Untitled

July 9, 2023
by Sara Baron

“Exhaustion” based on 1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-25

Content Warning: in this sermon I’m going to talk about abuse of power, including abuse of power by clergy, including clergy sexual misconduct. This is a tender topic, particularly here, and you may wish to disengage from it, which is fine.

When I read this passage from 1 Samuel, my first response is to be exhausted. I was recently reminded that exhaustion is often a trauma response. Under the exhaustion are anger and sadness, I can’t differentiate them. Under that is more exhaustion.

I’ve now completed 17 years of full-time ministry and within them approximately 10 rounds of required clergy sexual misconduct training. In my 17 years these have been the only required trainings that clergy have been told to take, other than New York State who mandates sexual harassment training for every boss and employee. I’ve long been aware that the actions of clergy people before me, and the lawsuits that resulted from their actions, were creating the environment I minister in. I’m all for clergy sexual misconduct training, my only concern is the idea that it is the ONLY thing that matters. Particularly because I don’t believe the trainings themselves are necessarily the most effective way to bring the change they attempt to make.

So, that’s tiring, and makes me question a lot of things.

Also, I’m in leadership in the Annual Conference while we are trying to figure out how to pay for legal fees and settlements for a multitude of lawsuits related to the Child Victim’s Act, which opened a window for people who had been abused as children to bring lawsuits about it as adults. Everything about this is terrible, starting with the harm done to God’s children and including with the means by which we figure out how to find the money we need in order to respond.

Which is draining, and I hate it.

And finally I am serving this beloved church which has itself experienced clergy sexual misconduct, by a beloved clergy person, who is now deceased, whose life after his death still intersected with lives within this community. This fact is tender.

So are the impacts within the community of his actions, even though they are more than 40 years old and many of you don’t know anything about them. But it is now within this community’s DNA and I firmly believe that if this church had not been as strong, loving, loyal, and faithful as it is -it would not have survived it.

That’s actually a thing I want to make sure you hear: I believe this church is EXTRAORDINARY to have survived what happened to it. I fear some of you may think you are weak because it happened or because you couldn’t stop it, or because there were long-ranging impacts from it. Instead, I think it is pretty much a miracle you survived. Most churches don’t.

Here is what I know: an already beloved pastor was appointed here as senior pastor in the 1970s. He was charming and charismatic, brilliant and well-regarded. It was not known to this church that he had abused his power as pastor in his prior appointments. He abused it again, with married adult women who came to him for pastoral counseling, with whom he had affairs. At the same time that it became known he also was found to have a debilitating medical condition.

It had been thought he’d become a Bishop. Instead he was reappointed to Vermont. The church members split into two camps: one of those who were horrified by what had been done and one of those who defended their pastor at all costs and shifted the blame either to the women he’d harmed or to those who named the actions. Those two camps were stuck in a power battle, enmeshed in conflict, and not talking to each other.

When the next pastor came, he declared it “over” and said it wasn’t going to be talked about anymore. I believe that held for about 30 years until I arrived. Once, maybe 8 years ago, I named in a sermon that this church had survived clergy sexual misconduct. I was told afterwards that I’d made the FIRST public acknowledgement of that fact. Ever.

Over the course of the next decade or so, this church experienced significant decline. Now, I want to put that in context for you. It was the 1980s. The 1980s were a time when church attendance declined all across the USA. Also the 1980s were a horrible time for Schenectady, when many people left. Also the 1980s were the time when those who didn’t leave immediately after the clergy sexual misconduct slowly drifted off the next time they got hurt by the church.

Yet, I believe, for those of you who were here, the decline in attendance and membership in the 1980s felt like failure. Which breaks my heart. I wish someone had made space for you all to talk about your experiences, to name what it had been like to have your spiritual leader do harm, or maybe what it had been like to think that people accused your spiritual leader of doing something he’d “never do.” I wish you were afforded the opportunity to talk about the ways that trust was destroyed as two camps maneuvered around each other. I wish you could have talked about the ways that led to mistrust in clergy, and in clergy authority, and the quiet ways you tried to create some safeguards. I wish someone had named that the women who trusted their pastor to give them pastoral care were vulnerable women were not to be blamed for being vulnerable nor for being seduced by someone with power – not even if they were pretty.

That is, I wish this church had received after care. I wish the Annual Conference had known to give it.

I wish the story that was taken from the time was something other than “we’re too brittle to deal with conflict, so we better not talk about it.” I wish fewer people lost faith in God because the pastor did harm – particularly the teenagers who talked about it all with each other but no adult knew to make space to help them make sense of it.

The church itself lost respect, authority, and credibility. I think rightfully so. I think the church and its clergy should never have had such power as to make abuse like that possible. I think there always should have been checks and balances and clergy people should always have been seen as fallible people and safeguards should have been in place.

Far too many faith communities have had faith leaders abuse their power. This isn’t as uncommon as I wish it was. I guess this comes back to that old wisdom that where there is power there can be abuse of power. 🙁

Today, I still see the echoes of the harm done to this community. It isn’t a linear thing where I can tell that “because x happened, y followed.” Humans and human organizations are more complicated than that. Here is what I see that I think is reflective of that era of harm: 1. This church is more afraid of conflict that most. 2. This church is more afraid of pastoral authority than most. 3. While I know you all to be profoundly thoughtful, careful, intentional people of faith whose lives reflect your values – there is significant fear of talking directly about God and the impact of God on your lives – which I think goes back to things about authority and power and abuse of power. 4. While there is discomfort about pastoral authority, there are also many places where the pastor is rather oddly deferred to. I think this is also about pastoral authority and ways it is not understood and not wanting to be touched. 5. Power itself is concerning around here, and there is fear and distrust around using power and figuring out who is supposed to have power.

And finally, 6. I think there is still an undercurrent of fear, guilt, and shame that this happened here… which knocks out some of the self-confidence you might otherwise have as a church.

So, when I read about Eli’s sons abusing their power by taking too much food, and taking the wrong food, and using their power to force women to sleep with them – it actually sounds like the age old story of my ministry. The realities of the harms done in the past, the ways they impact the present, the horror I have at what was done and how God’s love was abused in the world, and the challenges I face in attempting to share God’s love in the world while occupying the status, role and even pulpit of one(s) who did such harm.

Which I think has now sufficiently explained to you why the scripture exhausts me.

Now I want to tell you why I’m glad it is there, despite it all. I am so incredibly grateful that the Bible itself tells stories of abuse by those entrusted to do God’s work, and gives it to us as honest story that helps us make sense of our lives. If this story and ones like it weren’t in the Bible, we wouldn’t have anything to work with. We wouldn’t have precedent for knowing that those entrusted with God’s work often fail. We wouldn’t have evidence that God hates it. We wouldn’t be able to compare and contrast the experience of the people 3000 years ago to the ones of our own lifetimes.

I mean, I’d prefer if those entrusted with holy work simply didn’t abuse people. 100% my preference. But since that isn’t how it has been, how it is, nor how it is going to be, I’d rather have that truth in the Bible for us to work with and reflect upon. I’d rather have a lectionary text that pushes me to tell you – the church – your own story as I’ve had it told to me than continue the cone of silence.

I’d rather break the power of shame by bringing the past into full view than let it keep on beating us up.

I’d rather deal with this now, in the ways we can, than let it harm more generations in the future.

I’d rather be able to tell you that I think you are amazing for surviving than have you continue to feel guilt for abuse happening in your midst.

I’d rather deal with the past until it lets go of its grip on the present than try to force it away and have it come back to bite us.

I’d rather make space for truth and reconciliation. I’d rather have hope and rebuild trust and assure you that you can survive being in conflict than have you live in fear.

I’d rather talk about it. I think it is time. And I believe, with God, we can handle 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

July 9, 2023

Sermons

“Change Bearer” based on 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 and Mark 1:21-28

January 28, 2018February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

In the midst of all the news that swirled around this week, one little line caught my ear. A Congressman was accused of sexual harassment of a staff member, and within his reply was the idea that he didn’t think he had any power over her. He thought she could consent, or could reject his advances, because he ran an egalitarian office. In fact, he was quoted as describing his office saying, “There is no hierarchy.”¹

I’ve heard such malarkey before, and it infuriated me then too. Most significantly, at one point a District Superintendent informed me that he didn’t think of himself has having power “over” the clergy in his district. This came up in a conversation when I was indicating that I didn’t think he should date clergy he was supervising, and he was justifying his behavior. Simply denying the power one has isn’t the same thing as not having it.

To be fair, at almost the same time, I had an awakening that resulted in an ah-ha moment of my own. I was serving on the “Conference Leadership Team” for the Upper New York Annual Conference. I was regularly in meetings making big decisions, had regular time on stage during Annual Conference meetings, received subtle deference from colleagues because of my role, and had even shared in DRAFTING the structure of the Conference itself. AT THE SAME TIME, I was really unhappy with the way the conference existed in the world and felt helpless to make the changes I thought we needed. During an Annual Conference session, when I was on the floor with everyone else, someone mentioned feeling disempowered and uninformed in the Conference. I ALMOST empathized by saying “me too!” but JUST BARELY kept my mouth shut.

I realized that while I felt disempowered, uninformed, and generally cranky, I had about as much power in the system as ANYONE did. In particular, I had a heck of a lot more power than the person who was (rightfully) expressing his own concerns. And I realized that if I had spoken, and claimed to be as disempowered as he was, I’d have created a false equivalency. I simply wasn’t disempowered in that system at that time, even if I didn’t feel like I had the power to do what I wanted.

In that moment, I realized that I’d done a similar thing to the District Superintendent – I’d internally downplayed my own power. Downplaying, or ignoring, the power I held was dangerous because it made it much easier to abuse the power. Whenever a person ignores a power they hold, and pretends it doesn’t exist, that enables the person to wield it irresponsibility and ignore the consequences for those who don’t have as much power.

At that point I made a commitment to myself to ACKNOWLEDGE and NOTICE what power I do hold, and attend to holding it carefully, so that I wouldn’t do accidental harm with it. I wanted to operate differently than those I saw abusing their power, and I wanted to have more integrity than I started with, once I saw the error of my ways.

Sometimes it is uncomfortable to acknowledge power differentials. Actually, it is often uncomfortable. (Perhaps especially in progressive circles where hierarchy is less valued.) It is far easier to pretend away hierarchy and to claim that the limits on our power make it useless. However, it is irresponsible and hugely dangerous.

The District Superintendent was engaged in sexual harassment (at least), and his SELF-JUSTIFICATION for it was in pretending away his power. His power over those he supervised didn’t dissipate when he pretended it away though. It didn’t give those he supervised easy ways to ignore or dismiss his advances. It just meant he didn’t take that into account, and he got what he wanted without acknowledging to himself that he’d done so with the power he wielded. It meant he took away both others’ consent and his responsibility for having done so.

This congressman did exactly the same thing. It is hard to believe that anyone who has the power to hire and fire their staff could be under the impression that their office is egalitarian, but clearly this misconception benefited the congressman and in his head justified his actions.

I suspect that ignoring the power one has over another is a common part of justifying sexual harassment, and many other abuses of power.

There is, however, an even more sickening reality. There are also those among us who claim the fullness of their power and authority and use it to harm others. In this case I’m taking about the Larry Nassars of the world, who not only set himself up to be in a position over young girls, he ENJOYED the ways that he was able to harm and humiliate them.

Larry Nassar, the “medical doctor” who worked with USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, who used his power to sexually assault more than 100 girls. Around Larry Nassar and those like him, are a set of people around them who functioned with their power in a third problematic way. Unlike that congressman who pretended away his power and thus allowed himself to use it inappropriately, AND unlike Larry who claimed his power fully to do harm, there are those who had the opportunity to use their power for good and didn’t. There are likely more reasons for this than individuals who didn’t act, but the results are all the same: more children traumatically abused.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”² There have been many, many people in the world who have passively accepted evil, and even used their power to silence those speaking of it.

One of the many gymnasts abused by Nassar was Rachael Denhollander. She was far from the first to speak out, but she was the first one to do so with her evidence and accusations prepared to force herself to be heard. Those defending him tried to silence her in many ways, but she kept talking anyway. She spoke with clarity and authority during his sentencing hearing saying, “I believed the adults at MSU surrounding Larry would do the right thing if they were aware of what Larry was doing, and I was terribly wrong. And discovering that I could not only not trust my abuser but I could not trust the people surrounding him has been devastating. It is part of the consequences of sexual assault, and it needs to be taken seriously.”³

That is, Larry Nassar’s actions were an atrocity. So was the enormous cover up, people who decided that maintaining the status quo, or getting the next win, or keeping the organization from liability, or not upsetting the apple cart was more important than the protection of CHILDREN from sexual assault. Many, many people had the power and authority to step in and stop his actions, and they did not do it.

Thus far, I’ve mentioned three ways power and authority is misused:

by being dismissed or ignored, and thus held irresponsibility.
by being used directly and intentionally to cause harm.
by being held passively, not being used to help those in need, which functions to support an abuser over the abused. (In some cases this crosses the line into intentional harm as well.)

This is all very interesting to consider when we have a Gospel passage that takes note that Jesus held power and authority very differently than the religious authorities of his day! Oye ve. “He taught as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.” This the thesis statement of or Gospel reading! His authority is said to be amazing to the people who heard it, it was one of the first things that drew a crowd to him.

The early Christian communities whose stories of Jesus formed the Gospels may well have thought that Jesus’ authority seemed different because it was different. They may have thought that his connect to God was different than everyone else’s, and this may have been their point. Or, it may be that the scribes taught as if they were a bit removed from the text, teaching what other people had taught them, raising the historical questions, doing everything other than speaking about God from their own experience and claiming authority from their experience. (I may also be projecting myself onto the scribes, as I often choose that path.)

Or, perhaps it was something else entirely. When I listen holistically to the stories of Jesus, it seems that one of the themes is his work of empowering the people. Apparently “authority” in Greek means more fully “the freedom to express one’s powers.”⁴Perhaps he was using his “authority” to build up those he was speaking to. In this case, I’m drawing on the line from 1 Corinthians, “Knowledge puffs up, love builds up.” Authority used well builds up people, in love. It isn’t used for the sake of the one who holds it, it is used for the well-being of the community that gives it.

Jesus speaking in the synagogue would have been speaking in his own voice, not just that of the tradition, but I suspect he was using his voice and his authority to encourage others to claim their voices and their authority in building the kindom of God. He was building them up so they could build others up and everyone together could build the kindom.

That’s what it looks like to change the world. Power and authority used in the ways of the world are used to PUFF up the one who holds them, and to push down those who don’t. We’ve talked about many ways they can be used to do harm. But our goal is not only to “do no harm” but ALSO then to “do all the good we can”. (The first two of John Wesley’s “Three Simple Rules” as rethought by Reuben Job.) That means that ALL power and authority we have should be used to BUILD up.

This is a rather high calling. And it can be difficult. There are pitfalls in many directions, and discomfort to go along with it all. But that doesn’t mean it should be attempted. We are, all of us, leaders in building up the kindom, and the first work of the kindom is building others UP.

So, dear ones, may we follow in the way of Jesus, and find the ways to use our power and authority to BUILD others up. Amen

1Chris Cillizza, “Oh, Pat Meehan. No, no, no, no.” on CNN politicshttps://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/politics/meehan-analysis/index.html accessed on 1/25/18

2 https://paradoxologies.org/2010/08/28/martin-luther-king-jr-on-complacency-mlk/accessed on 1/25/18

3 Alanna Vagianos ”She Was The First Woman To Go Public About Nassar. Read Her Statement In Full” ttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rachael-denhollander-nassar-impact-statement_us_5a690ef6e4b0e563007627aa 01/24/2018 08:46 pm ET accessed on 1/25/18

4The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation, edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 61.

–Rev. Sara E. Baron

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First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

January 28, 2018