Jesus Was a Jew

December 7, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Jesus Was a Jew” based on Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 and Romans 15: 4-13

This Advent I’ve been reading sermons of Christian resistance from the Third Reich, working from a book edited by Dean G. Stroud entitled “Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow.” I have to admit this week’s sermon “Jesus as a Jew” by Karl Barth was one I was inclined to skip. However, it was a sermon preached on the second Sunday of Advent in Lectionary Year A (which we are also in) and that seemed like a good reason to include it. That and it was courageous as all get out, which I have to respect.
The issue is that while Barth is considered by many to be “the greatest protestant theologian of the twentieth century”1, I read his seminal book in seminary and found it a combination of repetitive, boring, and offensive. Rather to my dismay, this week, I found that I still HAVE the book on my bookshelves in my office which indicates it is likely time for me to curate my library.

That said, the claim of “greatest protestant theologian of the twentieth century” would probably be a good enough reason to read one of his sermons, and having read this one I found I liked it a lot more than “Church Dogmatics.” Barth was born in 1886 in Switzerland, educated there and in Germany, and when Hitler took power he was a professor at the University of Bonn, a position he held until “He was forced to leave Germany in 1934 after refusing to swear the loyalty oath to Hitler that was required of all university professors as civil servants.”2

This sermon, from 11 months after Hitler consolidated his power and became chancellor, took on a major support leg of Nazi propaganada:

To fortify the indoctrination of racial propaganda, Nazis peppered the media and the schools with lies and caricatures about Jews. Schoolchildren learned that Jews were like poisonous mushrooms; they may look like other people, but they were deadly to Germans. Running through every speech by Hitler, Goebbels, and other Nazis was the two-pronged idea that Jews were the lowest animals in existence and yet due to their remarkable cunning they were the number one threat to German life and culture. Nazis passed law after law to isolate Jews from fellow Germans and to make their lives difficult and miserable 3

Furthermore:

Given the rising tide of anti-Semitic hatred in Germany, Christians who favored the Nazi worldview faced the awkward situation of worshiping a Jew, a man like those the Nazis were railing against. Jesus was a Jew. This basic truth of history made Jesus unacceptable to Nazis. Something had to be done to ease the tension between the Christian faith and the new politics. The solution was to transform Jesus from Jew to Aryan. Those wanting to change Jesus’ identity simply asserted that he never was a Jew in the first place. Thus it was that a pro-Nazi teacher of religion in a German school simply told students that Galilee had never been a Jewish region and that the Jews had captured the territory in 104 B.C. Galilee’s majority population had been Aryans living under Jewish domination. Jesus was an Aryan, the man told his pupils, whose way of thinking and acting was in sharp contrast to Jewish ways. The teacher then quoted John 8:44, where Jesus tells his opponents that their father is the devil, to prove that Jews were the sons and daughters of evil. Once they had turned Jesus into an Aryan hero, they could make him serve Nazi intentions.4

In this environment, where power was being consolidated by dehumanizing Jewish people, Barth wrote this sermon about “Jesus as a Jew,” preached it, made copies of it, and SENT ONE TO HITLER. In response to a critic in his own congregation, Barth responded, “anyone who believes in Christ, who was himself a Jew, and died for Gentiles and Jews, simply cannot be involved in the contempt for Jews and ill-treatment of them which is now the order of the day.”5

I may not have liked this guy’s seminal work but my goodness he was the real deal. His sermon emphasizes that Christians are LUCKY to have been brought into God’s fold which was originally intended for only the Jews. He really goes to great lengths to point out that our inclusion is a sign of God’s mercy, and not our worthiness, for example,

This then is the reason that the Gentiles also glorify God, because God has shown and confirmed his mercy also to them in Christ crucified in the midst of Israel.” And in the middle of the sermon he just says it, “Jesus was a Jew. But by his bearing and carrying away the sins of the whole world, including our own, in the sin of the Jews, this salvation that comes from the Jews has come also to us. We rejoice at this door opening so wide if we can also rejoices that there is a word of God and a church of Jesus Christ…

Now we are able to understand the other thing our text has to tell us about the church of Jesus Christ: “As Christ has received us to the glory of God, so receive one another.” This is a law without exceptions. This is an order, a strict and inflexible order.6

He goes on to say that Gentiles and Jews are to receive each other, as united by God’s covenant, as united in God’s work in the world, as united more than anything by God’s mercy. We are, he reminds us, both “children of the living God.”7 (Hosea 1:10)

Now, nothing Barth says about Jesus and his Jewishness is to my mind particularly radical. That said, others seem to disagree. When I was in seminary, while home on break I had a particularly confusing conversation with my grandmother. She had been raised Roman Catholic, in what turns out to be a very conservative diocese and had not spent time as an adult learning more about her faith. So, somehow I mentioned that Jesus was Jewish, and she replied, “don’t you say that about our Lord!” To which I replied, “no, really, Nana, he WAS Jewish” and she repeated “Don’t you say that about our Lord!” This went on for some time.

Anti-semitism was alive and well in her Roman Catholic upbringing in Wilkes Barre, PA, even as her brothers and classmates fought to defeat Nazi-ism in World War II.

So, just so we are all on the same page, the propaganda of the Nazi’s and my grandmother’s church were WRONG and Jesus WAS Jewish. And it shouldn’t be radical to state facts like that, unless of course those in power are changing facts for their own benefit. Somehow, it feels like the gutsiest of things to preach “Jesus was Jewish” and sent the sermon to Hitler even though basic truth telling isn’t supposed to require radical moral courage.

And yet, particular times call for particular realities. In Hitler’s time they called the changes they were making to Christianity “Positive Christianity” and that included things like the Aryan Jesus, and the worship of Hitler and Nazi-ism. In our day, it is “White Christian Nationalism” which funny enough seems to have a lot of imagery of a very white Jesus as well.

It turns out that religion is a very significant factor in meaning making in societies, in naming right and wrong, in shared stories and shared myths, in supporting or defeating those in power. Those who want to abuse power need to find ways to abuse the traditions of a God who calls us to “receive each other” without limits and draw limits in who counts as a beloved Child of God and who doesn’t.

So, while we’re on the most basic truths of all today, let me add: EVERYONE IS A BELOVED CHILD OF GOD, THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS. Or, as my new BFF Barth said it, As Christ has received us to the glory of God, so receive one another.” This is a law without exceptions. This is an order, a strict and inflexible order.8

Beloveds, when we all live by these simple truths, we will be living the kindom of God, where shalom is found and peace prevails. And until then, we can bring about the kindom by practicing the kindom values and treating everyone as a beloved child of God. Thanks be to God! Amen

1 Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 62.

2 Ibid, 63.

3 Ibid, 14.

4 Ibid, 17.

5 Ibid, 64.

6 Ibid, 71-72.

7 Ibid, 72.

8 Ibid, 72.

December 7, 2025

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

Sermons

Hear the Dream

November 16, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.” (Isaiah 65:19, NRSV) The people will be WELL. All the people will be well.

Can you imagine?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine. Dream. Breathe.

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

A new heaven and a new earth indeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2Brueggemann, 247.

3Brueggemann, 248

4Ibid

5Ibid

6Ibid

7Brueggemann, 249.

8Brueggemann, 248.

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

Nov. 16, 2025

Sermons

100 Sheep

September 14, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amy Jill Levine explains this really well.

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

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

She goes on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmm.

Help us all, Holy One. Amen

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

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

3 Levine, 34

September 14, 2025

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

Sermons

To Be Set Free

August 24, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“To Be Set Free” based on Psalm 103: 1-8 and Luke 13:10-17

I’m going to preach on Luke. But, before I do, can we take just one more moment to be grateful for the Psalm? It is magnificent. The words echo throughout history, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” It contains those universal truths that God’s steadfast love endures forever, that God is a healer and forgiver, that God is satisfying and satiating. It is pretty rare for me to read scripture and not fight with it, to instead just sigh with relief to hear good truths. This is one of the texts that does so for me. It is truth-filled, grace-filled and wise. If it is what you need today, you may want to just pick it up and read it over and over letting the wonder of it flow through you. 😍

Now, Luke.

The story seems simple. Jesus was teaching in a Synagogue on the Sabbath, and a woman showed up who had been crippled for 18 years. She was unable to stand up straight. “When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”

And, just like that, I have a lot of questions. I think the biggest one is: why her?

It seems impossible that she was the only person struggling who was there that day. Groups of humans always include people who are struggling, including with health. Was she the one who struggled the longest? The most severely? The most visibly?

Or was it just that she was the one he was ABLE to heal? Was she “ready” (whatever that might mean)? Was she open to it? Were his particular gifts well matched for that particular healing?

Or did she grab his attention in some particular way? Did she smile at him? Did she grimace so quietly no one was able to notice? Was it that she was there in the community of faith despite it all? Did he know her from before? Was it how others responded to her that he could tell if he healed her he’d heal then all?

That’s the thing about healing, they’re even larger than they seem. The diseases and illnesses and chronic pains of life separate people from their communities, and from the fullness of their lives. When a person is healed of any of it it not only heals their bodies but their whole being and heals the community they’re part of.

Maybe the whole community needed healing and by healing her he could bring them all to wholeness. Maybe that’s why it was her.

We aren’t going to know. But we are allowed to wonder.

I also end up wondering: what ails us? What has bent us over and kept us from being able to stand upright for all these years? If Jesus were here and ready to heal us, what would Jesus pick to heal here?

Maybe it would look the same… an injury, an illness, a chronic pain. But maybe those end up being the easy ones and Jesus would look more deeply. Maybe the healing some of us need is forgiveness. For something that happened years ago that we’ve been guilt-ily dragging along with us ever since. Perhaps Jesus would be looking for places healing would be in the capacity to let go of the guilt, and live in the now.

Maybe we need healing from the nagging worry that we’re not enough: not good enough, not kind enough, not something or another enough. Perhaps, then, the healing would be Jesus reminding us that we’re Divinely-made, Divinely-loved, and not required to be or do anything to earn it. A time of being able to “rest assured” that the God loves us and we’re not alone.

Maybe the healing we need is from grief that aches in us for years on end without changing. A healing that would help us move from simply aching to also remembering the sweetness of who or what we lost.

Maybe the healing Jesus would offer would be the hardest kind of all – the healing of the traumas we hold. To hold us safely and tenderly and heal us from the inside out, starting with the hurts that are most tender and long-held within. I think that kind of healing would make the crippled woman standing up seem mundane. To reassure those of us who have experienced the unthinkable that it wasn’t our fault, that we didn’t do anything to deserve it, it didn’t taint us, that we are perfectly lovable as we are, and we are really and truly safe.

Imagine how that could impact our lives and our community, if the deepest, most traumatic wounds we carry were healed! Some among us might be unrecognizable with the burdens lifted off their shoulders. Hmmm. I guess they might be able to stand up straight, for the first time in a really long time.

I am under the impression that God is pro-healing. I am so under the impression that healing is much harder than any of us wish it was, including when it comes to the guilt, emotions, fears, and traumas we carry.

So I invite us to imagine. To take this story as our own, and imagine Jesus here, teaching away, blowing our minds with his loving insights, and then one by one turning to each of us with God’s own love for us and setting us free from our ailments. What would Jesus chose to free you from so you can be whole, reconnect more fully with your community, find and share peace?

[Pause for pondering]

Perhaps some of the answers we’ve named in the silence of our hearts ARE things that we are ready to let go of and able to be healed from. Others of them them are just bigger than our capacity to let go at this point. But what would it feel like to take seriously God’s wish for us to be well? To be whole? To be freed from what we carry? And to consider how that might impact others around us?

Perhaps, as well, it makes sense to focus on the ways Jesus acted to heal the community, even by healing one person in it. Maybe we need healing as a whole community too. Healing from the pain of being in homophobic denomination for 50+ years. Healing from the pain of misdeed and abuse from clergy. Healing from the pain of misdeeds and abuse of fellow church members. Healing from disagreements and dis-enchantments and ways we mistrusted or misused each other. Healing from the pain of being able to see what the world is supposed to be and what it is. Healing, maybe even, from the times when the church seemed strong and powerful and full and now doesn’t. Or, on the contrary, the pain of yearning for others to be at peace with the miracle that is church now. There is plenty of shared communal pain.

What would it be like to see the love of God transforming that pain, freeing us from it, letting us stand strong? What would it mean for us to hear God calling and hear Jesus tell us we are free from our communal ailments? How might we respond differently? Where might there be more flexibility, more patience, more joy, more hope?

I often fear that there is a pain in churches in America in the 21st century that relates profoundly to decline. There were many people in pews in the 1950s are there is a fear that the fewer people sitting in them now is a sign of failure (of some sort.) Having looked at it historically, I don’t think that’s the case, but it is a place I hear Jesus calling us to healing and freedom anyway.

In this community of faith, we tend to rather love science. Most of us are inclined to trust doctors and medicines too, although plenty of have concerns about some aspects of Western medicine while we’re mentioning it. 😉 Nevertheless, we may struggle to understand what it means that Jesus healed someone’s crippled back with his words. That question may distract us from other meanings of the passage.

One of the most important facets of Jesus’s healing was that by healing the physical ailments of individuals he healed whole communities. He took away what separated people from life-giving relationships. He re-united them. He took seriously the needs people have to connect.

The ancients didn’t separate body and mind like many of us have been taught to, which is probably good because they were likely right! Bodies and minds and spirits are all intermingled and impact each other – just like all of us impact each other along the way. Healing a body, or a mind, or a spirit heals the person and the people around them. Healing has ripple effects.

We also can hear in this passage and all healing passages God’s desires for our wholeness and well being. Which is where I think we are led today. God yearns for our healing, our wholeness, our well-being. Likely, for most of us, there are things we can let go of and be free from and thereby be healed. Let today serve as an invitation to to hear, “beloved child of God, you are set free from your ailment.” And know that as you are freed, so too are we all.

Thanks be to God. Amen

August 24. 2025

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

Peace Be With You

April 27, 2025March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Peace Be With You” based on Acts 5:27-32 and John 20:19-31

“Peace be with you.” It is repeated 3 times in this passage, and that’s pretty notable. There are many possible explanations for it. It is quite common in the Bible when there are experiences of the Divine that the human being experiencing something extraordinary is greeted with “Peace be with you,” I’ve often wondered if that’s because they’re usually so startled by what’s happening that they need a soothing to even settle in and listen.

But, even then, the words are very specific. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you” might also be consoling, but that’s not the norm. The norm is “peace be with you.”

And, of course, whenever we’re dealing with the Gospel of John we have to assume that the language being used reflects the early church as the Johannine community knew it, and I think by the time John was written it was common for Christians to greet each other with “Peace by with you” or “The peace of Christ be with you.” It is assumed to be one of the most ancient parts of Christian worship, we do not have any sources of early worship that predate the tradition of passing the peace. Which raises a question of if they said that cause they remembered Jesus saying it or they remembered Jesus saying it because they said it. Both are good.

Based on both of these ideas – that this is what gets said during a Divine appearance and that this is something Christians have said to each other since maybe the beginning – this phrase is really notable. And then we have it THREE times in this passage alone.

I’m thinking that these particular words are really important, maybe even core to the Jesus-movement.

Now, the word “peace” in English is an accurate and valid translation of the word “peace” in the Bible, but it is much SMALLER than the word in Hebrew and Arameic. In English peace is primarily the absence of war and violence, and then might refer to a lovely state known as “inner-peace.” But in Hebrew the word is deeper and wider. Shalom refers to the kind of peace we know, and then it keeps going. Because it includes things like root causes. So Shalom has aspects of absence of violence and war, and tranquility, but also the things you need to get there like adequate access to resources, healthy relationships, family and friends and neighbors who also have adequate access to resources and healthy relationships.

These days when I think of Shalom I often connect it with the African word “ubuntu.” In 2018 the Love Your Neighbor Campaign – a great organization we’ve been a part of that was working for the collective well-being of people in the United Methodist Church1 – put out a statement on ubuntu as a means of clarifying our priorities as a movement. While not short, I can’t in good faith cut any of it, so here it is in wholeness:

Ubuntu is an African concept that embodies a way of life. In simple terms, it is translated to mean ‘humanity’, where humanity is based on the understanding of interdependence and community life. Ubuntu is more than an expression, value, or philosophical concept. Rather it refers to a way of life that is visible in all spheres of human existence. A lifestyle that values the humanity of others as an imperative for one’s existence. It is lived recognizing that we are all created in the image of God and should do unto others as we wish it be done unto us. It says ‘I am because you are, we are not born into a single family but a community’.

Ubuntu encompasses virtues that invite us to a new way of life and our journey as Christians. In this way of life, human dignity is an inherent and inalienable virtue of all humans, from birth, regardless of any distinctive feature and circumstances, and should be protected by all at all times. When we recognize each other as created in the image of God, protection of one’s dignity and worth is a collective obligation tied our existence as we share the pains and joys of humanity.

Ubuntu invites us to extend grace to everyone, regardless of our views or situations. God’s grace is available to all, everywhere and all the times. We recognize that our lives are defined by free and undeserved favor from God and are called to extend that grace to everyone. Our humanity isn’t defined by our efforts or status but instead defined by remembering that because we have freely received, freely we give. The consideration of others isn’t based on formulated expressions of exclusion, but rather in embracing all people, God does not exclude anyone from God’s expression of grace.

Relationship is a key element of an interdependent and community life. Relationship is more than knowing my face and name. It includes sharing struggles and successes, living and working together on our path to a good earthly life and perfection to God. We are brothers, sisters, siblings, not because we think and act the same way, but because we are all created in the image of God and were created to help one another. The image of God in you isn’t temporary nor based on my perceptions or limitations, but is a permanent reminder that we all originate from God whose infinite grace and love compel me to uphold your dignity and value in our society.

God reminds us of what God expects from us, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. Thus, we share the collective responsibility to stand for one another when justice is denied to any one of us. We stand for one another because your safety and wellbeing is directly tied to mine, injustice is rotational, solidarity and love are the greatest weapons we have. Justice isn’t the decision of the majority, but rather the moral option that safeguards the welfare and integrity of all members of the family.

In a global but polarized world where individualism has led to racial profiling, injustice to the poor and vulnerable, religious intolerance, tribalism and nepotism, xenophobia, rejection of refugees and discrimination to people based on sexual orientation, we have failed to live to higher call of Jesus to love another just as God loves us. Ubuntu is a reminder that we share a common origin and destiny, our welfare is tied to another and we have the collective responsibility to protect the sacred dignity of our fellows, extend grace and seek justice for all, for our welfare is dependent on their welfare.

Our siblings who recently returned from Africa University reminded us in their presentation about their trip of this important concept that is now understood to be cross-African.

The words written by our African siblings in faith about ubuntu resonate with the profound meanings of shalom in the Bible. It brings the fullness needed back to the phrase “peace be with you.”

And, now, I think, we can hear more fully what it means to share a story about the risen Christ meeting with the disciples and starting the interaction with “peace be with you.” He spoke a blessing. He spoke a truth. He spoke a hope. He spoke a shared vision for the world as it should be. He spoke interconnectedness. And it was repeated THREE times in this one story because it is that central to their experience of God, of the risen Christ, of following Jesus.

To be people of faith in the tradition of Jesus is to be people of peace, of shalom, of ubuntu. It is to be blessed with knowing we are all interconnected and our well-being depends on others’ well-being. It is to be reminded that physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental health are interrelated, and our health impacts each others’ health. It is to seek the well-being of ALL, and not just some. The blessings of peace, of shalom, of ubuntu and the dreaming of the kin-dom of God are one and the same.

This sermon is, I freely admit, review. I haven’t told you much you don’t already know, nor much I don’t repeat on a regular basis. There are good reasons we have “passing the peace” in worship, and I’ve previously done my best to explain it.

The thing is, I’m about to be away for 11 weeks and while I entirely trust Karyn to preach and lead worship while I’m gone, I still feel some responsibility for offering you something to hold on to for a while. There are treacherous things underfoot, all trying to harm God’s beloveds and upset our… well, our peace.

So, for now, I leave you with the simple reminder that “peace be with you” is a fundamental Christian goal, that it has layers and layers of profound meaning, and it is worth spending our lifetimes seeking to live that blessing. Thanks be to God for aiming us well at peace, at shalom, at ubuntu. Amen

1 https://www.lyncoalition.org/

April 27, 2025

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

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December 1, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Be on Guard” based on Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 21:25-36

As a general rule, I really hate Advent texts. I hate them because they’re apocalyptic and messy and scary and generally reflect a future I hope we don’t have.

When I reflected on this with Worship Committee last month, they looked at me knowingly and pointed out that perhaps that’s exactly why we need the Lectionary Advent texts right now. Because 1. we need some connection to our traditions and 2. it feels really real right now.

Which, since you just heard the utter wonder of the Luke 21 text, you can tell I was convinced by those ideas. However, I’m particularly lucky that the Sunday Night Bible Study also just finished reading the book of Daniel and I’m way more aware of the genre of apocalyptic literature in the Bible than I normally am.

I do not, for the record, recommend reading the book of Daniel outside of the context of a Bible Study or without some truly excellent commentaries. However, I had the benefit of reading it with excellent commentaries and insightful fellow readers.

The thing about Daniel, and the book of Revelation, and I think this passage in Luke is: they’re written as resistance literature. They can’t be direct and make the point, “The person who has all the power an is oppressing us with it is not doing God’s will,” because if they say that then anyone who has access to the document will be killed. #OpressiveRegimes So, they put things in different times. Daniel pretends to be from the past, Revelation pretends to be in the future. Then they speak about the abuses of power they see now, and do it in a way that it clear that God is still God and the horrors of this time will come to an end.

They are powerful tools of encouragement, of hope, and of resistance.

But, in order to obscure their points so people don’t die, they’re also a little bit hard to decipher.

I’m not really sure what Luke is trying to get to in today’s passage. (The Jesus seminar is pretty clear this is all Luke’s writing, not reflective directly of Jesus.) What we do know is that the early Christian communities experienced fairly extreme circumstances, and often needed encouragement and resistance literature. It seems that it could be common enough to feel like things were so bad that “people would faint from fear”. But Luke assures the people that things getting bad are just a sign they’re going to get better soon. Because the people needed to be encouraged.

So, beloveds, as people who also might need some encouragement, the part of the passage that encouraged me this week was one little line, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” Oh, I needed that reminder. Be on guard that your heart is not weighed down.

Sweet Jesus, thank you. (Or, rather, thanks Luke.)

Now, Jeremiah goes at this from a different perspective. Which is interesting because Jeremiah is known for being a significant downer as a prophet. But chapter 33 is one of Jeremiah’s “good cop” chapters and Jeremiah encourages the people that the end has not come and good times are going to come again.

Now, I have to admit something to you. I rebel against the word “righteousness.” I don’t think my objections are particularly fair. It is a good word. It means living well, living “rightly,” living in right relationship with God and neighbors. And yet, somehow, when I come across it, I connect it with purity culture and judgmental-ism and people judging whether or not one is righteous and it just ruins the whole thing for me. (I believe others struggle with Justice for similar reasons, and oddly enough I like that one.)

So, I thesaurus-ed “righteous” and the simplest substitute for it is “goodness” which I can handle. With that, we get a passage from Jeremiah that says:

The days are coming, God says, when I’m going to fulfill my promises.

In those days David’s line will continue,

and the leader in the line of David will bring goodness and fairness to everyone.

The people will be safe and well.

Things will be so good that other nations will call my people by the name,

“God is our goodness.”

I like it. Sounds to me like yet another description of that beloved community or kindom of God we’re co-creating with God. God reminds us, even in dark times, not to give up hope.

And Luke reminds us to be on guard so our hearts aren’t weighed down.

Which leads me to invite us to think about both what weighs down our hearts, and what lifts those weights.

I can share that my weights are lifted by:

remembering all the organizations and people working for goodness
jokes and memes that hit at the crux of things with humor
feeling heard
being able to truly hear another person’s heart
singing together
fiction and fictional portrayals that give me a break from the problems of this time
telling God exactly what I’m feeling and why
giving God time to respond (I may use this less than I wish)
helping others
baking
and as I was reminded in today’s Advent Devotional – a snack and a nap!

It’s my list, I don’t know if yours has baking on it or not 😉 But, if you are willing, would you work on making your list? What lifts the weights when your heart is heavy?

And, if you are willing, could you then put that list somewhere you can see it, as a reminder for when your heart needs you to guard it and lighten it’s load?

Someone wise reminded me this week that it is hard to be disconcerted by reality at the same time that others are, because instead of steadying each other, people are pulling each other further off kilter. I say we work on becoming a fire break in the anxiety storm, a source of calm in the midst of it all. We guard our hearts and each other’s, so we can be steady when others are off kilter. Are you with me?

I hope so. Thanks be to God for the opportunity to lift some weights from our hearts, so we have capacity to help others when their weights get too heavy. Amen

December 1, 2025

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

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October 13, 2024
by Sara Baron

“For Everyone Born” based on Luke 14:7-14

Today, in our gospel lesson, we hear Jesus giving dinner party advice. Which is, let’s be honest, kind of unexpected from Jesus. To be fair, the Jesus Seminar thinks this narrative is Luke’s creation – it fits both Hebrew literature and Jesus’s priorities but seems a little bit too much like a narrative device. That said, it does fit both the values we hear throughout the Bible and from Jesus, so I think it is plenty worthy of our attention.

According to my beloved commentary A Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels:

“Dinners were important social occasions that were used to cement social relations. … It was very important who was invited. Moreover, accepting a dinner invitation normally obligated the guest to return the favor. Sometimes guests refused invitations knowing that the return obligation was more than they could or wish to handle.

… Table fellowship across status lines was relatively rare in traditional societies. In the inclusive early Jesus groups, it was an ideal that caused sharp friction on several counts. It was especially difficult for the elite, who risked being cut off by families and social networks if seen in public eating with persons of lower rank. That was especially so in the city (the setting for the text), where status stratification was sharp and members of the elite were expected to maintain it.”1

Well, that helps make sense of why this is in a gospel – this reflects the radicalness of the early Jesus movement and just how significant it was for people to dismiss the social norms. The early Jesus movement mixed people across class lines and dismissed the concept that anyone mattered more than anyone else and it was … well, just the opposite of how things worked then.

And maybe now.

While sometimes I want to think things are better now, when I look at social policy, I notice that our systems and structures treat those living in poverty as expendable. When it would be easier, cheaper, and more just ease people’s lives and we don’t – I can’t find many explanations other than we CHOOSE to enrich the elites at the cost of the lives of the poor and marginalized.

Maybe there isn’t social cost to going to the wrong party in the same way anymore- although that may depend on one’s social circle – but we still function as if some people are expendable and that’s the same core problem.

Thank God the Jesus movement saw through it. Thank God the Hebrew prophets saw through it, and Jesus helped too.

Thank God for each and every person who refuses to be at peace with anyone being expendable and truly believes we are all made in the image of God! My goodness it matters, and my goodness it requires us to keep reminding each other to pay attention!

It requires that we let go of hierarchies – for ourselves and for others. The gospels tells us to always sit at the bottom, instead of fighting for the top. And, we are to invite those whose presence will lower our social standing, instead of those who can help pick us up.

I wonder, if someone had followed Jesus’s advice in this (and I think they did), what it would be like to be one of “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” invited to a fancy dinner party for the elites. It seems like it might be terrifying. Would people have declined because they were playing by the rules and couldn’t repay the invitation – or agree because they were too hungry to care? Would they worry about what to wear and who else would be there? Would they be comforted or upset when others in their own social class were the other attendees?

Because, it turns out that the narratives of who matters are also taught to those society says don’t matter, and it isn’t easy to let go of it even when you know it is a falsehood.

What would it be like to be a host used to formal dinner parties with people engaging in social climbing, to suddenly be at a table with people you are used to ignoring and dismissing? Might it be uncomfortable? Refreshing? Would there be a lot of laughter? What might the host learn?

One of the things I learned in seminary studies of urban ministry is that people do best in mixed income housing situations. And they mean all people. Because we have so much to learn from one another. It benefits kids of families who are living in poverty to see other ways of life. It benefits those who are well off to see that those who are struggling are real people with gifts and passions, and to see their way of life. It creates stronger communities, with more empathy and more creative solutions when we don’t segregate ourselves – by any measure. Further, it encourages everyone to be generous with what they have which benefits all the givers and all the receivers. It makes generative space for everyone born.

It is funny to think of this dinner party. The host might teach about expected table manners, but the guests might be honest enough to admit what doesn’t taste very good 😉 Or exclaim with delight at a delicious bread the host had stopped noticing years ago. Or just be happy to be full, and remind the host that such a gift is one to be truly thankful for.

In our We Cry Justice reading, Carolyn Jean Foster imagines that shared table as a place for meaningful conversations between equal conversational partners – a pretty beautiful image that fits the Jesus movement well. She reminds us that people who are well off often try to solve issues of systemic poverty – but don’t actually understand them, “People who live in poverty know the solutions that would alleviate their suffering; they just do not have the resources. They need to be at the table.”2

In the world, this is still an oddity!! The world still seems to believe that those who are successful are more capable of solving problems for others instead of trusting that those who have experienced injustice are most capable of identifying their own problems.

But what a wonderful thing it is when people follow God’s way instead of the world’s ways! What a wonderful thing it is when we refuse honor, invite the unexpected guests, accept unexpected invitations, and learn from each other!

Now, you may not have noticed it, but socio-economic differences are not the only kind that exist. Around here they may not even be the ones we struggle with the most. I think for many of us, listening to those whose values differ from ours can be incredibly difficult, and even triggering. What would this gospel passage feel like if it said, “don’t invite those who already agree with you, invite those who are voting for a party line you abhor?”

Feels a little harder to me already. But, then I remember all the times God has worked in me to undermine my assumptions.

These floods and hurricanes recently have had me thinking about 2011 when there was major flooding in the town where I was pastoring. I ended up coordinating volunteers who came to help people, some of the holiest work of my life. It also put me in some positions I wouldn’t have otherwise agreed to be in. Some of the volunteers came from churches that didn’t permit women clergy, and refused to accept women’s authority – but they cared more about helping people than avoiding my leadership role. Some of the UM volunteers came from what are now GMC churches and we’d sit down and eat lunches on muddy former lawns and talk about things and realize how many places we disagreed – and how it didn’t seem to matter one little bit when we were both there to share love.

A few weeks ago I shared on facebook a recommended set of questions for just such a dinner party, “How to have conversations with people who disagree with you” which suggested asking:

Which life experiences have shaped your views?
Imagine for a moment that you got what you wanted in regards to this issue. How would your life change?
For those who disagree with you, what would you like them to understand about you?
What do you want to understand about those with whom you disagree?
What is this personally important to you?3

Those aren’t questions about changing each other’s minds, but they are about actually hearing each other- about re-humanizing each other – about learning! I may never agree with someone who wants to cut SNAP benefits, but it is entirely possible that I can learn form their perspective and come to a more nuanced understanding of what could work better than what we have now!

We are in conversations right now about creating some spaces to talk with those with whom we think we disagree. I think those are exactly the holy places Jesus wants to invite us into. The Gospel tells us so.

Thanks be to God for holy moments when we can speak and listen and be formed by our compassion into people even more able to love all of God’s people – everyone born. Amen

1Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) “Textual Notes: Luke 16:1-16” p. 285-6.

2Carolyn Jean Foster, “50: Band-aids or Justice” in We Cry Justice, ed. Liz Theoharis (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021) p. 217, used with permission.

3Source: Solutions Journalism, posted by “Unfundamentalist”

October 13, 2024

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

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September 29, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Kindom Come” based on Luke 14:16-30 and Revelation 21:1-4

Last Sunday several people mentioned that someone has been sleeping under the window to the church office. They weren’t complaining, just mentioning. Mostly because it is a bit of an unusual place for someone to sleep on this property. We all bemoaned the reality that we live in a society that doesn’t HOUSE all people, despite our collective wealth.

I’ve been thinking about it this week though. I’m simply aghast. The more I study the Bible and spend time with those who love God, the more the meta-narratives of capitalism lose their power. Because capitalism says life is a competition and you can win or lose. Worse, capitalism pretends it is an even playing field and blames those who can’t win for their burdens in life. Capitalism says the solution to hunger is to let hunger motivate people to work, the solution to people being unhoused is to let people get motivated to be housed, etc. Blame those who struggle. That’s the collective capitalistic narrative. Along with celebrate and praise those who “win” – even if the hoarding of wealth is exactly the reason so many people struggle so much.

In the face of the myths of capitalism, I am grateful to be a person of faith. I am grateful to spend time with people whose lives are defined by compassion. I am grateful to spend time with the Bible, and with the stories of Jesus calling out the “pre-industrial domination system” of his day so that we too can see the domination systems of our day.

More than anything though, I’m grateful to be able to hold a different vision of what things should be. It keeps me safe from those myths of capitalism that if we “just tweak it a little bit, everything will turn out fine.” I’ll admit it, sometimes it hurts to think about how things should be, because it clarifies how far we are from it. And yet, I’d rather dream with God of true justice than simply numb myself to the realities of the present.

In the end of Revelation, we are given an in depth consideration of the kin-dom of God on earth. That is, of God’s dream. The central idea is that there is no longer any distance between God and the people, and once that is true, all kinds of goodness flows. In fact, Revelation says sadness and even death will fall away. I guess, perhaps, the idea could be that if afterlife is union with God, then once there is no distance between God and people there is also no difference between life and death? I don’t know.

I do know that dreaming of life as God would have it be really matters. It grounds us. It aims us. It keeps us dreaming and hopeful. The Bible is full of clues about what God dreams for us. In the stories of the feeding of the 5000 we are reminded than when we trust enough to share what we have there ends up being more than enough for everyone. In the healing stories are are told that God cares about us being well – and being connected to each other so our communities can be well.

And in the gospel lesson today we are shown what it can look like to respond to violence with nonviolence. Jesus did set things off. He did. He was sharing God’s dreams and claiming them:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because The Holy One has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

The people respond, “isn’t this guy a poor man’s son, what right does he have to claim this dream as his to fulfill?” And then Jesus pushes their buttons by reminding them that God doesn’t care about human hierarchies – who is wealthy or important, who is powerful or healthy, who “matters or doesn’t.” God cares about PEOPLE, and Jesus claims God’s dreams as a person who also cares about people.

Time and time again we see that turning the world right side up is deeply threatening to those who hold undue power in the upside down world we know best. And those who hold undue power will keep it through any means necessary – usually starting with violence. So Jesus sets them off, they respond with violence, and he simply walks away.

How?

We don’t know. I mean, I like thinking of it like one of those cartoons where the people trying to harm someone are so chaotic that the intended victim just crawls out of the pile unscathed, but that’s probably only because I can’t think of any other way to conceive of it.

In a story that will become repetitive though, violence comes for Jesus. And violence is used to getting its own way. But Jesus sees through it all. He sees the violence for what it is, and what it intends to accomplish and he simply dismisses it. Maybe this story is really just foreshadowing his death and resurrection. Violence can bring its worst, and it can wreck incredible havoc, but God’s love CANNOT be stopped. Not even death stops God’s work in the world. You can’t beat it down. You can’t threaten it into obedience. You can’t stop God’s love.

You can take it to the top of the cliff intending to throw it off, and God’s love just walks away.

Violence is the domain of the empowered, but violence holds no power over God’s love.

I think, for me, remembering that nonviolence is the way of Jesus and the expression of God’s love is an inroad into understanding the kindom of God.

A place with no violence. No one is raped. No one is murdered. No one is abused. No one is neglected. No one is bullied. No one is threatened. No one is poked and prodded into being a smaller, weaker version of their full selves. No one lives in fear.

And to be without fear would imply that basic needs are being met. People are clothed, housed, medically cared for, fed well, and able to get good sleep. Because when you don’t have those things, fear creeps in.

I remember hearing Walter Brueggemann lecture on Pharaoh and the power of the Empire – and being surprised when he started to talk about the importance of universal healthcare. But for him, the Empire keeps people down with fear and violence, and to be free from that fear and violence includes being able to be healed when sick or injured. He then went on to talk about what would happen in our society if people weren’t obligated to work full time jobs to maintain and pay for healthcare. He talked about artists being able to make art, and parents being able to give attention to their children, about those who were sick being able to stop working to heal, those who had dreams for making things better being able to take the leap to follow their dreams. That all of that got easier if health insurance wasn’t tied to full time work.

The kindom. The fear-free kindom of God.

You see how nonviolence is an inroad, and once we start walking that path all sorts of wonders become possible? For me that idea of death and sadness going away is just hard to fathom, it is so far away. But the wonder that can come with each step towards nonviolence, that’s worth seeking.

What if society weren’t so scary? What if it wasn’t a competition to live? What impact would that have? I think perhaps it could improve everyone’s mental health, lower the desire to numb out with addictive substances, and make a whole lot of space for the true delights of life – chats with friends, games, walks in the woods, gardening, … laughter.

Jesus set things off. MLK Jr. did too. So, too, does this church. Its in your DNA. We travel the path of nonviolence, we travel guided by God’s unstoppable love, we travel towards fearlessness and resilience. We travel the way of the kindom of God, bringing others along with us and trodding down the path to make it easier for those who will follow us.

Dear ones, each and every time we choose love and nonviolence in our words and our actions, in our decisions and our values, we build the kindom of God. Our lives matter because we too are asked to turn the world right side up, and God is working with us to make what we do matter for the long run.

Imagine. Just imagine, what it will be like when fear can take the backseat and love can be in control! Its worth dreaming. 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 29, 2024

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September 22, 2024
by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 22, 2024

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

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July 14, 2024
by Sara Baron

“Leave a Little” based on Deuteronomy 24:17-21 and Luke 12:22-34

Our essay today started with a quote from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I want you to hear it again, it is very important:

“The church must reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”1

Some of us, these days, are struggling a little bit with “the state” and both how it is in present and how it may be in the future. Dr. King reminds us of our role. Guide, critic, conscience, prophet. Dear ones, things are not as we nor God want them to be, and it is possible they’re going to get worse before they get better. Still, called to be guide, critic, conscience, prophet. In some ways we have little power. Doesn’t matter. The world won’t get better if we stop dreaming God’s dreams and sharing them. In these roles, we are people called to speak to the power of nonviolent, peaceful change.

We are to be a lovelight to the world. That lovelight shines out hope into the world, reminds people of the love in which we were all formed, directs us to peace – AND that lovelight illuminates injustice and brings attention to places love is needed, that lovelight doesn’t become complicit with harming the vulnerable, it seeks the common good, it shows us all the way when we fear there isn’t a way.

Our passages today remind us of God’s visions and what the lovelight is meant to illuminate. Deuteronomy tells the people how things should be, and that includes careful care of those who are struggling. Everyone is told to only go through their crops once to harvest, and whatever is dropped or forgotten should be left for those who are hungry. The people are told, as well, to be careful with widows, to offer justice to the ones without legal standing – the immigrants and the orphans. Those who had once been without power are told to treat those without power well.

Dear ones, we can’t create that world by sheer willpower, but we can love on it until it softens and moves in that direction. And our own actions can matter along the way – however it is that we practice “leaving our fields for the poor to be able to glean.” These are the means of peace.

In Luke we hear Jesus speaking – and I am reminded that he is speaking mostly to people who are vulnerable. Where in Deuteronomy the vulnerable were those without standing and without power – the widows, orphans, and immigrants, by the time of Jesus the Roman Empire had ensured a much larger portion of the population was struggling. Jesus mostly spoke to, for, and about those who were poor.

And he tells them not to worry. Which doesn’t really make sense. Hungry people worry about food. Those without clothes worry about clothes. But Jesus says, “don’t worry.” Jesus reminds them that God’s wish is for them to be well fed, well clothed, and unafraid. It is, I think, a retelling of Deuteronomy – God’s way is for everyone to have enough. Live your lives so those who have less than you do will still have enough. Leave a little, and everyone will get a little. God is interested in a society that cares for those who are the worst off, God judges society by how they care for their most vulnerable.

So, dear ones, that’s how we focus our interest and how we judge societies too. That guides where we shine our lovelight, and how long we hold it where people need to see.

The fields left for the poor to glean is a hard thing for me to wrap my head around – maybe it was for Jesus’s followers too. I think about lawsuits I’ve heard about where gigantic seed companies sue small farmers for growing crops without buying their seeds – when the seeds could well have been carried by the wind. I think about no trespassing signs, and gated communities, and even ancient Roman compounds presided over by a patriarch, and all of it sounds so different from an assumption that you should leave a little bit in your field, and let anyone who needs it come and gather it.

In the book of Ruth one of the plot points centers around this gleaning. Ruth and her mother-in-law were widows and had no one to advocate for them in the legal system of their day. Ruth went out to glean in Boaz’s fields and Boaz was unusually generous. He instructed water to be share with her, he asked the field workers to drop more than they needed to. He fed her lunch, he told the workers not to bother her even if she gleaned first. All very generous, all – we’re told – a form of courting. But nevertheless, the assumption in the story is that Ruth had the right go into the field in broad daylight and gather whatever she could, and take it home to feed herself and her kin. The gleaning wasn’t done in secret, or under the light of the moon, or under the threat of violence. The fields were left for those who needed them, and those who needed were WELCOME to come gather what they needed. Without fear. Without accusation. Without having to hide. Maybe even without shame. Just – able to get what they needed from anywhere they could find it.

Meanwhile, in our society, our Supreme Court ruled that it is ok to arrest people for sleeping outside – even when they are homeless and have no place to sleep inside. We made it ILLEGAL to be a person who has to sleep. Pretty much the poplar opposite of this Deuteronomy passage and the society it sought to create, huh?

Friends, things are not now as they should be. Things may get worse. The very purpose of a society – to care for the vulnerable – may continue to get lost in the shuffle.

What we can do is remain steadfast. Listen to God’s dreams, and let them soak in. Shine our love-lights. We can see and name what isn’t write, see and name how things should be. We can support each other in our dreaming. We can keep on listening for God’s nudges in our lives. We can soak in peace, hope, and love so we have them to share, we can seek out joy so we can keep on keeping on.

Gleaning is an old, old concept, but it is a beautiful one. It is one that maybe we can play with, work with, consider how it might be lived out today. Gleaning can give us hope about other ways to form society, about remembering that God’s dreams are reachable.

We can give each other hope. We can be peace.

We can give the world hope. We can be peaceable.

And the best part is that God’s dreams are available to us in the Bible, through each other, in nature, and through modern prophets. God’s goodness is everywhere, God’s love knows no ends.

The world may say there isn’t enough, but we say there is so much that even the gleanings are enough for those in need.

We can be people of abundance even in a world that believes in scarcity. We can be people of peace, no matter what the world brings.

We can be a lovelight. Let’s keep on shining. Amen

1Claire Chadwich “A Harvest for All People” in We Cry Justice (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 33.