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August 15, 2021
by Sara Baron

“The Fabled Wisdom of Solomon” based on 1 Kings 2:10-12 and 3:3-14

(Image: Lamp of Wisdom, Waterperry Gardens, Oxfordshire, England)

What I wouldn’t give for the wisdom of Solomon right now. I’ve prayed for it already, lack of asking isn’t the issue. Life feels like a series of unanswerable questions. “Is this safe?” “Is this wise?” “Is this fair?” “Who does this exclude?” “Whose needs does this meet?” “How do I create balance?” “Whose needs do I prioritize?” “How can I find a middle way?” “How do I manage risk? As a person? As a parent? As a pastor?” “What are the risks of NOT doing the thing?” “How do they compare to the risks of DOING the thing?” “How worried should I be?” “How courageous should I be?”

I’ll stop. It’s probably unpleasant to hear already, and truthfully those are MOST of the questions, they just repeat a lot. Furthermore, these are variations on the themes of everyone’s questions, maybe with a little bit more pressure on those making decisions for others or for groups.

We’re nearing 18 months of pandemic based impossible decision making. I’m also nearing 15 months of parent based impossible decision making, which has led to SO MUCH more respect for every other human who parents or offers caregiving. (I already had respect for those things, but my respect has increased exponentially.)

I find myself thinking about presidents who wear the same thing every day, or offload trivial decisions so that they can keep their capacities for the important stuff. I remember articles about how our decision making capacities are finite, and I think about how incredibly overwhelming it has been to be in this “new world” where everything carries risk and every decision is suddenly BIGGER.

And I want to be Solomon. I want to be blessed by God to be wise. I want God to give me “a wise and discerning mind.” I want to know what to do!!!!!!

But even as I say this, I realize that I have projected onto Solomon and on to this blessing from God a supernatural sort of wisdom and discernment. I’ve read this story and assumed that Solomon always knew what to do, and was always right when he decided. But, I don’t actually BELIEVE that. That would be superhuman.

(Also, if that were true, then the kingdom of Solomon likely would have outlasted … say … Solomon because he would have been able to fix the underlying issues and pick a good successor.)

Which means that the Bible has just served as a very good inkblot test for me to realize that in the midst of incredible uncertainty, certainty would be superhuman. (Or dangerous. That’s another way this can go.) I yearn to feel good about decisions, but that’s not possible right now. I yearn to feel confident as I decide, but that isn’t possible right now either. I yearn, truthfully, to pass my authority off to someone wiser, more prepared, better read – but no one knows the struggles and the questions I face quite like I do, so there isn’t anyone to pass them to.

John Wesley’s “Three Simple Rules”: “First do no harm, then do all the good you can, and stay in love with God” have never seemed so hard to work with!

To keep the challenging more challenging, people judge each other on decisions. I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation that didn’t involve either 1. someone who had to make hard decisions struggling with what is right OR 2. someone who doesn’t have to make the decisions frustrated with those who made them. I hear clergy and bosses worrying over safety procedures, balancing risk tolerance with the will of the body with the needs of the vulnerable. And, at the same time, I hear others complaining on ALL sides.

I’m definitely not Solomon, but I want to offer to all of you some of the models and tools I bring to discernment, under the assumption that we’re all bogged down by the weight of all these decisions. Welcome to a pragmatic sermon. 😉

In terms of the pandemic itself, I’ve been really grateful for an idea I heard put into words in the NY Times in June of 2020.

Manage your exposure budget

Risk is cumulative. Going forward, you’ll need to make trade-offs, choosing activities that are most important to you (like seeing an aging parent) and skipping things that might matter less (an office going-away party). Think about managing virus risk just as you might manage a diet: If you want dessert, eat a little less for dinner.1

During a pandemic, every member of the household should manage their own exposure budget. (Think Weight Watchers points for virus risk.) You spend very few budget points for low-risk choices like a once-a-week grocery trip or exercising outdoors. You spend more budget points when you attend an indoor dinner party, get a haircut or go to the office. You blow your budget completely if you spend time in a crowd.2

This has been super helpful. I often call it the “risk budget.” We all have different risk tolerance, and we have different things we particularly value and need. I hear from many families with kids that day care or school are imperative to someone in the family’s well being, and so they do it. But then their risk budget is spent. I hear from others that going to work and being exposed to a whole lot of people is already an over extension of their risk budget, and they fear bringing something home to their kids, so they don’t do anything else.

I’m mentioning this right now, because people without kids or other unvaccinated people in their households have had an increase in risk tolerance, and aren’t always seeing how carefully others have to manage their risk budget. And, for some in our community that means not coming to worship – even outside, even masked, even distanced – because even that TINY bit of increased exposure is more than the budget can handle.

It isn’t really a FUN thing, a risk budget, but it brings a model to something otherwise incredibly overwhelming. Deciding on each individual activity separately is simply too much for any of us, so a budget gives us a guideline on how to make decisions. It also reminds us that we’re working with different budgets and different expenditures, and none of us need to judge how someone else makes their decisions.

Not quite the fabled wisdom of Solomon, I’ll grant, but a tool nonetheless.

Another simple tool is one I’ve mentioned before. “Daily examen” is a prayer process. It is quite simple. You center yourself, ask for God’s help, review the past 24 hours, identitfy when you felt most alive and connected with love, identity when you felt most disconnected from life and love, thank God for the best the worst and all that’s in-between, and either share that information with another person or write it down. It is entirely too easy to zombie our way through life, especially in the surreal pandemic times. But taking the time to be reflective helps us learn about life, ourselves, God, and what we value. It helps us learn what we need to change, and what we actually love about our lives as they are. This is the single best discernment tool I know, although it is most useful for BIG HUGE decisions that can be made over an extended period of time.

My final “simple” tool is one of those deceptive ones. It is simple, in ideas, but it is much harder in practice. It is: trust God to be working in and through you. That is, notice when something feels off-kilter in you, and trust that it is significant and matters. THIS is the most subversive thing I’m saying today. Trust the wisdom of your body as being connected to the wisdom of the Divine, and when a decision brings a dull ache to your gut or any other part of your body STOP and listen. Figure out what emotions fit into that ache. Then, figure out what needs are under that emotion. (Handy-dandy helpful pdf chart here: Feelings/Needs). We KNOW more than we think we do, and God often works with us in subtle and embodied ways. As we learn to trust ourselves, we are learning to trust God-who-is-with-us-and-for-us.

Well friends, it doesn’t feel like much, and it DEFINITELY doesn’t feel like the fabled wisdom of Solomon, but in the midst of unending difficult decisions, I hope these little tools are gifts for you. May God help us all, as we discern. Amen

1 I’m not convinced diet culture is safe nor healthy, but I left the reference in because I fear it is familiar.

2 Tara Parker-Pope “5 Rules to Live By During a Pandemic” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/well/live/coronavirus-rules-pandemic-infection-prevention.html June 9, 2020.

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“Lifted Up, I Guess” based on Numbers 21:4-9 and…

March 14, 2021
by Sara Baron

I
don’t like the Numbers story, or how it portrays God. I don’t like
that John references it, and adds it to his conception of Jesus. I
gave serious thought to avoiding both of these scriptures today, but
I don’t actually believe in avoiding difficult things. (Fine, also I
didn’t have a better idea.)

Just
in case you didn’t listen to the Numbers reading, or don’t naturally
object to scriptures, let me be clear about what I dislike about it.
It says that the people got impatient with God, and God punished them
for their impatience by sending poisonous snakes to kill them, and
when the people were upset about that Moses intervened and God told
Moses to make bronze serpent and put it on a pole for the people to
look at and be healed, and they were. So…. I dislike the narrative
that God punishes, and even more so that God punishes impatiences,
and even more that God’s punishes by killing. As a bit of an aside,
it also seems distinctly unfair that there was that whole golden calf
incident where making a golden calf was BAD, but in this story making
a bronze snake is the solution. But that is relatively unimportant
in comparison to the “God killing people for getting impatient”
theme.

Ok.
Thank you for letting me get that off my chest, because now I can
approach the story from a different angle. The first piece of making
peace with this story is acknowledging that people are meaning
makers, and that means that sometimes we make meaning where it
doesn’t exist. So, if the people in the wilderness encounter
poisonous snakes, it makes plenty of sense that they’d make meaning
of out of it and claim that it is God’s punishment. People do that.

Having
said that, I think we can get more out of this story by (hesitantly)
entering into the mindset of the story than fighting with it. I
don’t actually think God punishes people by sending poisonous snakes
– or having a person lose their job – or creating hurricanes – or
creating a virus to kill millions. However, I think the “solution”
in this story is interesting part. Also, since people still
attribute struggles in their life to Divine punishment, so we don’t
have much space to stand on to judge the ancients.

From
within the story, the problem is that poisonous snakes are killing
people, and the people request Divine intervention so they can live.
Replace snakes with a virus, and we are right there with them. We’ve
prayed for God’s help on this. (Most of us think the vaccines were
God’s answer, and like many things, God’s answer came through the
hard work of people.)

The
ANSWER for “poisonous snakes are killing us” being “make a
bronze snake and put it on a pole for the people to look at” is
REALLY WEIRD. As in, if you asked me to brainstorm answers to
poisonous snake bites, I don’t think it would come up in my first
1000 options. (Ready: move camp away from the snakes, find
something to absorb the venom, look for an antidote, find ways to
pacify the snakes, figure out how to avoid the snakes, find out how
to repel the snakes.) See… none of that has gotten anywhere close
to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole.

So,
for just a moment, what if we take this story as more parable than
historical narrative? What if the SUPER WEIRD SOLUTION is something
designed to make us THINK and PONDER and consider, rather than, say,
replicate?

Then
where is the metaphor? Debie Thomas in “Journey with Jesus”
says, “In order to be saved, the people have to confront the
serpent— they have to look hard at what harms, poisons, breaks, and
kills them.”¹
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Avoidance
doesn’t solve problems. Systemic change doesn’t come without a deep
understanding of what is broken and who benefits from the breaking.
In making a replica of our problems, we may just learn how to fix
them. There is some GOOD STUFF here once the space is made for it to
speak with its own voice. Thank you metaphor and parable
perspective.

Interestingly
enough, this sort of fits the virus + vaccine issue – you don’t get
to a vaccine without looking at the virus very, very carefully. You
also don’t get immunity without some access to CREATED replications
of aspects of the virus. (Metaphors make life. Humans are meaning
makers. Did I mention that?)

OK,
having found some actually useful meaning in the Numbers passage, now
we’re tasked with connecting this with John’s take on Jesus’s death.
#buckleup

As
you might have noticed, John 3:14-5 says, “And just as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be
lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
By “lifted up” John is talking about crucifixion, but he is
doing so in a very intentional way. Clearly, physically speaking,
crucifixion could be understood as being “lifted up” but it was
DESIGNED as a means of public shame and punishment that was so
horrible as to discourage others from engaging in anti-Empire
activities. This was capital punishment in an extra public and
grotesque form. So, calling crucifixion “lifting up” is
RECLAIMING it, denying its power to shame, and reframing it from a
faith perspective instead of a worldly one.

To
call it “lifting up” is to claim that they saw God in Jesus, and
the most extreme shame and pain and death the Empire had to offer
didn’t change that. In fact, to call it “lifting up” inverts it,
taking an experience meant to shame and suggesting it brought honor.
Calling it “lifting up” refuses the power of the Empire to make
meaning, and claims that power for the community of faith.

But
the gospel writer doesn’t even stop there! Instead John reframes the
Numbers story to make meaning out of Jesus. As the bronze snake
replica healed the people who had been poisoned and would have died,
so the crucified Jesus heals the people and offers them full and
abundant life with God. Or, as Debie Thomas puts is:

So why did Jesus die? He
died because he unflinchingly fulfilled the will of God. He
died because he exposed the ungracious sham at the heart of all human
kingdoms, holding up a mirror that shocked his contemporaries and
still shocks us at the deepest levels of our imaginations.
In other words, he unveiled the poison, he showed us the snake, he
revealed what our human kingdoms, left to themselves, will always
become unless God in God’s mercy delivers us. In the cross,
we are forced to see what our refusal to love, our indifference to
suffering, our craving for violence, our resistance to change, our
hatred of difference, our addiction to judgment, and our fear of the
Other must wreak. When the Son of Man is lifted up, we see with
chilling and desperate clarity our need for a God who will take our
most horrific instruments of death, and transform them, at great
cost, for the purposes of resurrection.²

The
death that is human violence, fear, and competition is transformed
when Jesus is “lifted up” and shows the power of compassion,
grace, hope, and collaboration. The powers that harm are subverted,
the power of love is …. lifted up. In THIS is life.

It
is so in our lives as well, may we pay attention. Amen

1 https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2944-looking-up

2Ibid.

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

March 14, 2021

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“Self-Denial and A Plague” based on Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16…

February 28, 2021
by Sara Baron

In
the book “Debt: The first 5000 Years,” David Graeber says
economic history as we know it is a falsehood. Instead, he says,
currency came into being this way: in order for empires to expand,
they needed armies at their ever expanding borders; in order to have
armies further from home there needed to be a way to feed them; in
order to convince people to feed armies, they gave the coins to the
army as pay and REQUIRED all the people have some of those coins to
give to the empire. Thus the creation of taxes, coins, expanded
military might, and markets came into being together. Furthermore,
coins made it much easier to calculate and charge interest, which
made it much easier to keep some people in poverty and make the rich
richer.

Graeber
also says that the time when “markets” were created in history
was ALSO the time that the world’s major religions were formed. (It
was a LONG era.) He proposes the religions were an oppositional
force to the value system of the markets. Instead of valuing coins,
interest, and violence, religions emphasized the inherent value of
people and our responsibility to care for each other.¹

When
I read that conception of the history of religion, I was excited and
relieved. First of all, it sounds like God. God works in contexts,
and expansive religions weren’t needed until expansive markets needed
to be countered. Smaller, tribal expressions of faith worked just
fine. It also makes sense of our Bible, which if we’re honest,
bounces back and forth between utterly radical critique of the
systems of power and empire and — well, justifying systems of power
and empire, as if there is a tug of war about the empire trying to
appropriate religion. Over all though, I found it a relieve to see
the 40,000 foot view of what we’re doing.

Both
of our passages today are about following God’s ways. In Genesis we
God hear claiming Abraham and Sarah and making plans to work with
them in the future. In Mark we hear reflections of the early church,
which was undergoing significant persecution, reflecting on the
powers of life and death.

So,
what does it mean to follow God’s ways?

This
was an open question in Genesis, and in Mark, and has been one in our
lives too.

This
is an open question in modern times too, and I hear people offer a
variety of answers. For some following God includes and is expressed
by particular clothing or diets. For some it includes and is
embodied in particular prayer types or times. For some it is
reflected in personal choices – everything from what words are
said, to abstinence from drugs or alcohol or sex – or just dancing
to what is purchased and where and why. For some this is reflected
in choices to join or be present with a faith community for worship –
or more. For some this is related to particular ways of seeing unity
with the divine. For yet others it is related to energy and effort
being used to build the kindom of God.

John
Wesley broke things into 4 categories: personal acts of holiness
(prayer, Bible Study, healthy living), communal acts of holiness
(worship, study, group decision making, sacraments), personal acts of
mercy (doing good works), and communal acts of mercy (seeking
justice.) Sometimes I hear people focus on only 1 of those 4, but
they work best as a whole.

To
break that down into really direct language – I sometimes hear
people think that speaking without swearing and abstaining from
caffeine are SUFFICIENT ways of being faithful to God. More power to
those who find spiritual power in those choices, but I don’t think
they’re sufficient in following God. Following God requires
connecting with others, as well as caring for others, not just
behaving “properly.” (Whatever that means.)

And
all of that gets us to today – to what some of my friends call
“Coronatide.” (If you don’t get it, don’t worry, it isn’t funny
enough to explain.) When reading a passage so emphatically about
self-denial as a means of following Jesus, how do we hear it TODAY?

It
seems to me that two mostly distinct forms of self-sacrifice have
been occurring over the past year:

There has been the sacrifice and
self-denial of those who have directly cared for others at risk to
themselves –which has included people who have gotten sick and
people who have died because of taking this risk.

There has also been a quieter
sacrifice and self-denial of those who have put life as they know it
aside for the well-being of others. (Masks, distancing, not doing
things they love, not being with people they love). To some degree
this sort of sacrifice comes with privilege – many would choose
this one and couldn’t. That doesn’t meant that this sacrifice has
been easy (it hasn’t), nor unimportant. These quiet sacrifices have
taken care of the whole, including those in the first group offering
care.

At
first glance, Mark’s passage seems to be about making a choice to
follow Jesus, and sticking with it. Upon close examination, the Mark
passage is more radical than it first appears. One scholar
summarizes, “The threat to punish by death is the bottom line of
the power of the state; fear of this threat keeps the dominant order
intact. By resisting this fear and pursuing the kingdom’s practice
even at the cost of death, the disciple contributes to shattering the
powers’ reign of death in history. To concede the state’s
sovereignty in death is to refuse its authority in life.”²

Religion
> market/empire indeed!

Mark
suggests here that to choose to follow Jesus is to deny and ignore
the threats of the state. It is to pick a full and abundant life,
and not fear.

Does
that feel strange right now? I don’t know if anyone feels like their
life has been full and abundant in the past year. And there has been
LOTS of fear.

Unless…

Unless
we change out we think about it. No, the past year has not been
“full and abundant,” but this past year we have picked LIFE for
ourselves and for others over and over again. We have prioritized
the full and abundant life of the COMMUNITY over ease and delight in
our own lives. We have tried to maximize the number of people who
will have long, full, healthy lives – with each and every difficult
choice we make.

And
sometimes it is a really important thing to remember that the stuff
we do – masks, and social distancing, and zoom (eh) and lack of
hugs, we do for a reason.

For
life.

For
each other.

For
Jesus.

For
the kindom.

We
have been following the way of God in new, different, and difficult
ways. We have been denying ourselves the joy of in person worship;
we have been carrying the crosses of wearing masks, forfeiting the
lives we know for … all for the sake of other people’s continued
lives.

We
have been trying to take care of all of God’s beloveds. We have been
reminded that the way to care for one is to care for the whole. It
has been hard, and it has mattered – and it still matters. While
what we’ve done has largely been quiet and seemingly small, thanks be
to God for what we’re able to do for each other!

Amen

1David
Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
(Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011).

2Ched
Myers, Binding the Strong Man
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998 and 2008, 274. He is quoting
Taylor, 1963: 247.

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 28, 2021

Uncategorized

“Why do we (the church) exist?” based on Deuteronomy…

January 31, 2021
by Sara Baron

a
Sermon

by
Rev. Sara E. Baron

First
United Methodist Church of Schenectady

January
31, 2021

For much of the past year, I’ve
been in crisis mode. Crisis mode requires full attention to be on
the present, as the demands of the present are too large to allow
time to reflect on the past or plan for the future. Of course,the
physical realities of distance also make planning for the future
difficult.

While
the pandemic is still raging, and there are a sufficient number of
other crises that need attention, my capacity to stay in crisis mode
is declining. It is, after all, a really demanding state and cannot
be held onto indefinitely.

I
don’t mean I’m taking unnecessary risks with COVID safety – I still
believe that the Wesleyan rule “First, do no harm” is our
guidance in this era, and everything I do to keep myself safe also
creates more safety for our communities.

What
I do mean is that I’m ready to accept some of the gifts of this era:
of a pause on reality as we knew it, and a major transition point
from what was to what will be. In particular, I think it is a good
time for the church to consider its most basic nature.

Why
do we exist?

Should
we continue to do so?

I
hope you’ll grant me a little bit of patience now that you know where
I’m headed, because the scriptures today are incredibly useful to
answering those questions, but to hear them well requires putting
them in context.

The
gospel lesson centers on the question of authority, specifically why
Jesus acted like he had any! Wise scholars point out “Authority is
the ability, actual or assumed, to control the behavior of others.”¹
Jesus, by birth, wasn’t supposed to have authority, yet he presents
himself as having it, and using it.

Until
this point in the Gospel, Jesus has been out in the wilderness, and
on the lakeshore. His entrance into the synagogue on the Sabbath was
an entrance into the space where the Scribes had authority, and his
words and actions SHAKE THINGS UP. This is the start of Jesus
messing with the status quo, and challenging what is assumed to be
true.²

I believe that is much of the
role of Christianity today, but I’ll get back to that.

This question of authority is
also central to the Hebrew Bible reading today. It comes in the
midst of a passage about the appropriate ways the roles of king,
judge, and priest should be fulfilled. Our passage is about the way
the role of prophet should be fulfilled. It is interesting because
the author of Deuteronomy is pretty clearly uncomfortable with the
role of prophet, and yet doesn’t think he can get away with
pretending prophets away. It is likely that Deuteronomy reflects the
perspective of the priestly voice, and the priests and the prophets
had an uneasy relationship.

The priests, like the kings,
inherited their power and role, which functioned to distance them
from everyone else. They got their authority at birth. Prophets, on
the other hand, emerged out of no where and were seen to have the
authority of speaking for God (at least by their followers.) They
often served to call others in authority to account, particularly for
the care of the vulnerable, and to warn that an unjust society would
not be sustainable.

The passage wants to limit
prophets. They have to be insiders, which is HILARIOUS, because I
just dare anyone to attempt to impose such a limit on the Divine.
They’re threatened a bit too, in hopes of reigning them in.

I think the role of the prophet
is interesting for THIS church, because historically the role of this
church in the Church-At-Large and in Society has been the role of
prophet. This is a church where justice-seekers gather, trying to
build the kindom of God, and willing to name things AS THEY ARE in
order to do so. Or, to be a little less diplomatic about it, we’re
really good at being a thorn in the side when one is needed. We
don’t go away, we don’t stop agitating, we aren’t willing to throw
anyone under the bus, and we are OK with people being annoyed with
us. We believe that calling for justice is the work of God, and
we’re going to do it.

In
contrast, the role of priest is largely one of ritual, and is a role
that is dependent on the good-graces of others. A priest is limited
in function because a priest has no means of survival other than the
good will of the people or more often of those in power.

To
be simplistic about it, the priestly role is about creating the
religious myths that uphold the status quo. The prophetic role is
about calling out the injustices of the status quo and motivating
change to a better system.

I
see those two roles intertwined in the Bible, struggling against each
other, and I see them in religious history as well. So it is no
shock that some of each is in every religious community, but more so
than most, this church is defined by its role as prophet.

It
may make sense then, that I also see Jesus as functioning in the
prophetic role. I am, after all, the pastor of a prophetic church.
In this Gospel lesson, Jesus is using his authority. So, he is using
“the ability, actual or assumed, to control the behavior of
others.”³
This seems to lead to the question: what was Jesus changing the
behaviors from and what was Jesus changing the behaviors to? Scholar
Ched Myers says, “Mark’s Gospel was originally written to help
imperial subjects learn the hard truth about their words and
themselves. …. His is a story by, about, and for those committed
to God’s work of justice, compassion, and liberation for the world.”⁴

That
is, Jesus was about opening the eyes of the people to see how they
were being oppressed, and to work together to break the chains of
oppression, so that they could build a society and a world without
oppression.

We
are quite clearly not Jesus’s audience, nor Mark’s. While our
community has a wide range of socio-economic statuses, we are a part
of The United States which is far more similar to Rome in the time of
Jesus than it is to Nazareth. So what does the authority of Jesus
call us to today?

I
believe Jesus calls us out of systems of oppression, and their myths.
Those myths include: some people matter more than others, some
people deserve more than others, there isn’t enough to go around –
so every person or group should fight for their own good, life is
about getting “ahead,” the status quo is mostly good, “be nice”
and don’t upset people, some people are just going to have to be left
behind and nothing can be done about it. There are a lot of myths
under this that support it, ones that maintain sexism, racism,
heteronormativity, the exclusion of people with disabilities, and
other forms of HIERARCHY of humans.

These
myths can be hard to let go of. They’re pervasive, they’re
insidious, and they’re even found in most faith communities, because
faith communities are comprised of people who also exist in society.

Jesus
calls us to justice, compassion, and liberation for the world. Jesus
calls us to kindom building, to being the beloved community, to
sanctification. (Sanctification is the process of letting go of
everything that isn’t love so that love can motivate all of our words
and actions.) God’s love extends to each and every living person,
and each and every living being. The change God seeks is from the
status quo to a world of equity, equality, compassion, and love.
THIS is the role of Christianity in the world.

The
work of the church is to value what God values, to model a community
that lives by those values, to support each other in the
transformation towards sanctification, and to believe that the work
of the kindom is the work of our lives. This is why we do things
together – so we can learn from each other, so we can love on each
other, so we can learn compassion from the inside and then share it
in the world. As we let go of the myths of systems of oppression,
we’re freed to see more and more clearly what justice looks like and
to live it more deeply.

THIS
is why we are people who take on the prophetic role. We have been
blessed to be able to see what oppression looks like AND to see what
life can be with God’s equality and equity at the center.

Why
do we exist? To live the values of the kindom, to show them to each
other and the world, to be hope for what can come. Should we
continue to do so? Yes, I rather think we should.

May
God help us along our way! Amen

1
Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social Science
Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Mark
1:231-34” p. 150.

2 Ched
Myers, Binding the Strong Man
(Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1988, 2008), 141-143.

3
Malina and Rohrbaugh p. 150.

4 Myers,
11.

Uncategorized

“What Did They See?” based on Psalm 62:5-12 and…

January 24, 2021
by Sara Baron

I
was lucky enough to be raised in the church, and a thoughtful loving
church at that. I liked church, I liked Sunday School, I loved
church camp. Nevertheless, feeling a call to ordained ministry felt
like it came out of no where. The call came during a worship service
at camp, when the leadership of Jesus was being described. The camp
director compared the characteristics of a worldly leader with the
way that Jesus led, and invited us into the second kind of
leadership. She talked about worldly being “important,” and
having people serve and take care of them so they can do “important”
things. She compared it to the leadership of Jesus, as seen in
foot-washing, where leaders lead by serving others.

I
immediately, viscerally, wanted to be a part of that. The inversion
of what was important. The service. The care of people. The values
of the Jesus movement. My desire to be a part of THAT was strong
enough to change my life plans – from a desire to be an
environmental scientist to a desire to be a minister.

Whenever
I read the story of the call of the disciples, I can’t help but
wonder, “What did they see?” What was it about Jesus that was so
compelling that they changed not only their life PLANS like I did,
but their LIVES? Why did they go?

I
bring a lot of skepticism to Biblical texts, but I do tend to think
that a lot of people left their lives behind to follow Jesus. Thus,
this story contains some big T Truth, whether or not it happened
exactly this way.

So,
what was it that made Jesus and his message so attractive? Why did
people walk away from lives they knew just to follow him? Why was he
so popular it began to threaten the Roman Empire?

There
are a few pieces that may come into play. One option is that
people’s lives were really awful, so any alternative was better than
the status quo. This may have come into play, but most people are
still hesitant to leave what they know, so it isn’t SUFFICIENT.

Rev. Rob Bell has a
video series called NOOMA, and in one of them he points out that in
the time of Jesus, all Jewish boys got some basic education, and the
brightest and the best got to have more. There was continued
education and continued weeding until the point when Teachers
(Rabbis) would pick a few students to teach, and the rest settled
into other lives. Thus, the very best Jewish scholars got to spend
their lives working on questions of faith, Biblical interpretation,
and things of God. The rest …. didn’t. Rob Bell suggests that
when Jesus called the fisherman, and invited them to follow him – a
teacher – a rabbi, he was inverting that system and inviting those
who’d been weeded out first into the best sort of education.

That is, perhaps the
disciples followed because Jesus called – and no one else had.
They were welcomed to be students of Jesus, but no one else had
wanted them.

I haven’t heard this
theory elsewhere, so I’m not sure if it is true, but it also seems to
contain some big T True.

Even so, even if
life was hard and even if Jesus was the first one to invite them into
a life of Spiritual goodness, there had to be something about Jesus
himself that was simply attractive enough to follow. Based on how
stories are told of him, it seems most likely that what was amazing
and attractive in Jesus was his connection to God.

Now, it is important
to remember that connections to the Divine are not a Jesus-only
thing, nor a Jesus-movement-only thing. Today’s Psalm, which comes
from Christianity’s Jewish roots, speaks profoundly about connection
to the Divine.

The Psalmist says,
“For God alone my soul waits in silence, my hope is from God” –
and then goes on to name all the ways that God is the source of
dependable goodness that allows for life to be lived well. The
Psalmist compares the inconsistencies of life with the constancy of
God, the un-importance of wealth and measures of power with the
importance of steadfast love.

That sort of
mystical connection to God, that trust, that wisdom – seems much
like what the disciples may have seen in Jesus. Embodied love and
grace are profoundly attractive. (If Im totally honest, I prefer the
sort of “evangelism” that is being such a happy, kind, and loving
person that people want to know how you became like that.)

I wonder if the
choice of the disciples to follow Jesus had some of each of the
components we’ve talked about – and one more. I wonder if those
who followed Jesus had always been looking for something, that is
that they’d always been nudged by God towards more, and when Jesus
came they had “ah ha moments” and recognized that this was what
they’d been waiting and looking for.

That way of God
working in lives fits what I’ve lived and what I’ve seen in people’s
lives. I wonder if it fits in yours? Have you felt God nudging you
along the way? Has God pushed and prodded you towards something?
Have you found it? Are you still looking?

I think that God is
always calling us, prodding us, nudging us — that is, guiding us.
Calls aren’t one time events that can be answered and then
disregarded. Rather, calls are continual guidance on the next steps
of our lives. Sometimes God’s calls are rather small, urges to be
“good” or “kind.” Sometimes they’re huge – reminders to
build the kindom – to take on the issues of injustice and change
the world.

But I think there
are also particular asks for particular people (at particular times).
Jobs or volunteer positions to take (or not). Relationships to
build or let go of.

In what way are you
being called right now?

Is it just to offer
care in and love in the world – a call that might be met with one
of the Lenten projects coming up? Is it something bigger? Or
something different?

Are you listening?

Will you be ready to
respond?

I suspect many
factors were involved in the way the disciples choose to follow
Jesus. They were disenchanted with their lives, they were yearning
for something more, someone finally invited them, they could SEE
God’s hand in the life of Jesus, and God had long been at work
preparing them for that moment. I suspect many of those factors are
alive and well among us as well. May we be ready to answer, when God
calls. Amen

January 24, 2021

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

“Consolation” based on Isaiah 61:10-62:3 and Luke 2:22-40

December 27, 2020
by Sara Baron

A
month ago, the words to the hymn “Come Ye Disconsolate” jumped
off the page at me. It isn’t a hymn well known to me, until that
point I’d picked it once in 14 years, but it fit the moment too well
to ignore:

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er
ye languish;
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here
bring your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish.
Earth has no
sorrow that heaven cannot heal.¹

Disconsolate
means “without consolation or comfort.”²
I checked to be sure I had that right.

Perhaps,
then, it is not surprising what I heard and noticed in today’s Gospel
lesson that had never pulled my attention before. Parker read verse
25, “ Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this
man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of
Israel,…” and I thought “consolation!? I never noticed that
before” Followed by, “what does that really mean?” I figured
it meant …. something to do with the Messiah.

The
New Interpreter’s Bible says, “The ‘consolation of Israel’ was a
term for the restoration of the people and the fulfillment of God’s
redemptive work. … The term comes from references in Isaiah:

Comfort, O comfort my people
says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:1-2 NRVS
cf. 49:13)

For the Lord will comfort
Zion (Isaiah 51:3 NRSV)

Break forth together into
singing, you ruins of Jerusalem;

for the LORD has comforted
his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem (Isaiah 52:9 NRSV, cf
66:10-13)”³

Right.
So this was about the Messiah, who for the Jewish people was the one
would bring the fulfillment of God’s promises of restoration.

How
interesting it is that it is called the “consolation” and focuses
on comfort! Simeon is a man introduced as waiting for God to act to
bring comfort, and trusting that God would. Then, when he sees the
baby Jesus, he sees this as the fulfillment of the promise that he
would see God’s Messiah. The story also says that a holy prophet,
Anna, saw and understood who Jesus was.

Jesus
as comforter, Jesus as consolation. That is both a familiar and
unfamiliar idea to me. I grew up with it, but that version was
very… milquetoast. Jesus was presented as available to me to make
me feel better when I was sad, to listen to me, to be my friend.
And, I think all of that is true. But as I’ve grown, I’ve become
equally interested in the idea that God wants good things for
EVERYONE, and in order to make that possible, I need to participate
in building a just society. God doesn’t just LISTEN, God wants to
help, and we are God’s hands and feet in the world.

The
expectations for the Messiah at the time of Jesus were for a king /
prophet / general who would restore the nation of Israel to political
and military prominence. As you may have noticed, Jesus didn’t do
that, but as Christians we tend to claim that what he did do was
better!

I’ve
been told many times that my job is to comfort the afflicted and
afflict the comforted, which interestingly was originally said about
the role of journalists. This year, I think we’re all the
afflicted, so my attention has been largely on comfort.

This
week I read a wonderful article entitled, “Jesus wasn’t born in a
stable and that makes all the difference.”⁴
I bet you can deduce the point from the title 😉 The author makes a
substantive argument that the word “inn” is mistranslated in Luke
2:7(b) “She wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in the
manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” A better
word would be “spare room.” As in “she was out in the main
family room with the family and the livestock because the spare room
was already overflowing.” Jewish peasants at the time kept animals
with them in their homes. And throughout the Middle East it would be
UNTHINKABLE not to stay with family if you have family.

The
author’s primary point is that when we think of Jesus being born out
in a stable, his family rejected by everyone, alone and distanced
from everyone. That is, we tend to think of Jesus being born
APART. Luke’s actual story puts Jesus in the middle of a small
house filled with a lot of family, so stuffed that the only
reasonable place left to put the baby down was in the
dug-into-the-ground animal feeding troughs. (A place he wouldn’t
roll away.)

The
“spare room” translation makes it clear that Jesus was part of
the Jewish peasantry. So does the detail in today’s reading about
giving a sacrifice, and the fact that what was given was the poor
person’s gift, for those who couldn’t afford the more expensive “a
whole lamb” option.

Remembering
that Jesus was born into a devout, poor, Jewish family helps me
understand his role as comforter. There is an understanding of pain
and a yearning for justice that fits having grown up both poor and
devout.

I
do think that old quote is true, of journalists, of preachers, and
even of Jesus himself. Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the
comfortable. And, dear ones, most of us are both. And, more than at
most points in our lives, we’re the afflicted. So, may you make
space in your being to accept the comfort and love of God. “Earth
has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” NOT EVEN 2020.

And
that’s some good Christmas news.

Amen

1United
Methodist Hymnal #510

2Summarized
from Apple Dictionary

3
R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke,” in The New Interpreter’s
Bible Vol. 9 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994): 70.

4 https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-wasnt-born-in-a-stable-and-that-makes-all-the-difference/

Uncategorized

“Breathe” based on Exodus 32:12-23 and Matthew 22:15-22

October 18, 2020
by Sara Baron

Today’s
gospel is one of those really deceptive ones. You think you know
what it means, and then you go to explain it, and it splits out of
your fingers.

The
Jesus seminar puts Jesus’s words, “Give therefore to the emperor
the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are
God’s” in red, indicating that they think this reflects an
authentic teaching of Jesus. In fact, it is one of the statement they
are most sure of, it ranks 7^th.¹

The
challenge for me is that I read the Social Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels this week (which I usually do), and it took issue
with how this text is usually understood.

“In
the twenty-first century, Europeans and Americans generally believe
there are four basic social institutions: kinship, economics,
politics, and religion. These are conceived as separate social
institutions, and people make arguments about keeping them separate.
However, in the world of the New Testament, people attended to only
two institutions as distinctive: kinship and politics. …

In
trying to understand the meaning of Jesus’ statement about rendering
to Cesar and God what belongs to each, therefore it would be
anachronistic to read back into the statement either the modern idea
of separation of church and state or the modern notion that economics
(including the tax system) somehow has a separate institutional
existence in a realm of its own. To assert here the frequent notion
that “two kingdoms” one political/economic and the other
religious, one belonging to Cesar and the other to God, are each
being given their due in the reply of Jesus is to confuse ancient
social patterns with our own.”²

Sooooo….
what does it mean?

I’m
not sure, but my best guess is that the clue comes in Jesus’s
question, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” The answer when
it comes to the coin is “Caesars” What equivalently bears God’s
image?

Well,
our faith tradition says… we do. We are made in God’s image, the
latin is “imago dei” – image of God. The equivalent of the coin
is…. people.

This
is a fantastic answer. It is faith-filled, deep, and sidestepped the
trap they were trying to put Jesus into. Even better, it took a
while to sink in. You hear, “Give to God what is God’s, and you
have to think, ‘well, what is God’s?’” And that is a very useful
question. The coin suddenly seems a lot less important, when both
people and creation are God’s!

For
me, this is a primary identity. Who am I? I am a beloved child of
God, made in God’s image.

It
is also expansive. Who are you? You are a beloved child of God,
made in God’s image.

In
a symposium I did this week, Adam Foss shared about being a District
Attorney, and slowly awakening to the depths of injustice in the
justice system. As he woke up, he realized he needed to ask the
community he worked for what they needed, and he was surprised by
their answers. They told him that what they needed most from him was
“to be seen as humans” and “to be treated with dignity.”

This
has me thinking about how and when society dehumanizes people. There
are, unfortunately, A LOT of answers, but I’ve been wondering mostly
when society has convinced ME to dehumanize people. And, the answer
is sort of difficult to sit with.

Rather
than share my own list, I’m going to give you a moment to consider
yours.

Foss
also talked about the culture in the DA’s office, where if anyone
expressed discomfort (or any other emotion), they were told they were
“getting too close to the case.”

Maybe
that’s what really hit me. Because, if I’m honest, there is so much
pain visible to me, that I have to look away from some or numb myself
from some in order to function. But to do that FEELS like
dehumanizing the ones I look away from (perhaps it is.)

This
week I also came across a suggestion from Nanea Hoffman which said,
“Note to self: you don’t have to continuously monitor all the
disaster and heartbreak in the world. You are not in charge of
outrage and grief. Witness it. Feel the feelings. But remember,
love is where you live.”

And
with that, a deep breath came out.

It
is important to know where injustice is happening, where people are
being dehumanized, and in particular where people are struggling
close to home. BUT, not to know for knowledge sake. To know for
action’s sake – and studies say that the more we know the less
likely we are to act, likely because we get overwhelmed.

One
of the INTENTIONAL strategies of the past few years has been to
overwhelm us with despair. (It has worked far too well.)

But
we are not made in the image of Caesar We are made in the image of
God. We cannot solve all the problems in the world – at once. But
we CAN make significant differences in the world, and in the world
around us. The small actions we take every day matter, because we
are MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. We are God’s hands and feet and LOVE
in the world.

So,
what can you do to live in love this week? How can you let go of
despair? (Feel it but then let it go) How can you, like Moses, savor
the closeness of God? How can you connect with the humanity of
others?

A
suggestion, or two.

Take
deep breaths, stomach expanding breaths, often. Let them out with a
sigh.

It
helps. It may help even more if you remember that you are breathing
and breathing out the Divine.

And,
feel your feelings. Be with the despair, or the grief, or the joy,
or the anger, or the exhaustion. Even better, if you can trust
someone with them, name them. The more you accept your own humanity,
the better you will be able to accept the humanity of others.
Emotions are a reflection of souls.

And
that’s it, my friends. We are ALL made in the image of God. Thanks
be to God. Amen

1Robert
W. Funk, Roy W Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels:
The Search for the Autthentic Words of Jesus (HarperOneUSA,
1993).

2Bruce
J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the
Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) p. 397-8.

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

“Hunger” based on Matthew 20:1-16

September 20, 2020
by Sara Baron

On
Thursday morning I opened an article about the impact of COVID on
hunger around the world. The article started with a picture of a
malnourished child reaching out to a caregiver.

For
better or worse, I closed the article right then, my stomach already
roiling with horror and my whole being already feeling overwhelmed by
the scope of the issue.

As
these things go, a few minutes later I turned to sermon research, in
this case re-reading the chapter on Matthew 20:-16 from William R.
Herzog’s book, “Parables as Subversive Speech.” Herzog reminds
us that the day laborers in Jesus’s day were people who died of
malnutrition, people that society thought of as “expendables.”
Furthermore, these “expendable people” were the ones whose labor
enriched wealthy vineyard owners along with kings, emperors, the
military, the bureaucrats, and the religious leaders. The work of
agriculture was profitable, but as with any other industry, the
cheaper the labor, the more profits for those on top. Thus, the work
of day laborers was considered so invaluable as to be worth less than
what a person needed to eat in a day.

This
did not make my stomach feel any better.

Then,
I thought of the book, “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold Story of
Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg that the Intersectional Justice
Committee book club read recently. In that book, Isenberg explains
that this country was colonized and founded while assuming that ~15%
of the WHITE population was “expendable,” in this case referred
to as “white trash.” This is IN ADDITION TO the dehumanization
of Native Americans as their land was stolen, the enslavements of
Africans and their descendants, and the consistent dehumanizing of
all people of color.

When
I read “White Trash,” I was horrified to realize that the people
who were considered “expendable” as our country was founded and
as it has continued – the ones sent to work in mines regardless of
safety conditions, the ones sent to build the railroads and to
dynamite mountains, for example, whose safety didn’t matter because
there were always more people who could be brought in to work – and
whose wages didn’t matter because there were always people willing to
work for anything, the ones who died young after hard lives — were
just the same as those day laborers that Jesus talks about. AND
they’re the same people who live with food insecurity in the richest
nation in history, the same people for whom subpar education is
deemed sufficient, the same people from whom wages are often stolen
without recourse.

We
still have “expendable” people in our society, we just don’t talk
about it explicitly. Worse yet, our country’s policies exacerbate
wealth inequality around the world, so that there are even more
people even more desperately poor and “expendable” outside the US
than in it (and within the US the number of people we deem unworthy
of sufficient nutrition is a moral atrocity.)

And,
of course, the pandemic has made this all worse. Were we once had
10-15% of the population of the US going hungry, at least double that
amount are now estimated to be hungry. 30% of our population.

Now,
there are some things we can do, if we are able. We can give to
SICM, to help the food pantry provide food in Schenectady. (They
also need volunteers.) Similarly we can give to or help with the
Sunday Morning breakfast here, or at the Regional Food Bank. The
organization “Bread for the World”¹
is our long term partner in education and advocacy to end hunger, and
they have many ways for us to respond.

But,
for now, I want to look at this parable.

Because,
not only do I believe Herzog that this parable was about the
struggles of day laborers and the ways that vineyard owners and the
systems they were a part of excited to oppress the poor and extract
wealth for the wealthy – I think Jesus TOLD THIS STORY to day
laborers.

Because
I think that God and Jesus are on the side of the people the world
sees as “expendable.” And, in particular, I think Jesus’s
ministry was PRIMARILY to the poorest of the poor. So, his teaching
was teaching for those who were struggling, including this story.

Which
should impact how we hear it.

The
people the first hearers of the story associated with was the day
laborers – the people who had lost their ancestral land, had no
notable trade or craft, and had fallen through the safety net. The
people waiting and hoping to be needed in the fields and paid so they
can eat that day.

The
first shock in the story is that the landowner comes out to hire them
himself. That didn’t happen in real life, but it helps the story
exemplify WHO is benefitting the most from their labor. The second
thing to note is that while the laborers hired first got to agree to
a wage – not a good one, but the normal one – the next sets of
laborers went into the fields without even an agreement. The final
set didn’t even get a say – they were SENT to the fields without
being told if they’d be paid.

Another
thing to notice is that this a VINEYARD and not a wheat field or
vegetable plot. The owner of a vineyard had to be wealthier than
average, because a vineyard took 4 years of intense labor as an
investment before profit would come in. That said, it was more
profitable than other land use. So wealthy people liked to buy other
people’s ancestral sustainable farmland and make it into vineyards.

The
owner’s response to the complaints of those who worked 12 hours being
paid the same as those who worked 1 is to dismiss the value of their
work. That was especially insulting because WORK was all that day
laborers had to offer. That is, the owner told the laborers they
were worthless.

However,
the parable tells us something else. The landowner had to keep
hiring people all day because there was so much work to do that he
wasn’t even able to estimate how much labor he needed. The vineyard
would not have been able to exist, much less produce anything,
without labor. The sub-subsistence wages of the laborers were part
of making the vineyard owner even wealthier, but moreso, the LABOR of
the day laborers was IMPERATIVE to his wealth. Wealth that, again,
he is making off of the land that they once used to LIVE and not just
struggle to survive.

The
parable also makes clear that the owner’s actions aimed at keeping
the day laborers competing with each other. Herzog says,

To
ensure a timely harvest, the landowner needed their labor. Yet the
lack of cohesion so evident among the day laborers allowed the
landowner to conquer them by dividing them. This is why the owner
spoke only to ‘one of them.’ The banishment of that one served to
intimidate the others and put them in their place. … [The owner]
smothered the truth that he was dependent on them and, as as result,
that they could have power but only a power tha grew out of their
solidarity. Divided, they would fall one by one before the withering
hostility and judgement of the elite. (Herzog, 96)

Jesus
told a story that let his hearers see more clearly the power they
had, the worth and value they had, and the need they had to work
together instead of competing with each other. The system is was
designed to oppress. The system today is too. And opting out isn’t
really an option for most people – at least not alone. But
together we can choose a different system.

Our
country has more than enough food for all the people. Our WORLD has
more than enough food for all people. The issue is not food, the
issue is distribution. And Jesus reminds us that people working
together can work for the common good.

May
Jesus inspire us to work for the common good, and may God strengthen
us and offer us wisdom so our work is productive. Amen

Questions
for reflection:

What
do you see being done for the common good?

How
should food be distributed?

In
what ways does society treat some people as “expendable”?

What
do you see being done to change that?

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 20, 2020

Uncategorized

“Rock” based on Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20

August 23, 2020
by Sara Baron

Hi.
My name is Sara Baron and I have the great delight of being the
pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Schenectady.

I
also haven’t been with the church in quite a while, even in this
medium. If you’ve joined us in the past 3 months, I may be a new
face to you – I’ve been out on family leave welcoming our child
into the world. The past months have been a roller coaster of
emotions for me: fear as our child was born too early, joy at his
capacity to thrive, gratitude at the support we received, horror as
the pandemic got worse, horror at the continued violence against
brown and black bodies, appreciation for those who protested and
organized in response, frustration at sitting on the couch nursing
instead of being in the midst of the response, melancholy at
isolation because of the pandemic, joy in connection because of the
gift of a back yard, wonder at watching our child grow, fear
regarding my own capacities to work and parent, and then relief to
remember how much I love this work and the people of this community.

Thanks
for listening to my highlights – I hope to have the chance to hear
yours soon.

In
the midst of all of this, I’ve also struggled with my own self
judgement over “productivity.” When I went into the hospital to
have our son, I’d written worship, outlined the sermon, and prepared
the children’s sermon. I REALLY wanted to just finish worship before
stepping into the role of patient, but I KNEW that if I recorded a
sermon with the hospital wall in the background, I’d be taken to task
about it for the rest of my life. It didn’t change my frustration at
being unable to finish.

One
among you sent this card

to us,
and it has embodied the past 3 months for me. For those who know me
well, you may know that this has driven me up the wall. I spent a
lot of time dreaming what I’d do with my next “break from
breastfeeding” only to learn that feeding a extra tiny preemie
doesn’t really COME with breaks. Or at least it didn’t for me. I’m
told I got an extra special dose of being velcroed to the couch.

What
is funny is that this was only different for me in matter of degree.
For my whole life I’ve had a running to do list in my read, one that
would require every day to be 3 days long and each day to be
PERFECTLY efficient, and every day I’ve been frustrated that I
couldn’t complete the tasks on my mental to do list. And then, I
feel guilty for what I didn’t get done.

I’m
under the impression this isn’t just me.

All
of which I share to admit how I EMOTIONALLY respond to this gospel
lesson today – the one where Peter gets called “the rock on which
I’ll build my church” and I think, “WOW, he must have gotten a
lot done to get that title, which is further proof that a human CAN
do that much and so I should be able to and I’ve failed.” Which,
if I’m honest, isn’t a great emotional response to this gospel, but
it is MY emotional response right now, and I have a fear that many
people can follow me.

There
are some ironies in my response of course. One is that Jesus didn’t
ever SAY this, the story we read is the construction of the later
Christian community expressing their faith as well as their
leadership structure. The other irony is that this is said to PETER
who is the disciple best known for getting everything wrong and
putting his foot in his mouth. Peter, in the gospels, isn’t the
paradigm of perfection and productivity. Peter is the paradigm of
missing the point. He wants to build tabernacles at the
transfiguration, he encourages Jesus to stay out of Jerusalem for
safety’s sake, he denies Jesus after the last supper, he refuses
footwashing.

It
is a funny way to be a rock – but actually, it is rather
historically true. ALL the gospels tell us that Peter usually missed
the point, loudly, while Acts and church history tell us that he
because the leader among the disciples after Jesus’ death. Its a bit
confusing, unless you remember that God doesn’t judge us the way
we judge ourselves or others.

Which,
dear ones, is one of the most significant pieces of faith, and bears
rather constant repeating. Our value is NOT based on our
productivity, it is NOT based on our consumption, it is NOT based on
our knowledge, it is NOT based on our success. Our “value” is
inherent: we are beloved children of God, and we are loved because
we are God’s, and nothing we can do can take away God’s love. We do
NOT have to earn God’s grace, and we do not have to prove our worth.

If
you are like me, knowing this may be easy, living it is not.

But
it is a big deal. Because we believe this applies to EVERYONE, and
if everyone is beloved by God… the world is really messed up.

Now,
I believe that our core identity is being beloved by God and our
productivity is irrelevant. AND I think that there is a reasonable
question that follows the wonder of being loved by God…. “What is
an appropriate response to God’s love?” Or perhaps, “How can I
express my gratitude?” Or, maybe, “That’s wonderful, how would
God most like me to share my joy?” (I’ve
heard of a preschool Sunday School teacher who asked it as “What
makes God smile?”)

I
believe these questions are VERY different from “What do I have to
DO to be worthwhile or worthy?” but we tend to get them confused.
Or at least, I do.

From
my knowledge of God and the Bible, the answer to the questions about
responding to God’s love are: to love in return. Love God, and love
your neighbor – two sides of the same coin.

But
this can get tricky too. Because sometimes we think that the harder
we work to love, the more worthy that love is. But Paul’s sharing in
Romans helps counteract that idea.

Paul
encourages us to bring our WHOLE SELVES to God, to worship with body
and spirit. We aren’t meant to leave our weaknesses or struggles
behind in our God-life. Responding to God’s love is something we do
AS WE ARE, not while pretending to be perfect. #peter

Paul
urges us not to be conformed to this world – and I think that is
the world where our “value” is in our production and consumption.
Rather, we are freed to see as God sees, to love as God loves, to be
transformed by grace and to transform the world around us. Paul
encourages the members of the church – the parts of the Body – to
use the gifts they have toward the kindom. Not to use the gifts they
WANT to have, nor the ones they THINK are most valuable, nor even the
ones others want them to have, but to use the gifts the HAVE. It
even seems a little bit like the wisdom of the IJ book “How to Be
an Anti Racist” by Dr. Ibram Kendi – which invites us to take
hierarchy out of how we see cultures and people and instead celebrate
people and peoples where and how they are. So too the gifts of God.

Then,
it almost seems like God’s good gifts enable us to do the work God
asks of us, and it isn’t all arduous. It sounds as if I’ve been
often been making things harder than they need to be.

Peter
is the rock on which the church is built, and the church has made it
2000 years or so. The gifts he had, with God’s help, were sufficient
for the task. Friends, the gifts we have are too – and they don’t
always have to be forced. We are already loved for who we are. The
question is not what we have to do not what we should do. The
questions are what we can do and want to do! That’s how we too can
be rocks for the kindom.

Thanks
be to God. Amen

Questions:

Where
do you most tend to try to prove your worth?

What
most effectively reminds you that you are already beloved of God, as
you?

What
parts of kindom building bring you joy?

How
does it feel to be reminded that Peter was imperfect and still of
value?

What
would it look like in your life to allow yourself a bit more grace to
love LESS arduously?

—

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