindom, to see the
world clearly, I think that we need to too. May God help us. Amen

1Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual
Notes on Luke 10:25-37” pages 270-1.

2“This
report assesses the prevalence and magnitude of one form of wage
theft—minimum wage violations (workers being paid at an effective
hourly rate below the binding minimum wage)—in the 10 most
populous U.S. states. We find that, in these states, 2.4 million
workers lose $8 billion annually (an average of $3,300 per year for
year-round workers) to minimum wage violations—nearly a quarter of
their earned wages. This form of wage theft affects 17 percent of
low-wage workers, with workers in all demographic categories being
cheated out of pay.” –
https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-from-workers-paychecks-each-year/

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

July 10, 2022

Uncategorized

“Spiritual and Physical” Galatians 5:1, 13-25 and Luke 9:51-62

June 26, 2022
by Sara Baron

A Caveat: Because of the pandemic, worship was done before the Supreme Court Decision came out. It will be the focus next week.

——

I’ve been repeating “Foxes
have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of God has
no where to lay his head” rather a lot recently. Just to myself
though, I haven’t muttered it to others, yet.

Last weekend, my family moved
from the house I’d lived in for 8 years to a new one, which is more
or less up the street. The new house is a better size for our family
than the one I’d bought for myself.

And yet, there are parts of me
that are a little bit out of joint with owning a house, with buying a
bigger house, with having STUFF, and such a sufficient amount of it
at that. I wonder if I’m being an authentic Jesus follower, if he
was the one who had no where to lay his head and I’m the one buying a
bigger house.

So as I’ve heaved boxes up and
down stairs, and found places to put my favorite bowls, and organized
book boxes by topic, I’ve been thinking about foxes, holes, birds,
nests, and where I place my head.

I’ve also been thinking about
how lucky I am. There are so many people who are homeless, or
inadequately housed. To live in a safe home is not a reality just
anyone can afford, which is a problem. I want to live in a country
(and a world) were safe and adequate housing is universal. Where the
safety net is strong enough to provide housing for all, and
reasonable housing at that.

But, what about that Jesus guy,
wandering around with his band of followers, telling would be
disciples that he has no where to lay his head? I don’t know. I
think perhaps being uncomfortable with possessions is a good thing,
particularly in capitalism that tells us we are what we can buy. But
I also notice that Jesus didn’t have a home nor a consistent place to
lay his head, but he was welcomed into many people’s homes. He opted
out of the system, but the system of housing and hospitality was big
enough to provide for him and for his followers. Others had houses
and they used them to house Jesus. And perhaps that is a
responsibility of having spaces – making sure they’re being used as
they’re needed.

While I really like the list of
the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, I’m a little bit uneasy with
what appears to be some pretty strong body-soul dualism in the
passage. I worry when we assume that bodies are bad and spirits are
good, for a whole lot of reasons. One of them is that both women and
people of color get associated with “bodies” in that break down,
while white men get to be “spirits.” But another is that I
simply don’t believe we’re divided that way. I don’t think our
bodies can be separated from our spirits. We are whole beings, and
to claim that the body is somehow distinct from the mind, or from the
spirit, or from the emotions misses a whole lot about what it means
to be alive.

So, the good news is that the
body v. spirit thing that initially seems rather strong in the
passage isn’t so much upon further inspection. The Galatians had
been having some rather big, awful fights, mostly about if new
Christians needed to be circumcised. So Paul conflates the flesh of
– well – circumcision with the flesh of self-centered living and
condemns them both. Which means the fight was actually about who was
getting included and who was being excluded, and Paul was responding
both to the disagreement and to how it was being fought. He urges
God-centered living. That is, “For Paul, hard debate and
infighting among young Christians in Galatia were an outward and
visible sign of enslavement.”¹
Paul reminds them that they are free from that sort of behavior, and
called instead to love and relationship.

And while at first it seems that
Paul dismisses desire, it is more that he suggests that instead of
denying desires nor submitting to them, the people focus their
desires on what is good. That is, on things of God. Of course,
communities disagree, right? But that’s a part of this too.
“Conflict is part and parcel of intimacy and risking oneself in
community. When we enter that place of co-discerned vulnerability,
however, generosity, patience, kindness, and faithfulness can provide
‘palliative care’ amid the inevitable disagreements that ensure.
Such qualities are excellent companions on the journey, when we risk
intimacy with others in community.”²

Which gets us back to the
beginning of the passage: the freedom to love and be in relationship.
That’s the whole point of freedom, is the freedom FOR love. Perhaps
it is of use to ask ourselves what we need to use and maintain that
freedom – to remind ourselves that nothing gets in the way of love,
and to free ourselves for love?

Now, Luke’s gospel lesson is
permeated with urgency. I’m not even sure why. Is this urgency that
Jesus really lived in his life? And if so, was it urgency to get to
Jerusalem, or just urgency to connect with as many people as he could
to help them see God’s love and life’s possibilities? Was it urgency
to show compassion?

The gospel seems to say whatever
it was he was urgent about it was SERIOUS. It was, “let the dead
bury their own dead” serious, and not like with Elijah let Elisha
say goodby to his family (that’s the reference to “hand to plow”
that you might otherwise have missed.)

The early Christian community
experienced a lot of urgency, in no small part because they thought
the end of the world was coming any minute now. So it is possible
their urgency projects back onto Jesus, OR that it is authentic. I
don’t know. But I do know that urgency has some costs.

It is draining.

It burns us out.
It can’t be
sustained.

And while there are injustices
(everywhere!) and lack of compassion (too often!) and needs for
compassion and connection (all the time!) – no single one of us is
asked to do it all, all the time with urgency. But sometimes we
think we are, and that just means we hurt ourselves trying to love.
Which isn’t really what we’re trying to do.

I have been appreciative of the
questions, “what is important and what is urgent” and separating
out the two, so that the IMPORTANT gets done even if the urgent says
it is more pressing. I have to remind myself of this a lot, because
I don’t like to disappoint anyone, and I’d sort of rather be able to
do both.

But that, I think may be where I
find the intersection of the spiritual and the physical to be really
important. Neither my spirit, which needs rest, nor my body, which
needs rest, can press on indefinitely.

Nor can anyone else’s.

The freedom to love in Galatians
is set up so that we TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. That’s what we’re
supposed to use it for. Because we all need each other, and things
work best when we’re doing what we love and are good at and trusting
others to do the same. That’s how both communities and societies do
best. That’s part of what the kindom looks like.

This week I reflected on what I
learned from the clergy person who took me on as a seminary intern.
The Rev. Ed Hansen was nearing the end of his ministry when he took
the time to teach me at the beginning of mine. And he was made of
patience. He let me follow him around for a year, without offering
much to him or the community, and he let me then ask him questions
about everything I saw. I am aware I will spend the rest of my
ministry the way I’ve spent the last 18 – trying to be as loving as
Ed.

Because, as a person who got to
follow him around for hours every week, I got to see Ed interact with
a lot of people: the church members, the church leaders, the church
staff, homeless people asking for assistance, his children, his
partner, people who walked up to him in restaurants because he wore a
collar. I saw him be unfailingly patient and loving to each and
every one of those people. It was one of the most moving things I’ve
ever seen.

So, I asked him about it.
Because that was what I did. I followed him around and I asked him
questions. So I asked how he was so patient, and so loving, with
everyone. And he said, “Well, isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t
that what it means to follow Jesus, to treat people with the love God
has for them?”

Yes, I think it is. And, dear
ones, that’s where I allow there to be urgency (and importance): to
try to use my interactions with people as expressions of God’s love
for them. For their bodies, their souls, their whole beings. I
suggest to you as well, that this is a good use of a life. May God
help us. Amen

1
J. Williams Harkins, Feasting on the Word, on Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Pastoral Commentary, page 186.

2Same,
188.

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

June 26, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

June 19, 2022
by Sara Baron

“Tears for Food” based on Psalm 42 and Luke 8:26-39

One of the core tenets of our faith is that we are made in the image of God. Humanity reflects the Divine. Creation is an expression of the Holy.

This may seem simple, but it has proven challenging for humans for quite some time now.

Because it isn’t that we – First UMC of Schenectady – are made in the image of God, nor even we – United Methodists – are made in the image of God, nor even we – Christians – are made in the image of God, nor even that we – people of faith – are made in the image of God. It is that we, HUMANITY, are made in the image of God.

Which has implications.

If everyone is made in the image of God, than how we treat EVERY ONE matters. Each and every person is a beloved person of God, made in God’s image, and a unique reflection of the Holy One.

Which is to say, it seems to follow, that we probably shouldn’t oppress people.

Which is the part that I’ve noticed humans haven’t done terribly well.

Today is June 19th, so today is 157 years since slaves were freed in west Texas, believed to be the last enslaved people in the United States to hear that they’d been freed 2.5 years earlier. Today is a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States, and thanks be to God for that!

The institution of slavery was an abomination, and the end of the practice was a step towards God’s kindom.

I find myself a little bit obsessed with those 2.5 years. The 900 days in between the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and Juneteenth – June 19, 1865 blow me away. 900 days during which people who were free didn’t know it. 900 days in which people who were ACTUALLY free lived and died as enslaved people. 900 days in which people who were ACTUALLY free were born into slavery. 900 days for enslavers to reap profit, 900 days for people who’d been enslaved to suffer, languish, be beaten, and have their families ripped apart. 900 days when freedom had been declared, but hadn’t come yet. (I wonder, a bit, how often we’re in those in-betweens, when God’s good actions have happened but we haven’t heard yet.)

In the midst of celebrating the end of 246 years of institutionalized slavery in the United States, I’m struck by the injustice of the last 2.5 years. It is possible I’m focusing wrong. Because all of those things I’m angry about having been done to people in the last 900 days were ALSO done for the TWO HUNDRED FORTY SIX years before that.

While, during those years, the institution of slavery was LEGAL, it was just as much of an abomination. During those 246 years from 1619 to 1865, beloved people of God were treated as anything but beloved people of God.

And, while I’m muddying waters, we also have to talk about the end of slavery not being the end of abominations in the treatment of God’s beloveds who ancestors were from Africa. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US constitution ended slavery, but they have caveats.

The 13th, section one, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The 14th, a portion of section one, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”

As Michele Alexander explains in “The New Jim Crow,” those who were used to gaining profit from enslaving people found ways to keep oppressing them. The formerly enslaved were free, and remained free UNLESS they were convicted of a crime. So, the system convicted people of “crimes,” and forced people to keep working as enslaved people that way. And, WE STILL DO. And we still convict people of color at vastly disproportionate numbers, and then steal their labor. (Cough cough NYS hand sanitizer.)

But, in the midst of this complication is the STILL present reality that June 19th, 1865 mattered. It didn’t change everything, it wasn’t a moment we’d call “one and done,” but it was momentous. An institution of evil ended. God’s people were freed.

Beloved people of God were given space to be who they were made and called to be: gifts to all creation.

It fits, for me, to hear Psalm 42 today. The “tears for food” line fits. The lament of the Psalm, but the underlying hope of it too, makes sense. A longing for God, and for God’s presence – which brings with it justice. An acknowledgement of wrongness, and a desire for rightness. And, even in the midst of the wrongness, a sense of hope that God can and will fix it. 246 years wasn’t a short period of time for God’s people to be enslaved, but it did end. God did not forget God’s people.

(Although it may have seemed like forgetting for a very long time there.)

God is always working for justice, working towards freedom, working to end oppression, working to make space for all of us to be blessings to each other and all creation. May we not get in God’s way.

Today, when we read the story of the Gerasene demonic, I wonder what traumas he lived. Were they all his, or was he the one who held them for the community, or maybe even for the generations. Was he the sensitive soul who expressed the brokenness others pretended away? Or was he simply one who’d been hurt until he couldn’t pretend it away anymore himself?

I don’t know, but I do know that community trauma and generational trauma play out in individual lives as well as communities and families, and the trauma of 246 years of God’s beloved people being enslaved didn’t go away on June 19, 1865.

(Nor, of course, did the trauma end.)

People are still living out the trauma, it is still hurting people. It isn’t OVER.

I wonder, though, if what we are to take from the story of Legion is the power of God to heal what seems un-healable. The man who had been separated from his community, living alone with his pain and without “creature comforts,” was healed. And sent back to his people, to show the power of God to heal.

In some ways this healing feels less realistic to me than even the physical ones. I have watched people struggle with mental illness, and I have seen how tirelessly people work for their mental health, and how slow healing is even with the best possible support. This instantaneous healing of what looks like out of control schizophrenia shakes me, because I so desperately wish others could have it, and I know how hard it is for people who don’t find healing like this.

But I also know that mental health, like physical health, is related to how we construct societies. Are we looking for equity, justice, and a chance for people to thrive, or are we looking to let some people get super rich while others pay for it with their health? How much pressure are we willing to put on people, on families, on vulnerable communities SO THAT others can gain from it?

I don’t know what to make of Jesus’ healing, but I’m always struck by the idea that interacting with Jesus was like meeting someone who could express just how much God loves you. And I believe in the healing power of love. So, I take from this story that if people know how much they are loved, how worthy they are of love, how nothing that has happened to them and nothing that they have done changes that, … miraculous healing is possible. When people are heard, and loved, healing happens. When people are seen, and loved, healing happens.

We have to both stop oppressing God’s people AND work towards healing the traumas of oppression.

On this day when we celebrate the end of one particularly vicious and evil oppression, the end of the institution of slavery (outside of prison), may we learn the lessons once again: God loves all people, ending oppression is Godly work, and healing people is too. May God help each of us do our part. Amen

June 19, 2022

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

Uncategorized

“Towers of Babel” based on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts…

June 5, 2022
by Sara Baron

If you hear the story of the
Tower of Babel and scratch your head in confusion, I believe that is
a sign you are hearing it right. “Why build a tower?” “Why
was God upset about a tower?” “Huh?”

The context clue that I believe
we need to understand the story is that some of ancient Israel’s
neighbors were really into building HIGH “towers” You may think,
perhaps, of the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, or the Babylonian ziggurat
which was a huge temple, sort of like a pyramid, built as a worship
complex for their deity.

So, in the midst of an old, old
myth trying to explain why different peoples spoke different
languages, the Ancient Israelite’s also managed to sneak in some
propaganda against their neighbors. So, that’s why a tower, and
since those towers were parts of other faith traditions, that’s why
God was said to be jealous.

I rather like this confusing
ancient myth. I appreciate the question, “why can’t we communicate
with each other” and I even like the premise that if we could just
communicate well, we could do anything. I find this to be a story I
go back to, as I think of various things that confuse language or
communication, and I associate them with the Tower of Babel.

To some degree, I think the
story claims that the Tower was a sign of arrogance, and arrogance
needed to be tapped down. More directly, it claims the people were
getting too powerful, and God was jealous of their power, but that
doesn’t sound like good theology to me.

The Tower of Babel story tries
to explain what separates us from each other, why we can’t work
together, perhaps even why we so easily perceive ourselves as groups
of “us” and “them.” These are some big, important questions!
I’d like answers too! (I’d rather not blame God.)

What keeps us from working
towards the common good? Why do we perceive others as “others,”
and sometimes as enemies? What keeps us from seeing that justice for
any moves us towards justice for all? Why DO we throw each other
under the bus?

When we are clearly hardwired
for connection, made by God for connection, why does it so often
fail?

Why are there wars? Why is there
hunger? Why is there abuse? Why is there violence?

Why can’t we just care for each
other, and use the abundant resources of the earth for good?

It is hard to consume the news
without landing on these questions. Why is Russian invading Ukraine?
Is it about power? Money? Prestige? Why are there so many mass
shootings? What has happened in the lives of the shooters to lead
them to their actions?

We don’t even need the news. We
can just look around. Why is there a need for a free community
breakfast in one of the wealthiest countries in the world – why do
we have a society that allows people to go hungry when it doesn’t
have to? Why are beloved children of God homeless, when it would be
LESS expensive to house people than it is not to?

Relatedly, why is mental health
care hard to access when so many people need it? Why are so many
people self-medicating with drugs that lead to addiction – what is
aching in them, and how could things be different so it wouldn’t
ache?

As a note, I believe that the
answer to a lot of the questions I’ve asked is actually “trauma”
and the extent to which we can become informed about trauma and
responsive to people in their midst of their trauma MAY WELL be the
extent to which we are useful at changing the world towards the
kindom.

There are smaller, and still
important, pieces of separation too. The ones we all experience.
Friendships that fall apart. Distance from family members.
Disagreements in groups we’re part of, sometimes ones that create too
much conflict to keep the group together. Violations of core values,
that can’t be overcome. Experiences of God as distant. And those
hurt too. And those matter too.

The Tower of Babel story invites
us into these questions, it invites us into the heartbreak under
these questions. Because it isn’t an intellectual exercise to say
“why is there war?” Even from afar, it is heartbreaking to know
what is happening to human beings because there is a war. It isn’t
an intellectual exercise to say, “why do families fall apart?”
It is heartbreaking to see families fall apart, and the stories I
hear tell me the pain can last for generations.

There are so many ways to
distract ourselves from these questions, and from the pain under
them, but I don’t think we do ourselves any good with avoidance. I
think we have to face the heartbreak, and sit with it, to hear it out
and letting God move us to healing.

And, being me, that’s what I
hear in Pentecost. It is, I hope, easy to see that the story of
Pentecost is an undoing of the story of the Tower of Babel. People
from many different places can suddenly understand each other.
Communication is restored. The preaching of Peter suggests God is
active with the people, all the people, erasing divisions between
them. Peter says even nature will take note of the difference!

And where does it end? With
healing. “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved.” For some of us (me) the word “saved” has been laden
with layers of problematic meaning. I have to be intentional in not
running away from the word, and in reminding myself what it means to
the Bible.

Peter wasn’t talking about
heaven and hell. Peter was talking about a wonderful combination of
important things: healing the sort of healing that goes right down
the core of a person’s soul as well as their body, and also to their
RELATIONSHIPS and connections to community; along side something we
might call freedom, but is so much more – freedom from fear,
freedom from oppression and freedom from oppressing, freedom from
continued cycles of abuse and violence and brokenness. Peter was
talking about life with God, at the very best it can be.

Peter is talking about life in
the kindom of God, and how it changes everything. The “saving”
he is talking about is the undoing of all the things we’ve been
taking about with the Tower of Babel and SEPARATION.

Saving, here, is connection,
relationship, full and abundant LIFE.

These stories, held together,
offer us space to reflection on disconnection and connection,
miscommunication and good communication, brokenness and healing.
And, I hope, they invite us, again, into the kindom. To live with
connection, communication, and healing. To pay attention to what
brings full and abundant life, including the need to sometimes sit
with our heartbreak until it releases us, and then to seek, once
again, full hearts, by the grace of God. May God help 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

June 5, 2022

Uncategorized

Untitled

May 29, 2022
by Sara Baron

“Resurrection People” based on Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21 & John 17:20-26

There have been so many mass shootings. There have been so many that I suspect all of us have been touched by them not just on the news but also more directly, whether they be from afar, or from close up. My mother spent a year at Sandy Hook Elementary School. A friend went to the “other” high school – not to Columbine. Another friend grew up in the Conklin United Methodist Church, and to Susquehanna Valley Central schools. (The location of the young man who committed mass murder in Buffalo). These little connections make these deaths and the violence very, very real.

For years it seemed like the primary work of Schenectady Clergy Against Hate was to be gathering together with marginalized communities to speak to the pain of attacks against them. We got good at it. I’m still upset about that.

There isn’t much point in standing in this pulpit and decrying a lack of reasonable gun control laws – it is preaching to the choir. But also, how can one stand in this pulpit and do anything other than name the abomination that is a society that puts weapons of mass murder in the hands of those who engage in hate crimes, and those who wish to kill children. Buffalo and Uvalde. Back to back. But we all know what happened after Sandy Hook.

(Nothing.)

We live in a country that says it values the right to bear arms, but does so without providing a right to safety. We live in a country that won’t change its laws because the gun manufacturers have too strong of a lobby. We live in a country that is more invested in profits from murder than in preventing murder.

How can we do anything but grieve?

We live in a violent society, and it impacts us in so very many ways. We live in a violent society.

It breaks my heart. Sometimes it threatens to break my spirit.

But, I’m a person of faith, and so I choose to dream with you and with God about the nonviolent society that God wants for us, the beloved community that Dr. King spoke of, the kindom of God Jesus named, the true “Promised Land” of the people of God. I don’t want to give more time to violence.

Sure, I’m still going to contact my representatives and ask for changes to our gun laws. Sure, I’m still going to object to private prisons and solitary confinement and police brutality, and the like. That isn’t going to end. We can’t get from here to there without actual change.

But first and foremost, I want to follow Jesus on the path of nonviolence. I want to give my energy to how things should be. I don’t want to engage violence with violence. I want to engage the world with love.

Also, we aren’t going to get from here to there without knowing what we’re aiming at.

The text we have from John this week is as convoluted as John tends to be. But his point is that the loving community of faith is meant to be a living expression of the love of God. Jesus prays, asking that we might learn how to love. Jesus tries to place in the hearts of his followers, one more seed in hopes that it will grow: “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.“ (17:26) We’re told, time and time again, that it is by loving each other in faith community that the world is changed. We start with each other.

The text from Revelation includes the very last words of the Bible, and I’m told that they’re best interpreted, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” There is a universality, a hope in both passages that the love that starts with Jesus and extends to the community of faith may become the norm in the world at large, and eventually the way the world works. We end with everyone.

For a very long time, Christianity was so profoundly peaceful that it was assumed a Christian could not fight in a war. (This changed around the time there was a desire for Crusades. Sigh.) This is still true enough that our Social Principals state, “We believe war is incompatible with the teachings and example of Christ.” (165.c) United Methodists are able to use our faith as the bases of being a conscientious objector in the face of a draft.

Yet, there are so many ways that violence seeps in. It seeps into our language. It seeps in to our values. It seems into our lives. At times, it seems right into our faith.

We often talk these days about “echo chambers” and the distances between people of different political parties. We bemoan the increasing partisanship of our society. Which is good, because it is dangerous.

When I need to be reminded of the power of nonviolence, and how deeply rooted it is in my faith, I go back to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change. Their fundamental tenet, #3: Nonviolence Seeks to Defeat Injustice, or Evil, Not People.

Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people.
The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil not persons victimized by evil.

Just saying those words reminds me that nonviolence requires great strength, and a community commitment to it. Reminding each other that those who do evil are victims and are not evil takes a faith community. I’ve often been struck by those in this community who have the patience to pray for those who do great harm, and how they guide and remind the rest of us of that need.

I have been for many years a student of “Nonviolent Communication” but if I’m honest, within that community there is a desire to change the name to “Compassionate Communication.” People do not want to define themselves AGAINST something, not even AGAINST violence, but rather FOR sometime, FOR compassion. I think they’re onto something. I think turning towards what we want the world to look like matters, even in little ways.

Our gospels tell us Jesus prayed for those who were crucified with him, and for those who crucified him. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). In the midst of dying by state-sponsored violence, Jesus offered compassion, grace, mercy, forgiveness.

That’s the one we follow.

But also, we follow the one who told us to “turn the other cheek” and this is, of course, were our faith gets really interesting. Because to “turn the other cheek” is not simply to accept violence from another passively. To turn the other cheek – because of lack of toilet paper that created a societal norm that only allowed right hands to be used in public and because of a societal norm that indicated one backhanded a subordinate and slapped an equal – was to demand equality without returning violence with violence. Similarly, Jesus’ words on the cross take back the upper hand. They take the power of forgiveness. They take the power of knowledge. In the face of violence, they offer compassion and prove it to be a potent force.

This is the 7th, and last, Sunday of Easter. This is the final time this year that our primary focus is on the Easter Story (well, kinda, every Sunday is a “little Easter” but go with me).

There are many ways to understand Jesus’s resurrection, but for today, let’s focus on this one: The greatest threat the Empire had was violence, in particular violence in the form of a horrid public death. But resurrection says violence doesn’t get the final answer, not even death gets the final answer. Resurrection says that compassion gets the final answer. Mercy gets the final answer. Peace gets the final answer. LOVE gets the final answer.

Nothing, nothing, NOTHING could stop the love of God in Jesus. Romans 8:35-39.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Violence has a lot of power. A gut wrenching, sickening, disgusting amount of power.

And yet even in the midst of mass murders, we are Easter people. Easter, exists as a response to the violence of the world. We are Resurrection People. We are people of peace, and compassion, and nonviolence. We are people who know that love wins in the end. We are people who believe our lives can be useful in bringing peace, compassion, justice, and hope to the world. We are followers of a creative, loving, compassionate Savior, who could not even be stopped by death.

We are a Resurrection People.

Lord, hear our prayers. 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

May 29, 2022

Uncategorized

“Radical…Peace?” Psalm 67 and John 14:23-29

May 22, 2022
by Sara Baron

I
grew up in the country, where a fairly reasonable estimate for how
long it took to get somewhere was how many miles away it was. 5
miles, 5 minutes. 2 miles, 2 minutes. A few years after moving to
Schenectady I discovered that I was inherently annoyed at stoplights.
At every stop light. Because, in my internal narrative, they kept
me from getting to where I was going in the time frame I thought
reasonable.

(It
is OK to laugh.)

Once
I realized that, I was able to change my narrative. While they are
not the only way to do this, stoplights exist to 1. keep us safe and
2. take care of conflicting needs. They’re just a part of communal
use of shared space.

They
aren’t to slow me down (how arrogant!), but rather to keep things
going.

And
just like that, I stopped being annoyed at every stoplight. I
stopped taking them personally. I started accounting for them.
Mostly, I just let them be without existing in tension with them.

This
is not a story I’m particularly proud of. I sound self-centered and
impatient. But I hope it is a story that has some resonance. The
narratives we tell ourselves have a big impact on our perceptions of
reality, not to mention on our emotional responses to that reality.

I
also mention this story because I think it has to do with living
“life abundant” or “life with God” or “a spiritual life”
or “life eternal” or participating in “shalom.” Those are
all the same thing as far as I’m concerned.

Much
of life is outside of our control, and the way we respond to it is
going to impact us and those around us. Often it is easier to focus
on what we can control, right? To talk about what we can do
together, to focus on what we can do with God, to dream about change,
and to work towards justice.

I
like those topics a lot. But the truth is that there are a lot of
things we can’t control, and that’s really hard. REALLY hard. We
cannot control how long we live or when we die, nor how long those we
love live or when they die. REALLY hard. We cannot control other
people or their choices. REALLY hard. We cannot control or change
our past nor its traumas. We cannot control how other people treat
us. Most of us cannot control our income streams, and whether or not
they are sufficient.

There
are a lot of things we can’t control, and that’s really hard.

And
when we are facing things we can’t control, the only control have is
how we respond. This can feel too small. But, actually, it is a big
huge deal. Because, truly, I can spend my days annoyed at stoplights
or not. And the only thing that changes is my level of annoyance.

When
I read wise spiritual teachers, I am rather shocked at how often they
talk about doing the dishes. For such a mundane task, spiritual
teachers seem to love talking about it. I think this is because
spiritual teachers tend to think that life abundant is in the actual,
mundane lives we live.

I
recently came across this story, attributed to a John Perricone who I
know nothing about¹:

Several years ago I invited a
Buddhist monk to speak to my Senior elective class, and quite
interestingly as he entered the room he didn’t say a word (that
caught everyone’s attention). He just walked to the board and wrote
this: “EVERYONE WANTS TO SAVE THE WORLD, BUT NO ONE WANTS TO HELP
MOM DO THE THE DISHES.” We all laughed, but then he went on to say
this to my students:

“Statistically, it’s highly
unlikely that any of you will ever have the opportunity to run into a
burning orphanage and rescue an infant. But,
it is the smallest gesture of kindness – – a warm
smile, holding the door for the person behind you, shoveling the
driveway of the elderly person next door – – you have committed an
act of immeasurable profundity, because to each of us, our life is
our universe.”

Brother
Lawrence was a monk in the 17^th century who was assigned
to doing dishes in the monastery. He wrote:

The time of business, does not
with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter
of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for
different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquillity as if I were
upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.

Many
others are on this dishes bandwagon too. The gist seems to be that
you can do dishes and be annoyed by them (easy!), you can do dishes
and distract yourself from them (TV! Podcasts!), AND you can also do
dishes mindfully. You can let yourself be in the present. You can
notice the warmth of the water, the shine of the bubbles, the drip
drying, the ground under your feet, the way the light dances around
the room. You can do dishes and be alive! You can do dishes and
notice that this is the one life you have to live and whether or not
dishes are what you’d most like to be doing right now, dishes are
what you ARE doing right now and you can be attentive to life itself
while you are doing them if you want. You can notice how your body
is feeling, attend to emotions, see what stories are going through
your head, see if peace is at hand. Dishes can be a conduit to a
full life because a full life can be lived while doing dishes. Or
because life is life, and it involves a lot of dishes.

Minor
confession, I am actually not the dish-washer in my own home. Good
news is that dishes are just one of many mundane domestic tasks.
This all seems like it can apply to cooking, cleaning, grass cutting,
grocery shopping, etc.

A
writer named Matt Haig (who I believe is an atheist) says, “To be
calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own
non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human
selves, would not be good for business.” Peace. Peace isn’t good
for business. Peace, calm, being present IS abundant life though.
And it is part of how we steel ourselves to continue doing the work
towards justice instead of just being crushed by the brokenness of
the world.

Our
texts today take on big topics. God’s grace, God’s blessing’s.
Peace, which is shalom, which is communal well-being and shared
abundant life. Living as God asks us to. Learning.

But
in the end, our faith lives are a part of our “real” lives, the
normal every day lives that for most of us involve plenty of mundane
tasks. Most of us, most of the time, aren’t pursuing shalom in big
and glorious ways. We’re trying to find it in the midst of what
already is.

Most
of us, most of the time, aren’t experiencing blessing in big loud
ways either. They’re sort of quiet, most blessings.

But
peace, shalom, abundant life. “Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not
let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” The
peace Jesus gives, that’s what we’re allowing to take up residence in
us.

And
while there are a lot of ways of getting there, they seem to me to
sum up to two imperative and interconnected pieces: be present in
your own life – often, and be present in relationships.

Because
that’s where it all is! Presence, and relationships. That’s
abundant life. Relationships with others, relationships with God,
and while we’re at it, relationships even with ourselves. Which is
another way of saying being present to our own lives.

Jesus
was all about relationships, his ministry was spending time with
people and helping people connect with each other. The Bible is about
how to build societies full of good relationships. Good lives are
ones with good relationships. Good relationships with God ARE
spirituality.

Now,
I’m saying this to a congregation where people are struggling because
1. being together with those we love STILL isn’t safe and that hurts
our hearts and 2. many people are just so overwhelmed by life and its
demands that they aren’t able to find the time for the relationships
they value. And it is not my intention to place additional burdens
on those already struggling.

But
I do wish to remind you to use the control you have to move your life
towards connection and relationship. And, I will go back to the
beginning. The things you can’t control, you can at least change
some of the narrative on. There isn’t much value in spending life
being annoyed at stoplights.

In
fact, you could take stoplights as an invitation to pray, or to
listen to emotions, or to stretch, or to just breathe.

That’s
probably one easy way forward towards abundant life. May we together
find lots of others! Amen

1I
did google the name, and a viable candidate for these words emerged,
but I have no way of knowing if it is indeed the right person.

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

Image: Tree of LIfe
Notes:Four
artists created this work: Adelino Serafim Maté, Fiel dos Santos,
Hilario Nhatugueja et Christavao Canhavato (Kester), in Maputo,
Mozambique, 2004.It is a product of the Transforming Arms into Tools
(TAE) project and is made from decommissioned weapons. TAE was set up by
Bishop Dom Dinis Sengulane in 1995 and is supported by Christian Aid.
During Mozambique’s civil war, which lasted from 1976 to 1992, millions
of guns and other weapons poured into the country and most of them
remain hidden or buried in the bush. The project is an attempt to
eliminate the threat presented by the hidden weapons. Mozambicans are
encouraged to hand them over in exchange for items like ploughs,
bicycles and sewing machines. In one case a whole village gave up its
weapons in exchange for a tractor. [African Department, British Museum}

May 22, 2022

Uncategorized

“Voices” Acts 9:36-43 and John 10:22-30

May 8, 2022
by Sara Baron

An explanation:

The Hebrew word for widow
connotes one who is silent, one unable to speak. In a society in
which males played the public role and in which women did not speak
on their own behalf, the position of widow, particularly if an eldest
son was not yet married, was one of extreme vulnerability. If there
were no sons, a widow might return to her paternal family if that
recourse were available. Younger widows were often considered a
potential danger to the community and urged to remarry.

Left out of the prospect of
inheritance by Hebrew law, widows became the stereotypical symbol of
the exploited and oppressed. Old Testament criticism of the harsh
treatment of these women is prevalent. So are the texts in which
they are under the special protection of God.¹

In our reading from Acts this
week, we hear “All the townswomen who had been widowed stood beside
[Peter] weeping, and showed him the various garments Dorcas had made
when she was still with them.” (Acts 9:39b, Inclusive Bible)

I have to admit something. I’ve
read this passage many times, and every time I saw the widows as
showing off Tabitha/Doras’s impressive needlework, and thought it was
sort of a strange details, but otherwise ignored it.

Maybe my heart is in a different
place this week, because when I read it THIS week I thought, “Oh.
My. Gosh. She literally clothed the widows.” The women were
showing Peter her GOOD WORKS that had blessed their lives as proof to
him that she was worthy of his healing.

(Which, of course, makes far
more sense and most of you probably noticed ages ago, but I’m slow
and I try to admit it because the Bible is dense and none of us can
make sense of it all at once.)

There is another detail to know
about this story, an important one. Not only is Tabitha named in
this story, which is pretty unusual for Biblical women, and named
TWICE which is even less usual. She is called a disciple. Now, if
you were wondering if that was unusual, let me answer with a
scholarly quote, “Luke uses the feminine form for ‘disciple’ –
the only time it is used in the NT.”²

This is the ONLY woman in the
Bible called a disciple of Jesus, who is described as someone who
“never tired of doing kind things or giving to charity,” at whose
death the people who are most exploited and oppressed gather,
grieving, and trying to prove her worth by showing the gifts she had
made them.

I am incredibly moved by the
example of this first woman disciple.

Because, here is the thing about
Tabitha. Her story suggests that as a follower of Jesus, she spent
her life making things easier for the most vulnerable people around
her, but not just by giving them things, but also by loving them.
I don’t think the level of grief we hear from the women who’d been
widowed in this story reflects a fear that new clothes are going to
be harder to come by. I think their FRIEND, who saw them, and eased
their burdens, had died.

Tabitha heard their voices, and
used her life to respond to their needs. Where the Bible talks about
God’s special protection for the widows, it seems that Tabitha was
part of God’s work.

A disciple of Jesus, a little
Christ, indeed. In John, the voice of Jesus says, “My sheep hear
my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” It is clear in this
story in Acts that Tabitha knew the voice of Jesus, and followed.
And set an example for those of us who come after her.

Now, widowhood is not today what
it was then. Today’s widows may well be struggling with economic
hardship, but the first connotation of widow is “someone who has
lost her love” instead of “someone who has lost her livelihood
and protection.”

Which means that when we are
trying to consider who the “stereotypical symbol of the exploited
and oppressed” is in our society, I don’t think it defaults to
widows anymore. Nor do I think there is one simple answer. I fear
that who is seen as the “stereotypical symbol of the exploited and
oppressed” is as impacted by context, perception, and political
party as all of our other opinions. Meaning, I’d likely start the
list with trans women of color (#mostlikelytobemurdered) and could
continue on from there to an expansive list.

After this week I am concerned
that an addition to the highest levels of the list of “stereotypical
symbol of the exploited and oppressed” is going to need to be
“anyone capable of becoming pregnant who doesn’t want to be
pregnant.” Because, it seems, our society is about to declare that
people who become pregnant stop having authority over their own
bodies. (Happy Mothers’ Day.)

You want to know what else is
really interesting about Tabitha? We get two names for her, she is
called a disciple, she is known for her good works. And, in addition
to all that, neither her marital nor social status is mentioned.
She’s known for HER works, and they eclipse the question of who she
belongs to. Which, to be fair was the sort of kindom building equity
the early church was going for, but it is still pretty notable when
it happens! It also seems notable that those widows were named as
believers. They weren’t just recipients of charity, nor even simply
friends of a disciple. They too were the church. The church was of
everyone, even those whose NAME implied “the silenced.” It seems
like Tabitha’s church had stayed very close to the roots of Jesus’s
movement.

The question of who is
particularly vulnerable, exploited, oppressed is really a question of
who Jesus would be hanging out with. To his credit, Jesus took a
really expansive view of that as well, including fishermen and tax
collectors, widows and single women, children and senators,
adulterers and the mentally ill, hemorrhaging women and those with
physical disabilities.

Several years ago, when I was
nearing time to go to camp, I had to let someone know I wouldn’t be
available for some meeting during camp. (This was not a person in
this church or community.) The person responded, “Oh, that’s
right, you go to camp and work with people with special needs.
That’s so good of you!”

I. Am. Still. Mad.

Furious.

Because, going to camp is the
most selfish thing I do all year. I got camp because I love the
campers. I go to camp because I love camp. I go to camp because my
humanity and faith are restored by camp and by the campers.

I’m not a GOOD person for that,
and to imply that I am implies that there is something wrong with the
campers and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE CAMPERS. Everything is
right with the campers.

Which makes me wonder a bit. I
think likely Tabitha and the widows of her community were friends,
real friends, people who loved each other and mutually gained from
their connections. I wonder if a question we should be asking in
response to Tabitha’s story is, “who do I find it easy to love and
grow with, and how can I let that love expand my heart to let even
more people in?”

I worry that this question COULD
keep us too closed off, too limited to those we already know, too
small. But then I remember what LOVE is like, and how everyone has
stories that matter, and everyone has experiences of oppression, and
how LOVE likes to expand itself all over the place. And I find I’m
ready to trust love to be our guide.

I believe our faith calls us to
see the humanity in ALL people, including those who are oppressed,
and to share our love and our lives with mutuality and respect. And,
to be open to letting that love expand to those we don’t yet know who
have struggles we don’t yet understand. Let love be our guide, and
let it expand in us. I believe that’s what it means to follow Jesus’
voice, and Tabitha’s example. May God help us do it! Amen

1Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Widow,”
423.

2Robert
Wall, “Book of Acts” in New Interpreter’s Bible Vol 10I ed.
Leander E. Keck et al
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002) footnote p. 161.

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

May 8, 2022