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  • June 23, 2024
  • by Sara Baron

“Step One: Prepare the Soil” based on Hosea 8:1-7, 10:12-13 and Matthew 13:1-9

In my household we are determined, amateur gardeners. To be fair, we like it that way, we are well aware that there is a whole lot of knowledge out there if we wish to consume it. But mostly we like putting seeds in soil and watching to see if they’ll grow, and putting plants in soil and seeing how they’ll grow.

We’ve learned SOME things along the way. Among them: it is unwise to plant a garden in a place it is hard to water it. It is even more unwise to plant a garden in a place it doesn’t get enough sun. Oh, and also, not getting enough sun isn’t a problem that can be overcome. Let’s see – we’ve learned seedlings can’t be ignored for very long 😉 We’ve learned you CAN have too many tomatoes (but it is still a fun problem), and raspberry bushes grow AMAZINGLY fast – in the sun 😉 We’ve learned that full grown, orange pumpkins can HIDE in high clover. That was fun. This year I learned that I can mess up seeding soil, hopefully I won’t repeat that one.

And, of course, we’ve learned about weeds. Weeds are a funny – thing they’re very localized. Every time I’ve moved in my adult life I’ve had to learn by trial and error which things growing were weeds and which weren’t, and when we moved two years ago – all of 0.8 miles from our last home – we found ourselves fighting some very different invasive species. I’m not terribly fond of using the label weeds lightly – dandelions are a delight after all, but I’m OK with using it for invasive plants. Mostly. OK, I worry even then. God did create us all, even the ones labeled weeds.

But when I think about all I’ve learned about gardening – and heavens all I COULD learn about gardening – I’m also reminded of how radically different growing things is HERE versus in the climate of the Bible. To be fair, I haven’t attempted to grow anything in the Middle East., but I did spend 3 years in Southern California and on our seminary campus we had a Biblical garden because the climates were so similar it was easy to cultivate plants we wouldn’t otherwise know but read about in the Bible.

And Southern California, if you don’t know, is DRY. As a Northeastern-er, it boggled my mind how DRY it was. Much of the populated area is watered, so you see these green lawns that look a lot like the ones here (but take a lot more chemicals to maintain, and are really a terrible use of water…anyway…) but sometimes along a stretch of a road there would be spots that weren’t watered and they’d just be … barren. Like rocks and sand and nothing growing there. And my northeastern brain was just …. shocked? Amazed? Horrified? Mesmerized? I don’t know. It was really weird. I mean, we have raspberry pushes that sprout up in between the concrete blocks of a garden wall, or in mulch barely covering that plastic weed cover stuff. You can’t stop life around here if you TRY. Right? I mean, I’ve used a weed-wacker in the non-existence space between the road and the sidewalk – MANY TIMES.

But in the desert, where there isn’t water, there is just… space.

Which is helpful for me to remember when I hear this parable. Indeed, it is hard enough for things to grow in that climate that they can’t overcome being in rocky ground where roots can’t get down far enough to reach enough water. Plants can’t overcome being in the midst of thorny weeds, it is just too hard to fight for survival.

But oh, the seeds that do get into good soil, the things that they were able to do! Step one – good soil!

Yet, I think, it didn’t just take getting the seeds into good soil – although that part is imperative. It took getting them into good soil, and then getting water to them. It took getting them into good soil and then keeping those thorns from grown into the field. It took tending.

The sower did the first part and WOW, look what happens when seeds fall in the right spot. Seriously, this is why I garden – because I like this part. It is amazing, and wonderful, and also reminds me of the great mysteries within life itself, and the wonder that is life, and the ways that God is more than what we can perceive. We know that seeds need soil, water, and sun, but the something that helps a seed sprout is still a little miracle, every time, one that I imagine makes God smile too.

The growing isn’t done by sowing alone, but the sowing and the spouting is a particularly awe inspiring part. And, as Paul tends to remind us, it can be OK that one person sows and another waters and another tends, each part matters! And I think there is wonder in ALL of it. In each and every step.

Hosea urges the ancient Israelites to pay attention to what they’re planting. To stop plowing wickedness, so they stop reaping injustice. So they can stop eating lies. And instead to sow righteousness, and reap steadfast love. To see the harvest that can come come from sabbath and rest (for the land just like the people), to seek God and God’s goodness and let the kindom come.

Sow the seeds of goodness and wonder, says Hosea.

And watch the miracles unfold, says Matthew.

And then, in our book of modern day prophets, We Cry Justice, we are told to keep on sowing despite it all. To sow hope as an act of faithfulness. To plant peace because of war – because alternatives are needed. To seed love so that we can grow it long enough for it to bear more seeds to grow next time around.

There are a LOT of weeds in our societal garden – thorny ones. There are a lot of hungry birds swooping down to steal the seed. There are plenty of huge rocks, and there are places with too much sun and some with too little and heavens but most of the best soil is being cash-cropped by huge corporations spraying poisonous insecticides onto our food and into our water.

Which, I think, is the 21st century version of what Matthew was talking about anyway!

But God’s abundance made a lot of good soil, plenty of rain, and enough sun that shines on all of us. We can grow our contemporary versions “victory gardens” of peace, hope, and love. Even better, this applies both to the physical gardens some of us tend, and even more so to the metaphorical ones in our beings and our society.

Perhaps this is a good reminder to consider how our lives are being seeded -and with what. And what we are able to do to nurture the seeds we want, and to weed out the ones we don’t. How God is always there to help us tend the goodness within us, any time we’re ready to tend to things with God.

With God, we get to chose to hope, “despite of all the evidence.” We God, we get to pick peace, because God has planted it in our souls. With God, get to share love, because we have been lucky enough to know love.

Dear ones, I really do mean it. I think every seed that grows is a little miracle. Tomato, pepper, eggplant, hope, peace or love. And I’m grateful for our writer this week who said, “Whether we win or lose in the short term, we struggle against the wickedness of immoral policies. We sow righteousness as we plant seeds of organization and leadership and nourish them for times of even greater possibility.”1 That plants seeds in me – of hope, peace, and love. Thanks be to God! Amen

1Daniel Jones “A Hurt and Angry God” in We Cry Justice (Minneapolis, 2021), p. 149.

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  • December 10, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“Yearning for Peace” based on Isaiah 10:1-4, 20-27

This week we were asked not to light the candle of peace on the Advent wreath. It was a request we took seriously, as it came from The United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries as a request to be in solidarity with the lack of peace in Israel and Palestine. Now, I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you on this or anything, but we have already lit the Advent Wreath, and we DID light the candle of peace. So you now how this ends. Except, we didn’t light the normal 2nd candle, the second of two purple candles. Instead we lit an Amnesty International Candle.

I should go back to the beginning, right?

This is the second week of Advent, the week when we traditionally light the candle of peace, to add to the candle of hope. The one small light fighting back against the darkness suddenly becomes two, which isn’t a whole lot of light but is double what the wreath previously held.

And we know there isn’t peace on earth, there hasn’t been peace on the full earth at any point since Jesus was born, but we yearn for peace nonetheless, and we know God as a source of peace, and Jesus as the Prince of Peace, and just like last week we connected with the Hope of God, this week we are meant to connect with the Peace of God and move a little bit more into it.

And, peace, in Biblical terms is more than just the absence of violence – although that would seem like progress right now. Peace in the Hebrew Bible is Shalom, a word that combines individual well-being with communal well being and thinks about the well being of the body, mind, emotions, and spirit – all while thinking about having access to enough resources to thrive. It is holistic. One can not be at peace if one’s neighbor is not.

In recent years I’ve learned that in many parts of Africa, our siblings in faith use the world “ubuntu” to say a lot of this. Archbishop Tutu explains:

The first law of our being is that we are in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation… [Ubuntu] is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness: it speaks about compassion. A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are.1

Then we get a request that says:

Our Christian colleagues in Bethlehem tell us that this Advent and Christmas in Bethlehem the lights that normally adorn the birthplace of Jesus will remain unlit in memory of those who have been killed in the current conflict. The patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem have noted that the traditional festive services in the Holy Land will be somber in nature due to the ongoing war.

The second candle on the Advent wreath represents peace, and in some traditions is known as the ”Bethlehem candle.” This Advent, we invite Methodist churches across the globe to do something out of the ordinary and refrain from lighting the Advent candle on the second Sunday in Advent (Dec. 10) and on subsequent Sundays. (GBGM)

Now, we took this request really seriously. It got passed around, Worship Committee read it and discussed it in our meeting, we found ourselves discussing the root meaning of the candles. We all care deeply about peace, about the impact of violence and war, the grief and trauma in the Holy Land, and those who have been killed there. The request came from our siblings in faith who are THERE, and we tend towards solidarity around here, right?

But, the idea of NOT lighting the candle felt so very, very wrong. Curiously wrong, actually, we had to figure out why it bothered us so. I think I heard us land on the idea that we light the candle to honor peace, to seek peace, to connect with peace, and we just couldn’t handle NOT lighting it when it is needed so badly. But nor could we just ignore the request. That didn’t seem acceptable either, especially when the symbolism requested was to honor those who have died in this horrible war.

Thank God for committees, because together we come up with better ideas than any of us could alone. Today we lit an Amnesty International Candle instead of the normal purple one. “Amnesty’s trademark is a candle wrapped in barbed wire. The candle represents:

  • The light of public attention that Amnesty members shine on the hidden abuses (the barbed wire) of human rights violators.
  • The spark of public pressure that Amnesty members create in order to bring about positive change in people’s lives.
  • The beacon of hope and solidarity for people who defend human rights, often at great personal risk, and for the many who become”2

So we lit a candle of acknowledgment of those killed, a candle of peace and yearning for peace, and a candle of solidarity with all at once. It still isn’t the perfect symbol, I’m not sure one exists, but we did it with great care. And now you are caught up.

After the conversation, Eileen Deming shared this quote from Howard Thurman:

“I will light candles this Christmas.

Candles of joy, despite all the sadness.

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.

Candles of courage where fear is ever present.

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days.

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens.

Candles of love to inspire all of my living.

Candles that will burn all the year long. ”

None of this is to say that the original ask of the Board of Global Ministries wasn’t valid!! It was! The ask made space for us to really think about what we’re doing and why, and what feels like our response to an important request.

Now, every time we talk about peace, I hear in my head a simple truth, “if you want peace, work for justice.” I fear the consequences of this current war are not only the heartbreak and horror of Oct. 7th and the heartbreak and horror SINCE October 7th, but the grief, trauma, and fear of today will be the seedbed for conflicts for decades to come.

And that difficult reality also brings my thoughts closer to home. In the devotional from We Cry Justice for this week, Dr. Charon Hribar discusses the laws in New York City that create a particular injustice for those who are homeless. In New York City, there are 5 times more spaces in vacant buildings and lots than there are homeless people who need them. Or at least this was true 2 years ago, I suspect the basic truth remains even if the statistic doesn’t hold with the influx of migrants. Even more so, the vacant lots and buildings are usually located in exactly the same neighborhoods where homelessness is the highest. Why? Because those buildings and vacant lots are “good investments” to hold for a few decades and see if those neighborhoods gentrify. They’re held by shell corporations for unknown corporate prospectors. Meanwhile, the acquisition of the investment properties ends up kicking people out of their homes, creating ever more homelessness. And, of course, these facts aren’t neutral, they are created by the laws of the country, state, and city, which prioritize the wealth accumulation of the land prospectors over the lives of the homeless.

To be clear, New York City isn’t the only place such priorities are in place.

In addition to being blatantly inhumane, I fear such policies are the exact opposite of “if you want peace, work for justice.” What story are we telling people who fall through our safety net? That society is just? That they should seek the well-being of the whole because it will help take care of them too? That people see their pain? Alas, no. They’re taught by societal action and inaction that no one cares, they are on their own, their lives and their pain don’t matter. And that, dear ones, doesn’t lead us towards peace.

The prophet Isaiah sounds like many other prophets when he warns that the injustices of Ancient Israel will bring its downfall. Isaiah claims the downfall is God’s punishment, I tend to think it is natural consequences. In any case, in chapter 10 Isaiah outlines the ways that Ancient Israelite society is profoundly unjust – which we read – then how that’s true of Assyria too (we skipped that). Isaiah says they’ll both be wiped out as punishment, but that God’s love is such that the punishment will not wipe out all of Ancient Israel, there will be a remnant with which to rebuild. With God, hope is never wiped out.

Dr. Hribrar ends her devotional saying:

We are taught to obey the law, under the assumption that the social structure in which we live is just. But when the economic system and the policies that protect it are designed to put corporate profits before people’s lives, we, like Isaiah, must call out the policy violence that is taking place. We must be wiling to proclaim that these laws are moral and wrong.3

It is the way towards peace. It is also the way of Jesus. Among the most profound teachings of Jesus was the way of nonviolence. The premise of the Empire of Rome, the superpower in the time of Jesus was “first violence, then peace.” The response of Jesus seems to have been, “first peace, then peace.” You can’t wipe out violence with violence. It won’t work. You can’t build peace with violence. As followers of Jesus we know that neither violence nor injustice get us to peace.

But peace and justice do. Each time we call out an unjust law, we move towards peace. Each time we offer a gift in love to pick up someone who is otherwise unseen in society, we move towards peace. Each moment we find peace within creates more peace in the world. Each little way we seek to create more justice creates the space for more peace in the world. Each time we choose peace, and each time we choose justice, we bring along the work of God and Jesus… the work towards a nonviolent kindom of peace. May it come – soon. Amen

1Archbishop Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope For Our Time (Doubleday, 2005).

2https://amnesty.ca/what-you-can-do/youth/start-up-kit/amnesty-101/

3Charon Hribar, “41: Who to You Who Pass Unjust Laws” in We Cry Justice, ed. Liz Theoharis (Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2021) p. 179, used with permission.

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

December 10, 2023

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  • October 22, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“Seeking Peace” based on 1 Corinthians 6:1-6 and Luke 6:43-45

I tend to believe the the quote from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” This makes me quite skeptical of both-sides-ism. To be fair, the primary justice issue I’ve worked on in my life is justice for LGBTQIA+ people, and the difference between teenagers committing suicide because they’re told they’re not loved and straight cis-people feeling uncomfortable is a great example of things NOT being equal.

However, today a part of my heart is in my throat, thinking about the conflict in the Middle East, and I can’t make sense out of it. There aren’t easy answers in Palestine and Israel. There is pain and suffering of generations, and worldwide context, and vulnerable people everywhere. And there are clear and abundant violations of human rights and human dignities. This is a case of both/and, I think.

I have been reminded this week to hold the history of Israel in context. Of course, I thought I was doing that, and I wasn’t. Modern Israel was created out of the need for a space for Jewish people to have self-determination after Christian neighbors and so-called Christian Countries proved themselves unwilling to hold Jewish life as sacred. This, of course, culminated in the Holocaust, which Elie Wiesel survived, but the Holocaust was an single extreme expression of the constant antisemitism of the world.

I wonder, from the perspective of 2023, if the choices made to create modern Israel were less supportive of Jewish life than they seemed at the time. A friend told me this week that if Israel’s neighbors laid down their weapons, there would be peace, but if Israel laid down their weapons, there would be no Israel. Because the powers of the world made decisions to create modern Israel, but did so without the cooperation and consent of the other nations in that region, and without an adequate plan for the people who had already been living in Israel. How did they think this would play out? Did they care?

There isn’t much space in our lives for context, and nuance, and careful conversations. There isn’t space for both/and. There isn’t a lot of space for acknowledging that Hamas was definitely, completely wrong in their attacks – it was barbaric terrorism AND that the blockades and attacks on Gaza are excessive and inhumane. We’re told we have to pick: be for one side or the other, either forget the centuries of antisemitism that our own faith tradition created and nurtured and stand for the downtrodden Palestinians OR forget the consistency of inhumane treatment of Muslims and Christians in Palestine, and stand for the Israelite state.

For those of us who believe they’re ALL God’s people, ALL God’s chosen, ALL God’s beloveds, Israel and Palestine looks like pain and horror right now. In trying to find the balance in this sermon, I sought wisdom from others whose eyes see what I fail. They reminded me that one way to stand for Israelis and for Palestinians is to stand against Hamas, who not only brutally attacked innocents, but also did so knowing the response would kill Palestinians in large numbers. Can we stand for our Jewish siblings here, around the world, and in Israel while standing for our Palestinian siblings? I believe we can, but it takes a willingness to look deeply, to be uncomfortable, and to shy away from fast talking points.

The Mennonite Church of Canada wrote a prayer lament and intercession for Palestine and Israel and I invite you to join me in the spirit of prayer1:

God of love and justice, our hearts are perplexed, paralyzed and broken at the recent carnage in Palestine and Israel. We lament the loss of life and the suffering of so many people. We are shocked at the inhumanity of violence, terrorism, and war.

Our prayers for peace seem to go unanswered. We wish you would intervene. We cling to your promise of a different world, but we see so few signs of its fulfillment. We do not understand.

Still, we continue to believe that you desire life and peace for all people. 

Holy Spirit, strengthen our resolve to advocate for peace, justice, equality, and compassion for all.   Don’t let us turn away.

Comfort all who are overwhelmed with loss—loss of life, loss of homes, loss of safety and security. 

God of the vulnerable and the oppressed, renew the energy and creativity of those committed to nonviolent resistance and change. 

We pray for the communities in the land where our shared faith was born and nurtured. May your love remain bright among your Jewish, Christian, Muslim and people. May they recognize your hand in their lives, even amidst the suffering. We pray for your peoples around the world, wishing hope, health, safety, and abundance for all.

God of all nations, guide our own government to respond in ways that support the legitimate rights of all, especially those who are most vulnerable, those who continue to suffer after generations of occupation, dispossession, and denial of basic human rights and those who fear for their safety.

May your kindom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Yours is the kingdom, the power, the glory, now and forever. 

Amen

You may have heard in our Epistle lesson this morning, a call from Paul for good conflict resolution. And you may have heard in our Gospel lesson this morning a reminder that we are not know by our intentions, but by our fruits. Come to church, hear hard things 😉

All I can offer the Middle East right now is my heartfelt prayers, and my profound compassion. What I can offer in the here and now is a refusal to participate in violence, even in my language. I can affirm the humanity of our Jewish and Muslim siblings in faith, I can acknowledge how horrifying and terrifying this is for anyone with family or friends in Israel and Palestine. And I can hold multiple truths – that Christianity has created the conditions by which Jews are dehumanized and live in fear around the world AND – hey look at us – Christianity has done the same to Muslims and many Christians do the same to Palestinians. Here, in the US – and around the world – I want Jewish people to be SAFE, whole, and assured that we’ll have their back. And I want the same for Palestinians of all faiths and for Muslims everywhere. Right? I’ve been thinking about what God might feel about it all. My best answer is “heartbroken.”

When the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) Board did an intense study of anti-racism, we were given a list of values in anti-racism institutions. One of them was “both/and thinking” and “moving toward collective action.” To be more direct, the training claimed that either/or thinking was a tool of oppression and both/and thinking was needed to make space for all people to be collaborative.2

I think about that a lot. I’ve noticed in my life that when I’m stuck between a THIS and a THAT, and I notice it, and take time to consider it, and even pray about it, that there is always an undiscovered THIRD WAY I wouldn’t have found unless I considered the important parts of THIS and the important parts of THAT together, and realized why I couldn’t let either one go. That God is in the both/and, and it can take me a while to find it, but it is always worth finding.

I’ve heard stories of those who have worked for peace though, have you ever heard them? Those who God has called to be peace-makers who have entered spaces with both sides of this conflict and found ways to let each side be actually heard? To even grieve together? The stories are always of small intentional groups, of people willing to participate, usually not of people in leadership who are most profoundly fixed in their positions (although in this conflict few people are easily moved.) But miracles have happened. People have heard each other. People have cried for each other. People have APOLOGIZED.

This work is being done RIGHT NOW. I learned this week that “one of the crucial movements in the peace space in Israel/Palestine now is the historic partnership between Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun; the latter organization was founded in the summer of 2021, and is comprised of Palestinian women working for peace in the West Bank and Gaza. Women Wage Peace was founded after the Gaza war of 2014, is comprised of Jewish and Arab women who live inside the State of Israel, and has the two primary objectives of 1) Getting Israeli/Palestinian peace negotiations going (and to eventually achieve a “bilaterally acceptable political agreement”) and 2) guaranteeing that women are part of the negotiation process.”3 4

Let’s hear one story about peace, right now, huh? There is a group called the Parents’ Circle Families Forum—formerly the Bereaved Parents’ Circle. The organization is comprised of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost a family member in the ongoing violence. Their work is the slow work of trust building and creating connections.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg tells, and reflects on this story: On October 7th, Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped by Hamas and brought into Gaza. Shortly before the abduction, he lost his arm while protecting his friends from Hamas bullets and grenades; as far as anyone knows, he is badly wounded if he is still alive. He has not been heard from since being taken.

Last week, his mother, Rachel, wrote:

Time is slowly ticking into the future, with these hostages approaching a week in captivity. If he is still alive, how much longer can he survive? His wounds are grievous. I hope someone somewhere is being kind to him, caring for him, attending to him.

Hersh is my whole world, and this evil is the flood that is destroying it. I really don’t know if anything can save it. If anyone knows, please tell me. To save a life, our sages taught, is to save a world. Please help me save my son; it will save my world.

Every single person in Gaza has a mother, or had a mother at some point.

And I would say this, then, as mother to other mothers: If you see Hersh, please help him. I think about it a lot. I really think I would help your son, if he was in front of me, injured, near me.

And that’s the whole of it. “I would help your son.” Your daughter. Your child. Your beloved. Yours.

I understand that yours matters infinite worlds to you, because mine does, to me, and I hope that you see that, too.

I can see the infinity in yours, in fact, if I’m willing to look.1

What incredibly holy work is being done in seeing each other as beloveds. The article that shared that story, framed it in the lens of the holy work of mothering/parenting – and in seeing all the world’s children as “yours”. Dear ones, I think that’s where the pain comes from when we see brokenness in the world. Because we know all children – all people – to be God’s children, in need of good care, and worthy of good and abundant life.

So we seek peace. We seek peace through love by loving all people. This maybe doesn’t seem radical enough, or new enough. Maybe it isn’t new, but the world has proven to us time and time again, it is radical enough. Let’s work on it until we get it right. Then we can try to pull Christianity along 😉

Amen

1https://www.mennonitechurch.ca/article/16090-prayer-of-lament-and-intercession-for-palestine-and-israel, accessed 10/19/2023 Edited.

2Work of Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training. I attended in 2017.

3https://lifeisasacredtext.substack.com/p/a-peacemaking-lens?fbclid=IwAR1y50dbv2q-VxQQ_o1elI_-5UNYuOAEoMIMsEe9Tcg0gGNzHe44TvOKmMA

4The thoughts and concerns of Alice Gomstyn and Elliot Olshansky are peppered throughout this sermon, and I thank them for not letting me bumble along like an idiot, even when it is my job to be informed and not their job to inform me. I’ll also note that while they helped me, they can’t fix me 😉 so mistakes remain my own.

1https://lifeisasacredtext.substack.com/p/a-peacemaking-lens?fbclid=IwAR1y50dbv2q-VxQQ_o1elI_-5UNYuOAEoMIMsEe9Tcg0gGNzHe44TvOKmMA

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

October 22, 2023

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  • July 16, 2023
  • by Sara Baron

“The Gift of Peace" based on Romans 5:1-5 and John 14:25-31

When you think of peace, what comes up for you? This became interesting for me as I sought a good pictures to go with the sermon title for our electronic sign. Apparently, according to the internet, peace looks like sunrise or sunset over a body of water, or a pile of rounded rocks stacked on each other, maybe with a person in a yoga pose.

Those are decent. I think they generically connote peace pretty well.

Is it different, for you, though, to consider when you are most at peace? It is for me.

I tend to think of moments of peace in two broad categories: first the ones that are like glimpses of grace when I just notice that there is wonder and peace around me, the second are the ones that I seek out – when I create the space to remember that God is with me and am able to let my guard down well enough that God’s peace seeps in.

The first kind, the just moments of grace when peace is there, are pretty wide ranging. I have often often found peace if I’m outside at dusk (other than black fly season), after a good workout, while in the woods, walking into the sanctuary, during nighttime snowfalls, when I hear achingly beautiful music, and when I’m surrounded by people I love and just savoring the goodness of their presence. Your list is probably unique to you.

Those moments are a gift. They come freely, I savor them when I notice them, and they slowly drift away. Finding inner peace, even if for a moment, is profound.

The second kind is the spiritual practice kind – or maybe the “means of grace” kind. Because people of faith through the ages have taught us that God’s peace is close at hand, and there are ways of connecting to it if we want to. So there is intention, and seeking in these moments of peace. I mostly call it prayer, but it may not look like what prayer expects to look like. Sometimes my prayer is sitting on the porch watching the wind blow through the trees, sometimes it is writing in a journal and sorting out what is happening inside me, sometimes it is taking a walk in nature because (for me) that is so potent as a means of connecting to God.

Sometimes it is sitting still, with my eyes closed, breathing, and intentionally letting go of thoughts as they appear. (That one might “look like” prayer.)

And, sometimes those prayer practices “work” and I let my guard down and I have INCREDIBLE moments of deep peace as a gift from the Divine. And, let’s be honest here, sometimes they “don’t.” Sometimes I can’t get my guard down. Sometimes other things distract me. Sometimes it seems like I get my guard down but the peace doesn’t come. It can’t really be forced.

Now, I’m conflating the grace of the experience of the presence of God with peace, because they conflate for me. They might not for you, that’s a thing to consider for yourself. In any case though, I think that peace is supposed to be one of the gifts of God, something that we receive from the Divine from God’s goodness. And, because we are able to talk about how we receive it and what helps us be open to it, and from that learn how to access peace even when the world is roiling around us, I think it is supposed to be one of the markers of faith.

The capacity to be at peace is meant to be something that differentiates us.

That’s a pretty high bar, huh? Because everyone has different personalities and some are more attuned to peace than others.

And yet, there is something there.

Because this may get at a really core question. What is it that we are seeking in life? Because the world around us tells us what success looks like – and it is things to do with appearances, power, violence, and money. And it is REALLY easy to buy into that narrative because it is EVERYWHERE. Part of the wonder of being within a community of faith is the chance to create a different narrative of success, and encourage each other to hear other options.

What if “success” is connecting deeply enough to God’s peace that it changes the world through us?

What if “success” is trusting enough in God’s love that it flows through us?

What if “success” is letting our hearts be opened wide enough for all of God’s people and all of God’s creation?

What if “success” is becoming loving listeners?

What if “success” is a life filled with joy?

What if “success” is in deep and whole relationships?

What if “success” is in how often we laugh?

What if “success” is in how much we savor wonder and beauty?

What if “success” is in becoming better and better at sharing?

What if “success” is in being able to give power away?

What if “success” is just in being alive and sometimes at peace, and that’s enough?

What if “success” doesn’t matter at all, and it is plenty to simply be?

What if it isn’t hard?

That’s a different narrative than the one I hear in commercials, read in the news, or see on social media.

We have recently brought into our worship the ancient tradition of “passing the peace of Christ” to one another. It has gotten pretty rave reviews around here.

It is also a profound thing that we do. It is acknowledging that God’s peace is with us, that it is worthy of our attention, and that it increases among us as we share it with each other. We are offering blessings to each other, I might argue the best ones. (Because I really really like the peace of Christ.) It gives us space to connect with each other, and it calls us back to the priority of living out the peace of Christ.

And peace, in Hebrew and in God-talk, is this really interesting holistic communal thing that refers to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being of each individual and the whole. It inherently acknowledges that the peace each of us holds is interconnected with the peace each other is holding. But it is a complicated concept in that it is possible to hold onto God’s peace even when not all is well. God’s peace can show up in the worst of times, and hold us together through it. God’s peace can be nurtured within us and within the community and build up resilience within us.

Peace.

Where the world focuses on violence and power, God calls us to nurture, savor, and make space for peace.

Thank God we are called to something different. Thank God we have each other to work with in the effort to nurture, savor, and make space for peace. Thank God for the moments when peace arrives and we are whole. 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

July 16, 2023

Uncategorized

“Peace” based on Matthew 1:18-25

  • December 18, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

We have a lot of phrases about
peace in our faith tradition.  Jesus is called the “prince of
peace.”  We speak of the “peace that passes understanding.”  A
sung blessing offers the line, “deep peace of the running waves to
you.”  Songs and prayers ask God to “grant us peace.” We often
sing,  “Peace be with you ‘til we meet again,” and we greet each
other with “peace be with you.”  We yearn, collectively, for
“world peace.”

I’ve been trained in the
knowledge that the Hebrew word for peace, shalom, refers to holistic
well being – body, mind, and spirit – of the individual and the
community.  It is more than the absence of war.  It is the absence of
needs, the adequate distribution of resources so that no one has to
try to get what they need via violence.

In this way, shalom, peace, is
deeply integrated with the kindom of God.

This week I’ve been struck at
how RELATIVE peace is – both internally and externally.  I think
I’ve often been distracted by the wondrous language about peace in
our tradition, and thought of peace as some perfect and excellent
thing.  But that assumption has distracted me from a whole lot of the
incremental gifts of peace.

The many people in our church
and our society who have lived through trauma have fairly constant
alerts in their bodies and minds to remain vigilant, stay safe, LOOK
OUT!  What looks like peace for someone in a constant state of alert
may be a relatively safe place or person that allows a few of the
alarm bells within to slow down.  Which is to say that what looks
like relative peace for some would be REALLY HIGH agitation for
others.  Yet, still, increased peace is a gift for all those who
experience it.  Peace in the midst of trauma.

There is a famous story of
Christmas 1914, in the midst of World War I, when soldiers singing
Christmas hymns in the trenches started singing back and forth to
each other across the “no man’s land” eventually leading to
soldiers experiencing a Christmas peace and exchanging gifts and
laughter.  Peace in the midst of war.

I often think of a young mother
I knew by being her pastor, who shared that her life was full with a
full time job and the needs of young children.  She spoke of her
commute time as the most peaceful part of her life, and savored it as
a time to connect with the Divine.  Peace in the midst of a
burstingly full life.

This week Matthew gives us a
look at Mary’s pregnancy through the eyes of Joseph.  Mary is
vulnerable, as a pregnant engaged woman who wasn’t pregnant from her
fiancé. Joseph has a lot of power here, he can publicly shame her
and her family, which would most likely result in Mary being removed
from her family so they can regain some status.  His original plan,
to let her go quietly, seems aimed at letting the father of her baby
marry her.  It is aimed at respecting everyone involved.  Of course,
then he gets new information and changes course, no longer assuming
another man needed the space to become the father of that man’s
child.

I adore the way this translation
speaks of Joseph, “Joseph her husband was a just man and unwilling
to shame her, he wanted to divorce her secretly.”  I find myself
thinking that Joseph was a man who knew peace within.  Either he
wasn’t personally offended by Mary’s pregnancy, or he was able to
hold that in perspective and not wish to retaliate.  His aim was not
violence or harm, but rather everyone’s well-being.  Peace.

As I’ve considered the factors
that lead to peace within, I’ve been struck at how mundane they are.
Like most things – athletic skills, musical talent, etc, – there
are people with natural connection to peace, and there are people who
nurture their receptivity to peace, and while both matter, the work
done to nurture receptivity to peace ends up mattering the most over
time.

We have been in the midst of
highly trying times for many years now.  I tend to think back to the
2016 election cycle as the beginning of the escalation of tension and
anxiety, but you may place it elsewhere.  Even if you want to place
it at the beginning of the pandemic, we are YEARS into what our
bodies have probably experienced as a “war.”  I say war because
the stress levels have been escalated, and very few things have
helped us bring them back down.

Some of you, thanks be to God,
have found life-giving ways to reconnect with peace, wholeness, and
the Divine.  I’m of the opinion that walking in nature is one of the
best practices for this, and a lot of you seem to agree.  You have
found ways to connect with each other and loved ones, you’ve found
creative expressions, you’ve done meditation or prayer practices,
you’ve looked for beauty, you’ve been still in the face of your awe,
you’ve PLAYED.  I can see the differences in us from a year ago, and
I can see that God is working to cultivate peace in us AND that we
are working on receiving those gifts from God.

My exclusive point today is an
encouragement to keep nurturing your receptivity to God’s peace.  I’m
happy to chat about it with you more, to think about what it looks
like in you.  I think we can look at the example of Joseph to see how
peace within a person impacts those around them.  I want to be more
like that, and I suspect you may too.  May God grant us peace, and
may WE prepare ourselves to receive it.  Amen

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

December 18, 2022

Uncategorized

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

  • May 22, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

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

(It
is OK to laugh.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 22, 2022

Sermons

“Finding Peace” based on Psalm 4 and Luke 24:36b-48

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

It seems possible to me that most of us missed a lot of what was going on the Psalm in the first reading, and all the scholars I’ve read have offered a lot of insight into it that I didn’t get on my own. So I’m going to try ruining the beautiful poetry for the sake of clarity. (This is my gift to the world, I make things clear but less pretty.):

God, answer me! I trust you will. After all, you are excellent.
Also, you have before.
When I was feeling crowded in with no space to move,
you made abundant space for me.
Because of that experience, I trust to ask you again:
have mercy on me and hear me.
I need you, because PEOPLE are not excellent right now.
People are after me, trying to take away my reputation, my name, my family honor.
They want to shame me!

O people, how long will you lie about me?
You should remember that I follow God’s ways,
and God listens when I pray.

Instead of lying and shaming others when you are hurting,
spend some time in quiet, in contemplation, in prayer.
God will listen to you, too. You aren’t alone.
Trust in God.

Of course, some say that there is no goodness in the world, no God-ness.
But I remember the blessing,
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make God’s face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up God’s countenance upon you, and give you peace.

You, O God have given me so much more joy
than those who have food and drink in abundance.
Because of my connection to you,
I will sleep peacefully tonight, despite what the people say about me.
You, O God lead me to sanctuaries for rest and recovery.
That’s the experience I get, even from this brief prayer.

The psalmist finds ways through fear through remembering God’s spaciousness, through finding empathy for her accusers, and through remembering God’s trustworthiness. I love that in the Psalm we are taken along for the ride with her – entering into her hope for what God can offer, entering into her dismay at the struggles she is finding in life, entering into the wisdom she finds within, and then entering with her into the rest she finds in remembering that God is with her and she’s OK.

(Btw, I have no way to know the Psalmist’s gender. One of the scholars I read this week simply used the feminine for the author, and I thought it was a good exercise to derive the fullness of humanity from the female pronoun, so I followed that person’s lead.)

It has been said that the Psalms are God’s favorite book of the Bible, because the rest of the Bible is primarily concerned with what God is saying to the people, but the Psalms are about what people are saying to God. The full range of human emotion is found in them, often to rather uncomfortable degrees. In this Psalm we hear the anxiety of being hemmed in, particularly by people who want to harm us. We also hear the witness of a person who has known God’s loving grace. She informs those who seem ready to harm her of the goodness she’s found in her relationship with God, and it almost seems that in reminding them, she is reminded that God is the one whose steadfast love endures forever.

The Psalms always remind me that emotions are OK, and that STRONG emotions are OK, that God is big enough to deal with us as we are, be that anxious, sad, angry, or even numb. In this case, I think the Psalmist was most of all afraid, and that is very similar to how the disciples are presented as feeling in the Luke reading today. Luke says they were, “startled and terrified” when Jesus appeared and spoke words of comfort and assurance to them. This seems reasonable to me! Once Jesus had assured the disciples, and their fear had lessened, he took the time to teach them. It seems like there is a good life lesson in that. Frightened people aren’t able to absorb new information, so taking the time to connect with someone and calm their fears seems imperative to any form of teaching!

Then he gives them a new undertaking. Those who had been his students and companions were now to be “witnesses.” They had seen his ministry, and his life, death, and resurrection, and they were supposed to start talking about it. The final command to the disciples in the Luke version we read today that says, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” I think the awesome part here is that it is “to be proclaimed in his name to ALL NATIONS.”

Jesus spend his ministry teaching repentance and forgiveness of sins. That was the core of his message, as a means to open people to the kindom of God. It is always important to consider what sins he was talking about though! Life wasn’t what God had planned for the people, the vision of the Torah wasn’t the way of life anymore. The communities weren’t caring for each other, and the vulnerable were slipping through the cracks. Life wasn’t focused on God, or on God’s ways of justice. To say that the witnesses were to take the message to all the world is to say that the whole world could be transformed from violence to nonviolence; from fear to hope; from selfish ambition to communal joy! The WHOLE WORLD could be healed and become the kindom.

But first, he had to deal with their fears. They needed to be seeped in hope to offer this message! Whether it be like Jesus working patiently with the disciples, or like the Psalmist working through her own fear by remembering God and instructing others in God’s grace, there are ways through fear to hope. May we find them when we need them. 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

Sermons

Untitled

  • May 1, 2016February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

I often find myself giggling when Church groups are particularly unaware of the culture around them. Likely, I shouldn’t giggle, as my relationship to popular culture is essentially nonexistent, and I a lot miss more than I get. For instance, did you know that there are radio stations other than NPR? (Why?)

Given that I’m useless at popular culture, when I know something is funny it is likely a problem. One of my favorites was a restructuring proposal for The United Methodist Church in 2012 called “Plan B.” Apparently the mostly people who put it together hadn’t ever heard about emergency contraception, and missed that they were suggesting a church restructure that was named the same thing as what most people call “the morning after pill.” I don’t think that implied good things about their plan, either intentionally or unintentionally. I suspect this related to why much of the world finds church irrelevant.

My other favorite is that the Upper New York Annual Conference’s printed “publication” is called “Advocate.” Now, I know why they call it that. It is because of our Gospel reading today. But I find it amazing that they would choose to do so because, well, the famous paper called “The Advocate” is quite a bit different than the version including a letter from the Bishop and news about new faith communities. In their own words, “The Advocate” is “Gay news – commentary, arts & entertainment, health, parenting, and politics. The Advocate is the leading source for up-to-date and extensive LGBT news.”1

I titled this sermon “The Original Advocate” because I like that the Holy Spirit is called the Advocate in John. Although, to be fair, other translators use “Comforter” and scholars point out that the word also has connotations of “friend.” Nevertheless, I really like “Advocate” and the idea that God advocates for us and for justice in the world. The idea that the Holy Spirit serves as teacher and “reminder” for us in the midst of the confusion and disorientation life is truly comforting to me. God works with us, which means that full responsibility for the wellbeing of the world does not lie on any of us alone – and that is good news.

Truth be told, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for this passage. The first time I remember doing “real” Bible Study was at camp the summer after my freshman year of high school. Before that, both at camp and in Sunday School, we’d done … well, I don’t really now what we did, but some combination of story telling, crafts, morality lessons, skits, and chats about God. But that year the directors at camp trusted us to do REAL Bible Study. We read from our actual Bibles. We had resources that helped explain concepts to us that were difficult to deduce on our own. We struggled and debated. We were permitted to really work on the texts themselves. Obviously, I was in love.

The study that summer was about “peace” and this was the culminating passage. We’d learned that peace in the Bible is more than peace in the world – about the idea of shalom and God’s desire for a world where all people have enough. We looked at texts throughout the Bible about peace, and then we got to this passage where Jesus assures the disciples that his peace is with them and cannot be taken away from them. The sense of wonder about being able to struggle with scripture has stayed with me ever since, and it has created a sense of shining joy every time I return to this passage, remembering the delight I had in it when I first met it. (Yes, I’m aware of just how nerdy this is.)

It was a special bonus this week when Matt Berryman, Executive Director of the Reconciling Ministry Network, wrote an article in The Advocate. It was published on Friday and is entitled, “Dear United Methodist Church, Do the Right Thing.” It starts with this, “In just a few weeks, the United Methodist Church will gather in Portland, Ore., for its general conference to determine church policy and practice for the next four years. ‘Who cares?’ you might be asking yourself. Whether you’re religious, spiritual, agnostic, or atheist, here’s why you should.”2 He concludes this thought a few paragraphs later saying,

“Becoming a welcoming, affirming faith would send a message to families of all kinds, to the larger communities where our churches are mainstays and influence the broader public discourse; where Christianity still exerts significant influence and power over people’s lives. And beyond the positive water cooler and kitchen table conversations, a reversal of the UMC’s discriminatory policy would begin to dismantle the widely held view that institutional religion is the biggest obstacle to our equality.”3

He’s right. Those are a good assessment of why what happens in Portland starting next week matters. Unfortunately, the right thing isn’t going to happen.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a training on Nonviolent Direct Actions, hosted by MIND (Methodists In New Directions). They are the Reconciling group in the New York Annual Conference, and this training was part of their preparation for General Conference. I was lucky enough to be invited and have it be on my way home! The trainer and participants were well aware that there are not enough votes to change the direction of The United Methodist Church – this time. (Frankly, so is Matt Berryman, it is just his job to push anyway.) The goals right now are to heighten tensions, create crises, and force leaders into decision dilemmas. Only by continuing to apply pressure to the church and grow the anxiety within it is there the opportunity to create change over the long run. We have to play a long game, and we need people willing to take some risk.

That is, things may not be overly “polite.” I spent time this week with a three year old whose parents are consistently teaching her to be polite. Her parents are my friends. She’s a sweet child, and she’s learning all the rules well. I’ve been wondering about it all though. Politeness is very important to know, and to practice. That is, until it isn’t.

Being polite is generally a good way to communicate respect to other people, and acknowledge their humanity. In that way it is a VERY good thing. However, in our society (like most others I think) politeness can become a constraint that limits the work of justice. It is not considered polite interrupt people, but in the midst of humor that is racist, the interruption is the lesser of two evils. It is impolite to talk with one’s mouth full, but if there is a danger that needs to be articulated, it is the lesser of two evils to do so anyway. This list of examples could be rather extensive, as polite is not as important as safe and just.

Some of the work that will be done at General Conference isn’t going to seem polite! The United Methodist Church currently functions as an oppressor of people who are lesbian, gay and bisexual, and the work of justice trumps the value of politeness. The trainer yesterday pointed out that direct actions happen when you are not seeking someone else to give you power – doing it yourself. She explained this as the difference between the people who petitions for the Confederate flag to be removed from the South Carolina statehouse and the woman who climbed up the pole and took it down.4 It is not considered POLITE to claim authority for yourself, to ignore the hierarchy and those who claim an institution’s power much less to disrespect their authority and wishes by doing exactly what they don’t like. Most of the time, that’s a good enough reason not to do something. The exception is when greater harm is done by being polite!

I’m glad my friend’s daughter knows how to say “please” and “thank you.” It will serve her well in life, and those she interacts with will feel acknowledged and respected by her words. However, I hope that when it is necessary she will stand up for herself (and others) however she has to – whether it is polite or not!

The Revelation passage that was read today is one person’s dream of what God’s reign might look like. There is a lot there, and I’m going to resist my urge to unpack all of it. Instead I want to focus on two things.

The first is that the gates are always open. The imagined city is insanely large (1500 miles cubed, think about THAT for a while), and it HAS gates (12 of them), but they are always open. They are ALWAYS OPEN. Anyone can come in at any time. Anyone can leave at any time. There is an implication that there are people who don’t live in the city, so this isn’t merely a redundancy. Anyone who wants to be in the presence of God can be. Anyone who wants to be “in” can be. Furthermore, anyone who wants to leave, can. The gates are open both ways, so no one is forced into a relationship they aren’t wanting.

Permanently opened gates. Everyone can come in, at all times. That’s quite the image, isn’t it?

The second piece of focus relates to the first, in the permanence of it all. The whole city is set up as if it will be forever, and that dream fits the experience of the people who just watched their Temple and city be destroyed AGAIN. They yearn for the un-destroyable. They yearn to be free of the oppression of an empire.

The problem for us here today is that we are citizens of today’s most powerful empire. Peter Storey, a Methodist Bishop of South Africa, once wrote,

“I have often suggested to American Christians that the only way to understand their mission is to ask what it might have meant to witness faithfully to Jesus in the heart of the Roman Empire… America’s preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps than those faced by us under South Africa’s apartheid, or by Christians under Communism. We had obvious evils to engage… You have to expose and confront the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion, and caring of most American people and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them”.5

This is, sadly, true of both our country and our church. May the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, guide us to see our actions clearly and to be brave enough NOT to be polite when God and justice call for it. May the way of God’s shalom/peace be our way.

Amen


—–

1 If you Google “The Advocate” this is the mini description below it as of April 30, 2016. Aren’t you glad I footnoted that?

2 Matt Berrymore “Dear United Methodist Church, Do the Right Thing” published April 29, 2016http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/4/29/dear-united-methodist-church-do-right-thingaccessed April 30, 2016.

3 Ibid

4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/27/woman-takes-down-confederate-flag-in-front-of-south-carolina-statehouse/

5 Quoted by Joyce Hollyday in “Homiletical Perspective on Revelation 10; 21:22-22:5” found on page 491 of “Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 2” edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009). Worse yet, she was quoting someone else quoting him.

–

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

May 1, 2016

Sermons

“Smooth Ride” based on Luke 1:68-79, Baruch 5:1-9, Luke 3:1-6

  • December 6, 2015February 15, 2020
  • by Sara Baron

Whenever possible, I pick a window seat when I fly. I am endlessly mesmerized by the alternative view of the world it provides. There is the strange perspective shifting of take off and landing, when people, cars, houses, and roads either shrink or grow as the plane changes altitude. There is powerful metaphor that it is ALWAYS a sunny day – above the clouds – its just that sometimes we can’t see it. Once, I watched a multi-hour sunset as the plane and the rotation of the earth kept time with each other. Most frequently though, my attention is drawn by the patterns of nature and of human impact on nature.

Somehow, it doesn’t get old to fly by mountains and notice that the snow is deeper on the north side than on the south, or to look at streams running into rivers and see fractals emerge. Nor have I yet ceased to be interested in how fields and roads are formed around the natural elements of plains, mountains and water. I’m amazed at how strong humankind is in changing the nature of the world, and in how strong the elements of the world are in impacting human behavior.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a window seat on the way home from Wisconsin, and I watched the rolling mountain/hills of the Appalachians, the roads running in the valleys, the valleys visibly distanced from one another. I looked for the roads between the valleys, and found one. It mostly went over the mountains, but in a few cases, it was visible from the plane, that the mountains had been cut in two so the road could pass on level ground. The valleys were connected, presumably the use of a whole lot of dynamite.

That’s crazy. We live in a world where mountains are cut in half for our roads. Or, at times tunnels are cut through them. Similarly, we have tunnels under rivers and bridges over them. Very little stops us from building roads and traversing the world.

It has not always been so. The prophesy we heard in Baruch which was also in Isaiah and was quoted in Luke was an impossible vision when it was written. Roads weren’t flat, nor straight, nor particularly easy to travel in ancient times. Mountains had to be gone over, or around. Valleys had to be gone down into, or around. Rivers had to be crossed without bridges, and perhaps worse than all of that for Biblical literature, deserts had to be crossed without access to potable water.

That’s why it was such a great vision. Only God could raise up valleys and drop down mountains and shade the way home through the desert. It was impossible for humans. But God could, and the vision says that God WOULD. It was a vision of hope, one that encouraged resiliency. The end had not come, there was more that God would be up to and it would be so good that the people wouldn’t even be able to believe it possible.

They did go home, but the path wasn’t smooth. The vision remained, even after its initial use had been fulfilled. I think that’s a sign of good literature – it has even layers of meaning that when the most obvious one is no longer relevant the text is still relevant. The vision gets quoted here in Luke again, because the power of the empire of Rome felt a little bit like the exiles’ experience in Babylon, and there was a need to connect again to this impossible hope. We noticed something in my lectionary group this week. By the time of Jesus, this impossible vision wasn’t so impossible anymore. Rome built roads, and they built GOOD roads. They made it possible to travel where it had not been possible, and made it a whole lot smoother of a ride. I wonder if Luke wrote this with the nostalgia of yearning for roads and with the awareness that the capacity of humans had changed, or if he just hadn’t NOTICED. (Sometimes things change and we don’t notice.)

Granted, Roman roads didn’t quite qualify as the wholeness of the vision. Frankly, our roads don’t either. We can split a rolling hill in the Appalachian range in two, but we aren’t there yet with the Rockies, and while we’ve done amazing work with bridges and tunnels, anyone who has fought traffic going into or out of NYC knows that physical barriers are still a reality. And, anyone who has driven… say… in the city of Schenectady knows that the ride is not generally smooth. (Seriously, how on earth are we going to get through winter and the road damage it brings when things are already this bad??)

Regardless, the Isaiah passage quoted in Luke is intriguing because it is set into it’s Lukan context. It is, to some degree, still about roads, but it is also about leveling the playing field, as is much of the Bible’s poetry. The interplay of the today’s passages intrigue me. I don’t usually include apocryphal texts in worship, but I loved this one too much to ignore it. It is the epitome of hopeful restoration language, and it fits SO WELL into this this second Sunday of Advent when we focus on our yearning for peace. It not only talks about mountains dropping and valleys lifting and shade trees protecting the travelers, it talks about the people as God’s Glory, and as Righteous Peace and as mercy and light.

And it sounds enough like Mary’s Magnificant to take the parallels seriously.

[God] has shown strength with [God’s ]arm;
[and] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
[God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
[God] has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

Both the road home and societies tend to be in need of leveling, and some respite of shade. In the joint meaning of the songs of Luke chapter one, we are reminded about God who doesn’t care about our status quo.  God isn’t interested in who is higher up a hierarchy, God is interested in taking care of all the people, and that usually means lifting up the bottom, and filling it in with the extra from the top. A level playing field takes better care of all of God’s people. Please note that this doesn’t inverse reality: it isn’t that the poor become rich and the rich become poor. It is that everyone moves toward the middle ground. It is like the opposite of our world today: instead of growing income inequality, Luke 1 envisions growing income equality.

I think the most interesting character in today’s reading is Zechariah. Zechariah is identified multiple times as John the Baptist’s father and was an old priest. That meant that he was in the upper class and a descendent of Aaron. The story goes that he and his wife were barren. Those who have been in the Young Adult Study on Genesis know where this is going. Elizabeth was past child bearing years, and then got pregnant with John. Zechariah (whose name means, “God remembered”) is struck mute for the length of the pregnancy for his disbelief that this would come to pass. When the child is born, his mother wishes to name him John (which means “God’s gift”), but the people are horrified that she isn’t’ naming him for his father. He writes (further proof that he is upper class) “his name is John” and his mouth is opened again.

When it is open he speaks the first of the Luke passages we heard today, which is spectacular. It is also sort of weird for an upper class, entitled priest to say! It is all about God’s inversions in the world, and usually the people who are empowered by a system aren’t the ones who yearn to change it.

Zechariah also shows up, in name at least, in the second Luke passage about John’s ministry in the desert. This is quite curious. If Zechariah was an upper class man, a priest in the hereditary order of Aaron, then his son would have been too. Instead we meet John on the outskirts of society, teaching, preaching, and baptizing in the Jordan River. John forwent the privilege he was born into, and the gospel tells us that instead he spent his life “preparing the way of the Lord.”

That is, his work was to make the paths straight and smooth. Its funny though, the way of the Lord that John prepares seems ALSO to be the way of the Lord that Jesus worked on. I always thought, as a child at least, that John was preparing the way for Jesus. But this passage suggests that both John and Jesus are preparing the way for the people to connect with God and come home to the ways of God. The leveled road makes the journey easier, it also creates a more just society.

The level road is the way of peace, and it is hard to build, but worth working on anyway. If any people at any time in human history have known that, we are among them. We are people living in a society where mass murder has become normal, where special interest groups and the desires of profit-industry prevent change to our laws, and where we see with increasing clarity the disparity of violence in our world. As if the regular gun violence wasn’t enough, the response of our society is to demonize Muslims and dark-skinned people in response, making the actual shootings only the beginning of the problems we face. We take our pre-existence prejudices and add them into the pain and suffering in our society.

Over the past few years I’ve tried not to demonize gun rights supporters. As weak as it sounds, I have friends who own guns, and they aren’t bad people. I grew up in an area that prized deer hunting, and I see the value of hunting rifles (although, SERIOUSLY, if you are going to kill animals for sport, I think you should make it a little bit more of an actual challenge and go bow hunting). I can’t figure out the value of pistols, but at the moment I’m willing to let that go. The biggest problem we have is that military style assault rifles are legal to buy and use in our country. Without wanting to demonize anyone, and while wanting to participate in a genuine conversation with those with whom I disagree, I find that it is time to make an unambiguous statement: The only purpose of assault rifles is to kill a lot of people at once, and to protect the right of people to have assault rifles IS to protect the “right” to engage in mass murder.

Our country’s ride isn’t going to get any smoother until we change our gun laws. (We aren’t going to magically find the ability find perfect mental health care for all of our citizens, we aren’t able to stop propaganda from all extremist groups, we can’t prevent everyone from wanting to do harm.  We can only change the access they have to the tools that make it EASY.)

I’m tired of preaching about violence and guns, but not tired enough to stick my head in the sand and pretend that the 350+ mass shootings in the USA this year didn’t happen. This is the season where we participate with our ancestors in faith in YEARNING for the world to be as God would have it be. Today we are YEARNING for peace, and while peace means a whole lot more than a lack of violence, it has to start there. One commentator on Zechariah’s song of praise (the Benedictus) wrote, “Advent continues, our ruminations go deeper. We wait, watch, wonder if we will ever know peace. Will we find peace in our own souls? Will there be peace on earth?”1

Friends we live in an age and a country that can cut mountains in two to make the road smooth. We live in an age and a world that has eliminated polio and is about to eliminate malaria. We live in a world where extreme poverty has been cut in HALF over the past 25 years. We live in an age and and a country where an African American man is finishing his second term in office. We live in an age and a county where ROADS cut through MOUNTAINS. Roads can be made smooth. Gun control is not beyond our grasp ( PLEASE call/email/and write to your legislators).Peace is possible.

The road isn’t current easy. It turns out that driving along a smooth road is A LOT easier than building a road and making it safe and easy. I suspect we are called to be the road builders, and God is the one who gives us the strength and vision. Let’s get back to work. Amen

1Randall R. Mixon “Homiletical Perspective on Luke 1:68-79” in Feasting on the Word Year C Volume 1 edited by Barbara Brown Taylor and David Bartlett (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville Kentucky, 2009) page 33.

–

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

December 6, 2015

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  • Schenectady, NY 12305
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