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“God’s Responses to Despair” based on Isaiah 65:17-25 and…

  • November 13, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

The people that walked in darkness have seen a light….
but it is discolored and a little murky.

I think that’s a fair
summary of what the “return” from the exile was actually like.
When Jerusalem was defeated in 587/586 BCE, the city gates were
ripped down, the Temple was destroyed, there was massive death and
destruction, and the remaining leaders, priests, and scribes were
force march to Babylon. The exile. During the time of the exile we
hear emerging stories of great pain and lament, AND prophecies of
great hope in and care of God. The exile and the period right after
it are also the time when the Hebrew Bible started to be written
down.

In 538 BCE those in exile were freed to return home if
they wished. Thank God! And many did, thank God!

And when they came home, it was …. painful.

The Promised Land had been decimated. Those who
remained had been without protection, without resources, without
hope. Many, many had died. I’ve heard as high as 90% of the
population. Those who were alive had now lived in fear and scarcity
for generations. And those who returned weren’t much better off,
except that they’d had hope of return which now turned out to seem to
be misplaced.

I’m going to just throw out here that if we are now in
the “end of the pandemic” it sure doesn’t look like I hoped it
would in March or April of 2020, and I have lots and lots of empathy
for those who “came home from exile” only to find out that home
had changed in the meantime.

In the midst of the struggles of return, and the
conflicts that inevitably emerged between those who’d been left
behind and those who’d been force-ably removed – and even more so
between their children and grandchildren, come the words of our
Hebrew Bible text. In context, Isaiah 65 is still struggling to
answer why things are so bad, and the first part of the chapter
claims that the issue is that people aren’t being faithful to God and
God’s dreams. But this later part of the chapter is focused on the
blessings God has in store for those who do follow the ways of God.
We may like to think of this as the fruits of living out God’s
visions for a just and compassionate society.

And, its pretty great. We’ve talked recently enough
about the part of Jeremiah that urged the exiles to build houses and
live in them, plant gardens and eat from them. This Isaiah passage
reiterates those ideals, but does so BACK AT HOME. Now the command
is not to give up on Jerusalem, but to have hope it can be rebuilt.

I think this might be a good time to remind you that
Jerusalem WAS rebuilt. The Temple was rebuilt. The city walls were
rebuilt. The city gates were rebuilt. The traditions of the people
were rebuilt. The hope in God was rebuilt. It didn’t look the same
as it had before, but it was rebuilt.

In fact, that’s a story we don’t focus on enough, and
I’ve been in initial conversations with people about restarting Bible
Study in January, and I’ve now convinced myself we should read the
book of Ezra, the story of rebuilding Jerusalem. (If you’d like to
study with us, the current question is: what time on Sundays shall we
do it, and I’d LOVE to hear your opinion.)

But now I’m ahead of myself.

In our passage today, we hear of the “new heaven and
new earth” God is preparing. To summarize quickly, I’m turning to
Walter Brueggemann1:

“Yahweh is moving beyond what is troubling and
unresolved to what is wondrously new and life giving. There is a
steady push towards newness in the Isaiah tradition that intends to
override the despair of Israel, especially the despair of exile.”
246

There are thee facets of new city:

“The first quality of the new city, stated negative
then positively, is a stability and order that guarantees long life.
As long as the city is both a practitioner and victim of violence and
brutality, no life is safe and no one will last very long.” (247)
“There will be a reordering of resources so that all may luxuriate
in life as the creator intends.” (248)

“The second facet of the reconstituted city is
economic stability.” Which implies stable society, lack of
invasion, fertility of land, fair taxes, fair laws. “Yahweh will be
the guarantor of a viable, community-sustaining economy.” “No
one is threatened, no one is at risk. No one is in jeopardy because
the new city has policies, practice, and protective structures that
guarantee what must have been envisioned as an egalitarian
possibility.” (248)

“The third provision…concerns an agenda of
well-being for children in the new city.” (249) “These three
accents on guaranteed long life, economic stability, and life under
blessing all attest to a city in which the power for life given by
the creator is fully available and operates in concrete ways. The
poem is a vision, but it is a vision looking to a public practice.”
(249)

That is, Isaiah 65 is written to COUNTERACT despair with
dreaming. It is a vision of hope, but one that would be worth
perusing. Despite the language of new heaven and new earth, this is a
pretty earth-centric vision. It centers on civic stability, economic
sustainability, and God’s tangible presence among those who are
alive. It starts with peace, includes distribution of goods, and
looks towards the well-being of all.

That seems like it would have landed well among the
people in despair, and changed what was possible for them.

Which has me wondering what God is dreaming of here.
How God is counteracting despair here and now. What sort of vision
God is planting among us for our community, state, nation, world
today?

Because I have noticed that God doesn’t give up when
disaster strikes, God just keeps on working towards goodness. This
also strikes me as the narrative of Luke. I think to hear our Luke
passage well requires remembering that Luke was likely written after
the destruction of the SECOND Temple, which coincided with the
destruction of Jerusalem and a horrifying number of her people. It
was a time of great despair, a moment of transformation in our faith
history and the history of our Jewish siblings in faith, a time when
everything changed and new forms of faith practice had to be created.
The transition from the Temple to the Synagogue happened at that
time, the end of the Sadducees and beginning of the leadership of the
Pharisees, etc. Our tradition was so new I can’t point to the same
types changes, but I can see how seismic this experience was.

The passage we read today was written by the early
Christian community, presumably trying to make sense of the
destruction and trying to reassure each other about what Jesus would
say to them in the midst of it. It is probably true that the Holy
Spirit helped them find these words of comfort, but it is probably
ALSO true that Jesus didn’t say this stuff in his life time.

The early Christian imagination produced the hope it
needed to face its reality without shattering into despair.

Which is to say that both of our passages are written to
people in despair, to try to keep them together and focused on hope.
They just sound really different.

Maybe that’s because people need different things at
different times.

Maybe it is because the despair they faced was
different.

Or because the perceived opponent acted differently.

Or the community was struggling in different ways.

But truly there are different ways to respond to despair
with hope, and the Bible is full of them, and we have two solid
examples before us today.

And, I heard a third recently. Bishop Karen Oliveto
shared a quote that I keep thinking about, “I rarely feel such
clear signs of fatigue and anxiety on days that are filled with
travel, meetings and assignments—only when I stop to rest. Without
sabbath, I would be dangerously ignorant of the true condition of my
soul.” ― Andy Crouch

I think in the midst of the struggles I hear today, this
is the one that could make the fastest difference. Right now we have
a lack of sabbath, lack of rest, lack of spaciousness for joy – and
lack of time to face despair. But this is change-able. We can
prioritize sabbath. We can make space for rest. We can sort through
despair instead of running from it. We can make space for joy and
not just distractions. We can even make space for relationships and
not just be ships passing in the night.

Over the past almost 3 years we’ve been exiled. I can’t
tell if we’ve really returned, but if we have, it is still hard.
We’ve seen a lot of destruction and more than our fair share of
death. But based on the Bible we can be sure that God is speaking a
word of hope and a depth of vision into this moment.

Maybe this seems too simple, but I think it is abundant:
take time OFF. Be spacious with your soul. Let your to-do lists
go. Follow what brings you joy. Let your emotions BE, without
judgment. Let God have time to dream in you.

Because as Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may linger for the
night, but joy comes with the morning.” God isn’t done with us,
not yet. May God’s dreams be met with our spaciousness to hear them!
Amen

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

November 13, 2022

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

Uncategorized

“Passing Faith Down Generations” based on Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21…

  • November 6, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

“One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”  So says the Psalm, so say our lives.  When I have
had the opportunity to ask people about their lives of faith, they
are NEVER solo journeys.  Many stories talk about a parent or
grandparent who was a faithful person, and brought a young child
along to church.  Many others talk about a loving person found in
adulthood, and inviting them along.  Every person I’ve talked to
shares about experiences of love and affirmation in the church they
found, and the people they looked up to, and the joy they found among
the saints.  People don’t come to church JUST because they love God.
Loving God happens everywhere.  People are part of the Body of Christ
because other people in the Body of Christ have shown them the love
of God and how it can transform a life.

“One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”  When you think about those people in your life, the
ones who taught you not only that God is good but also that the
community of faith is able to teach you about love and good living,
joy and the delight of service – HOW did they teach you?  

Around
here, I think, the teaching is often indirect.  Or perhaps I should
say embodied.  It sounds more like, “I love sharing love this way,
wanna come” then “let me tell you the story of how God has acted
in my life.”  Inviting people along is GREAT.  Also, I often think
we probably should share those stories of God-moments too though.  I
think we have them, but God-stories are pretty tender, and not always
terribly coherent, and don’t always translate well to words, and more
often than not they’re a little weird.  Because God doesn’t tend to
adhere to cultural norms of acceptable behavior.  And we don’t always
want to trust just anyone with experiences like that.

(It
starts to become clear how it is that so many Bible stories are
written in metaphor, because experiences of God just don’t
communicate well any other way.)

But
I wonder if some of the saints we remember today DID trust us with
their stories.  Maybe those stories are worth passing down.  And I
wonder what would happen if we shared with each other our stories.  I
suspect we’d be doing even a little better with the description “One
generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your
mighty acts.”

Now
that I’ve made you squirm a bit – reminding you to share your
stories of God-moments and also passing on the ones you’ve heard, I’m
going to go to Ephesians are look at the other way of doing it.  The
one we are better at around here, which is also the way faith has
been transferred around here most often.  As he often does, Paul
writes to the Ephesians and starts by thanking them for their faith.
The starts of his letters are always filled with gratitude, this one
is quite lovely, “ I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and
your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease
to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

Our
faith in God, our following of Jesus, is expressed in how we share
our love with others.  Paul is happy to hear they are filled with
love, and says that means he can see their faith.

There
is some nuance here that I struggle with a little.  Paul says he
hears of their love “towards all the saints” and there is no
question in the context of Ephesians that “all the saints” means
the believers of Jesus.  That is, the early church.  That is, NOT
everyone.  Just the insiders.

In
first century context, this makes sense.  The church was small, weak,
and under attack.  Supporting each other had to come first to
survive, and fairly radical sharing of resources within the followers
of Christ was normal.  The church modeled the kindom of God, but on a
small scale.  

The
church was not yet  a part of the power structure of society, nor the
status quo.  There weren’t clergy, and they didn’t have special
privileges or tax benefits.  No one had a non-profit designation.

So,
I guess it makes sense that the love was first for the followers of
Christ.  It is also true that many, many, MANY of the followers of
Christ were the people struggling most in the world.  So by offering
care to insiders, God’s vulnerable were being cared for.  

I
struggle to bring this into the 21st century because it is
such a deep both/and, and it requires nuance and care.  I think we
still need to share love with each other, and I am willing to say we
have to do that FIRST.  Because unless we ground each other in God’s
love, we stand on shaky ground.  Because unless we ground each other
in God’s love, we miss out on the shared gifts of the whole.  Because
unless we ground each other in  love, we aren’t sharing God.

AND,
at exactly the same time, the love has to extend beyond “the
communion of saints” beyond the walls of the church, beyond the
faith community.  Because NOW we are a known part of society, now we
have members with power and authority in the world, now we have
privilege and respect, and we need to use it to care for God’s
beloveds, especially those who are vulnerable.  

I’ve
been oddly excited about the new program structure we’re putting into
place in January, because it actually does this.  In addition to the
Worship Committee – which aims to help people connect with God in
community, and the Intersectional Justice committee – which aims to
help people advocate for the vulnerable and understand the ways the
world works so better advocacy can happen – we’re adding TWO new
committees that I think balance them out.  Spiritual Formation aims
to help people connect with the Divine as individuals. And Nurturing
Relationships aims to help people connect with each other.  That is,
to increase the love between the saints. AND to help us experience
God and tell those stories.  It is almost as if it is both parts of
the scriptures we’re playing with today.

We
are trusted with the stories of the Saints who came before us, to
hold in our hearts, and to share when we can.  We are trusted with
the faith of the Saints who came before us, to pass it on to the next
generations.  We are trusted with the love of the Saints who came
before us, to share it in the church and in the  world.  We are
trusted with the resources of the Saints who came before us, to
combine with our own resources to use them to build the kindom of
God.

What
legacies we have from those who came before us.  May God help us to
pass along what we hold to those who will come after us.  Amen

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

November 6, 2022

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“Pride vs. Humility?” based on Psalm 84:1-7 and Luke…

  • October 23, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

My
favorite seminary class was “Prayer in the Christian Tradition”
and it was kind like a lab class for prayer.   We prayed a lot, in a
lot of different ways, and then we reflected on it.  We read books
about what other people thought of as prayer, and we discussed it,
and then we tried it, and we reflected on it, and then we discussed
it again.  We learned about prayer types, and we had time to assess
which prayer types we tended towards and which ones… well, drove us
nuts.

Most
of the prayer in that class would have qualified as “contemplative
prayer”, in that it sought to be a means of opening ourselves to
God.  Generally speaking I think of contemplative prayer as being a
separate category from “petitionary prayer” where the goal is to
ask God for things, although I admit to that being overly simplified.

So,
anyway, one day in my prayer class we’re given the assignment to pray
“The Jesus Prayer.”  We were supposed to do it for a while, maybe
30 minutes or an hour or something, and the professor suggested that
we actually pray it “as is” for a while before changing it.  So
we got the experience of praying it as it was, and then got to see
how we would change it and how that would feel.  Now, the Jesus
prayer is, “Lord
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

This is not exactly my God
language.  Had the assignment not been clear (and the professor not
had my respect) I would have changed it immediately.  But, I gave it
a try.  And that day at least, it was a moving thing to pray.  

It made space in me for
different things to emerge than in the prayers I tend towards.  It
made space in me for different things to emerge than in the language
I would usually adapt towards.

This week, I was given the gift
of praying the Rosary with someone for whom it is a favorite prayer
practice.  Much of the Rosary is – also – not my preferred
language for God.  (Although some of it is amazing!)

In
both cases, the repetition made meditative space within me for some
insights that otherwise wouldn’t have had a way to be heard.  Which
is one of the great gifts of contemplative prayer, and why I love it
so much.

Now, I can’t hear the Gospel
lesson and the tax collector’s prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a
sinner!” without thinking of how it got adapted by tradition into
the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on
me, a sinner,” and how (eventually) freeing it was to have a
sense of mercy and forgiveness for things I was usually trying to
forget I felt guilty about.  

The Gospel lesson is inverting
expectations.  Normally, the Pharisee would be seen as the one doing
things correctly, Pharisees were famous for their meticulous
commitment to following God’s commandments, and the Pharisee’s prayer
indicates he goes above and beyond even the requirements.  Meanwhile,
many people thought very poorly of tax collectors, and they were
rarely the heroes in any stories.

The Gospel praises the tax
collector, for the humility of his prayer while throwing shade at the
Pharisee for his – which is rough since the prayer the Pharisee
prayed was a pretty well known prayer at the time and he wasn’t the
only one doing it.

Now, the Pharisee’s prayer does
strike my ears as arrogant, but I wonder if nuance could help it.
What if instead of “God, I thank you that I am not like other
people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” he said,
“God, I thank you for what I am able to do, and for your help in
making it possible.  I thank you for the temptations I don’t have.  I
thank you for the ways I’ve learned that spiritual practice helps me,
and the capacity to do it.  I thank you for growing in me a
willingness and capacity to give back.”  And, I mean, I’d like to
add, “I open myself to what you want to do next.”

And then I want to ask Jesus if
that prayer is OK.  Because I’m not really sure.  

I
have been driving by another faith community that has on their sign a
condemnation of self-sufficiency which reads, “You sufficiency is
God’s.”  Now, I think self-sufficiency is a horrid myth that does
great damage and I very much hope that they’re trying to encourage
people towards connections with the Divine.  But I fear that they may
be making the same error that I hear in the Pharisee.

Because I think there is a
temptation in the phrase, “God is your sufficiency” to believe
that what you have in life is a gift from God.  But, the logical
corollary of that position is to believe that what others do NOT have
is a lack of a gift from God.  Thus God chooses who has enough to eat
and who does not, who has safe housing and who does not, who
struggles throughout life from childhood trauma and who does not.
And, it entrenches capitalism as God’s will – that if one is doing
OK that is because of God, if one is not doing OK that is because of
God, and thus no one is responsible for creating a system where
everyone is doing OK as a form of justice and righteousness.

(end rant)

I think though, that there has
to space in prayer for utter truth between us and God.  And
sometimes, I think we can look at another beloved of God who is
struggling and wish for their struggles to be lessened, and be
thankful that we don’t share that struggle.  That might sound like,
“God, I see how horrid it is to live with and fight with addiction,
and I am grateful not to have that challenge.”  Or maybe, “Holy
One, my dear friends are divorcing and their hearts ache, and I’m
feeling a little bit guilty even for the love I have in my life, but
I’m thankful for it anyway.”  

What
I hear in the Pharisee’s prayer is a dismissal of other people, their
lives, their temptations, their struggles, the external factors
facing them.  Scholars tell me that while all tax collectors get
dissed in the Bible and other ancient literature, many of them took
the positions because no other options were open to them, many of
them were honest, and most of them who were dishonest didn’t even
reap the gain from it – their bosses did.  The Pharisee’s prayer
dismissed everything about the tax collector except his job, and
didn’t make space for his humanity, needs, or decision making
process.

I don’t know what Jesus (or
maybe Luke, I think signs point to this one being by Luke) was
offended by in the Pharisee’s prayer, but that’s the struggle I hear.

And, it leads me wondering about
what we can be proud of.  Years ago now I did a Celebration of Life
service for a church member who had lived through plenty of struggles
in his life.  Yet, I was told, he held each of his accomplishments
dear – each certificate of completion, each acknowledgement of
merit, each authorization to try something new.  He had a folder in
his backpack that he always carried with him, and in it he kept the
records of his accomplishments.  I was delighted by this detail of
his life.  I was thrilled that he took what he was able to do
seriously, and made it so that no one could take away from him what
he worked hard to accomplish.

Meanwhile my diplomas and
ordination certificate, et al, sit in a pile in our attic because it
feels pretentious to display them.  This isn’t the only story in the
Bible that urges humility, and celebrates the one who comes to God
and the faith community without pride.  It is a pretty constant
theme.  The urging not to be like this Pharisee is deep seated in our
faith tradition, enough so it can be hard to figure out how to claim
with joy what God is doing in our lives without appearing to brag.

What can we be proud of?  What
are we allowed to celebrate?  Are we stuck only coming to God with
that Jesus prayer?  (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
on me, a sinner.”)

Heavens I hope not!  It is a
viable PIECE of a full prayer life, but it isn’t complete.  I think
when we silence what is good in our lives, we also end up silencing
God.  In fact, I fear it is easier to focus on sin (individual or
communal) than it is to focus on goodness.  And sometimes the urgings
away from pride and towards humility can encourage this.

So,
case in point.  In the next few weeks, there are going to be
elections of Bishops in the United States portion of the United
Methodist Church.  Some people, God love them, are gifted for
administration and willing to take on the pressure and challenge of
attempting to steer a sinking ship.  But conventional wisdom says
that no one who wants to be a Bishop should become one, and those who
wouldn’t ever want the job are the ones who would be best at it. The
ASSUMPTION is that if one admits one’s gifts for administration and
one’s willingness to do truly horrid work, one disqualifies oneself
by lack of humility.  (I would note that women and people of color
pay a higher price for not being “humble” than white men do.)

This seems to fit how many of us
think about politicians as well: that those seeking power shouldn’t
be trusted with it (in case the elections of UMC Bishops seemed too
boring for you, which is fair.)

If we are pushing ourselves into
humility at all costs, we are missing the chance to pay attention to
the gifts we have and how we might use them.  If, say, a person with
a truly brilliant financial brain thinks of themselves as “below
average with numbers” they might not pay attention when there is a
need for… say…. a church treasurer.  (HINT HINT THIS IS NOT
SUBTLE).

Perhaps it will seem ironic to
some of you, I think it does to me, but one of the great gifts of
contemplative prayer for me is the chance to see myself more clearly.
I bring to prayer all the angst, guilt, worry, horror, and fears I
have of how I have erred, failed, and disappointed myself and the
Divine, and then God helps me sort through them.  And, while I am
always afraid of God’s judgement, it has turned out pretty much every
time that my judgement is harsher than God’s who tends to reply, “oh
honey, maybe try out a little compassion on yourself too.”  The
prayer time helps me see myself and others with compassion, which I
think is related to seeing myself and others more clearly.  And
having a clear sense of self involves knowing both strengths and
weaknesses, and admitting them despite the Pharisee.

Or, to share this in a far more
memorable way, this is the poem “God Says Yes To Me” by Kaylin
Haught:

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Dear ones, Yes, Yes, Yes!  Amen

October 23, 2022

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

Uncategorized

“Bread of Life” based on Psalm 37:1-9, Habakkuk 1:1-4,…

  • October 2, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

Sometimes I hear people say that they’re angry with God,
but are afraid to let themselves feel it, or express it.  To those
people, I often suggest Biblical reading.  The Bible has no problem
being angry with God nor expressing it.  Habakkuh does a great job
with this.

How long, O God!  

How long shall I cry for help without getting help?

How long will I tell you of the violence I’m living
without you intervening?

Why help me see what’s wrong, without helping me change
it?

Why is trouble all I see?

Why is destruction all around me?

Why is there never justice?

Why are your laws ignored?

Why is everything getting WORSE?

I’m listening God.

I’m standing here, watching and listening, to hear your
response,

waiting for you to acknowledge my complaints.

Right?  Excellent work Habakkuk.

And, way to speak the universal even though you were
speaking to a specific context.  It feels like Habakkuh holds today’s
paper in his hands as he writes!

Now, as much as I like the truth of his words, and as
much as I appreciate him finding words when I can’t always do it, the
great part for me in this reading is that God DOES respond.

God says:

Write down my vision.

Write it so big someone running by will be able to read
it.

I still have a vision for justice.

I’m still working for good.

My visions are not a lie.

If it seems too slow, be patient.

Justice is coming.

It will not always be true that injustice wins, or that
those who do harm prosper.

Keep your eyes on my vision.

That’s what we’re doing here.  We see, we acknowledge,
we name the injustices of the world.  We bemoan them.  We advocate
for change, and we are required to see what’s wrong in order to
change it.  BUT we also have to see what could be in order to change
it.  And we don’t stay with the injustice forever.  We keep our focus
on God’s visions.

We keep our focus on the transformational power of love.

We keep our focus on God’s dreams of a just world.

We keep our focus on hope of what is possible.

We don’t believe the injustices of the world are the
final answer.  We believe God wins, and that love wins.

And that’s the table we gather at together.  The one of
hope, the one of EVERYONE, the one that brings us together to work
for God’s vision.  People in different countries, people in different
denominations, people speaking different languages, people with
different bodies in , people with different theological
understandings of sacrament.  United by vision.  Being fed by the
bread of life so we can be for the world a gift of love.  Receiving
the gifts of God’s love so we can share it.  Remembering hope, so we
can live it.  Expanding the table, because that’s an imperative part
of the vision itself.

We receive the bread of life.

We are the bread of life.


Thanks be to God. Amen

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

October 2, 2022

Uncategorized

“Hell and the Mid-Terms”based on Amos 6:1a, 4-7 and…

  • September 25, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

If
you want to watch me get internally up in arms quickly, you can give
me a Biblical narrative about heaven and hell that directly suggests
that God sends bad people to suffer in hell.  I’ve spent much of my
life trying to counter the narrative that God is someone to be afraid
of, along with countering the idea that God arbitrarily punishes
people with eternal condemnation.  Therefore I can get rather quickly
irritated at scriptures supporting condemnations to hell.  

Enter:
this week’s gospel lesson, in which a rich man and a poor man die and
the poor man is  carried away by the angels to be with Abraham while
the rich man is being tormented in Hades.  HEY BIBLE, I’m trying to
teach people about loving God because God first loved us, NOT trying
to scare people into conformity.  COULD YOU TONE IT DOWN A LITTLE?

Obviously
not.  Getting myself up in arms about a text doesn’t actually make it
go away, so I’m going to have to deal with this story.  I can calmly
remind myself that it is a parable, and parables are meant to help us
break down our assumptions about how the world works, NOT be taken
literally.  That helps some.  I can remind myself that the Jesus
Seminar doesn’t’ think this story goes back to Jesus, but rather to
Luke.  But that doesn’t do too much for me, because I find Luke to be
a pretty significant teacher in his own right.

Or,
I can let the story stand as it is written, try to put my concerns
aside, and see what the story can teach as it is.  Which, I’m pretty
sure, is the best way forward.

So,
who is Lazarus?  He is a poor man, reduced to begging, whose body was
covered in sores.  He was hungry, and he was aching, and the comfort
he received was of dogs licking his wounds for him.  Oh my.  Unlike
in other parables and unlike the rich man, he is given a name.  His
name means “One God has helped.”  In having a name, we are
confronted with his humanity.  We are invited to look at him, and see
his pain.  

Many
of the first followers of Jesus were people like Lazarus.  Or people
one step from being people like Lazarus.  They knew his pain, they
saw his humanity, they could look at him and see his reality because
it was familiar.  They also knew the ways other people looked away
from them, and worked to not see them.  They knew people wanted them
to be invisible so they could go on their merry way.

In
a conversation I once witnessed, a person who had recently been
housed was asked about how to best respond to people begging on the
street.  While only one opinion, hers has stayed with me.  She said
it mattered much less to her if people gave money or not, but it
mattered a lot if they looked at her and acknowledged her.  She often
felt invisible, and dehumanized, and someone responding when she
spoke mattered a whole lot.

Lazarus,
I’m thinking, knew what that was like.

Who
was the rich man?  We know he was rather seriously rich and had 5
brothers.  We also know that he didn’t see Lazarus.  Not in the
beginning of the story, nor in the end.  He thought Lazarus was
disposable, he thought Lazarus should be sent to do his bidding.
Lazarus should be sent to soothe him, Lazarus should be sent to warn
his brothers.  (Not warn EVERYONE, mind you, just his brothers.)  

As
Debbie Thomas, theologian and writer of “Journey with Jesus” puts
it:

But here’s the scariest
part of the story for me: even after death, the rich man fails to see
Lazarus.  Privilege just plain clings to him — even
in Hades!  Though he piously calls on “Father” Abraham,
he refuses to see Lazarus as anything other than an errand boy:
“Bring me water.”  “Go warn my brothers.”  No
wonder Abraham tells him that the “chasm” separating the two
realms is too great to cross.  Let’s be clear: God is not
the one who builds the chasm.  We do that all by
ourselves.1

That
is a scary part, that the things separating us from seeing each
other’s humanity are so powerful that they could remain even beyond
our deaths.

When
I stop myself from having an instantaneous defensive reaction to this
parable, I can see it has some powerful truths.  It rejects the
world’s hierarchies, and humanizes everyone.  Similarly, it
challenges the assumption about who is “good” or “worthy.”
For those who are living in poverty, it showed them that they were
seen in their full humanity.  For those not living in poverty, it
makes people who live in poverty visible.  It also makes clear that
the rich man may have been rich, but he was definitely poor in
understanding.  Finally, we are reminded that this is not a new
teaching brought by Jesus, but the essence of the Hebrew Bible spoken
in a slightly new way.

Now,
I’m always grateful for reminders like those, but I want to also
point what I don’t think we should take from this parable:  I do not
think it should lead us to condeming others to hell; nor to feeling
complacent about this world assuming that what is wrong here will be
fixed “in the next”; I don’t think we should dismiss the rich man
as heartless without looking at who in the world we try not to see;
nor (finally) should we use this parable as permission to dismiss
ANYONE as other – not the rich man, not Lazarus, and not anyone
else either.  

One
of the great costs of a theology that includes hell is the idea that
the division between good and bad people is between PEOPLE, instead
of accepting that all of us are good people and bad people, and
trying to work with God to maximize the good.  That is, a theology of
hell makes space for us to dehumanize and “other” some of God’s
beloveds.

John
Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said, “if your heart
is with my heart, give me  your hand.”  He understood the
difference between disagreements about details and implementation and
disagreements about what matters in the world.  He feared people
would let little things divide them, instead of working together on
the things that really matter.

Similarly,
my colleague Rabbi Matt Culter has invited fellow members of
Schenectady Clergy Against Hate to speak this weekend about divisions
in our society and how to not let them live in our hearts.  We have
an election cycle coming up, and as he said, “Intense rhetoric is
only exacerbating the tensions. We are in a unique role to help
de-escalate the tensions that surely will grow in intensity as
the mid-term elections grow closer.”  (He didn’t even know about
this parable coming up in the lectionary!)

This
weekend, Rabbi Culter will remind his congregation that every voice
matters so no one should be dismissed, that there is a need to
respect each other’s character – which means not speaking of or to
one another in anger, and finally that we are all on the same
journey.

Now,
I have to admit that I struggle with attempts at peace or unity that
do so at the expense of the vulnerable or minoritized.  And I think
there are real differences in vision for our country, ones that
include very different perspectives on – say – Lazarus and the
rich man.  I think those are the sorts of differences that matter,
too.  AND, I think that those whose values are different from mine
also have reasons why they think their system is best over all, they
are also on this journey called life, they are also worthy of respect
and being heard.  (Not the sort of respect that is obedience, the
sort of respect that honors humanity.)  I don’t have to agree with
someone or their values to find them worthy of full humanity, care,
access to health care, enough food to eat, and respect.

Divisions
between us make space for hate.  Dismissing someone because of a
different point of view makes space for hate.  EVEN dismissing
someone for a different set of values makes space for hate.  

NOW,
what about the times when someone else’s “point of view” is one
that, say dismisses the humanity of others?  For me, the answer comes
from Rev. Dr. King’s sermon “Love Your Enemies” (which quite
clearly also goes back to Jesus, but I like how Dr. King says it)

Now there is a final reason I
think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love
has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that
eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love
your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to
redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies,
you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of
redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even
though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a
neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of
that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them.
Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and
they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the
beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because
you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and
sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period,
but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will
break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive,
and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that
builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears
down and is destructive. “love your enemies.”2

I
wonder what would have resolved the parable?  Perhaps, the rich man
seeing Lazarus as a fellow human, another person beloved by God, and
in need of care.  Giving him a blanket, or inviting him to a feast,
cleaning his wounds, offering him a job, maybe just letting the table
scraps fall to him, maybe as much as welcoming him into the household
for care.  Yes, I know that means another person would have replaced
Lazarus at the gate, maybe two if generosity was known.  Because a
single act of mercy doesn’t create social change and prevent people
from being poor.  But until the humanity of the rich and the poor can
be seen TOGETHER, the will to change society can’t be created either.

Oh,
also, a pragmatic suggestion: maybe try to use social media less?  It
is designed to create division, and we want to create space for love.
Thanks be to God, the God of love.

Amen

1https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2374-the-great-chasm

2https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

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

September 25, 2022

Uncategorized

“Are We Lost?” based on Luke 15:1-10

  • September 11, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

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

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

These
times, beloveds, are not simple times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

None
of which look anything like following Jesus.  Right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s
OK.

God
does, and God will lead us, TOGETHER.

We
are lost dear ones,  and we are found, dear ones.  And it is hard but
it is OK.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

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

September 11, 2022

Uncategorized

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

  • September 4, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 4, 2022

Uncategorized

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

  • August 21, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

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

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

I
don’t know for sure though.

I
do know that Sabbath is lost.  

And
I also know that it is problem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 21, 2022

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

Uncategorized

“Bigger Barns” based on Hosea 11:1-11 and Luke 12:13-21

  • July 31, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

I love this Hosea passage.  I love the
parental vision of God, one that I think many would call maternal.  I
love the imagery of holding a child, teaching a child to walk,
snuggling a baby, kneeling to feed a toddler.  Hearing of God as one
who cares for us like that has immense healing power.

And, actually, I love hearing God’s
frustration that the people are missing the mark.  Because the mark
is peace – not violence, and justice – not wealth accumulation,
and compassion.

And then, too, I love God’s
self-restraint.  God’s anger that upon examination turns to sadness,
that the nurturing love didn’t create the society of justice God
envisioned, YET that God’s love isn’t impaired by the people turning
away.  God is still defined by compassion – warm and tender, for
the people.  The anger melts away, the love holds strong, and God
returns to hope that the people might be transformed by being loved.

God dreams of the people returning to
the Divine, and the Ways of Living that are compassionate, and the
passage ends with affirmation of God’s expectations those hopes would
be fulfilled.

I’d really, really like to preach on
this wonderful passage, but two things stand in my way:  1.  I’m not
really that great at preaching at passages I agree with.  I mean,
what more is there to say than what I just said?  and 2. the gospel
has its claws in me.

The story of the bigger barns is
uncomfortable in a multitude of ways.  It forces us to face questions
of security, consumption, capitalism, greed, and existential anxiety.
Which, as 21st century Americans, are things we spend a
whole lot of energy avoiding as hard as we can.

Oh, and it feels judgy.  That’s
uncomfortable too.  And quite often when we read it, we feel judgy,
and, well, judged.  I’m all for ignoring it, except that the degree
to which I want to look away from it suggests that I probably
shouldn’t.

I feel for the man in the parable.
He’s worked hard, he happened to luck out and have a good harvest,
and he FINALLY feels like he can stop fighting for security and just
relax a little.  He can live life and enjoy it, without
fear of hunger.  And then he gets slammed for it, and he dies
without being able to enjoy that security, and judged for doing it
all wrong.

And this, as my first response, is
real, and I suspect involves a whole lot of projection from the 21st
century to the 1st, and an awareness of the many, many
people who struggle to have enough food to survive.

But this initial, instinctual response
to the parable also required that I ignore the actual details
of the parable.  Because the set up Jesus gives isn’t the one I
heard.  Jesus says, “The LAND of a rich man produced abundantly.”
Which creates two immediate distinctions:  the man was ALREADY rich
when the story began, AND he didn’t actually do the labor for this
harvest.  In fact, I think maybe it is set up to make us aware that
OTHERS did the labor.  From the man’s perspective, maybe “the land”
produced, but land doesn’t farm itself.  The laborers do.  But the
rich man doesn’t even acknowledge them.  Nor, clearly, does he share
the bounty their work produced with THEM.  Because he owns the land,
he owns the harvest, and seeks to secure it, probably AGAINST the
laborers themselves.

That is, he wasn’t lacking security to
begin with, but he kept others from having enough to survive.
According to the Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels,
in ancient Mediterranean culture,  it was assumed that “all good
existed in finite, limited supply and were already
distributed…Because a pie could not grow larger, a larger piece for
anyone automatically meant a smaller piece for someone else.”1
Now, we don’t share that assumption in the same way anymore.  We
tend to think of most goods as producible, so more can be produced if
more is needed.  The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in the middle.

By thinking there can always be more
produced, we end up taking unhealthy quantities of raw materials from
the earth, and we also don’t pay as much attention to when some
people acquire more than
their fair share.  When the pie is assumed to be fixed, taking
the biggest slice is UNFAIR.  But when there are several pies, even
taking a whole one for one’s self doesn’t create the same outrage.

The authors remind us that in that
culture, “An honorable man would thus be interested only in what
was rightfully his, meaning what he already had.  He would not want
‘more.’  Anyone with a surplus  would normally feel shame unless he
gave liberally to clients or the community.”2
Furthermore, “Anxiety about the future was not a peasant outlook;
anxiety about daily bread certainly was.”3

So.  My first reading of this passage
involved identifying with and feeling compassion for the rich man
who was taking an unfair share of the community’s resources, and
feeling bad for him that he got judged for it.  Just in case anyone
was wondering how “internalized capitalism” is going with me.  😉

I keep getting shocked by these
parables.  I keep noticing, as I read the parables of Jesus, how much
they illuminate the economic systems of TODAY, and how much I buy
into them. John Dominic Crossan helps make sense of this by pointing
out that Jesus lived in a pre-industrial agricultural domination
system while we live in a post-industrial non-agricultural domination
system. I keep noticing that I don’t naturally have a 1st
century peasant outlook on life, which seems pretty obvious, but also
maybe important.

For those who believed that goods were
all limited resources, and a zero sum game, it was then really
obvious to conclude that those who take too much aren’t being good
neighbors, or fair participants in the game.  But in the USA in 2022,
there are other narratives that counter that simple fact.  We live in
a society that believes that winners have a right to take what they
win, and that means that everyone else just has to deal with less.
Which means that we have taken away the moral assumption that people
shouldn’t build bigger barns.

Now, let’s get to the REALLY hard part
of this story.  The rich man dies in the end.  A la Steve Jobs,
having all the money didn’t make him immune to death.  

While the poor people were worried
about if they could eat TODAY, the rich man was worried about the
future, and mortality was about come calling.  Not even the security
of wealth and abundance changed that outcome.

But, whenever people build bigger barns
(physically or metaphorically), I think they are doing so to try to
create more security, and in doing so prevent death from coming for
them.  Or at least coming for them as soon.  Which
in our society is FAIR, because having more resources DOES
increase a lifespan, until a certain point.  Because we live in a
society that says you have to fight with others for resources, and
some will get them and some won’t, our shared narrative as a county
is that those who are poor “haven’t worked hard enough” and we
shouldn’t help them and take away their motivation for work.  Taken
to its logical end, our form of capitalism says some people “win”
a right to a longer life, and others… don’t.

I hate this narrative.  And I’m not at
this point very fond of this parable.  Why is Jesus always sticking
his nose in stuff?

But, anyway.  I’m most struck in this
story by the ways it reflects our own existential angst, and I want
to talk about that today not just in the personal but also in the
communal.

In my 9 years with this church I’ve
heard a lot about awareness of decline, and questions of
sustainability.  Looking back on old records and minutes, these
are conversations that date back a few decades as well.  Because
this church is attentive to numerical trends, there has long been
awareness that the trend is one of decline.

But I don’t know how much of that
awareness has happened along side the emotional and spiritual work
that would make sense of it.  My fear is that for many in this
community, it feels like if the church dies – OR CHANGES – it
means that the effort and energy they’ve given to the church didn’t
matter.  And inside one’s emotional system that could easily
translate to, “my life didn’t matter because I gave my resources to
a church and it didn’t matter.”  (Internal emotional systems aren’t
known for logic, nor for refusals to take flying leaps.)

And I want to say again, I think this
applies to EITHER the church DYING OR the church CHANGING.  For those
who have given of time, energy, passion, prayers, presence, or money
in the past to see the parts of the church life they gave themselves
to CHANCE is HARD.  I believe it is often experienced as rejection.
I believe it is often experienced as a rejection of the person
themselves.  🙁

Which is awful.

And, just to be clear, untrue.
Churches are a lot like living organisms.  We need different things
at different times, and a ministry or group that is IMPERATIVE to the
well-being of the church in one season will not necessarily be in
another season.  But that doesn’t change the fact that it was
imperative in its own season.  And it doesn’t mean that the gifts a
person gave to that ministry or group didn’t matter.

Let me try to say this a different way.
If you would, think about a person who helped you along your way –
someone who made a difference for you.  A teacher or mentor who
believed in you, or someone who helped you get a resource or
connection you couldn’t have gotten, or someone who had the time to
listen when you had something that needed to be heard.  Got it?
Great.

Now, does it negate that action if it
didn’t continue forever?  Of course not!  

Our church isn’t going to live forever,
because nothing ever does.  

But while it is here, and alive, I hope
we will spend our energy enjoying ministry together and being a gift
to our communities.  I hope we won’t spend all of our energy trying
not to die, at the expense of actually living while we can.

And I hope we can remember, each of us
when it applies to us, that the gifts we’ve given to make this church
what it is are of great value.  And, it is OK that seasons change.

Friends, we are in a new season, one
we’ve never been in before.  As we let go of the past, I invite you
into some reflection.  We aren’t going to build bigger barns (heavens
we do not need a BIGGER barn), but we do have a choice of what to put
in the one we have.  When you think about the past, and what was
wonderful and life giving about it, what qualities should we keep?
What might they look like now, which is likely quite different from
how they looked then?  What matters most from the past to find a new
way to have it in the present?  

And, then we get to do some wondering
about how we make sure those gifts we value immensely get to the
“workers in the field” and not just the rich land owner.  

Oh these parables.  They don’t ever
just let things be, do they?  Thanks be to God!  Amen

1“Rich,
Poor, and Limited Good.”  p. 400.

2Luke
12: 13-34 commentary, 278

3ibid

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 31, 2022

Uncategorized

Lament / Prayer / Dreaming

  • July 24, 2022
  • by Sara Baron

“A
History Lesson”

In 1968
the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren
Church  to form The United Methodist Church.  Both of the predecessor
denominations had social creeds, statements about what justice looked
like.  This had started in 1908 when The Social Creed was passed in
the Methodist Episcopal church calling for end to child labor, a fair
wage, and safety standards.1
Initially, the statements of both churches were included in the
Discipline, but the 1968 merging conference created a study committee
to create a unified statement, the first edition of the Social
Principals which state where we – as a church – stand on a wide
variety of issues.2

The
committee came to the 1972 General Conference with language that
said, “homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are
individuals of sacred worth.” (It seems worth noting that the
Stonewall Riot was in 1969, and may well have influenced the
intentional inclusion of this statement.)

However,
General Conference fussed over the language, and Don Hand, a delegate
from Southwest Texas suggested that the period be turned into a comma
followed by the phrase “though we do not condone the practice of
homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian
doctrine.”3
It passed.

Thus
began the 50 years of EXPLICIT homophobia in The United Methodist
Church – 50 years and counting.  The next General Conference –
1976 – added funding bans to prevent church funds from being used
to “promote” homosexuality.  The 1984 Discipline Adopted as the
standard for ordained clergy, commitment to “fidelity in marriage
and celibacy in singleness” and “self‐avowed practicing
homosexuals are not to be accepted as candidates, ordained as
ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.”  
I remain particularly horrified that the church wrote in “fidelity
in marriage and celibacy in singleness” in order to attack LGB
people, while claiming to do otherwise.  It took until 1996 to ban
clergy from presiding at “homosexual unions” and to tell churches
they couldn’t host them.  

At the
same time, occasionally, the UMC would make attempts to remind others
that they should be in ministry “for and with all persons” (1996)
and ask “families and churches not to reject or condemn their
lesbian and gay members and friends.”  (2000.)  Isn’t is great the
church asked people not to reject people while actively rejecting
people?  In a great turn of irony the 2008 General Conference adopted
a resolution to oppose homophobia and heterosexism.  (FACEPALM.)  You
can’t make this stuff up, can you?

Meanwhile,
over the course of these years, the AIDS crisis raged, suicides
stayed common, and LGBTQIA+ kids were kicked out of their homes and
onto the street.  Clergy were defrocked, and people called by God
kept their calls quiet (or lived in death spiral closets),
individuals were rejected from their churches and families, and the
church’s attention remained on an odd definition of sexual purity
INSTEAD of focusing on income inequality, poverty, colonialism,
sexism, racism, or climate change.

In 2012
there was an attempt to acknowledge that people of faith disagree
about homosexuality.  It failed.  49% to 51%.  

Meanwhile,
as you may well know, individuals, churches, communities, and
sometimes even Annual Conferences refused to obey unjust laws.  Many
organizations were founded by people who worked for inclusion, many
churches became Reconciling (26 years ago here), clergy refused to
obey rules about homosexual unions and marriages, Bishops refused to
deny people ordinations, people of God simply refused to obey unjust
laws.

And
those who wanted control, those who wanted to have authority over
OTHER people’s bodies, other people’s love, other people’s sex lives,
were really, really upset that they could pass the laws but they
couldn’t crush the dissent.  

In 2016
this came to a boiling point at General Conference, and instead of
passing more laws from both sides of its mouth, the church created a
Commission to create a new way forward, and called for a Special
Session of General Conference in 2019 to receive and act on their
report.  The Commission called for a moderate way forward, “The One
Church Plan” which let Annual Conferences, Bishops, clergy, and
churches be led by their own consciousness and faith.  It aimed to
remove explicit homophobia from church policy but protect those who
wished to live it.  Meanwhile progressives called for a FULL end to
homophobia with the “Simple Plan” and conservatives to a doubling
down on it all with the “Traditional Plan.”  (While I’m teaching
this history lesson, I still can’t  make myself explain all the
horrors of the Traditional Plan.)

The
2019 General Conference passed the Traditional Plan.

And, as
you may know, there was general outrage and horror, and even the
moderates in the USA got upset, and it became certain that The UMC
was headed to divorce, with the only questions being which side would
exit, where the moderates would land, and how the money would be
divided.  And then, and I’m pretty sure you DO know this, there was a
pandemic, and here we still stand.  50 years of death and
destruction.  And so, we lament.  

“Where
are We Now?”

The
United Methodist Church these days is stuck.  We’ve realized that we
cannot stay together – not when some of the church says that the
most important litmus test of faith is fidelity to homophobia at all
costs — and the rest of us … I don’t know, exist and don’t agree
with that immoral and theologically bankrupt assessment.  On May 1st,
after years (decades?) of planning, the “Global Methodist Church”
(GMC) launched, inviting churches and clergy to leave The United
Methodist Church and join the GMC.  That church  is designed for
those who think homophobia is faithfulness to God, although oddly
that isn’t on their website.  Slowly, but rather consistently, some
churches are “disaffiliating” from The United Methodist Church
and joining the GMC.  I wouldn’t call it a mass exodus, perhaps
because leaving involves paying a fair share of debts owed, ministry
shares, and shared pension liability, and perhaps because their
theology is shallow and deviates wildly from Jesus’s.  

There
was a hope among many that the 2020 General Conference would pass
legislation to allow a mostly graceful way forward, allowing
churches, clergy, and even Bishops to leave The UMC.  However, the
next General Conference is now scheduled for 2024, (2020 never
happened) and things keep changing.  There is, unfortunately, little
hope that the denomination’s official homophobic stances will change
in 2024, but there is SOME hope that our Annual Conference might
become a part of the church that refuses to acknowledge such laws.

In the
meantime, we HERE remain committed to the Reconciling statement:

“We celebrate God’s gift of diversity and value the
wholeness made possible in community equally shared and shepherded by
all. We welcome and affirm people of every gender identity, gender
expression, and sexual orientation, who are also of every age, race,
ethnicity, physical and mental ability, level of education, and
family structure, and of every economic, immigration, marital, and
social status, and so much more. We acknowledge that we live in a
world of profound social, economic, and political inequities. As
followers of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the pursuit of justice and
pledge to stand in solidarity with all who are marginalized and
oppressed.”

We
continue to celebrate love and weddings for God’s beloveds, with no
boundaries around gender or sexual orientation.  We continue to
welcome into membership all of God’s beloveds, and invite people to
be in leadership in the church when they are willing and able.  We
work in regular and consistent opposition to both the unjust laws of
the church, the implementation of those laws,  the homophobia and
transphobia of the country and the world, and the patriarchal, white
supremacist narrative that only some people matter.

And, we
know that there are beloveds of God who cannot stomach being with us
because we are a part of The United Methodist Church, and/or
Christianity, and the harm they’ve experienced from one or both.  

We are
in-between.  Clear on what we believe, but stuck without a good way
forward, aware of harm happening in the meantime, and yet still
hoping God can help us find a way forward.  That’s what this time of
worship is about – praying for help in the midst of all that is
“where we are now.”

“A
Glimpse of God’s Vision”

I know
that no local church, no denomination, and no clergy person will ever
be perfect.  We’re human, we’re finite, our perspectives are limited,
and our needs differ from those around us.  

But
sometimes I let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I forget to
even dream with God about where God wants the church to go (because
if we can’t be perfect, why bother???)  I don’t have the full vision
of God wants, no one person does, but I am going to share with you
what I can see, so that it becomes part of the conversation that can
become whole.

I
believe that the GMC is predominated by wealthy, cis, straight, white
men who are angry they couldn’t control the movement of the Spirit.
That helps me see what I want the church to look like:  economically
diverse, and careful to center the voices of people living in
poverty; diverse in gender expression and careful to center the
voices of those who are trans and non-binary; diverse in sexual
expression and careful to center the voices of those who are
LGBTQIA+; racially and ethnically diverse and careful to center the
voices of people of color and immigrants; with men, women, and
non-binary people, with carefulness in centering the experiences and
needs of women and non-binary people.  My language here is very
careful, because I believe in community where all are welcome and
fully engaged members, but the hierarchies of the world enter the
church with us and unless we INTENTIONALLY invert the power dynamics
of the world, they’ll replicate themselves in the church.

And, of
course, I want to be a part of a community open the radical movement
of the Spirit.  The GMC uses scripture as a means of control, to
limit people and prescribe their lives.  I hope to be part of a
church that sees scripture as an invitation to dialogue about what
matters, what justice looks like, and how we might work together for
the common good of all of God’s beloveds.  

When I
listen to Jesus, I hear a lot of intentional inversions of the power
dynamics of the world, so I’m pretty sure he’s into that.  I also
hear an amazing amount of empowerment, and reminders that together,
the people have enough to care for each other.  The world believes in
scarcity, but the church is called to believe in abundance.

At this
moment in time, I see several intersecting crises that I believe we
are all called to be attending to:  poverty and income inequality,
climate change, militarism and escalation of violence, and an
epidemic of loneliness.  (In terms of analysis, the way we practice
capitalism seems fundamental to all of these concerns.)  I hope that
when the church stops infighting about who is lovable in God’s eyes
(eyeroll) and acknowledges the answer “everyone” we might put our
energy and attention to enacting that by working on the current
crises.  (I know, all too well, than when we move from explicit
homophobia to implicit homophobia and transphobia not nearly enough
will change.  I know that, and I’ll keep working on it.  But the care
of all people includes these pieces TOO.)

At its
worst, religion is the set of myths that empower the societal systems
that create injustice, inequality, hierarchy, and despair.  I think
one of the tells of this use of religion is when it is focused on
control.

BUT, at
it’s best, religion lives out the love of God for all people,
dreams of a society of equity, justice, equality, and hope.  I think
one of the tells of this use of religion is SHARED power.

While I
hope we will speak, act, live out, and advocate for justice in all
the crisis areas, I think we are best set up to change the world is
by being a place for humans to really connect,
to God and each other, and therefore changing the

epidemic
of loneliness.  We are already a community.  We already have a
building that can help people gather.  We are already practicing
caring, and listening.  Many among us have already have lives
transformed by being a part of this community, that is, by God and by
each other.  Seeking to use our gifts and resources to connect with
others, and transform loneliness would ALSO increase our empathy and
lead us towards more valuable work in KNOWING that our well-being is
interconnected.  I dream of a church where people are loved exactly
as they are, and listened to, and thus healed, and thus a source of
healing and love for the world around them.  I think it is possible,
too!

To do
this, though, would require a rather different way of “being”
than we are now, and I am waiting to see how the Spirit moves in
others, to learn how we will move forward together.  

1https://www.umc.org/en/content/methodist-history-1908-social-creed-for-workers

2https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-why-do-we-have-social-principles-where-did-they-come-from

3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Methodism#United_Methodist_Church,
the word “doctrine” was changed to “teaching” by friendly
amendment before the amendment and statement passed.

Worship 7/24/2022

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